XII OF FRIENDSHIP

MICHAEL, LORD OF MONTAIGNE

 

 

. . . . .

Society

THERE is nothing to which Nature hath more addressed us than to society. And Aristotle saith, that perfect Law-givers have had more regardful care of friendship than of justice. And the utmost drift of its perfection is this. For generally, all those amities which are forged and nourished by voluptuousness or profit, public or private need, are thereby so much the less fair and generous, and so much the less true amities, in that they intermeddle other causes, scope, and fruit with friendship, than itself alone: Nor do those four ancient kinds of friendships, Natural, social, hospitable, and venerian, either particularly or conjointly

The chief offices of friendship

beseem the same. That from children to parents may rather be termed respect: Friendship is nourished by communication, which by reason of the over-great disparity cannot be found in them, and would happily offend the duties of nature: for neither all the secret thoughts of parents can be communicated unto children, lest it might engender an unbeseeming familiarity between them, nor the admonitions and corrections (which are the chiefest offices of friendship) could be exercised from children to parents. There have nations been found, where, by custom, children killed their parents, and others, where parents slew their children, thereby to avoid the hindrance of enter-bearing one another in aftertimes: for naturally one dependeth from the ruin of another.... Verily the name of Brother is

A glorious name

a glorious name, and full of loving kindness, and therefore did he and I term one another sworn brother: but this commixture, dividence, and sharing of goods, this joining wealth to wealth, and that the riches of one shall be the poverty of another, doth exceedingly distemper and distract all brotherly alliance, and lovely conjunction: If brothers should conduct the progress of their advancement and thrift in one same path and course, they must necessarily oftentimes hinder and cross one another. Moreover, the correspondency and relation that begetteth these true and mutually perfect amities, why shall it be found in these? The father and the son may very well be of a far differing complexion, and so [may] brothers: He is my son, he is my kinsman; but he may be a fool, a bad, or a

Father and son

peevish-minded man. And then according as they are friendships, which the law and duty of nature doth command us, so much the less of our own voluntary choice and liberty is there required unto it: And our genuine liberty hath no production more properly her own, than that of affection and amity. Sure I am, that concerning the same I have assayed all that might be, having had the best and most indulgent father that ever was, even to his extremest age, and who from father to son was descended of a famous house, and touching this rare-seen virtue of brotherly concord very exemplary:

‘—et ipse
Notus in fratres animi paterni.’
Hor. ii. Od. ii. 6.

To his brothers known so kind,
As to bear a father’s mind.

To compare the affection toward

True friendship

women unto it, although it proceed from our own free choice, a man cannot, nor may it be placed in this rank: Her fire, I confess it

‘(—neque enim est dea nescia nostri
Quæ dulcem curis miscet amaritiem.)’

(Nor is that Goddess ignorant of me,
Whose bitter-sweets with my cares mixed be.)

to be more active, more fervent, and more sharp. But it is a rash and wavering fire, waving and divers: the fire of an ague subject to fits and stints, and that hath but slender hold-fast of us. In true friendship, it is a general and universal heat, and equally tempered, a constant and settled heat, all pleasure and smoothness, that hath no pricking or stinging in it, which the more it is in lustful love, the more is it but a ranging and mad desire in following that which flies us,

The enjoyment of friendship

‘Come segue la lepre il cacciatore
Al freddo, al caldo, alla montagna, al lito,
Ne piu l’estima poi che presa vede,
E sol dietro a chi fugge affretta il piede.’
Arios., can. x. st. 7.

Ev’n as the huntsman doth the hare pursue,
In cold, in heat, on mountains, on the shore,
But cares no more, when he her ta’en espies,
Speeding his pace, only at that which flies.

