Pro imaginibus

POLYSTRATUS This is the lady’s reply: “Lycinus, I have discerned, to be sure, from what you have written that your friendliness and esteem for me is great, for nobody would bestow such high praise if he were not writing in a friendly spirit. But my own attitude, please understand, is this. In general, I do not care for people whose disposition inclines to flattery, but consider such persons deceivers and not at all generous in their natures. Above all, in the matter of compliments, when anyone in praising me employs vulgar and immoderate extravagances I blush and almost stop my ears, and the thing seems to me more like abuse than praise.

For praise is endurable only as long as the person who is being praised recognizes that everything which is said is appropriate to him, Whatever goes beyond that is alien, and outright flattery.

“Yet,” said she, “I know many who like it if, in praising them, one bestows upon them qualities which they do not possess; for example, if they are old, congratulates them upon their youthfulness, or if they are ugly, clothes them in the beauty of a Nireus or a Phaon. They think that their appearance will be transformed by these compliments, and that they will regain their youth afresh, as Pelias thought to do.