Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/205

 Messer Federico replied:

"I do not say that of his own notion and unasked by others, the Courtier should volunteer to tell his ignorance; for I too dislike this folly of self-accusal and depreciation. And therefore I sometimes inwardly laugh at certain men, who needlessly and of their own accord narrate things that perhaps occurred without their fault but yet imply a shade of disgrace; like a cavalier whom you all know, and who, whenever he heard mention made of the battle that was fought against King Charles in the Parmesan,182 at once began to tell the manner of his flight, nor seemed to have seen or heard aught else that day; again, speaking of a certain famous joust, he always described how he had fallen, and in his conversation he often seemed to seek an opportunity to tell how he had received a sound cudgelling one night as he was on his way to meet a lady.

"I would not have our Courtier tell such follies. It seems to me, however, that when occasion offers for displaying himself in something of which he is quite ignorant, he ought to avoid it; and if compelled by necessity, he ought to confess his ignorance frankly rather than put himself to that risk. And in this way he will escape the censure that many nowadays deserve, who from some perverse instinct or unreasonable design always set themselves to do that which they do not know, and forsake that which they do know. And as an instance of this, I know a very excellent musician, who, having abandoned music, gave himself up wholly to composing verses, and thinks himself very great therein, and makes all men laugh at him; and now he has lost even his music.

"Another man, one of the first painters of the world, despises the art wherein he is most rare, and has set himself to study philosophy; in which he has such strange conceptions and new chimeras, that he could not with all his painter's art depict them.183 And of such as these, a countless number could be found.

"Some indeed there are who know they excel in one thing and yet make their chief business of another, of which they are not ignorant either; but every time they have occasion to display themselves in that wherein they feel themselves proficient, they do it gallantly. And it sometimes comes to pass that the