Πῶς ἄν τις διακρίνειε τὸν κόλακα τοῦ φίλου

Lines

1 – 1 2 – 2 3 – 4 4 – 4 5 – 5 5 – 5 6 – 7 7 – 7 8 – 8 9 – 9 9 – 9 10 – 10 11 – 11 11 – 11 12 – 12 13 – 13 14 – 14 15 – 15 15 – 15 16 – 16 17 – 17 17 – 17 17 – 17 18 – 18 19 – 19 19 – 19 20 – 20 20 – 21 21 – 22 22 – 22 22 – 22 22 – 22 23 – 23 24 – 24 25 – 25 25 – 25 26 – 26 27 – 27 27 – 27 28 – 28 28 – 28 29 – 30 30 – 30 31 – 31 32 – 32 32 – 32 32 – 32 33 – 33 33 – 33 34 – 34 35 – 35 36 – 36 36 – 36 36 – 36 36 – 37

İngilizce İngilizce Yunanca

9 But there are others who refine upon the former by a pretended fellow-suffering in the more private concernments of life, whereby they wriggle themselves deeper into the affections of those they flatter; as, if they find a man unhappily married, or distrustful of his children or domestics, they spare not their own family, but immediately entertain you with some lamentable story of the hard fortune they have met with in their children, their wife, their servants, or relations. For, by the parallel circumstances they pretend to, they seem more passionately concerned for the misfortunes of their friends, who, as if they had already received some pawn and assurance of their fidelity, blab forth those secrets which they cannot afterwards handsomely retract, and dare not betray the least distrust of their new confidant for the future. I myself knew a man who turned his wife out of doors because a gentleman of his acquaintance divorced his, though the latter lady smelt the intrigue afterwards by the messages the flatterer sent to his wife after the pretended divorce and the private visits he was observed to make her. So little did he understand the flatterer who took these following verses for the description of a crab rather than his:—; The shapeless thing’s all over paunch and gut: Who can the monster’s mighty hunger glut? It crawls on teeth, and with a watchful eye Does into every secret corner pry. For this is the true portraiture of those sharpers, who, as Eupolis speaks, sponge upon their acquaintance for a dinner.