Chapter 16

§ V. As therefore Zeuxis, when some people accused him of painting slowly, replied, "I admit that I do, but then I paint to last," so ought we to test for a long time the friendship and intimacy that we take up and mean to keep. Is it not easy then to put to the test many friends, and to associate with many friends at the same time, or is this impossible? For intimacy is the full enjoyment of friendship, and most pleasant is companying with and spending the day with a friend. "Never again shall we alive, apart from dear friends, sit and take counsel alone together."[332] And Menelaus said about Odysseus, "Nor did anything ever divide or separate us, who loved and delighted in one another, till death's black cloud overshadowed us."[333] The contrary effect seems to be produced by abundance of friends. For the friendship of a pair of friends draws them together and puts them together and holds them together, and is heightened by intercourse and kindliness, "as when the juice of the fig curdles and binds the white milk,"[334] as Empedocles says, such unity and complete union will such a friendship produce. Whereas having many friends puts people apart and severs and disunites them, by transferring and shifting the tie of friendship too frequently, and does not admit of a mixture and welding of goodwill by the diffusing and compacting of intimacy. And this causes at once an inequality and difficulty in respect of acts of kindness, for the uses of friendship become inoperative by being dispersed over too wide an area. "One man is acted upon by his character, another by his reflection."[335] For neither do our natures and impulses always incline in the same directions, nor are our fortunes in life identical, for opportunities of action are, like the winds, favourable to some, unfavourable to others.

§ VI. Moreover, if all our friends want to do the same things at the same time, it will be difficult to satisfy them all, whether they desire to deliberate, or to act in state affairs, or wish for office, or are going to entertain guests. If again at the same time they chance to be engaged in different occupations and interests and ask you all together, one who is going on a voyage that you will sail with him, another who is going to law that you will be his advocate, another who is going to try a case that you will try it with him, another who is selling or buying that you will go into partnership with him, another who is going to marry that you will join him in the sacrifice, another who is going to bury a relation that you will be one of the mourners,

"The town is full of incense, and at once Resounds with triumph-songs and bitter wailing,"[336]

that is the fruit of many friends; to oblige all is impossible, to oblige none is absurd, and to help one and offend many is grievous.

"No lover ever yet fancied neglect."[337]

And yet people bear patiently and without anger the carelessness and neglect of friends, if they get from them such excuses as "I forgot," "I did it unwittingly." But he who says, "I did not assist you in your lawsuit, for I was assisting another friend," or "I did not visit you when you had your fever, for I was helping so-and-so who was entertaining his friends," excusing himself for his inattention to one by his attention to another, so far from making the offence less, even adds jealousy to his neglect. But most people in friendship regard only, it seems, what can be got out of it, overlooking what will be asked in return, and not remembering that he, who has had many of his own requests granted, must oblige others in turn by granting their requests. And as Briareus with his hundred hands had to feed fifty stomachs, and was therefore no better provided than we are, who with two hands have to supply the necessities of only one belly, so in having many friends[338] one has to do many services for them, one has to share in their anxiety, and to toil and moil with them. For we must not listen to Euripides when he says, "mortals ought to join in moderate friendships for one another, and not love with all their heart, that the spell may be soon broken, and the friendship may either be ended or become closer at will,"[339] that so it may be adjusted to our requirements, like the sail of a ship that we can either slacken or haul tight. But let us transfer, Euripides, these lines of yours to enmities, and bid people make their animosities moderate, and not hate with all their heart, that their hatred, and wrath, and querulousness, and suspicions, may be easily broken. Recommend rather for our consideration that saying of Pythagoras, "Do not give many your right hand,"[340] that is, do not make many friends, do not go in for a common and vulgar friendship, which is sure to cause anyone much trouble; for its sharing in others' anxieties and griefs and labours and dangers is quite intolerable to free and noble natures. And that was a true saying of the wise Chilo[341] to one who told him he had no enemy, "Neither," said he, "do you seem to me to have a friend." For enmities inevitably accompany and are involved in friendships.

§ VII. It is impossible I say not to share with a friend in his injuries and disgraces and enmities, for enemies at once suspect and hate the friend of their enemies, and even friends are often envious and jealous and carp at him. As then the oracle given to Timesias about his colony foretold him, "that his swarm of bees would soon be followed by a swarm of wasps," so those that seek a swarm of friends have sometimes lighted unawares on a wasp's-nest of enemies. And the remembrance of wrongs done by an enemy and the kindness of a friend do not weigh in the same balance. See how Alexander treated the friends and intimates of Philotas and Parmenio, how Dionysius treated those of Dion, Nero those of Plautus, Tiberius those of Sejanus, torturing and putting them to death. For as neither the gold nor rich robes of Creon's daughter[342] availed her or her sire, but the flame that burst out suddenly involved him in the same fate as herself, as he ran up to embrace her and rescue her, so some friends, though they have had no enjoyment out of their friends' prosperity, are involved in their misfortunes. And this is especially the case with philosophers and kind people, as Theseus, when his friend Pirithous was punished and imprisoned, "was also bound in fetters not of brass."[343] And Thucydides tells us that during the plague at Athens those that most displayed their virtue perished with their friends that were ill, for they neglected their own lives in going to visit them.[344]

