1You will laugh, and you may well laugh. 1I, the man you know, have caught three boars, and very fine ones too. 1'You yourself?' 1you say. 1I myself; 1yet not so as to depart altogether from my indolence and repose. 1I was sitting by the nets; 1close at hand there was no hunting-spear or lance, but a stylus and writing-tablets; 1I was thinking something over and jotting it down, so that if I brought home empty hands, I might at least bring full wax tablets. 2There is no reason for you to despise this way of studying; 2it is remarkable how the mind is stirred by the activity and movement of the body; 2moreover the woods all around, and the solitude, and that very silence which is given to hunting, are great incentives to thought.
3So when you go hunting, you will be allowed, on my authority, to take your writing-tablets just as you take your bread-basket and flask: you will find that Minerva roams the mountains no less than Diana. 3Farewell.