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, "1 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.

2

§ 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 im

1 Compare "On Education," § xvii.

3

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

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

prisoned, "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."

§ 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.' 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 1 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.

2

Thucydides, ii. 51.

3

Bergk. p.

5003.

4 On Proteus, see Verg. "Georg." iv. 387 sq.; Ovid, “Art." i. 761;

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.1 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.

HOW ONE MAY DISCERN A FLATTERER FROM A FRIEND.

2

§ 1. Plato says, 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

"Met." ii. 9; 66

'Fasti," i. 367 sq., and especially Horace, "Epistles," i. i. 90: "Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo?"

1 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.

2 Plato, "Laws," v. p. 731 D, E.

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,' 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,"" 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.

SII. 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, 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 re

"Laws," v. p. 730 C.

2 Inscribed in the vestibule of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. See Pausanias, x. 24.

3 Used here apparently proverbially for poverty or low position in life.

quired, 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,' for by it

"The Graces and Desire have pitched their tents,"

"2

994

and not only to a person in misfortune "is it sweet to look into the eyes of a friendly person," as Euripides 3 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,' 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

1 Wyttenbach well compares Cicero, " De Amicitia," xviii. : "Accedat huc suavitas quædam oportet sermonum atque morum, haudquaquam mediocre condimentum amicitiæ. Tristitia autem et in omni re severitas, habet illa quidem gravitatem: sed amicitia remissior esse debet, et liberior, et dulcior, et ad omnem comitatem facilitatemque proclivior." 2 Hesiod, "Theogony," 64.

3 Euripides, "Ion," 732.

Our author assigns this saying to Prodicus, "De Sanitate Præcepta," § viii. But to Evenus, "Quæst. Conviv." Lib. vii. Proœmium, and "Platonicæ Quæstiones," x. § iii.