Letter 6007: It has been a long time now that I, suspended by genuine longing, have been nourished only by the service of letters.
Ennodius to Avienus.
It has been a long time now that I, suspended by genuine longing, have been nourished only by the service of letters. For when I address Your Magnitude, I feel as though I am not absent from the sight I pray for. But the mind of an afflicted man grows sick on its own remedies: what is found as food for devotion only wastes me further when it leaves me starved of the harvest of love.
Truly, my lord -- as God may keep you, my lights, safe and sound -- if either the strength of my body had allowed it or the haste of my lord had permitted, I would have sought Ravenna with all the force of my determination. But if God wills it, with the life of my lord your father and your lady mother preserved, I will come after Easter with heavenly aid, so that by seeing you I may recover the hope of life itself.
My lord, in offering the most generous greeting, I beg that you arrange for all the saints to pray for me most urgently.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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