We turn virtues themselves upside down in our desire
To foul a spotless jar: the decent man who lives here
Among us, who’s an utterly humble soul, we call him
Slow-witted, thick-headed. Another who flees all deceit
And who never offers a single loophole to malice,
Though we live among the kind of people, where Envy
Is keen and accusations flourish: instead of noting his
Common sense and caution, we call him false and sly.
Of one who’s unsophisticated, as I’ve often shown
Myself to be with you, Maecenas, interrupting you
Perhaps, while reading or thinking, with tiresome chatter:
We say: ‘He quite lacks the social graces.’ Ah, how
Casually we enact these laws against ourselves!
No man alive is free of faults: the best of us is him
Who’s burdened with the least. If he desires my love,
My gentle friend must, in all fairness, weigh my virtues
With my faults, and incline to the more numerous,
Assuming that is my virtues are the more numerous.
And by that rule I’ll weigh him in the same scale.
If you really expect a friend not to be offended
By your boils, pardon him his warts: it’s only fair
That he forgives who asks forgiveness for his faults.