Love & Friendship
15. Envy, Flattery, Virtue and Self-Love as Tests of Friendship: Shakespeare, the Novelists and Homer
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/6-love-friendship/015-envy-flattery-virtue-and-self-love-as-tests-of-friendship/

[0:00] forest there, yeah. And so, interesting place. Now, envy and friendship, huh? What suggested to me doing a little topic on envy and friendship was that in the treatise on charity in the Summa Theologiae, right? When Thomas takes up, you know, the virtues in the Secunda Secunda, he takes up with them or after them the vices opposed to that virtue, right? Because it's the same knowledge of opposites as we said, right?

[0:33] And one of the things he takes up with friendship with caritas charity is envy, right? Because that's very much opposed to what friendship, right? Okay. And so, I thought if you look a little bit at envy and see why it's opposed to friendship, then you realize that in the nature of what friendship too. Now, friendship involves mutual goodwill,

[1:04] and envy is defined as sadness over the good fortune of another, right? So if I am sad of your good fortune, right, that seems to be contrary to my wishing well to you, right, whereby I should rejoice in your what success or whatever good has happened to you, right? Okay.

[1:34] And usually, you know, when I'm teaching this in the college, there, I'll take the example, you know, you and your roommate, huh? And I say, now you two girls, your roommates, and one of you gets a real nice guy who's going places, right? He's handsome, he's good conversationalist, right? He's got his feet on the ground, right, and so on. And don't you feel a little bit of envy, you know, that you're?

[2:02] And or I say, you you two guys now, you know, you're seniors, you know, and you're looking for a job, right? And your roommate has got a real and real nice job, and he's ready to go on places, and you can't seem to find anything, you know? Don't you envy in a sense, you know? And I feel sad. And and they kind of you know relate to that, right?

[2:22] And but yet, if you're sad over the good fortune of your friend, that's really opposed to what. Friendship, right? And if that envy became in any way habitual, right, it would destroy the friendship, right. But even the the sudden feeling, which is very common, right, these texts reveal. Um, that feeling is opposed to friendship, right? Okay.

[2:50] Now I start with some ones here from three famous novelists because these novelists are famous in English fiction if you know them. And they're all making somewhat the same observation, although some understand the significance of it better than others. But they're close observers, you might say, human beings, a novelist, right? Because they're used to observing people and representing them in their things. And all three of them note this tendency to envy in human beings, okay?

[3:21] And some of them, you know, develop the thing better, but they all see that in general. So the letter of Matthew Bramble to Doctor Lewis, I am inclined to think he says, no mind was ever wholly exempt from envy.

[3:38] And he said even in the monastery, right? You know the the life there of Saint Teresa of Saint Teresa of Ávila right? Well she was advancing beyond these older nuns who had been in the you know convent for twenty, thirty, forty years, you know, this upstart, you know, is all sudden, you know, being showered with all these graces, you know, and she's you know advancing. So there is some feeling of what of envy, right, towards that person.

[4:07] Which perhaps may have been implanted as an instinct essential to our nature. I don't think that's really true, you know, that part. Um, but it seems to be ingrained in our fallen nature, you might say, right? Okay. I am afraid we sometimes palliate this vice under the specious name of emulation. I have known a person remarkably generous, human, moderate, apparently self-denying, who could not even hear a friend commended. Without betraying marks of uneasiness, as if that commendation implied an odious comparison to his prejudice, and every wreath of praise added to the other's character was a garland plucked from his own temples.

[4:47] Now the only thing that's really good about that, though, is that last part. The first one, I'm inclined to think no mind was ever wholly exempt from envy, right? As a novelist and an observer of human beings, I'm he seeing this as a very common thing, right?

[5:10] Now Thackeray and Henry Esmond, he says it very cleverly, I think here, as according to the famous maxim of Monsieur de Rochefoucauld, in our friends' misfortunes there is something secretly pleasant to us.

[5:29] So on the other hand, their good fortune is disagreeable. If 'tis hard for a man to bear his own good luck, right? 'Tis harder still for his friends to bear it for him.

[5:43] He's very cleverly said, but he does not do what he's saying. And but few of them ordinarily can stand that trial. Whereas one of the precious uses of adversity is that it's a great reconciler, that it brings back reverted kindness, disarms animosity, and causes yesterday's enemy to fling his hatred aside and hold out a hand to the fallen friend of old days. There's pity and love, as well as envy, in the same heart and towards the same person.

[6:16] That shows even though they're incompatible, right? It shows kind of the weakness of the what the love, right? The rivalry stops when the competitor tumbles, and as I view it, we should look at these agreeable and disagreeable qualities humbly alike. They are consequent and natural, and are kindness and meanness both manly. I don't agree with that last sentence, but the fact that he thinks of it as being natural means how ingrained it is, right?

[6:45] And you might say ingrained in our fallen nature, right? Okay. Now Henry Fielding, you know Tom Jones, which is in the so-called great books, but anyway, not so great a book in my opinion. But anyway, he's in the great books, a, very famous novel. He says the firmness and constancy of a true friend is a circumstance so extremely delightful to persons in any kind of distress that the distress itself of it be only temporary and admit of relief is more than compensated by bringing this comfort with it.

[7:20] Nor are instances of this kind so rare as some superficial and accurate observers have reported. To say the truth, want of compassion. Want of pity, right, is not to be numbered among our general faults. The black ingredient which follows your disposition is envy. I see envy and pity are two different forms of sadness, right? And pity is sadness over the misfortune of another, right? Especially the undeserved misfortune, right?

