# Plutarch's Moralia (Holland)/Essay 13

OF THE PLURALITY OF FRIENDS
THE SUMMARY
[In certain discourses going before, it appeareth what a benefit and good thing friendship is. And now Plutarch addeth thereto a certain correction very necessary in regard of our nature, which is given always to bend unto extremities, and not able long to hold the golden mean. Like as therefore it bewrayeth a miserable, wretched and cursed mind to be desirous for to lead a life without acquaintance and familiarity with any person; even so to make friends (as they say) hand over head and upon every occasion is peradventure impossible, but surely not expedient. Our author, therefore, willing to reform this disordinate affection that is in many, who because they would have a number of friends, oftentimes have not one assured, sheweth that it is far better for a man to get one fast and faithful friend than a great multitude of whom he cannot make any certain account; propounding as a remedy for this covetous mind of entertaining such a plurality of friends, the examples of those who are contented with few, and by that means think their estate more sure and steadfast. After this, he treateth of the choice of friends, but especially of one. Then discourseth he of that which is requisite in true friendship, annexing thereto many proper and apt similitudes, which represent as well the benefit that sincere affection bringeth, as the hurt which cometh of feigned and counterfeit amity. This done, he proveth that to entertain a number of friends is a very hard matter, yea, and impossible; for that a man is not able to converse with them, nor to frame and sort with them all, but that he shall procure himself enemies on all sides: and when he hath enriched and adorned the same with notable examples, he proceedeth to describe what use a man is to make of friendship, and with what sort and condition of men he ought to join in amity: but this is the conclusion; That an honest and virtuous man cannot quit himself well and perform his devoir unto many friends at once.]
Socrates upon a time demanded of Menon the Thessalian, who was esteemed very sufficient in all literature, and a great schoolman, exercised in long practice of disputations, and named to be one (as Empedocles saith) who had attained to the very height and perfection of wisdom and learning, what virtue was; and when he had answered readily and boldly enough in this wise: There is a virtue (quoth he) of a young child, and of an old gray-beard; of a man, and of a woman; of a magistrate, and of a ​private person; of a master, and of a servant: I con you thank (quoth Socrates again, replying unto him), you have done it very well: I asked you but of one virtue, and you have raised and let fly a whole swarm (as it were) of virtues, guessing and collecting not amiss by such an answer that this deep clerk, who had named thus many virtues, knew not so much as one. And might not a man seem to scorn and mock us well enough, who having not yet gotten one friendship and amity certain, are afraid (forsooth) lest ere we be aware, we fall into a multitude and plurality of friends: for this were even as much as if one that is maimed and stark blind should fear to become either Briareus the giant, with an hundred arms and hands, or Argus, who had eyes all over his body. And yet we praise and commend excessively and beyond all measure the young man in Menander, when he saith:
Of all the goods which I do hold,
To think each one (I would be bold)
Right wonderful, if I might find
The shadow only of a friend.
But certainly this is one cause among many others, and the same not the least, that we cannot be possessed of any one assured amity, because we covet to have so many much like unto these common strumpets and harlots, who for that they prostitute their bodies so often and to so many men, cannot make any reckoning to hold and retain any one paramour or lover fast and sure unto them; for that the first comers, seeing themselves neglected and cast off by the entertainment of new, retire and fall away from them, and seek elsewhere; or rather, much after the manner of that foster-child of Lady Hypsipyle:
Who being set in meadow green
With pleasant flowers all fair beseen,
One after other cropp'd them still,
Hunting this game with right goodwill:
For why, his heart took great content
In their gay hue and sweety scent:
So little wit and small discretion
The infant had, and no repletion;
even so every one of us for the desire of novelty, and upon a satiety and fulness of that which is present and in hand, suffereth himself ever to be carried away with a new-come friend that is ​fresh and flowering; which fickle and inconstant affection causeth us to change often and to begin many friendships and finish none; to enter still into new amities and bring none to perfection; and for the love of the new which we pursue and seek after, we pass by that which we held already and let it go.
