Love & Friendship
Lecture 16: Envy and Flattery as Vices Opposed to Friendship

Transcript
================================================================================

You have to stop and think about that way of speaking, huh? You know, it's that way of speaking imperfect, not saying exactly what you mean. If I return your love, I don't want your love, I'm going to get it back to you, take it, take it. No, it doesn't mean that, does it? Although it might seem to someone to be saying that in the words, right? I'm going to return your love, huh? The girl returns the ring. That's the end of things, I guess. But if I return your love, that doesn't mean that's the end of it. That means the start of a friendship, right? But I think it shows kind of the likeness of friendship to justice, right? Because you speak as if you return the very love you received, right? Okay. They seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. I see this is that scene, you know, where they're trying to get Benedict and Beatrice, you know, to declare their liking for each other. And they're always kidding each other, you know, and so on. And they work on him separately, right? You know, that Benedict is learning that Beatrice is really in love with him, through overhearing the conversation of men who have plotted this. And Beatrice is hearing that Benedict really loves her, right? And then she says, wow, I've got to return this love that he's given me or she's given me, right? So Benedict, upon hearing this, they seem to pity the lady, as if she loves Benedict, but he won't love her in return, right? They seem to pity the lady. And this, of course, is a sorrowful thing, right? To love someone and I have the love of return, huh? They seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear I am censured, right? I'm not loving her in return. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say, too, that you would rather die than give any sign of affection. Of course, finally, Benedict and Beatrice, we do like each other, but they have this problem, you know, not kidding each other all the time. Of course, they finally realize that they're on the play. This is in Act 5, Scene 4, that they've been played upon, right? Then you do not love me? He says, No truly, but in friendly recompense. Now, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, if you know the story there, that's Shakespeare's greatest comedy, right? There's three or four people who want to marry Anne Page, and they all got arrangements, you know, to run off with her at the end of this evening. And Fenton, who is really the one who loves her, and she loves him in return, right? They're the ones that actually run off and get married. And so Fenton is talking to the, he's going to help him. From time to time, I have acquainted you with the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page. You mutually have answered my affection, right? That means what? She's returned his love, right? So far, forth as herself might be her chooser, right? Wait, even to my wish, huh? Of course, in Shakespeare's day, you still have the idea that, you know, you don't marry, choose to marry, your parents choose for you, right? Of course, that seemed kind of unbeasible to people in our century, right? But, you know, I was thinking of the old idea. If you and I are walking along the beach there, and there's a piece of wood there, and I pick up that piece of wood, and then I start to carve her, and I carve it into a statue, something like that, to whom does that statue belong now? Yeah, it belongs to the maker of it, right? Okay. If I write a book, you think it belongs to me, right? I have a copyright and so on. So the maid belongs to the maker, right? Now you find this in the Psalms, right? That the lords are the earth in his fullness, right? I wrote in those. Because he made it, right? Okay. And of course, in the case of God, more so than in the case of my picking up the piece of wood, I didn't make the wood, right? But I gave it the form of the statue, right? But God creates without any matter, right? He creates the matter as well as the form, right? So we belong entirely to God. We don't belong to ourselves. but in a way doesn't the child belong to the parents more than to himself because they what? made him right so if the child belongs to you then you should have the right to bestow them in marriage upon the person there's nothing reasonable about that right but our cousins of course would regard as infringement upon freedom and so on right was taken for granted you know until fairly recently and of course a lot of the old plays depend upon that I mean you know Roman and Juliet it depends upon the fact that you know you don't go out and decide yourself you're going to marry parents decide for you that's what it says so far forth is herself might be her chooser right and Venus and Adonis of course that's the famous mythology that Shakespeare writes the narrative poem about but Venus loves Adonis but he's not returning the law right I know not love Kothi nor will not know it unless it be a boar and then I chase it he's a hunter right but he's not a lover tis much to borrow and I will not owe it I'd like to say it to justice again my love to love is love but to disgrace it for I've heard all kinds of bad things about it it's a life and death right that laughs and weeps and all but with a breath now in