Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| Concerning friendship — what it is and what kind of thing it is, and who the friend is, and whether friendship is spoken of in one sense or in several, and if in several, how many, and further how one ought to treat a friend, and what is just as between friends — this must be examined no less than any of the other fine and choiceworthy matters of character. For it seems to be above all the work of political science to produce friendship, and people say that this is why virtue is useful: for it is not possible for people who wrong one another to be friends to each other. Again, everyone says that justice and injustice have their fullest application among friends, and the same man is thought to be both good and a friend, and friendship is held to be a certain state of character; and if someone wishes to arrange things so that people do not do wrong, it is enough to make them friends, since true friends do not wrong one another. But then again, if people are just, they will not do wrong either — so justice and friendship are either the same thing, or something close to it. Beyond this, we suppose the friend to be among the greatest goods, and friendlessness and isolation to be a terrible thing, because our whole life and our voluntary company is spent with such people: we pass our days together with family, or with kin, or with companions, [1235a] or with children, or parents, or a wife.
2| And the particular claims of justice as between friends lie within our own control, while those toward others have been fixed by law and are not within our control. Many difficulties arise concerning friendship. First, as raised by those who approach the subject from outside and speak of it in more general terms: some hold that like is friend to like, which is the source of the saying that a god always leads like to like (Homer, Odyssey 17.218) — for "jackdaw sits by jackdaw," and "thief recognized thief, and wolf, wolf." The natural philosophers even arrange the whole of nature by taking as their starting point that like goes toward like, which is why Empedocles said that the dog sits on the roof-tile because it has the most in common with it. Some, then, speak of friendship in this way; but others say that opposite is friend to opposite. For what is loved and desired is friend to everyone, and the dry does not desire the dry, but the moist — which is the source of the saying "the earth loves the rain," and "change in all things is sweet" (Euripides, Orestes 234) — change being a change into the opposite. And like is hostile to like: for "potter is angry with potter" (Hesiod, Works and Days 25), and animals that feed on the same things are hostile to one another.
3| These, then, are the beliefs, and this is how far apart they stand. Some say the like is a friend and the contrary an enemy — the smaller is always the enemy of the greater, and "it opens a day of hatred" (Euripides, Phoenissae 539). Further, the places of contraries are set apart, while friendship seems to bring together. Others say that contraries are friends, and Heraclitus rebukes the poet who wrote, "would that strife might perish from among gods and men" (Homer, Iliad 18.107) — for there could be no harmony without high and low notes, nor could there be animals without the contraries of female and male. These, then, are two opinions about friendship, both far too universal and far too separated from one another. But there are other opinions already closer to and more akin to the observed facts. Some hold that it is impossible for the bad to be friends, but only the good; others find it strange if mothers do not love their children (friendship plainly exists even among wild animals, since they choose to die before their young); and others hold that only the useful is a friend. A sign of this, they say, is that everyone pursues useful things, while they throw away even their own parts when these are useless — as old Socrates used to say, comparing spit and hair and nails, and saying that we throw away our useless parts, and in the end the body itself, once it has died —
4| [1235b] for the corpse is useless. But things that are useful, people preserve, as in Egypt. Now all these views seem to be opposed to one another. For the like is useless to the like, and contrariety stands as far as possible from likeness, and the contrary is most useless to the contrary — since the contrary is what destroys the contrary. Again, some think it easy to acquire a friend, while others think it is very rare to recognize one, and impossible without misfortune (since everyone who is doing well wants to be thought to have friends); and some do not think it right to trust even those who stay by them in misfortunes, holding that they are deceiving and pretending, so as to acquire, through their association with the unfortunate, the friendship of the fortunate again once fortune returns. We must, then, take up a way of approach that will best render for us what is believed about these matters, and that will resolve both the puzzles and the contrarieties. This will happen if it is shown that the contrary opinions are reasonably held — for an account of this kind will be most in agreement with the observed facts. And it turns out that the contrarieties persist only if what is said is in one sense true and in another sense not. There is also a puzzle as to whether it is the pleasant or the good that is the object of love. For if we love what we desire, and erotic love above all is of this kind (for "there is no lover who does not love forever" — Euripides, Troades 1051)
5| — and desire is of the pleasant, then in this respect the object of love is the pleasant; but if it is what we wish, the object of love is the good. And the pleasant and the good are different things. About these matters, then, and the others akin to them, we must try to draw distinctions, taking the following as our starting point. What is an object of desire and of wish is either the good or the apparent good. That is why the pleasant, too, is an object of desire, since it is a kind of apparent good. To some it seems good, and to others it appears good even when it does not seem so — for imagination and opinion are not located in the same part of the soul. That both the good and the pleasant are objects of love, however, is clear. Now that this has been settled, we must take up a further assumption. Of goods, some are goods without qualification, while others are goods for someone, but not without qualification; and the same things are both good without qualification and pleasant without qualification. For we say that the things beneficial to a healthy body are goods for the body without qualification, while the things beneficial to a sick body are not — for example, medicines and surgical incisions. Likewise, the things pleasant to the body without qualification are those pleasant to a healthy and sound body, such as seeing in the light rather than in the dark — though for someone with inflamed eyes it is the opposite. And the more pleasant wine is not the one that pleases a palate ruined by heavy drinking, since people do not pour vinegar into such a palate either, but the wine judged pleasant by an uncorrupted sense of taste.
6| [1236a] The same holds likewise in the case of the soul: what is pleasant is not what pleases children and animals, but what pleases people in a settled condition. At any rate, when we remember both kinds of pleasure, it is the latter that we choose. And as a child or an animal stands to a person of settled condition, so the base and senseless person stands to the decent and practically wise person. To these latter, what is pleasant is what accords with their states of character, and these are the good and the fine things. Since, then, "good" is said in several ways (for we call one thing good because it is of a certain quality, and another good because it is beneficial and useful), and since, further, the pleasant is in one sense pleasant and good without qualification, and in another sense pleasant and an apparent good for someone — just as, in the case of inanimate things, it is possible for us to choose and love something for each of these reasons, so too with a human being. For we love one person because he is of a certain quality and on account of virtue, another because he is beneficial and useful, and another because he is pleasant and on account of pleasure. A person becomes a friend, then, whenever the one loved loves in return, and this fact does not somehow escape their notice. It necessarily follows, therefore, that there are three species of friendship, and that they are not all called friendship in a single sense, nor as species of one genus, nor yet purely by chance sharing of a name. For they are said with reference to some one and primary thing, just as "medical" is said in several senses.