As soon as it creepeth into the terms of friendship, that is to say, in the agreement of wills, it languisheth and vanisheth away: enjoying doth lose it, as having a corporal end, and subject to sacietie. On the other side, friendship is enjoyed according as it is desired, it is neither bred, nor nourished, nor increaseth but in jovissance, as being spiritual, and the mind being refined by use and custom. Under this chief amity, these fading affections have sometimes found place in me, lest I should speak of him, who in his verses

Marriage and friendship

speaks but too much of it. So are these two passions entered into me in knowledge one of another, but in comparison never: the first flying a high, and keeping a proud pitch, disdainfully beholding the other to pass her points far under it. Concerning marriage, besides that it is a covenant which hath nothing free but the entrance, the continuance being forced and constrained, depending elsewhere than from our will, and a match ordinarily concluded to other ends: A thousand strange knots are therein commonly to be unknit, able to break the web, and trouble the whole course of a lively affection; whereas in friendship, there is no commerce or business depending on the same, but itself. Seeing (to speak truly) that the ordinary sufficiency of women, cannot answer this conference

Complete friendship

and communication, the nurse of this sacred bond: nor seem their minds strong enough to endure the pulling of a knot so hard, so fast, and durable. And truly, if without that, such a genuine and voluntary acquaintance might be contracted, where not only minds had this entire jovissance, but also bodies, a share of the alliance, and where a man might wholly be engaged: It is certain, that friendship would thereby be more complete and full: But this sex could never yet by any example attain unto it, and is by ancient schools rejected thence. And this other Greek licence is justly abhorred by our customs, which notwithstanding, because according to use it had so necessary a disparity of ages, and difference of offices between lovers, did no more sufficiently answer the perfect

External beauty

union and agreement, which here we require: ‘Quis est enim iste amor amicitiæ? cur neque deformem adolescentem quisquam amat, neque formosum senem?’ (Cic., Tusc. Que. iv.). For, what love is this of friendship? why doth no man love either a deformed young man, or a beautiful old man? For even the picture the Academie makes of it, will not (as I suppose) disavow me, to say thus in her behalf: That the first fury, inspired by the son of Venus in the lover’s heart, upon the object of tender youth’s-flower, to which they allow all insolent and passionate violences, an immoderate heat may produce, was simply grounded upon an external beauty; a false image of corporal generation: for in the spirit it had no power, the sight whereof was yet concealed, which was but in his

The lover

infancy, and before the age of budding. For, if this fury did seize upon a base minded courage, the means of its pursuit, [were] riches, gifts, favour to the advancement of dignities, and such like vile merchandice, which they reprove. If it fell into a most generous mind, the interpositions were likewise generous: Philosophical instructions, documents to reverence religion, to obey the laws, to die for the good of his country: examples of valour, wisdom and justice. The lover endeavouring and studying to make himself acceptable by the good grace and beauty of his mind (that of his body being long since decayed) hoping by this mental society to establish a more firm and permanent bargain. When this pursuit attained the effect in due season (for by not requiring in a

Spiritual beauty

lover, he should bring leasure and discretion in his enterprise, they require it exactly in the beloved; forasmuch as he was to judge of an internal beauty, of a difficile knowledge, and abstruse discovery) [then] by the interposition of a spiritual beauty was the desire of a spiritual conception engendred in the beloved. The latter was here chiefest; the corporal, accidental and second, altogether contrary to the lover. And therefore do they prefer the beloved, and verify that the gods likewise prefer the same: and greatly blame the Poet Æschylus, who in the love between Achilles and Patroclus ascribeth the lover’s part unto Achilles, who was in the first and beardless youth of his adolescency, and the fairest of the Græcians. After this general community, the mistress and

A definition of love

worthiest part of it, predominant and exercising her offices (they say the most availful commodity did thereby redound both to the private and public). That it was the force of countries received the use of it, and the principal defence of equity and liberty: witness the comfortable loves of Hermodius and Aristogiton. Therefore name they it sacred and divine, and it concerns not them whether the violence of tyrants, or the demisness of the people be against them: To conclude, all can be alleaged in favour of the Academy, is to say, that it was a love ending in friendship, a thing which hath no bad reference unto the Stoical definition of love: ‘Amorem conatum esse amicitiæ faciendæ ex pulchritudinis specie’ (Cic., ibid.). That love is an endeavour of making friendship, by the shew of beauty.