sonnet 23 who plead for love and look for what recompense if you love another person you naturally want them to love you in return right presume not on my heart when mine is slain thou gavest me thine not to give back again now friendship and justice again expanding a bit on that likeness between the two Icelia and Rosalind of course are the daughters of the what present duke and the duke who's been exiled who his throne has been usurped by the younger brother right but the daughters have remained friends right herein I see thou lovest me not with the full weight that I love thee if my uncle thy banished father had banished thy uncle the duke my father so thou hadst been still with me I could have taught my love to take thy father from mine so wouldst thou if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee the truth of thy love right truth is like justice isn't it Macbeth Malcolm is saying in Macbeth we shall not spend a large expensive time before we reckon with your serval loves and make us even with you and notice we use that in justice don't we I'm going to get even with you but even if you know you go to the store and I say oh will you get me a bottle of milk or something or a loaf of bread then we come back and we settle right and sometimes we say you know we're even now right we need this justice right so justice is a question of getting even and so notice he's saying here though we shall not spend a large expensive time won't wait a long time before we reckon with your serval loves and make us even with you my thanes and kidsmen henceforth be earls he's promoting them the first that ever has gotten such an honor named but Montague is bound as well as I and penalty alike and tis not hard I think for men so old as we to keep the peace of honorable reckoning are you both and pity tis you lived at odds so long right that's the opposite of what being even right to be at odds with somebody right but it shows kind of the likeness between justice and being even right and enmity and being at odds with somebody do you see that that's our way of speaking isn't it if I'm at odds with you that means that we're in some kind of context If I get even with you, that's justice, right? Keep the numbers, even or not, even your mind is equally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's kind of showing the likeness there between friendship and justice, huh? Now, Aegeus doesn't want his daughter to marry the man that she's fallen in love with. Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung with feigning voice, right? Versus a feigning love, right? And stolen the impression of her fantasy. With cunning hast thou filched my daughter's heart. Stolen the heart, right? It's unjust, right? Sometimes you can, you see in a courtroom sometimes, alienation of affection, I think they call it. Yeah. Where you've, someone can have somebody else's child to be attached to you, you know, more than to them. You know, you can actually be charged with alienation of affection, right? Okay. As if they're giving the love where it shouldn't be, right? You've stolen. You've filched my daughter's heart, right? Okay. And just here, huh? Now, Don John is a great villain of what you do about nothing if you know the play. The guy is fairly disgusted with life and things. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace. And it better fits my blood to be disdained all of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love for many. In this, though, I cannot be said to be a flattering, honest man. It must not be denied that I am a plain-dealing villain. Now, Julia, huh? Madam, it was Ariadne passioning for Thesis's perjury and unjust flight. It was unfaithful to her, right? This is a question of what? It's being called unjust, right? Okay. So, adultery would be considered unjust, right? Okay. He's abandoning Ariadne, right? His perjury. It's against justice, right? An unjust flight. Now, at the last scene there, almost in the Tujemma Rona, Proteus has been pursuing Valentine's girl, and she's been refusing him, and now he's getting violent, you know, to rape her, you might say. And Valentine shows up, right? Ruffian! Let go that rude, uncivil touch, thou friend of an ill-fashioned. Valentine and Proteus. Proteus is well-named, because Proteus in Greek mythology is the god who's always assuming a different shape. So Proteus was, you know, betrothed with 20 soul-confirming oaths to Julia, and then he went over to Sylvia, right? So he's changing his shape all the time. He says, thou common friend. That's in the pejorative sense, right? That's without faith or love, for such is a friend now. Treacherous man, thou hast beguiled my hopes. Not but mine eye could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say I have one friend alive, huh? They're best friends, huh? Thou wouldst disprove me. Who should be trusted now, when one's right hand is perjured, again, the word perjured, right? To the bosom. Proteus, I am sorry I must never trust thee more, but count the world a stranger for thy sake. The private wound is deepest, O time most cursed, Amongst all foes that are friends should be the worst. But it's very interesting. I call those plays, like the two gentlemen of Rona, the love and friendship plays of Shakespeare, right? Because you have this love, you know, romantic love, but then you have a friendship, right? And sometimes there's a certain