So this vice, happening upon a disposition inclinable to debauchery,
prepares and opens the way, and leaves all things easy and accessible
to such as are ready to prefer their wicked designs. Presents and
treats are irresistible baits for common mercenary creatures; but
importunity, befriended with bashfulness on their side, has sometimes
undone the modestest women. I omit what inconveniences this kind of
modesty occasions, when it obliges men to lend their money to such
whose credit is blown upon in the world, or to give bail for those they
dare not trust; we do this, it is true, with an ill-will, and in our
heart reflect upon that old saying, Be bail, and pay for it, yet cannot
make use of it in our practice.
4. How many this fault has ruined, it is no easy thing to recount.
Creon in the play gave a very good lesson for others to follow, when he
told Medea,—
’Tis better now to brave thy direst hate,
Than curse a foolish easiness too late.[33]
Yet afterwards, being wrought upon through his bashfulness to grant
her but one day longer, he ruined himself and family by it. For the
same reason, some, suspecting designs against them of murder or
poisoning, have neglected to provide for their safety. Thus Dion could
not be ignorant of the treachery of Callippus, yet thought it unfit
to entertain such thoughts of his pretended friend and guest, and so
perished. So again, Antipater, the son of Cassander, having entertained
Demetrius at supper, and being engaged by him for the next night,
because he was unwilling to distrust one who had trusted him, went, and
had his throat cut after supper. Polysperchon had promised Cassander
for an hundred talents to murder Hercules, the son of Alexander by
Barsine. Upon this he invites him to sup; but the young man, having
some suspicion of the thing, pretends himself indisposed. Polysperchon
coming to him said: Sir, above all things endeavor after your father’s
courteous behavior and obliging way to his friends, unless haply you
look on us with suspicion as if we were compassing your health. The
young man out of mere modesty was prevailed upon to go, and was
strangled as he sat at meat. It is not therefore (as some will have us
believe) insignificant or ridiculous, but on the contrary very wise
advice, which Hesiod gives,—