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In the houses of rich men and rulers, the people see a noisy throng of visitors offering their greetings and shaking hands and playing the part of armed retainers, and they think that those who have so many friends must be happy. Yet they can see a far greater number of flies in those persons’ kitchens. But the flies do not stay on after the good food is gone, nor the retainers after their patron’s usefulness is gone. But true friendship seeks after three things above all else: virtue as a good thing, intimacy as a pleasant thing, and usefulness as a necessary thing, for a man ought to use judgement before accepting a friend, and to enjoy being with him and to use him when in need of him, and all these things stand in the way of one’s having many friends; but most in the way is the first (which is the most important)—the approval through judgement. Therefore we must, in the first place, consider whether it is possible in a brief period of time to test dancers who are to dance together, or rowers who are to pull together, or servants who are to be guardians of property or attendants of children, let alone the testing of a multitude of friends who are to strip for a general contest with every kind of fortune, each one of whom Puts his successes with the common store, And shares in bad luck, too, without distress.Author unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 366. For no ship is launched upon the sea to meet so many storms, nor do men, when they erect protecting walls for strongholds, and dams and moles for harbours, anticipate perils so numerous and so great as those from which friendship, rightly and surely tried, promises a refuge and protection. But when some thrust their friendship upon us without being tried, and are found to be like bad coins when put to the test, Those who are bereft rejoice, And those who have them pray for some escape.From some play of Sophocles; it is cited again by Plutarch in Moralia, 768 E; cf.Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Sophocles, No. 779. But here is the difficulty—that it is not easy to escape or to put aside an unsatisfactory friendship; but as harmful and disquieting food can neither be retained without causing pain and injury, nor ejected in the form in which it was taken in, but only as a disgusting and repulsive mess, so an unprincipled friend either causes pain and intense discomfort by his continued association, or else with accompanying enmity and hostility is forcibly ejected like bile.
