Part 24

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."

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 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," 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," 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 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.

Sec. 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 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." 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.

Sec. 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.

Sec. 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." 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, 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. 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.

Plato, "Men." p. 71 E.

Quoted more fully by our author, "De Fraterno Amore," Sec. iii.

"Eadem comparatione utitur Lucianus in Toxari T. ii. p. 351: [Greek: hostis an polyphilos he homoios hemin dokei tais koinais tautais kai moicheuomenais gynaixi; kai oiometh' ouketh' homoios ischyran ten philian autou einai pros pollas eunoias diairetheisan]."--Wyttenbach.

From the "Hypsipyle" of Euripides.

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

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

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

"Iliad," ix. 482; "Odyssey," xvi. 19.

Cf. Cicero, "De Amicitia," xix.

Sophocles, Fragm. 741. Quoted again by our author, "On Love," Sec. xxiii.

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."

"Iliad," xxiii. 77, 78.

"Odyssey," iv. 178-180.

"Iliad," v. 902, altered somewhat.

Bergk. p. 1344^3.

Sophocles, "Oedipus Tyrannus," 4, 5. Quoted again "On Moral Virtue," Sec. vi.

A line from Menander. Quoted again "De Fraterno Amore," Sec. xx.

Reading with Halm and Hercher [Greek: en toi pollois philois chresthai.]

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

Compare "On Education," Sec. xvii.

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

For the circumstances see Euripides, "Medea," 1136 sq.