7| For we speak of a medical soul, a medical body, a medical instrument, and a medical function — but the primary sense is the strict one. And the primary thing is that in which the account itself resides in us. Take, for instance, a medical instrument, which is whatever the doctor would use: the account of the instrument is not contained in the account of the doctor. Now everywhere the search is for the primary thing; but because the primary thing is universal, people take the primary thing to be a universal too, and this is false. And so, in the case of friendship as well, they are unable to account for all the observed facts. For when a single account does not fit, some suppose that the other kinds of friendship do not exist at all; but they do exist, only not in the same way. Others, when the primary kind of friendship does not fit some case, say — on the assumption that, if it were primary, it would be universal — that the other kinds are not friendship at all; yet there are many species of friendship. This has already emerged from what has been said, since friendship has been distinguished as spoken of in three ways. One kind is distinguished by virtue, another by the useful, and another by the pleasant. Of these, the friendship based on the useful is the friendship of the majority of people (for people love one another because they are useful, and only up to that point — as the proverb says, "Glaucus, an ally is a man so long as he fights; the Athenians no longer recognize the Megarians" — an anonymous elegiac fragment, no. 6 Bergk)
8| — and the friendship based on the pleasant belongs to the young (for they have a perception of this; that is why the friendship of the young is prone to change, since as their characters change with their age, what is pleasant to them changes too); while the friendship based on virtue belongs to the best people. [1236b] It is clear from this that the primary friendship, the friendship of good people, is a mutual loving and a mutual choosing directed at one another. For what is loved is a friend to the one who loves it, but the one who loves is a friend only if he is also loved in return and loves in return. Now this kind of friendship exists only among human beings (for only a human being perceives choice); but the other kinds exist also among animals, and even usefulness appears to be present to a small extent both toward human beings in domesticated animals and among animals toward one another — as Herodotus says of the plover and the crocodile, and as diviners speak of birds sitting together or apart. And base people, too, could be friends with one another both on account of the useful and on account of the pleasant. Some say that, because the primary kind of friendship is not present in them, they are not friends at all — for the base person will wrong the base person, and those who are wronged do not love one another. Others say that they do love one another, only not with the primary kind of friendship, since nothing prevents the other kinds. For people put up with one another for the sake of pleasure even while being harmed, so long as they lack self-control; and even those who love one another for the sake of pleasure do not seem to be friends either, when the question is examined with precision, because this is not the primary kind of friendship. For that kind is stable, while this kind is unstable.
9| But this is indeed, as has been said, friendship, though not that primary friendship, but derived from it. Now to speak of the friend only in that primary sense does violence to the observed facts, and forces us into paradoxical statements; but to give a single account covering all cases is impossible. It remains, then, to say this: that in one sense the primary friendship alone is friendship, and in another sense all the kinds are, not as things that merely share a name and bear no relation to one another, nor yet as falling under a single species, but rather as all related to one thing. Now since what is good without qualification and what is pleasant without qualification are the same thing and coincide, unless something impedes this, and the true friend is also the primary friend without qualification, and such a friend is one who is chosen for his own sake, for himself (and he must be of this kind: for just as one wishes goods to exist for one's own sake, so one must also choose that one exist oneself), the true friend is also pleasant without qualification; that is why even the friend of any lesser kind is thought pleasant. But we must draw a further distinction on this point; it presents a difficulty: is it what is good for oneself, or what is good without qualification, that is the object of friendship, and is loving in actuality accompanied by pleasure, so that what is loved is also pleasant, or not? For both must be brought together into the same account: things that are not good without qualification but bad without qualification are, as chance has it, to be avoided;
10| and what is not good for a given person is nothing to him, but this is exactly what is under investigation: that things good without qualification should be good in this way. For what is choiceworthy is the good without qualification, but what is good for a given person is his own good:
11| [1237a] and these two need to be brought into agreement. And virtue does this; and political science aims at this too, that this agreement should come to exist in those who do not yet have it. A man who is well set up and already advanced along the road has this by nature (for the things good without qualification are by nature good for him), and likewise a man rather than a woman, and one well-endowed by nature rather than one ill-endowed; and the road runs through the pleasant: the fine things must of necessity be pleasant. But when this is not in accord, he is not yet good in the complete sense; for it is possible for lack of self-control to arise in him: since it is precisely when the good is at odds with the pleasant among the affections that lack of self-control occurs. So then, since the primary friendship is in accordance with virtue, such people will themselves also be good without qualification. And this is not because they are useful, but in another way: for what is good for this particular person and what is good without qualification are two different things. And it is the same with what is advantageous as it is with states of character. For what is advantageous without qualification is different from what is fine in this sense — as exercising is different from taking medicine. So too the state of character that is a human being's virtue is affected in the same way. Let the man in question be one of those good by nature: for the virtue of the man good by nature is good without qualification, but the virtue of the man not of that sort is good only for him. And the pleasant is the same way. Here we must pay close attention, and inquire whether friendship without pleasure is possible, and what the difference is, and in which of the two loving properly consists, and whether it is because a man is good, even if not pleasant, that we love him, and not for this other reason — since loving is spoken of in two ways — or whether the good in actuality never appears without pleasure.
12| It is clear that, just as in the case of knowledge, the most recent instances of study and learning are especially perceptible through the pleasure they give, so too are recognitions of familiar people, and the account is the same in both cases. At any rate, by nature what is good without qualification is pleasant without qualification, and to those for whom it is good, it is pleasant. That is why like things straightway delight one another, and for a human being nothing is more pleasant than a human being. So that since this holds even for someone incomplete, clearly it holds still more for one who has been brought to completion: and the good man is complete. And if loving in actuality with pleasure is a mutual choice arising from recognizing one another, clearly friendship in the primary sense, taken as a whole, is a mutual choice of things good and pleasant without qualification, because they are good and pleasant. This friendship is a state of character from which such a choice proceeds. For its function is an activity, and this activity is not external but is in the very person who loves, whereas every capacity is directed outward: for it lies either in another thing, or in the agent insofar as he is other than himself. That is why loving is a form of enjoyment, but being loved is not. For being loved is an activity of the object of love, while loving is also an activity of friendship; and the one occurs in an ensouled being, the other occurs even in an unensouled thing: for even inanimate things are loved. But since loving in actuality is making use of the thing loved in so far as it is loved,
13| [1237b] and the friend is loved by the friend qua friend, and not qua musical or qua skilled in medicine, the pleasure, then, that comes from him qua himself, is the pleasure proper to friendship. For it is him one loves, not because he is something else. So that unless one takes delight in him qua good, it is not the primary friendship. And none of his accidental attributes ought to stand in the way, any more than his goodness ought to be required to give delight. For what is left, if he happens to smell extremely bad? He is cherished for his goodwill, though one does not live together with him. This, then, is the primary friendship, which everyone agrees is friendship; the other kinds are both taken to be friendship, and disputed as such, because of this one. For friendship is thought to be something stable, and this alone is stable. For what has been judged is stable, and things that do not come about quickly or easily do not make the judgment a correct one. And friendship cannot be stable without trust, and trust does not come about without time. For one must have made trial, as Theognis also says: "You could not know the mind of a man, nor of a woman, until you had tried them, as you would a beast of burden." (Theognis, 125f.) Nor does a person become a friend without time; rather, people merely wish to be friends, and this state most of all passes unnoticed as being friendship. For when people are eager to be friends, because they perform all the offices of friendship for one another, they think that they are not merely wishing to be friends, but already are friends.
