Love & Friendship
Lecture 17: Friendship, Self-Love, and the Three Kinds of Friendship

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Even though he thinks it's a lot of nonsense, he doesn't want to offend so-and-so, right? Or he's praising the students because he wants a good review from the students. Praising the students' paper, you know? But you see it in other parts of life too, right? And, you know, let's say, praising somebody's dinner when you think it wasn't that good, doesn't seem to be too serious a fault. So envy and fire are both opposed to friendship, right? But envy more directly because envy is being sad over the good fortune of another, so that seems you're not wishing that person well, right? But fire may be in a more subtle way as opposed to it because you're not, what, helping a person to be better, right? Or to overcome their, what, defects, huh? Do you ever read the autobiography of Margaret Ellicott, you know? A second heart woman? You know? And there you kind of see the severity of our Lord, you know? And our Lord says, you know, where are you going to find a more resourceful lover than myself, right? And from time to time she'll think, you know, I'm not too bad, you know? And then he reads out her habits. And there's no flattery at all of her, you know? You see? If you don't flatter Margaret Mariela Coco, who would be a flattery? You see? But Christ is a true lover, a true friend, right? Shakespeare used that word lover sometimes in the sense of a friend, right? And there's a kind of, you know, this understanding of the connection between friendship and love, right? But, you know, it sounds kind of strange in English because, etymologically, we don't have any more word for love that goes with friend. So they call a friend a lover. I mean, you think of romantic lover, physical lover, something like that, but no, a friend is a lover, in some sense of the word love, yeah. If a just man strikes or reproves me in his kindness, if he has your best interest in God, he's being friendly. Now, the useful friendship will be the lowest of the three kinds of friendship that Aristotle will talk about. And a useful friendship, you know, may last as long as you're useful to me, but when you cease to be useful to me, then the friendship's reason has disappeared, right? It wasn't really a friend of you for what you are, but because of the fact that you're useful to me at this particular point. So in the play within the play, the king is saying to the queen, This world is not for aid, nor tis not strange, that even our love should with our fortunes change. For tis a question left as yet to prove, whether love lead fortune or else fortune love. The great man down you mark his favorite flies. The poor advance makes friends of enemies. And hitherto doth love and fortune tend, for who not need shall never lack a friend. And who in want a hallowed friend doth try, directly seasons him his enemy. You're talking about useful friendships here, right? And so when you suddenly earn a lot of money, or you win a lot of money, you know, all of a sudden you've got all kinds of friends, right? And when you fall into misfortunes and your money disappears, right, suddenly you've lost your friends, huh? What kind of friends were these, right? They were friends for usefulness, huh? Henry VI is young and is going to marry a woman of no position, so to speak, right? And the lords don't approve of this, right, to you? A dower, my lords, disgrace not so your king, that he should be so abject, base, and poor, to choose for wealth, and not for perfect love, huh? Henry is able to enrich his queen, and not to seek a queen to make him rich. So worthless peasants bargain for their wives, as market men for oxen, sheep, or horse. Gentlemen of Athens, the swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lord shall, nor more willingly leaves winter such summer birds are met. Some are friends. Now, I repeat here, under virtue and friendship, on the words of Hamlet to Horatio there, that seemed to indicate that he chose Horatio as a friend because he was not a passion slave, which is a negative way of saying that he was, what, a good man, a virtuous man. So this is going to be the highest kind of friendship. And in Cicero's little treatise on friendship, this is the only friendship there is. Her style says, well, we do use the word friendship and friend to daily life. But for these lesser kinds of things, so we're going to distinguish between friendship in the full sense and then these ones that have some likeness to it, but all short of it. Now, Johnson, huh, says to Boswell, who has to be assured of his friendship sometimes. Never, my dear soul, sir, do you take it into your head to think that I do not love you. You may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem. I love you as a kind man. I value you as a worthy man and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety. I hold you as Hamlet has it in my heart of hearts. Boswell's a little bit of a rascally in some ways, as we know now, but Johnson has had a good effect upon Boswell. On Wednesday, May 