whores and flatterers, but being vexed and disgusted at the importunity
that has upset and forced our reason. For the line

"I know that what I'm going to do is bad,"[666]

is especially applicable to people that importune us, when one is going
to perjure oneself, or deliver an unjust verdict, or vote for a measure
that is inexpedient, or borrow money for someone who will never pay it
back.

Sec. XII. And so repentance follows more closely upon bashfulness than upon
any emotion, and that not afterwards, but in the very act. For we are
vexed with ourselves when we give, and ashamed when we perjure
ourselves, and get ill-fame from our advocacies, and are put to the
blush, when we cannot fulfil our promises. For frequently, from
inability to say No, we promise impossibilities to persevering
applicants, as introductions at court, and audiences with princes, from
reluctance or want of nerve to say, "The king does not know us, others
have his regard far more." But Lysander, when he was out of favour with
Agesilaus, though he was thought to have very great influence with him
owing to his great reputation, was not ashamed to dismiss suitors, and
bid them go and pay their court to others who had more influence with
the king. For not to be able to do everything carries no disgrace with
it, but to undertake and try and force your way to what you are unable
to do, or unqualified by nature for, is in addition to the disgrace
incurred a task full of trouble.

Sec. XIII. To take another element into consideration, all seemly and
modest requests we ought readily to comply with, not bashfully but
heartily, whereas in injurious or unreasonable requests we ought ever to
remember the conduct of Zeno, who, meeting a young man he knew walking
very quietly near a wall, and learning from him that he was trying to
get out of the way of a friend who wanted him to perjure himself on his
behalf, said to him, "O stupid fellow, what do you tell me? Is he not
afraid or ashamed to press you to what is not right? And dare not you
stand up boldly against him for what is right?" For he that said
"villainy is no bad weapon against villainy"[667] taught people the bad
practice of standing on one's defence against vice by imitating it; but
to get rid of those who shamelessly and unblushingly importune us by
their own effrontery, and not to gratify the immodest in their
disgraceful desires through false modesty, is the right and proper
conduct of sens