Letter 9031: While God continues to grant us pleasant days, I seize the moment to write — because joy, like all things, is...

Ennodius to Avienus. While I was still enjoying, by God's dispensation, the pleasant sight of your nearby presence, and while the sweet honey of our conversations still held my hearing with a venerable deception, an occasion of writing was presented to me. I confess I was long unwilling to break one medicine of longing while another was being administered. A vision caressed my mind with pious trickery, and I was unwilling to expose, as one who knew better, the deceit that nourished my love. For a seduction that serves our desires tastes good, and we willingly accept images of sweet tidings in place of the reality: when pleasant dreams are put to flight by waking, we groan, and that likeness of death is loved all the more for its soothing deceptions. So now, since what I described could not last, I must pursue what remains. Does any man labor so under the burden of his sin? I would be tormented if I had not seen you; brought to the thing I desired, I waste away, because what I sought has been granted by God. Has anyone ever gained from an occasion of joy something that torments him, or has a plant of sadness sprung from a harvest of rejoicing? Thanks be to the inseparable Trinity, the true God, who sometimes denies our prayers in order to fulfill them. May He Himself look upon the bond of your union; may He make one out of two — He who, in the body of the first man while it still rejoiced in its native and undefiled immortality, fashioned both. May a wife be joined to you as Sarah to Abraham, as Rebecca to Isaac, as Rachel to Jacob, united by heavenly blessing. May you have the reward of continence, the fruit and sweetness of the married state: let the dissolution of virginity obey God's law, since what it subtracts in itself it repays in offspring. Let the communion firmly established in you know no outside attachment: let her restore your mother in character and conduct, and you your father. Let the form of your ancestors, worthy of embrace, not perish from the world while it is reborn in you. No foreign or adventitious examples of life are demanded — follow what is placed before your eyes. Behold, I who could not be present at your wedding, unite myself to you with this escort of my prayers: in return, offer me frequent letters. My lord, paying the love and reverence of greeting, I ask that if you do not thrust me from that rich storehouse of memory, you may relieve me both with prayers and with correspondence.

XXXI. ENNODIVS AVIENO. Dum iucundis adhuc deo dispensante fruerer de praesentiae uestrae uicinitate conspectibus et amabilia conloquiorum mella uenerabili mendacio retineret auditus, occasio mihi scriptionis oblata est. fateor, diu nolui medicinam desiderii, dum altera procuratur, inrumpere. delectabat species animo meo pia ludificatione blandita: nolebam conscius deprehendere quae pascebat in amore fallaciam. bene enim sapit studiis nostris obsecuta seductio et pro uero libenter admittimus dulcium imagines nuntiorum: grata somnia quotiens fugantur uigiliis, ingemescimus et illud mortis simulacrum de placidis deceptionibus plus amatur. ergo nunc mihi, quia illud quod praefatus sum stare non licuit, exequendum est quod remansit. aliquis hominum 2 unlgatur T ueteris BL 3 dura B fecit L, reflcat B splendorem L, plendore B 4 ∗fulgoris (e eras.) L 5 effluens B, om. LPTVb famulantum Sirm . 6 censoa B comntet L 7 oratione om. Sirm . 8 praecato B, pfecto T 9 conseruit B 11 uetericant B, ueterescant (a corr.) L 12 nominetur LPb, nomiaant B \' XXXI. 15 iocundis BT, iocundue Pb 16 uestre e T 17 mendatio B 19 species scripsi, series libri 21 falatiam B 23 gratas omnia B 24 simulachrum T 26 exsequendum L Y pro peccati sui onere sic laborat ? adfligerer nisi uos uiderem: ad cupita perductus maceror, quia quae poscebamus deo tribuente concessa sunt. numquid alicui accessit de laetitiae occasione quod torqueat aut de messe gaudiorum egressa est planta tristitiae? gratias inseparabili trinitati deo uero, qui, ut uota inpleat, aliquotiens uota contemnit. ipse ergo coniunctionis tuae copulam respiciat: ipse unum faciat ex duobus, qui in primi hominis corpore, dum adhuc natiua et intemerata inmortalitate gauderet, utrosque formauit. iungatur tibi uxor, ut Abrahae Sarra, ut Isaac Rebecca, ut Iacob Rachel caelesti benedictione sociata est. habeas continentis praemium, frugem et dulcedinem coniugati: legi dei pareat solutio uirginalis, dum quod in se subtrahit reddit in subole. nesciat externam diligentiam bene in uobis solidata communio: illa matrem tuam moribus et conuersatione restituat, tu parentem. non pereat mundo maiorum tuorum, dum in te renascitur, amplectenda formatio. nequaquam peregrina uitae exempla necnon aduenticia postulantur: in oculis locata sectamini. ecce ego, qui hymenaeis tuis interesse non potui, hac te precum mearum prosecutione communio: uos ad uicissitudinem exhibete crebra colloquia. domine mi, salutationis amorem et reuerentiam persoluens rogo, ut si memoriam mei de illa locupleti recordatione non truditis, et orationibus me et conloquiis subleuetis. ad cuplta 1 onere Pb, honere BLTV 2 capida B posoebabmns B sed inter scribendum corr . 8 adceesit B occassione B 4 torquaeat B 5 inaepabili B uero] nostro fort . 6 conh tempnit LTV 8 intimerata B 9 tueroaque B habraae B, habrahe V, abrahe T 10 ysac L, ysaac T 11 praemium] praeniam Sirm.; quid L exhibeat dici nequit cum fol. 142* uocdbula complura fere euanuerint 12 uirginales B 13 sobole LTV neacit B 14 communia L 15 mondo B\' 16 amplectando L 17 aduentitia L 18 hymeneis BLTV 19 ac L prosecutio T* 20 eonnenio Birm . uicessitudinem B coloquia B 21 domine mi om. Sirm . mihi BLV, michi T 22 lucupleti B trndentiB B