Plutarch's Morals
themselves to us, but attach ourselves to those who are worthy of our
friendship. For what is easily got is not always desirable: and we pass
over and trample upon heather and brambles that stick to us[331] on our
road to the olive and vine: so also is it good not always to make a
friend of the person who is expert in twining himself around us, but
after testing them to attach ourselves to those who are worthy of our
affection and likely to be serviceable to us.
Sec. 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.
Sec. 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.
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[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]
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."[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," Sec. iii.
[323] "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._
[324] From the "Hypsipyle" of Euripides.
[325] A well-known proverb for beginning at the
beginning. Aristophanes, "Vespae." 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," Sec. 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," Sec. vi.
[337] A line from Menander. Quoted again "De Fraterno
Amore," Sec. xx.
[338] Reading with Halm and Hercher [Greek: en toi
pollois philois chresthai.]
[339] Euripides, "Hippolytus," 253-257, where Dindorf
and Hercher agree in the reading.
[340] Compare "On Education," Sec. 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," Sec. x.
[344] Thucydides, ii. 51.
[345] Bergk. p. 500^3.
[346] On Proteus, see Verg. "Georg." iv. 387 sq.; Ovid,