§ VIII. We ought not therefore to be too lavish with our virtue, binding it together and implicating it in various people's fortunes, but we ought to preserve our friendship for those who are worthy of it, and are capable of reciprocating it. For this is indeed the greatest argument against many friends that friendship is originated by similarity. For seeing that even the brutes can hardly be forced to mix with those that are unlike themselves, but crouch down, and show their dislike, and run away, while they mix freely with those that are akin to them and have a similar nature, and gently and gladly make friends with one another then, how is it possible that there should be friendship between people differing in characters and temperaments and ideas of life? For harmony on the harp or lyre is attained by notes in unison and not in unison, sharp and flat somehow or other producing concord, but in the harmony of friendship there must be no unlike, or uneven, or unequal element, but from all alike must come agreement in opinions and wishes and feeling, as if one soul were put into several bodies.

§ IX. What man then is so industrious, so changeable, and so versatile, as to be able to make himself like and adapt himself to many different persons, and not to laugh at the advice of Theognis, "Imitate the ingenuity of the polypus, that takes the colour of whatever stone it sticks to."[345] And yet the changes in the polypus do not go deep but are only on the surface, which, from its thickness or thinness takes the impression of everything that approaches it, whereas friends endeavour to be like one another in character, and feeling, and language, and pursuits, and disposition. It requires a not very fortunate or very good Proteus,[346] able by jugglery to assume various forms, to be frequently at the same time a student with the learned, and ready to try a fall with wrestlers, or to go a hunting with people fond of the chase, or to get drunk with tipplers, or to go a canvassing with politicians, having no fixed character of his own.[347] And as the natural philosophers say of unformed and colourless matter when subjected to external change, that it is now fire, now water, now air, now solid earth, so the soul suitable for many friendships must be impressionable, and versatile, and pliant, and changeable. But friendship requires a steady constant and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy. And so a constant friend is a thing rare and hard to find.

[321] Plato, "Men." p. 71 E.

[322] Quoted more fully by our author, "De Fraterno Amore," § iii.

[323] "Eadem comparatione utitur Lucianus in Toxari T. ii. p. 351: [Greek: hostis an polyphilos hê homoios hêmin dokei tais koinais tautais kai moicheuomenais gynaixi; kai oiometh' ouketh' homoiôs ischyran tên philian autou einai pros pollas eunoias diairetheisan]."--_Wyttenbach._

[324] From the "Hypsipyle" of Euripides.

[325] A well-known proverb for beginning at the beginning. Aristophanes, "Vespæ." 846; Plato, "Euthryphro," 3 A; Strabo, 9.

[326] An allusion to the well-known proverb, [Greek: koloios poti koloion]. See Erasmus, "Adagia," p. 1644.

[327] The paronomasia is on [Greek: hetairos, heteros].

[328] "Iliad," ix. 482; "Odyssey," xvi. 19.

[329] Cf. Cicero, "De Amicitia," xix.

[330] Sophocles, Fragm. 741. Quoted again by our author, "On Love," § xxiii.

[331] For the image compare Lucio's speech, Shakspere, "Measure for Measure," A. iv. Sc. iii. 189, 190: "Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick."

[332] "Iliad," xxiii. 77, 78.

[333] "Odyssey," iv. 178-180.

[334] "Iliad," v. 902, altered somewhat.

[335] Bergk. p. 1344^3.

[336] Sophocles, "Oedipus Tyrannus," 4, 5. Quoted again "On Moral Virtue," § vi.

[337] A line from Menander. Quoted again "De Fraterno Amore," § xx.

[338] Reading with Halm and Hercher [Greek: en tôi pollois philois chrêsthai.]

[339] Euripides, "Hippolytus," 253-257, where Dindorf and Hercher agree in the reading.

[340] Compare "On Education," § xvii.

[341] Chilo was one of the Seven Wise Men. See Pausanias, iii. 16; X. 24.

[342] For the circumstances see Euripides, "Medea," 1136 sq.

[343] For the friendship of Theseus and Pirithous, see Pausanias, i. 17; x. 29. The line is from Euripides, "Pirithous," Fragm. 591. Cf. "On Shyness," § x.

[344] Thucydides, ii. 51.

[345] Bergk. p. 500^3.

