Resultados25 letters/passages
ennodius_pavia · c. 509 · score 0.02
Both what is pious befits me to hope, and it befits you to grant. For by unequal paths an intention deserving reward tends toward a single end. You bestow solaces on affairs; from me the slender aid of speech is required. So it comes about that the one upon whom it falls by consideration of office to furnish greater th …
ennodius_pavia · c. 503 · score 0.02
In honors, the things that are rendered back are more to be embraced: he who is raised to the fasces is poorly served if his mind does not recognize the evidence of its own light among its titles. A venerable, time-honored dignity has come to you — late, but owed. Your tongue summoned it, which it follows; your innocen …
ennodius_pavia · c. 514 · score 0.02
May a favorable omen, arriving to strengthen your auspices, fortify the beginnings of your hoary dignity with divine counsels. May heavenly favor through you govern the lord of liberty, so that from the fountain of your breast there may flow to the ears of the prince what the heavenly rain has poured into you. Behold, …
ennodius_pavia · c. 514 · score 0.02
Sins resist desires, and so that the state of merits may become known to sinners, what is desired is withdrawn from the nearness of their lips. Things offered afflict more bitterly when they perish: thirst is more powerful when the taste of water has increased it; benefits denied at the first approach do not burn the m …
ennodius_pavia · c. 516 · score 0.02
By what return of reciprocity, by what care of services shall it be repaid to me that I address you with frequent pages and do not shrink from the duty of speech emerging into the public light? Neither your age nor a formula equal to my talent can call me back. I choose to trust the kind more than the expert, so that t …
ennodius_pavia · c. 509 · score 0.02
Where in the world were we? From what ruin has heavenly mercy restored us to human life? Let us therefore render to the bestower of this blessing, in urgent words and prolonged sighs, what we owe; let us invite to the custody of his gifts the one whom we have proved to bear aid in times of uncertainty. Let us beseech h …
ennodius_pavia · c. 510 · score 0.01
--- Your Greatness had begun to lift up my insignificance with a hope that surpassed all prayer, and after the manner of heaven's own dispensation to make its gifts shine the more brightly — weighing my merits on no scale of judgment, or rather, careless of all reckoning, bestowing worth upon favors it had itself decla …
ennodius_pavia · c. 500 · score 0.01
To Trasimundus, the Illustrious, from Ennodius. It was not presumption that brought me to the duty of writing to you, for to address a man of great power and virtue is no act of boldness when the cause is worthy and the affection genuine. I come to you with a matter that deserves your attention, and I trust Your Illust …
ennodius_pavia · c. 519 · score 0.01
It is demonstrated by divine examples that the visitation of heavenly persons does not come except through the grace of God. For what remembrance can there be of sinners, unless heavenly favor works by hidden paths and by a way inspired in minds the forgetfulness that could creep in on account of sins is eliminated? Co …
ennodius_pavia · c. 518 · score 0.01
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 wha …
ennodius_pavia · c. 513 · score 0.01
--- How often the sins of others press down upon us, and what has its origin nowhere in ourselves is charged, with every appearance of justice, against our own transgressions! From my own experience I have learned that the testimony of the ancients does not perish — for through new events, the ancient proclamation of t …
ennodius_pavia · c. 509 · score 0.01
--- The business of Julian — my kinsman and your devoted admirer — is laboring under the manifold machinations of Marcellinus, a man who, prepared to do nothing but complain, nonetheless distrusts the very integrity of the tribunal he invokes. He avoids the examinations he professes to desire. For after Marcellinus is …
ennodius_pavia · c. 514 · score 0.01
As soon as heavenly grace looked upon me and relaxed for the soul trembling at the nearness of heavenly judgment a space of living, granted that it might improve, I did not keep silent to Your Greatness by letter about God's benefits. Truly, with physicians ceasing, the medicine of him who is purchased by innocence and …
ennodius_pavia · c. 509 · score 0.01
… the Adriatic, now largely in ruins — in this era still significant as a former imperial and ecclesiastical center], and he begs with everything he has that you might bring your influence to bear on his brother's behalf. The custom of your holy household is spoken of far and wide. You have already offered such a pledge …
ennodius_pavia · c. 494 · score 0.01
Ennodius to his lord Faustus. When the opportunity to write is both personal and friendly, why should I hold back from the page as though I lacked a carrier — especially since the regularity of my letters has often earned me replies? To this purpose, the request of the honorable man, your admirer brother Constantius, h …
ennodius_pavia · c. 512 · score 0.01
A sick soul, just as it does not endure silences, so also forswears the advance of narration: neither taciturnity nor extended discourse suits the attestation of sorrow; the page is constrained to which words are scarcely granted amid groans. But why do I assert holidays for the tongue by speaking more, and why do I pr …
ennodius_pavia · c. 519 · score 0.01
--- There is nothing, to be sure, that an ambitious rhetoric cannot lift high above the plain truth. And yet, when it comes to expressing my devotion to you, I find myself suffering from the poverty of my own speech. The tongue has never been equal to affection; the mouth's service has always fallen short of what the h …
ennodius_pavia · c. 517 · score 0.01
After my first conversations gave effect to my hope, I loosened my lips, long on holiday, to the exercise of speech: for even one to whom Latian learning does not come readily through his conscience is animated by successes. When studies cease, joys have often rendered one eloquent: if gladness dispels the clouds of so …
ennodius_pavia · c. 506 · score 0.01
Faustus, from Ennodius. If the mind of one who loves restrains itself from the habit of courtesies, it reckons that very cessation an ill omen. For a man is the cause of his own grief who does not always believe that what he loves dwells nearby. Would anyone judge that a man has departed to distant places when he touch …
ennodius_pavia · c. 493 · score 0.01
Let him be punished by the retaliation of your silence — if you can manage it. Take care, my lord, lest by provoking a lesser man to loquacity you come to be considered a humble person yourself. For what labor is it to overcome one who is already down, and to claim a triumph over one who confesses himself unequal befor …
ennodius_pavia · c. 511 · score 0.01
Hope, which demands a frequency of letters, mocks me. For relying on it, I feed my soul with ineffective conversations. It has been a long time since, ceaselessly sending forth writings, the silence I believed I had conquered is confirmed. But what am I to do, when a heart besieged by pious love is reduced to desperati …
ennodius_pavia · c. 516 · score 0.01
The occasion that serves as the bearer of my writing to you obeys my desire. For conversation soothes in place of presence and promises to itself through the sending of pages what it displays, because the most refined men, just as they consider it a reproach to their virtues that anyone has surpassed them in testimony …
ennodius_pavia · c. 514 · score 0.01
You have extended your letter in accordance with my desire, since you cleanse a matter clouded by no stain. With the most fortunate lot of defense we stand by innocence, and under an ever favorable omen we lend the use of our voice to things that shine by their own light. You easily affirm the light of one who is brigh …
ennodius_pavia · c. 493 · score 0.01
Ennodius to Florus. I know I have undertaken a hard campaign and am lifting a heavy burden on weak shoulders — I who have roused your Sublimity, quiet enough as far as I am concerned, with the goads of words. So does feeble youth provoke beasts that bare their fangs, and in challenging what exceeds its strength, reckon …
ennodius_pavia · c. 501 · score 0.01
Ennodius to Florus and Decoratus. Having performed the office of a persistent creditor, I barely forced the advocate to repay his promise — so that he might discharge what he owed to those he advocated for. A harsh kind of profession, to anticipate what I would say: I, a cleric, have bent an advocate to shame. Consider …