conflict between the two, you know? And it's very interesting, these six plays of Shakespeare. So the two gentlemen of Rona are friends, but then there's this love. What would the others be? Well, yeah, the three early ones, the Midsummer Night's Dream, and the two gentlemen of Rona, and the Merchant of Venice, right? Okay. And then you have the more mature ones, the Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It, and then the Twelfth Night Crime one. They're all very interesting plays. So they're both about romantic love and they're about friendship, you know. And usually you're friends between two men, right? So the two general ones are friends. Merchant of Venice and Bassani, right? In the Merchant of Venice, in the Bits of the Night's Dream, though, it's more the woman of the friends. The women are friends, yeah. And then they, what goes on in the forest there, yeah. And so, interesting place. Now, envy and friendship, huh? What suggested to me doing a little topic on envy and friendship was that in the treatise on charity in the Summa Theologiae, right? When Thomas takes up, you know, the virtues in the Secunda Secunda, he takes up with them or after them the vices opposed to that virtue, right? Because it's the same knowledge of opposites, as we said, right? And one of the things he takes up with friendship, with caritas, charity, is envy, right? Because that's very much opposed to what? Friendship, right? Okay? And so, I thought if you look a little bit at envy and see why it's opposed to friendship, then you realize that is the nature of what? Friendship, too. Now, friendship involves mutual goodwill, huh? And envy is defined as sadness over the good fortune of another, right? So if I'm sad of your good fortune, right, that seems to be contrary to my wishing well to you, right? Whereby I should rejoice in your, what, success or whatever good has happened to you, right? And usually, you know, when I'm teaching this in the college here, I'll take the example, you know, you and your roommate, huh? Right. And I say, now, you two girls, you're roommates, and one of you gets a real nice guy who's going places, right? Who's handsome, who's a good conversationalist, right? Who's got his feet on the ground, right? And so on. And don't you feel a little bit of envy, you know? And I say, you two guys now, you know, you're seniors, you know, and you're looking for a job, right? And your roommate has got a real nice job, and he's ready to go on places, and you can't seem to find anything, you know? Don't you envy on that, in a sense, you know? And I feel sad. And they kind of, you know, relate to that, right? And, but yet, if you're sad over the good fortune of your friend, that's really opposed to what? Friendship, right? And if that envy became, in any way, habitual, right, it would destroy the friendship, right? But even the sudden feeling, which is very common, right, that these texts reveal, that feeling is opposed to friendship, right? Okay? Now, I start with some ones here from three famous novelists, because these novelists are famous in English fiction, if you know them. And they're all making somewhat the same observation, although some understand the significance of it better than others. But they're close observers, you might say human beings, the novelists, right? Because they're used to observing people and representing them in their things. And all three of them note this tendency to envy in human beings. Okay? And some of them, you know, develop the thing better, but they all see that in general. So the letter of Matthew Bramble to Dr. Lewis. I am inclined to think, he says, no mind was ever wholly exempt from envy. And he said, even in the monastery, right? You know, the life there of St. Teresa of, St. Teresa of the Sears, right? She was advancing beyond these older nuns who had been in the, you know, convent for 20, 30, 40 years. There's, you know, this upstart, you know, it was all of a sudden, you know, being showered with all these graces, you know, and she's, you know, advancing. So there's some feeling of, what? Of envy, right? Towards that person. Which perhaps may have been implanted as an instinct essential to our nature. And I don't think that's really true, you know, that part. But it seems to be ingrained in our fallen nature, you might say, right? Okay. I am afraid we sometimes palliate this vice under the specious name of emulation. I have known a person remarkably generous, human, moderate, apparently self-denying, who could not even hear a friend commend I don't know. I don't know. without betraying marks of uneasiness, as if that commendation implied an odious comparison to his prejudice, and every wreath of praise added to the other's character was a garland plucked from his own temples. The only thing that's really good about that, though, is if the rest with that last part, the first one, I'm inclined to think no mind is ever holding his own from envy, right? As a novelist and observer of human beings, I'll be seeing this as a very common thing, right? Now, Thackeray and Henry Esmond, he says it very cleverly, I think, here, as according to the famous maxim of Monsieur de Rochefoucauld, in our friends' misfortunes are something secretly pleasant to us. So, on the other hand, their good fortune is disagreeable. If tis hard for a man to bear his own good luck, right? Tis harder still for his friends to bear