Disputatio de melancholia

...beneficence has ensured that I am clearly confident that you will receive this small gift with a fair mind. Wherefore I offer and dedicate this, whatever kind of gift it is, to you: not because I think that by this act your merits toward me could be repaid in any way, nor because I have forgotten other friends in the meantime, but so that I might at least pay my respects to you along with them; duties which, however, I shall not cease to ensure that you and all other friends understand have always been, and remain, most ready for you. Now I only ask that, if these extemporaneous theses do not satisfy your expectations, and if many things in them appear as paradoxa paradoxes, yet as I believe not entirely paraloga illogical/irrational, you would be willing to attribute this both to the shortness of time and to the distraction of my mind due to the impending Italian journey, and that you continue, as you have done until now, to hold me and my studies in your regard. Farewell.

Yours most observant,
Caspar Esthius.