by oblivion, making these and such-like answers: Surely, you were but forgotten; it was out of my head, and I never thought of it: but he that shall allege thus and say: I was not your assistant in the court, nor stood to you in your cause, by reason that I attended another friend of mine in a trial of his; or, I came not to visit you whiles you had an ague, for that I was busily employed at a feast, that such a one made to one of his friends; excusing his negligence to one friend by his diligence to others; surely he maketh no satisfaction for the offence already taken, but increaseth the same and maketh it worse than before, by reason of jealousy added thereto; howbeit most men as it should seem aim at nothing else but at the profit and commodity which friendship bringeth and yieldeth from without, and never regard what care it doth imprint and work within; neither remember they that he whose turn hath been served by many friends, must likewise reciprocally be ready to help them as their need requireth. Like as therefore the giant Briareus, with his hundred hands feeding fifty bellies, had no more sustenance for his whole body than we, who with two hands furnish and fill one belly; even so the commodity that we have by many friends bringeth this discommodity withal, that we are to be employed also to many, in taking part with them of their griefs and passions, in travailing and in being troubled together with them in all their negotiations and affairs: for we are not to give ear unto Euripides the poet when he saith thus:
In mutual love men ought a mean to keep,
That it touch not heart root nor marrow deep,
Affections for to change it well besits,
To rise and fall, now hot, now cool by fits;
giving us to understand that friendship is to be used according as need requireth more or less, like to the helm of a ship, which both holdeth it hard and also giveth head, or the tackling which spread and draw, hoist and strike sail, as occasion serveth. But contrariwise, rather (good Euripides) we may turn this speech of yours to enmity, and admonish men that their quarrels and contentions be moderate and enter not to the heart and inward marrow (as it were) of the soul, that hatred (I say) and malice, that anger, offences, defiances, and suspicions, be so entertained as that they may be soon appeased, laid down and forgotten.
A better precept is that yet of Pythagoras, when he teacheth us not to give our right hand to many; that is to say, not to make many men our friends, nor to affect that popular amity
