OF UNSEEMLY AND NAUGHTY BASHFULNESS
THE SUMMARY
[Although it be needless to stand curiously upon the concatenation and coherence of these matters handled by Plutarch, how they be knit and linked together, considering that he penned these discourses of his at sundry times; and both they who have reduced them into one volume, and those also who have translated them out of Greek into other languages, have not all followed one order: yet I think verily that this present treatise, as concerning Naughty Bashfulness, is fitly joined next to the former, as touching the repose and tranquillity of the spirit. For one of the greatest shaking cracks that our soul can receive in her tranquillity is when she secretly and by stealth may be lifted from her seat for to drive a man to those things which may trouble him immediately, and much more afterwards. Now this evil bashfulness hath this vicious and dangerous quality, to know how to seduce and draw us by fair semblant, and nevertheless to trouble and confound after a strange fashion the contentment of our spirits, as appeareth plainly in this little book, which deserveth to be well perused and considered by all sorts of people. Now after he hath shewed what this evil shamefastness is, he declareth that it is no less pernicious and hurtful than impudency; adding, moreover, that we ought to take good heed, lest in avoiding it we fall into contrary extremities, as they do who are envious, shameless, obstinate, idle and dissolute. Then he proceedeth to teach us that the first and principal preservative against this poison is, to hold it for to be most dangerous and deadly, which he doth verify and prove by notable examples. Which done, he describeth particularly and from point to point, the incommodities, perils, and misfortunes that come by naughty bashfulness, applying thereto good and proper remedies, giving withal many sage and wise counsels drawn out of philosophy, tending to this scope and mark; that neither the regard of our friends, kinsfolk, and familiars, nor yet the respect of anything else besides, ought to draw from our thought, our mouth, or hands, anything contrary to the duty of an honest man: which both for the present and also all the rest of our life may leave in our soul the cicatrice or scar of repentance, sorrow, and heaviness. In conclusion, to the end that we should not commit those deeds in haste which afterwards we may repent at leisure; he sheweth that we ought to have before our eyes the hurts and inconveniences caused before by evil bashfulness, that the consideration thereof might keep us from falling into fresh and new faults.]
