Memorabilia

Then can I adapt this plan to the pursuit of friends?Of course you can, if for the hound you substitute an agent who will track and find rich men with an eye for beauty, and will then contrive to chase them into your nets.

Nets! What nets have I got?One, surely, that clips close enough — your body! And inside it you have a soul that teaches you what glance will please, what words delight, and tells you that your business is to give a warm welcome to an eager suitor, but to slam the door upon a coxcomb; yes, and when a friend has fallen sick, to show your anxiety by visiting him; and when he has had a stroke of good fortune, to congratulate him eagerly; and if he is eager in his suit, to put yourself at his service heart and soul. As for loving, you know how to do that, I am sure, both tenderly and truly; and that your friends give you satisfaction, you convince them, I know, not by words but by deeds.Upon my word, said Theodoté, I don’t contrive one of these things.

Nevertheless, he continued, it is very important that your behaviour to a man should be both natural and correct. For assuredly you can neither catch a friend nor keep him by violence;[*](Cyropaedia VIII. vii. 13.) it is kindness and sweetness that catch the creature and hold him fast.True, she said.

First, then, you must ask such favours of your suitors as they will grant without a moment’s hesitation; and next you must repay their favours in the same coin; for in this way they will prove most sincerely your friends, most constant in their affection and most generous.

And they will appreciate your favours most highly if you wait till they ask for them. The sweetest meats, you see, if served before they are wanted, seem sour, and to those who have had enough they are positively nauseating; but even poor fare is very welcome when offered to a hungry man.

And how can I make them hunger for my fare?Why, in the first place, you must not offer it to them when they have had enough, nor prompt them until they have thrown off the surfeit and are beginning to want more; then, when they feel the want, you must prompt them by behaving as a model of propriety, by a show of reluctance to yield, and by holding back until they are as keen as can be; for then the same gifts are much more to the recipient than when they are offered before they are desired.