To begin then first and foremost at antiquity (as it were) from the goddess Vesta (according to the old proverb), let us examine and consider the common fame of man's life which hath been delivered unto us from hand to hand time out of mind, by the succession and progress of so many ages from the old world unto this day, and take the same for a witness and counsellor both in this matter, we shall find in all the years past these only couples and pairs of renowned friends, to wit, Theseus and Pirithous; Achilles and Patroclus; Orestes and Pylades; Pythias and Damon; Epaminondas and Pelopidas. For friendship is indeed (as I may so say) one of these cattle that love company and desire to feed and pasture with fellows; but it cannot abide herds and droves, it may not away with these great flocks, as jays, daws and choughs do. And whereas it is commonly said and thought, that a friend is another own self, and men give unto him the name of ἕταῖρος or ἕταρος in Greek, as if a man would say, ἕτερος, that is, such another: what implieth all this, but that friendship should be reduced within the measure and compass of the dual number, that is, of twain. Well, this is certain, we can buy neither many slaves nor purchase many friends with a small piece of coin: but what may be this piece of money that will fetch friends? Surely, kind affection or goodwill, and a lovely grace joined with virtue, things, I may tell you, so rare, as look throughout the world and the whole course of nature, you shall find nothing more geason. No marvel, then, if it be impossible either to love many or to be loved of many, perfectly and in the height of affection. But like as great rivers, if they be divided into many channels, and cut into sundry riverets, carry but an ebb water, and run with no strong stream; even so a vehement and affectionate love planted in the mind, if it be parted many and divers ways, becometh enervate and feeble, and cometh in manner to nothing. This is the reason in nature that those creatures which bring forth but one and no more, love their young more tenderly and entirely than others do theirs. Homer also, when he would signify a child most dearly beloved, calleth it μοῦνον τηλύγετον, that is to say, only begotten and toward old age, to wit, when the parents have no more between them, nor ever are like or do look to have another: for mine own part, I ​would not desire to have that μοῦνον, that is to say, one friend, and no more; but surely, I could wish that with other he were τηλύγετος, yea, and ὀφίγονος, that is to say, long and late first ere he be gotten, like as a son which is born toward the latter days of his parents, yea, and such a one as (who according to that proverb so common in every man's mouth) hath eaten with me a measure of salt. And are not many nowadays called friends? what else? if they have but drunk once together at the tavern, or met in the tennis court, or else turned into a tabling-house, and played at dice and hazard one with the other, or haply light in company at one hostelry and lodged together, and in one word, they do contract and gather friends in this manner out of common inns, wrestling-places and ordinary walks in the markets or public galleries. And verily, the common sort, when they see every morning in the houses of rich men and mighty rulers a great multitude and concourse of people, with much ado and hurry, giving attendance there to salute them and bid them good-morrow, kissing their right hands, and glad if they may touch them, accompanying them in manner of a guard when they go out of their lodging; oh, they imagine and repute such potentates wondrous happy, as being furnished with such numbers of friends; and yet surely, as many as they be, they shall see more flies ordinarily in their kitchens: and to say a troth, like as these flies will be gone if no cates and viands be stirring, so these friends will tarry no longer than gain and profit is to be gotten.
Certes, true and perfect friendship requireth these three things especially; Virtue, as being honest and commendable; Society, which is pleasant and delectable; and Profit, which is needful and necessary: for a man must admit and receive a friend upon judgment and after trial made, he ought to delight and joy in his company, and he is to make use of him as occasion serveth: all which three are contrary unto plurality of friends, but especially that which is principal, to wit, judgment upon a trial: and to prove this to be true, see first and foremost whether it be possible in a small time to make proof and trial of singing men or quiristers, that they may keep a good consent and harmony together in their song; or to make choice of oarmen, who shall agree in their rowing, to rise and fall with their oars just together; or of household servants such as we purpose to make the bailiffs and stewards of our goods, or the governors and bringers-up of our children? much more unlikely then is it, that we should have proof of many friends in a little space who ​ will be ready to enter the trial with us of all manner of fortune, and of whom every one will be prest and willing:
Of his welfare to yield even part to thee.