[7:54] While envy is sadness over the good fortune, right? So pity is a good passion, a good emotion, right? Okay. And so metaphorically we apply it to God, Kyrie eleison Christe eleison Kyrie eleison right? And then Agnus Dei miserere nobis right? One of the other Greek word for pity, the other the Latin word for pity, right? So to pity the unfortunate is a good feeling, a good emotion, right?

[8:23] But to envy the good fortune of another is a bad one, right? Okay. So it would be bad to lack, to be lacking in pity, right? To be pitiless, right? And it's also bad to have envy, right? So to have the one is bad, to lack the other is bad, right? Okay. He's saying it's not so frequent that men lack pity, right? Okay. But the but now he's saying, I think his observation is true.

[8:53] The black ingredient which follows our disposition is envy. Hence our eye is seldom, I am afraid, turned upward to those who are manifestly greater, better, wiser, or happier than ourselves, without some degree of what, lignity, right? While we commonly look downwards on the mean and miserable with sufficient benevolence and pity. When you pity somebody in their sense below you, right? They're in a miserable position, right? Okay.

[9:24] Why envy is for someone above you in some way that is more fortunate or wealthier or happier or got better children or whatever, right? Okay Marxism Yeah.

[9:38] In fact, I have remarked that most of the defects—that's a very interesting statement—most of the defects which have discovered themselves in the friendships within my observation have arisen from envy only. Okay. I think it's interesting observation, part of this novelist. Now, and now I think he calls it rightly here. not like the other two novelists, but a hellish vice. We'll see the reason for that. The scripture will say it arose from the devil, right?

[10:09] And yet, one from which I have known very few absolutely what exempt. Now, I bring this in to the friendship course for a couple of reasons, right? One is by its opposition to friendship, you understand friendship better, right? But also by observing the prevalence of it, you have a sign of the defect of most what existing friendships, right? In the need to fight, you know, if they'll have that feeling arising in you, right?

[10:41] It's really like the temptation against friendship, you might say, right? See, and and just like you know, temptation against chastity has to be fought, right? Or temptation to get angry, you know, more than you should, or something. So this feeling of envy, which seems to rise very often, once your friend, right, is more fortunate you in some way, more successful, right? They get a promotion, you don't get a promotion, right?

[11:08] So you envy them. You have to fight against that feeling, right? Because it's really contrary to the good of what your friendship with this person.

[11:21] And it comes up sometimes when people are talking about heaven, you know, and they run to a lot of people, even in church, you know, who think that everybody in heaven is equal, right?

[11:36] And as my old teacher Mr. Tripp used to say, God hates equality. And the first may be last, the last may be the first, but they still won't be equal, right? It may be different than those down here, right? Um. But it sounds like you would envy, right, someone being higher than the other person, right?

[12:04] Now, Washington Irving, who is our greatest American writer here, his life and voyages of Christopher Columbus. He says, "If it is the lot of prosperity to awaken envy and excite detraction,

[12:21] it is certainly the lot of misfortune to atone for multitude of faults." Right. We have to pity someone again, right? I meant to avoid envy. Now, San Domingo had been the very hotbed of sedition against Columbus in the day of his power. He had been hurried from it in ignominious chains. Now, if you read the whole life of Columbus, right, it's terrible what happens to him finally, amid the shouts and taunts of the triumphant rabble.

[12:51] Can you imagine that, right? This guy who discovered the new world, right? You know, fell into this, huh? But he had so many enemies, right, who were envious of the great glory that he got from his discovery, right?

[13:03] He had been excluded from its harbor when, as commander of a squadron, he craved shelter from an impending tempest. But now, when he's a wreck, now, but now that he'd arrived in its waters, are broken down and shipwrecked men, all past hostilities, was overpowered by the popular sense of his late disasters, huh? Now you see something like this in in in Pilate, there, right? He knows that they delivered Christ out of envy, right?

[13:29] And Scripture says that, doesn't it? Some of the Gospel accounts say that. And although it's unjust, he's going to have him scourged, right? And then, behold, the man, right? As if out of pity, then they'll say, "Okay, you know." Instead, they say, "Barabbas, you know, crucify him," right? But it's the idea here, right? That the man you envy, you may what? In his success, you may pity when his what?

[13:57] Misfortune comes, up. Do you see? Maybe that's what Pilates, to keep the friendship with the Jews. Yeah, that's maybe involved too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[14:19] But notice, a lot of the enmity towards Christ was what coming from envy, huh? Because they were following him rather than me, you know. The hymns we have in our liturgy: the envious crucify him. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Of course, you see the difference between them and John the Baptist, who says he must increase and I must decrease. Yeah. And that's the way it should be, you know. You know.

[14:48] That's why I always kind of admired the humility there of De Koninck, you know, and I did my doctoral thesis under Dionne, in Dionne, you know, and there was some question I was thinking about a lot, and I went and started to see what De Koninck thought about, you know, he says, you know, like, why did you ask me when you had Dionne Because Dionne directed my thesis, you know, and I said, well, I just want to hear what you had to say anyway.

[15:09] He said, okay, but you know, there was no envy at all, you know. There. There was a momentary burst of enthusiasm in his favor, which had been denied to his merit. What had been denied to his merit was granted to his misfortune, right? And even the envious, appeased by his present reverses, right, seemed to forgive him for having once been so triumphant. Okay. Because this says an awful lot about human beings, right?

[15:38] Okay. We're more apt to pity, right? Um, than to avoid envy, right? Okay. Saint Joan of Arc. Yeah. When she was being led to the stake, she was so pitiable. Yeah. Even the English soldiers were weeping. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[16:00] Now the metaphysics, Aristotle says it's not possible for God to be envious. Okay. He's, you know, rejecting the position of the poets, right? Okay.

