Book 7
9
Loving depends, more than being loved, on the actual feeling, whereas being loved corresponds with the nature of the object. A sign of this is that a friend, if both things were not possible, would choose to know the other person rather than to be known by him, as for example women do when they allow others to adopt their children, and Andromache in the tragedy of Antiphon.This poet lived at Syracuse at the court of Dionysus the elder (who came into power 406 B.C.). He is said to have written tragedies in collaboration with the tyrant; and he was sentenced by him to death by flogging (Aristot. Rhet. 1384a 9). Indeed the wish to be known seems to be selfish, and its motive a desire to receive and not to confer some benefit, whereas to wish to know a person is for the sake of conferring benefit and bestowing affection.
10
For this reason we praise those who remain constant in affection towards the dead; for they know, but are not known.
10
It has, then, been stated that there are several modes of friendship, and how many modes there are, namely three, and that receiving affection and having one’s affection returned, and friends on an equality and those on a footing of superiority, are different.
1
But as the term friend is used in a more universal sense as well, as was also said at the beginning,Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1235a 4 ff. by those who take in wider considerations (some saying that what is like is dear, others what is opposite), we must also speak about these forms of friendship and their relation to the kinds that have been discussed.
2
As for likeness, it connects with pleasantness and also with goodness. For the good is simple, whereas the bad is multiform; and also the good man is always alike and does not change in character, whereas the wicked and the foolish are quite different in the evening from what they were in the morning.
