When we consider our own faults, we accidentally blind
Our eyes with a smear of ointment, but viewing our friends’
We’re as keen-eyed as eagles or Epidaurian snakes.
The result is that they gaze just as keenly at ours.
That man’s a bit hot-tempered, not acceptable
To today’s sensitive folks: another makes you smile
With his rustic haircut, his sloppy toga, loose sandals
That barely stay on his feet: and yet he’s a good man,
None better, and your friend, and great gifts lie hidden
Beneath that form. In short, give yourself a good shaking
And consider whether it’s nature or perhaps a bad habit
That long ago sowed the seeds of wickedness in you:
For the bracken we burn springs up in neglected fields.
Think of the case of a lover in all his blindness
Who fails to see his darling’s ugly blemishes,
Or is even charmed, like Balbinus with Hagne’s mole.
I wished we erred in the same way with our friends,
And morality gave such errors a decent name.
We should behave to a friend as father to son
And not be disgusted by some fault. If a boy squints
His father names him Paetus: Pullus if he’s puny
Like that dwarf who used to exist called Sisyphus:
Varus if he has crooked legs: or if he can barely stand
On twisted ankles gives him the cognomen Scaurus.
Well then let’s call a friend who’s mean, ‘thrifty’. Another
Who’s tactless and boasts a bit: he just wants his friends
To think him ‘sociable’. or perhaps the man’s more fierce
And outspoken: let’s have it he’s ‘frank’ and fearless.
He’s a hothead? We’ll just count him one of the ‘eager’.
This it is that unites friends, and then keeps them united.