19th, I study part of the evening with him by ourselves. I observe that the death of our friends might be a consolation against the fear of our own dissolution because you might have more friends in the other world than this. Sometimes you meet a man who lives long, you know, and all his friends have died off, right? Well, if they're all over there, you might as well go through, huh? But Johnson, now, it takes it's not quite right. He perhaps felt this as a reflection upon his apprehension as to death. Johnson has said in fear of death, right? And said with hate, how can a man know where his departed friends are, huh? Or whether they will be his friends in the other world, you know? Maybe they're in hell, my friends, for all I know, right? How many friendships have you known formed upon principles of virtue? That's a rare friendship, as Aristotle will tell us, right? But that is the best. The best things are rare. Most friendships are formed by caprice, or by chance. Mere confederacies in vice or leagues in folly. That's a lot of truth to what Johnson is saying, huh? You know? But now Homer, in the greatest work of Greek fiction, the Iliad, huh? Book 18. This is after Patroklos, his friend, has died. Now as he was pondering this in his heart and his spirit, meanwhile the son of Stately Nestor was drawing near him, and wept warm tears, and gave Achilles his sorrowful message. Ah, me, son of valiant Peleus! You must hear from me the ghastly message of a thing I wish had never happened. Patroklos has fallen, and now they are fighting over his body. He spoke in the black cloud of sorrow closed on Achilles. Then a little bit later on. Achilles, of course, is a hero, right? His mother is a goddess, huh? His father a mortal man. The sighing heavily Achilles of the swift feet answered her, My mother, all these things, the Olympian, that means Zeus, brought to accomplishment. But what pleasure is this to me, since my dear companion has perished? Patroklos, whom I love beyond all their companions, as well as my own life, I have lost him. Meanwhile, the Achaeans mourned all night to lamentation over Patroklos. Peleus' son led the thronging chant to the lamentation, and laid his manslaughtering hands over the chest of his dear friend, with outbursts of incessant grief. As some, that's a comparison to the parent here, as some great bearded lion, when some man, a deer hunter, has stolen his cubs away from him. Out of the close world, the lion coming back too late, and is anguished, and turning into many valleys, quartering after the man's trail, and the chance of finding him, and taking him with bitter anger. So he, groaning heavenly, spoke out to the Myrmidons. Ah, me, it was an empty word I cast forth on that day, when in his halls I tried to comfort the hero Minotius, that's the father of Patroklos. I told him I would bring back his son in glory to Opus, with Hylian sacked, and bring his share of war spoils of Mateta. Instead of, he's been kind of indirectly responsible for the death of Patroklos. He had left the battle, right, because it was a fight with Agamemnon, right? And then the battle was going against the Greeks, right, the Caeans. And Patropos went into battle to help the Greeks, and that's how he got killed, right? So in a sense, Achilles had been responsible for the death of his best friend. That's why it's a tragedy, right? Later on, book 23, here. Know before Zeus, who is greatest of gods and the highest, there is no right in letting water come near my head until I have laid the tropes on the burning pier and heaped the mound over him and cut my hair for him. Since there will come no second sorrow like this to my heart again, why I am still one living. Night-long they piled the flames and the funeral pyre together and blew with a screaming blast, and night-long swift-footed Achilles from a golden mixing bowl with a two-handed gobliness hand drew the wine and poured it on the ground and drenched the ground with it and crawled upon the soul of unhappy Patroclus. And as a father mourns as he burns the bones of a son, right, who was married only now and died to grieve his unhappy parents. So Clemias was mourning as he burned his companion's bones and dragged himself by the fire in close lamentation. So he compares him to the father mourning the death of his son, right? And to the lion, you know, parent, you know, mourning the loss of his cub, huh? Now in the last book of the Iliad, now, book 24, they had the games there, right? They gave themselves the sorrow of the funeral, right? And as the games broke up and the people scattered to go away, each man to his fast-running ship and the rest of them took thought of their dinner and a sweet sleep and its enjoyment. Only Achilles swept. Still, as he remembered his beloved companion, nor did sleep who subdues all come over him. Probably what he said is, huh? Sleep who subdues all. Of course. But he tossed from one side to the other in longing for Patroclus, for his manhood and his great strength. And all the actions he had seen to the end with him, and the hardships he had suffered, the wars of men hard crossing the