“ By gifts people ensnare the worse natures, but by persuasion and playing upon their bashfulness people often seduce even good women. ”
Plutarch, Moralia (c. 100 AD). copy citation
| Author | Plutarch |
|---|---|
| Source | Moralia |
| Topic | persuasion women |
| Date | c. 100 AD |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Arthur Richard Shilleto |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23639/23639-h/23639-h.htm |
Context
“It is a bad duenna of the bridal bed and of women's apartments, as the penitent adultress in Sophocles said to her seducer,
"You did persuade, and coax me into sin."643
Thus shyness, being first seduced by vice,644 leaves its citadel unbarred, unfortified, and open to attack. By gifts people ensnare the worse natures, but by persuasion and playing upon their bashfulness people often seduce even good women. I pass over the injury done to worldly affairs by bashfulness causing people to lend to those whose credit is doubtful, and to go security against their wish, for though they commend that saying, "Be a surety, trouble is at hand,"645 they cannot apply it when business is on hand.”
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