Letter 7025: The law that desire writes for friendship is one I know well — it compels the pen when reason might counsel silence.
Ennodius to Symmachus.
The law that desire writes for friendship is one I know well — it compels the pen when reason might counsel silence. I write to you under that compulsion, hoping that the same law operates on your end and that a reply will follow. Farewell.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
XXV. ENNODIVS SVMMACHO.
Lex desideriis scripta uix creditur: inpatiens rigidioris praecepti
diligentia non iugiter dignum facit, reprehensione quod
libera est. redditur saepe amabilior de reatu, cum per effrenationem
sortitur genium plus placendi: nam delictum suum
quodam ipsius praesumptionis melle commendat. ego a praefatione
me tueor, quia ad epistolas primus adspiro. restat in
potestate celsitudinis uestrae, si sustinere eligetis garrulum,
non tacere et de originario Symmachiani fontis lacte me
pascere. uale in Christo nostro, Romanae gentis nobilitas, et
me iam ut clientem et famulum pro morum et naturae luce
dignare.
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