Letter 8003: [Messala appears to be a young man of good family whose rhetorical education Ennodius is overseeing -- or at least...

Ennodius to Messala. After the one letter which, overcome by my frequent writings, you sent forth, you persist in continual silence; and I believe it is by necessity, not from zeal, that you preserve the philosophy of saying nothing - not looking back to the ancients, who, in order to speak better, said nothing for a time, and considering that care for silence to have been the nurse of speech. You seem to me to be faithfully following the Attic disciplines in the silent part, unwilling to make common what has been acquired in silence. Show forth, now that your mouth's holiday is over, what riches have made their way to you along the path of the ears. You sent me your compositions, in which, although the sublimity one might wish for was not present, nevertheless no abjectness that would be sordid was detected. I gave thanks to God, because you had now drawn yourself out of the chain by which you were bound fast in negligence. I promised that in what followed there would be a better success than the estimate formed of the beginning. But you have joined the beginning - as far as concerns me, to whom you direct nothing - with the end. Lord Messala, may it befall you by the dispensation of our God to hold before the eyes of your heart whose son you are each day. But I do not wish things that are harsh to be long. Farewell, having received the duty of my greeting, and you, taken to task by my frequent admonitions, unbind yourself once more to the offices of letters.

III. ENNODIVS MESSALAE. Post unam epistolam, quam uictus crebris scriptionibus emisisti, in continua taciturnitate perduras, et credo necessitate, 1 discendit B 8 portioribos L n. 10 sanctis L 12 contingeret b, contingerit B (e 8. l. m. rec.), continget LTVb, contingit Sirm . ex om. LTV concenatione B1 13 ferretur scripsi, (cf. Epist. VIII 41), ferritnr B, fertur B (s . Z. m. rec.) LTVb 14 deserat T 15 multiplicaretur B, multiplicatur LTVb 16 apice] pace Sirm . 18 arte T conteptun L (te ex ce corr.) V 19 retribuet B me om. Tb 21 adhibitis V (?).. III. 24 messale BLT 26 taciturnitatis L\' non studio seruas philosophiam nil dicendi, non respiciens ueteres, ut loquerentur melius, in praesentia nil locutos, et illam silentii curam nutricem fuisse sermonis. tu uideris mihi disciplinas Atticas in muta fideliter parte sectari, nolens silentio adquisita uulgare. ostende post oris ferias quae tibi per aurium callem diuitiae commearunt. destinasti mihi dictiones tuas, in quibus etsi non fuit optanda sublimitas, non tamen deprehensa est quae sorderet abiectio. egi deo gratias, quia iam te de uinculo, in quo neglegentia constringebaris, exemeras. promisi sequentibus potiorem successum aestimatione principii. sed nos inchoationem, quantum ad me, cui nihil dirigitis, cum extremitate iunxistis. domne Messala, cotidie cuius sis filius habere ante oculos cordis dei nostri dispensatione contingat. sed nolo prolixa esse quae aspera sunt. uale officio salutationis accepto et correptum te suggestionibus meis frequentibus resigna muniis litterarum.