it for him. He's very cleverly said, but I think there's a lot to do what he's saying. And what few of them ordinarily can stand that trial. Whereas one of the precious uses of adversity is that it's a great reconciler, that it brings back reverted kindness, disarms animosity, and causes yesterday's enemy to fling his hatred aside and hold out a hand to the fallen friend of old days. There's pity and love as well as envy in the same heart and towards the same person. That shows, even though they're incompatible, right? It shows kind of the weakness of the, what? The love, right? The rivalry stops when the competitor tumbles. And as I view it, we should look at these agreeable and disagreeable qualities humbly alike. They are consequent and natural in our kindness and meanness both manly. I don't agree with that last sentence. But the fact that he thinks of it as being natural means how ingrained it is, right? And you might say ingrained in our fallen nature. Right? Okay? Now, Henry Fielding, you know, Tom Jones, which is in the so-called great books, but anyway, not so great a book in my opinion. But anyway, he's in the great books, a very famous novel. He says, The firmness and constancy of a true friend is a circumstance so extremely delightful to persons in any kind of distress that the distress itself of it be only temporary and admit of relief is more than compensated by bringing this comfort with it. Nor are instances of this kind so rare as some superficial and accurate observers have reported. To say the truth, want of compassion, want of pity, right, is not to be numbered among our general faults. The black ingredient which follows your disposition is envy. Okay? I see envy and pity are two different forms of sadness, right? And pity is sadness over the misfortune of another, right? Especially the undeserved misfortune, right? While envy is sadness over the good fortune, right? So pity is a good passion, a good emotion, right? Okay? And so metaphorically, we apply it to God, Kyrie eleison, Christia eleison, Kyrie eleison, right? And then Agnus Dei, Miserere nobis, right? One of the other Greek word for pity and the other the Latin word for pity, right? So to pity the unfortunate is a good feeling, a good emotion, right? But to envy the good fortune of another is a bad one, right? Okay? So it would be bad to be lacking in pity, right? To be pitiless, right? And it's also bad to have envy, right? So to have the one is bad, to lack the other is bad, right? Okay? He's saying it's not so frequent that men lack pity, right? Okay? But now he's saying, and I think his observation is true, the black ingredient which fouls our disposition is envy. Hence our eye is seldom, I am afraid, turned upward to those who are manifestly greater, better, wiser, happier than ourselves, without some degree of what? Lignity, right? While we calmly look downwards on the mean and miserable with sufficient benevolence and pity. And you pity somebody in their sense below you, right? They're in a miserable position, right? Okay? Why envy is for someone above you in some way that is more fortunate or wealthier or happier or got better children or whatever, right? In fact, I have remarked that most of the defects, that's a very interesting statement, most of the defects which have discovered themselves and the friendships within my observation have arisen from envy only. I think it's an interesting observation part of this novelist. And now I think he calls it rightly here. Not like the other two novelists, but a hellish vice. We'll see the reason for that. The scripture will say it arose from the devil, right? And yet one from which I have known very few absolutely, what, exempt. And I bring this in to the friendship course for a couple of reasons, right? One is, by its opposition to friendship, you understand friendship better, right? But also by observing the prevalence of it, you have a sign of the defect of most existing friendships, right? And the need to fight, you know, if they'll have that feeling arising in you, right? It's really like the temptation against friendship, you might say, right? See? And just like, you know, temptation against chastity has to be fought, right? Or temptation to get angry, you know, more than you should or something. So, this feeling of envy, which seems to arise very often, once your friend, right, is more fortunate to you in some way, more successful, right? They get a promotion, you don't get a promotion, right? So you envy them. You have to fight against that feeling, right? Because it's really contrary to the good of, what, your friendship with this person. And it comes up sometimes when people are talking about heaven, you know, and they run to a lot of people, even in the church, you know, who think that everybody in heaven is equal, right? Right. And as my old teacher at Kestrick used to say, God hates equality. And the first may be the last, the last may be the first, but they still won't be equal, right? It may be different than those down here, right? But, it sounds like you would envy, right? Someone being higher than the other person, right? Now, Washington Irving, who is our greatest American writer here, his life and voyages of Christopher Columbus, he says, If it is the lot of prosperity to awaken envy and excite detraction, it is certainly the lot of misfortune to atone for multitude of faults, right? From