And bear like part of thy calamity.
For neither is a ship shot or haled into the sea against so many storms and tempests; nor men do set and pitch so many stakes in a palisado for the defence of any place; or in havens raise banks and oppose dams against the like dangers, or in fear of so many perils, as friendship promiseth succour and refuge for, if it be founded surely and aright upon good proof and sufficient experience. As for such as before trial and experiment made do intrude themselves, coming and going for friends, such, when they be put to the trial and touch indeed, and then found like evil money, counterfeit or light, they that go without them be glad in their mind, and as many as have them wish with all their heart and pray to God for to be rid of them. But surely this is a troublesome and cumbrous thing, neither is it an easy matter to void and cast off such a friendship as this, so displeasant and offensive: for like as if some kind of bad meat do trouble and offend the stomach, a man can neither retain and hold it still, but it will put him to pain and breed hurt and corruption, nor yet put it off and send it out in such sort as it went in, but all filthy and loathsome, as being furred over with slime, and mixed confusedly with other humours, and wholly altered from the former state; even so an ill friend either tarrieth with us still to his own grief and ours both, or else away he goeth perforce with evil will, malice and enmity, like bitter choler that is vomited out of the stomach.
It is not good, therefore, to receive and admit of friends over-lightly and over-soon, nor to set our minds and knit our affections to those that come next hand and present themselves first, nor yet love those incontinently that seek to us and follow us; but rather to seek after them and follow them ourselves that are worthy of friendship: for we must not always choose that which is easy to be had and willing to be gotten; for we put by gorse and furzen bushes; we tread under foot briars and brambles though they catch hold of us and hang unto us as we walk whether we will or no; whereas we go forward to the olive-tree and the vine; and even so it is not always decent and good to entertain into our familiarity one that is ready to embrace and hang about us; but rather such ought we ourselves affectionately to embrace whom we have tried to be profitable unto us, and who ​ deserve that we should love and make account of them. And like as Xeuxis the painter answered sometime to those who found fault with him for his slow hand in painting: I confess indeed (quoth he) that I am long in drawing a picture, for I purpose that my work should continue long; and even so that friendship and familiarity is like to last and be preserved long which was a good while in proof and trial. Is it then no easy matter to make trial and choice of many friends together? and is it no hard thing to converse and keep company with many at once, or rather is this also impossible? for surely it is conversation and fellowship whereby we enjoy the benefit of friendship, and the most sweet and pleasant fruit of amity consisteth in keeping continual society, and daily frequenting one another's company, like unto those who uttered these words:
For during life we will not sit
In counsel from our friends,
Nor yet resolve of doubtful points
Before we know their minds.
As Homer reporteth in one place: and in another Menelaus, speaking of Ulysses, saith thus:
Nought else us twain, our mutual love,
And pleasures shall depart
Until death close up both our eyes
And strike us to the heart.
But this plurality of friends whereof we now speak, seemeth to do clean contrary; for whereas the simple amity of twain draweth us together, holdeth and uniteth us by frequent and continual conversation, fellowship, and duties of kindness.
Much like as when the fig-tree juice,
You put white milk among.
It curdles, knits, and binds the same.
No less than rennet strong,
according to the words of Empedocles; and surely desirous it is to make the semblable union and concorporation: this friendship of many separateth, distracteth and diverteth us, calling and transporting us sundry ways, not permitting the commixture and soldering (as it were) of goodwill and kind affection to grow into one, and make a perfect joint by familiar conversation, enclosing and fastening every part together. But the same anon bringeth withal a great inequality in offices and reciprocal services meet for friends, and breedeth a certain foolish bashfulness and straining of courtesy in the performance thereof, for by occasion of many friends those parts in amity, which other​ wise are easy and commodious, become difficult and incommodious: And why?
