Plutarch, De amicorum multitudine, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 2

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

[2] One thing which stands out among many others, as particularly antagonistic to our acquisition of friendship, is the craving for numerous friends, which is like that of licentious women, ¹ for because of our frequent intimacies with many different persons we cannot keep our hold on our earlier associates, who are neglected and drift away. A better comparison, perhaps, is the nursling of Hypsipyle, who seated himself in the meadow, and

One after another caught up Handfuls of flowers with joyful heart, But with childhood’s yearning unsated.²

So it is with all of us: because anything new attracts us but soon palls on us, it is always the recent and freshly blooming friend that allures us and makes us change our minds, even while we are busy with many beginnings of friendship and intimacy at the same time, which go but little further, since, in our longing for the person we pursue, we pass over the one already within our grasp.

In the first place, then, let us begin at the hearthstone, as the saying is, with the story of men’s lives which history ³ has left us regarding steadfast friends, and let us take as witness and counsellor in our discussion the long and distant ages in which are mentioned, as paired in the bond of friendship, Theseus and Peirithoüs, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Phintias and Damon, Epameinondas and Pelopidas. For friendship is a creature that seeks a companion; it is not like cattle and crows that flock and herd together, and to look upon one’s friend as another self and to call him brother as though to suggest th’other, is nothing but a way of using duality as a measure of friendship. It is impossible to acquire either many slaves or many friends with little coin. What then is the coin of friendship ? It is goodwill and graciousness combined with virtue, than which nature has nothing more rare. It follows, then, that a strong mutual friendship with many persons is impossible, but, just as rivers whose waters are divided among many branches and channels flow weak and thin, so affection, naturally strong in a soul, if portioned out among many persons becomes utterly enfeebled. This is the reason why, in the case of animals, love for their young is more strongly implanted by nature in those that give birth to but one at a time; and Homer’s ⁴ name for a beloved son is the only one, child of our eld, that is to say, born to parents who neither have nor can ever have another child.

De amicorum multitudine. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1928.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

On Having Many Friends (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. II. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1928 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ πολυφιλίας Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1888.) — 2 focus

[2] ἐναντίον¹ δὲ μετὰ πολλῶν ἄλλων οὐχ ἥκιστα πρὸς² φιλίας κτῆσιν ἡ τῆς πολυφιλίας ὄρεξις, ὥσπερ 5 ἔρως³ ἀκολάστων γυναικῶν τῷ πολλάκις καὶ πολλοῖς 93d συμπλέκεσθαι τῶν πρώτων κρατεῖν μὴ δυνάμενος⁴ ἀμελουμένων καὶ ἀπορρεόντων· μᾶλλον δʼ ὥσπερ ὁ τῆς Ὑψιπύλης τρόφιμος εἰς τὸν λειμῶνα καθίσας ἔδρεπεν 10

