Latin/Chapter 4 Verse
Haec est fabula De Faciebus Iani. Ianus, ut dicebatur, erat unus deorum, cui facies duae erant. Altera earum enim in futura et altera in praeterita prospiciebat.
Apollo ei olim sic dixit: "Nonne tibi facies est, qua tempus praesens spectes?" Et paulo post Ianus ita respondit:
"Mundus - orbis terrarum cyclus est similiter ac tempus est cyclicum. Et initium omnium et finem video. Omnia prospicio aeternusque sum, neque opus est porro videre, quae palam iaceant."
Diu cogitavit Apollo de verbis Iani hominesque acutissimā mente in omni orbe terrarum conquaesivit eo consilio, ut ipse tam sapiens ut Ianus fieret. Postea cum quibusdam illustrissimis viris collocutus est, quo sapientior esset. Eo facto tamen unus eorum, cui Minervus nomen, Apollinem monuit, ne summam quaereret sapientiam, quam novisse nullum alium quam Ianum oportebat. Revenit autem Apollo ad Ianum eumque, ut veritatem cognosceret, ea summa rogavit.
"Intellegisne omnino quid roges?" inquit Ianus, "Si dis par fueris, omnibus iuribus privari possis."
Itaque Apollo cognovit sapientissimum omnium fuisse, a quo monitus est.
Translation below:
This is the story of the faces of Janus. Janus, as it used to be said, was one of the gods who had two faces. It was that one spied into the future while the other into the past.
Apollo once had said to him, "Have you not a face with which to see the present?" After a few moments, thus spoke Ianus:
"The world is a circle. Time is a circle. I see both the beginning and end of all living things. I am foreseeing and eternal; therefore, it is not necessary for me to see that which is lying out of sight."
Apollo thought about these words for a very long time, and thus, that he might become wise like Janus, he sought the keenest minds of the land. He then was speaking with some great men that he might become wiser. However, one, whose name was Minervus, warned him not to seek the ultimate/highest truth because it may only be known by Janus. But he returned again to ask Janus that he might obtain the truth.
"Do you even know for what you're asking? If you enter onto the same level (of the Gods), all your rights might be snatched from you," said Janus.
And so Apollo knows now that the same man who had warned him was the wisest of all.