14| But what happens in other cases happens in the case of friendship too: for it is not the case that people are healthy just because they wish to be healthy, so neither, if people wish to be friends, are they thereby already friends. Here is a sign of it: people disposed in this way without trial are easily slandered; for concerning matters on which they have given one another proof, they are not easily slandered, but concerning matters on which they have not, they would be persuaded whenever their detractors bring forward plausible tokens. At the same time it is also clear that this friendship does not occur among base people: for the base and ill-natured man is distrustful toward everyone, since he measures others by himself. That is why good people are more easily deceived, unless their distrust rests on actual trial. Base people choose the things naturally good in preference to a friend, and none of them loves a human being more than things. So they are not friends. For among such people things do not become common property the way they do among friends; for the friend is attached to the things, not the things to the friend. The primary friendship, then, does not occur among many people, because it is difficult to make trial of many; for one would need to live together with each of them. Nor should one choose in the same way concerning a cloak and concerning a friend; and yet in all matters it seems that the man of sense ought to choose the better of two things, and if he has long used the worse and not yet the better, he ought to choose the better one — yet one should not do this in place of a friend of long standing, taking an unknown person instead simply because he might be better:
15| [1238a] for a friend does not come about without trial, not even in a single day, but time is required. That is why the "bushel of salt" has passed into a proverb. At the same time, a person must not only be good without qualification, but good for you as well, if indeed he is to be a friend who is a friend to you. For a man is good without qualification by being good, but he is a friend by being good for another; and he is both good without qualification and a friend when these two coincide, so that what is good without qualification is also good for this other person — even if he is not good without qualification but virtuous, he may still be good for another because he is useful. And being a friend to many people at once, and loving many at once, are hindered by the same thing: for it is not possible to be active toward many people at once. From these considerations, then, it is clear that it is rightly said that friendship belongs among stable things, just as happiness belongs among self-sufficient things. And it is rightly said, "For it is nature that is stable, not wealth." (Euripides, Electra 941) But it would be far better to say that virtue is more stable than nature, and that time is said to reveal the person loved, and misfortunes reveal him more than good fortunes do. For then it becomes clear that the possessions of friends are held in common — for these people alone, instead of the things good by nature and bad by nature, over which good fortune and bad fortune turn, choose the human being over having some of these things and not having others:
16| Misfortune reveals those who are not truly friends, but became friends merely for the sake of usefulness. Time reveals both kinds: for the useful friend is not quickly apparent, but the pleasant friend more so. Except that not even the friend who is pleasant without qualification is quickly apparent. For people are like wines and foods: in their case too, what is pleasant becomes apparent quickly, but as more time passes it turns out unpleasant and not sweet — and it is the same with human beings. For what is pleasant without qualification must be defined by its end result and by time. The majority too would agree — not from outcomes alone; rather, as in the case of a drink, they call it 'sweeter': for this is not pleasant on account of its outcome, but because of its lack of continuity, and it is the first taste that deceives. The primary friendship, then — the one for the sake of which the others are so called — is friendship based on virtue, and it is for the pleasure that virtue gives, as has been said before. The other friendships arise also among children, animals, and base people. Hence the saying: 'age delights age' and 'the base man is fused to the base by pleasure' (Euripides, fragment 298, Bellerophon). For it is possible for base people to be pleasant to one another too — not insofar as they are base, or as neither of the two is base, but, say, because both are singers, or because one is a lover of song and the other a singer, and insofar as everyone has some good in them, and it is in that respect that they fit together with one another:
17| Further, they could be useful and beneficial to one another, not without qualification but in relation to their choice — or insofar as neither is base. [1238b] And it is possible for the decent person to be a friend to a base one. For he could be useful in relation to choice — the base man useful to the excellent man in relation to the choice the excellent man actually has, and the excellent man useful to the incontinent person in relation to the choice he actually has, and to the base person in relation to the choice in accordance with nature. And he will wish him goods — goods without qualification for the case where they are goods without qualification, but for that person other things on a hypothesis, in the way that poverty or illness is advantageous to him, and these for the sake of what is good without qualification — just as one wishes to drink the medicine itself: for he does not wish this for its own sake, but wishes it for the sake of something else. Further, in the ways in which people who are not excellent could also be friends to one another: for one might be pleasant not insofar as he is base, but insofar as he shares in something common, for instance if he is musical. Further, insofar as there is something decent present in everyone: for this reason some people could be sociable even with the excellent person. Or insofar as they fit each individual: for everyone has some portion of the good. These, then, are the three species of friendship; and in all of these, friendship is spoken of in a way that involves equality. For even friends based on virtue are, in a way, friends of one another in an equality of virtue. But there is another differentia among these, the friendship based on superiority — as, for example, the virtue of a god in relation to a human being. For this is a different species of friendship, and so, generally, is that of ruler and ruled, just as what is just is also different in each case:
18| For it is equal by proportion, not equal by number. Father to son belongs to this genus, and so does benefactor to the one benefited. But there are differentiae even among these themselves: the relation of father to son is different from that of husband to wife — the latter being as of ruler to ruled, the former as of benefactor to the one benefited. In these relations, being loved in return either does not apply, or does not apply in the same way. For it would be ridiculous if someone were to blame god because he is not loved in return in the same way he loves, or to blame the ruler and the ruled in that respect. For it belongs to the ruler to be loved, not to love — or to love in a different way. And the pleasure differs not at all between that of the self-sufficient man in his own possession or child, and that of the person in need, in what comes to him from another. In the same way too, among friends who are friends for the sake of usefulness and among those who are friends for the sake of pleasure, some are on a basis of equality, others on a basis of superiority. Hence those who think in that way make complaints if their friends are not equally useful and do not benefit them equally — and the same happens in the case of pleasure. This is clear in erotic relationships: for this is often the cause of their fighting with one another. For the lover does not realize that the same account does not apply to both of them regarding their eagerness.