[16:14] But now in the Book of Wisdom in the Bible, Old Testament, for God created man incorruptible, and to the image of His own likeness He made him. But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world, and they follow him that are of his side. Right. So in that respect, when Fielding speaks of envy as a hellish vice, right, imitating the devil, right, it is a hellish vice, huh?

[16:46] Um. So it's something very much to be fought against, huh? To be extirpated from your soul, huh? But at the same time, the novelists are saying how common it is, huh? And there's an interesting saying there in the the Book of Job, right, which said, "Pride kills the great man, and envy the little one." Say. As if pride is kind of the vice of the great. Um, they have contempt for others, you know, because of their excellence and their position, so on.

[17:29] But envy is the vice of the of the lowly, right? And some, you know, sociologists think of envy as more characteristic of democratic times, huh? You know, we're always trying to be equal, you know, and always envy those who are a little bit ahead of them, in one way or another.

[17:49] But yeah, that seems always to be the appeal of the Marxists. Yeah. In some popular fashion, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of the people. are just so fascinated to hear about, you know, just oh, you know, like you know Elvis. you know, oh, he's really, really sick. You know, I mean, anybody who's famous or rich or anything, they want to find out about how they're really just miserable.

[18:19] They're not. They're not really happy. They don't have any dream of that stuff. at all. And the famous play, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, right? At the end of the play, there, you know the story, I may assume, but Anthony, who is opposed to Brutus, right, Here's a eulogy he gives over the fallen Brutus, right. So it's an enemy, you might say, praising his fallen enemy, right? This was the noblest Roman of them all.

[18:50] All of the conspirators, save only he, did that they did in envy of great Caesar, huh? That's why they killed Caesar. They envied him, with the exception of Brutus, right? He only, in a general honest thought and common good to all, made one of them, right? And he thought that Caesar was going to make himself dictator, right? And this would be harmful to the common good of the city, right?

[19:16] And they're nipping in the bud now, you know. But he's the he's the exception, right? All the conspirators, save only he, did that they did in envy of great Caesar. If you read, you know, the the play and see Cassius, you know how he envies, you know, Caesar, and how he's towering over him, you know. and. halfway down here and Caesar's, you know, striding the whole country, you know, can see something that envy, huh?

[19:41] I think it's it's interesting, right? Because you can see the the how common that envy is. His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, "This was a man."

[19:57] But notice what Shakespeare is saying there, right, or what Anthony is saying there. Um, this man who alone was free of envy, right? He was a man. This was a man, right? The others were not. So, so I mean, it gets that idea of being natural in the sense of nature of man, right? Contrary to it, right?

[20:25] Now, this is a beautiful simile in Sonnet 37. where one friend is rejoicing in the success of his friend, right? Even though he himself is what suffering much misfortune, right? And he makes a beautiful comparison, I think, here. As a decrepit father, right, as a decrepit father, as a decrepit father takes delight, huh, to see his active child do deeds of youth. So I made lame by fortune's dearest spite, take all my comfort of their worth and truth.

[21:14] I think that's beautifully said, right? Because in my own experience of fathers and sons, right, I don't think I've ever really seen in a father envy of his own son when that son is more successful than father was, right. In other words, I've I've seen many fathers, you know, who speak with pride of their son who's doing much better than they're doing in life. You might say has much, you know, better position or making much more money, you know, whatever our society looks up to.

[21:52] But they're proud of it, right? You see, and if the the son, you know, plays football and is a better football player than his father was, the father rejoices in in the son's what excellence, right? In other words, the friendship of the father for the son, and maybe generally parent for the child, right, is naturally more free of envy than the friendship between equals, right? Huh? You see, and so he's speaking here for friendship between equals, right?

[22:25] But he's comparing his friendship to the friendship of the father for his what son, right? Huh? So when the father. Is what weakened body and on canes or crutches or wherever it is right? He rejoices to see that athletic proudness of his son. He doesn't. He's sad because of his having that, right?

[22:51] You find that same thing in in in Homer's Iliad, right? There's the friendship of of Achilles for Patroclus, right? It's compared to the friendship of a father for a son. So Homer says that you know Patroclus is killed, the tragedy of the Iliad, and Achilles mourns the death of Patroclus, and as a father mourns the death of his only son. See, so you know Achilles mourns the death of Patroclus, huh?

[23:21] And you know it's it's a one to one. I'm never going to have a friend like Patroclus, you know. You know Achilles never going to have a friend that close, you know. And so it's like an only son, right? But he compares it to the friendship of the father to the son. And then you know he has another metaphor or simile where he compares it to the lioness whose cub has been lost, right?

[23:45] And you picked up the cub, and the lioness finds with her cub. You know, guys, you know you better watch out for Achilles, right? But again, it's comparing it to the parent with the what child, right? So the two greatest poets are Shakespeare and Homer, and they both see the perfection of the friendship among equals, right? Being in some way like the friendship of the father for the son, in so far as what?

[24:14] Free of envy yeah Insofar as the. Now I think there's a reason for that, right? Because the Greek proverb will be in Aristotle, it's a famous one in Greek. A friend is another self. I was studying Greek, you know. You get that in the book. you know o fillas est inalos autas a friend is another self. Love your neighbor as yourself, as the commandment says, right? And sometimes Shakespeare calls a friend the second self, right?

