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And it is impossible any should be friends that resent
not mutually the affronts and injuries offered unto either,
and that do not hate alike and in common. They also who
are enemies to yourself will presently suspect and hate
your friend; nay, your other friends too will often envy,
calumniate, and undermine him. Wherefore what the
oracle foretold Timesias concerning his planting a colony,
that an hive of bees should be changed into a nest of wasps,
may not impertinently be applied to those who seek after
a hive of friends, but light before they know it upon a
wasps-nest of enemies.
[p. 472]
Besides, we should do well to consider that the kindest
affections of friends seldom compensate for the misfortunes
that befall us from the malice of enemies. It is well known
how Alexander treated the familiars of Philotas and Parmenio; Dionysius, those of Dion; Nero, those of Plautus;
and Tiberius, those of Sejanus; all shared the same hard
fate of being racked and tortured to death. For as the
gold and riches Creon's daughter was adorned with could
not secure the good old father from being consumed in her
flames, endeavoring too officiously to rescue her; so not a
few partake of the calamities and ruin of their friends,
before they have reaped the least advantage from their prosperity; a misfortune to which philosophers and the bestnatured men are the most liable. This was the case of
Theseus, who for the sake of his dear Pirithous shared his
punishment, and was bound with him in the same eternal
chains.1 Thus in the plague of Athens, says Thucydides,2
the most generous and virtuous citizens, while without
regard to their own safety they visited their sick, frequently
perished with their friends.
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