[346] On Proteus, see Verg. "Georg." iv. 387 sq.; Ovid, "Art." i. 761; "Met." ii. 9; "Fasti," i. 367 sq., and especially Horace, "Epistles," i. i. 90: "Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo?"

[347] Literally, "having no hearth of character," the hearth being an emblem of stability. Compare "How One may Discern a Flatterer from a Friend," § vii., where the same image is employed.

HOW ONE MAY DISCERN A FLATTERER FROM A FRIEND.

§ I. Plato says,[348] Antiochus Philopappus, that all men pardon the man who acknowledges that he is excessively fond of himself, but that there is among many other defects this very grave one in self-love, that by it a man becomes incapable of being a just and impartial judge about himself, for love is blind in regard to the loved object, unless a person has learnt and accustomed himself to honour and pursue what is noble rather than his own selfish interests. This gives a great field for the flatterer in friendship, who finds a wonderful base of operations in our self-love, which makes each person his own first and greatest flatterer, and easily admits a flatterer from without, who will be, so he thinks and hopes, both a witness and confirmer of his good opinion of himself. For he that lies open to the reproach of being fond of flatterers is very fond of himself, and owing to his goodwill to himself wishes to possess all good qualities, and thinks he actually does; the wish is not ridiculous, but the thought is misleading and requires a good deal of caution. And if truth is a divine thing, and, according to Plato,[349] the beginning of all good things both to the gods and men, the flatterer is likely to be an enemy to the gods, and especially to Apollo, for he always sets himself against that famous saying, "Know thyself,"[350] implanting in everybody's mind self-deceit and ignorance of his own good or bad qualities, thus making his good points defective and imperfect, and his bad points altogether incorrigible.

§ II. If however, as is the case with most other bad things, the flatterer attacked only or chiefly ignoble or worthless persons, the evil would not be so mischievous or so difficult to guard against. But since, as wood-worms breed most in soft and sweet wood, those whose characters are honourable and good and equitable encourage and support the flatterer most,--and moreover, as Simonides says, "rearing of horses does not go with the oil-flask,[351] but with fruitful fields," so we see that flattery does not join itself to the poor, the obscure, or those without means, but is the snare and bane of great houses and estates, and often overturns kingdoms and principalities,--it is a matter of no small importance, needing much foresight, to examine the question, that so flattery may be easily detected, and neither injure nor discredit friendship. For just as lice leave dying persons, and abandon bodies when the blood on which they feed is drying up, so one never yet saw flatterers dancing attendance on dry and cold poverty, but they fasten on wealth and position and there get fat, but speedily decamp if reverses come. But we ought not to wait to experience that, which would be unprofitable, or rather injurious and dangerous. For not to find friends at a time when you want them is hard, as also not to be able to exchange an inconstant and bad friend for a constant and good one. For a friend should be like money tried before being required, not found faulty in our need. For we ought not to have our wits about us only when the mischief is done, but we ought to try and prevent the flatterer doing any harm to us: for otherwise we shall be in the same plight as people who test deadly poisons by first tasting them, and kill or nearly kill themselves in the experiment. We do not praise such, nor again all those who, looking at their friend simply from the point of view of decorum and utility, think that they can detect all agreeable and pleasant companions as flatterers in the very act. For a friend ought not to be disagreeable or unpleasant, nor ought friendship to be a thing high and mighty with sourness and austerity, but even its decorous deportment ought to be attractive and winning,[352] for by it

"The Graces and Desire have pitched their tents,"[353]

and not only to a person in misfortune "is it sweet to look into the eyes of a friendly person," as Euripides[354] says, but no less does it bring pleasure and charm in good fortune, than when it relieves the sorrows and difficulties of adversity. And as Evenus said "fire was the best sauce,"[355] so the deity, mixing up friendship with life, has made everything bright and sweet and acceptable by its presence and the enjoyment it brings. How else indeed could the flatterer insinuate himself by the pleasure he gives, unless he knew that friendship admitted the pleasurable element? It would be impossible to say. But just as spurious and mock gold only imitates the brightness and glitter of real gold, so the flatterer seems to imitate the pleasantness and agreeableness of the real friend, and to exhibit himself ever merry and bright, contradicting and opposing nothing. We must not however on that account suspect all who praise as simple flatterers. For friendship requires praise as much as censure on the proper occasion. Indeed peevishness and querulousness are altogether alien to friendship and social life: but when goodwill bestows praise ungrudgingly and readily upon good actions, people endure also easily and without pain admonition and plainspeaking, believing and continuing to love the person who took such pleasure in praising, as if now he only blamed out of necessity.

