"On Friendship"describes Michel de Montaigne's admiration for a painter who creates beautiful and intricate paintings, often filling them with grotesques and monstrous bodies. The author compares their writing to that of the painter, but falls short in terms of their ability to produce a rich piece of art. They borrow a discourse by Estienne de la Boétie, Voluntary Servitude, which they believe will honor and adorn their work.
De la Boétie wrote in his youth in honor of liberty against tyrants, which has since been passed down through the hands of great learning and judgment. However, Montaigne believes that if he had taken this design and committed his thoughts to writing, we would have seen many rare things that would rival the best writings of antiquity.
Montaigne has only recovered a treatise of his, which was the occasion of their first coming acquainted with him. This treatise was shown to the author long before they had the good fortune to know him, and it proved the foundation of a friendship that they later improved and maintained. Friendship is so perfect, inviolate, and entire that it is rare in stories and among men of this age.
Montaigne emphasizes the importance of friendship in society and Aristotle's belief that good legislators had more respect for friendship than to justice. The most supreme point of its perfection is that friendships that combine pleasure, profit, public or private interest are often less beautiful and generous than those that do not. The four ancient kinds of friendships, natural, social, hospitable, and venereal, either separately or jointly, do not make up a true and perfect friendship.
The relationship between children and parents is a complex one, as it requires communication and respect. However, the disparity between these two groups can lead to indecent familiarity and hinder the proper functioning of advices and reproofs. In some countries, it was customary for children to kill their fathers, while in others, fathers killed their children to avoid impediments in life. This natural tie has been criticized by philosophers like Aristippus and Plutarch, who have made no sense of this connection.
The name 'brother' does carry a fine sound, but the complication of interests, division of estates, and the wealth of one being the property of the other can weaken the fraternal tie. Brothers pursuing their fortune and advancement by the same path often jostle and hinder one another. Furthermore, the correspondence of manners, parts, and inclinations that make up true and perfect friendships should always meet in these relations.
The father and son may be of quite contrary humors, and so are brothers. The law and natural obligation impose friendships upon us, but there is less of our own choice and voluntary freedom. Affection and friendship are more promptly and properly produced than affection and friendship.
Montaigne has experienced all that can possibly be expected of such kind, having had the best and most indulgent father, even to his extreme old age. They are not here to bring the love we bear to women into comparison or rank it with the others. Friendship is a general and universal fire, temperate and equal, with a constant established heat, gentle and smooth without poignancy or roughness.
In love, there is no other than frantic desire for that which flies from us. Friendship is enjoyed proportionably as it is desired, and only grows up, nourished and improved by enjoyment and spiritual growth. Under this perfect friendship, the other fleeting affections have found some place in the author, but always so that they could themselves well enough distinguish them and never in any degree of comparison with one another.
Marriage is a covenant that is free and compulsory, with a thousand intricacies that can unravel and divert the current of a lively affection. In contrast, friendship has no manner of business or traffic with anything but itself. The ordinary talent of women is not sufficient to maintain the conference and communication required for this sacred tie, and they appear to be endued with constancy of mind to sustain the pinch of such a hard and durable knot.
The ancient Greeks rejected the idea of marriage as perfect and rejected it by the common consent of the ancient schools. They also acknowledged the disparity of age and difference of offices between lovers, which did not answer the perfect union and harmony that the ancients required.
The first fury inspired by the son of Venus into the heart of the lover was simply founded upon external beauty, the false image of corporal generation. This fury could not ground this love upon the soul, which was still springing and not of maturity to blossom. If it seized upon a low spirit, the means by which it preferred its suit were rich presents, favor in advancement to dignities, and such trumpery, which they by no means approve. If on a more generous soul, the pursuit was suitably generous, by philosophical instructions, precepts to revere religion, obey the laws, to die for the good of one's country, and examples of valor, prudence, and justice, the lover studied to render himself acceptable by the grace and beauty of the soul, rather than the body being faded and decayed.
