On Benefits 7.25 — Seneca

Seneca, On Benefits 7.25

Aristippus once, when enjoying a perfume, said: “Bad luck to those effeminate persons who have brought so nice a thing into disrepute.” We also may say, “Bad luck to those base extortioners who pester us for a fourfold return of their benefits, and have brought into disrepute so nice a thing as reminding our friends of their duty.” I shall nevertheless make use of this right of friendship, and I shall demand the return of a benefit from any man from whom I would not have scrupled to ask for one, such a man as would regard the power of returning a benefit as equivalent to receiving a second one. Never, not even when complaining of him, would I say, “A wretch forlorn upon the shore he lay, His ship, his comrades, all were swept away; Fool that I was, I pitied his despair, And even gave him of my realm a share.” This is not to remind, but to reproach; this is to make one’s benefits odious to enable him, or even to make him wish to be ungrateful. It is enough, and more than enough, to remind him of it gently and familiarly: “If aught of mine hath e’er deserved thy thanks.” To this his answer would be, “Of course you have deserved my thanks; you took me up, ‘a wretch forlorn upon the shore.’”