THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER and in this way pass it on. So you, to do me honour (although I am of little worth), have put me in company with such worthy and excellent cavaliers, that by virtue of their merit I shall per- haps pass as good.' Then messer Camillo replied: 'Those who forge ducats are wont to gild them so well that they seem to the eye much finer than the good ones; so, if there were forgers of men as there are of ducats, we should have reason to suspect that you were false, being as you are of far finer and brighter metal than any of the rest.' " You see that this situation gave opportunity for both kinds of witticism; and so do many others, of which countless in- stances could be given and especially in serious sayings. Like the one uttered by the Great Captain, who, being seated at table and all the places being already taken, saw that there remained standing two Italian cavaliers who had served very gallantly in the war; and he at once rose himself and caused all the others to rise and make room for these two, saying: 'Allow these cavaliers to sit at their meat, for had it not been for them, the rest of us should now have no meat to eat.' Another time he said to Diego Garzia,'"' who was urging him to retire from a dangerous position where the cannon shot were falling: 'Since God hath put no fear in your heart, do not try to put any in mine.' "And King Louis,"^ who is to-day king of France, being told soon after his accession that then was the time to punish his enemies who had so grievously wronged him while he was Duke of Orleans, replied that it was not seemly for the King of France to avenge the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans. 66.—" Taunts are also often humourously uttered with a grave air and without exciting laughter. As when Djem Othman,"*' brother to the Grand Turk,""' being a captive at Rome, said that jousting as we practise it in Italy seemed to him too great a matter for play and too paltry for earnest. And on being told how agile and active King Ferdinand the Younger was in run- ning, leaping, vaulting, and the like, — he said that in his coun- try slaves practised these exercises, while gentlemen studied the liberal arts from boyhood, and prided themselves thereon. "Almost of the same kind, too, but somewhat more laugh- 141
