Letter 6006: Philosophy has nothing to teach a man who has already surpassed his teachers.

VI. Ennodius to Boethius. It would indeed have been fitting to answer your Greatness's letters with a single one, plainly, and that I, once obliged, ought not to double the exchange of conversation: but it is by caution, not by ignorance, that I have slipped into this course. For of the two letters, the one discharges a debt, the other is rendered to affection. Believe me, I thought it a sacrilege not to repay with its own interest what your venerable mind had first bestowed. The goods of diligence are sweeter before any precedent, nor has he so much strength or genius who enters second upon the path of friendships: he cannot claim the favor wholly to himself for whom, in love, the pattern is set forth by another. It is a mark of shamelessness not to answer affection, when a thing well begun makes manifest its virtue. These things I have written in haste, hurried by the bearer: hereafter I shall spread out my words more amply, nor, while your merits are being regarded, shall I look upon the leanness of my own talent, if only you will grant to my longings a frequency of letters. My lord, paying the services of a most abundant greeting, I beg that the conversations sent forth without interruption may make plain that you keep the memory of our nearness.

VI. BOETIO ENNODIVS. Par quidem fuerat unis litteris magnitudinis tuae respondisse simpliciter nec geminare debere conloquia semel obnoxium: sed cautione ad hoc, non inscitia deuolutus sum. de utrisque enim epistulis una obsequitur debito, altera praestatur affectui. credite, nefas putaui non cum faenore suo restituere quod mens uenerabilis prima contulerat. dulciora sunt ante exemplum bona diligentiae, nec tantum habet uirium aut genii 1 malitiae L patrocinii T 4 inclyti BTV (sed y B corr.) 1 principiis BlL, principia V 6 domina L* adcedit B 9 eripnet B grandiorum fort . comulum praextuleris B 12 notitiae] etiam notitiae B 15 dioina ex dioitia T m. » nos cara] natura b et tn. ree . s. I. B 16 mihi L 17 perscriptum B 18 diffunderẽnt B YL 22 siplicit L 28 scitia L 24 preetatnr LV affec- hi. B 25 pntatjj T1 faenore V, foenore L, fenore BT qui amicitiarum callem secundus ingreditur: summatim sibi gratiam non potest uindicare cui in amore forma praestatur: inpudentiae est non respondere caritati, cum manifestet res bene orta uirtutem. haec in festinatione perlatoris celer scripsi: latius posthac uerba diffundam nec maciem ingenii mei, dum merita uestra respiciuntur, aspiciam, si tamen desideriis meis tabellarum frequentiam commodetis. domine mi, salutationis uberrimae seruitia dependens quaeso, ut memoriam proximitatis uos habere resignent promulgata sine intermissione conloquia.