Chapter 29: Of Shame — The Particular Affection of Fear, Its Ground and Kinds
Besides this general consideration of the passion of fear, there is one particular thereof, which calls for some little observation; namely, shame, which is a fear of just disgrace, and reproof in the minds of those, whose good opinion we do or ought to value, as he said in the Poet, [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩].
Now those whom we thus fear, are wise men, (for so Polydamas is said to look behind and before him.) Aged men, and all whose presence we reverence as parents, rulers, counselors, friends: any whom we ourselves admire, or who admire us. We fear disgrace with those whom we admire, because their judgment of us, is in our own apprehension, a kind of touchstone, which if we cannot suffer the trial of, argues us to be but corrupt and uncurrant metal. And we fear it with those who admire us, because as every man is willing to see his face when it is clean, in that glass which represents it fairest: so when it is foul, of all others he shuns that most. In the former case we are in danger to miss of what we desired; in the other, we are in danger to shipwreck what we before enjoyed.
We are apt to be ashamed with our friends, because their opinion we value, and with our enemies, because theirs we fear; with our friends, because they are grieved; with our enemies, because they are delighted with that which shames us.
Again we fear in this regard, rigid and severe men, who are not ready to forgive, nor to put candid and charitable constructions upon what we do. Therefore when [reconstructed: Cato] was present (who was [reconstructed: vi rigida] Innocentia, a stern and severe censor of the manners of men) none durst call for the obscene spectacles of their Floralia, being more awed by the authority of the man, than allured by the pleasure of the plays.
Likewise busy and garrulous men, because they enquire into our crimes, and having disclosed, do divulge them. For which cause we fear in this case the multitude, because an ill name is like an ill face, the broader it is drawn, and the more light it has about it, it appears the more deformed. As a little gold beaten into thin leaves: a little water drawn into a thin stream and vapor, seems wider than it was at first: so even lesser crimes being multiplied through the mouths of many, do grow into a spreading cloud, and obscure a man's name. For he is presumed to be void either of wisdom or modesty, that does not fear many eyes. We fear innocent and virtuous men, their presence awes us from liberty of sinning, and makes us blush if they catch us in it, because examples have a proportionable authority over the heart of man, as laws have, which we do not trespass without fear. And therefore the philosopher advises to live always so, as if some grave, and serious and severe person were ever before us, to behave ourselves sub Custode, and Paedagoge, as under the eye of a keeper, because such a man's conversation will either regulate ours, or disgrace it. Vicious men do the less fear one another, by how much they stand in need of mutual pardon, as we find Stertorius (if I forget not) giving those soldiers of the enemy's army their lives, who had but one eye, he being himself [reconstructed: Monophthalmos].
Again we fear envious and malevolent persons, because such look upon our actions with prejudice; and as [reconstructed: Momus] when he could not find fault with the face in the picture of Venus, picked a quarrel at her slipper: so these men will ever have something either in substance or circumstances of our actions, to misreport and expose to scandal.
Lastly we fear those in this respect, whose company we shall most be used to; because that leaves us not time wherein to forget our errors, or to fortify ourselves against them. It makes a man live ever under the sense of his guilt. In which respect [reconstructed: Cato major] was wont to say, that a man should most of all reverence himself, because he is ever in his own sight and company.
The fundamental ground of this affection, is any evil that has either guilt, or any kind of turpitude in it, or any signs and suspicions thereof, reflecting either on ourselves, or any of ours, whose reputation we are tender of. And thus the Apostle tells us, that all sin is the matter of shame, when it is revived with a right judgment. What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed. That which has emptiness in the beginning, and death in the end, must needs have shame in the middle. But though all sin with respect to God's eye and judgment does cause shame yet in the eye of men, those cause it most which have any notable and more odious turpitude adhering to them. As either obscene or deceitful, and dishonest actions when they are detected, forging of deeds, defacing records, counterfeiting of names or seals, suborning of witnesses, making use of ingenious professions, as cloaks to palliate, and instruments to provoke abusive and illiberal practices.
Such are all kinds of sordid actions or behaviors, as gain raised out of despicable commodities, (as [reconstructed: Vespasian] set a vectigal or excise upon urine) and the philosopher tells us of some that made a gain of the dead. Such are also the livings which by sordid ministers, panders, bawds, courtesans, parasites, jugglers, delators, cheaters, sharks, and shifting companions make to themselves, such the [reconstructed: poets' misers].