How friendships are to be judged

I return to my description in a more equitable and equal manner. ‘Omnino amicitiæ corroboratis jam confirmatisque ingeniis et ætatibus judicandæ sunt’ (Cic., Amic.). Clearly friendships are to be judged by wits, and ages already strengthened and confirmed. As for the rest, those we ordinarily call friends and amities, are but acquaintances and familiarities, tied together by some occasion or commodities, by means whereof our minds are entertained. In the amity I speak of, they intermix and confound themselves one in the other, with so universal a commixture, that they wear out, and can no more find the seam that hath conjoined them together. If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed, but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.

A preordained friendship

There is beyond all my discourse, and besides what I can particularly report of it, I know not what inexplicable and fatal power, a mean and Mediatrix of this indissoluble union. We sought one another, before we had seen one another, and by the reports we heard one of another; which wrought a greater violence in us, than the reason of reports may well bear: I think by some secret ordinance of the heavens, we embraced one another by our names. And at our first meeting, which was by chance at a great feast, and solemn meeting of a whole township, we found ourselves so surprized, so known, so acquainted, and so combinedly bound together, that from thence forward, nothing was so near unto us, as one unto another. He writ an excellent Latin Satire; since published; by

A first meeting

which he excuseth and expoundeth the precipitation of our acquaintance, so suddenly come to her perfection; Sithence it must continue so short a time, and begun so late (for we were both grown men, and he some years older than myself) there was no time to be lost. And it was not to be modelled or directed by the pattern of regular and remiss friendship, wherein so many precautions of a long and preallable conversation are required. This hath no other Idea than of itself, and can have no reference but to itself. It is not one especial consideration, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor a thousand: It is I wot not what kind of quintessence, of all this commixture, which having seized all my will, induced the same to plunge and lose itself in his, which likewise having seized all his will, brought it to lose and

Gracchus and Blosius

plunge itself in mine, with a mutual greediness, and with a semblable concurrence. I may truly say, lose, reserving nothing unto us, that might properly be called our own, nor that was either his, or mine. When Lelius in the presence of the Roman Consuls, who after the condemnation of Tiberius Gracchus, pursued all those that had been of his acquaintance, came to enquire of Caius Blosius (who was one of his chiefest friends) what he would have done for him, and that he answered, All things. What? All things? replied he: And what if he had willed thee to burn our Temples? Blosius answered, He would never have commanded such a thing. But what if he had done it? replied Lelius: The other answered, I would have obeyed him: If he were so perfect a friend to Gracchus, as Histories report, he needed

Gracchus and Blosius

not offend the Consuls with this last and bold confession, and should not have departed from the assurance he had of Gracchus his mind. But yet those, who accuse this answer as seditious, understand not well this mystery: and do not presuppose in what terms he stood, and that he held Gracchus his will in his sleeve, both by power and knowledge. They were rather friends than Citizens, rather friends than enemies of their country, or friends of ambition and trouble. Having absolutely committed themselves one to another, they perfectly held the reins of one another’s inclination: and let this yoke be guided by virtue and conduct of reason (because without them it is altogether impossible to combine and proportion the same). The answer of Blosius was such as it should be. If their affections

A friend’s will

miscarried, according to my meaning, they were neither friends one to other, nor friends to themselves. As for the rest, this answer sounds no more than mine would do, to him that would in such sort enquire of me; if your will should command you to kill your daughter, would you do it? and that I should consent unto it: for, that beareth no witness of consent to do it: because I am not in doubt of my will, and as little of such a friend’s will. It is not in the power of the world’s discourse to remove me from the certainty I have of his intentions and judgements of mine: no one of its actions might be presented unto me, under what shape soever, but I would presently find the spring and motion of it. Our minds have jumped so unitedly together, they have with so fervent an affection considered

