"What about Why yes, but not When Maenius 19 Now someone may say to me: yourself? Have you no faults? the same, and perhaps lesser ones. once was carping at Novius behind his back, "Look out, sir," said someone, do you not know yourself? Or do you think you impose on us, as one we do not know?" I take no note of myself," said Maenius. Such self-love is foolish and shameless, and deserves to be censured. 25 When you look over your own sins, your eyes are rheumy and daubed with ointment; why, when you view the failings of your friends, are you as keen of sight as an eagle or as a serpent of Epidaurus a? But, on the other hand, the result for you is that they, too, in turn peer into your faults. 29 He is a little too hasty in temper, ill-suited to the keen noses of folk nowadays. He might awake a smile because his hair is cut in country style, his toga sits ill, and his loose shoe will hardly stay on his foot."b But he's a good man, none better; but he's your friend; but under that uncouth frame are hidden great gifts. In a word, give yourself a shaking and see whether nature, or haply some bad habit, has not at some time sown in you the seeds of folly ; for in neglected fields there springs up bracken, which you must burn. 38 Let us turn first to this fact, that the lover, in his blindness, fails to see his lady's unsightly blemishes, nay is even charmed with them, as was Balbinus with Hagna's wen. I could wish that we made the like mistake in friendship and that to such an error our ethics had given an honourable name. At any The scholiasts suggest that this may be a description either of Virgil or of Horace himself. at1 pater ut gnati, sic nos debemus amici2 66 3 fugimus B: furimus Goth., Vollmer. 5 ille V. 6 versemur V Bentley 7 ut] aut or haut, II. 8 impediat Bentley. 2 amicis B. 45 50 55 60 65 4 incurtare BDE. Some editors punctuate after sermone. 9 modestus, II. 66 a The pet names used, viz. paetus, pullus, varus, scaurus, are all adjectives denoting a less objectionable form of the defect referred to, but they were also cognomina in wellknown family names. Paetus " is associated with the Aelii and Papirii, "Pullus "with the Fabii and the Iunii, "Varus" with the Quintilii, and Scaurus with the 66 rate, we should deal with a friend as a father with his child, and not be disgusted at some blemish. If a boy squints, his father calls him "Blinky"; if his son is sadly puny, like misbegotten Sisyphus of former days, he styles him "Chickabiddy. One with crooked legs he fondly calls " Cruikshank," and one that can hardly stand on twisted ankles," Curlylegs.' Is a friend somewhat close? Let us call him thrifty. Does another fail in tact and show off a bit too much? He wants his friends to think him agreeable. Or is he somewhat bluff and too outspoken? Let him pass for frank and fearless. Hotheaded is he? Let him be counted a man of spirit. This, I take it, is how to make friends, and to keep them when made. But we turn virtues themselves upside down, and want to soil a clean vessel. Does there live among us an honest soul, a truly modest fellow ? We nickname him slow and stupid. Does another shun every snare and offer no exposed side to malice, seeing that we live in that kind of a world where keen envy and slanders are so rife? Instead of his good sense and prudence we speak of his craftiness and insincerity. Is one somewhat simple and such as often I have freely shown myself to you, Maecenas, interrupting you perhaps while reading or thinking with some annoying chatter? He is quite devoid of social tact,' we say. Ah, how Aemilii and Aurelii. For the passage as a whole we may compare Plato, Rep. v. 474 D, Lucretius, iv. 1160 ff., Ovid, Ars Am. ii. 657; and among modern writers, Molière, Misanthrope, Act ii. Sc. 5, e.g. "Ils comptent les défauts pour des perfections." 66 The expression communis sensus does not mean precisely the same as the phrase we have derived from it, viz. "common sense." It is rather social sense, a sense of propriety in dealing with our fellows, or what the French call savoir faire. 70 75 quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam ! nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur: optimus ille est, qui minimis urgetur. amicus dulcis, ut aequum est, cum mea compenset vitiis bona, pluribus hisce, si modo plura mihi bona sunt, inclinet, amari si volet hac lege in trutina ponetur eadem. qui ne tuberibus propriis offendat amicum postulat, ignoscet1 verrucis illius aequum est peccatis veniam poscentem reddere rursus. Denique, quatenus excidi penitus vitium irae,2 cetera item nequeunt stultis haerentia, cur non ponderibus modulisque suis ratio utitur, ac res ut quaeque est, ita suppliciis delicta coercet? si quis eum servum, patinam qui tollere iussus semesos piscis tepidumque ligurrierit ius, in cruce suffigat, Labeone insanior inter sanos dicatur. quanto hoc3 furiosius atque maius peccatum est: paulum deliquit amicus, quod nisi concedas, habeare insuavis: acerbus4 odisti et fugis ut Rusonem debitor aeris, qui nisi, cum tristes misero venere Kalendae, mercedem aut nummos unde unde extricat, amaras porrecto iugulo historias captivus ut audit. comminxit lectum potus, mensave catillum a 1 ignoscat B. 2 B omits 76-80. 3 hoc omitted EM: deleted in V. 80 85 90 4 Some punctuate after acerbus; so Orelli and Ritter. According to the Stoics only the ideal sage, the sapiens, is excepted from the class of stulti. Horace places himself in the majority. Labeo was a crazy jurisconsult. Ruso, the usurer, has literary aspirations and writes histories. The fate of the debtor, who is in Ruso's power, and must therefore listen while Ruso reads to him from his works, is humorously regarded as most horrible. Cf. Macaulay's story of the criminal, who went to the galleys rather than read the history of Guicciardini. ("Burleigh lightly do we set up an unjust law to our own harm! For no living wight is without faults: the best is he who is burdened with the least. My kindly friend must, as is fair, weigh my virtues against my faults, if he wishes to gain my love, and must turn the scales in their favour as being the more numerous—i -if only my virtues are the more numerous. On that condition he shall be weighed in the same scale. One who expects his friend not to be offended by his own warts will pardon the other's pimples. It is but fair that one who craves indulgence for failings should grant it in return. 76 In fine, since the fault of anger, and all the other faults that cleave to fools a cannot be wholly cut away, why does not Reason use her own weights and measures, and visit offences with punishment suited to each? If one were to crucify a slave who, when bidden to take away a dish, has greedily licked up the half-eaten fish and its sauce, now cold, sane men would call him more insane than Labeo. How much madder and grosser a sin is this: a friend has committed a slight offence, which you would be thought ungracious not to pardon; you hate him. bitterly and shun him, as Ruso is shunned by his debtor, who, poor wretch, if at the coming of the sad Kalends he cannot scrape up from some quarter either interest or principal, must offer his throat like a prisoner of war and listen to his captor's dreary histories! What if in his cups my friend has wet the couch or knocked off the table a bowl once and his Times" in Critical and Historical Essays.) Cf. Juvenal's mille pericula saevae urbis et Augusto recitantes mense poetas (Sat. iii. 8). |