19| Hence the beloved thinks he has found grounds for a quarrel; such things a person not in love would say. But others suppose that the same account applies to both. [1239a] As has been said, then, there being three species of friendship — based on virtue, based on usefulness, and based on pleasure — these in turn are divided into two. For some are on the basis of equality, others on the basis of superiority. Both, then, are friendships, but it is those on the basis of equality who are friends in the strict sense: for it would be strange for a grown man to be called a friend to a small child, and yet he does love and is loved. In some cases the superior party must be loved, but if he loves, he is reproached for loving someone unworthy of it. For the worth of friends is measured, and by a certain equality. Some, then, are unworthy of being loved equally because of a deficiency in age, others because of virtue, birth, or some other such superiority. The superior party is always thought entitled to love either less or not at all — in the case of usefulness, in the case of pleasure, and in the case of virtue alike. In cases of small superiority, then, disputes reasonably arise (for the small carries no weight in some cases, as with the weighing of wood, but it does with gold; yet people judge the small badly — for what is one's own good appears large because it is near, while what belongs to another appears small because it is far off): but when the excess is great, people themselves no longer seek to be loved in return as they ought, or to be loved in return equally — as, for instance, if someone were to make such a claim on god.
20| It is clear, then, that people are friends in the strict sense when they are on an equal footing, but loving in return can exist without their being friends. It is also clear why people seek the friendship based on superiority more than the one based on equality: for in that way they get, at once, both being loved and superiority. Hence the flatterer is, in some people's eyes, held in higher honor than the friend: for he makes both things appear to belong to the one being flattered. This is especially true of those who love honor: for being admired belongs to superiority. By nature, some people turn out to be fond of loving, others fond of honor. The one fond of loving is the person who takes more delight in loving than in being loved; the one fond of honor delights more in being loved. The one, then, who delights in being admired and loved is a friend of superiority; the one who delights in the pleasure of loving is the person fond of loving. For loving is necessarily present in one who is active, whereas being loved is accidental: for it is possible to be loved without knowing it, but not to love without knowing it. And in respect of friendship itself, loving belongs to the friend more than being loved does, while being loved belongs rather to what is lovable. Here is a sign: a friend, if he could not have both, would choose to know rather than to be known — as women do in cases of substituted children, and as Antiphon's Andromache does.
21| For wanting to be known seems to be for one's own sake, and for the sake of receiving some good rather than doing one, while wanting to know is for the sake of acting and of loving. [1239b] For this reason we praise those who persist in loving even toward the dead: for they know, but are not known in return. It has been stated, then, that there are several ways of being friendship, and how many ways — that there are three — and that being loved and loving in return differ, as do friends on the basis of equality from those on the basis of superiority. But since 'the dear' is also spoken of in a still more universal sense, as was said at the outset, by those who bring in considerations from outside (for some say that like is dear to like, others that the opposite is), we must also say how these views stand in relation to the kinds of friendship we have described. Now the claim about the like is traced back both to the pleasant and to the good. For the good is simple, while the bad is many-shaped. And the good man is always alike and does not change in character, while the base and senseless man is not at all the same in the morning as in the evening. Hence, unless base people come to an agreement, they are not friends to one another, but drift apart; and friendship that is not stable is not friendship. So in this way like is dear to like, because the good is alike; but in a way this holds also with respect to the pleasant — for the same things are pleasant to like people, and each thing is by nature pleasant to itself.
22| That is why voices and states of character and spending the day together are most pleasant for creatures of the same kind to one another, and this holds for the other animals too. And in this way it is possible even for base people to be fond of one another. For a bad person is fused to a bad person by pleasure. But the contrary is dear to the contrary as what is useful, since like is useless to like itself. That is why a master needs a slave and a slave a master, and a woman and a man need each other, and the contrary is pleasant and desired as useful, and not as an end but as tending toward the end. For when someone gets what he desires, he is at the end, but he no longer reaches out for the contrary — for instance, the hot no longer reaches for the cold, nor the dry for the wet. Yet in a way the friendship of contraries too is a friendship of the good. For they reach out for each other because of the mean between them: they reach for each other as tallies do, because in this way a single mean comes to be out of both. Further, it belongs to the contrary accidentally, but to the mean in its own right. For contraries do not reach out for one another, but for the mean. For those who have been chilled too much, if they are warmed, are settled into the mean, and those who have been overheated, if they are cooled — and likewise in the other cases. If not, they are always in a state of desire, not in the mean states.
23| But the one who is in the mean rejoices without desire in what is pleasant by nature, whereas those others rejoice in everything that removes them from their natural state. Now this form is found even among the inanimate; but friendliness comes about only when it occurs among the animate. [1240a] That is why sometimes people take pleasure in their unlikes — for example, the austere in the witty, and the sharp-tempered in the easygoing. For they are settled into the mean by one another. So it is accidentally, as was said, that contraries are dear, and it is because of the good. How many forms of friendship there are, then, and what the differences are in virtue of which people are called friends, and lovers, and beloved, and are friends in this way even without this — this has been stated. But whether a person is a friend to himself or not admits of much investigation. For it seems to some that each person is a friend to himself most of all, and using this as a standard they judge friendship toward other friends. But according to the accounts and what is thought to hold of friends, some things run contrary, while others appear to be alike. For this friendship is in a way one of analogy, but not without qualification. For being loved and loving are divided between two parties; on account of which a person is more properly a friend to himself in the way it has been said the incontinent and the continent person are, whether willingly or unwillingly, in that the parts of the soul stand in a certain relation to one another — and all such questions are alike: whether one is a friend and an enemy to oneself, and whether one can do injustice to oneself.
24| For all these things occur in two parties that are divided; so, insofar as the soul too is in a way two, these predicates apply to it, but insofar as it is not divided, they do not apply. From one's disposition toward oneself the remaining ways of loving have been marked off, as we are accustomed to examine in our discussions. For a friend seems to be one who wishes for someone the things that are good, or that he thinks are good, not for his own sake but for that other person's sake. In another way, a friend is one for whom a person wishes existence for that other's sake and not his own, even if he is not the one distributing the goods — such a person would seem to be a friend most of all, not by wishing existence to this other for his own sake. In another way, a friend is one with whom a person chooses to live together for the sake of the association itself and not for the sake of something else — as fathers wish existence to their children, but live together with others. Now all these ways conflict with one another. For some do not think they are loved unless the wish is for what is theirs, others unless it is for their existence, others unless it is for living together. Further, we shall posit that sharing in another's pain, not for the sake of something else, is a mark of affection — as when slaves feel for their masters, because their masters are harsh when in pain, but not for the masters' own sake — the way mothers feel for their children, and birds that share in one another's labor pains.