All men do not agree in humour one,
Their thoughts, their cares bend diversely each one;
and no marvel, for our very natures do not all incline in affection the same way; neither are we at all times conversant and acquainted with the like fortunes and adventures. To say nothing of their sundry occasions and occurrences which serve not indifferently for all our actions; but like as the winds unto sailors, they are with some and against others; sometimes on our backs and otherwhiles full in our face. And say that it may fall out so that all our friends at once do stand in need, and be desirous of one and the same help and ministry at our hands, it were very hard to fit all their turns and satisfy them to their content; whether it be in taking our advice and counsel in any negotiations, or in treating about state matters, or in suit after dignities, places of government, or in feasting and entertaining strangers in their houses: But suppose that at one and the same instant our friends, being diversely affected and troubled with sundry affairs, request all of them together our helping hand; as, for example, one that is going to sea, for to have our company in that voyage; another, who being defendant and to answer for himself in the law, to assist him in the court; and a third that is a plaintiff, to second him in his plea; a fourth, who either is to buy or sell, for to help him to make his markets; a fifth, who is to marry, for to sacrifice with him, and be at his wedding dinner; and a sixth, who is to inter a dead corpse, for to mourn and solemnise the funeral with him: in such a medley and confusion as this, as if according to Sophocles:
A city smoked with incense sweet,
And ring with songs for mirth so meet,
With plaints also and groans resoimd.
And all in one and selfsame stound.
Certes, having so many friends, to assist and gratify them all were impossible, to pleasure more were absurd, and in serving one's turn to reject many others, were offensive and hurtful: for this is a rule:
Who to his friend is well affected.
Loves not himself to be neglected.
And yet commonly such negligences and forgetful defaults of friends we take with more patience and put up with less anger and displeasure, when they shall come to excuse themselves ​ by oblivion, making these and such-like answers: Surely, you were but forgotten; it was out of my head, and I never thought of it: but he that shall allege thus and say: I was not your assistant in the court, nor stood to you in your cause, by reason that I attended another friend of mine in a trial of his; or, I came not to visit you whiles you had an ague, for that I was busily employed at a feast, that such a one made to one of his friends; excusing his negligence to one friend by his diligence to others; surely he maketh no satisfaction for the offence already taken, but increaseth the same and maketh it worse than before, by reason of jealousy added thereto; howbeit most men as it should seem aim at nothing else but at the profit and commodity which friendship bringeth and yieldeth from without, and never regard what care it doth imprint and work within; neither remember they that he whose turn hath been served by many friends, must likewise reciprocally be ready to help them as their need requireth. Like as therefore the giant Briareus, with his hundred hands feeding fifty bellies, had no more sustenance for his whole body than we, who with two hands furnish and fill one belly; even so the commodity that we have by many friends bringeth this discommodity withal, that we are to be employed also to many, in taking part with them of their griefs and passions, in travailing and in being troubled together with them in all their negotiations and affairs: for we are not to give ear unto Euripides the poet when he saith thus:
In mutual love men ought a mean to keep,
That it touch not heart root nor marrow deep,
Affections for to change it well besits,
To rise and fall, now hot, now cool by fits;
giving us to understand that friendship is to be used according as need requireth more or less, like to the helm of a ship, which both holdeth it hard and also giveth head, or the tackling which spread and draw, hoist and strike sail, as occasion serveth. But contrariwise, rather (good Euripides) we may turn this speech of yours to enmity, and admonish men that their quarrels and contentions be moderate and enter not to the heart and inward marrow (as it were) of the soul, that hatred (I say) and malice, that anger, offences, defiances, and suspicions, be so entertained as that they may be soon appeased, laid down and forgotten.
A better precept is that yet of Pythagoras, when he teacheth us not to give our right hand to many; that is to say, not to make many men our friends, nor to affect that popular amity ​ common to all, and exposed or offered to every one that cometh, which no doubt cannot chuse but bring many passions with it into the heart, among which, to be disquieted for a friend, to condole or grieve with him, to enter into troubles, and to plunge oneself into perils for his sake, are not very easy matters to be borne by those that carry an ingenuous mind with them, and be kind-hearted; but the saying of wise Chilon, a professor of philosophy, is most true, who answering unto a man that vaunted how he had not an enemy; It should seem then (quoth he) that thou hast never a friend; for certainly enmities ensue presently upon amities, nay, they are both interlaced together; neither is it the part of a friend not to feel the injuries done unto a friend, nor to participate with him in all ignominies, hatred and quarrels that he incurreth; and one enemy evermore will be sure to suspect the friend of another, yea, and be ready to malice him; as for friends, oftentimes they envy their own friends, they have them in jealousy, and traduce them every way. The oracle answered unto Timesias when he consulted about the planting and peopling of a new colony in this wise:
Thou think'st to lead a swarm of bees full kind,
But angry wasps thou shalt them shortly find.
