Non est Remedium adversus Sycophantæ Morsum.

There is no remedy against the tongue of the sycophant, who, by pretended concern for your interest, worm themselves into your confidence and get acquainted with your most intimate concerns. When men who are indifferent to you affect a more than ordinary regard for your interest, you should be cautious how you converse with them;

" Halaga la cola el can
Non por ti, sino por el pan",

the dog wags his tail not for you but for your bread. It might be well if the sycophant were content with pillaging, but more usually they flatter only to betray you; such men are said, "halagar con la cola, y morder con la boca," to bite while they fawn upon you and, if they are as crafty as they are malevolent, you will not discover the villany of their dispositions until they have done you some irremediable mischief; until they have alienated the minds of your friends, or raised such dissensions in your family as nothing but death will extinguish. When Iago saw that he had succeeded in exciting in Othello a suspicion of the incontinence of Desdemona, he says, exulting in the success of his villany,

–––"Not poppy, nor mandragore,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou ow'dst yesterday."

The ancients supposed that there were magic rings which had the power of defending those who wore them from certain diseases, inflicted, as they imagined, by inchantment or witchcraft, but even these were insufficient to protect them from the tongue of the slanderer.