Letter 8003: [Messala appears to be a young man of good family whose rhetorical education Ennodius is overseeing -- or at least...

Ennodius to Messala. [Messala appears to be a young man of good family whose rhetorical education Ennodius is overseeing -- or at least monitoring with avuncular interest.] After that one letter you sent -- wrung out of you by my constant writing -- you persist in unbroken silence. I grant that you maintain this philosophy of saying nothing out of necessity rather than design. But you are ignoring the lesson of the ancients, who kept silent in the present so that they might speak better afterward -- and that their care for silence was the nursemaid of eloquence. You seem to me to be faithfully following the Attic school of learning in its mute aspect, unwilling to make public through speech what you acquired through silence. Show me, after this holiday of your mouth, what riches have traveled to you through the pathway of your ears. You did send me your compositions, in which, while there was no outstanding excellence to wish for, neither was any squalid baseness detected. I gave thanks to God that you had already freed yourself from the chains in which negligence had bound you. I predicted that your later work would surpass your first efforts. But as far as I am concerned -- since you send me nothing -- we have joined the beginning with the end. My lord Messala, may it please God's providence that you keep before the eyes of your heart every day whose son you are. But I do not wish harsh words to go on at length. Farewell, having received the duty of my greeting, and prove by frequent gifts of letters that you have been corrected by my reminders.

III. ENNODIVS MESSALAE. Post unam epistolam, quam uictus crebris scriptionibus emisisti, in continua taciturnitate perduras, et credo necessitate, 1 discendit B 8 portioribos L n. 10 sanctis L 12 contingeret b, contingerit B (e 8. l. m. rec.), continget LTVb, contingit Sirm . ex om. LTV concenatione B1 13 ferretur scripsi, (cf. Epist. VIII 41), ferritnr B, fertur B (s . Z. m. rec.) LTVb 14 deserat T 15 multiplicaretur B, multiplicatur LTVb 16 apice] pace Sirm . 18 arte T conteptun L (te ex ce corr.) V 19 retribuet B me om. Tb 21 adhibitis V (?).. III. 24 messale BLT 26 taciturnitatis L\' non studio seruas philosophiam nil dicendi, non respiciens ueteres, ut loquerentur melius, in praesentia nil locutos, et illam silentii curam nutricem fuisse sermonis. tu uideris mihi disciplinas Atticas in muta fideliter parte sectari, nolens silentio adquisita uulgare. ostende post oris ferias quae tibi per aurium callem diuitiae commearunt. destinasti mihi dictiones tuas, in quibus etsi non fuit optanda sublimitas, non tamen deprehensa est quae sorderet abiectio. egi deo gratias, quia iam te de uinculo, in quo neglegentia constringebaris, exemeras. promisi sequentibus potiorem successum aestimatione principii. sed nos inchoationem, quantum ad me, cui nihil dirigitis, cum extremitate iunxistis. domne Messala, cotidie cuius sis filius habere ante oculos cordis dei nostri dispensatione contingat. sed nolo prolixa esse quae aspera sunt. uale officio salutationis accepto et correptum te suggestionibus meis frequentibus resigna muniis litterarum.