The Memorabilia Part 9

Soc. Yet there is no need to apply any recondite or novel machinery.

Only bait your hook in the way best known to yourself, and you will capture him; whereupon he will become your devoted friend.

Chaer. If you are aware that I know some love-charm, Socrates, of which I am the happy but unconscious possessor, pray make haste and enlighten me.

Soc. Answer me then. Suppose you wanted to get some acquaintance to invite you to dinner when he next keeps holy day, (4) what steps would you take?

(4) "When he next does sacrifice"; see "Hiero," viii. 3. Cf. Theophr.

"Char." xv. 2, and Prof. Jebb's note ad loc.

Chaer. No doubt I should set him a good example by inviting him myself on a like occasion.

Soc. And if you wanted to induce some friend to look after your affairs during your absence abroad, how would you achieve your purpose?

Chaer. No doubt I should present a precedent in undertaking to look after his in like circ.u.mstances.

Soc. And if you wished to get some foreign friend to take you under his roof while visiting his country, what would you do?

Chaer. No doubt I should begin by offering him the shelter of my own roof when he came to Athens, in order to enlist his zeal in furthering the objects of my visit; it is plain I should first show my readiness to do as much for him in a like case.

Soc. Why, it seems you are an adept after all in all the philtres known to man, only you chose to conceal your knowledge all the while; or is it that you shrink from taking the first step because of the scandal you will cause by kindly advances to your brother? And yet it is commonly held to redound to a man's praise to have outstripped an enemy in mischief or a friend in kindness. Now if it seemed to me that Chaerephon were better fitted to lead the way towards this friends.h.i.+p, (5) I should have tried to persuade him to take the first step in winning your affection, but now I am persuaded the first move belongs to you, and to you the final victory.

(5) Reading {pros ten philian}, or if {phusin}, transl. "natural disposition."

Chaer. A startling announcement, Socrates, from your lips, and most unlike you, to bid me the younger take precedence of my elder brother.

Why, it is contrary to the universal custom of mankind, who look to the elder to take the lead in everything, whether as a speaker or an actor.

Soc. How so? Is it not the custom everywhere for the younger to step aside when he meets his elder in the street and to give him place? Is he not expected to get up and offer him his seat, to pay him the honour of a soft couch, (6) to yield him precedence in argument?

(6) Lit. "with a soft bed," or, as we say, "the best bedroom."

My good fellow, do not stand s.h.i.+lly-shallying, (7) but put out your hand caressingly, and you will see the worthy soul will respond at once with alacrity. Do you not note your brother's character, proud and frank and sensitive to honour? He is not a mean and sorry rascal to be caught by a bribe--no better way indeed for such riff-raff. No! gentle natures need a finer treatment. You can best hope to work on them by affection.

(7) Or, "have no fears, essay a soothing treatment."

Chaer. But suppose I do, and suppose that, for all my attempts, he shows no change for the better?

Soc. At the worst you will have shown yourself to be a good, honest, brotherly man, and he will appear as a sorry creature on whom kindness is wasted. But nothing of the sort is going to happen, as I conjecture.

My belief is that as soon as he hears your challenge, he will embrace the contest; p.r.i.c.ked on by emulous pride, he will insist upon getting the better of you in kindness of word and deed.

At present you two are in the condition of two hands formed by G.o.d to help each other, but which have let go their business and have turned to hindering one another all they can. You are a pair of feet fas.h.i.+oned on the Divine plan to work together, but which have neglected this in order to trammel each other's gait. Now is it not insensate stupidity (8) to use for injury what was meant for advantage? And yet in fas.h.i.+oning two brothers G.o.d intends them, methinks, to be of more benefit to one another than either two hands, or two feet, or two eyes, or any other of those pairs which belong to man from his birth. (9) Consider how powerless these hands of ours if called upon to combine their action at two points more than a single fathom's length apart; (10) and these feet could not stretch asunder (11) even a bare fathom; and these eyes, for all the wide-reaching range we claim for them, are incapable of seeing simultaneously the back and front of an object at even closer quarters.

But a pair of brothers, linked in bonds of amity, can work each for the other's good, though seas divide them. (12)

(8) "Boorishness verging upon monomania."

(9) "With which man is endowed at birth."

(10) "More than an 'arms'-stretch' asunder."

(11) Lit. "reach at one stretch two objects, even over that small distance."

(12) "Though leagues separate them."

IV

I have at another time heard him discourse on the kindred theme of friends.h.i.+p in language well calculated, as it seemed to me, to help a man to choose and also to use his friends aright.

He (Socrates) had often heard the remark made that of all possessions there is none equal to that of a good and sincere friend; but, in spite of this a.s.sertion, the ma.s.s of people, as far as he could see, concerned themselves about nothing so little as the acquisition of friends.

