Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/353

Rh and amity; but those that are wise can skill how to use enmities to their commodity, and make them serve their turns.

First and foremost therefore, in my conceit, that which in enmity is most hurtful may turn to be most profitable unto such as be wary and can take good heed: and what is that, you will say? Thine enemy, as thou knowest well enough, watcheth continually, spying and prying into all thine actions, he goeth about viewing thy whole life, to see where he may find any vantage to take hold of thee, and where thou liest open that he may assail and surprise thee; his sight is so quick that it pierceth not only through an oak, as Lynceus did, or stones and shells; but also it goeth quite through thy friend, thy domestical servants, yea, and every familiar of thine with whom thou daily dost converse, for to discover as much as possibly he can what thou doest or goeth about; he soundeth and searcheth by undermining and secret ways what thy designs and purposes be. As for our friends, it chanceth many times that they fall extreme sick, yea, and die thereupon before we know of it, whiles we defer and put off from day to day to go and visit them, or make small reckoning of them; but as touching our enemies we are so observant, that we curiously inquire and hearken even after their very dreams; the diseases, the debts, the hard usage of men to their own wives, and the untoward life between them, are many times more unknown unto those whom they touch and concern than unto their enemy; but above all, he sticketh close unto thy faults, inquisitive he is after them and those he traceth especially: and like as the geirs or vultures fly unto the stinking scent of dead carrions and putrefied carcases, but they have no smell or scent at all of bodies sound and whole; even so those parts of our life which are diseased, naught and ill-affected, be they that move an enemy; to these leap they in great haste who are our ill-willers, these they seize upon, and are ready to worry and pluck in pieces; and this it is that profiteth us most, in that it compelleth us to live orderly, to look unto our steps that we tread not awry, that we neither do nor say ought inconsiderately or rashly; but always keep our life unblamable, as if we observed a most strict and exquisite diet; and verily, this heedful caution, repressing the violent passions of our mind in this sort, and keeping reason at home within doors, engendereth a certain studious desire, an intention and will to live uprightly and without touch: for like as those cities by ordinary wars with their neighbour cities, and by continual expeditions and voyages,