wrath to pity someone, again, right? And then to avoid envy. Now, San Domingo had been the very hotbed of sedition against Columbus in the day of his power. He had been hurried from it in ignominious chains. Now, if you read the life of Columbus, right, it's terrible what happens to him finally. Amid the shouts and taunts of the Trump and rabble. Can you imagine that, right? This guy had discovered the new world, right? You know, fell into this, huh? But he had so many enemies, right? Who were envious of the great glory that he got from his discovery, right? He had been excluded from its harbor when, as commander of a squadron, he craved shelter from an impending tempest. But now when he's a wreck now. But now that he had arrived and its waters are broken down and shipwrecked men, all past hostility was overpowered by the popular sense of his late disasters, huh? Now, you see something like this in Pilate there, right? He knows that they delivered Christ out of envy, right? I think Scripture says that, doesn't it? Some of the Gospel accounts say that, huh? And, although it's unjust, he's going to have him scourged, right? And then behold the man, right? As if out of pity, then they'll say, okay, you know? Instead they say, bravest, you know, crucify him, right? But it's the idea, right? That the man you envy, you may, what? In his success, you may pity when his, what? Misfortune comes up, do you see? Isn't he also acting on what we saw earlier with Aristotle about leaders still work on about friendship with more than justice? Maybe that's with Pilate, to keep the friendship with the Jews? Yeah, that's maybe involved, too, yeah, yeah, yeah. But notice, a lot of the enmity towards Christ was, what, coming from envy, huh? Because they were following him rather than me, you know? One of the hymns we have in our liturgy, the envy is crucified. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Yeah, okay, okay. And of course, you see the difference between them and John the Baptist, who says he must increase and I must decrease, yeah. And that's the way it should be, you know. That's why I always kind of admired the humility there at Deconic, you know. I was talking to my doctor about this is under Dion, you know. And there was some question I was thinking about a lot. And I went and started to see what Deconic thought about it, you know. And he says, you know, like, why did you ask me when you had Dion? Because Dion was directed by a thesis, you know. And I said, well, I just wonder what you had to say anyway. He said, okay. But, you know, there was no envy at all, you know. There was a momentary burst of enthusiasm in his favor, which had been denied to his merit. What had been denied to his merit was granted to his misfortune, right? And even the envious, appeased by his presbyverses, right, seemed to forgive him for having once been so trompeted. Because this says an awful lot about human beings, right? Okay. We're more apt to pity, right, than to avoid envy, right? Okay. Like St. Joan of Arc. Yeah. When she was being led to the stake, she was so pitiable. Yeah. Even the English soldiers were weeping. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the metaphysics, huh? Aristotle says, it's not possible for God to be envious. So, he's, you know, rejecting the position of the poets, right? Okay. But now in the Book of Wisdom, huh, in the Bible, Old Testament. For God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his own likeness he made him. But by the envy of the devil, huh, death came into the world, and they followed him that are of his side, right? So, in that respect, when fielding speaks of envy as a hellish vice, right? You're imitating devil, right? It is a hellish vice, huh? So, it's something very much to be fought against on, to be extirpated from your soul. But at the same time, the novelists are saying of communism. And there's an interesting saying there in the Book of Job, right? It said, pride kills the great man, and envy the little one. See? As if pride is kind of the vice of the great. They have contempt for others, you know, because of their excellence and their position and so on. But envy is the vice of the lowly, right? And some, you know, sociologists think of envy as more characteristic of democratic times, huh? You know, we're always trying to be equal, you know, and we envy those who are a little bit ahead of them, in one way or another. But, you know. That seems always to be the appeal of the Marxists. Yeah. In some popular fashion, how do you deal with it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of the people are just so fascinated to hear about, you know, just, oh, you know, like, you know, Elvis, you know, oh, he's really, really sick, you know, right? I mean, anybody who's famous or rich or anything, they're going to find out about how they're really just miserable. They're not, they're not really. I mean, they don't have any dream of that stuff. And the famous play Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, right? At the end of the play there, you know the story, I assume. But Anthony, who is opposed to Brutus, right? His eulogy, he gives over the fallen Brutus, right? So it's an enemy, you might say, praising his fallen enemy, right? This was the noblest Roman of them all. All of the conspirators save only he did that they did in envy of great Caesar, huh? That's why they killed