Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/221

Rh as be senseless and unreasonable: for to those who be honest, sensible, and of more humanity, we need not fear to make excuse and satisfy them by word of mouth. And for this purpose it were not amiss to be furnished with many answers and notable apothegms of great and famous persons in times past; and to have them ready at hand to allege against such importunate and impudent fellows. Such was that saying of Phocion to Antipater: You cannot have me to be your friend and a flatterer too; likewise the answer which he made unto the Athenians, who were earnest with him to contribute and give somewhat toward the charges of solemnising a great feast, and withal applauded and clapped their hands: It were a shame (quoth he) that I should give anything over and above unto you, and not to pay that which I owe to him yonder, pointing therewith to Callicles the usurer: for as Thucydides said; It is no shame to confess and acknowledge poverty; but more shameful it is indeed not to avoid and eschew it. But he who by reason of a faint, feeble and delicate heart dare not for foolish shame answer thus unto one that demandeth to borrow money:

and then suffereth to pass out of his mouth a promise (as it were), an earnest penny or pawn of assurance: But Perseus, when he lent forth a sum of money to one of his familiar friends and acquaintance, went into the open market-place to pass the contract at the very bank or table of exchangers and usurers; being mindful of that rule and precept of the poet Hesiodus, which teacheth us in these words:

Now when his friend marvelled hereat and said; How now, Perseus, so formally and according to law? Yea (quoth he), because I would receive my money again of you friendly, and not require it by course and suit of law. For many there be who at the first upon a kind of foolish modesty are abashed to call for assurance and security, but afterward be forced to proceed by order of law, and so make their friends their enemies. Again, Cato, sending commendatory letters unto Denys the Tyrant, in the behalf and favour of one Helicona Cyzicene, as of a kind,