§6Sermone, inquit, me suasisti medicamine sapientissimo. Verum etsi eloquium quiescat, aut infantia subductum aut verecundia retentum (nam et elingua philosophia vita contenta est), ipse habitus sonat.
"You have persuaded me," he says, "by your discourse, as if with a most wise medicine." Yet even if eloquence should keep silence, whether withdrawn by inability to speak or restrained by modesty (for even a tongueless philosophy is content with its life), the attire itself sounds forth.
Sic denique auditur philosophus, dum videntur.
Thus, at last, the philosopher is heard while they are seen.
De occursu meo vitia suffundo.
By meeting me, I make vices blush.
Quis non, aemulum suum cum videt, patitur? quis oculis in eum potest in quem mentibus non potest? Grande pallii beneficium est, sub cuius recogitatu improbi mores vel erubescunt.
Who does not suffer when he sees his own rival? Who can turn his eyes upon him whom he cannot bear in his mind? Great is the benefit of the pallium, at the recollection of which even wicked morals blush.
Viderit nunc philosophia, quid prosit; nec enim sola mecum est.
Let philosophy now see what good it may do; for it is not alone with me.
Habeo et alias artes in publico utiles.
I have also other arts useful in public.
De meo vestiuntur et primus informator litterarum et primus enodator vocis et primus numerorum harenarius et grammaticus et rhetor et sophista et medicus et poeta et qui musicam pulsat et qui stellarem coniectat et qui volaticam spectat.
From my own store are clothed both the first instructor of letters, and the first untier of the voice, and the first calculator of numbers on sand, and the grammarian, and the rhetorician, and the sophist, and the physician, and the poet, and he who strikes music, and he who conjectures the stars, and he who observes the birds.
Omnis liberalitas studiorum quatuor meis angulis tegitur.
All the liberality of studies is covered by my four corners.
Plane post Romanos equites.
Clearly next to the Roman knights.
Verum et accendones et omnis gladiatorum ignominia togata producitur.
Yet even the encouragers of gladiators and all the ignominy of the gladiators are produced dressed in the toga.
Haec nimirum indignitas erit A toga ad pallium. Sed ista pallium loquitur.
This, forsooth, will be the indignity: "From the toga to the pallium." But these things the pallium speaks.
At ego iam illi etiam divinae sectae ac disciplinae commercium confero.
But I now confer upon it the fellowship even of that divine sect and discipline.
Gaude pallium et exsulta! Melior iam te philosophia dignata est ex quo Christianum vestire coepisti.
Rejoice, pallium, and exult! A better thing than philosophy has now deigned to hold you worthy, since you began to clothe the Christian.