But let it be granted to us
to use the words indiscriminately, following indeed the example of
Homer. For he said,

"Modesty does both harm and good to men;"[641]

and he did well to mention the harm it does first. For it becomes
advantageous only through reason's curtailing its excess, and reducing
it to moderate proportions.

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 n