Chapter II — The Tears Wiped Away

The Text

A new modern English rendering, made from the Latin with AI assistance — a reading aid, not a scholarly edition.

Chapter II

"But it is time for healing," she said, "rather than for complaint." Then, fixing her whole gaze intently upon me: "Are you not the one," she said, "who was once nourished on my milk, raised on my nourishment, and so came to the full strength of a manly spirit? And yet I had given you such weapons as would have kept you safe with their invincible firmness, had you not first thrown them away.

"Do you recognize me? Why are you silent? Is it shame or bewilderment that has struck you dumb? I would rather it were shame, but, as I see, it is bewilderment that has overwhelmed you."

And when she saw that I was not only silent but utterly speechless and mute, she laid her hand gently upon my breast and said: "There is no danger; he is suffering from lethargy, the common sickness of deluded minds. He has forgotten himself a little; he will easily remember, if only he first recognizes me. So that he may, let us wipe clean for a moment his eyes, clouded by the fog of mortal things."

She said this, and gathering up a fold of her robe, she dried my eyes, which were streaming with tears.

Song IIIThe Mists dispelled.

Then the darkness scattered, the night left me, and to my eyes their former strength returned —

as when the clouds are massed by the headlong north-west wind and the sky stands thick with storming rain, the sun lies hidden, and before the stars have come into the heavens night pours down over the earth from above;

but if Boreas, loosed from his Thracian cave, lashes that night and unbars the shut-in day, out flashes Phoebus, suddenly aquiver with light, and strikes with his rays my wondering eyes.

Reading Guide

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❧ What happens

Philosophy declares the time calls “rather for healing than for lamentation.” She fixes her eyes on him and asks: Art thou that man I once reared to full vigour of spirit, armed with an invincible defence — which you then threw away?

He cannot answer; he is mute, struck dumb. She touches his breast and gives her first verdict: this is lethargy, “the usual sickness of deluded minds.” He has forgotten himself. The cure begins simply — she wipes the mist of mortal cares from his eyes with a fold of her robe.

⚖ Why it matters

The diagnosis names the book's deepest theme: the disease is forgetfulness, and the cure is recollection. This is a Platonic idea — that we already possess the truth and must be reminded of it, not taught it from outside.

Notice the “armour” he cast away: philosophical conviction is a defence fortune cannot pierce — unless you drop it yourself. His ruin is real, but his despair is self-inflicted, a wound he opened by letting go of what he knew.

≣ Terms

Lethargy: Literally a drowsy forgetfulness (from Greek lēthē, oblivion). Here a sickness of the soul: the mind has fallen asleep to its own nature.
“The milk… reared upon the nourishment which is mine”: Philosophy speaks as his nurse and teacher from childhood — a relationship picked up again in Chapter III.

♪ Song III · The Mists Dispelled

A weather image: as the wind Caurus piles up storm-clouds that hide the sun, and then Boreas sweeps them away to loose the sudden dazzling light — so the gloom lifts from his mind and he can see his physician's face. The Song is the hinge between blindness and recognition, which arrives in the next chapter.