Caesar. They envied him. With the exception of Brutus, right? He only, in a general honest thought and common good to all, made one of them, right? Because he thought that Caesar was going to make himself dictator, right? And this would be harmful to the common good of the city, right? And they're nipping in the bud now, you know? But he's the exception, right? All the conspirators save only he did that they did in envy of great Caesar. If you read, you know, the play and see Cassius, you know, how he envies, you know, Caesar and how he's towering over him, you know? I'm way down here in Caesars, you know, striding the whole country, you know. You can see something in that envy, huh? It's interesting, right? You can see how common that envy is. His life was gentle in the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, this was a man. But notice what Shakespeare is saying there, right? Or what Anthony is saying there, huh? This man who alone was free of envy, right? He was a man. This was a man, right? The others were not. So, I mean, it's against that idea of it being natural in the sense of nature of man, right? Contrary to it, right? Now, this is a beautiful simile in Sonnet 37 where one friend is rejoicing in the success of his friend, right? Even though he himself is, what, suffering much misfortune, right? And he makes a beautiful comparison, I think, here. As a decrepit father, right? Father was on, you know, Cain. As a decrepit father takes delight to see his active child do deeds of youth. So, I made lame by fortune's dearest spite, take all my comfort of their worth and truth. I think that's beautifully said, right? Because, in my own experience of fathers and sons, right, I don't think I've ever really seen in a father envy of his own son when that son is more successful than the father was, right? In other words, I've seen many fathers, you know, who speak with pride of their son, who's doing much better than they're doing in life, you might say, has a much, you know, better position or making much more money, you know, whatever our society looks up to. But they're proud of it, right? You see? And if the son, you know, plays football and is a better football player than his father was, the father rejoices in the son's, what, excellence, right? In other words, the friendship of the father for the son, and maybe generally, apparently, for the child, right, is naturally more free of envy than the friendship between equals, right, huh? You see? And so, he's speaking here of a friendship between equals, right? But he's comparing his friendship to the friendship of the father for his, what, son, right, huh? So, when the father is, what, weak in body and on canes or crutches or wherever it is, right? He rejoices to see that athletic proudness of a son. He doesn't, that's sad because of his having that, right? You find that same thing in Homer's Iliad, right? There's a friendship of Achilles or Patropos, right? It's compared to the friendship of a father for a son. So, Homer says that, you know, Patropos is killed, the tragedy of the Iliad. And Achilles mourns the death of Patropos. And as a father mourns the death of his only son. See? So, you know, Achilles mourns the death of Patropos' son. And, you know, it's a one-to-one. I'm never going to have a friend like Patropos, you know? You know, Achilles is never going to have a friend that close, you know? And so it's like an only son, right? But he compares it to the friendship of the father to the son, right? And then, you know, he has another metaphor or simile where he compares it to the lioness whose cub has been lost, right? And you've picked up the cub and the lioness finds you with their cub, you know? You know, you better watch out for Achilles, right? But, again, he's comparing it to the parent with the, what, child, right? So the two greatest poets are Shakespeare and Homer. And they both see the perfection of the friendship among equals, right? Being in some way like the friendship of the father for the son, insofar as what? Free of envy, yeah. Insofar as the, I think there's a reason for that, right? Because the Greek proverb, there would be an Aristotle, the famous one in Greek, a friend is another self. When I was studying Greek, you know, you'd get that in the book, you know, Ophilos estes. A friend is another self. Love your neighbor as yourself, as the commandant says, right? And sometimes Shakespeare calls a friend the second self, right? But the son is a natural continuation of the father, right? That's where we use the word reproduction, right? You don't reproduce the son, you reproduce yourself. So it's more natural for the father to see the son as another self, right? And for me to see, you know, the equal that I meet in college or someplace as another self, right? And so in that respect, to love another as yourself is more natural than your own, what, child, right? So in some way, the love of the father for the son is a, what, exemplar for friendship, right? Both in loving another person as yourself, right? And then in loving them, having a love for them that is free of this opposing vice or passion of envy, I think it's very, very, very interesting to see the greatness of Shakespeare and Homer, right? That they hit the nail on the head. And they understand that, right? They understand the perfection of the friendship that there was in this sonnet here, right? Or