Plutarch, Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 33

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[33] Since, however, circumstances oftentimes impel men that are none too good themselves to use admonition when in the company of others who are no better than they, the most reasonable method would be that which in some way involves and includes in the arraignment the speaker himself. This is the principle of the reproof

Son of Tydeus, what has made us forget our swift prowess? ¹

and

We are no match now even for Hector Who is only one man.²

And in this way Socrates quietly took the young men to task, not assuming that he himself was exempted from ignorance, but feeling that he had need as well as they to study virtue and to search for truth. For those win goodwill and confidence who give the impression that, while addicted to the same faults, they are correcting their friends precisely as they correct themselves. But the man who gives himself airs in trying to curb another as though he himself were some pure and passionless being, unless he be well on in years or possessed of an acknowledged position in virtue and repute, only appears annoying and tedious, and profits nothing. Therefore it was not without a purpose that Phoenix interjected the account of his own misfortunes, his attempt in a fit of anger to slay his father, and his sudden change of heart,

Lest I be known among the Greeks as my father’s slayer³

This he did because he would not seem to admonish Achilles as though he were unaffected by anger and without fault himself. For such things make a deep moral impression, and persons are more wont to yield to those who seem to have like emotions but no feeling of contempt. Since a brilliant light must not be brought near to an inflamed eye, and a troubled spirit likewise does not put up with frank speaking and plain reproof, among the most useful helps is a light admixture of praise, as in the following:

Not without honour now can you be remiss in swift prowess, You who are all the best in our host. No cause for a quarrel Have I ’gainst any man who may be remiss in the fighting, If he is craven, but with you I am wroth beyond measure,⁴

and

Pandarus, where is now your bow and its winged arrows? Where your repute which no man among us can rival?⁵

Lines like the following also sound a clear summons to come back when men are on the verge of giving way:

Where’s Oedipus and all those riddles famed?⁶

and

Can much-enduring Heracles speak thus?⁷

For not only do they mitigate the harsh and peremptory tone of the censure, but they also arouse in a man a desire to emulate his better self, since he is made to feel ashamed of disgraceful conduct by being reminded of his honourable actions, and is prompted to look upon himself as an example of what is better. But whenever we draw comparisons with other people, as, for example, with those of a man’s own age or his fellow-citizens or his kinsmen, then the spirit of contentiousness that belongs to vice is made sullen and savage, and it will often suggest with some temper, Then why don’t you go away to my betters, and not trouble me? One must, therefore, in frank speaking toward one set of persons be on his guard against commending another set, with the single exception, it is true, of parents. For example, Agamemnon can say:

Truly Tydeus’ son is not much like his father,⁸

and so, too, Odysseus in the Scyrians:

Dost thou, to shame the glory of thy race, Card wool, whose father was the noblest Greek? ⁹

Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1927.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. I. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1927 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Πῶς ἄν τις διακρίνειε τὸν κόλακα τοῦ φίλοῦ Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1888.) — 33 focus

[33] οὐ μὴν ἀλλʼ ἐπεὶ φαύλους γε ὄντας αὐτοὺς ἑτέροις τε τοιούτοις ὁμιλοῦντας ἐξάγει τὸ πράγματα 10 πολλάκις εἰς τὸ νουθετεῖν, ἐπιεικέστατος ἂν εἴη τρόπος ὁ συνεμπλέκων καὶ συμπεριλαμβάνων ἁμηγέπη τῷ ἐγκλήματι τὸν παρρησιαζόμενον· ἐφʼ ᾧ λέλεκται καὶ τὸ

Τυδείδη, τί παθόντε λελάσμεθα θούριδος ἀλκῆς;