[24:44] Okay. But the son is a natural continuation of the father, right? That's where we use the word reproduction, right? You don't reproduce the son; you reproduce yourself. So it's more natural for the father to see the son as another self, right? And for me to see, you know, the equal that I meet in college or someplace as another self, right? And so, in that respect, to love another as yourself is more natural than your own what child, right?

[25:20] Huh? So, in some way, the love of the father for the son is a what exemplar for friendship, right? Both in loving another person as yourself, right, and then in loving them, having a love for them that is free of this opposing vice or passion of envy. I think it's very, very, very interesting to see the greatness of Shakespeare and Homer, right? That they hit the nail on the head, and that they understand that, right?

[25:53] They understand the perfection of the friendship that's represented in the sonnet here, right, or the friendship of Achilles for Patroclus, it's compared to that of the father for the son, right? It's interesting. On the supreme example of friendship, I suppose, is God the Father and God the Son, right? And that's a father and son too, right? You know,

[26:15] and the father doesn't envy the son. Oh my gosh, he's got the same nature I have. He's just as great as me, you know. He's equal. No, no, no. Doesn't attract him. For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, or any of these, all or all or more entitled in thy parts to crown and sit, I make my love engrafted to this orb. Right. No matter how excellent you are, right?

[26:43] So then, I am not lame, poor, nor despised, although I am. Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give, that I in thy abundance am sufficed, huh? And by a part of all thy glory live, I so gone out of myself, loving you, right, huh? That I seem to what undergo the good that you go, right? And your glory is my glory because you are another self, you know.

[27:09] Hey, beautifully said the way he says it. Look what is best. That best I wish in thee, huh? Supreme wishing well, right? The love, wish well, this wish I have, huh? You're very successful. Then ten times happy me.

[27:28] But how rare that is according to what the novelists say, right? They have that kind of a. thing. Now, it's a different topic here. Flattery and friendship, right?

[27:42] Okay, okay. The flattery conquers strife, right? Now it's sweet to be flattered, right? Flattery gets you everything, as the saying goes. Now, as I have a little note here, I say, hence flattery seems less opposed to friendship than envy. Envy is very much opposed to friendship, but what about flattery, right? With the sweet breath of flattery, conquers strife.

[28:13] Now you see, you know the common example with husbands and wives. They go to the party or the social function, right? And who is the most beautiful woman there? Well, are you going to say the truth? If there's someone there more beautiful than your wife, you, of course, my dear. Well, this is the sweet breath of flattery, see? And it conquers strife, right? I've said so and so's wife was obviously more beautiful than you.

[28:41] Ooh, you would be in deep, deep trouble, right? But but notice, you go to somebody's house for dinner, right? And you praise the dinner and praise the cook, right? Instead of saying, "Well, you know, you cooked that meal a little bit too much," or you, you know, you should put use a little condiment, yeah, yeah. See, and and you probably wouldn't be invited again. A little, you know, strife here, you know, between you, right?

[29:09] So he says, "The sweet breath of flattery conquers strife." Okay. Now Julius Caesar, things are not going too well for Cassius and Brutus and so on. Cassius is a little bit given to anger and things of this sort, and Brutus is pulling up on this, right? And Cassius says, "A friend."Should bear his friend's infirmities, but Brutus makes mine greater than they are. And Brutus says, "I do not till you practice them in me."

[29:44] And Cassius says, "You love me not." And Brutus says, "I do not love your faults." See, well, that's a distinction you often make, you know, the sinner and the sin, right? And Cassius says, though a friendly eye would never see such faults. Is that true? See, And Brutus says, a flatterer's would not. See, he distinguishes between the eye of the flatterer and the eye of the friend, right?

[30:14] A flatterer's would not, though they do appear as huge as high Olympus right See. In other words, if I really wish well to you, and you have defects, right? Am I going to flatter you and gloss these over, or am I going to, in a nice way, maybe, huh? Try to help you get rid of those faults, right? Okay, I might ignore them. I think that's helpless, and I'm going to change you.

[30:43] But okay, so this passage seems to show there's some opposition between flattery and what friendship, right? Huh? Although the first thing for the comedy of errors there would show that it's really not opposed to friendship in the way envy is, right? Okay. Let's go into the grandchildren, you know, playing a little bit of soccer. You know, not very good at it. You know, they're still four or five years old.

[31:12] You know, oh, the coach is out there. You know, they're encouraging them all the time. You know, they're flattering them all the time. Wonderful, you know, not doing anything right, really, you know. But see, the y'all's got to do that, right? Okay, now a little conversation here from the twelfth night. Huh? The duke says to the clown, "I know thee well. How dost thou, my good fellow?

[31:36] Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my friends." The duke says, "Just the contrary, don't you mean? Huh? The better for my friends? No, sir, the worse. How can that be, Mary, sir? They praise me and make an ass of me. Now my foes tell me plainly I'm an ass, so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends, I'm abused."

[32:02] It was a famous essay of Plutarch, huh? How to benefit from your enemies, right? Because your enemies will point out your defects and your faults, and many times your friends will not point out to you your defects, right? So that's what this is, maybe you know, inspired by this particular treatise of Plutarch, huh? The

[32:27] kid is that a friend, maybe in the true sense, right? Okay. Shakespeare, sonnet 138. When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies. That she might think me some untutored youth, unlearned in the world's false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, although she knows my days are past the best. Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue.

[33:00] On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed. But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old? Who loves best habit is in seeming trust, and age and love loves not to have years told. Therefore I lie with her and she with me, and in our faults by lies we flatter be.