Friends’ affection

of each other, and with like affection so discovered and sounded, even to the very bottom of each other’s heart and entrails, that I did not only know his, as well as mine own, but I would (verily) rather have trusted him concerning any matter of mine, than myself. Let no man compare any of the other common friendships to this. I have as much knowledge of them as another, yea of the perfectest of their kind: yet will I not persuade any man to confound their rules, for so a man might be deceived. In these other strict friendships a man must march with the bridle of wisdom and precaution in his hand; the bond is not so strictly tied, but a man may in some sort distrust the same. Love him (said Chilon) as if you should one day hate him again. Hate him as if you should love him again. This precept, so

Customary friendships

abominable in this soveraign and mistress Amity, is necessary and wholesome in the use of vulgar and customary friendships: toward which a man must employ the saying Aristotle was wont so often to repeat, Oh you my friends, there is no perfect friend.

In this noble commerce, offices and benefits (nurses of other amities) deserve not so much as to be accounted of: this confusion so full of our wills is cause of it: for even as the friendship I bear unto myself, admits no accrease, by any succour I give myself in any time of need, whatsoever the Stoics alleage; and as I acknowledge no thanks unto myself for any service I do unto myself, so the union of such friends, being truly perfect, makes them lose the feeling of such duties, and hate, and expel from one

Mutual agreement

another these words of division, and difference; benefit, good deed, duty, obligation, acknowledgement, prayer, thanks, and such their like. All things being by effect common between them; wills, thoughts, judgements, goods, wives, children, honour, and life; and their mutual agreement, being no other than one soul in two bodies, according to the fit definition of Aristotle, they can neither lend or give ought to each other. See here the reason why Lawmakers, to honour marriage with some imaginary resemblance of this divine bond, inhibit donations between husband and wife; meaning thereby to infer, that all things should peculiarly be proper to each of them, and that they have nothing to divide and share together. If in the friendship whereof I speak, one might give unto

The will of Eudamidas

another, the receiver of the benefit should bind his fellow. For, each seeking more than any other thing, to do each other good, he who yields both matter and occasion, is the man sheweth himself liberal, giving his friend that contentment, to effect towards him what he desireth most. When the Philosopher Diogenes wanted money, he was wont to say; That he re-demanded the same of his friends, and not that he demanded it: And to show how that is practised by effect, I will relate an ancient singular example. Eudamidas the Corinthian had two friends. Charixenus a Sycionian, and Aretheus a Corinthian; being upon his death-bed, and very poor, and his two friends very rich, thus made his last will and testament. To Aretheus, I bequeath the keeping of my mother, and to maintain

Aretheus

her when she shall be old: To Charixenus the marrying of my daughter, and to give her as great a dowry as he may: and in case one of them shall chance to die before, I appoint the surviver to substitute his charge, and supply his place. Those that first saw this testament, laughed and mocked at the same; but his heirs being advertised thereof, were very well pleased, and received it with singular contentment. And Charixenus one of them, dying five days after Eudamidas, the substitution being declared in favour of Aretheus, he carefully, and very kindly kept and maintained his mother, and of five talents that he was worth, he gave two and a half in marriage to one only daughter he had, and the other two and a half to the daughter of Eudamidas, whom he married both in one day. This

Divisions of common friendships

example is very ample, if one thing were not, which is the multitude of friends: For this perfect amity I speak of is indivisible; each man doth so wholly give himself unto his friend, that he hath nothing left him to divide elsewhere: moreover he is grieved that he is [not] double, triple, or quadruple, and hath not many souls, or sundry wills, that he might confer them all upon this subject. Common friendships may be divided; a man may love beauty in one, facility of behaviour in another, liberality in one, and wisdom in another, paternity in this, fraternity in that man, and so forth: but this amity which possesseth the soul, and sways it in all soveraignty, it is impossible it should be double. If two at one instant should require help, to which would you run? Should they crave contrary offices of you,

