Let it stay there! I
have no desire to dislodge it, but rather wish that it tarry with
its lord until he feel some pity for it. For rather over there
than here ought he to have mercy on his servant, because they are
both in a foreign land. If my heart knows well the language of
flattery, as is necessary for the courtier, it will be rich ere
it comes back. Whoever wishes to stand in the good graces of his
lord and sit beside him on his right, to be in the fashion now-a-
days, must remove the feather from his head, even when there
is none there. But there is one bad feature of this practice:
while he is smoothing down his master, who is filled with evil
and villainy, he will never be so courteous as to tell him the
truth; rather he makes him think and believe that no one could
compare with him in prowess and in knowledge, and the master
thinks that he is speaking the truth. That man does not know
himself who takes another's word about qualities which he does
not possess. For even if he is a wicked and insolent wretch, and
as cowardly as a hare, mean, crazy, and misshapen, and a villain
both in word and deed--yet some man will praise him to his face
who behind his back will mock at him. But when in his hearing he
speaks of him to some other, he praises him, while his lord
pretends not to hear what they say between themselves; if,
however, he thought that he would not be heard, he would say
something his master would not like.
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