[33:31] But notice this is you know true friendship or perfect friendship. This involves this flattery, right? Now in Hamlet here, maybe you have an example of true friendship between Hamlet and what Horatio, right? And this is a scene where Hamlet is going to get Horatio to watch the king in the play within the play. He's going to have the actors reenact, enact a scene that is like the way his father was killed according to the ghost, right?

[34:03] He's going to see what the king does, how he reacts to this, and he wants Horatio to watch him too, so he can get his thing. Horatio, thou art in as just a man as e'er my conversation coped withal. Oh, my dear lord! Nay, do not think I flatter.

[34:22] For what advancement may I hope from thee? That no revenue hast but thy good spirits to feed and clothe thee, right? Why should the poor be flattered? Why should I flatter you? No, let the candied tongue, lick absurd pomp, and bend the crook, the pregnant hinges of the knee, where thrift and profit may follow fawning. Right. Dost thou hear? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, and could of men distinguish, her election has sealed thee for herself.

[34:59] That's what Shakespeare is saying, right? That friendship of this kind, anyway, is based upon choice, right? Okay. And when is a soul mistress of her choice? When your reason is developed enough, where you could compare men and see why this man you want as a friend and not that man, right?

[35:22] And then he talks about why he chose him as his friend. For thou hast been as one in suffering all that suffers nothing. A man that fortunes buffets and rewards has ta'en with equal thanks. He's not a man who gets exulted and goes crazy when he has good fortune, or gets very depressed when bad things happen, right? But he stays on even keel. And blessed are those whose blood, whose emotions, right, and judgment, reason, are so well commingled that they are not a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stops she please.

[36:01] Give me that man that is not passion's slave. Well, that's almost the definition of what a good man is, right? Because the coward is a slave of his fear, right? And the drunkard of his passion for drink and so on, right? And the irascible man is a slave of his own anger, right? Okay.

[36:23] So it's the virtues concerned with the emotions that free us from being a slave of those passions. Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, a in my heart of heart, as I do thee. Something too much of this. Love likes to be silent usually, right?

[36:44] That's the friendship that Aristotle will say is the best, right? The one based on virtue, right? Now in Cymbeline, now Cloten, who's the foolish son of the queen, he's being flattered all the time, right? Even though he's a villain, right?

[37:06] Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt. The violence of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice. Where air comes out, air comes in. There's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.

[37:19] If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it, have I hurt him? One lord says in aside, "No faith, not so much as his patience." First lord, is flattering him, hurt him. His body's a passable carcass if he be not hurt. He's a thoroughfare for a steel if it be not hurt.

[37:36] The second lord said his steel was in debt It went to the backside of the tower. He just avoided you, really. The villain would not stand me. No, but he fled forward still towards your face. Stand you? You have land enough of your own, but he added to your having, gave you some ground. The second lord aside, as many inches as you have oceans puppies I would they had not come between us?

[38:01] So would I, till you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground. That's beautifully said. Now Kent, who is the faithful servant there of the king, King Lear, right? You know the play. Oswald is one of these courtiers who's flattering always his masters. That such a slave as this should wear a sword who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these, like rats, oft bite the holy cords at twain, which are too intrinse to unloose.

[38:37] I suppose it's marital infidelity, right? They wink at the kings or the lords' infidelity, right? They smooth every passion in the nature of their lords rebel. They bring oil to fire, huh? Instead of moderating the fire, right? Snow to their colder moods, renege affirm and turn their halcyon beaks with every gale and vary of their masters, knowing not like dogs but following. So they, fit in what the other master's feeling is right.

[39:11] Fine, you know. That's an interesting topic. Flattery and friendship, you know, but how much flattery there is in life? I just to keep patience, right?

[39:32] So, Professor, so and so is praising so. So's paper, even though he thinks it's a lot of nonsense. He doesn't want to offend so and so, right? huh? You know? Okay. Or he's praising the students because he wants a good review from the students. you know, Praising the students' paper. you know, But you see it in other parts of life too, right? Okay. And and you know, let's say you know praising somebody who's dinner when you think it wasn't that good.

[40:01] You know, doesn't seem to be too serious a fault. So envy and flattery are both opposed to friendship, right? But envy more directly because envy is being sad over the good fortune of another. So that seems you're not wishing that person well, right? Okay. But flattery maybe in a more subtle way is opposed to it because you're not what helping a person to be better, right? Or to overcome their what defects, huh?

[40:39] Okay. Do you ever read the, the autobiography of Margaret Alacoque you know, Sacred Heart woman. You know. And there you kind of see the severity of our Lord, you know. And our Lord says, you know, where do you find a more a more resourceful lover than myself, right? And from time to time she'll think, you know, I'm not too bad, you know. And then he reads out her habits.

[41:06] And there's no flattery at all of her, you know. You see. And if you don't flatter Margaret Mary Alacoque, who do you flatter? You see? but Christ is a true lover, a true friend, right? Okay. Shakespeare used that word lover sometimes in the sense of a friend, right? And there you see kind of you know this understanding of the connection between friendship and and love, right? But you know it sounds kind of strange in English because etymologically we don't have any more word for a love that goes with friend.

[41:44] So they call friend a lover. We think of romantic lover, physical lover, something like that. But no, a friend is a lover in some sense of the word love. Yeah.

[41:55] It's like in the Psalm, if a just man strikes or reproves me, in his kindness. Yeah. If. He has your best interests in mind as being a friend. Yeah. Yeah. Now the useful friendship will be the lowest of the three kinds of friendship that Aristotle talk about, huh? And and a useful friendship, you know, may last as long as you're useful to me. But when you cease to be useful to me, then the friendship's reason has disappeared, right?

