Plutarch's Morals · Plutarch
ON ABUNDANCE OF FRIENDS.
Sec. IX. We must also observe another difference in the resemblance between the friend and flatterer. The true friend does not imitate you in everything, nor is he too keen to praise, but praises only what is excellent, for as Sophocles says, "He is not born to share in hate but love,"[379] yes, by Zeus, and he is born to share in doing what is right and in loving what is noble, and not to share in wrong-doing or misbehaviour, unless it be that, as a running of the eyes is catching, so through companionship and intimacy he may against his will contract by infection some vice or ill habit, as they say Plato's intimates imitated his stoop, Aristotle's his lisp, and king Alexander's his holding his head a little on one side, and rapidity of utterance in conversation,[380] for people mostly pick up unawares such traits of character. But the flatterer is exactly like the chameleon,[381] which takes every colour but white, and so he, though unable to imitate what is worth his while, leaves nothing that is bad unimitated. And just as poor painters unable to make a fine portrait from inefficiency in their craft, bring out the likeness by painting all the wrinkles, moles and scars, so the flatterer imitates his friend's intemperance, superstition, hot temper, sourness to domestics, suspicion of his friends and relations. For he is by nature inclined to what is worst, and thinks that imitation of what is bad is as far as possible removed from censure.
For those are suspected who have noble aims in life, and seem to be vexed and disgusted at their friends' faults, for that injured and even ruined Dion with Dionysius, Samius with Philip, and Cleomenes with Ptolemy. But he that wishes to be and appear at the same time both agreeable and trustworthy pretends to rejoice more in what is bad, as being through excessive love for his friend not even offended at his vices, but as one with him in feeling and nature in all matters. And so they claim to share in involuntary and chance ailments, and pretend to have the same complaints, in flattery to those who suffer from any, as that their eyesight and sense of hearing are deficient, if their friends are somewhat blind or deaf, as the flatterers of Dionysius, who was rather short-sighted, jostled one another at a dinner party, and knocked the dishes off the table, _as if from defect of vision_.[382] And some to make their cases more similar wind themselves in closer, and dive even into family secrets for parallels.
For seeing that their friends are unfortunate in marriage, or suspicious about the behaviour of their sons or relations, they do not spare themselves, but make quite a Jeremiad about their own sons, or wife, or kinsfolk, or relations, proclaiming loudly their own family secrets. For similarity in situation makes people more sympathetic, and their friends having received as it were hostages by their confessions, entrust them in return with their secrets, and having once made confidants of them, dare not take back their confidence.[383] I actually know of a man who turned his wife out of doors because his friend had put away his; but as he secretly visited her and sent messages to her, he was detected by his friend's wife noticing his conduct. So little did he know the nature of a flatterer that thought the following lines more applicable to a crab than a flatterer, "His whole body is belly, his eye is on everything, he is a creature creeping on his teeth," for such is a true picture of the parasite, "friends of the frying-pan, hunting for a dinner," to borrow the language of Eupolis.
"Zeus-cherished Menelaus, art thou mad, And in thy folly tak'st no heed of safety?"[391] Sometimes also he joins action to word, as Menedemus sobered the profligate and disorderly son of his friend Asclepiades, by shutting him out of his house, and not speaking to him. And Arcesilaus forbade Bato his school, when he wrote a line in one of his plays against Cleanthes, and only got reconciled with him after he repented and made his peace with Cleanthes. For we ought to give our friend pain if it will benefit him, but not to the extent of breaking off our friendship; but just as we make use of some biting medicine, that will save and preserve the life of the patient. And so the friend, like a musician, in bringing about an improvement to what is good and expedient, sometimes slackens the chords, sometimes tightens them, and is often pleasant, but always useful. But the flatterer, always harping on one note, and accustomed to play his accompaniment only with a view to please and to ingratiate himself, knows not how either to oppose in deed, or give pain in word, but complies only with every wish, ever chiming in with and echoing the sentiments of his patron. As then Xenophon says Agesilaus took pleasure in being praised by those who would also censure him,[392] so ought we to think that to please and gratify us is friendly in the person who can also give us pain and oppose us, but to feel suspicion at an intercourse which is merely for pleasure and gratification, and never pungent, aye and by Zeus to have ready that saying of the Lacedaemonian, who, on hearing king Charillus praised, said, "How can he be a good man, who is not severe even to the bad?"
