Friendships are like fields. Seneca, Epistles 1.9.4-7
Seneca
discusses the difference between having and making friends, comparing
it to the difference between creating and curating art. <Latin>.
Vide
quam sit se contentus: aliquando sui parte contentus est. Si illi
manum aut morbus aut hostis exciderit, si quis oculum vel oculos
casus excusserit, reliquiae illi suae satisfacient et erit imminuto
corpore et amputato tam laetus quam integro fuit (†);
sed si (‡) quae sibi
desunt non desiderat, non deesse mavult. Ita sapiens se contentus
est, non ut velit esse sine amico sed ut possit; et hoc quod dico
possit tale est: amissum aequo animo fert. Sine amico quidem numquam
erit: in sua potestate habet quam cito reparet. Quomodo si perdiderit
Phidias statuam protinus alteram faciet, sic hic faciendarum
amicitiarum artifex substituet alium in locum amissi.
Quaeris
quomodo amicum cito facturus sit? Dicam, si illud mihi tecum
convenerit, ut statim tibi solvam quod debeo et quantum ad hanc
epistulam paria faciamus. Hecaton ait, ego tibi monstrabo
amatorium sine medicamento, sine herba, sine ullius veneficae
carmine: si vis amari, ama. Habet autem non tantum usus amicitiae
veteris et certae magnam voluptatem sed etiam initium et comparatio
novae.
Quod
interest inter metentem agricolam et serentem, hoc inter eum qui
amicum paravit et qui parat. Attalus philosophus dicere solebat
iucundius esse amicum facere quam habere, quomodo artifici
iucundius pingere est quam pinxisse. Illa in opere suo occupata
sollicitudo ingens oblectamentum habet in ipsa occupatione: non aeque
delectatur qui ab opere perfecto removit manum. Iam fructu artis suae
fruitur: ipsa fruebatur arte cum pingeret. Fructuosior est
adulescentia liberorum, sed infantia dulcior.
Consider
how the wise man is content with himself: he remains content over
time. If he lose a hand to disease or to an enemy, if chance deprive
him of an eye or two, whatever remains will satisfy him, and he will
be as happy with a truncated, diminished body as he was when he was
whole. But even though he retains no desire for that which he lacks,
still he would not choose to lose it gratuitously. He is content with
his own company in the same way: he does not actively want to lack
friendship, but he is able to do without it. When I say that he is
able, I mean that he bears the loss of a friend with a calm mind. He
will never lack friendship altogether, really, for it remains in his
power to repair any loss swiftly. Just as the sculptor Phidias (⸸),
if he lost a statue, would immediately make another, so the craftsman
skilled in making friends will cultivate a new one in place of one he
has lost.
How
is he going to make new friends so quickly, you ask? I shall tell
you, if you agree that what follows shall cancel the debt I owe you
and leave accounts balanced fairly between us, when you receive this
epistle. Quoth Hecato: “I will show you a love-potion without any
secret ingredients—no drugs, no herbs, no muttered spells. If you
wish to be loved, show love.” That being said, a mature and
established friendship does not yield the same excitement as one that
is just begun, or on the point of beginning.
Friendships
are like fields: sowing and harvesting are not the same activity. The
philosopher Attalus (⸷) used to say that it is more pleasant to
make a friend than to have one, “as the artist prefers painting to
having painted.” Absorption in a work-in-progress yields great
delight, which weakens after the artist has removed his hand from it
for the last time. A completed picture delights the painter with his
own art, but when he paints he is delighted by art herself. The case
of children is similar: youth offers more opportunities, but
childhood is sweeter.
---
(†)
I accept the reading integro from MS b1, versus in integro
in other MSS.
(‡)
I accept the emendation si from Bücheler and Watzinger,
versus sibi in the MSS.
(⸸)
Phidias (c. 480-430 BCE) was a famous Greek artist, whose works
included statues of gods (Apollo, Athena, Aphrodite, Zeus) and men
(Miltiades, several other Attic heroes at Delphi, figures on Athena's
shield and the Parthenon friezes). His most famous works included the
statue of Zeus in the temple on Mount Olympus and two Athenas in
Athens: the Athena Parthenos inside the Parthenon, and the Athena
Promachos outside. These huge statues were all chryselephantine,
meaning that they were constructed out of sculpted panels of ivory
and gold, fitted onto a wooden framework. Like many artists in
ancient Greece, Phidias was courted by powerful patrons, who wanted
his help in making public monuments. Memory records that he was much
envied for this, and died suffering serious persecution (cf.
Plutarch, Pericles 31; Philochorus, quoted in scholia in
Aristophanem, in Pacem 605a).
(⸷)
Attalus was a Stoic philosopher who taught Seneca. Seneca's father
remembered him as by far the cleverest and most eloquent of
contemporary philosophers (ex his philosophis, quos vestra aetas
vidit, longe subtilissimus et facundissimus), and recorded that
he took to farming as a result of being deprived of his estate by
Sejanus (solum vertit a Seiano circumscriptus: Suasoriae
2.12), the Praetorian prefect whose power in the administration of
the emperor Tiberius destroyed so many before overwhelming its author
(cf. Tacitus, Annals 4-6; Dio Cassius 58; Josephus,
Antiquities of the Jews 18.6.6; Juvenal 10.67-72).