big waters. Remembering all these things, he let fall the swelling tears. So these are two men in the prime of life, as Aristotle says, right? Who've gone through many battles together, right? And therefore have the virtue that stands out, most of all, to the Greeks and to us. Courage, right? Manhood, right, is the English word for virtue. But it means courage, especially, right? So this is a friendship based at least upon the courage of these two great soldiers, right? And now he's lost the purpose, right? Never a friend like that. I skipped from that because it takes example from the most known virtue. The first virtue Aristotle takes up is courage, huh? Okay? And now I'll go to some real-life examples from our greatest writer there, Washington Irving, and his famous last work there, The Life of Washington, and it's his name back there, huh? He quotes him a letter of Washington to General Knox, huh? My first wish would be that my military family and the whole army should consider themselves a band of brothers, right? That's been made into a movie now, huh? They call it, you know, they took that title for the movie, The Band of Brothers, right? About more recent soldiers. But a band of brothers willing and ready to die for each other, right? So friendship is a kind of, what? Making you brothers, right? Okay? It's interesting we use that right now, because it's in a religious life too, right? Brothers, huh? Okay? It's a kind of a natural friendship between brothers, huh? Remember as a child there, you know, even going over to, at Christmas, you know, maybe we'd go over and spend a few days staying with our cousins or they'd come over, you know, and we'd play and have cuddle fights. So I'm so surprised when I find there's some kid I know, you know, he's always fighting with his cousins, you know, I thought it was the greatest thing, you know? Because it's kind of a natural friendship between, you know, cousins and Fort Siori between, what? Between his brothers, you know? At the end of the war of independence, these men who have fought together for our independence are now going to be, what, separated, right? While sadness and despair prevailed among the Tories, that's the support of the British, and the refugees in New York, the officers in the Patriot camp and the Hudson were knocked without gloomy feelings at the thought of their approaching separation from each other. Eight years of dangers and hardships shared in common and nobly sustained had welded their hearts together and made it hard to render them asunder. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. Such feelings, General Knox, ever noted for generous impulses, suggested as a mode of perpetuating the friendships thus formed and keeping alive the brotherhood of the army, the formation of a society composed of the officers of the army. The suggestion met with universal concurrence and the hearty approbation of Washington. This is the famous one, Society of Cincinnati, and how named after the Roman Cincinnati who fought and then went back into feast time living. By its formula, the officers of the American army in the most solemn manner combined themselves into one society of friends to endure as long as they should endure for any of their oldest male posterity and in failure of their collateral branches who might be judged worthy of being its supporters and members. In memory of the illustrious Roman Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus who retired from war to the peaceful duties of the citizen who was to be called the Society of the Cincinnati. If you go to some of these museums, you can still see, you know, memorials, you know, belonging to the Society of the Cincinnati. Now in this third passage from Irving's autobiography of Washington, he has some things there about the friendship of Washington and the young Lafayette, right? The Frenchman who came over to fight for us. At Richmond, he was joined by the Marquis de Lafayette. They returned together to Mount Vernon for Lafayette again past several days, a cherished inmate of the domestic circle. When his visit was ended, Washington, to defer the parting scene, accompanied him to Annapolis. On returning to Mount Vernon, he wrote a farewell letter to the Marquis, boarding more upon the sentimentals than almost any other in his multifarious correspondence. In the moment of our separation, he's quoting the letter now, upon the road as I have traveled in every hour since, I have felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you, with which length of years, close connection, and your merits have inspired me. I have often asked myself, as our carriages separated, whether that was the last I ever should have with you. And though I wish to answer no, my fears answered yes. Lafayette went back to, you know, France and got into the troubles of the French Revolution and so on, right? Washington had agents there, you know, with money, you know, to assist them, you know, if they could. Lafayette came back to the United States, you know, after Washington had died, you know. It was quite seated and so on. So we have Lafayette