Letter 9006: Your name promises what I hope your character delivers: blessedness.

If you had stored away in the granary of your breast what should be brought forth from the harvest of learning at the proper time, the hands of travelers would not come from you empty of letters. But since the abstinence of your speech betrays your negligence and barrenness, it is necessary for us to rise again to the cultivation of admonition and to press the soil — unfruitful despite the seeds cast into it — with renewed furrows toward fertility. Where are the precepts you claimed would live on with you? Where is the zeal for conversation, through which both knowledge is revealed and love? Your silences cry out that you have not attained what could be worthy of a good judgment. For just as rare silence betrays the learned, so continuous silence betrays the unskilled. Therefore blush, and at long last break the chains and impediments of your speech. Show how strong you are, show what progress you have made — if indeed heavenly grace has not abandoned you according to our desire. Now receive the honor of greeting, and content with a brief letter, recognize that the things which are revealed to your father by a long rebuke were entrusted to him as a command.

VI. BEATO ENNODIVS. Si proferenda temporibus de eruditionis messe pectoris horreo condidisses, ieiunae ab epistolis tuis commeantium dexterae non uenirent. sed quia neglegentiam et sterilitatem tuam sermonis prodit abstinentia, nos necesse est iterum ad culturam admonitionis adsurgere et terga iactis infecunda seminibus recidiuis ad ubertatem sulcis urguere. ubi sunt monita quae apud te adserebas esse uictura P ubi studium conloquendi, per quod et scientia patescit et caritas ? clamant silentia tua, te non adsecutum quod boni dignum possit esse iudicio. nam sicut rara doctos, ita continua prodit taciturnitas inperitos. ergo erubesce et tandem aliquando rumpe uincula et impedimenta sermonum. ostende quam ualeas, ostende quid promoueris, si tamen te iuxta uotum nostrum gratia superna non deserit. nunc salutationis honorem accipe et breui contentus epistula agnosce patri tuo quae longa conreptione reserentur fuisse mandata. 4 oportune LTV, oportunae jB; oportuna Pb, inportune fort . loquares B garroli B garruli imitatione uulgo coniungunt re- Q spode B 5 poscit B 7 naleret L VI. 11 peccatoris B 12 condedissis B ad L 13 detterare L aeniret B negligentiam B et st. tuam om. L I 16 siminibus B urgere LTV 18 patiscet B, patescat V, patesoat Pb 19 posit B 20 iuditio B, indicio coni. Schottus sicutrara (tra corr . ex tic ?) L doctus B 21 erubisce B . 22 indimenta B quam B, quid LPTVb 24 deserit] dent B 25 correctione T