"Is't not enough that I'm in fight deficient?"[794]

But Epeus is perhaps a ridiculous instance, excusing his bragging as an
athlete by his confession of timidity and want of manliness. But
agreeable and graceful is that man who mentions his own forgetfulness,
or ignorance, or ambition, or eager desire for knowledge and
conversation. Thus Odysseus of the Sirens,

"My heart to listen to them did incline,
I bade my comrades by a nod to unloose me."[795]

And again of the Cyclops,

"I did not hearken (it had been far better),
I wished to see the Cyclops, and to taste
His hospitality."[796]

And generally speaking the admixture with praise of such faults as are
not altogether base and ignoble stops envy. Thus many have blunted the
point of envy by admitting and introducing, when they have been praised,
their past poverty and straits, aye, and their low origin. So Agathocles
pledging his young men in golden cups beautifully chased, ordered some
earthenware pots to be brought in, and said, "See the fruits of
perseverance, labour, and bravery! Once I produced pots like these, but
now golden cups." For Agathocles it seems was so low-born and poor that
he was brought up in a potter's shop, though afterwards he was king of
almost all Sicily.

Sec. XIV. These are external remedies against self-praise. There are other
internal ones as it were, such as Cato applied, when he said "he was
envied, because he had to neglect his own affairs, and lie awake every
night for the interests of his country." Compare also the following
lines,

"How should I boast? who could with ease have been
Enrolled among the many in the army,
And had a fortune equal to the wisest;"[797]

and,

"I shrink from squandering past labours' grace,
Nor do I now reject all present toil."[797]

For as it is with house and farm, so also is it with glory and
reputation, people for the most part envy those who have got them easily
or for nothing, not those who have bought them at the cost of much toil
and danger.

Sec. XV. Since then we can praise ourselves not only without causing pain
or envy but even usefully and advantageously, let us consider, that we
may not seem to have only that end in view but some other also, if we
might praise ourselves to excite in our hearers emulation and ambition.
For Nestor, by reciting his battles and acts of prowess, stirred up
Patroclus and nine others to single combat with Hector. For the
e