Questions of Greek Grammar

with the complication of comparisons, accents, breathings, and other knots of that kind meanwhile relegated to the end of the work, "but those who are ignorant of the book, I do not know how they have constricted and corrupted it," original: "ἀλλ' ὁ τὸ βιβλίον οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως τινὲς τῶν ἀμαθῶν συστείλαντες διέφθειραν" as Constantinus Lascaris says. And so that I might constitute you—who have already made a sufficiently large step in Greek (for you do not think you can be a perfect physician to the nail, unless you took up Greek studies, as happens with great tediousness to you, but with no less benefit; as it is now also to be seen that a good part of physicians, even those advanced in age, embrace Greek letters)—as the arbiter and judge of this version, trivial indeed, but one which required no less effort, to add nothing more, than those sinuous and overly anxious versions, and whether Chrysoloras could, in any way, be pleasing to Latin ears as translated, and could sufficiently represent the image of a most Greek man. And so that I might finally return to you, with this light gift but one that proceeds from a most grateful heart—you who are deserving of well from me more and more each day—some favor and mutual duty. Receive therefore, most learned and also best of men, this work which I inscribe and dedicate to your name, not unwillingly. If, as I well know, I feel that this labor of mine has not been ungrateful to you, under your auspices I will begin to give sails to the deep, and to attempt something of Galen or Hippocrates, both to gratify you and other physicians, especially D. Joachimus Rolandus of Mechelen and D. Joannes ab Hortis, who recently restored me to myself and my studies, having killed a fever in a single moment of time. Farewell, most learned man and singular patron. Paris original: "Lutetiæ", the 4th Ides of August, in the year 1534. You will greet for me D. Joannes Martinus, a man who, if any other anywhere, is as learned as he is good and upright.