The wise discover in wise books
What course is wise and right,
And wise books in the course that is
Not violent, delight.
"Therefore a counselor should under no circumstances advise his master to fight. And there is another wise saying:
Where the palace harbors servants
Kindly, modest, pure,
Death to enemies, and deaf to
Avarice's lure,
Foes may struggle, but the royal
Honor is secure.
Therefore
Speak the truth, though harsh it be:
Blarney is true enmity.
And again:
Where royal servants, asked or not,
Indulge in pleasant lies
That lead the royal mind astray,
The royal glory dies.
"Furthermore, counselors should be consulted severally by the master, who should thereupon make his own decision concerning the advice given by each, as tending to the king's loss or profit. For it happens at times that even an established fact seems otherwise to a wandering judgment. As the proverb says:
The firefly seems a fire, the sky looks flat;
Yet sky and fly are neither this nor that.
