alleging the pleasantness of his humor as the cause of his favor at
court.
Thus you shall meet with several smart and satirical reflections in a
comedy; but the mixture of jest and fool in the play, like ill sauce to
good meat, abates their poignancy and renders them insignificant; so
that, upon the whole, the poet acquires only the character of a saucy
and foul-mouthed buffoon, and the auditors lose that advantage which
they might otherwise reap from remarks of that nature.
We may do well therefore to reserve our jollity and mirth for more
suitable occasions, but we must by all means be serious and candid in
our admonitions; which, if they be upon important points, must be so
animated with our gestures, passion, and eagerness of voice, as to give
them weight and credit and so awaken a tender concern in the persons to
whom they are addressed.
We are again to time our reproofs as seasonably as we can; for a
mistake in the opportunities, as it is of ill consequence in all
other things, is so peculiarly in our reprehensions. And therefore, I
presume, it is manifest, we ought not to fall foul upon men in their
drink. For first, he who broaches any sour disagreeable discourse
amidst the pleasantry and good humor of friends casts a cloud over the
serenity of the company, and acts counter to the God Lysius,[120] who,
as Pindar words it, unties the band of all our cares. Besides, such
unseasonable remonstrances are not without danger; for wine is apt to
warm men into passion, and make them quarrel at the freedom you take.
And in short, it is no argument of any brave and generous, but rather
of an unmanly temper, not to dare to speak one’s sense when men are
sober, but to keep barking like a cowardly cur at table. And therefore
we need not enlarge any further upon this topic.
28. But because several persons neither will nor dare take their
friends to task whilst they thrive and flourish in the world, looking
upon prosperity as a state above the reach of a rebuke, but pour forth
their invectives like a river that has overflown its banks, insulting
and trampling upon them, when Fortune has already laid them at their
feet, out of a sort of satisfaction to see their former state and
grandeur reduced to the same level of fortune with themselves; it may
not be improper to discourse a little upon this argument, and make some
reply to that question of Euripides,—