15 72a καὶ τὸ

νῦν δʼ οὐδʼ ἑνὸς ἄξιοί εἰμεν

Ἕκτορος

καὶ ὁ Σωκράτης οὕτως ἀτρέμα τοὺς νέους ἤλεγχεν, ὡς μηδʼ αὐτὸς ἀπηλλαγμένος ἀμαθίας, ἀλλὰ μετʼ 20 ἐκείνων οἰόμενος δεῖν ἀρετῆς ἐπιμέλεσθαι καὶ ζητεῖν τἀληθές. καὶ γὰρ εὔνοιαν καὶ πίστιν ἔχουσιν οἱ ταὐτὰ μὲν ἁμαρτάνειν, ἐπανορθοῦσθαι δὲ τοὺς φίλους ὥσπερ αὑτοὺς δοκοῦντες. ὁ δὲ σεμνύνων ἑαυτὸν ἐν τῷ κολούειν ἕτερον, ὡς δή τις εἰλικρινὴς 25 καὶ ἀπαθής, ἂν μὴ πολὺ καθʼ ἡλικίαν προήκων μηδʼ ἔχων ἀρετῆς ὁμολογούμενον ἀξίωμα καὶ δόξης, 72b ἐπαχθὴς φανεὶς καὶ βαρὺς οὐδὲν ὠφέλησεν. ὅθεν οὐχ ἁπλῶς ὁ Φοῖνιξ ἐνέβαλε τὰ περὶ αὑτὸν ἀτυχήματα, διʼ ὀργὴν ἐπιχειρήσαντος ἀνελεῖν τὸν πατέρα καὶ ταχὺ μεταγνόντος,

ὡς μὴ πατροφόνος μετʼ Ἀχαιοῖσιν καλεοίμην,

ἵνα μὴ δοκῇ νουθετεῖν ἐκεῖνον ὡς αὐτὸς ἀπαθὴς ὢν 5 ὑπʼ ὀργῆς καὶ ἀναμάρτητος. ἐνδύεται γὰρ ἠθικῶς τὰ τοιαῦτα, καὶ μᾶλλον εἴκουσι τοῖς ὁμοιοπαθεῖν ἀλλὰ μὴ περιφρονεῖν δοκοῦσιν. ἐπεὶ δʼ οὔτε φῶς λαμπρὸν ὄμματι φλεγμαίνοντι προσοιστέον, οὔτʼ ἐμπαθὴς ψυχὴ παρρησίαν ἀναδέχεται καὶ νουθεσίαν 10 72c ἄκρατον, ἐν τοῖς χρησιμωτάτοις ἐστὶ τῶν βοηθημάτων ὁ παραμιγνύμενος ἐλαφρὸς ἔπαινος, ὥσπερ ἐν τούτοις

ὑμεῖς δʼ οὐκέτι καλὰ μεθίετε θούριδος ἀλκῆς

πάντες ἄριστοι ἐόντες ἀνὰ στρατόν. οὐδʼ ἂν ἔγωγε 15

ἀνδρὶ μαχεσσαίμην ὅστις πολέμοιο μεθείη

λυγρὸς ἐών· ὑμῖν δὲ νεμεσσῶμαι περὶ κῆρι

καὶ

Πάνδαρε, ποῦ τοι τόξον ἰδὲ πτερόεντες ὀιστοὶ

καὶ κλέος, ᾧ οὔ τίς τοι ἐρίζεται ἐνθάδε γʼ ἀνήρ;

20 σφόδρα δʼ ἐμφανῶς ἀνακαλεῖται καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα τοὺς ὑποφερομένους

ὁ δʼ Οἰδίπους ποῦ καὶ τὰ κλείνʼ αἰνίγματα;

⁴

καὶ

ὁ πολλὰ δὴ τλὰς Ἡρακλῆς λέγει τάδε;

⁵

25 72d οὐ γὰρ μόνον ἀνίησι τοῦ ψόγου τὸ τραχὺ καὶ κολαστικόν,⁶ ἀλλὰ καὶ ζῆλον ἐμποιεῖ πρὸς ἑαυτὸν αἰδουμένῳ τὰ αἰσχρὰ τῇ τῶν καλῶν ὑπομνήσει καὶ παράδειγμα ποιουμένῳ τῶν βελτιόνων ἑαυτόν. ὅταν δʼ ἑτέρους οἷον ἥλικας ἢ πολίτας ἢ συγγενεῖς παραβάλλωμεν, ἄχθεται καὶ διαγριαίνεται τὸ φιλόνεικον τῆς κακίας, καὶ τοῦτο πολλάκις εἴωθεν ὑποφωνεῖν 5 μετʼ ὀργῆς τί οὖν οὐκ ἄπει πρὸς τοὺς ἐμοῦ κρείττονας, ἐμοὶ δὲ μὴ παρέχεις πράγματα; φυλακτέον οὖν ἑτέρους⁷ ἐπαινεῖν παρρησιαζόμενον πρὸς ἑτέρους, ἂν μὴ νὴ Δία γονεῖς ὦσιν. ὡς Ἀγαμέμνων 72e

