Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/63

Rh and reproof for that which is done amiss: for that he is verily persuaded of him that as he was willing enough to praise, so he was as loth to dispraise, and therefore taketh all in good worth.

A difficult matter then it is, will some one say, to discern a flatterer from a friend, seeing there is no difference between them, either in doing pleasure, or yielding praise: for otherwise, we see oftentimes, that in many services, courtesies and kindnesses besides, a flatterer is more ready and forward than a friend. True it is indeed we must needs say: a right hard matter it is to know the one from the other; especially if we speak of a right flatterer indeed, who is his own craftsmaster, and can skill how to handle the matter artificially, and with great cunning and dexterity: if (I say) we make no reckoning of them for flatterers, as the common people do, who are these ordinary smell-feasts, and as ready as flies to light in every dish: these parasites (I say), whose tongue (as one said very well) will be walking so soon as men have washed their hands and be ready to sit down to meat, cogging and soothing up their good masters at every word, who have no honesty at all in them, and whose scurrility, profane and irreligious impurity a man shall soon find with one dish of meat and cup of wine. For surely there was no great need to detect and convince the flattery of Melanthius, the parasite and jester of Alexander Pheraeus the Tyrant, who being asked upon a time how Alexander his good lord and master was murdered, Marry, with a thrust (quoth he) of a sword, which went in at his side, and ran as far as into my belly: neither of such as a man shall never see to fail, but where there is a good house and plentiful table kept, they will be sure to gather round about it, in such sort as there is no fire nor iron grates, or brass gates, can keep them back, but they will be ready to put their foot under the board: no, nor of those women who in times past were called in Cypres, colacides, i.e. flatteresses; but after they were come to Syria, men named them climacides, as one would say, ladderesses, for that they used to lie along, and to make their backs stepping-stools or ladders as it were for queens and great men's wives to get upon when they would mount into their coaches.

What kind of flatterer then is it so hard and yet needful to beware of? Forsooth, even of him who seemeth none such, and professeth nothing less than to flatter: whom a man shall never find about the kitchen where the good meat is dressed, nor take measuring of shadows to know how the day goes, and