25| For the friend wants, above all, not merely to share the pain with his friend, but to feel the very same pain — for example, to thirst along with one who thirsts, if that were possible — because that is nearest to it. The same account holds for rejoicing too: rejoicing not for the sake of something else, but for that other person's sake, because he rejoices, is a mark of friendliness. [1240b] Further, such things as these are said about friendship: that friendship is equality, and that true friends are not one soul. All these are referred back to the single person. For a person wishes the good things for himself in this way too. For no one benefits himself for the sake of something else, nor for gratitude. Nor does he say that he did it insofar as he is one; for the one who makes it plain that he loves, rather than actually loving, seems to want to be loved. And existence most of all, and living together, and rejoicing together, and sharing pain together, and indeed being one soul, and being unable even to live without one another, but dying together — for that is how the single person is, and he perhaps keeps company with himself. All these things belong to the good person in relation to himself. For in the base person there is discord, as in the incontinent. And on this account it seems possible for a person to be an enemy to himself as well; but insofar as he is one and undivided, he is an object of desire to himself. Such is the good person, and the friend in accordance with virtue, since the wicked person is not one but many, and is different even within the same day, and unstable. So that his friendship toward himself too is traced back to the friendship of the good person.
26| For it is because in some way he is alike and is one, and is good to himself, that in this respect a person is a friend and an object of desire to himself; and it is by nature that he is such, while the wicked person is contrary to nature. The good person neither reproaches himself at the same time as he does something, as the incontinent does, nor does his later self reproach his earlier self, as the person given to regret does, nor his earlier self his later self, as the liar does. And in general, if one must draw distinctions as the sophists do, just as Coriscus and good Coriscus are distinct — for it is clear that the same person is good to some degree, since when people accuse themselves they kill themselves; yet every man seems to be good to himself. The person who is good without qualification seeks also to be a friend to himself, as has been said, because he has within himself two elements which by nature wish to be friends and which it is impossible to tear apart. That is why in the case of a human being each person seems to be a friend to himself, but not in the case of the other animals — for example, a horse is not, then, a friend to itself. Nor are children, until they already have choice; for it is only then that the intellect is at discord with appetite. The friendship a person has toward himself resembles friendship in virtue of kinship: for neither relation is in one's own power to dissolve, but even if kinsmen fall out, they are nonetheless still kinsmen, and a person is still one, as long as he lives.
27| In how many senses, then, loving is spoken of, and that all friendships are traced back to the primary one, is clear from what has been said. [1241a] It is proper to this inquiry to consider also concord and goodwill. For to some it seems these are the same thing, to others that they do not occur apart from each other. Goodwill is neither wholly other than friendship nor the same as it. For since friendship is divided into three kinds, goodwill belongs neither to the useful kind nor to the kind based on pleasure. For if it is because someone is useful that a person wishes him the good things, he would be wishing them not for that other's sake but for his own; but it seems that goodwill, just like friendship, is not goodwill toward the one who is well-wished for its own sake, but for the sake of the one it benefits — well then, if goodwill were present in the friendship of the pleasant, people would feel goodwill even toward inanimate things. So it is clear that goodwill has to do with ethical friendship. But of the one who feels goodwill, only wishing is required, whereas of the friend, also doing what he wishes. For goodwill is a starting point of friendship: for every friend is well-disposed, but not everyone well-disposed is a friend. For the one who merely feels goodwill resembles someone just beginning, and that is why it is a starting point of friendship, but not friendship. For friends seem to be of one mind, and those of one mind seem to be friends. But friendly concord is not about everything, but about the things practicable for those who are of one mind, and whatever tends toward living together — and it is not merely a matter of thought or of desire alone (for it is possible to desire the contraries of what one thinks, as happens when this is at discord in the incontinent person); rather, one must be of one mind in accordance with choice, not in accordance with desire.
28| Concord concerns good things: base people, at any rate, when they choose and desire these same goods, harm one another. And concord too, it seems, is not spoken of in a single sense, any more than friendship is: rather, there is a primary kind, good by nature, and this is why base people cannot have concord with one another; and there is another kind, in accordance with which even base people are in concord, whenever they have the same choice and desire for the same things. But they must desire the same things in such a way that it is possible for both to have what they desire. For if they desire something of a kind that cannot belong to both, they will fight; but people in concord do not fight. There is concord when the same choice holds concerning ruling and being ruled — not that each of the two should rule, but that the same one should. And concord is political friendship. Let this much be said, then, about concord and goodwill. A puzzle arises as to why those who have done a benefit love those who received it more than those who received the benefit love those who did it. Yet it seems that justice requires the opposite. One might suppose this happens because of what is useful and advantageous to oneself: for the one is owed something, and the other must pay it back. But this is not the whole explanation; the fact is also natural.
29| For actuality is more choiceworthy, [1241b] and the product and the actuality stand in the same ratio to one another, and the one who has been benefited is, as it were, the product of the one who did the benefit. This is why even among animals there is such concern for offspring, both to beget them and to preserve what has been begotten. And so fathers love their children (and mothers love their children more than fathers do) more than they are loved in return; and children in turn love their own offspring more than they love their parents, because activity is the best thing; and mothers love their children more than fathers do, because they think the children are their own product more than the fathers do — for people mark off the product by the difficulty of producing it, and the mother suffers more in the process of birth. Let friendship toward oneself and friendship among several people be defined in this way, then. It seems that justice is a kind of equality, and that friendship consists in equality, if it is not pointless to say that friendship is equality. All constitutions are a kind of justice: for a constitution is a community, and everything held in common is constituted by way of justice; so that as many kinds as there are of friendship, there are also of justice and of community, and all these border closely on one another and have differentiae that lie near together. But since soul stands to body, craftsman to instrument, and master to slave in a similar way, there is no community between these.
30| For here there are not two parties, but one is one thing, and the other is nothing belonging to that one. Nor is the good divisible between the two, but the good of both belongs to the one for whose sake it exists. The body, after all, is an instrument fused by nature to its owner, and a slave functions for his master rather like a limb, a tool that happens to be removable, whereas a tool functions like a slave that has no soul. The other communities are either a part of the communities of the city, such as that of clansmen or of religious associations, or else associations formed for the sake of making money, which are constitutions of a kind as well. All constitutions coexist within households, both the correct ones and their deviations (for the same thing holds here as with musical modes and with the constitutions found in cities): the kingly constitution is that of the one who begot the children, the aristocratic is that of husband and wife, and the constitutional (polity) is that of brothers; the deviation from these is tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy respectively. So many, then, are the kinds of justice as well. And since equality is of two kinds, one by number and one by proportion, there will also be kinds of justice, of friendship, and of community corresponding to these. For the democratic community and comradely friendship are by number, since they are measured by the same standard; but the aristocratic community, which is best, and the kingly, are by proportion.