College and so on. Now, Jane Austen, that's a little lighter subject here. How Wickham and Lydia were a little bit irregular in their life, right? Were to be supported and tolerable independence she could not imagine. But how a little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtues. She could easily conjecture, huh? Okay. So she's a pretty good novelist there. Jane Austen has a good understanding of men, women, and those are brought together by virtue, and those are brought together by their passions, and so on. But two different things there, right? Two kinds of friendship, right? The one that's based on passion there and the one based on virtue, right? There's a difference between the two. Now, self-love and friendship, huh? I mean, a friend should love his friend as another self, right? And therefore, the love of yourself is a source of your love of another as another self, right? But very often, and more commonly, we tend to think of self-love in the bad sense, right? Where self-love is a kind of pride and so on, an impediment to friendship, right? So the famous scene in Richard III there, where Richard III, before the final battle there, where he loses his life in his throne. But Richard has done all kinds of evil things to get the throne, and he's dreaming now. He wakes up from these nightmares where everybody is killed, cursing him and saying, I'm going to be supporting your enemy tomorrow in the battle, right? So he's kind of feeling like he's in battle. Give me another horse! Of course, in the battle, the next day, he had the famous words. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse. Give me another horse, bind up my wounds. Have mercy, Jesus, soft. I did but dream. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me? O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me? Lights burn blue. It's always a sign in Shakespeare of seeing ghosts, right, that the lights burn blue. When the Buddha says that, you know, ghost of Caesar, you know, the lights are burning blue. It's now dead midnight, cold fearful drops stand in my trembling flesh. What, do I fear myself? There's none else by. Richard loves Richard, that is I am I. I was quoting those words before, right? So when Thomas says that lightness is a cause of love, right, well then, are you like yourself? No, you're even more than like yourself. You are yourself, right? So you naturally love yourself, right? Richard loves Richard, that is I am I. Is there a murderer here? Murderer here? Murderer here? The order of spunk? No. Yes, I am. Then fly? What, for myself? Great reason why. Must I revenge? What? Myself upon myself? Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good that I myself have done to myself? Oh no, alas, I rather hate myself. For hateful deeds committed by myself. It's like it says in that psalm there, right? He who loves iniquity hates his own soul, right? So it's kind of ambiguity, in a sense you love yourself, but if you've chosen bad things for yourself, in a way you don't love yourself. For hateful deeds committed by myself, I am a villain, yet I lie, am not. Fool of thyself, speak well. Fool, do not flatter. See, this is very subtle, as Shakespeare says here. My conscience hath a thousand serval tongues, and every tongue brings in a serval tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain. On son at night, on these playful sons there, where he's trying to convince his friend to get married, right? And if you don't marry, you know you're not going to perpetuate yourself, so you're really murdering yourself, right? No love towards others in that bosom sits, that on himself such a murderous shame commits. How can you love another if you don't love yourself, right? How can you love yourself if you don't reproduce yourself? Well, and of course, Richard II there, when York is going to warn Richard about, I mean, not Richard, but the new king, about his son involved in treachery. And the duchess, you know, is furious to try to save his son. O king, believe not this hard-hearted man, love loving not itself another can. He doesn't love his own son, how can he love you? What a beautiful conversation here between Portia and Brutus, huh? Portia is the wife of Brutus, huh? And this is before the, she knows something's up, right? And Brutus is not sleeping. Know, my Brutus, you have some sick offense within your mind, which by the right and virtue of my place they ought to know of. And upon my knees I charm you by my once commended beauty, by all your vows of love, and that great vow which did incorporate and make us one. That you unfold to me, yourself, you see? Your half, your better half. Your half, while you are heavy. Kneel not, gentle Portia. I should not need if you were gentle, Brutus. Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, is it accepted I should know no secrets that appertain to you? Am I yourself, but as it were, in sort or imitation? To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, and talk to you sometimes? Do all I put in the suburbs of your good pleasure? That's well said. If it be no more, Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. You are my true and honorable wife, so he eventually does tell her, huh? Anyway. The two gentlemen of Verona. And why not death? Valentine, you know, is going to try to run off at the daughter of Sylvia there, the duke, right? And then, of course, he's betrayed by Pultius, huh? And now he's going to be banished from the court. And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banished from myself, and Sylvia is myself. Banished from her is self from self, a deadly banishment. Me from myself, thy cruel eye, hath taken. And my next self, the harder, hast engrossed. But I mentioned, huh, the Greeks have a proverb, Ophilos, a friend, huh? Ophilos esten allos autast, is another self. A friend is another self. Greek proverb, right? Okay. A friend is another self. A friend is another self. A friend is another self. then your love of your friend might seem to proceed from your love of yourself, right? And you see this other person as another self, right? Shakespeare has the phrase sometimes, what, a second self for your friend, and here you have the phrase, my next self, meaning my friend, thou hast, harder hast engrossed. So all those problems, in a way, is the speaking of a friend. There's another self, a second self, my next self, imply that my love of myself is going to have something to do with my love of my friend, right? And that's even the commandment of love, right? Love your neighbor as yourself, as if the love for your neighbor has to somehow proceed from the love you have of yourself. This is above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night of the day. Thou canst not then be false to me, man. I can't be true to you without being true to myself. Now, I sometimes contrast those words of Polonius, the advice he's giving to his friend, with what takes place in this love and friendship play, where Proteus thinks he can't be true to himself without being false to Valentine, his friend, and to Julia, his betrothed, right? And so, I usually present it as a, you know, the opposite is useful, as you say, right? Who's right? Polonius is saying, you know, if you're true to yourself, you can't be, what, false to anybody else. And Proteus is saying, I can't be true to myself without being false to my friend. Okay. Now, you want to stop at 4.30 or what? Yes, that's a good time. Okay, so next day maybe we'll finish up these funny topics and just get our mind all greased and oiled, you know, for Aristotle's treatise, you know. But it does touch upon the name of the Father. and the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images and rouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, pray for us. Help us to understand what you've written. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I was reading Thomas the other day there where he was talking about how it was appropriate that the Magi could lead to the birth by a star and the shepherds by what? Angels, huh? Why that difference? Of course, the Magi are pagans, right? And pagans are led to God through something more natural, consensual, yeah. But the shepherds are Jews, right? And the Jews receive the law through the hands of the angels. And if it's appropriate that the angels come to announce now the change and the birth of Christ. So, kind of interesting, huh? Sure. Among other things. He's also putting out how it's in the Apocalypse there where Christ is called the star, huh? Oh, yeah. And so this is kind of a symbol of Christ, this star that is leading the way to him. Okay, the two gentlemen of Rona, huh? In the play Hamlet, huh? You have the famous advice of Polonius to his son, Laertes, going off to college. And he gives a whole bunch of advice, you know, to him about not lending money and this sort of stuff. But the last piece of advice was, this above all to thine own self be true. And it must follow as a night the day thou canst not then be false to any man. So, um, is that true? If you're true to yourself, you'll be true to your friend and to other men in general. Sometimes, to get people to stop and think, I'll give them the passage from Polonius and then I'll go to this passage from Proteus. because here Proteus thinks, I can't be true to myself without being false to Julia who he's betrothed to and his oath, his betrothal confirmed by 20,000 soul-confirming oaths as it says to play and his best friend Valentine, right? Either what Polonius says is not true or if it is true then Proteus is not really being true to himself. So think about that a bit, huh? Now Proteus, as I say, was betrothed to Julia and his friend Valentine has gone to the court like they do in those days for your finishing of your education and the father of Proteus thinks, hey, I have a good idea to send Proteus there. So it's a tearful saying goodbye between Proteus and Julia and we separate for a while, right? Proteus gets to the capital, so you say, and Valentine tells him he's fallen in love with the daughter of the duke and they're going to elope. Of course, when Proteus sees Sylvia, right, then he's tempted to try to gain her some way, right? And that would mean