The target is not the lie but the announcement of truthfulness. The passage strikes not at a liar but at the sentence «ἐγὼ προῄρημαι ἁπλῶς σοι προσφέρεσθαι» — "I have decided to deal with you plainly." What is condemned is the gesture of giving notice: the man who announces his own straightness is no longer straight, because he is calculating an effect. Hence the two abusive words of the first line: σαπρός ("rotten," of spoiled goods) and κίβδηλος ("counterfeit," of debased coin) — both from the language of the market, not of morals.

The argument: the genuine needs no announcement. αὐτὸ φανήσεται — "it will show of itself"; ἐπὶ τοῦ μετώπου γεγράφθαι ὀφείλει — "it ought to stand written on the forehead." Then three channels through which it comes out εὐθύς, "at once": the voice (ἡ φωνὴ τοιοῦτον ἠχεῖ — "the voice rings of such a thing"), the eyes (ἐν τοῖς ὄμμασιν ἐξέχει — "it stands out in the eyes") and — the comparison — the look of a lover, in which the ἐρώμενος recognises everything immediately. The comparison is deliberately chosen: love cannot dissemble and has no need of words.

The coarsest image in the corpus. οἶον γράσωνα — "like a man who reeks of goat" (γράσος, the rank smell of sweat). One ought to be simple and TERMgood in such a way that whoever stands beside him, θέλει οὐ θέλει ("whether he wants to or not"), notices it. Marcus chooses an unpleasant comparison on purpose: virtue here is not a fragrance but something ineliminably perceptible; the test is not agreeableness but the impossibility of concealment.

Three verdicts in a row. ἐπιτήδευσις δὲ ἁπλότητος σκάλμη ἐστίν — "simplicity practised for effect is a knife" (σκάλμη, a Thracian dagger): counterfeit straightness is more dangerous than open hostility, because it strikes from under trust. And next: οὐδέν ἐστιν αἴσχιον λυκοφιλίας — "nothing is more shameful than wolf-friendship." The expression goes back to the proverbial league of wolves — a friendship that holds only while it pays. The order is given without softening: πάντων μάλιστα τοῦτο φεῦγε.

Back to the eyes. The close repeats the argument a third time: in the TERMgood, simple and kindly man "these things are in the eyes, and are not hidden" (οὐ λανθάνει). The circle closes: it began with the impossibility of announcing simplicity, it ends with the impossibility of concealing it. Cf. 10.1 (ἀγαθὴ καὶ ἁπλῆ — four predicates Marcus wishes upon his own soul) and 10.32 (let no one be able truly to say that you are not simple or not good). The governing discipline is action, the sustaining one assent.