Letter 738
To Celsus, governor of Cilicia. (362)
If someone has already said that a favor can sometimes work to a man's disadvantage, what wonder is it that a kindness should end in harm? Theophilus here is one of those who received a favor but blames it. For in the course of obtaining what he recently wanted, an even greater danger sprouted.
Now he runs to Cilicia to unweave a kind of Penelope's web [the famous ruse by which Penelope delayed her suitors by weaving and unweaving a shroud]. He needs your hands to work the loom -- this one is far harder to unravel than hers.
He imitates both Penelope and her husband at once. Both options before him are bitter. But since he must endure one of them, he chooses to grapple with Scylla rather than steer his ship into Charybdis.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.