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Sec. III. In the first place, then, the person who is afflicted with shyness ought to be persuaded that he suffers from an injurious disease, and that nothing injurious can be good: nor must he be wheedled and tickled with the praise of being called a nice and jolly fellow rather than being styled lofty and dignified and just; nor, like Pegasus in Euripides, “who stooped and crouched lower than he wished”[642] to take up his rider Bellerophon, must he humble himself and grant whatever favours are asked him, fearing to be called hard and ungentle. They say that the Egyptian Bocchoris, who was by nature very severe, had an asp sent him by Isis, which coiled round his head, and shaded him from above, that he might judge righteously. Bashfulness on the contrary, like a dead weight on languid and effeminate persons, not daring to refuse or contradict anybody, makes jurors deliver unjust verdicts, and shuts the mouth of counsellors, and makes people say and do many things against their wish; and so the most headstrong person is always master and lord of such, through his own impudence prevailing against their modesty. So bashfulness, like soft and sloping ground, being unable to repel or avert any attack, lies open to the most shameful acts and passions. It is a bad guardian of youth, as Brutus said he didn’t think that person had spent his youth well who had not learnt how to say No. It is a bad duenna of the bridal bed and of women’s apartments, as the penitent adultress in Sophocles said to her seducer,

“You did persuade, and coax me into sin.”[643]

Thus shyness, being first seduced by vice,[644] leaves its citadel unbarred, unfortified, and open to attack. By gifts people ensnare the worse natures, but by persuasion and playing upon their bashfulness people often seduce even good women. I pass over the injury done to worldly affairs by bashfulness causing people to lend to those whose credit is doubtful, and to go security against their wish, for though they commend that saying, “Be a surety, trouble is at hand,”[645] they cannot apply it when business is on hand.

Sec. IV. It would not be easy to enumerate how many this vice has ruined. When Creon said to Medea, [bb]!!!! “Lady, ’tis better now to earn your hate, Than through my softness afterwards to groan,”[646] [bb] he uttered a pregnant maxim for others; for he himself was overcome by his bashfulness, and granted her one day more, and so was the undoing of his family. And some, when they suspected murder or poison, have failed through it to take precautions for their safety. Thus perished Dion, not ignorant that Callippus was plotting against him, but ashamed to be on his guard against a friend and host. So Antipater, the son of Cassander, having invited Demetrius to supper, and being invited back by him for the next day, was ashamed to doubt another as he had been trusted himself, and went, and got his throat cut after supper. And Polysperchon promised Cassander for a hundred talents to murder Hercules, the son of Alexander by Barsine, and invited him to supper, and, as the stripling suspected and feared the invitation, and pleaded as an excuse that he was not very well, Polysperchon called on him, and addressed him as follows, “Imitate, my lad, your father’s good-nature and kindness to his friends, unless indeed you fear us as plotting against you.” The young man was ashamed to refuse any longer, so he went with him, and some of those at the supper-party strangled him. And so that line of Hesiod,[647]

“Invite your friend to supper, not your enemy,”

is not ridiculous, as some say, or stupid advice, but wise. Show no bashfulness in regard to an enemy, and do not suppose him trustworthy, though he may seem so.[648] For if you invite you will be invited back, and if you entertain others you will be entertained back to your hurt, if you let the temper as it were of your caution be weakened by shame.