Letter 8021: If I could erase my previous letter by writing a better one, I would multiply my pages endlessly — always improving,...

21. Ennodius to Beatus. If I were able to blot out my page by writing, I would take care to do so with manifold purpose. But because it is not lawful for a man not to err, I, that white-haired one, yet your father, beg that you may never be mindful of my earlier letter: so may your father and your fatherland receive you such as I declare you to all every single day. I trusted to the writings of others, so that I gnawed at my own pen for its ill-timed haste. You had done what a wise man does, who reread my verses among the learned to lord Probus alone, who holds the citadel, which it was fitting to do. I, importunate, who ought not to have trusted another, was, as far as I see, stirred up to no purpose. Go therefore to lord Probus (so may your father live, so may you hear me, whom you have always loved, living), because I dictated these things half dead, and kiss his knees for me, and tell him about that final verse: Terentianus led me into that instance, So he speaks, weeping, and gives the reins to the fleet. Yet he foresaw all the things that were worthy of correction. I greet you with the love that I owe. If I escape, I will amend those very verses and so send them on. For your letter, which you sent by the child Rufinus, I received in the month of July: whence it befell me to be ignorant of what had been done, so that I was stirred in such a manner.

XXI. ENNODIVS BEATO. Si possem scribendo delere paginam meam, multiplici hoc facere intentione procurarem. sed quia non est fas hominem non errare, ego ille canus, sed pater tuus, ne umquam prioris epistolae meae sis memor, exposco: sic te pater et patria talem, qualem per singulos dies omnibus protestor, excipiat. alienis scriptis credidi, ut stili mei inportuna festinatione morderem. tu feceras quod sapiens, qui soli domno Probo arcem tenenti inter doctos uersus meos relegeras, quod facere decuit. ego inportunus, qui alteri credere non debuissem, quantum uideo, frustra commotus sum. uade ergo ad domnum Probum (sic pater tuus uiuat, sic me, quem semper amasti, uiuentem audias), quia ista pene mortuus dictaui, et osculare illi genua pro me et dic illi de illo extremo uersu: Terentianus me induxit in illo exemplo, Sic fatur lacrimans, classique immittit habenas. omnia tamen, quae fuerunt digna correctione, praeuidit. saluto amore quo debeo. si euasero, emendo uersus ipsos et sic dirigo. nam litteras tuas, quas per infantem Rufinum direxisti, Iulio mense suscepi: unde me contigit nescire quod actum fuerat, ut taliter mouerer.