Friendship, neighbor-love, loyalty, and boundaries — By long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft…

Patience and a soft tongue can move a prince; honey and visits still need a limit

By long forbearing a prince is persuaded, and a soft tongue breaks the bone. Have you found honey? Eat only so much as is enough for you, lest you be filled with it and vomit it. Withdraw your foot from your neighbor's house, lest he be weary of you and so hate you.

Long forbearing is steady patience, not surrender to a tyrant. Soft tongue breaking bone is persistent gentleness that reaches what force cannot, not a rule that victims must soothe their oppressor. Honey is pleasure that becomes sickness in excess. The neighbor's house can be loved to death by a foot that never leaves.

False witness, betrayal, and mistimed cheer are treated as body-blows

A person who bears false witness against a neighbor is a maul, a sword, and a sharp arrow. Confidence in an unfaithful person in time of trouble is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint. As one who takes away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar on soda, so is the one who sings songs to a heavy heart.

False witness is piled weapons: crushing, cutting, piercing. An unfaithful ally in trouble is injury where you needed bite and stance. Singing at grief is not encouragement; it is stolen warmth and a chemical sting. Heavy heart is sorrow, not a mood you are licensed to jolly out of someone. The cluster trains social tact: patience, measure, departure, truth, loyalty, and quiet with the sad.