Nigrinus (3-5)

Well, he greeted me in very friendly way and asked me how I was getting on. I told him everything, and naturally in my own tum wanted to know how he was getting on, and whether he had made up his mind to take the trip to Greece again. Beginning:-to talk on these topics and to explain his position, my dear fellow, he poured enough ambrosial speech over me to put out of date the famous Sirens [*] (if there ever were any) and the nightingales [*] and the lotus of Homer. [*] A divine utterance!

For he went on to praise philosophy and the freedom that it gives, and to ridicule the things that are popularly considered blessings— wealth and reputation, dominion and honour, yes and purple and gold—things accounted very desirable by most men, and till then by me also. I took it all in with eager, wide-open soul, and at the moment I couldn’t imagine what had come over me; I was all confused. Then I felt hurt because he had criticised what was dearest to me—wealth and money and reputation,—and I all but cried over their downfall;

I went on and on, and so got into the state with which you just reproached me: what he said has made me proud and exalted, and in a word, I take no more notice of trifles. I suppose I have had the same sort of experience with philosophy that the Hindoos are said to have had with wine when they first tasted it. As they are by nature more hot-blooded than we, on taking such strong drink they became uproarious at once, and were crazed by the unwatered beverage twice as much as other people. There you have it! I am going about enraptured and drunk with the wine of his discourse.