§ III. It is difficult then, someone may say, to distinguish between the flatterer and the friend, if they differ neither in the pleasure they give nor in the praise they bestow; for as to services and attentions you may often see friendship outstripped by flattery. Certainly it is so, I should reply, if we are trying to find the genuine flatterer who handles his craft with cleverness and art, but not if, like most people, we consider those persons flatterers who are called their own oil-flask-carriers and table-men, men who begin to talk, as one said, the moment their hands have been washed for dinner,[356] whose servility, ribaldry, and want of all decency, is apparent at the first dish and glass. It did not of course require very much discrimination to detect Melanthius the parasite of Alexander of Pheræ of flattery, who, to those who asked how Alexander was murdered, answered, "Through his side into my belly": or those who formed a circle round a wealthy table, "whom neither fire, nor sword, nor steel, would keep from running to a feast":[357] or those female flatterers in Cyprus, who after they crossed over into Syria were nicknamed "step-ladders,"[358] because they lay down and let the kings' wives use their bodies as steps to mount their carriages.

§ IV. What kind of flatterer then must we be on our guard against? The one who neither seems to be nor acknowledges himself to be one: whom you will not always find in the vicinity of your kitchen, who is not to be caught watching the dial to see how near it is to dinner-time,[359] nor gets so drunk as to throw himself down anyhow, but one who is generally sober, and a busybody, and thinks he ought to have a hand in your affairs, and wishes to share in your secrets, and as to friendship plays rather a tragic than a satyric or comic part. For as Plato says, "it is the height of injustice to appear to be just when you are not really so,"[360] so we must deem the most dangerous kind of flattery not the open but the secret, not the playful but the serious. For it throws suspicion even upon a genuine friendship, which we may often confound with it, if we are not careful. When Gobryas pursued one of the Magi into a dark room, and was on the ground wrestling with him, and Darius came up and was doubtful how he could kill one without killing both, Gobryas bade him thrust his sword boldly through both of them;[361] but we, since we give no assent to that saying, "Let friend perish so the enemy perish with him,"[362] in our endeavour to distinguish the flatterer from the friend, seeing that their resemblances are so many, ought to take great care that we do not reject the good with the bad, nor in sparing what is beneficial fall in with what is injurious. For as wild grains mixed up with wheat, if very similar in size and appearance, are not easily kept apart, for if the sieve have small holes they don't pass through, and if large holes they pass with the corn, so flattery is not easily distinguished from friendship, being mixed up with it in feeling and emotion, habit and custom.

§ V. Because however friendship is the most pleasant of all things, and nothing more glads the heart of man, therefore the flatterer attracts by the pleasure he gives, pleasure being in fact his field. And because favours and good services accompany friendship, as the proverb says "a friend is more necessary than fire or water,"[363] therefore the flatterer volunteers all sorts of services, and strives to show himself on all occasions zealous and obliging and ready. And since friendship is mainly produced by a similarity of tastes and habits, and to have the same likes and dislikes first brings people together and unites them through sympathy,[364] the flatterer observing this moulds himself like material and demeans himself accordingly, seeking completely to imitate and resemble those whom he desires to ingratiate himself with, being supple in change, and plausible in his imitations, so that one would say,

"Achilles' son, O no, it is himself."[365]

But his cleverest trick is that, observing that freedom of speech, is both spoken of and reckoned as the peculiar and natural voice of friendship, while not speaking freely is considered unfriendly and disingenuous, he has not failed to imitate this trait of friendship also. But just as clever cooks infuse bitter sauces and sharp seasoning to prevent sweet things from cloying, so these flatterers do not use a genuine or serviceable freedom of speech, but merely a winking and tickling innuendo. He is therefore difficult to detect, like those creatures which naturally change their colour and take that of the material or place near them.[366] But since he deceives and conceals his true character by his imitations, it is our duty to unmask him and detect him by the differences between him and the true friend, and to show that he is, as Plato says, "tricked out in other people's colours and forms, from lack of any of his own."[367]

§ VI. Let us examine the matter then from the beginning. I said that friendship originated in most cases from a similar disposition and nature, generally inclined to the same habits and morals, and rejoicing in the same pursuits, studies, and amusements, as the following lines testify: "To old man the voice of old man is sweetest, to boy that of boy, to woman is most acceptable that of woman, to the sick person that of sick person, while he that is overtaken by misfortune is a comforter to one in trouble." The flatterer knowing then that it is innate in us to delight in, and enjoy the company of, and to love, those who are like ourselves, attempts first to approach and get near a person in this direction, (as one tries to catch an animal in the pastures,) by the same pursuits and amusements and studies and modes of life quietly throwing out his bait, and disguising himself in false colours, till his victim give him an opportunity to catch him, and become tame and tractable at his touch. Then too he censures the things and modes of life and persons that he knows his victim dislikes, while he praises those he fancies immoderately, overdoing it indeed[368] with his show of surprise and excessive admiration, making him more and more convinced that his likes and dislikes are the fruits of judgement and not of caprice.