31| For what is just is not the same for the one who exceeds and the one who is exceeded, but rather what is proportionate. And friendship is the same way between father and child, and in communities the manner is the same. [1242a] Friendships are called kin-friendship, comradely friendship, and communal friendship, the last also called political friendship. Kin-friendship has many kinds: one is like that of brothers, another like that of father and sons (for the paternal kind is by proportion, while that of brothers is by number, since this kind lies close to comradely friendship — for here too people claim a privilege of seniority). Political friendship is constituted especially in accordance with usefulness. For people seem to come together because they are not self-sufficient, though they would come together also for the sake of living together. Political friendship alone, and the deviation from it, are not only friendships, but their members also share a community with one another as friends do; the other kinds rest on superiority. What is just is found most of all in the friendship of the useful, because this is what political justice is. For a saw and a craft come together in a different way, not for the sake of anything held in common (for one is like an instrument, the other like a soul), but for the sake of the one who uses it. Yet it also turns out that the instrument itself receives a kind of care, a care that is proportionate to its work; for it exists for the sake of that work. And being a drill has a double sense, of which the more authoritative is the activity, namely boring. And in this class fall body and slave, as has been said before.
32| To inquire how one should associate with a friend is to inquire into something just. For, speaking generally, everything just is directed toward a friend. For what is just concerns certain people who share something in common, and a friend is one who shares something in common — one shares in kinship, another in life together. For man is not only a political animal but also a household-managing animal, and he does not pair off at some chance time with whatever female or male happens along, the way the other animals do — (the text is corrupt here) — but man is a communal animal toward those with whom he has a natural kinship. So there is community, and something just, even where there is no city; and a household is a kind of friendship. The friendship of master and slave is the same as that of craft and instruments and of soul and body; friendships of this kind are neither friendships nor forms of justice, but analogous to these, just as what is healthful is not just but analogous to it. The friendship of wife and husband is as something useful, and is a community; that of father and son is the same as that of a god toward a man, and of one who has done a benefit toward the one who received it, and in general of the one who rules by nature toward the one who is ruled by nature. But the friendship of brothers toward one another is especially of the comradely kind, the kind based on equality: 'For I was not shown to be a bastard in this man's eyes: the same father was called father of us both — Zeus my ruler.'
33| (citation: Sophocles, fr. 755 in Jebb and Pearson; 684 in Nauck) These words, in fact, are spoken by people seeking equality. [1242b] This is why the principles and sources of friendship, of political community, and of justice are found first in the household. Since there are three kinds of friendship — based on virtue, based on usefulness, based on pleasure — and each of these has two variants (for each of them holds either by superiority or by equality, and what is just concerning them is clear from the claims of those in dispute), in the kind based on superiority what is claimed is the proportionate share, but not in the same way by both parties: rather, the one who exceeds claims the proportion inversely, so that what comes from the lesser party stands to what comes from himself as he himself stands to the lesser one — disposed as a ruler toward the ruled; but if not this, then he claims what is equal by number. And indeed this is what happens in other communities as well. For sometimes people share equally by number, sometimes by ratio. For if they contributed an equal amount of money, they also receive an equal amount by the same number; but if not an equal amount, they receive proportionately. The one who is exceeded, on the contrary, reverses the proportion, and joins the terms crosswise. In this way it would seem that the one who exceeds comes off worse, and that friendship and community become a kind of public service he performs. Something else, then, is needed to equalize the parties and make the proportion work out.
34| This is honor — the very thing that belongs, by nature, to the ruler and to god in relation to the one ruled. The gain must be made equal to the honor. Friendship on equal terms is political friendship. Political friendship is based on usefulness, and just as cities are friendly to one another, so too are citizens; and in the same way — 'Athenians no longer recognize Megarians' (an anonymous elegiac fragment, no. 6, Bergk) — citizens too no longer recognize each other once they are no longer useful to one another, but friendship then passes from hand to hand. Here too there is a ruler and a ruled, but it is neither the natural kind of rule nor the kingly kind, but the kind that rules by turns, and not for the sake of the god's doing well by it, but so that the good and the service may be made equal. Political friendship, then, wants to rest on equality. Of the friendship of usefulness there are two species, the legal and the ethical. Political friendship looks to what is equal and to the matter itself, as sellers and buyers do. Hence the saying: 'a wage for a dear friend' (Hesiod, Works and Days 371). Now when this political friendship rests on an explicit agreement, it is legal; but when the parties entrust the terms to each other's discretion, it wants to be ethical friendship, the friendship of comrades.
35| That is why complaint arises most of all in this kind of friendship, and the cause is that it goes against nature. For the friendship of usefulness and the friendship of virtue are different things; but people who want to have both at once associate with one another for the sake of usefulness, [1243a] while making it out to be ethical, as if they were decent people — hence, as though they trusted one another, they do not make it legal. For in general the friendship of usefulness produces the most complaints of the three (virtue-friendship gives no ground for complaint, since those who find each other pleasant and have already given and received part company at once; but those bound by usefulness do not dissolve their friendship right away, unless they deal with one another in the legal, comradely manner). All the same, of the friendship of usefulness, the legal kind gives no ground for complaint. Legal dissolution is measured against currency (for equality is measured by this), while the ethical kind is voluntary. That is why in some places there is a law that those who deal with one another on this friendly footing should have no legal actions over voluntary transactions — and rightly so, for it is not natural for there to be justice between good people, who deal with one another as good and trustworthy. In this kind of friendship the complaints on both sides are ambiguous, as to how each party lodges his complaint, whenever they have trusted one another in the ethical rather than the legal way. And it raises a genuine difficulty which way one ought to judge what is just — whether by looking to the deed itself, how much service was rendered, or looking to what it was worth to the one who received it. For it may turn out as Theognis says: 'To you, goddess, this is a small thing, but to me a great one' (Theognis 14). But the opposite may also happen, as in the saying: to you this may be child's play, but to me it is death.
36| From this the complaints arise. For the one party claims he deserves an equal return, on the ground that he rendered great service, because he did it for someone in need, or some other such thing, measuring it by how much benefit it was capable of giving the other, but not by what it actually was to himself; the other measures it the opposite way, by how much it was worth to the other, not by how much it was worth to himself. And sometimes, shifting ground, each disputes both ways at once. The one measures by how little it turned out to cost himself; the other by how much it was capable of being worth to himself — as, for instance, if a man ran a risk and thereby did another a service worth a drachma, the one reckons by the size of the risk, the other by the sum of money, just as in the repayment of currency debts. And indeed the dispute there too concerns these same points: the one claims by what it was worth then, the other by what it is worth now, if they have not settled the terms beforehand. Now political friendship looks to the agreement and to the matter itself, while ethical friendship looks to the intention. This is why the latter is more properly justice, and this justice is friendly justice. The cause of the conflict is that ethical friendship is finer, while the friendship of usefulness is more necessary. People start out as though they were ethical friends, bound together by virtue; but when some private interest comes squarely into play, they show themselves to have been something else all along — for most people pursue what is fine only out of surplus, when they can afford it.