ἕτερον ἐφʼ ἑτέρῳ αἰρόμενος

⁵

ἄγρευμʼ ἀνθέων ἡδομένᾳ ψυχᾷ

τὸ νήπιον ἄπληστον⁶ ἔχων,

οὕτως ἕκαστον ἡμῶν διὰ τὸ φιλόκαινον καὶ ἁψίκορον ὁ πρόσφατος ἀεὶ καὶ ἀνθῶν ἐπάγεται, καὶ μετατίθησι 15 πολλὰς ὁμοῦ καὶ ἀτελεῖς ἀρχὰς πράττοντας φιλίας καὶ συνηθείας, ἔρωτι τοῦ διωκομένου παρερχομένους 93e τὸ⁷ καταλαμβανόμενον. πρῶτον μὲν οὖν ὥσπερ ἀφʼ ἑστίας ἀρξάμενοι τῆς τοῦ βίου φήμης ἣν ὑπὲρ φίλων βεβαίων ἀπολέλοιπεν ἡμῖν, τὸν 20 μακρὸν καὶ παλαιὸν αἰῶνα μάρτυρα ἅμα τοῦ λόγου καὶ σύμβουλον λάβωμεν, ἐν ᾧ κατὰ ζεῦγος φιλίας λέγονται Θησεὺς καὶ Πειρίθους, Ἀχιλλεὺς καὶ Πάτροκλος, Ὀρέστης καὶ Πυλάδης, Φιντίας καὶ Δάμων, Ἐπαμεινώνδας καὶ Πελοπίδας· σύννομον γὰρ ἡ 25 φιλία ζῷον οὐκ ἀγελαῖόν ἐστιν οὐδὲ κολοιῶδες, καὶ τὸ ἄλλον αὑτὸν ἡγεῖσθαι τὸν φίλον καὶ προσαγορεύειν ἑταῖρον ἕτερον οὐδέν⁸ ἐστιν ἢ μέτρῳ φιλίας τῇ δυάδι χρωμένων. οὔτε γὰρ δούλους οὔτε φίλους 93f ἔστι κτήσασθαι πολλοὺς ἀπʼ ὀλίγου νομίσματος. τί οὖν νόμισμα φιλίας; εὔνοια καὶ χάρις μετʼ ἀρετῆς, 5 ὧν οὐδὲν ἔχει σπανιώτερον ἡ φύσις. ὅθεν τὸ σφόδρα φιλεῖν καὶ φιλεῖσθαι πρὸς πολλοὺς οὐκ ἔστιν, ἀλλʼ ὥσπερ οἱ ποταμοὶ πολλὰς σχίσεις καὶ κατατομὰς λαμβάνοντες ἀσθενεῖς καὶ λεπτοὶ ῥέουσιν, οὕτω τὸ φιλεῖν ἐν ψυχῇ σφοδρὸν πεφυκὸς εἰς πολλοὺς 10 μεριζόμενον ἐξαμαυροῦται. διὸ καὶ τῶν ζῴων τὸ φιλότεκνον τοῖς μονοτόκοις ἰσχυρότερον ἐμφύεται, 94a καὶ Ὅμηρος·⁹ ἀγαπητὸν υἱὸν ὀνομάζει μοῦνον τηλύγετον τουτέστι τὸν τοῖς μήτʼ¹⁰ ἔχουσιν ἕτερον γονεῦσι μήθʼ ἕξουσι γεγενημένον. 15

Translations (1)

Of Large Acquaintance: or, an Essay to Prove the Folly of Seeking Many Friends Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. I. Goodwin, William W., editor, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874.) — 2 focus

[2] But all the difficulty lies in finding him; and the chiefest reason is that, instead of one choice true friend, nothing under a multitude will content us; like women of the town who admit the embraces of all gallants that come, at the gay appearance of the last which comes we neglect and slight the former, and so are unable to hold them. Or rather, like the foster-child of Hypsipyle, who in a green meadow sat cropping the flowers one after another, snatching each prize with delighted heart, insatiable in his childish joy,¹ —so we of riper years, from an inbred affection of novelty and disdain of things already possessed, take up presently with the first promising aspect of every fresh and new-blooming friend, and lay all at once the foundations of several acquaintances; but we leave each unfinished, and when we have scarce fixed on one, our love immediately palls there, while we passionately pursue some other.

Wherefore, in this affair,—to begin at the beginning (at the domestic altar, as the saying is),—let us ask the opinion and counsel of our forefathers, and consider what report the records of antiquity make concerning true friends. They are, we find, always reckoned in pairs; as Theseus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Phintias and Damon, Epaminondas and Pelopidas. Friendship (so to speak) is a creature sociable, but affects not a herd or a flock; and that we usually esteem a friend another self, and call him ἑταῖρος (companion) as much as to say ἕτερος (the other one), is a convincing argument that the number two is the adequate and complete measure of friendship. And in truth, a great number of friends or servants is not to be purchased at an easy rate. That which procures love and friendship in the world is a sweet and obliging temper of mind, a lively readiness in doing good offices, together with a constant habit of virtue; than which qualifications nothing is more rarely found in nature. Therefore to love and to be beloved much can have no place in a multitude; but the most eager affection, if divided among numerous objects, like a river divided into several channels, must needs flow at length very weak and languid. Upon this score, those animals love their young most which generate but one; and Homer, describing a beloved child, calls it the only-begotten and born in old age,—that is, at such a time when the parents neither have nor hope for another.²

Notes on the current edition

On Having Many Friends

1. Cf. Lucian, Tozaris, 37.

2. Presumably from the Hypsipyle of Euripides, cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 754. Cf. also Plutarch, Moralia, 661 F.

3. Plutarch is considering Greek history only.

4. Iliad, ix. 482; Odyssey, xvi. 19.

Plutarch De amicorum multitudine 2

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers