1You ask how I arrange my day in summer on my Tuscan estate. 1I wake when I please, usually about the first hour, often before, rarely later. 1The windows stay shut; 1for in silence and darkness I am wonderfully withdrawn from what distracts me, free and left to myself, and I do not make my mind follow my eyes but my eyes follow my mind, for they see what the mind sees, whenever they see nothing else. 2I think over anything I have in hand, think it over word for word like a man writing and correcting, now less, now more, according as it could be composed and retained with difficulty or with ease.
2I call my secretary and, letting in the daylight, dictate what I had shaped; 2he goes away, is called back again, and is again dismissed. 3At the fourth or fifth hour — for the time is not fixed and measured — as the weather suggests, I betake myself to the terrace or the covered colonnade, and think over and dictate the rest. 3I get into a carriage. 3There too I do the same as when walking or lying down; 3my concentration lasts, refreshed by the very change. 3I sleep a little more, then walk, then read aloud a Greek or Latin speech, clearly and attentively, not so much for the sake of my voice as of my digestion; 3yet the voice is strengthened at the same time.
4Again I walk, am oiled, take exercise, and bathe. 4While I dine, if with my wife or a few friends, a book is read aloud; 4after dinner a comic actor or a lyre-player; 4then I walk with my household, among whom are some learned men. 4So the evening is drawn out with varied conversation, and the day, even the longest, is well laid to rest. 5Sometimes some things in this routine are changed; 5for if I have lain or walked for a long time, only after my sleep and reading do I take exercise, not in a carriage but on horseback, which is shorter because quicker. 5Friends come in from the neighbouring towns and draw part of the day to themselves, and sometimes, when I am tired, come to my aid with a timely interruption.
6I hunt now and then, but not without my writing tablets, so that even if I have caught nothing I may still bring something back. 6Time is given too to my tenants — not enough, as they themselves think — whose rustic complaints make my literary work and these urban occupations all the more welcome to me. 6Farewell.