A principal friendship

what order would you follow? Should one commit a matter to your silence, which if the other knew would greatly profit him, what course would you take? Or how would you discharge yourself? A singular and principal friendship dissolveth all other duties, and freeth all other obligations. The secret I have sworn not to reveal to another, I may without perjury impart it unto him, who is no other but myself. It is a great and strange wonder for a man to double himself; and those that talk of tripling, know not, nor cannot reach unto the height of it. Nothing is extreme, that hath his like. And he who shall presuppose, that of two I love the one as well as the other, and that they inter-love one another, and love me as much as I love them: he multiplieth in brotherhood,

The force of friendship

a thing most singular, and a lonely one, and than which one alone is also the rarest to be found in the world. The remainder of this history agreeth very well with what I said; for, Eudamidas giveth as a grace and favour to his friends to employ them in his need: he leaveth them as his heirs of his liberality, which consisteth in putting the means into their hands, to do him good. And doubtless, the force of friendship is much more richly shown in his deed, than in Aretheus. To conclude, they are [inimaginable] effects, to him that hath not tasted them; and which makes me wonderfully to honour the answer of that young Soldier to Cyrus, who enquiring of him, what he would take for a horse, with which he had lately gained the prize of a race, and whether he would change

A superficial acquaintance

him for a Kingdom? No, surely, my Liege (said he), yet would I willingly forego him to gain a true friend, could I but find a man worthy of so precious an alliance. He said not ill, in saying, could I but find. For, a man shall easily find men fit for a superficial acquaintance; but in this, wherein men negotiate from the very centre of their hearts, and make no spare of any thing, it is most requisite, all the wards and springs be sincerely wrought, and perfectly true. In confederacies, which hold but by one end, men have nothing to provide for, but for the imperfections, which particularly do interest and concern that end and respect. It is no great matter what religion my Physician and Lawyer is of: this consideration hath nothing common with the offices of that friendship they owe me.

Concerning table-talk

So do I in the familiar acquaintances, that those who serve me contract with me. I am nothing inquisitive whether a Lackey be chaste or no, but whether he be diligent: I fear not a gaming Muletier, so much as if he be weak; nor a hot swearing Cooke, as one that is ignorant and unskilful; I never meddle with saying what a man should do in the world; there are over many others that do it; but what myself do in the world.

‘Mihi sic usus est: Tibi, ut opus est facto, face.’
Ter., Heau. Act i. Scen. i. 28.

So is it requisite for me;
Do thou as needful is for thee.

Concerning familiar table-talk, I rather acquaint myself with, and follow a merry conceited humour, than a wise man.... In society or conversation of familiar discourse, I respect rather sufficiency,

Friendship difficult to find

though without Preud’hommie, and so of all things else. Even as he that was found riding upon an hobby-horse, playing with his children, besought him, who thus surprized him, not to speak of it, until he were a father himself supposing the tender fondness, and fatherly passion, which then would possess his mind, should make him an impartial judge of such an action. So would I wish to speak to such as had tried what I speak of: but knowing how far such an amity is from the common use, and how seldom seen and rarely found, I look not to find a competent judge. For, even the discourses, which stern antiquity hath left us concerning this subject, seem to me but faint and forceless in respect of the feeling I have of it: And in that point the effects exceed the very precepts of Philosophy.

‘Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.’
Hor., i. Sat. v. 44.

For me, be I well in my wit,
Nought, as a merry friend, so fit.

The shadow of a true friend

Ancient Menander accounted him happy, that had but met the shadow of a true friend: verily he had reason to say so, especially if he had tasted of any: for truly, if I compare all the rest of my forepassed life, which although I have by the mere mercy of God, past at rest and ease, and except the loss of so dear a friend, free from all grievous affliction, with an ever-quietness of mind, as one that have taken my natural and original commodities in good payment, without searching any others: if, as I say, I compare it all unto the four years, I so happily enjoyed the sweet company, and dear-dear society of that worthy man, it is

Montaigne’s friend

nought but a vapour, nought but a dark and irkesome [night]. Since the time I lost him,

‘quem semper acerbum,
Semper honoratum (sic Dii voluistis) habebo.’
Virg., Aen. v. 49.

