Letter 2020: Forgive me for replying so quickly — I still owe something to my age: an unruly haste.
Ennodius to Constantius.
You will pardon me for replying quickly, since I still owe to my youth an untutored haste. Maturity and gravity become you. Therefore cherish one who trusts you, and shield my trifles from the public's severity, because if our page is a doubtful and uncertain thing, it defends itself by the patronage of your command, on the grounds that no one scorns what has been ordered. And so, bidding you farewell, I commend it to be read: for it will come about that hereafter, well received, we are spurred on to obey by the goads of a coaxing compliance.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
XX. ENNODIVS CONSTANTIO.
Dabis ueniam quod celer rescripsi, quia aetati adhuc debeo
indocilem festinationem. uos maturitas et pondus decet. proinde
credentem fouete et nugas meas a publico rigore subducite,
quia si pagina nostra res crepera atque anceps est,
iussionis uestrae se tuetur patrocinio, ab hoc quod nemo imperata
fastidit. uale ergo dicens legenda commendo: fiet etenim
ut posthac bene accepti ad parendum delenificae oboedientiae
stimulis incitemur.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern ennodius pavia retranslated v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/csel-dev/master/data/stoa0114a/stoa008/stoa0114a.stoa008.opp-lat1.xml
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