To Meletius the Physician.

I am not able to flee from the discomforts of winter so well as cranes are, although for foreseeing the future I am quite as clever as a crane.  But as to liberty of life the birds are almost as far ahead of me as they are in the being able to fly.  In the first place I have been detained by certain worldly business; then I have been so wasted by constant and violent attacks of fever that there does seem something thinner even than I was,—I am thinner than ever.  Besides all this, bouts of quartan ague have gone on for more than twenty turns.  Now I do seem to be free from fever, but I am in such a feeble state that I am no stronger than a cobweb.  Hence the shortest journey is too far for me, and every breath of wind is more dangerous to me than big waves to those at sea.  I have no alternative but to hide in my hut and wait for spring, if only I can last out so long, and am not carried off beforehand²⁶⁸⁰

2680 προδιαρπασθῶμεν with two mss.  προδιαμάρτοιμεν has better authority, but is bad Greek, and makes worse sense.

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