[42:31] It wasn't really a friend of you for what you are, but because of the fact you're useful to me at this particular point. So in the play within the play, the king is saying to the queen, "This world is not for aye nor 'tis not strange that even our love should with our fortunes change. For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, whether love lead fortune or else fortune love.

[42:56] The great man down you mark his favorite flies. The poor advance makes friends of enemies. And hitherto doth love and fortune tend, for who not need shall never lack a friend, and who in want a hollow friend doth try, directly seasons him his enemy. You're talking about useful friendships here, right? And so you suddenly inherit a lot of money, or you win a lot of money, you know, all of a sudden you've got all kinds of friends, right?

[43:27] And when you fall into misfortunes and your money disappears, right? Suddenly you've lost your friends. What kind of friends were these, right? They were friends for usefulness.

[43:44] Henry the Sixth is young and is going to marry a woman of no position, so to speak, right? And the lords don't approve of this, right? A dower my lords, disgrace not so your king that he should be so abject, base, and poor to choose for wealth and not for perfect love. Henry is able to enrich his queen and not to seek a queen to make him rich.

[44:10] So worthless peasants bargain for their wives as market men for oxen, sheep, or horse. Timon of Athens, the swallow follows not summer more willing than we, your lordship, nor more willingly leaves winter. Such summer birds are men. Summer friends.

[44:39] Now I repeat here under virtue and friendship on the words of Hamlet to Horatio there that seem to indicate that he chose Horatio as a friend because he was not passion slave, which is a negative way of saying that he was what a good man, a virtuous man.

[44:58] So this is going to be the highest kind of friendship, and in Cicero's little treatise on friendship, this is the only friendship there is. Aristotle says, well, we do use the word friendship and friend to daily life for these lesser kinds of things, so we're going to distinguish between friendship in the full sense and then these ones that have some likeness to it but fall short of it.

[45:22] Now Johnson, huh, says to Boswell, who has to be assured of his friendship sometimes. Never, my dear soul, sir, do you take it into your head to think that I do not love you? You may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem. I love you as a kind man. I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.

[45:47] I hold you as Hamlet has it in my heart of hearts. Boswell's a little bit of a, you know, rascally in some ways, as we know now, but Johnson has a good effect upon Boswell. On Wednesday, May nineteenth, I study part of the evening with them by ourselves. I observe that the death of our friends might be a consolation against the fear of our own dissolution, because you might have more friends in the other world than in this.

[46:19] Sometimes you meet a man who lives long, you know, and all his friends have died off, right? Well, they're all over there. You might as well go too, huh? But Johnson now takes this not quite right. He perhaps felt this as reflection upon his apprehension as to death. Johnson's in fear of death, right? And said with heat, "How can a man know where his departed friends are, huh?

[46:41] Or whether they will be his friends in the other world? You know, Maybe they're in hell, my friends, for all I know, right? How many friendships have you known formed upon principles of virtue? Like that's a rare friendship, as Aristotle will tell us, right? But that is the best. The best things are rare. Most friendships are formed by caprice or by chance, mere confederacies in vice, or leagues in folly.

[47:08] A lot of truth what Johnson is saying, huh? You know. But now Homer in the greatest work of Greek fiction, the Iliad, huh? Book eighteen. This is after Patroclus, his friend, has died. Now as he was pondering this in his heart and his spirit. Meanwhile, the son of stately Nestor was drawing near him, and wept warm tears, and gave Achilles his sorrowful message. Ah, me, son of valiant Peleus, you must hear from me the ghastly message of a thing I wish had never happened.

[47:46] Patroclus has fallen, and now they are fighting over his body. He spoke, and the black cloud of sorrow closed on Achilles. A little bit later on, Achilles, of course, is a hero, right? His mother is a goddess, son. His father, a mortal man. The sighing, heavily Achilles, of, the swift feet, answered her. My mother, all these things, Olympian, that means Zeus, brought to accomplishment. But what pleasure is this to me, since my dear companion has perished?

[48:20] Patroclus, whom I love beyond all other companions, as well as my own life, I have lost. him. Meanwhile, the Achaeans mourned all night the lamentation over Patroclus. Peleus's son led the thronging chant of lamentation, and laid his manslaughtering hands over the chest of his dear friend, with outbursts of incessant grief. As some, notice the comparison to the parent here, as some great bearded lion, when some man, a deer hunter, has stolen his cubs away from him, out of the close world, the lion coming back too late and is anguished, and turning into many valleys, quartering after the man's trail in the chance of finding him, and taken with bitter anger.

[49:06] So he, groaning heavily, spoke out to the Myrmidons. Ah, me! It was an empty word I cast forth on that day, when in his halls I tried to comfort the hero Menoetius, that's the father of Patroclus. I told him I would bring back his son in glory, to Opous with Ilion sacked, and bring his share of war spoils Instead of he's been kind of indirectly responsible for the death of Patroclus. Because what. He had done it; had left the battle, right?

[49:36] Because it was, you know, fight with Agamemnon, right? And then the battle was going against the Greeks, right? The Achaeans. And Patroclus went into battle, you know, to help the Greeks, and that's how he got killed, right? So, in a sense, Achilles had been responsible for the death of his best friend. That's why it's a tragedy, right?

[49:55] Later on, Book Twenty-Three, no, before Zeus, who is greatest of gods and the highest, there is no right in letting water come near my head. until I have laid Patroclus on the burning pyre and heaped the mound over him and cut my hair for him, since there will come no second sorrow like this to my heart again, why I am still one living. Night long they piled the flames on the funeral pyre together, and blew with a screaming blast.

