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.

 
 A Why, that isn’t drunkenness, it is sobriety and
temperance! I should like to hear just what he
said, if possible. It is far, very far from right, in
my opinion, to be stingy with it, especially if the
person who wants to hear is a friend and has the
same interests. B Cheer up, good soul! you spur a willing horse,
as Homer says, Iliad 8, 293. 
and if you hadn’t got ahead of me,
I myself should have begged you to listen to my
tale, for I want to have you bear witness before the
world that my madness has reason in it. Then, too,



 

I take pleasure in calling his words to mind
frequently, and have already made it a regular
exercise: even if nobody happens to be at hand, I
repeat them to myself two or three times a day just
the same.

 

I am in the same case with lovers.
In the absence of the objects of their fancy they
think over their actions and their words, and by
dallying with these beguile their lovesickness into
the belief that they have their sweethearts near; in
fact, sometimes they even imagine they are chatting
with them and are as pleased with what they
formerly heard as if it were just being said, and by
applying their minds to the memory of the past give
themselves no time to be annoyed ‘by the present.
So I, too, in the absence of my mistress Philosophy,
get no little comfort out of gathering together the
words that I then heard and turning them over to
myself. In short, I fix my gaze on that man as if he
were a lighthouse and I were adrift at sea in the
dead of night, fancying him by me whenever I do
anything and always hearing him repeat his former
words. Sometimes, especially when I put pressure
on my soul, his face appears to me and the sound of
his voice abides in my ears. Truly, as the comedian
says,
 Eupolis in the Demes, referring to Pericles Kock, 94 None better in the world to make a speech! He’d take the floor and give your orators A ten-foot start, as a good runner does, And then catch up. Yes, he was fleet, and more— Persuasion used to perch upon his lips, So great his magic; he alone would leave His sting implanted in his auditors. 
“he left a sting implanted in his hearers!”


 


 
 A Have done with your long prelude, “you
strange fellow; begin at the beginning and tell me
what he said. You irritate me more than a little
with your beating about the bush. B You are right! I must do so. But look here, _
my friend: you’ve seen bad actors in tragedy before
now—yes, and in comedy too, I'll swear? I mean
the sort that are hissed and ruin pieces and finally
get driven off the stage, though their plays are often
good and have won a prize. A I know plenty of the sort. But what of it? B I am afraid that, as you follow me, you may
think that I present my lines ridiculously, hurrying
through some of them regardless of metre, and
sometimes even spoiling the very sense by my
incapacity; and that you may gradually be led to
condemn the play itself. As far as I am concerned,
I don’t care at all; but if the play shares my failure
and comes to grief on my account, it will naturally
hurt me more than a little.
 

Please bear it in
mind, then, all through the performance that the
poet is not accountable to us for faults of this nature,
and’ is sitting somewhere far away from the stage,
completely unconcerned about what is going on in
the theatre, while I am but giving you a chance to
test my powers and see what sort of actor I am in
point of memory; in other respects my réle is no
more important than that of a messenger in tragedy.
Therefore, in case I appear. to be saying something
rather poor, have the excuse to hand that it was
better, and that the poet no doubt-told it differently.
As for myself, even if you hiss me off the stage, I
shan’t be hurt at all!