Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Menon the Thessalian, who thought himself sufficiently trained in argument and fond of quoting Empedocles' line about "frequenting the summits of wisdom," was asked by Socrates what virtue is. When Menon answered rashly and glibly that there is a virtue of the child and of the old man, of man and of woman, of ruler and of private citizen, of master and of servant, Socrates said, "Well done — asked for one virtue, you have stirred up a whole swarm of virtues," not badly guessing that a man who knew no single virtue was naming many. Might not the same be said of us, if, fearing lest we slip unnoticed into having no friend at all, we run instead into having a multitude of friends — mutilated and blind friendship, as it were — through fear of having none? For we differ hardly at all from a man who, when someone jeers that he has not yet acquired even one friendship, hastens to become a hundred-handed Briareus or an all-seeing Argus, so as not to be mocked for possessing not even a single friend.
And yet we praise to excess the young man in Menander who says it is a wonderful thing to count each good fortune blessed, if one has but the shadow of a friend; whereas, on the contrary, among many other things, the appetite for having many friends works no less against the acquiring of friendship, just as the passion of licentious women, through coupling often and with many, is unable to master its first attachments, which are neglected and allowed to slip away. Rather, like Hypsipyle's nursling, who sat down in the meadow and plucked one flower after another, gathering his harvest of blooms with a delighted but insatiable childish soul, so each of us, through love of novelty and fickleness, is always drawn on by whatever is freshest and in bloom, and shifts among many incomplete beginnings of friendships and intimacies at once, passing over what has already been grasped in eager pursuit of what is still being chased.
First, then, let us begin, as it were, from the hearth, taking as both witness and counselor for our argument that long and ancient testimony of life which has bequeathed to us the reputation attaching to steadfast friends — the long ages in which, paired in friendship, are named Theseus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Phintias and Damon, Epaminondas and Pelopidas. For friendship is not a herd-animal, nor a creature that flocks like jackdaws; and to regard one's friend as another self, and to address him as "companion," is nothing other than to use the number two as the measure of friendship.
For it is not possible to acquire either slaves or friends, many of them, from a small stock of coin. What, then, is the coin of friendship? Goodwill and grace joined with virtue — and nature has nothing rarer than these. Hence it is not possible to love intensely, and be loved intensely, by many at once; rather, just as rivers, once split into many channels and cuttings, flow weak and thin, so love, which by nature is a strong force in the soul, is dimmed when divided among many. This is why, even among animals, affection for offspring is implanted more strongly in those that bear only one at a time; and Homer calls a son "beloved," "an only child, late-born" — that is, one born to parents who neither have nor will have another.
We, for our part, do not require that a friend be "only"; but let him, even along with another, be a "late-born" and cherished one, sharing with us that proverbial peck of salt eaten together over time — not as so many now-called friends do, who gather their friendship in a moment, from having drunk together once, or lodged together once, or diced together once, out of an inn, a wrestling-school, or the marketplace. In the houses of the rich and the powerful, seeing a great crowd and commotion of people greeting, shaking hands, and forming an escort, people count those with many friends blessed. And yet they see still more flies in their kitchens. But neither do the flies stay for anything but the tasty morsel, nor do the others stay once their usefulness runs out.
Since true friendship seeks above all three things — virtue, as something noble; intimacy, as something pleasant; and usefulness, as something necessary (for one must approve a friend upon judging him, delight in his company, and make use of him in time of need) — and all of these run counter to having many friends, and most of all the most decisive of them, judgment itself — we must first consider whether it is even possible, in a short time, to test dancers who are to dance together, oarsmen who are to row in unison, servants who are to be stewards of one's property or tutors of one's children, let alone many friends who are to strip down together for the contest of every fortune,
each of whom, when he himself fares well, brings his good fortune into the common store, and when he draws the lot of misfortune, is not resentful of sharing it. For no ship is launched to face so many storms at sea, nor do people who fence in their properties with walls, or their harbors with breakwaters and moles, expect so great and so many dangers as those against which friendship, rightly and firmly tested, promises refuge and help; whereas of those attachments accepted without examination, like counterfeit coins once exposed, those who have been deprived of them rejoice, while those who still have them pray to be rid of them.