37| That is why they pursue the finer kind of friendship too, out of surplus. [1243b] So it is clear how these matters ought to be sorted out. If they are ethical friends, one must look to whether their intentions are equal, and neither party may claim anything further from the other beyond that. But if they are friends of usefulness and political friends, the terms are whatever they agreed would be advantageous. And if one states the agreement one way and the other states it another way, it is not fine for either to press his own claim by force — since both should state the fine (generous) account, and equally so on the other side — but since they did not settle their terms as ethical friends should, someone must judge between them, and neither party should deceive the other by playing a part he does not mean. Hence each must be content to accept his own fortune in the matter. That ethical friendship goes by intention is clear from this: even if a man, having received great benefits, fails to repay them because he lacks the means, but does as much as he can, this is honorable — just as god too accepts sacrifices offered according to the giver's capacity. But a seller will not be satisfied unless the buyer can say he is unable to give more, nor will a lender be. Many complaints arise in friendships that are not on the same straight line of exchange, and it is not easy to see what is just. For it is hard to measure with one and the same standard what does not run along the same line — as happens, for instance, in erotic relationships. For the one party pursues the other as pleasant, for the sake of living together, while the other sometimes pursues him as useful; and when the lover ceases to love, as one party changes, the other changes too, and then they reckon everything against each other — as Python and Pammenes fell out, and as teacher and pupil do (for knowledge and money are not measured by the same standard), and as the physician Herodicus did against the man who paid him too little a fee, and as the lyre-player and the king did.
38| For the one dealt with the other as with someone pleasant, the other as with someone useful; and the one, when it came time to pay, made himself out to be the pleasant one, and said that just as the other had delighted him by singing, so he in turn had made a like promise to him. All the same, it is clear how one ought to judge even in such cases: here too one must measure by a single standard, but not by a fixed unit, but by a ratio — one must measure by proportion, just as the political community itself is measured. For how will a shoemaker share a community with a farmer, unless their works are equalized by proportion? For relationships that do not lie on the same straight line, the measure is proportion — for instance, if the one complains that he gave wisdom and the other gave him money, one must set wisdom against wealth, and then ask what was given relative to each. For if the one gave half of the lesser amount, and the other did not give even a small fraction of the greater, it is plain that the second is doing wrong. And here too there is a dispute at the outset, if the one claims they came together as useful to one another, while the other denies this and says it was on the basis of some other kind of friendship.
39| [1244a] As for the friend who is good and who is a friend on the basis of virtue, one must consider whether one ought to render useful service and help to him, or rather to the one who can and will make some return. This is in fact the same problem as whether one ought to do good rather to one's friend or to the person of worth. If the same man is both friend and person of worth, the matter is perhaps not too difficult, provided one does not exaggerate the one quality and belittle the other, treating him as a very great friend but only a mildly decent person. But if this is not the case, many problems arise — for instance, if the one man was a friend but will be one no longer, while the other will be a friend but is not one yet; or if the one became a friend but is not one now, while the other is a friend now but neither was one before nor will be one — but that case is more troublesome still. Perhaps Euripides has something to say to this: 'For fine words you might bring a just wage of words, but the man who gave a deed deserves a deed' (Euripides, fragment 882, Nauck). Not everything is owed to a father — there are things owed rather to a mother, even though the father is the better parent. For not everything is sacrificed to Zeus either, nor does he hold every honor, but only certain ones. So perhaps there are things owed to the useful person, and other things owed to the good person. For instance, it does not follow that because someone provides grain and life's necessities, one must therefore also live together with him.
40| Nor, then, should the one we live together with be given what he does not himself give — that belongs to the useful friend. But those who do this, giving everything to the beloved when they ought not, are worth nothing. And the definitions of friendship given in philosophical discussions are all in some way definitions of friendship, but not of the same friendship. For to the useful friend belongs wishing him good things, and this also applies to the one who has done well by us and to the one who is of the right character (this definition does not specify which kind of friendship it is); to another belongs wishing him existence, to another living-together, and to the friend based on pleasure belongs sharing pain and sharing joy. All these definitions are stated in reference to some friendship, but none applies to a single kind. That is why they are many, and each seems to be the definition of one friendship, though it is not — for instance, the choice that wishes the friend to exist. For indeed the superior friend, and the one who has done well by another, also wishes his own work to endure; and one must repay the one who gave us our existence — but living-together belongs not to this one, but to the pleasant friend. Some friends wrong one another, for it is the things involved that they love more, and not the person who has them. That is why a man loves those people too, just as he chooses wine because it is pleasant, and chooses wealth because it is useful —
41| — because it is more useful. For that reason one should not be indignant, as if he had chosen the greater good over the lesser. But some do bring accusations against their friends: for they are now looking for the friend as good, though earlier they had looked for him as pleasant or as useful. [1244b] We must also examine self-sufficiency and friendship, to see how they stand in relation to each other's powers. For one might raise the puzzle whether, if a man were self-sufficient in every respect, there will be a friend for him. If a friend is sought on account of need, and the good man will be most self-sufficient — since the happy man is the one who is happy through virtue — what need would he have of a friend? For the self-sufficient man needs neither useful people, nor people who give delight, nor living-together, since he is sufficient company for himself. This is most evident in the case of god: for it is clear that, needing nothing further, he will not need a friend either, nor will he have need even of a master. So the happiest man too will have the least need of a friend, except insofar as it is impossible for him to be wholly self-sufficient. It follows of necessity that the man who lives best has the fewest friends, and that they grow ever fewer, and that he does not take pains to have friends, but is indifferent not only to useful ones but even to those choiceworthy for living-together. And yet, at that very point, it would seem clear that the friend exists not for the sake of use nor of benefit, but that only the friend loved for virtue's sake is truly a friend. For when we are in need of nothing, it is then that everyone seeks those to share enjoyment with, and seeks those to confer benefit on rather than those who will benefit them. And we have better judgment when we are self-sufficient than when we are in need — which is exactly when we most need friends worthy of living-together.
