Letter 7002: How much is added to the burden of grief when affliction is interrupted — when adversity, to sting all the more...
Ennodius to Faustus.
How much is added to the burden of grief when affliction is interrupted — when adversity, to sting all the more sharply, first flatters us with a change to prosperity! Has a heavier weight ever fallen on a man than the one that first relieved him of the load of continuous calamity? How well the long passage of time had fitted me to endure your absence, since happiness, lacking any grounds for hope, had taught me not even to presume upon my wishes!
And now a fresh wound tears at me again out of pain grown old, and a sharper blow reopens a scar that had formed over. I had begged you as you departed for the mercy of compensating through letters what I was losing in your conversation — and this harvest, starving as I am for all I desire, I have not been granted. But I, not forgetting my own custom, compose these lines through my tears, in which I thought it best to report nothing more than my distress, trusting the account of the distinguished lord Pamfronius for the details. Now, my lord, deign to accept your servant's respects, and grant the customary remedies to a soul in anguish.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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