Letter 223

To Nicaretus the Scriniarius [scriniarius: a clerk or keeper of records in the imperial or ecclesiastical bureaucracy]. Just as, when the sea is lifted up on high and the waves crest up on every side, the boat is sunk beneath the surface, so too the soul, when despondency hems it in on every side, is quickly choked, unless it finds some hand reaching out to it and consoling it.

Ὥσπερ θαλάττης αἰρομένης εἰς ὕψος, καὶ κυμάτων πάντοθεν κορυφουμένων τὸ σκάφος ὑποβρύχιον γίνεται, οὕτως καὶ ψυχὴ, τῆς ἀθυμίας αὐτὴν πάντοθεν περιστοιχιζομένης, ἀποπνίγεται ταχέως, ἂν μὴ εὕρῃ τινὰ χεῖρα ὀρέγοντα, καὶ παραμυθούμενον.