“He will very rarely or almost never ask anything of his lord for himself, lest his lord, being reluctant to deny it to him directly, may sometimes grant it with an ill grace, which is much worse. Even in asking for others he will choose his time discreetly and ask proper and reasonable things; and he will so frame his request, by omitting what he knows may displease and by skilfully doing away with difficulties, that his lord shall always grant it, or shall not think him offended by refusal even if it be denied; for when lords have denied a favour to an importunate suitor, they often reflect that he who asked it with such eagerness, must have desired it greatly, and so having failed to obtain it, must feel ill will towards him who denied it; and believing this, they begin to hate the man and can never more look upon him with favour.
19.—“He will not seek to intrude unasked into his master’s chamber or private retreats, even though he be of great consequence; for when great lords are in private, they often like a little liberty to say and do what they please, and do not wish to be seen or heard by any who may criticise them; and it is very proper. Hence I think those men do ill who blame great lords for consorting privately with persons who are of little worth save in matters of personal service, for I do not see why lords should not have the same freedom to relax their minds that we fain would have to relax ours. But if a Courtier accustomed to deal with important matters, chances to find himself in private with his lord, he must put on another face, postpone grave concerns to another place and time, and give the conversation a cast that shall amuse and please his lord, so as not to disturb that repose of mind of which I speak.
“In this however, as in everything else, let him above all take care not to weary his lord, and let him wait for favours to be offered him rather than angle for them so openly as many do, who are so greedy that it seems as if they must die if they do not get what they seek; and if they happen to meet any disfavour or to see others favoured, they suffer such anguish that they can in no wise hide their envy. Thus they make everyone laugh at them, and often are the cause that leads their master to bestow favour on the first comer simply to spite them. Then again, if they find themselves in at all more than common favour, they become so intoxicated by it that they stand palsied[[162]] with joy, and seem not to know what to do with their hands and feet, and they can hardly keep from calling on the company to come and see and congratulate them as upon something to which they are quite unused.
“Of such sort I would not have our Courtier. I am quite willing that he should like favours, but not that he should value them so highly as to seem unable to do without them. And when he receives them, let him not seem unused or strange to them, or marvel that they are offered him; nor let him refuse them, as some do who refrain from accepting them out of mere ignorance, and thus seem to the bystanders to be conscious of not deserving them.
“Yet a man ought always to be a little more backward than his rank warrants; to accept not too readily the favours and honours that are offered him; and to refuse them modestly, showing that he values them highly, yet in such fashion as to give the donor cause to offer them again with far more urgency. For the greater the reluctance with which they are accepted, the more highly will the prince who gives them think himself esteemed, and the benefit that he bestows will seem the greater, the more the recipient seems to prize it and to hold himself honoured by it. Moreover these are the true and solid favours that make a man esteemed by those who see him from without; for, being unsought, they are assumed by everyone to be the reward of true worth, the more so when they are accompanied by modesty.”
20.—Then messer Cesare Gonzaga said:
“Methinks you have stolen this passage from the Evangelist, where he says: ‘When thou art bidden to a wedding, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say: Friend, go up higher: and thus shalt thou have honour in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.’”[[163]]
Messer Federico laughed, and said:
“It were too great sacrilege to steal from the Evangelist; but you are more learned in Holy Writ than I thought;” then he went on: “You see what great danger those men sometimes run who boldly begin conversation before a lord without being invited; and to put them down, the lord often makes no reply and turns his head another way, and even if he replies to them, everyone sees that he does it with an ill grace.