Semblably they that seek after a bee-hive (as it were) of friends, light ere they be aware upon a wasps' nest of enemies: where there is a great odds and difference even in this, that the revenging remembrance of an enemy for wrong done over-weigheth much the thankful memory of a friend for a benefit received: and whether this be true or no, consider in what manner Alexander the Great entreated the friends of Philotas and Parmenio; how Dionysius the Tyrant used the familiars of Dion; after what sort Nero the emperor dealt by the acquaintance of Plautus; or Tiberius Caesar by the well-willers of Sejanus, whom they caused all to be racked, tortured and put to death in the end. And like as the costly jewels of gold, and the rich apparel of King Creon's daughter, served him in no stead at all, but the fire that took hold thereof, flaming light out suddenly, burned him when he ran unto her to take her in his arms, and so consumed father and daughter together; even so you shall have some, who having never received any benefit at all by the prosperity of their friends, are entangled notwithstanding in their calamities, and perish together with them for company; a thing that ordinarily and most of all they are subject unto, who be men of profession, great clerks and honourable personages. ​ Thus Theseus, when Perithous his friend was punished and lay bound in prison,
With fetters sure to him tied was,
Far stronger than of iron or brass.
Thucydides also writeth; That in the great pestilence at Athens, the best men and such as made greatest profession of virtue, were they who died most with their friends that lay sick of the plague: for that they never spared themselves, but went to visit and look to all those whom they loved and were familiarly acquainted with. And therefore it is not meet to make so little regard and reckoning of virtue, as to hang and fasten it upon others, without respect, and (as they say) hand over head, but to reserve the communication thereof to those who be worthy; that is to say, unto such who are able to love reciprocally, and know how to impart the like again. And verily, this is the greatest contrariety and opposition which crosseth plurality of friends, in that amity in deed is bred by similitude and conformity: for considering that the very brute beasts not endued with reason, if a man would have to engender with those that are of divers kinds, are brought to it by force, and thereto compelled, insomuch as they shrink, they couch down upon their knees, and be ready to flee from one another; whereas contrariwise, they take pleasure and delight to be coupled with their like and of the same kind, receiving willingly and entertaining their company in the act of generation, with gentleness and good contentment: how is it possible that any sound and perfect friendship should grow between those who are in behaviour quite different, in affections diverse, in conditions opposite, and whose course of life tendeth to contrary or sundry ends? True it is that the harmony of music, whether it be in song or. instrument, hath symphony by antiphony, (that is to say) the accord ariseth from discord and of contrary notes is composed a sweet tune, so as the treble and the base concur, after a sort (I wot not how), and meet together, bringing forth by their agreement that sound which pleaseth the ear: but in this consonance and harmony of friendship there ought to be no part unlike or unequal, nothing obscure and doubtful, but the same should be composed of all things agreeable, to wit, the same will, the same opinion, the same counsel, the same affection, as if one soul were parted into many bodies.
And what man is he, so laborious, so mutable, so variable, and apt to take every fashion and form? who is able to frame ​ unto all patterns, and accommodate himself to so many natures, and will not rather be ready to laugh at the poet Theognis, who giveth this lesson:
Put on a mind (I thee do wish)
As variable as polype fish,
Who ay resemble will the roach.
To which he nearly doth approach.
* ↑ Opheltes or Archemorus.
* ↑ νήπιον ἄχρηστον ἔχων: or νήπιον ἄπληστον ἔχων: as it is read elsewhere.