— Populus me sibilat at mihi plaudo Ipse do, si mul ac nummos contemplor in arcâ.
The people hiss me all abroad, but I at home myself applaud. When in my coffers I behold, that which none hiss at, heaps of gold.
Many particular causes there are which are apt to excite this affection, some of which I shall briefly name as.
First sloth, and shrinking from such labor, which those that are better, older, weaker, more delicate than ourselves do willingly undergo. Thus Menelaus in the Poet seeing the Grecians as fearful to undertake a single combat with Hector, as they were ashamed to deny it, did thus upbraid their cowardice.
[⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩].
What Grecian soldiers turned to Grecian dames? That can digest so great, so many shames? What not a man of Greece (O foul disgrace) dare meet or look proud Hector in the face? Well, sit you down inglorious, heartless men, turned to your first water and earth: yet then: I'll take up arms; for Victory's last end, does not on our, but divine will depend.
In like manner Hector rebukes the baseness of Paris in fleeing from Menelaus.
[⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩].
Trim warrior, tell me what your lute can do, what Venus' graces, comely hair, sweet hue, when you shall wallow in the dust? You're far fitter to wear stone-coat, than coat of war.
Again, anything which argues pusillanimity or littleness of mind is a just ground of shame, as to recount courtesies and upbraid them, and therefore he said in Seneca, Non tanti est vixisse. That his life was less worth, than to be so valued to him, in daily exprobrations, and that his blood with less trouble to him might have been let out at his veins, than to be every day disordered, and called up into his face. To receive continual gifts, and be ever craving from our inferiors, burdensome to those who can less bear it.
Here refer all light, ludicrous and ridiculous behavior, wherein if a grave or serious man be discovered, it renders him suspected of a mind that can flag and lessen, and therefore Agesilaus being so taken playing with his child made his apology for it, and desired his friend not to think light of him, till he had children of his own, for love will teach greatness of mind to descend.
Also all sordid arts of flattery, which praises, imitates, creeps, changes, complies, transforms itself to all shapes to get a living, and like crows pulls out men's eyes, with praises that it may after more securely make a prey of them, [reconstructed: Foedum] crimen servitutis, as the historian well calls it, a servile and filthy crime.
Anything which argues vanity, and windiness of mind, as arrogance, and vainglorious ostentation, ascribing to ourselves things which belong not to us, intruding into the [reconstructed: laurels and] achievements of other men, as he who called all the ships in the harbor at Athens his own. Labore alien[reconstructed: o] magnam partam gloriam verbis sape in se trans[reconstructed: fert]. To which belong absurd, and unusual affectations in words or fashions, mimical and fantastical gesticulations, frothy and superficial compliments, strange and exotic habits, which are usually the scum of light, and unsettled minds, and ever expose them to contempt. In so much that Alexander himself escaped not the imputation of lenity, when he followed the fashions of those countries which he had subdued.
Misfortune and decay in the outward ornaments of life, for it is not in men's fortunes, as in their monuments wherein ruin does many times conciliate reverence.
Nil habet Infelix Paupertas durius inse Quam quod ridiculos homines facit—
Unhappy poverty has nothing worse, than that it makes men ridiculous.
And therefore men of sunk and broken estates are ashamed to live there, where they have been formerly in credit and estimation, as Hecuba complaining in the tragedy.
[〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]
In this my broken and dejected case, pardon me, if I shame to show my face. To Polymestor, whose eyes once have seen me, a now spoiled captive, then a queen.
Again, ignorance and ineptitude in our own proper functions and miscarriage in our own arts and professions, is an exprobration, either of indiligence, or of weakness. As want of proficiency in a student, of elocution in an orator, of military wisdom in a soldier, etc. And therefore a physician will seldom stay to see his patient buried, he usually departs before the sick man, because funerals are Convicia Medicorum. Yet all ignorance is not matter of disgrace, for some things there are below the inquiry, or studies of some men. And therefore though Tully tells us that when Themistocles declined the lute he was esteemed more ignorant than became a person of quality, yet it was a brave apology which he made for himself, that though he knew not to handle a lute, yet he knew to conquer a city. And [reconstructed: Gelo] when others after a feast sang to an instrument, called for his great horse, and did excellently manage that. And as it was a cautious answer which Favorinus gave touching Adrian the Emperor, who had censured him in his own profession of grammar, that he durst not be more learned than he who commanded thirty legions; so it was a truer answer which another artificer gave in the like case to a prince. God forbid sir that you should know things of so mean a quality, better than I who owe my subsistence to them.
