his best work to search after wisdom, and love it whenever he findeth it? But I would that we two might now search out who the lovers of this wisdom should be. Dost thou not know that every man who loveth another very much liketh better to caress and kiss the other on the bare body than where the clothes come between? Now I understand that thou lovest wisdom very much, and wishest so much to know and feel it naked that thou wouldst not that any cloth were between; but it will seldom so openly reveal itself to any man. At those times when it will show any limb thus bare, it doth so to very few men; but I know not how thou canst receive it with gloved hands. Thou must also place the bare body against it, if thou wilt feel it. But tell me now, if thou lovedst a certain beautiful woman very immoderately and above all other things, and if she fled from thee and would reciprocate thy love on no other condition than that thou wouldst renounce every other love for hers alone, wouldst thou then do as she wished?
A. Alas! what a hard thing thou dost enjoin upon me! Didst thou not formerly admit that I loved nothing above wisdom, and moreover I too admitted it, albeit thou saidst then that whoever loveth one thing for the sake of another, he doth not of a truth love that former thing for which he professeth love, but really that for which he loved the former thing and thought to obtain it. Therefore I assert that I love wisdom for no other thing than for its own sake. I love all the world—each thing as I consider it profitable, and especially that thing most which helpeth me to wisdom; and moreover those things which I fear most to lose. Howbeit I do not love any thing else in such wise as I love wisdom. Every thing which I love most I grant, while I love it most, to no man but to myself, except wisdom alone. It I love above all other things, and yet of my free will I would grant it to every man, so that all who are on this earth might love it and search after it, yea, find it, and then use it; for I know that each of us would love the other by so much more as our will and our love were more in unison.
