CHAPTER VII.
on friendship.
1. Whereinsoever a man is zealous, this, it is fair to suppose, he loveth. Are men, then, zealous for evil things? Never.[1] Or, perchance, for things which do not concern them? Nor for them either. It remaineth, then, that they are zealous about good things only; and that if they are zealous about them, they also love them. Whosoever, then, hath understanding of good things, the same would know how to love. But he who is not able to distinguish good things from evil, and things that are neither from both, how could this man yet be capable of loving? To love, then, is a quality of the wise alone.
2. And how is this, saith one, for I am foolish, and none the less do I love my child. By the Gods! I wonder, then, how you have begun by confessing yourself to be foolish. For wherein do you lack? Do you not use your senses? do you not judge of appearances? do you not bring to the body the nourishment it needeth, and the covering and habitation? Wherefore, then, confess yourself to be a fool? Because, forsooth, you are often perplexed by appearances, and troubled, and you are vanquished by their plausibility; and you take the same things to be now good, and now evil, and then indifferent; and, in a word, you grieve and fear and envy, and are troubled, and changed—for these things you confess yourself a fool.
3. But do you never change in love? But is it wealth, and pleasure, and, in short, things, alone that you sometimes take to be good and sometimes evil? and do you not take the same men to be now good, now evil? and sometimes you are friendly disposed towards them, and sometimes hostile? and sometimes you praise them, and sometimes you blame?
——“Yea, even so I do.”
What then? a man who hath been deceived about another, is he, think you, his friend?
——“Assuredly not.”
And one who hath taken a friend out of a humor for change, hath he good-will towards him?
——“Nor he either.”
And he who now reviles another, and afterwards reveres him?
——“Nor he.”
What then? Sawest thou never the whelps of a dog, how they fawn and sport with each other, that you would say nothing can be more loving? But to know what friendship is, fling a piece of flesh among them, and thou shalt learn. And cast between thee and thy child a scrap of land, and thou shalt learn how the child will quickly wish to bury thee, and thou wilt pray that he may die. And then thou wilt say, What a child have I nourished! this long time he is burying me! Throw a handsome girl between you, and the old man will love her, and the young too;[2] and if it be glory, or some risk to run, it will be on the same fashion. You will speak the words of the father of Admetus[3]:—
“Day gladdens thee; think’st thou it glads not me? Thou lovest light; think’st thou I love the dark?”
Think you this man did not love his own child when it was little? nor was in agony if it had a fever? nor said many a time, Would that I had the fever rather than he! Then when the trial cometh and is near at hand, lo, what words they utter! And Eteocles and Polyneices,[4] were they not children of the same mother and the same father? were they not brought up together, did they not live together, drink together, sleep together, and often kiss one another? So that any one who saw them, I think, would have laughed at the philosophers, for the things they say perversely about friendship. But when royalty, like a piece of flesh, hath fallen between them, hear what things they speak:—
“Pol. Where wilt thou stand before the towers?
“Et. Wherefore seekest thou to know?
“Pol. There I too would stand and slay thee.
“Et. Thou hast spoken my desire.”
4. For universally, be not deceived, nothing is so dear to any creature as its own profit. Whatsoever may seem to hinder this, be it father or child or friend or lover, this he will hate and abuse and curse. For Nature hath never so made anything as to love aught but its own profit: this is father and brother and kin and country and God. When, then, the Gods appear to hinder us in this, we revile even them, and overthrow their images and burn their temples; as Alexander, when his friend died, commanded to burn the temples of Esculapius.
5. Therefore, if a man place in the same thing both profit and holiness, and the beautiful and fatherland, and parents and friends, all these things shall be saved; but if he place profit in one thing, and friends and fatherland and kinsfolk, yea, and righteousness itself some other where, all these things shall perish, for profit shall outweigh them. For where the I and the Mine are, thither, of necessity, inclineth every living thing: if in the flesh, then the supremacy is there; if in the Will, it is there; if in outward things, it is there. If, then, mine I is where my Will is, thus only shall I be the friend I should be, or the son or the father. For my profit then will be to cherish faith and piety and forbearance and continence and helpfulness; and to guard the bonds of relation. But if I set Myself in one place and Virtue some otherwhere, then the word of Epicurus waxeth strong, which declareth that there is no Virtue, or, at least, that Virtue is but conceit.
6. Through this ignorance did Athenians and Lacedæmonians quarrel with each other, and Thebans with both of them, and the Great King with Hellas, and Macedonians with both of them, and even now Romans with Getæ; and through this yet earlier the wars of Ilion arose. Paris was the guest of Menelaus; and if any one had seen how friendly-minded towards each other they were, he would have disbelieved any one who said they were not friends. But a morsel was flung between them—a fair woman, and about her there was war. And now when you see friends or brothers that seem to be of one mind, argue nothing from this concerning their friendship; nay, not if they swear it, not if they declare that they cannot be parted from each other. For in the ruling faculty of a worthless man there is no faith; it is unstable, unaccountable, victim of one appearance after another. But try them, not, as others do, if they were born of the same parents and nurtured together, and under the same tutor; but by this alone, wherein they place their profit, whether in outward things or in the will. If in outward things, call them no more friends than faithful or steadfast or bold or free; yea, nor even men, if you had sense. For that opinion hath nothing of humanity that makes men bite each other, and revile each other, and haunt the wildernesses, or the public places, like the mountains,[5] and in the courts of justice to show forth the character of thieves; nor that which makes men drunkards and adulterers and corruptors, nor whatever other ills men work against each other through this one and only opinion, that They and Theirs lie in matters beyond the Will. But if you hear, in sooth, that these men hold the Good to be there only where the Will is, where the right use of appearances is, then be not busy to inquire if they are father and son, or brothers, or have long time companied with each other as comrades; but, knowing this one thing alone, argue confidently that they are friends, even as they are faithful and upright. For where else is friendship than where faith is, where piety is, where there is an interchange of virtue, and none of other things than that?
7. But such a one hath shown kindness to me so long, and is he not my friend? Slave, whence knowest thou if he did not show thee kindness as he wipes his shoes or tends his beast? Whence knowest thou if, when thy use is at an end as a vessel, he will not cast thee away like a broken plate? But she is my wife, and we have lived together so long? And how long lived Eriphyle with Amphiaraus, and was the mother, yea, of many children? But a necklace came between them.[6] But what is a necklace? It is the opinion men have concerning such things. That was the wild beast nature, that was the sundering of love, that which would not allow the woman to be a wife, or the mother a mother. And of you, whosoever hath longed either to be a friend himself or to win some other for a friend, let him cut out these opinions, let him hate them and drive them from his soul.
8. And thus he will not revile himself, nor be at strife with himself, nor be variable, nor torment himself. And to another, if it be one like himself, he will be altogether as to himself, but with one unlike he will be forbearing and gentle and mild, ready to forgive him as an ignorant man, as one who is astray about the greatest things; but harsh to no man, being well assured of that dogma of Plato, that no soul is willingly deprived of the truth.
9. But otherwise you may do all things whatsoever, even as friends are wont to do, and drink together, and dwell together, and voyage together, and be born from the same parents, for so are snakes; but friends they are not, nor are ye, so long as ye hold these accursed doctrines of wild beasts.