ἦ ὀλίγον οἱ παῖδα ἐοικότα γείνατο Τυδεύς,

⁸

10 καὶ ὁ ἐν τοῖς Σκυρίοις Ὀδυσσεὺς

σὺ δʼ, ὦ τὸ λαμπρὸν φῶς καταισχύνων γένους,

ξαίνεις, ἀρίστου πατρὸς Ἑλλήνων γεγώς;

⁹

Translations (1)

How to Know a Flatterer from a Friend Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. II. Goodwin, William W., editor; Tullie, George, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874.) — 33 focus

[33] But because several accidental emergencies in conversation will now and then invite a man, though bad enough himself, to correct others, the most dexterous way of doing it will be to involve ourselves in the same guilt with those we reprehend; as in this passage of Homer,

Fie, what’s the matter, Diomede, that we

Have now forgot our former gallantry?

and in this other,

We are not worth one single Hector all.¹

Thus Socrates would handsomely twit the young men with their ignorance by professing his own, pretending for his part he had need with them to study morality and make more accurate enquiries into the truth of things. For a confession of the same guilt, and a seeming endeavor to reform ourselves as well as our friends, gives credit to the reprimand and recommends it to their affections. But he who gravely magnifies himself, whilst he imperiously detracts from others, as being a man forsooth of no imperfections, unless his age or a celebrated reputation indeed commands our attention, is only impertinent and troublesome to no purpose. And therefore it was not without reason that Phoenix, checking Achilles for his intemperate anger, confessed his own unhappiness in that particular, how he had like once to have slain his own father through a transport of passion had not the scandalous name of parricide held his hands;² that the hero might not imagine he took that liberty with him because he had never offended in the like kind himself. For such inoffensive reproofs leave a deeper impress behind them, when they seem the result of sympathy rather than contempt.

But because a mind subject to the disorders of passion, like an inflamed eye that cannot bear a great and glaring light, is impatient of a rebuke, without some temperament to qualify and allay its poignancy, therefore the best remedy in this case will be to dash it with a little praise, as in the following:

Think, and subdue! on dastards dead to fame

I waste no anger, for they feel no shame;

But you, the pride, the flower of all our host,

My heart weeps blood to see your glory lost!

Where, Pandarus, are all thy honors now,

Thy winged arrows and unerring bow,

Thy matchless skill, thy yet unrivall’d fame,

And boasted glory of the Lycian name!

And such rebukes as these are also most effectual in reclaiming those that are ready to fall into gross enormities:

O where are Oedipus and all his riddles now?

and

Is this the speech of daring Hercules?⁴

For a mixture of both together not only abates and takes off from that roughness and command which a blunt reprehension seems to carry along with it, but raises in a man a generous emulation of himself, whilst the remembrance of his past virtues shames him out of his present vices and makes him propose his former actions for his future example. But if you compare him with other men, as with his fellow-citizens, his contemporaries, or relations, then vice, which loves to dispute the victory, renders him uneasy and impatient under the comparison, and will be apt to make him grumble, and in an huff bid you be gone then to his betters and not trouble him any longer. And therefore we ought not to fall upon other men’s commendations before him whom we take the liberty to rebuke, unless indeed they be his parents; as Agamemnon in Homer,—;

Ah! how unlike his sire is Tydeus’ son!⁵

and Ulysses in the tragedy called the Scyrians, speaking to Achilles,—;

Dost thou, who sprang from a brave Grecian race

By spinning thy great ancestors disgrace?

Notes on the current edition

How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend

1. Homer, Il. xi. 313; quoted with additional lines, supra, 30 E.

2. Ibid. viii. 234.

3. Ibid. ix. 461. See the note on 26 F, supra.

4. Homer, Il. xiii. 116.

5. Ibid. v. 171.

6. Euripides, Phoenissae, 1688.

7. Euripides, Hercules Furens, 1250.

8. Homer, Il. v. 800.

9. From an unknown poet; Nauck; Trag. Graec. Frag., Adesp. No. 9; quoted with variant reading, supra, 34 D.

Plutarch Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur 33

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

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