Sec. XII. They say the gadfly attacks bulls, and the tick dogs, in the ear: so the flatterer besieges with praise the ears of those who are fond of praise, and sticks there and is hard to dislodge. We ought therefore here to make a wide-awake and careful discrimination, whether the praise is bestowed on the action or the man. It is bestowed on the action, if people praise the absent rather than the present, if also those that have the same aims and aspirations praise not only us but all that are similarly disposed, and do not evidently say and do one thing at one time, and the direct contrary at another; and the greatest test is if we are conscious, in the matters for which we get the praise, that we have not regretted them, and are not ashamed at them, and would not rather have said and done differently. For our own inward judgement, testifying the contrary and not admitting the praise, is above passion, and impregnable and proof against the flatterer.
But I know not how it is that most people in misfortune cannot bear exhortation, but are captivated more by condolence and sympathy, and when they have done something wrong and acted amiss, he that by censure and blame implants in them the stings of repentance is looked upon by them as hostile and an accuser, while they welcome and regard as friendly and well-disposed to them the person who bestows praise and panegyric on what they have done. Those then that readily praise and join in applauding some word or action on the part of someone whether in jest or earnest, only do temporary harm for the moment, but those who injure the character by their praise, aye, and by their flattery undermine the morals, act like those slaves who do not steal from the bin, but from the seed corn.[393] For they pervert the disposition, which is the seed of actions, and the character, which is the principle and fountain of life, by attaching to vice names that belong properly only to virtue.
For as Thucydides says,[394] in times of faction and war "people change the accustomed meaning of words as applied to acts at their will and pleasure, for reckless daring is then considered bravery to one's comrades, and prudent delay specious cowardice, and sober-mindedness the cloak of the coward, and taking everything into account before action a real desire to do nothing." So too in the case of flattery we must observe and be on our guard against wastefulness being called liberality, and cowardliness prudence, and madness quick-wittedness, and meanness frugality, and the amorous man called social and affectionate, and the term manly applied to the passionate and vain man, and the term civil applied to the paltry and mean man. As I remember Plato[395] says the lover is a flatterer of the beloved one, and calls the snub nose graceful, and the aquiline nose royal, and swarthy people manly, and fair people the children of the gods, and the olive complexion is merely the lover's phrase to gloss over and palliate excessive pallor.
And yet the ugly man persuaded he is handsome, or the short man persuaded he is tall, cannot long remain in the error, and receives only slight injury from it, and not irreparable mischief: but praise applied to vices as if they were virtues, so that one is not vexed but delighted with a vicious life, removes all shame from wrong-doing, and was the ruin of the Sicilians, by calling the savage cruelty of Dionysius and Phalaris detestation of wickedness and uprightness. It was the ruin of Egypt, by styling Ptolemy's effeminacy, and superstition, and howlings, and beating of drums, religion and service to the gods.[396] It was nearly the overthrow and destruction of the ancient manners of the Romans, palliating the luxury and intemperance and display of Antony as exhibitions of jollity and kindliness, when his power and fortune were at their zenith. What else invested Ptolemy[397] with his pipe and fiddle? What else brought Nero[398] on the tragic stage, and invested him with the mask and buskins? Was it not the praise of flatterers? And are not many kings called Apollos if they can just sing a song,[399] and Dionysuses if they get drunk, and Herculeses if they can wrestle, and do they not joy in such titles, and are they not dragged into every kind of disgrace by flattery?
Sec. XIII. Wherefore we must be especially on our guard against the flatterer in regard to praise; as indeed he is very well aware himself, and clever to avoid suspicion. If he light upon some dandy, or rustic in a thick leather garment, he treats him with nothing but jeers and mocks,[400] as Struthias insulted Bias, ironically praising him for his stupidity, saying, "You have drunk more than king Alexander,"[401] and, "that he was ready to die of laughing at his tale about the Cyprian."[402] But when he sees people more refined very much on their guard, and observing both time and place, he does not praise them directly, but draws off a little and wheels round and approaches them noiselessly, as one tries to catch a wild animal. For sometimes he reports to a man the panegyric of other persons upon him, (as orators do, introducing some third person,) saying that he had a very pleasant conversation in the market with some strangers and men of worth, who mentioned how they admired his many good points. On another occasion he concocts and fabricates some false and trifling charges against him, pretending he has heard them from other people, and runs up with a serious face and inquires, where he said or did such and such a thing. And upon his denying he ever did, he pounces on him at once[403] and compliments his man with, "I thought it strange that you should have spoken ill of your friends, seeing that you don't even treat your enemies so: and that you should have tried to rob other people, seeing that you are so lavish with your own money."