Houses, and fields, and slaves, and cattle, and furniture of all sorts (he said) they were at pains to acquire, and they strove hard to keep what they had got; but to procure for themselves this greatest of all blessings, as they admitted a friend to be, or to keep the friends whom they already possessed, not one man in a hundred ever gave himself a thought. It was noticeable, in the case of a sickness befalling a man's friend and one of his own household simultaneously, the promptness with which the master would fetch the doctor to his domestic, and take every precaution necessary for his recovery, with much expenditure of pains; but meanwhile little account would be taken of the friend in like condition, and if both should die, he will show signs of deep annoyance at the death of his domestic, which, as he reflects, is a positive loss to him; but as regards his friend his position is in no wise materially affected, and thus, though he would never dream of leaving his other possessions disregarded and ill cared for, friends.h.i.+p's mute appeal is met with flat indifference. (1)

(1) Or, "the cry of a friend for careful tending falls on deaf ears."

Or to take (said he) a crowning instance: (2) with regard to ordinary possessions, however multifarious these may be, most people are at least acquainted with their number, but if you ask a man to enumerate his friends, who are not so very many after all perhaps, he cannot; or if, to oblige the inquirer, he essays to make a list, he will presently retract the names of some whom he had previously included. (3) Such is the amount of thought which people bestow upon their friends.

(2) Or, "Nor had he failed to observe another striking contrast." Cf.

Cic. "Lael." 17; Diog. Laert. ii. 30.

(3) i.e. "like a chess-player recalling a move."

And yet what thing else may a man call his own is comparable to this one best possession! what rather will not serve by contrast to enhance the value of an honest friend! Think of a horse or a yoke of oxen; they have their worth; but who shall gauge the worth of a worthy friend? Kindlier and more constant than the faithfullest of slaves--this is that possession best named all-serviceable. (4) Consider what the post is that he a.s.signs himself! to meet and supplement what is lacking to the welfare of his friends, to promote their private and their public interests, is his concern. Is there need of kindly action in any quarter? he will throw in the full weight of his support. Does some terror confound? he is at hand to help and defend by expenditure of money and of energy, (5) by appeals to reason or resort to force. His the privilege alike to gladden the prosperous in the hour of success and to sustain their footing who have well-nigh slipped. All that the hands of a man may minister, all that the eyes of each are swift to see, the ears to hear, and the feet to compa.s.s, he with his helpful arts will not fall short of. Nay, not seldom that which a man has failed to accomplish for himself, has missed seeing or hearing or attaining, a friend acting in behalf of friend will achieve vicariously. And yet, albeit to try and tend a tree for the sake of its fruit is not uncommon, this copious mine of wealth--this friend--attracts only a lazy and listless attention on the part of more than half the world.

(4) "A vessel fit for all work indeed is this friend." Cf. Ar. "Ach."

936, {pagkhreston aggos estai}, like the "leather bottel."

(5) Or, "by dint of his diplomacy."

V

I remember listening to another argument of his, the effect of which would be to promote self-examination. The listener must needs be brought to ask himself, "Of what worth am I to my friends?" It happened thus.

One of those who were with him was neglectful, as he noted, of a friend who was at the pinch of poverty (Antisthenes). (1) Accordingly, in the presence of the negligent person and of several others, he proceeded to question the sufferer.

(1) Antisthenes, "cynicorum et stoicorum parens." Cic. "de Or." iii.

17; "ad Att." xii. 38. See below, III. iii. 17; "Symp." pa.s.sim; Diog. Laert. II. v.; VI. i.

Soc. What say you, Antisthenes?--have friends their values like domestic slaves? One of these latter may be worth perhaps two minae, (2) another only half a mina, a third five, and a fourth as much as ten; while they do say that Nicias, (3) the son of Niceratus, paid a whole talent for a superintendent of his silver mines. And so I propound the question to myself as follows: "Have friends, like slaves, their market values?"

(2) A mina = L4 circ.

(3) For Nicias see Thuc. vii. 77 foll.; "Revenues," iv. 14; Plut.

"Nic." IV. v.; Lys. "de bon. Aristoph." 648.

Not a doubt of it (replied Antisthenes). At any rate, I know that I would rather have such a one as my friend than be paid two minae, and there is such another whose worth I would not estimate at half a mina, and a third with whom I would not part for ten, and then again a fourth whose friends.h.i.+p would be cheap if it cost me all the wealth and pains in the world to purchase it.

Well then (continued Socrates), if that be so, would it not be well if every one were to examine himself: "What after all may I chance to be worth to my friends?" Should he not try to become as dear as possible, so that his friends will not care to give him up? How often do I hear the complaint: "My friend So-and-so has given me up"; or "Such an one, whom I looked upon as a friend, has sacrificed me for a mina." And every time I hear these remarks, the question arises in my mind: If the vendor of a worthless slave is ready to part with him to a purchaser for what he will fetch--is there not at least a strong temptation to part with a base friend when you have a chance of making something on the exchange?

Good slaves, as far as I can see, are not so knocked down to the hammer; no, nor good friends so lightly parted with.