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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
Who will enter the inmost veins of wisdom? Who will devote every vigil and all their energy, every day, every night, to wisdom? Many people who make some little progress towards wisdom in their youth are shackled fast to worldly affairs at one fell swoop, and abandon their proper studies. Consequently, our instructors have pronounced that no one who is bound by worldly delights and the desire for wealth can penetrate to true knowledge of wisdom.
(A IV 134–41)Practical aspects of the pursuit of wisdom are as much a concern of Virgilius' as its sublimer reaches. Throughout both the Epitomae and the Epistolae he exhorts the reader to practise self-discipline. Regular study is a prerequisite for the attainment of wisdom, as Aeneas points out:
Let no day or night pass without the pursuit of wisdom, for if you fail to read for just one day or night and pick it up again the next day, you will find the sharpness of your wit slightly blunted; the daily practice of reading brings with it an increase in the acuteness of one s intelligence.
(A V 190–5)Honouring one' teacher, one's ‘third father’, was another important part of the discipline of the would-be wise man: ‘It is excellent, indeed outstandingly excellent, for every pupil to make tireless mention of his teacher at the end, and also at the beginning, of all his writings, for the teacher of human learning is known as a third father’ (B V 4–7).
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