And this is a hard thing, and not easy — to flee from, or to lay aside, a friendship that has become displeasing. Rather, just as a harmful and distasteful food can neither be kept down without causing pain and doing damage, nor thrown up as easily as it went in, but comes up loathsome and befouled and strange, so a worthless friend, whether he stays on causing pain and doing harm, or is forcibly ejected with hostility and ill will, comes out like some bitter bile.
Therefore one must not readily accept, nor readily attach oneself to, all who present themselves, nor love those who pursue us, but rather pursue those worthy of friendship. For what is easily caught should not on that account be chosen. Indeed we step over and push aside cleavers and briars that catch at us as we walk, on our way to the olive tree and the vine.
So too one should never make a companion of the man who is easily embraced, thinking that a fine thing, but should test carefully those worthy of the effort and of benefit, and embrace them. Just as Zeuxis, when some accused him of painting slowly, said, "I admit I paint over a long time — for it is also for a long time," so friendship and intimacy must be preserved by taking them up only after they have been judged over a long time.
Is it, then, not easy to judge many friends, but easy enough to live in company with many at once — or is even this impossible? And yet the enjoyment of friendship lies precisely in that intimacy, and the sweetest part is in being together and spending one's days together — for, as Homer says, we would not, sitting apart from our comrades, deliberate our counsels; and concerning Odysseus, Menelaus says: "nor would anything else have parted us, loving and delighting in each other, until the black cloud of death enveloped him."
The thing called having many friends seems to produce the very opposite effect. For true friendship draws together and unites and holds fast, thickening by frequent meetings and shows of affection — as, according to Empedocles, "as when fig-juice curdles and binds white milk" — for such a unity and compacting is what friendship seeks to make; whereas having many friends pulls apart and tears away and turns aside,
by calling and drawing one now to this friend and now to that, not permitting the blending and cementing of goodwill to take place in intimacy poured out and set firm. And this immediately gives rise also to inequality and awkwardness in the rendering of services; for the useful offices of friendship become hard to render on account of having many friends. For, in the words of the poet, "the cares of other men, in other ways, keep waking us," since our natures do not incline in their impulses toward the same things, nor do we always find ourselves in circumstances of the same kind,
and the opportunities for action, like winds, favor some and thwart others. And yet, even if all one's friends need the same thing at the same time, it is hard to satisfy everyone at once when they are all deliberating, or campaigning for office, or seeking honor, or entertaining guests. But if at one and the same time, meeting with different affairs and different feelings, they call on us together —
one who is sailing wants us to travel with him, one on trial wants us to plead his case, one who is judging wants us to sit as fellow-juror, one who is selling or buying wants us to help manage the deal, one who is marrying wants us to join the sacrifice, one who is burying a dead relative wants us to join the mourning — while the city all at once is filled with incense on one side, and on the other with paeans and lamentations from having many friends — it is impossible to be present to all, and strange to be present to none, and it is grievous to offend many by serving one. For no one is glad to be neglected, even by one he loves.
And yet people bear more mildly the negligence and carelessness of friends, and receive without resentment excuses of this sort from them: "I forgot," "I did not know." But the man who says, "I did not stand by you when you were on trial, because I was standing by another friend," and "I did not visit you when you had a fever, because I was busy entertaining friends at another man's banquet" — making the attention he gave to others the excuse for his neglect — does not remove the complaint but adds jealousy to it.
But most people, it seems, look only at what having many friends can provide them, and overlook what it demands in return, forgetting that a man who makes use of many friends for what he needs must in turn serve many who are in need. Just as Briareus, with his hundred hands feeding fifty bellies, had no more than we do who manage a single belly with two hands,
so too, among friends, it is useful that a man render service to many, and share their anxieties, and join in their labors, and toil alongside them. For one must not be persuaded by Euripides when he says that mortals ought to mix moderate friendships with one another, and not go to the very marrow of the soul, but keep the affections of the heart easily loosened, so as to push away or draw tight, like the sheet of a ship, letting friendship out or drawing it in as need requires.
