Prosa 1:
P. promises to lead B., highly encouraged by the progress of his cure in Book 2, towards the goal of true happiness.The pluperfect ( finiverat . . . defixerat [< defigo , "fix firmly"]) and paulo post indicate that a few moments have elapsed between books (cf. on 2P1.1). mulcedo: "agreeableness."
quam: exclamatory. refovisti: < refoveo , "refresh, revive." adeo: adverb of degree introducing ut -clause of result. perhorresco . . . efflagito: "shrink from violently . . . demand urgently"; both intensive (compare horresco and flagito ).
quippe: "for in fact . . ." interius: adverb, taken closely with recepta .
quonam: "to what place/thing." aggrediamur: < adgredior , "approach, undertake," governs the complementary infinitive, ducere .
somniat: < somnio , "dream about." occupato ad imagines visu: ablative absolute; an allusion to Plato's cave-dwellers ( Rep. 7.515A), who sat chained in darkness watching shadows cast on the wall by a source of light they could not see; seeing nothing save shadows, they took them for reality. potest: sc. animus .
tui causa: "for your sake"; tui is objective genitive. quae: sc. felicitas , as outlined in 3P1-8. causa delete the second causa; to retain it requires us to see a subtle, and not very successful, play on words between its use here and in the preceding sentence. The most recent editors all delete. notior: comparative adjective < notus . eam: sc. felicitatem . in contrariam partem: cf. 3.P9-12.