Which I shall ever hold a bitter day,
Yet ever honor’d (so my God t’ obey).

I do but languish, I do but sorrow: and even those pleasures, all things present me with, instead of yielding me comfort, do but redouble the grief of his loss. We were co-partners in all things. All things were with us at half: methinks I have stolen his part from him.

‘—Nec fas esse ulla me voluptate hîc frui
Decrevi, tantisper dum ille abest meus particeps.’
Ter., Heau. Act i. Scen. i. 97.

I have set down, no joy enjoy I may,
As long as he my partner is away.

I was so accustomed to be ever two,

Montaigne’s friend

and so enured to be never single, that methinks I am but half myself.

‘Illam meæ si partem animæ tulit,
Maturior vis, quid moror altera,
Nec charus æque nec superstes,
Integer? Ille dies utramque
Duxit ruinam.’—Hor., ii. Od. xvii. 5.

Since that part of my soul riper fate reft me,
Why stay I here the other part he left me?
Nor so dear, nor entire, while here I rest:
That day hath in one ruin both opprest.

There is no action can betide me, or imagination possess me, but I hear him saying, as indeed he would have done to me: for even as he did excel me by an infinite distance in all other sufficiencies and virtues, so did he in all offices and duties of friendship.

‘Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus,
Tam chari capitis?’—i. Od. xxiv. 1.

What modesty or measure may I bear,
In want and wish of him that was so dear?

In memoriam

‘O misero frater adempte mihi!
Omnia tecum unà perierunt gaudia nostra,
Quæ tuus in vita dulcis alebat amor.
Tu mea, tu moriens fregisti commoda frater,
Tecum unà tota est nostra sepulta anima,
Cujus ego interitu tota de mente fugavi
Hæc studia, atque omnes delicias animi.
Alloquar? audiero nunquam tua verba loquentem?
Nunquam ego te vita frater amabilior,
Aspiciam posthac? at certè semper amabo.’
Catul., Ele. iv. 20, 92, 23,
95, 21, 94, 25; El. i. 9.

O brother reft from miserable me,
All our delight’s are perished with thee,
Which thy sweet love did nourish in my breath.
Thou all my good hast spoiled in thy death:
With thee my soul is all and whole enshrined,
At whose death I have cast out of mind
All my mind’s sweet-meats, studies of this kind;
Never shall I hear thee speak, speak with thee?
Thee, brother, than life dearer, never see?
Yet shalt thou ever be belov’d of me.

But let us a little hear this young man speak, being but sixteen years of age.

The author’s subject

Because I have found this work to have since been published (and to an ill end) by such as seek to trouble and subvert the state of our common-wealth, nor caring whether they shall reform it or no; which they have fondly inserted among other writings of their invention, I have revoked my intent, which was to place it here. And lest the Author’s memory should any way be interested with those that could not thoroughly know his opinions and actions, they shall understand, that this subject was by him treated of in his infancy, only by way of exercise, as a subject, common, bare-worn, and wire-drawn in a thousand books. I will never doubt but he believed what he writ, and writ as he thought: for he was so conscientious, that no lie did ever pass his lips, yea, were it but in matters

A good citizen

of sport or play: and I know, that had it been in his choice, he would rather have been born at Venice than at Sarlac; and good reason why: But he had another maxim deeply imprinted in his mind, which was, carefully to obey, and religiously to submit himself to the laws, under which he was born. There was never a better Citizen, nor more affected to the welfare and quietness of his country, nor a sharper enemy of the changes, innovations, new-fangles, and hurly-burlies of his time: He would more willingly have employed the utmost of his endeavours to extinguish and suppress, than to favour or further them: His mind was modelled to the pattern of other best ages.