When this courtship came to effect in due season, the person loved had the desire of a spiritual conception, the mediation of a spiritual beauty. This was the principal, and the corporeal, an accidental and secondary matter. For this reason, the poet Aeschylus blamed the poet Aeschylus for having given the lover's part to Achilles, who was in the first and beardless flower of his adolescence and the handsomest of all the Greeks.
The Stoical definition of love states that love is a desire of contracting friendship arising from the beauty of the object. Friendships are nothing but acquaintance and familiarities, either occasionally contracted or upon some design, by means of which there happens some little intercourse betwixt our souls. In the friendship I speak of, they mix and work themselves into one piece, with so universal a mixture that there is no more sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined.
Montaigne describes a series of conversations between two men who were deeply infatuated with each other. They were introduced to each other by their mutual admiration and admiration, which they believed was due to a secret appointment of heaven. They were so close that they were able to embrace each other at a great city entertainment, and they found themselves so acquainted and endeared that nothing was so near to them as one another.
Laelius, a Roman consul, asked Caius Blosius, his chief friend, how much he would have done for him, and he made an answer that he would have done all things for him. However, Laelius was skeptical, as he did not believe that he had Gracchus's will in his sleeve, both by the power of a friend and the perfect knowledge he had of the man. This answer is not seditious, as it does not presuppose that Blosius had Gracchus's will in his sleeve, both by the power of a friend and the perfect knowledge he had of the man. They were more friends than citizens, more friends to one another than either enemies or friends to their country, or friends to ambition and innovation. If any of their actions flew out of the handle, they were neither friends to one another nor to themselves.
Montaigne discusses the importance of maintaining friendships with prudence and circumspection, as the knot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip. The author believes that the union of such friends, being truly perfect, deprives them of all idea of duties and makes them loathe and banish words of division, distinction, benefits, obligation, acknowledgment, entreaty, thanks, and the like.
In this noble commerce, good offices, presents, and benefits that other friendships are supported and maintained do not deserve so much attention, as the concurrence of their wills is the reason. The union of such friends, being truly perfect, deprives them of all idea of such duties and makes them loathe and banish from their conversation these words of division and distinction, benefits, obligation, acknowledgment, entreaty, thanks, and the like.
The lawgivers interdict all gifts betwixt man and wife, inferring that all should belong to each of them, and that they have nothing to divide or give to each other.
In the context of friendship, one should give to the other in order to receive the benefit. The liberal man is the one who administers the occasion, giving his friend the satisfaction of doing what they most desire. This concept is illustrated by an ancient example of Eudamidas, a Corinthian, who had two friends, Charixenus and Areteus. When Charixenus died, Areteus took on the responsibility of caring for his mother and marrying Charixenus, leaving the survivor in charge.
The legatees were initially merry at the contents of this will, but upon being made aware of it, they were very content. One of the friends, Charixenus, died within five days after Charixenus' death, and Areteus nurtured the old woman with great care and tenderness. He also gave two and a half talents in estate to marry his own daughter and Eudamidas' daughter, and on the same day, they solemnized their nuptials.
This example highlights the importance of indivisible friendships, where each person gives themselves so entirely to their friend that they have nothing left to distribute to others. Common friendships can admit of division, but unique friendships possess the whole soul and rules and sways with absolute sovereignty, making them impossible to rival. A unique and particular friendship dissolves all other obligations, as the secret one has sworn not to reveal to any other can be communicated without perjury to another.
Eudamidas' example of generosity and generosity is particularly noteworthy. He bequeaths his friends a legacy of employing themselves in his necessity and leaves them heirs to his liberality, which consists in giving them the opportunity to confer a benefit upon him. This act of generosity is more evident than that of Areteus.
In confederations that hold but by one end, it is important to provide against imperfections that particularly concern that end. For instance, one should not consider the religion of their physician or lawyer, as this consideration has nothing in common with the offices of friendship they owe them. Additionally, one should not take upon themselves to direct what other men should do in the government of their families, as there are plenty that meddle enough with that.
In table-talk, the liberal man prefers pleasant and witty over learned and grave, beauty before goodness, and the ablest speaker in common discourse, whether or not there is sincerity in the case. In conclusion, the ideal friendship involves mutual respect, mutual support, and the ability to give and receive from one another.
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