"Asking advice, but seeking something else," wishing by praise to puff you up. Sec. XV. Moreover, as some have defined painting to be silent poetry,[407] so is there praise in silent flattery. For as hunters are more likely to catch the objects of their chase unawares, if they do not openly appear to be so engaged, but seem to be walking, or tending their sheep, or looking after the farm, so flatterers obtain most success in their praise, when they do not seem to be praising but to be doing something else. For he who gives up his place or seat to the great man when he comes in, and while making a speech to the people or senate breaks off even in the middle, if he observes any rich man wants to speak, and gives up to him alike speech and platform, shows by his silence even more than he would by any amount of vociferation that he thinks the other the better man, and superior to him in judgement.
And consequently you may always see them occupying the best places at theatres and public assembly rooms, not that they think themselves worthy of them, but that they may flatter the rich by giving up their places to them; and at public meetings they begin speaking first, and then make way as for better men, and most readily take back their own view, if any influential or rich or famous person espouse the contrary view. And so one can see plainly that all such servility and drawing back on their part is a lowering their sails, not to experience or virtue or age, but to wealth and fame. Not so Apelles the famous painter, who, when Megabyzus sat with him, and wished to talk about lines and shades, said to him, "Do you see my lads yonder grinding colours, they admired just now your purple and gold, but now they are laughing at you for beginning to talk about what you don't understand."[408] And Solon, when Croesus asked him about happiness, replied that Tellus, an obscure Athenian, and Bito and Cleobis were happier than he was.[409] But flatterers proclaim kings and rich men and rulers not only happy and fortunate, but also pre-eminent for wisdom, and art, and every virtue.
Sec. XVI. Now some cannot bear to hear the assertion of the Stoics[410] that the wise man is at once rich, and handsome, and noble, and a king; but flatterers declare that the rich man is at once orator and poet, and (if he likes) painter, and flute-player, and swift-footed, and strong, falling down if he wrestles with them, and if contending with him in running letting him win the race, as Crisso of Himera purposely allowed Alexander to outrun him, which vexed the king very much when he heard of it.[411] And Carneades said that the sons of rich men and kings learnt nothing really well and properly except how to ride, for their master praised and flattered them in their studies, and the person who taught them wrestling always let them throw him, whereas the horse, not knowing or caring whether his rider were a private person or ruler, rich or poor, soon threw him over his head if he could not ride well. Simple therefore and fatuous was that remark of Bion, "If you could by encomiums make your field to yield well and be fruitful, you could not be thought wrong in tilling it so rather than digging it and labouring in it: nor would it be strange in you to praise human beings if by so doing you could be useful and serviceable to them." For a field does not become worse by being praised, but those who praise a man falsely and against his deserts puff him up and ruin him.
Sec. XVII. Enough has been said on this matter: let us now examine outspokenness. For just as Patroclus put on the armour of Achilles, and drove his horses to the battle, only durst not touch his spear from Mount Pelion, but let that alone, so ought the flatterer, tricked out and modelled in the distinctive marks and tokens of the friend, to leave untouched and uncopied only his outspokenness, as the special burden of friendship, "heavy, huge, strong."[412] But since flatterers, to avoid the blame they incur by their buffoonery, and drinking, and gibes, and jokes, sometimes work their ends by frowns and gravity, and intermix censure and reproof, let us not pass this over either without examination. And I think, as in Menander's Play the sham Hercules comes on the stage not with a club stout and strong, but with a light and hollow cane, so the outspokenness of the flatterer is to those who experience it mild and soft, and the very reverse of vigorous, and like those cushions for women's heads, which seem able to stand their ground, but in reality yield and give way under their pressure; so this sham outspokenness is puffed up and inflated with an empty and spurious and hollow bombast, that when it contracts and collapses draws in the person who relies on it. For true and friendly outspokenness attacks wrong-doers, bringing pain that is salutary and likely to make them more careful, like honey biting but cleansing ulcerated parts of the body,[413] but in other respects serviceable and sweet. But we will speak of this anon.[414] But the flatterer first exhibits himself as disagreeable and passionate and unforgiving in his dealings with others.