being false to Julia, his betrothed, and false to Valentine, his best friend, the other gentleman of Rona. And so you have kind of a soliloquy where Shakespeare gives him this thinking out and outward way. To leave my Julia shall I be forsworn? To love fair Sylvia, that's the one that's going to elope with Dante, shall I be forsworn? To wrong my friend I shall be much forsworn. And even that power which gave me first my oath provokes me to this threefold perjury. Love bade me swear, and love bids me forswear. Okay? Love is responsible for this, right? We're obeying love. Now is this a good reason or is this what we call rationalizing? This reason here is simply the Um, slave, a desire here, and not, uh, the master, huh? Oh, sweet, suggesting love, huh? How well said that is. If thou hast sinned, teach me thy tempted subject to excuse it. So, at first I did adore a twinkling star, huh? That was Julia. But now I worship a celestial sun. It's Sylvia. And unheatful vows may heatfully be broken. And he wants wit, huh? Wisdom, intelligence. That wants resolved will to learn his wit to exchange the bad for the better. Fie, fie, unrevered tongue, to call her bad, whose sovereignty, right? So oft thou hast preferred with twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths, right? I cannot leave to love, and yet I do. But there I leave to love where I should love. Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose. If I keep them, I needs must lose myself. If I lose them, thus find I by their loss, for Valentine myself, huh? And for Julia, Sylvia. I, to myself, am dearer than a friend. So notice, the love of yourself. Rich is rich, that is. I am I, right? I love myself. So your love of yourself is much more, what? Stable, right? And stronger, right? So he says, to be a friend of myself, I have to betray my friend. For love is still most precious in itself. And Sylvia, witness heaven that made her fair, shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiopian. I will forget that Julia is alive, remembering that my love to her is dead. And Valentine I'll hold an enemy, aiming at Sylvia as a sweeter friend. I cannot now prove constant to myself, right? Cannot be true to myself, right? Without some treachery use to Valentine. So, who's correct? Proteus or Polonius? Because Polonius says, this above all to thine own self be true, right? And it must follow as a night the day, which necessarily follows the day, right? Thou canst not then be false to any man, the alone to your friend you betroth, right? So is that true? And Proteus is not really being true to himself? Or is Proteus being true to himself and as necessitates as being false to both Julia and to Valentine? What would you say? It's true. Proteus is true to himself, but he's true to what's not stable in himself. Okay. Now this is the question, you know. Which is more me? My will, let's say, or my reason, on one hand, or my, what, emotions or my bodily feelings, right? Which is more me. What? Your will. Yeah, the reason, the will, is more me, right? So when my emotions go against my reason or my will, if I remain constant to my reason and will, then I should be judged to be more true to myself, right? Even though that's opposed to the feeling I have, huh? Well, if I follow my feelings, I'm not even being true to myself. Do you see that? Now sometimes I'll ask students in class, I'll say, which is more me, my reason or my emotions? And very often a student will say his emotions. Yeah. See? And I say, is it just those crazy philosophers who think they're more reason than emotion? And, but then I'll start to give them some little hints, you know, and I say, other things being equal, what you think is worse, a murder of passion or premeditated murder? Would you judge, which would you judge as being, they're both very serious, obviously. See? See? But which would you judge more severely? And they all say, premeditated murder. Is it somehow you're even more responsible for premeditated murder than for, you know, sudden murder of passion? Well, that's saying that you're more reasoned, isn't it? Okay? Or sometimes you'll say, you know, you get angry at somebody and you say something you wish you hadn't said to them, right? And you come back and you say, I wasn't myself yesterday. Okay? But something was in control of you yesterday, your anger or something, right? Or your buddy is in the bar there, he's about to get into a fight and you see trouble, right? Joe, get control of yourself! But when anger is in control of Joe, he's not in control of himself. But when his reason and his will are in control, then he's in what? Control, right? So that's more me. So I think it would make sense to say that produce is not really being true to himself. And therefore, what Polonius says is really, what? True, right? Okay? Sometimes I take a little different example to bring this out, too. I'm saying, suppose I drink too much, huh? And I smash up the car and I, you know, in danger of being fired from my job and whatever other problems I see, right? So I think about this for a while. And I have a little time and so on. And I