But this, Euripides, let us transfer instead to enmities, and bid men make their quarrels "moderate," and "not go to the very marrow of the soul," but keep their hatreds and angers and grudges and suspicions "easily loosened." Rather, let the Pythagorean precept guide us more in this: "do not offer your right hand to many" — that is, do not make many friends, nor embrace a friendship that is shared in common with everyone and open to all,
even against one's inclination, since it enters accompanied by many burdensome feelings, of which sharing in anxiety and grief and toil and danger is very hard to bear for free and noble spirits. And true is the saying of wise Chilon, who, when a man told him he had no enemy, replied, "It seems, then, that you have no friend either." For enmities immediately follow upon friendships and are entangled with them,
since it is not possible to be a friend without also sharing in the wrongs done to him, and in his disgrace, and in the hatred directed against him; for enemies immediately regard one's friend with suspicion and hatred, while friends themselves often feel envy and jealousy and pull one away. Just as the oracle given to Timesias about his colony foretold, "there will be a swarm of bees, but wasps too, perhaps," so those who seek a swarm of friends unknowingly fall in with a nest of wasps of enemies.
And the resentment of an enemy does not weigh the same as the gratitude of a friend. Consider what Alexander did to the friends and kin of Philotas and Parmenio, what Dionysius did to those of Dion, what Nero did to those of Plautus, what Tiberius did to those of Sejanus — torturing and putting them to death. For just as gold and the robe were of no help at all to Creon's daughter, but the fire that suddenly blazed up ran and clung to her and burned her, and destroyed those with her,
so too some friends, having gained no benefit from their friends' good fortune, perish along with them in their misfortune. And this happens most of all to lovers of wisdom and men of noble spirit — as Theseus was yoked, in shackles unforged by any smith's craft, to Pirithous in his punishment and bonds, out of shame; and Thucydides says that during the plague, those who most laid claim to virtue perished together with their sick friends, for they went unsparingly of themselves to visit those close to them.
Hence it is not fitting to be so unsparing of one's virtue, binding and entangling it now with one person, now with another, but rather to guard its fellowship for those who deserve it — that is, for those equally capable of loving and sharing in return. And indeed this is the greatest obstacle of all to having many friends: that friendship comes into being through likeness. For where even lifeless things, when forced by violence into mixture with things unlike themselves,
buckle and resist, fleeing from one another, but when blended with things akin and of similar nature, mix smoothly and welcome the union with goodwill, how could friendship possibly arise between characters that differ, and feelings that are unlike, and lives that follow opposite purposes? For the harmony of the lyre and the harp achieves its concord through opposites, some likeness arising somehow between high notes and low;
but of this concord and harmony of friendship, no part ought to be unlike, or uneven, or unequal; rather, out of elements all alike in condition, there must arise agreement, and shared counsel, and shared opinion, and shared feeling in every respect — as if a single soul were divided among several bodies. Who, then, is so tireless, so changeable, and so versatile a man,
as to make himself like many people and fit himself to them, without inviting mockery of Theognis's advice: "keep the mind of the many-colored octopus, which takes on the look of whatever rock it clings to"? And yet the octopus's changes have no depth, but occur only on the surface, taking on the emanations of whatever it touches through the astringency and looseness of its skin; whereas friendships seek to assimilate character to character,
and feelings, and words, and pursuits, and dispositions — the work of a sort of Proteus, not a fortunate or altogether decent one, but one who by magic keeps changing himself, often within the same moment, from one shape to another — reading together with lovers of learning, rolling in the dust together with wrestlers, hunting together with lovers of the chase, getting drunk together with drinkers, and campaigning together with politicians, having no hearth of his own character to call home. But just as
the natural philosophers say that the shapeless and colorless underlying substance and matter, changing of itself, is now set aflame, now turned to liquid, at one time made into air, and then again solidified, so too, it seems, having many friends requires that a soul underlie it that is subject to many passions, versatile, fluid, and readily changeable. But friendship seeks a stable and firm character, one unshaken and constant in a single
place and habit of life. That is why a steadfast friend is a rare and hard-to-find thing.