Letter 9028: The duty I am charged with grows harder in harsh conditions.

With difficulty has my mind, which must be goaded by recollection, recalled the duty of an eager soul to the memory of sorrows. For forgetfulness is always the remedy of grief, because what we cannot manage by reason we bury by the prolonging of time. It is well that affliction grows old with time, and the consolation of great grief is more quickly procured through silence. For in such matters more is accomplished by doing nothing. But what am I to do, when the reading of your letter tears open the innermost parts of a scar already healed over and with bitter fortune revives the buried memory of an untimely death? Was I then able to give consolation to our common brother, when, if anything of humanity is believed to be in me, I was grieving thus? Or has a weeping consoler ever pleased? Is medicine then expected from the sick? No; you judge well of me, Lord Agapius, if in the sorrows of your brother and in the death of your spiritual son I come forward as though disputing against your opinion. Sound hearts find the path of healing: no one absolves another of that from which he himself suffers. But enough of this: God is powerful, who alone can meet these things and relieve the pressure of our common grief. Bestowing upon you the worship of honorable greeting, I ask that you frequently confer upon me the gifts of epistolary exchange. To such pursuits it befits neither a lover nor an eloquent man to be sluggish.

XXVIII. ENNODIVS AGAPIO. Duriter officium gestientis animi ad memoriam tristium mens recordatione stimulanda reuocauit. nam semper remedium doloris obliuio est, quia quod ratione non possumus temporum prolixitate sepelimus. bene est, quia diuturnitate senescit adflictio et magni doloris consolatio citius per silentium procuratur. nam in huiusmodi negotiis plus agitur nil agendo. sed quid facio, quia epistolae uestrae lectio iam obductae cicatricis penetralia rescindit et sepultam inmaturi funeris recordationem amara sorte uiuificat? ergo ego communi fratri consolationem dare poteram, cum, si quid humanitatis in me esse creditur, sic dolerem? aut umquam flens placuit consolator? ergo expectatur medicina de morbidis? non; de me, domne Agapi, 1 adcessione B ,8 instabili PТ2b, inatabilem BLTlV 6 obsecuritate L 7 uel] et P et Sirm . aecclesiastici B 9 eue- neret B XXVIII. 13 agapito L, agapito in agapio V corr. m. 1, faosto T 16 obliuio doloris TVb, obliui∗∗oloris L 17 sepeli∗m\' (e ? eras.) L, septimas in sepelimus V corr. m. 1 seniscet B 18 consnlatio B, ∗∗∗solatio L citius] ciiius b, om. sirm . 18 negociis B 20 nostrae b ei Sirm . obducta Sirm. 21 rescindit PT2b, rescindet Tl, rescindent LV, rescendent B . 22. sortae B consulationem B 24 nunquam T placauit fort . 25 domni B bene iudicas, si et in germani tui maeroribus et in obitu spiritualis filii ego quasi opinioni tuae disputator occurro. sana pectora iter curationis inueniunt: nemo alterum unde ipse laborat absoluit. sed hinc alias: potens est deus, qui solus ad ista ualet occurrere et communis mali subleuare pressuram. uos tamen honorificae cultu salutationis inpertiens rogo, ut crebro mihi epistolaris commercii munera conferatis. ad quae studia pigrum esse nec amantem conuenit nec facundum.