Page:Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry - Meyer.djvu/131

 uncertain proofs, despising books, turning against custom, shifting one's pleading, inciting the mob, blowing one's own trumpet, shouting at the top of one's voice.'

'O Cormac, grandson of Conn,' said Carbery, 'who are the worst for whom you have a comparison?'

'Not hard to tell,' said Cormac.

'A man with the impudence of a satirist, with the pugnacity of a slave-woman, with the carelessness of a dog, with the conscience of a hound, with a robber's hand, with a bull's strength, with the dignity of a judge, with keen ingenious wisdom, with the speech of a stately man, with the memory of an historian, with the behaviour of an abbot, with the swearing of a horse-thief,

and he wise, lying, grey-haired, violent, swearing, garrulous, when he says "the matter is settled, I swear, you shall swear."'

'O Cormac, grandson of Conn,' said Carbery, 'I desire to know how I shall behave among the wise and the foolish, among friends and strangers, among the old and the young, among the innocent and the wicked.'

'Not hard to tell,' said Cormac

'Be not too wise, nor too foolish, be not too conceited, nor too diffident, be not too haughty, nor too humble, be not too talkative, nor too silent, be not too hard, nor too feeble.