Letter 5023: If it were permitted to engage Your Greatness on equal terms, I would speak more freely.

Ennodius to Constantius. If it were permitted to contend with your greatness on equal terms, if rank, age, and the merit that has carried the torch before you did not drive us into the shadow, I should rather, and by right, find fault with your eminence for your abstinence in the matter of letters, seeing that, ever since you set out for the city of Rome, you have relieved me with no fruit of remembrance. But see, through the providence of affairs, how cautious is the management of our elders, and how full of contrived speeches: innocence is forestalled by complaints, and, lest it bring its own grief into the light, it is accused; it is made the defendant, that it may not become one. So these were the promises you bestowed on me at parting? With this assurance did you lift me up, kissed in farewell, that I should believe you would be forgetful of me? Or were pages assigned to any other purpose than that they should disclose the secrets of the breast with the key of the mouth? But I refrain from prolixity of page, lest a drawn-out conversation breed a greater rancor. I bring myself back to the duties of greeting, asking that you pour out prayers for me before the apostles of God, so that by their benefits the foulness of mortal narrowness may be overcome, and my mind, serene, may rejoice over the pure path of the heavenly commandments.

XXIII. CONSTANTIO ENNODIVS. Si liceret cum magnitudine uestra aequa sorte contendi, si honores aetas meritum quod uobis facem praetulit nos non in 1 que B, q ex q; L 4 inimica T in ras . subrepat fort., nisi antea testimonii mei praeferendum est qua opinionem exuifitis fort . 1 5 meritis meis LPTVb 6 extetiBset B 7 domine B, domine LIPTb meum u.] uotorum meorum T 8 dampna LPTV XXII. 12 gestio me] gestionem L 18 resereBse X1 14 ex- Bpectatione LV opperior V 16 acoidere B habes Sirm. 17 conditio L 19 epistnlares B 20 actorem T XXIII. 27 honoris aestas L non om. T umbram cogeret: ego potius culmen uestrum de tabellarum abstinentia iure culparem, qui, postquam ad urbem Romam profecti estis, nulla me recordationis fruge subleuauit. sed uide, per rerum prouidentiam quam cauta est seniorum dispensatio et fabricatis plena sermonibus: praeuenitur querelis innocentia et, ne dolorem suum in lucem producat, arguitur: fit rea, ne faciat. ergo haec mihi digrediens promissa contuleras? hac deosculatum fiducia subleuasti, ut crederem mei inmemores uos futuros? an ad aliud adtributae sunt paginae, nisi at secreta pectorum oris claue manifestent ? sed abstineo prolixitate paginali, ne grandiorem generet confabulatio producta rancorem. ad salutationis obsequia me reduco rogans, at pro me apud apostolos dei preces effundas, ut eorum beneficiis mortalis angustiae superetur obscenitas et de puro mandatorum caelestium tramite mens serena gratuletur.