What then? Sawest thou never the whelps of a dog, how they fawn and sport with each other, that you would say nothing can be more loving? But to know what friendship is, fling a piece of flesh among them, and thou shalt learn. And cast between thee and thy child a scrap of land, and thou shalt learn how the child will quickly wish to bury thee, and thou wilt pray that he may die. And then thou wilt say, _What a child have I nourished! this long time he is burying me!_ Throw a handsome girl between you, and the old man will love her, and the young too;[2] and if it be glory, or some risk to run, it will be on the same fashion. You will speak the words of the father of Admetus[3]:— “Day gladdens thee; think’st thou it glads not me? Thou lovest light; think’st thou I love the dark?” Think you this man did not love his own child when it was little? nor was in agony if it had a fever? nor said many a time, _Would that I had the fever rather than he!_ Then when the trial cometh and is near at hand, lo, what words they utter! And Eteocles and Polyneices,[4] were they not children of the same mother and the same father? were they not brought up together, did they not live together, drink together, sleep together, and often kiss one another? So that any one who saw them, I think, would have laughed at the philosophers, for the things they say perversely about friendship. But when royalty, like a piece of flesh, hath fallen between them, hear what things they speak:— “_Pol._ Where wilt thou stand before the towers?” _Et._ Wherefore seekest thou to know?” _Pol._ There I too would stand and slay thee.” _Et._ Thou hast spoken my desire.” 4. For universally, be not deceived, nothing is so dear to any creature as its own profit. Whatsoever may seem to hinder this, be it father or child or friend or lover, this he will hate and abuse and curse. For Nature hath never so made anything as to love aught but its own profit: this is father and brother and kin and country and God. When, then, the Gods appear to hinder us in this, we revile even them, and overthrow their images and burn their temples; as Alexander, when his friend died, commanded to burn the temples of Esculapius.