the friendship of Achilles for Patroftus. It's compared to that of the father for the son, right? And it's interesting, on the supreme example of friendship, I suppose, is God the father and God the son, right? And that's a father and son too, right? You know? And the father doesn't envy the son. Oh my gosh, he's got the same nature I have. He's just as great as me, you know? He's my equal. No, no, no. It doesn't attract him yet. For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, or any of these all, or all or more, entitled in thy parts to crown and sit, I make my love engrafted to this store, right? No matter how excellent you are, right? So then, I am not laying, poor, nor despised, although I am, whilst that this shadow does such substance give, that I in thy abundance am sufficed, huh? And by a part of all thy glory live. I so gone out of myself, loving you, right, huh? That I seem to, what? Undergo the good that you go, right? And your glory is my glory, because you are another self, you know? He beautifully said, the way he says it. Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee, huh? Supreme wishing well, right? The low wish well. This wish I have, huh? You're very successful. Then ten times happy me. But how rare that is, according to what the novelists say, right? They have that kind of a thing. Now, it's a different topic here. Flattery and friendship, right? Yeah. Okay, okay. Fine, fine. The flattery conquers strife, right? Now, it's sweet to be flattered, right, huh? Flattery will get you everything, as the saying goes. Now, as I have a little note here, I say, hence, flattery seems less opposed to friendship than envy, huh? Envy is very much opposed to friendship. But what about flattery, right? Well, the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife, huh? Now, you see, you know, the common example with husbands and wives, they go to the party or the social function, right? And who was the most beautiful woman there? Well, are you going to say the truth? If there's someone there more beautiful than your wife? You, of course, my dear, see? Well, this is the sweet breath of flattery, see? And it conquers strife, right? I've said so-and-so's wife was obviously more beautiful than you. Oh, you'd be in deep, deep trouble, right? But notice, you go to somebody's house for dinner, right? And you praise the dinner and praise the cook, right? Instead of saying, well, you know, you cooked that meal a little bit too much, or you put it, you know, you used a little something and such, yeah. Yeah. See? And you probably wouldn't be invited again. Yeah, you'd be a little, you know, strifer between you, right? So he says, the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife, right? Okay? Now, Julius Caesar, things are not going too well for Cassius and Brutus and so on. Cassius is a little bit given to anger and things of this sort. And Brutus is pulling up on this, right? And Cassius says, a friend... ...should bear his friend's infirmities, but Brutus makes mine greater than they are. And Brutus says, I do not, till you practice them in me. And Cassius says, you love me not. And Brutus says, I do not love your faults. And that's a distinction you often make, you know, the sinner and the sin, right? And Cassius says, though, a friendly eye would never see such faults. Is that true? See? And Brutus says, a flatterer's would not. See, if you distinguish theirs between the eye of the flatterer and the eye of the friend, right? A flatterer's would not, though they do appear as huge as I love each, right? See? In other words, if I really wish well to you, and you have defects, right, am I going to flatter you and gloss these over, or am I going to, in a nice way, maybe, try to help you get rid of those faults, right? Okay? I might ignore them, I think, that's helpless, and I'm going to change you, but... Okay, so this passage seems to show there's some opposition between flattery and, what, friendship, right, huh? Although the first thing for the comedy of errors there would show that it's truly not opposed to friendship in the way envy is, right? Okay? That's going to the grandchildren, you know, playing a little bit of soccer, you know, not very good at it, you know, they're still four or five years old, you know. Oh! The coach is out there, you know, they're encouraging him all the time, you know, they're flattering him all the time. Wonderful, you know. Not doing anything right, really, you know. But see, the young's got to do that, right? Okay, now, a little conversation here from the twelfth night, huh? The Duke says to the clown, I know thee well, how dost thou, my good fellow? Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my friends. The Duke says, just the contrary, don't you mean, huh? The better for my friends. No, sir, the worse. How can that be? Mary, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me. Now my foes tell me plainly I'm an ass. So that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself. And by my friends, I'm abused. There's a famous essay of Plutarch, huh? How to benefit from your enemies, right? Because your enemies will point out your defects and your faults. And many times your friends will not point out to you your defects, right? So that's what this is, maybe, you know, inspired by this particular treatise of Plutarch, huh? The kid is that a friend, maybe, in the true sense, right? Okay. Shakespeare's Sign, 138. When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies. That she might think me some untwitted youth, unlearned in the world's false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, although she knows my days are past the best. Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue. On both sides, thus is simple truth suppressed. But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old, who loves best habit is in seeming trust, and age and love loves not to have years told? Therefore I lie with her and she with me, and in our faults by lies we flatter and be. But notice, this is, you know, true friendship or perfect friendship. This involves this flattery, right? Now, in Hamlet here, maybe you have an example of true friendship between Hamlet and, what, Horatio, right? And this is a scene where Hamlet is going to get Horatio to watch the king in the play within the play. He's going to have the actors reenact, enact a scene that is like the way his father was killed according to the ghost, right? He's going to see what the king does, how he reacts to this. And he wants Horatio to watch him too, so he can get his thing. Horatio, thou art in as just a man, as ere my conversation copeth all. Oh, my dear Lord. Nay, do not think I flatter. For what advancement may I hope from thee that no revenue has but thy good spirits to feed and clothe thee, right? Why should the poor be flattered? Why should I be flattered you? No, let them. A candied tongue, lick absurd prop, and bend the crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, where thrift, eh, profit, may follow fawning, right? Thus thou hear, since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, and could of men distinguish, her election has sealed thee for herself. That's what Shakespeare is saying, right? That friendship, of this kind anyway, is based upon choice, right? And when does a soul miss to serve her choice? When your reason is developed enough where you could compare men and see why this man you want as a friend and not that man, right? And then he talks about why he chose him as his friend. For thou hast been as one in suffering all, that suffers nothing. A man that fortunes, buffets, and rewards has attained with equal thanks. He's not a man who gets exhilarated and goes crazy when he has good fortune, or gets very depressed when bad things happen, right? But he stays on even key. And blessed are those whose blood, whose emotions, right, and judgment, reason, are so well commingled that they are not a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stops she please. Give me that man that is not passion slave. Well, that's almost the definition of what a good man is, right? Because the coward is a slave of his fear, right? And the drunkard of his passion for drink and so on, right? And the irascible man, he's a slave of his own anger, right? Okay? So it's the virtues concerned with the emotions that free us from being a slave of those passions. Give me that man that is not passion slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, ae in my heart of heart, as I do thee. Something too much of this, huh? Love likes to be silent, usually, right? That's the friendship that Aristotle will say is the best, right? The one based on virtue, right? Now in Symbeline, now Clotin, who's the foolish son of the queen, he's being flattered all the time, right? Even though he's a villain, right? Sir, I would advise you to shift the shirt. The violence of action has made you weak as a sacrifice. Where error comes out, error comes in. There's none abroad so wholesome as that, you think. If my shirt were bloody, then do shift it. Have I heard him? One more, it says an aside. No faith, not so much as his patience. First Lord is flattering him. Hurt him? His body's a passable carcass if he be not hurt. He's a thoroughfare for a steel if it be not hurt. The second Lord said his steel was in debt. It went to the backside of the tower. He just, you know, avoided you, really. The villain will not stand me. No, but he fled forward still towards your face. Stand you? You have land enough of your own, but he added to your having, gave you some ground. The second Lord aside, as many inches as you have oceans, puggies. I would they have not come between us. So would I. That you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground. I think that's beautifully said. Now Kent was a faithful servant there of the king, King Lear, right? You know the play. And Oswald was one of these courtiers who's flattering always his masters. That such a slave as this should wear a sword who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these like rats oft bite the holy cords at wane which are to and twins to and loose. That's what it's marital infidelity, right? They wink at the kings of the Lord's infidelity, right? They smooth every passion in the nature of their lords rebel. They bring oil to fire, huh? Instead of moderating the fire, right? Snow to their colder moods. Renegge the firm and turn their halcyon beaks with every gale and vary of their masters. Knowing not bite dogs, but fowling. So they fit in what the master's fitting is, right? Fine, you know. That's an interesting topic. Flattery and friendship, you know? But how much flattery there is in life just to keep patience, right? So Professor So-and-so is praising So-and-so.