decide I've got to give up drinking, right? Okay? So I choose now. It's an act of the will, right? I choose to give up drinking, huh? Now, maybe I join Alcoholics Anonymous and some other things to help me, right? Everybody knows that I'm going to be tempted somewhere down the line to have another drink, right? Now, when am I true to myself? When I give in to that impulse to have another drink, right? Or when I follow that choice I made to give up drink because I just can't handle this stuff. Yeah, the choice is more, what, me, right? See? The same way if a man, say, gets married, right, huh? Well, as they say, the priest or the minister doesn't say, you know, do you have a wonderful feeling about her? He's only doing what you do. But he doesn't always ask, right? He says, you know, are you really choosing this person to be your husband and your wife, right? So, if a person after marriage finds someone who's, you know, attractive to them, when are they being true to themselves? When they follow their choice of this person as their husband or wife? Or when they follow that sudden passion that comes up, right? Well, if the reason the will is more me, you could say I'm being true to myself and I adhere to my, what, choice rather than to this sudden passion that comes up, right? Okay? But it's a little complicated because there's a kind of duplicity in man, right? This, he's on the horizon between the material world and the immaterial world, huh? Sometimes I point to the way we speak, huh? Commonly about death in civil society today. You know, that when somebody dies, they'll say, he's gone. Even in the hospital, even nurses. I mean, it's not a religious thing. He's gone. And they say, what do you mean? The body's still there. He's gone, see? But when the soul is left, we say, he's gone. She's gone, huh? As if the soul is more he or she. See? It's not the entire he or she, but it's much more he or she, right? Because that's what you say. He's gone. She's gone. See? So when you're true to your soul, you're being true to yourself more than when you're being true to the body in opposition to the, what? The soul. And the same principle there, proportionally, you know, the emotions, which are so embotedly, right? And reason and will, which are in the soul and not in the body. The Two Gentlemen of Rowan is one of the first three earlier love and friendship plays of Shakespeare. I call them the love and friendship romances, huh? But they're more serious than a comedy, although they have some comic elements in them. But one thing that's interesting there is it's a kind of conflict between love and the romantic sense, or the passionate sense, and friendship, right? and how they're going to come out to what it's in conflict here okay julia shows up eventually have to see her friend proteus and discovers what's what's up she goes in you know in shakespeare's plays they're always going into disguise like men so that they don't recognize them i am my master's true confirmed love but cannot be true servant to my master unless i prove false traitor to myself he's using her to deceive him yet will i woo for him but yet so coldly as heaven it knows i would not have him speed okay now the merchant events and this is again one of the three earlier love and friendship plays huh and bassanio has just what become married to um portia okay and then he gets a letter dealing with antonio's right promise antonio's gonna probably die it looks that way give me your hand bassanio fare you well grieve not that i am fallen to this for you for herein fortune shows yourself more kind than is your custom you probably know the play right that antonio lent money so bassanio could go courting portia right and winning here and then he fell into debt and according to the laws that finnis has that are very severe he had pledged his life right in place of this and of course the jew hates antonio so could take his life so he's suffering the blow because he thinks he's lost his wealth anyway it is still her use custom to let the richard man outlive his wealth to view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow an age of poverty from which lingering penance of such misery does she cut me off commend me to your honorable wife tell her the process of antonio's end say how i loved you speak me fair in death and when the tale is told bid her be judged whither bassanio had not once a love that's the love of what friendship right huh greater love than this hath no man huh than to lay down his life for his friend huh repent but that you shall lose your friend and he repents not that he pays your debt for if the jew do cut but deep enough i'll pay it instantly with all my heart i have a pun there and that's what he's going to take as sanya says antonio i am married to a wife which is as dear to me as life itself but life itself my wife and all the world are not with me esteemed above thy life i would lose all a sacrifice them all here to this devil to deliver you of course fortunately we're hearing this she's in disguise as the as long as it's going to save the day right what would your wife think if