t off the burial for a brief space. Having thus rescued him from
the hands of the undertaker, he carried the man home, as it were from
the very mouth of hell, and straightway revived the spirit within him,
and by means of certain drugs called forth the life that still lay
hidden in the secret places of the body.

[Footnote 62: _uti_ (Beyte) _cognosceret more ingenii_ (MSS.). _more
ingenii_ may be corrupt. If it may stand, it must mean 'as his nature
prompted him', i.e. to satisfy his curiosity.]

_A panegyric on his own talents._

20. There is a remarkable saying of a wise man concerning the
pleasures of the table to the effect that, 'The first glass quenches
thirst, the second makes merry, the third kindles desire, the fourth
madness.' But in the case of a draught from the Muses' fountain the
reverse is true. The more cups you drink and the more undiluted the
draught the better it will be for your soul's good. The first cup is
given by the master that teaches you to read and write and redeems you
from ignorance[63], the second is given by the teacher of literature
and equips you with learning, the third arms you with the eloquence of
the rhetorician. Of these three cups most men drink. I, however, have
drunk yet other cups at Athens--the imaginative draught of poetry, the
clear draught of geometry, the sweet draught of music, the austerer
draught of dialectic, and the nectar of all philosophy, whereof no man
may ever drink enough. For Empedocles composed verse, Plato dialogues,
Socrates hymns, Epicharmus music, Xenophon histories, and Xenocrates
satire. But your friend Apuleius cultivates all these branches of art
together and worships all nine Muses with equal zeal. His enthusiasm
is, I admit, in advance of his capacity, but that perhaps makes him
all the more praiseworthy, inasmuch as in all high enterprises it is
the effort that merits praise, success is after all a matter of
chance. As an illustration I may remind you, that the law punishes
even the premeditation of crime, though the criminal's purpose may
never have been carried out; the hand may be pure, but there is blood
upon the soul, and that suffices. As, then, to call down the doom of
law it suffices to purpose deeds meet for punishment, so to win praise
it is sufficient to essay deeds worthy of the voice of fame; and what
greater or surer claim to praise may any man have than to glorify
Carthage? For you, her citizens, are full of learning to a man, yo