Since, as we have observed, pleasure is another point in common—a good
type of man taking as much delight in his friends as a weak man does in
his flatterers—we may proceed to make a distinction here also. The
distinction lies in the relation between the pleasure and its end. Thus,
not only unguents [Sidenote: E] have an agreeable smell; a medicine may
have it also. But there is the difference that the object of the former
is pleasure and nothing else, while in the other case the purgative,
warming, or flesh-making quality happens to be combined with fragrance.
Again, a painter mixes engaging colours and dyes, and there are also
certain medical preparations with a taking appearance and an attractive
colour. Where is the difference? Clearly our distinction will lie in the
end for which they are used. Just so with the case before us. In the
agreeable relations of [Sidenote: F] friend with friend the
pleasant-giving element is a kind of gloss upon a substance of high
value and utility. Sometimes sportiveness, the table, wine, and even
mockery and nonsense are used by them as a seasoning to high and serious
purposes. Hence such expressions as:
_Then had they joyance in talk and in speaking the one to the
other_;
or:
_Nor should aught else have parted us twain in our love and our
joyance._
But, with the time-server, it is his function and end to be [Sidenote:
55] perpetually dishing up in a spicy form something amusing, something
done or something said which pleases and is meant to please.
To put it briefly, the toady thinks the purpose of his every action
should be to make himself agreeable, whereas the friend will only do
what is right, and therefore, though often agreeable, he is often the
contrary, not because he wishes it, but because, when it is the proper
course, he does not avoid it. It is as with the physician. When it helps
matters he will throw in a pinch of saffron or spikenard, and will
frequently order a pleasant bath and an inviting diet. But there are
times when he will have none of these, but will shake in a dash of
castor
_Or polium foul of odor, that men e’en shudder to smell it._
[Sidenote: B] Or he will pound a dose of hellebore and make you drink it
off. Neither the unpleasantness in the one case nor the pleasantness in
the other is the end in his mind, but in both cases he has only one
object in view for the patient, and that object is his good. In the same
way there are times when a friend will lead you in the path of duty by
inspiriting you with praise or gratifying you with courtesies, as the
speaker does in
_Teucer, Telamon’s son, dear prince of a warrior people,
Shoot as now thou dost_,
or in:
_How then should I, if ’tis so, be forgetful of godlike Odysseus?_
But when, on the contrary, you need calling to attention, he will
upbraid you in biting terms and with the plain-speaking of a guardian:
[Sidenote: C]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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