For he is harsh to his servants, and a terrible fellow to attack and ferret out the faults of his kinsmen and friends, and to look up to and respect nobody who is a stranger, but to look down upon them, and is relentless and mischief-making in making people provoked with others, hunting after the reputation of hating vice, as one not likely knowingly to mince matters with the vicious, or ingratiate himself with them either in word or deed. Next he pretends to know nothing of real and great crimes, but he is a terrible fellow to inveigh against trifling and external shortcomings, and to fasten on them with intensity and vehemence, as if he sees any pot or pipkin out of its place, or anyone badly housed, or neglecting his beard or attire, or not adequately attending to a horse or dog. But contempt of parents, and neglect of children, and bad treatment of wife, and haughtiness to friends, and throwing away money, all this he cares nothing about, but is silent and does not dare to make any allusion to it: just as if the trainer in a gymnasium were to allow the athlete to get drunk and live in debauchery,[415] and yet be vexed at the condition of his oil-flask or strigil if out of order; or as if the schoolmaster scolded a boy about his tablet and pen, but paid no attention to a solecism or barbarism. The flatterer is like a man who should make no comment on the speech of a silly and ridiculous orator, but should find fault with his voice, and chide him for injuring his throat by drinking cold water; or like a person bidden to read some wretched composition, who should merely find fault with the thickness of the paper, and call the copyist a dirty and careless fellow.
So too when Ptolemy seemed to desire to become learned, his flatterers used to spin out the time till midnight, disputing about some word or line or history, but not one of them all objected to his cruelty and outrages, his torturing and beating people to death.[416] Just as if, when a man has tumours and fistulas, one were to cut his hair and nails with a surgeon's knife, so flatterers use outspokenness only in cases where it gives no pain or distress. Sec. XVIII. Moreover some of them are cleverer still and make their outspokenness and censure a means of imparting pleasure. As Agis the Argive,[417] when Alexander bestowed great gifts on a buffoon, cried out in envy and displeasure, "What a piece of absurdity!" and on the king turning angrily to him and saying, "What are you talking about?" he replied, "I admit that I am vexed and put out, when I see that all you descendants of Zeus alike take delight in flatterers and jesters, for Hercules had his Cercopes, and Dionysus his Sileni, and with you too I see that such are held in good repute." And on one occasion, when the Emperor Tiberius entered the senate, one of his flatterers got up and said, that being free men they ought to be outspoken, and not suppress or conceal anything that might be important, and having by this exordium engaged everybody's attention, a dead silence prevailing, and even Tiberius being all attention, he said, "Listen, Caesar, to what we all charge you with, although no one ventures to tell you openly of it; you neglect yourself, and are careless about your health, and wear yourself out with anxiety and labour on our behalf, taking no rest either by night or day." And on his stringing much more together in the same strain, they say the orator Cassius Severus said, "This outspokenness will ruin the man."
"O ingrate, after all those frequent kisses!"[419] Thus Antony's friends, when he was passionately in love with the Egyptian woman,[420] persuaded him that he was loved by her, and twitted him with being cold and haughty to her. "She," they said, "has left her mighty kingdom and happy mode of life, and is wasting her beauty, taking the field with you like some camp-follower, "The while your heart is proof 'gainst all her charms,"[421] as you neglect her love-lorn as she is." But he that is pleased at being reproached with his wrong-doing, and delights in those that censure him, as he never did in those that praised him, is unconscious that he is really perverted also by what seems to be rebuke. For such outspokenness is like the bites of wanton women,[422] that while seeming to hurt really tickle and excite pleasure. And just as if people mix pure wine, which is by itself an antidote against hemlock, with it and so offer it, they make the poison quite deadly, being rapidly carried to the heart by the warmth,[423] so ill-disposed men, knowing that outspokenness is a great antidote to flattery, make it a means of flattering. And so it was rather a bad answer Bias[424] made, to the person who inquired what was the most formidable animal, "Of wild animals the tyrant, and of tame the flatterer." For it would have been truer to observe that tame flatterers are those that are found round the baths and table, but the one that intrudes into the interior of the house and into the women's apartments with his curiosity and calumny and malignity, like the legs and arms of the polypus, is wild and savage and unmanageable.
Sec. XX. Now one kind of caution against his snares is to know and ever remember that, whereas the soul contains true and noble and reasoning elements, as also unreasoning and false and emotional ones, the friend is always a counsellor and adviser to the better instincts of the soul, as the physician improves and maintains health, whereas the flatterer works upon the emotional and unreasoning ones, and tickles and titillates them and seduces them from reason, employing sensuality as his bait. As then there are some kinds of food which neither benefit the blood or spirit, nor brace up the nerves and marrow, but stir the passions, excite the lower nature, and make the flesh unsound and rotten, so the language of the flatterer adds nothing to soberness and reason, but encourages some love passion, or stirs up foolish rage, or incites to envy, or produces the empty and burdensome vanity of pride, or joins in bewailing woes, or ever by his calumnies and hints makes malignity and illiberality and suspicion sharp and timid and jealous, and cannot fail to be detected by those that closely observe him. For he is ever anchoring himself upon some passion, and fattening it, and, like a bubo, fastens himself on some unsound and inflamed parts of the soul. Are you angry?
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