If the flatterer, then, like most other evils, attacked solely or mostly the
ignoble and mean, he would not be so formidable or so hard to guard against.
But the fact is, that as bore-worms make their entrance chiefly into the
delicate and sweetscented kinds of wood, so it is ambitious, honest, and
promising characters that receive and nourish the flatterer as he hangs upon
them. Moreover, just as Simonides
1 says,
The rearing of horses consorts not
with Zacynthus, But with wheat-bearing acres,
so we observe that flattery
does not attend upon poor, obscure, or unimportant persons, but makes itself
a stumbling-block and a pestilence in great houses and great affairs, and
oftentimes overturns kingdoms and principalities. Wherefore it is no small
task, nor a matter requiring but slight foresight, to subject it to
examination, so that, being thoroughly exposed, it may be prevented from
injuring or discrediting friendship. Vermin depart from dying persons and
forsake their bodies, as the blood, from which the vermin derive their
sustenance, loses its vitality ; and so flatterers are never so much
[p. 269]
as to be seen coming near where succulence and warmth
are lacking, but where renown and power attend, there do they throng and
thrive; but if a change come, they slink away quickly and are gone. But we
must not wait until that experience shall befall, which is a thing
profitless, or rather injurious and not devoid of danger. For it is cruel to
discover friends that are no friends at a crucial time which calls for
friends, since there is then no exchanging one that is untrustworthy and
spurious for the true and trustworthy. But one's friend, like a coin, should
have been examined and approved before the time of need, not proved by the
need to be no friend. For we must not wait for injury to open our eyes, but
to avoid injury we must gain acquaintance with the flatterer and learn how
to detect him; otherwise we shall be in the same case with those who try to
learn about deadly drugs by tasting them first, and so ruin and destroy
themselves in order to reach their decision. We do not, of course, commend
such persons, nor again those who rate the friend as something noble and
beneficial, and so imagine that all who are socially agreeable at once stand
openly convicted of being flatterers. For a friend is not unpleasant or
absolute, nor is it bitterness and sternness that give dignity to
friendship, but this very nobility and dignity in it is sweet and desirable.
Close by its side have the Graces and Longing established their dwelling,2
and not merely for one who is in misfortune
'Tis sweet to gaze into a kind
man's eyes,
as Euripides
3 has it, but when friendship attends us,
[p. 271]
it brings pleasure and delight to our prosperity no less
than it takes away the griefs and the feeling of helplessness from
adversity. As Evenus
4 has remarked that fire is the best of sauce, so God,
by commingling friendship with our life, has made everything cheerful, sweet
and agreeable, when friendship is there to share in our enjoyment. Indeed,
how the flatterer could use pleasures to insinuate himself, if he saw that
friendship was nowhere ready to welcome what is pleasant, no man can
explain. But just as false and counterfeit imitations of gold imitate only
its brilliancy and lustre, so apparently the flatterer, imitating the
pleasant and attractive characteristics of the friend, always presents
himself in a cheerful and blithe mood, with never a whit of crossing or
opposition. But that is no reason why persons who express commendation
should instantly be suspected of being simply flatterers. For commendation
at the right time is no less becoming to friendship than is censure, or we
may express it better by saying that complaining and fault-finding generally
is unfriendly and unsociable, whereas the kindly feeling that ungrudgingly
and readily bestows commendation for noble acts inclines us, at some later
time, cheerfully and without distress to bear admonishment and frankness of
speech, since we believe, and are content, that the man who is glad to
commend blames only when he must.
