A Musician had a music room that made him sound excellent. But, when the Musician played on the stage he was not so good and was run off.
We rarely see ourselves as others see us.
L’Estrange version
A man that had a very course voice, but an excellent musique-room, would be still practising in that chamber, for the advantage of the eccho. He took such a conceit upon’t, that he must needs be shewing his parts upon a publick theatre, where he performed so very ill, that the auditory hiss’d him off the stage, and threw stones at him.
Moral
A man may like himself very well in his own glass, and yet the world not fall in love with him in publick. But the truth on’t is, we are partial in our own case, and there’s no reading of our selves but with other mans eyes.
Gherardo Image from 1480
Citharoedus Imperitus
Citharoedus quidam, non satis eruditus, in cubiculo ut solebat canens, sua inibi voce resonante, valde se canorum esse putabat. Quapropter animo elatus, theatro iam se committere voluit. Sed ubi in conspectum prodiit, cum pessime cantasset, eum spectatores lapidibus iactis e scena abegerunt.
Moral
Fabula ostendit ita quoque nonnullos rhetorum, qui in scholis aliquid esse videntur, cum ad res publicas agendas se conferunt, nullius pretii esse.
Perry #121