she heard that that's interesting which is bassanio more one with antonio or his wife antonio yeah it's interesting huh which is more one um my soul and your soul let's say right or my soul and my body well you know it's a couple things to consider here right which is more like my soul my body or your soul your soul is more like my soul right so if like this is the cause of love right see then i have more reason for my soul to love your soul than for my soul to love my body right but in some other way you could say my soul and my body are more one because they have one yeah one existence together right yeah the body shares in the existence of the soul and my soul and you so have separate existences right right so the union of bassanio and antonio is like that of two souls so the union of bassanio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio and antonio Like in that famous song, I may have it in there, I forget if I got any or not, that famous song in Shakespeare, Let not to the marriage of two minds admitted pediments, right? They speak like the marriage of souls, right? The union of souls there. The union of the husband and the wife is like the union of soul and body, right? So it's one way in which the body and the soul are more one than the two souls, but another way in terms of likeness, the two souls are more like each other than the soul and the body. Kind of interesting to think about that, huh? Yeah, that's part of the rationale behind martyrdom, because I would be willing to lose the life of my body to benefit the life of your soul. Yeah, I think that's part of the order in charity, things you're supposed to love before other things, right? You're supposed to love your soul before the other person's soul, right? But the other person's soul before your body, right? That's interesting, it raises that question there, right? Now, Melvolio, no one knows the name, huh? Twelfth Night is Shakespeare's last love and friendship play, right? And just like in Romeo and Juliet, there is the tragedy, there is that character called Benvolio. Well, this is just the opposite, Melvolio. And they play a rather mean trick on Melvolio if you read that play, but that's kind of Shakespeare's last one in this, six plays in this kind, and said of Melvolio, you are sick of self-love, right? Now, usually self-love is taken in a sick sense, in a bad sense, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? But there must be some love of self that is good, right? And even as a Christian, you could argue from the second commandment of love, if you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself, that implies there's some good love of oneself, right? Mm-hmm. But I think the fact that self-love usually has a bad sense is a sign, right, that usually self-love is in some way excessive or disordered. They're not loving ourself as we should, right? Or in the way we should, huh? It's kind of interesting, huh? I know as a child growing up, you know, and you get the... I was brought up in the Baltimore Catechism in those days, and you'd learn, you know, the seven capital vices, and you at least know the names of these things. And they give us one capital vice, anger, right? Well, of course, anger can be good, huh? And we have examples of the anger of Christ in the Gospels, huh? Changing the money change of the temple, right? One time he's angry with the infidelity of the leaders of the people and so on. So anger isn't as such good or bad, right? If you get angry when you should and over what you should and to the extent you should, etc., all which are observed when Christ gets angry, right? Then anger is not something bad, but in fact something but good, right? If you're using my children for target practice, I should get angry with you, right? About this matter, right? Not to the point maybe of killing you, but to the point of... Yeah, see? And the anger actually gives me strength to do, right? But notice how anger was given as the name of a vice, right? I think that's a sign that when people get angry, they usually get angry more than they should or about something they shouldn't get angry about, right? There's usually some disorder. Not that anger as such has to be bad. It can be good too, right? It depends upon, you know, circumstances and so on. The same way self-love, right? Self-love can be good or it can be bad self-love. But the fact that self-love, said period, usually has a sense of bad. He loves himself, you know. It's usually said in criticism of somebody, right? It means that they love maybe their body too much or they love their ease too much or they love something, you know, in a disordered way. But, you see, it's necessary, and Aristotle will do that in the later books there, the Nicomaric Ethics, to distinguish between the usual self-love, which is bad, and the self-love that is good and necessary, really, and which is really a beginning of loving another as a friend. And the Greek proverb, you know, is a sign of the truth of that. The friend is another self. There's other phrases that I say, Shakespeare's sometimes, that a friend is a second self.