42| We must examine this puzzle to see whether part of it is stated correctly while part escapes notice because of the comparison being made. It becomes clear once we grasp what living in actuality is, and grasp it as an end. It is clear, then, that this is perceiving and knowing, so that living-together too is perceiving-together and knowing-together. Now perceiving oneself and knowing oneself is most choiceworthy for each person, and it is for this reason that the desire for living is innate in all — for living must be reckoned a kind of knowing. If, then, one were to cut off and set apart knowing in itself, taken alone (but this escapes notice, as is written in the argument, though in the actual fact it does not escape notice), it would make no difference from knowing someone else instead of oneself — and it would be the same thing to live another's life instead of one's own. Reasonably, then, perceiving and knowing oneself is more choiceworthy. For one must combine two things together in the argument: that living is choiceworthy, and that it is good, and from these, that it belongs to such things themselves to have this nature.
43| [1245a] If, then, in such a pair of correlated columns one member is always ranked among the choiceworthy, then the knowable and the perceptible too are, generally speaking, choiceworthy by sharing in a determinate nature — so that wishing to perceive oneself is the same as wishing to be a determinate sort of thing. Since, then, we are not each of these things in ourselves, but by participation in the respective powers, in perceiving or knowing (for the one who perceives becomes perceptible in this respect and by this — in the way, and to the extent, and of the object of which he previously perceives — and the one who knows becomes known by knowing) — for this reason one always wishes to live, because one always wishes to know, and this because one wishes oneself to be the object known. Now to choose living-together might seem, on examination, somewhat foolish — first with regard to what is shared even with the other animals, such as eating together or drinking together: for what difference does it make whether these things happen to people who are near one another or apart, if you take away speech? But sharing in whatever speech happens to come up is another such foolish thing too; and at the same time, neither teaching nor learning is possible between self-sufficient friends — for if he is learning he himself is not as he should be, and if he is teaching his friend is not — and friendship is likeness, and likeness is what friendship requires.
44| But it certainly does appear otherwise, and indeed we all more gladly share good things with friends, each to the extent that it falls to him and of whatever best thing he is capable — but of these goods, to one it is bodily pleasure, to another the contemplation of music, to another philosophy. And one must be together with one's friend. That is why the poet says, "far-off friends are a trouble" — so that, this being so, friends ought not to be separated from one another. Hence erotic love too seems to resemble friendship: for the lover desires living-together, though not in the way he most should, but according to perception alone. The argument, then, in raising its puzzles, asserts that; but the fact plainly turns out otherwise, so it is clear that whoever raises the puzzle is somehow misleading us. We must look from here for the truth. For the friend wishes to be, as the proverb says, "another Heracles, another self." But the traits of a self are scattered, and it is difficult for them all to come to be present in one person: rather, the friend is closest kin by nature, while in body he is merely another resembling person, and in soul he is another again, and of these traits one differs from another part by part. But none the less a man wishes the friend to be, as it were, himself divided into another. So perceiving one's friend must in a way be perceiving oneself, and knowing one's friend must in a way be knowing oneself.
45| So it stands to reason that even in common pleasures, sharing enjoyment and living together with one's friend is pleasant — since perception of him always accompanies it — and more so in the more divine pleasures. The reason is that it is always more pleasant to contemplate oneself in the better good. [1245b] And this is sometimes an affection, sometimes an action, sometimes something else. And if it is pleasant to contemplate oneself living well, then likewise to contemplate one's friend living well in the same way; and in living-together they work together, and their partnership lies above all in the things directed to the end. That is why we must study together and feast together, not for the sake of food and the necessities — such gatherings seem to be true companionship, but are in fact mere enjoyments. But each person wishes to live together in that end which he is capable of attaining; and failing that, they choose above all to do well by their friends and to be well treated by them. That one ought to live together, then, and that all wish this above all, and that the happiest and best man is most of this sort, is clear. But that it did not appear so according to the earlier argument — this too happened reasonably, even though the speaker was saying true things. For though the comparison is true in its construction, the solution does not follow from it. For because god is not the sort of being who needs a friend, we suppose the same must hold of the man who is like god. And yet by this same argument, the excellent man would not even think: for god is not well off in the sense of thinking of other things, but is in a better state than to think of anything besides himself. The reason is that for us, well-being depends on something else, but for him, he himself is his own well-being.
46| Both our seeking and praying to have many friends, and at the same time saying that no one is a friend to a person with many friends, are said correctly. For if it were possible to live together with many at once and to share perception with as many people as possible, that would be most choiceworthy; but since this is very difficult, the activity of shared perception must necessarily be confined to fewer people, so that it is not only difficult to acquire many friends (for this requires testing), but also to make use of them once one has them. And sometimes we want the person we love to be away and doing well, and sometimes we want to share in the same things with him, and wanting to be together is itself a mark of friendship. For when it is possible to be together and to fare well at the same time, everyone chooses this; but when it is not possible, then, just as with Heracles, his mother would perhaps have chosen for him to be a god rather than to be with her and serve Eurystheus as a slave. One might say something similar about what the Laconian said as a joke, when someone told him, while he was being battered by a storm at sea, to call upon the Dioscuri. It seems that it belongs to the one who loves to keep his friend from sharing in hardships, while it belongs to the one who is loved to want to share in them, and both of these things happen reasonably. For nothing should be as painful to a friend as not seeing his friend; yet it seems one ought to choose not what is good for oneself. That is why lovers prevent their friends from sharing their troubles: it is enough that they themselves suffer, so that they do not appear to be looking to their own interest and to be choosing to feel pleasure while their friend is in pain.
47| [1246a] Further, there is the fact that people bear evils more lightly when they do not bear them alone. But since both faring well and being together are choiceworthy, it is clear that being together with a lesser good is in some way more choiceworthy than being apart with a greater good. But since it is unclear how much weight togetherness carries, people already disagree about this, and some think that sharing in everything together is what friendship is, and say, for instance, that it is more pleasant to dine together sharing the same things; others, however, do not want this. But if one takes extreme cases, people agree that it is better to be together faring very badly than to be apart faring very well. Something similar holds also concerning misfortunes. For sometimes we want our friends to be away and not even grieve with us, when they are not going to accomplish anything more by being present; but sometimes it is most pleasant to have them present. This apparent contradiction is quite reasonable. For it comes about on account of what was said before: because we simply avoid looking at a friend who is grieving or in a bad state, just as we avoid looking at ourselves in such a state, while seeing a friend is pleasant, like anything else among the most pleasant things, for the reason already stated — pleasant, that is, when he is not suffering, even if one is oneself suffering. So whichever of these turns out to be more pleasant tips the scale toward wanting him present or not. This also happens among worse people, and comes about for the same reason: for they are especially eager that their friends not fare well, and that they themselves not be forced to fare badly. That is why sometimes they destroy their loved ones along with themselves. For one is more keenly aware of one's own evil if one remembers that one once fared better, than if one thought one had always fared badly.