[50:26] And night long, swift-footed Achilles, from a golden mixing bowl, with a two-handed goblet in his hand, drew the wine poured it on the ground and drenched the ground with it, and called upon the soul of unhappy Patroclus. And as a father mourns as he burns the bones of a son, right, who was married only now and died to grieve his unhappy parents, so Achilles was mourning as he burned his companion's bones and dragged himself by the fire in close lamentation.

[50:58] So, so he compares him to the father mourning the death of his son, right, and to the lion, you know, parent, you know, mourning the loss of his cub, huh?

[51:10] Now, in, the last book of the Iliad, Book Twenty-Four, they had they had the games there, right? They gave themselves the sorrow of the funeral, right? And as the games broke up and the people scattered to go away, each man to his fast-running ship, and the rest of them took thought of their dinner and a sweet sleep in its enjoyment. Only Achilles swept, still as he remembered his beloved companion.

[51:35] Nor did sleep, who subdues all, come over him. How beautiful he said it is, huh? Sleep, who subdues all, of course. But he tossed from one side to the other, longing for Patroclus, for his manhood and his great strength, and all the actions he had seen to the end with him, and the hardships he had suffered, the wars of men hard crossing the big waters. Remembering all these things, he let fall the swelling tears.

[52:01] So these are two men in the prime of life, as Aristotle says, right? Who've gone through many battles together, right? And therefore have the virtue that stands out most of all to the Greeks and to us: courage, right? Manhood, right, is the English word for virtue, but it means courage, especially, right? Now, so this is a friendship based, at least, upon the courage of these two great soldiers, right?

[52:23] And now he's lost Patroclus, right? Never a friend like that. I skip from that because it takes the example from the most known virtue. The first virtue Aristotle takes up is courage, huh? Okay, and now go to some real life examples from our greatest writer there, Washington Irving, and his famous last work there, The Life of Washington, as it's named after.

[52:50] He quotes from a letter of Washington to General Knox. My first wish would be that my military family and the whole army should consider themselves a band of brothers, right? That's been made into a movie now, huh? They call the you know they took that title for the movie, The Band of Brothers, right? About more recent soldiers, but a band of brothers, willing and ready to die for each other, right?

[53:14] So friendship is a kind of what? Making you brothers, right? Okay. It's interesting we use that word, huh? Because he's in religious life too, right? Brothers, huh? Okay. But it's kind of a natural friendship between brothers, huh?

[53:32] Remember as a child there, you know, even going over to at Christmas, you know, maybe we'd go over and spend a few days, staying with our cousins, or they come over, you know, and we'd play and have cuddle fights So I'm so surprised. when I find there's some kid I know, you know, he's always fighting with his cousins, you know. I thought it was the greatest thing, you know, because it's kind of a natural friendship between you know cousins and Fortuny between these brothers, you know.

[53:59] At the end of the War of Independence, these men who fought together for our independence are now going to be what? Separated, right? While sadness and despair prevailed among the Tories as the supporters of the British and the refugees in New York, the officers in the Patriot camp on the Hudson were not without gloomy feelings at the thought of their approaching separation from each other. Eight years of dangers and hardships shared in common and nobly sustained had welded their hearts together, and made it hard to render them asunder.

[54:33] Prompted by Such feelings, General Knox, ever noted for generous impulses, suggested, as a mode of perpetuating the friendships thus formed and keeping alive the brotherhood of the army, the formation of a society composed of the officers of the army. The suggestion met with universal concurrence and the hearty approbation of Washington.

[54:57] This is the famous Society of Cincinnati, you know, named after the you know the Roman Cincinnatus who fought and then back into peace time living. By its formula, the officers of the American Army, in the most solemn manner, combine themselves into one society of friends to endure as long as they should endure, or any of their oldest male posterity, and in failure thereof, their collateral branches who might be judged worthy of being its supporters and members, in memory of the illustrious Roman Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, who retired from war to the peaceful duties of citizen, and was to be called the Society of the Cincinnati.

[55:39] If you go to some of these museums, you can still see you know memorials you know belonging to the Society of the Cincinnati. Now, in this third passage from Irving's immortal biography of Washington, he has some things there about the friendship of Washington and the young Lafayette, right? The Frenchman who came over to fight for us. At Richmond, he was joined by the Marquis de Lafayette. They returned together to Mount Vernon, where Lafayette again passed several days, a cherished inmate of the domestic circle.

[56:13] When his visit was ended, Washington, to defer the parting scene, accompanied him to Annapolis. On returning to Mount Vernon, he wrote a farewell letter to the Marquis, bordering more upon the sentimentals than almost any other in his multifarious correspondence. In the moment of our separation, he's quoting the letter now. Upon the road as I have travelled, and every hour since, I have felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you, with which length of years, close connection, and your merits have inspired me.

[56:44] I have often asked myself, as our carriages separated, whether that was the last sight I ever should have of you, and though I wished to answer no, my fears answered yes. Lafayette went back to you know France and got into the troubles of the French Revolution and so on, right? Washington had agents there, you know, with money, you know, to assist them, you know, if they could.

[57:04] Lafayette came back to the United States, you know, after Washington had died, you know, was quite faded and so on. So we have Lafayette College and so on. Now

[57:17] Jane Austen, that's a little lighter subject here. How Wickham and Lydia, were, a little bit irregular in their life, right, were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not imagine, but how a little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple. Who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue? She could easily conjecture, huh? So she's pretty good novelist there. Jane Austen has a good understanding of men, women, and those are brought together by virtue, and those are brought together by their passions, and so on.

