Ennodius of Pavia → Arator, Man

Ennodius to Arator.

I would like you to look kindly on my effort and forgive the poverty of my talent, because it is wrong to despise the lovable desire to learn when it shows itself in acts of devotion — especially since a harsh interpreter of reality can empty of meaning what a gracious one has offered. A man deserves praise in his studies even if he is not thought to match the eloquent in his speech. When both kindness and learning are present, it is hard to say which deserves the higher value — let both have their reward.

So trust a man who cares for you, and set aside the bitterness of these times for the sake of a love that is natural and right. I do not want you to turn what should be a matter of joyful hope into a burden, or to convert the desires that nature has planted in every human being into a source of grief. A man who will not achieve continence unless he actually desires marriage is already at fault. A man who avoids the remedy of the marriage bond is choosing between two paths: virtue or vice.

I beg you to take your own measure — neither to embark on a road above the human condition, a road full of dangers, nor to sink below it by contemplating things that deserve punishment. A man who does not stray from nature and from law scarcely sins at all. So after the camp of the Muses and songs that our age has rendered empty, turn yourself to the care of raising a family. Revive what has lost its value — because when you live among armies of the unlettered, it is madness to refuse to live as others do. It profits a wise man to be what most men are. Let philosophy take its scandalous reputation and leave our assemblies.

I, for my part, want no part of these cares — not when the man who leads the way is the happiest for his blessed ignorance. So accept my greeting and write back to tell me what my letter has done to your thinking. For if you ask what my own view is: I have come to detest the very names of the liberal arts.