Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/64

42 when it is dinner or supper time: nor yet see drunken and lying along the ground untowardly, and full like a beast: But for the most part sober he is enough; he loveth to be a curious polypragmon; he will have an oar in every boat, and thinks he is tc intermeddle in all matters; he hath a mind to be privy and party in all deep secrets; and in one word, he carrieth himself like a grave tragedian, and not as a comical and satirical player, and under that visor and habit he counterfeiteth a friend. For according to the saying of Plato, it is the greatest and most extreme injustice for a man to make semblance of being just when he is not: even so we are to think that flattery of all others to be most dangerous, which is covert and not apert or professed; which is serious (I say) and not practised by way of jest and sport.

And verily such glozing and flattery as this causeth men oftentimes to mistrust true friendship indeed, and doth derogate much from the credit thereof: for that in many things it jumpeth so even therewith, unless a man take very good heed and look narrowly into it. True it is, that Gobrias being run into a dark and secret room, together with one of the usurping tyrants of Persia, called Magi, whom he pursued hard, and at handy gripes struggling, grappling, and wrestling close together, cried out unto Darius coming into the place with a naked sword, and doubting to thrust at the usurper, for fear he should run Gobrias through also, Thrust hardly and spare not (quoth he), though you dispatch us both at once.

But we who in no wise can allow of that common saying, Let a friend perish, so he take an enemy with him: but are desirous to pluck and part a flatterer from a friend, with whom he is coupled and interlaced by means of so many resemblances: we (I say) have great cause to fear and beware that we do not cast and reject from us the good with the bad: or least in pardoning and accepting that which is agreeable and familiar unto us, we fall upon that which is hurtful and dangerous. For like as among wild seeds of another kind, those that being of the same form, fashion, and bigness with the grains of wheat are intermingled therewith, a man shall hardly try out from the rest, for that they will not pass through the holes of the sieve, ruddle or try, if they be narrow; and in case they be large and wide, out goeth the good corn together with them; even so it is passing hard to separate flattery from friendship, being so intermeddled therewith in all accidents, motions, affairs, dealings, employment, and conversation as it is. For considering