[57:56] But two different things, right? Two kinds of friendship, right? The one that's based on passion, there, and the one based on virtue, right? The difference between the two.

[58:09] Okay. Now, self-love and friendship, huh? I mean, a friend should love his friend as another self, right? And therefore, the love of yourself is a source of your love of another as another self, right? But very often, and more commonly, we tend to think of self-love in the bad sense, right? Where self-love is a kind of pride and so on, an impediment to friendship, right?

[58:46] The famous scene in Richard the Third, there, where Richard the Third, before the final battle, there, where he loses his life and his throne. But Richard has done all kinds of evil things to get the throne, and he's dreaming now. He wakes up from these nightmares where everybody he's killed, is, cursing him and saying, "I'm going to be supporting your enemy tomorrow in the battle," right? So he's kind of dreaming like he's in battle.

[59:14] Give me another horse. Of course in the battle the next day, he had the famous words: "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse." Oh. Give me another horse. Bind up my wounds. Have mercy, Jesus, soft. I did but dream. Oh, coward conscience! How dost thou afflict me? The? Lights burn blue. So it's always a sign. Shakespeare of seeing ghosts, right? That the lights burn blue. When Brutus says that, you know, ghost of Caesar, you, know?

[59:44] The lights are burning blue. It's now dead midnight. Cold, fearful drops stand in my trembling flesh. What do I fear myself? There's none else by. Richard loves Richard. That is I am I. I was quoting those words before, right? So when Shakespeare, when Thomas says that likeness is a cause of love, right? Well, then, are you like yourself? No, you're even more than like yourself. You are yourself, right?

[1:00:16] So you naturally love yourself, right? Richard loves Richard. That is I am I. Is there a murderer here? Murderer here? Murderer? here The order of spunk. No. Yes, I am. Then fly? What for myself? Great reason why? Lest I revenge? What myself upon myself? Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good that I myself have done to myself? Oh no, alas, I rather hate myself for hateful deeds committed by myself.

[1:00:51] It's like it says in that psalm there, right? He who loves iniquity hates his own soul, right? So it's kind of ambiguity in that sense. You love yourself, but if you've chosen bad things for yourself, in a way, you don't love yourself.

[1:01:07] For hateful deeds committed by myself, I am a villain. Yet I lie. Am not? Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter. Huh? This is very subtle. as Shakespeare says here. My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain. On son at night, on these playful sons, there where he's trying to convince his friend to get married, right?

[1:01:39] And if you don't marry, you know you're not going to perpetuate yourself. So you're really murdering yourself, right? No love towards others in that bosom sits that on himself such a murderous shame commits. How can you love another if you don't love yourself, right? How can you love yourself if you don't reproduce yourself?

[1:01:59] And of course, Richard II there, when York is going to warn Richard about, I mean, not Richard but the new king about his son involved in treachery, and the Duchess, you know, is furious to try to save her son. O King, believe not this hard-hearted man. Love, loving not itself, another can. He doesn't love his own son. How can he love you?

[1:02:30] A beautiful conversation here between Portia and Brutus, huh Portia is the wife of Brutus, huh And. This is before the. She knows something's up, right? And Brutus is not sleeping. Know, my Brutus, you have some sick offence within your mind, which, by the right and virtue of my place, they ought to know of. And upon my knees, I charm you by my once commended beauty, by all your vows of love, and that great vow which did incorporate and make us one.

[1:02:58] That you unfold to me yourself, you see, your half, your better half, your half, while you are heavy. Kneel not, gentle Portia. I should not need if you were gentle, Brutus. Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, is it accepted I should know no secrets that appertain to you? Am I yourself, but as it were in sort or imitation, to keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, and talk to you sometimes?

[1:03:27] Dwell I but in the suburbs of your good pleasure? That's well said. If it be no more, Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. You are my true and honorable wife. so he eventually does tell her. Anyway, the two gentlemen of Verona, and why not death? Valentine, you know, is going to try to run off at the daughter of Sylvia, there, the Duke, right? And then, of course, he's betrayed by Proteus huh, and now he's going to be banished from the court.

[1:03:57] And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banished from myself, and Sylvia is myself. Banished from her is self from self, a deadly banishment.

[1:04:11] Me from myself, thy cruel eye hath taken, and my next self, thou harder hast engrossed. But I mentioned huh the Greeks have a proverb: "O philos, a friend, huh O philos esti allos autos, is another self, a friend is another self." Greek proverb, right? Okay, If A friend is another self. Then your love of your friend might seem to proceed from your love of yourself, right? And you see this other person as another self, right?

[1:04:43] Shakespeare has the phrase sometimes like a second self for your friend, and here he has the phrase my next self, meaning my friend thou harder hast engrossed. So all those proverbs and ways of speaking, of our friend is another self, a second self, my next self, imply that my love of myself is going to have something to do with my love of my friend, right? And that's even the commandment of love, right?

[1:05:11] Love your neighbor as yourself, as if the love for your neighbor has to somehow proceed from the love you have of yourself. This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. I can't be true to you without being true to myself.

[1:05:38] Now I sometimes contrast those words of Polonius, the advice he's giving to his friend, with what takes place in this love and friendship play, where Proteus thinks he can't be true to himself without being false to Valentine, his friend, and to Julia, his betrothed, right? And so I usually present it as a, you know, the opposite is useful, as, you say, right? Who's right? Polonius saying, you know, if you're true to yourself, you can't be what false to anybody else.

[1:06:11] And Proteus saying, I can't be true to myself without being false to my friend. Okay. You want to stop at 4: 30 or what? Yes. Good time.