THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER method in either case for a man to admit or confirm what an- other speaker says, but to interpret it in a manner different from what was intended. Thus a village priest was saying mass to his flock not long since, and after he had announced the festivals of the week, he began the general confession in the people's name, saying: 'I have sinned by doing evil, by saying evil, by thinking evil,' and so forth, making mention of all the deadly sins. Whereupon a friend and close familiar of the priest, in order to make sport of him, said to the bystanders: 'Bear wit- ness all of you to what by his own mouth he confesses he has done, for I mean to report him to the bishop.' " This same method was used by Sallaza dalla Pedrada"" in complimenting a lady with whom he was speaking. First he praised her for her virtuous qualities and then for still being beautiful; and she replying that she did not deserve such praise because she was already old, he said to her : ' My Lady, your only sign of age is your resemblance to the angels, who were the first and oldest creatures that God ever made.' 65.— "Just as serious sayings are useful for praising, in like fashion we find great utility also in jocose sayings for taunting, and in well arranged metaphors, especially if they take the form of repartee, and if he who replies preserves the same metaphor used by his interlocutor. And of this kind was the answer made to messer Palla degli Strozzi,"* who being exiled from Florence, sent back a servant on a certain matter of business and said to him rather threateningly: 'Thou wilt tell Cosimo de' Medici from me that the hen is hatching."" The messenger did the errand commanded him, and Cosimo at once replied without hesitation : ' And thou wilt tell messer Palla from me that hens cannot hatch well away from their nests.' " Again, with a metaphor messer Camillo Porcaro"*' gracefully praised my lord Marcantonio Colonna;'™ who, having heard that messer Camillo had been extolling in an oration certain Italian gentlemen famous as warriors, and had spoken very highly of him among the rest, he expressed his thanks and said: 'Messer Camillo, you have treated your friends as some merchants treat their money when it is found to contain a false ducat; for in order to be rid of it, they put the piece among many good ones, 140