And as ignorance in our own, so intrusion and usurpation of other men's offices, is a ground of shame, especially if they be such as wherein we descend below the dignity of our places or professions, as when men of liberal condition apply themselves to the business of sordid persons. For every man is entrusted with the dignity of his place, he is to be not only the possessor, but the protector of it, which when he betrays, it does justly revenge itself upon him with contempt and disgrace.
Again, any notorious external deformities, and [reconstructed: dehonestamenta corporis], especially if there be anything of our own, either guilt or servility in them. The Greeks taking notice of the ill shape and worse conditions of [reconstructed: Thersites], are said to look on him with derision and laughter, than when they had other occasions of sadness. And when Ulysses' companions were by Circe transformed into shape of swine, they wept and were ashamed of their own deformities. And the poet describes [reconstructed: Deiphobus] whom Menelaus had dismembered,
—Pavitantem & dira tegentem Supplicia.
Afraid of being known, careful to hide his mangled wounds, that they might not be spied.
And we find how careful men were to cover any of these notes and prints of infamy, or servility, which persons either extremely vicious, or in bondage were marked withal, for infamous or servile persons were wont so to be branded.
Many times greatness of mind is a cause of shame, either for something which such a man suffers in himself, or in those that are near to him, such was that of the Romans, Ad [reconstructed: Furcas] Caudinas, of which the historian gives this observation.
Their obstinate silence, eyes fastened to the earth, ears refusing all comfort, faces ashamed to behold the light, were certain evidences of a mind deeply resolved upon revenge. And of Maximinus, of whom the historian tells us, that out of a desire to conceal his ignoble birth, he slew all, even the best of his friends, which were conscious to it. So poverty meeting with pride does often suffer conflicts with this passion of shame, when penury denies that which luxury and pride demands.
—Quid enim majore Cachi[reconstructed: nno]. Excipitur vulgi quam pauper Apicius?
Who without much derision can endure, to see a beggar a proud epicure?
Again, acquaintance and intimacy with infamous persons is noted by the philosopher among the grounds of shame, and therefore it was upbraided to Plato that Calippus, the murderer of his host had been bred in his school. And to Socrates, that he was resorted to by Alcibiades, a factious and turbulent citizen, and to Themistocles that he held correspondence, and intelligence with Pausanias a traitor; and we find how fatal the favor of [illegible] after his fall, was to many of his friends, that no wonder if every man not only out of indignation, but out of fear too cried out.
—Nunquam si quid mihi credis amavi Hunc hominem.
Such being the impotent and immoderate passions of many men to trample on the [reconstructed: same] persons in their calamity, whom in their [reconstructed: greatness] they almost adored, as he said,
[illegible]
When the Oak is fallen that stood, then every man will gather wood.
Lastly, not only things shameful to themselves, but such as are signs, and intimations of them do usually beget this affection. As Aeschinus in the Comedian, blushed when he saw his father knock at the door of an infamous woman, because it was a token of a vicious intention. And therefore Caesar was wont to say, that he would have those that belonged to him free, as well from suspicion, as from crime, for we shall never find that a man who is tender of his conscience will be prodigal of his credit, and he who is truly fearful of incurring censure from himself by the guilt of a crime, will in some proportion be fearful of incurring censure from others by the show and suspicion of it; for as a good conscience is a feast to give a man a cheerful heart; so a good name is an ointment to give him a cheerful countenance.
There is a twofold shame. The one virtuous, as Diogenes was wont to say, that blushing was the color of virtue. The other vicious, and that either out of cruelty, as Tacitus and Seneca observe of Domitian, that he was never more to be feared than when he blushed. Or else out of cowardice, when a man has not strength enough of countenance to out-face and withstand a vicious solicitation, as it was said of the men of Asia, that they had out of tenderness of face, exposed themselves to much inconvenience, because they could not pronounce that one syllable, No. It was a better resolution, that of Zenophanes, who being provoked to some vicious practice, confessed himself a coward at such a challenge, as not daring to do dishonestly.
I will conclude this matter with that excellent similitude with which Plutarch begins it, in that golden book of his touching the same argument. That as thistles, though noxious things in themselves, are usually signs of an excellent ground wherein they grow, so shamefacedness though many times a weakness, and betrayer of the mind, is yet generally an argument of a soul, ingenuously and virtuously disposed.
