Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/73

Rh rapt and transported altogether with the fear of the gods: If the other be amorous, he will be in love furious: when the other saith I laughed a good; but I (will he say again) laughed until I was well near dead. But in good things it is clean contrary, for when he speaketh of good footmanship he will say, I run swiftly indeed; but you fly away. Again, I sit a horse and ride reasonable well; but what is that to this hippo-centaur here for good horsemanship? Also, I have a pretty gift in poetry (I must needs say) and am not the worst versifier in the world; but

To thunder verses I have no skill. To Jupiter there leave that I will:

In these and such-like speeches two things at once he doth: for first he seemeth to approve the enterprise of the other as singular good, because he doth imitate him; and secondly, he sheweth that his sufficiency therein is incomparable and not to be matched, in that he confesseth himself to come short of him. And thus much of the different marks between a flatterer and a friend as touching their resemblances.

Now, forasmuch as there is a community of delectation and pleasure in them both (as I have said before), for that an honest man taketh no less joy and comfort in his friends than a lewd person in flatterers, let us consider likewise the distinction between them in this behalf. The only way to distinguish them asunder in this point is to mark the drift and end of the delectation, both in the one and the other; which a man may see more clearly by this example: There is in a sweet ointment an odoriferous smell; so is there also in an antidote or medicine; but herein lieth the difference, for that in the ointment abovesaid there is a reference to pleasure only, and to nothing else; but in the antidote, beside the delectation that the odour yieldeth, there is a respect also of some medicinable virtue, namely, either to purge and cleanse the body, or to heat and chafe it, or else to incarnate and make new flesh to come.

Again, painters do grind and mix fresh colours and lively tinctures; so the apothecary hath drugs and medicines of a beautiful and pleasant colour to the eye, that it would do a man good to look upon them. But wherein is the difference? Is there any man so gross that conceiveth not readily that the odds lieth in the use or end for which both the one and the other be ordained? Semblably the mutual offices and kindnesses that pass from friend to friend, beside the honesty and profit that they have, bring with them also that which is pleasing