Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/118

96 to wit, his equals in age, his fellow-citizens, or kinsfolk; then his vice, which in the own nature is stubborn and opinionative enough, becometh by that means more froward and exasperate, and oftentimes he will not stick in a fume and chafe to fling away, and grumble in this wise, Why go you not then to those that are so much better than I? why can you not let me alone, but thus trouble me as you do? And therefore we must take heed especially, that whiles we purpose to tell one plainly of his faults, we do not praise others, unless haply they be his parents: as Agamemnon did unto Diomedes:

A son (iwis) Sir Tideus left behind, Unlike himself, and much grown out of kind.

And Ulysses in the tragedy entituled Scyrii:

You, sir, whose father was a knight. The best that ever drew A sword, of all the Greeks, in field. And many a captain slew. Sit you here carding like a wench, And spinning wool on rock. Thereby the glorious light to quench Of your most noble stock?

But most unseemly it were and undecent of all other, if when one is admonished by his friend, he should fall to admonish him again; and being told freely of his fault, serve him the like, and quit him with as much: for this is the next way to kindle coals, and to make variance and discord; and in one word verily, such a rejecting and spurning again as this, may seem in effect to bewray, not a reciprocal liberty of rendering one for another, but rather a peevish mind that can abide no manner of reproof. Better therefore it is to endure patiently for the time, a friend that telleth us plainly of our faults; and if himself afterwards chance to offend and have need of the like reprehension, this after a sort giveth free liberty unto him that was rebuked afore, to use the same liberty of speech again unto the other: For calling to mind by this occasion, without any remembrance of old grudge and former injury, that himself also was wont not to neglect his friends when they did amiss and forgat themselves, but took pains to reprove, redress, and teach them how to amend, he will the sooner yield a fault, and receive that chastisement and correction, which he shall perceive to be a retribution of like love and kindness, and not a requital of complaint and anger.

Moreover, like as Thucydides saith, That the man is wise and