to retort oneself, as Leo
of Byzantium showed in his answer to the hump-back who jeered at him for
weakness of eyes, "You twit me with an infirmity natural to man, while
you yourself carry your Nemesis on your back."[515] And so do not abuse
another as an adulterer, if you yourself are mad after boys: nor as a
spendthrift, if you yourself are niggardly. Alcmaeon said to Adrastus,
"You are near kinsman to a woman that slew her husband." What was his
reply? He retaliated on him with the appropriate retort, "But you killed
with your own hand the mother that bore you."[516] And Domitius said to
Crassus, "Did you not weep for the lamprey that was bred in your
fishpond, and died?" To which Crassus replied, "Did you weep, when you
buried your three wives?" He therefore that intends to abuse others must
not be witty and noisy and impudent, but a man that does not lie open to
counter-abuse and retort, for the god seems to have enjoined upon no one
the precept "Know thyself" so much as on the person who is censorious,
to prevent people saying just what they please, and hearing what don't
please them. For such a one is wont, as Sophocles[517] says, "idly
letting his tongue flow, to hear against his will, what he willingly
says ill of others."

Sec. VI. This use and advantage then there is in abusing one's enemy, and
no less arises from being abused and ill-spoken of oneself by one's
enemies. And so Antisthenes[518] said well that those who wish to lead a
good life ought to have genuine friends or red-hot enemies; for the
former deterred you from what was wrong by reproof, the latter by abuse.
But since friendship has nowadays become very mealy-mouthed in freedom
of speech, voluble in flattery and silent in rebuke, we can only hear
the truth from our enemies. For as Telephus[519] having no surgeon of
his own, submitted his wound to be cured by his enemy's spear, so those
who cannot procure friendly rebuke must content themselves with the
censure of an enemy that hates them, reprehending and castigating their
vices, and regard not the animus of the person, but only his matter. For
as he who intended to kill the Thessalian Prometheus[520] only stabbed a
tumour, and so lanced it that the man's life was saved, and he was rid
of the tumour by its bursting, so oftentimes abuse, suddenly thrust on a
man in anger or hatred, has cured some disease in his soul which he was
ignorant of or neglected. But most people when they are abused do not