Critics are interested in Shakespeare's handling of the Renaissance convention that depicts friendship and love as bitter rivals, usually represented in the sundering of a close bond between two men due to their romantic interest in the same woman. In her 1983 study, Ruth Morse explores the antipathy between male friendship and romantic love dramatized in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Morse maintains that in the play Shakespeare made liberal use of the existing conventions of romantic comedy in order to reflect the social and psychological difficulties of sacrificing an affectionate bond between two men, in this case Proteus and Valentine, in order that they might pursue their love of the same woman. Zvi Jagendorf (1991) examines the depiction of male friendship (Antonio and Bassanio) and heterosexual love (Bassanio and Portia) in The Merchant of Venice, arguing that Shakespeare's play features a strong contrast between the two: marriage promises profit and increase while friendship portends only debt and continued sacrifice.
http://www.enotes.com/william-shakespeare-william-shakespeare-5-criticism/friendship
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Elizabeth Hanson considers how the Wittenberg friendship of Hamlet and Horatio intimates a modernity that will outlive, even as it is absorbed by, the codes of feudal nobility in which Hamlet is embedded: in other words, university-Hamlet survives (überlebt) noble-Hamlet and noble-Hamlet survives (fortlebt) as university-Hamlet. --Jonathan Gil Harris
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A fascinating essay in the summer 2011 issue of Shakespeare Quarterly: Fellow Students: Hamlet, Horation and the Early Modern University by Elizabeth Hanson.
Abstract
This essay treats the friendship between Prince Hamlet and the poor scholar Horatio, both students at the University of Wittenberg, as emblematic of the uneasy interpenetration of nobility and the clerical culture of the universities in sixteenth-century England. It explores the transformation which rendered the English Universities socially heterogeneous places where intimate friendship could be forged across status boundaries, despite warnings that such contact could denature nobility. The essay then considers the way in which Hamlet exposes the prince's investment in university learning as a source of his ontological uncertainty, at the same time that it exploits the association between learning and nobility in order to cultivate an audience that prides itself on intellectual distinction.
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To be, or not to be, that is the question:***************************************
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a CONSUMMATION
Devoutly to be wished.
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consummation
n 1: the completion of marriage by sexual intercourse
2: the act of bringing to completion or fruition
Elizabeth Hanson's essay discusses the 'attractive informality' of Hamlet's character and suggests why he has been of such interest to scholars:
In an insightful essay from the early 1960s, Patrick Cruttwell asserted that the appeal of Hamlet has always depended on its flattery of intellectuals, whether they are university men at the turn of the seventeenth century or Shakespeare critics in the twentieth. This flattery depends on the fact that Hamlet is a "student as well as a prince."47 Cruttwell's point is not merely that Hamlet possesses an identity that permits intellectual audiences to identify with him, but also that this identity manifests as a certain style of relationship, a "relaxed informality of manner" that begets in the audience members a "delusion of equality and intimacy, and they have been all the more pleased with this delusion because they remembered, at moments, whom they were feeling it for."48 Cruttwell's argument is rather different from mine: he maintains that audiences fail to recognize how coldly violent Hamlet is because of his narcissistic seduction of the kind of audiences who watch Shakespeare. However, his thesis that Hamlet's identity as a university intellectual is linked to cross-status intimacy speaks elegantly to how the designation "student" brought with it an affectively productive challenge to decorum. I will return to Cruttwell's main point—the way that Hamlet's identification as a student enables a certain kind of relationship between the play and its audience. Scholarliness is present in the play both as an object of rather precise representation and as an ethos in which the audience is invited to participate. In turn, this doubleness generates the play's principal problem for its critics: that audience response to Hamlet can be repeatedly exposed as a failure to recognize just how specifically aristocratic and even archaic the play's and the prince's concerns really are.49 First, however, we need to grasp the manner in which university culture and its style of friendship are represented in the play and serve as metonyms for a crisis of aristocratic identity.
(snip)
I argue that while Hamlet begins by attempting to assert the congruence of learning and nobility, it ends by exposing learning's challenge to nobility. The vehicle for this exposure is the friendship between Hamlet and Horatio.
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I have suggested that the Earl of Oxford's character was maligned by 'poor scholars' such as Jonson, Chapman and Harvey. It seems that Oxford's understanding of the nature of his nobility may not have privileged the idea of 'learned friendship'. It is Leicester, Sidney and Essex that are on record as cultivating the friendship of learned men (Hanson discusses Sidney and Harvey) - and accounts of their public behaviour includes the 'attractive informality' of manner that characterizes Prince Hamlet.
Perhaps it was Oxford's refusal to 'play the student' - to be tutored by these 'humble scholars', that drew the ire of the scholars/laureate poets and the accusations of a prideful nature. As Shakespeare, Oxford ignored classical precepts - and as the 17th Earl of Oxford he seems to have refused the 'friendship doctrine' - the amicitia of the civic humanists.
(Iago as the rejected 'friend'?)
Perhaps this gives some background for at least part of Chapman's description of the Earl of Oxford in _The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois_. After apparently praising the virtues of the Earl of Oxford, Chapman qualifies his description of the Earl's character. In a prideful and intemperate outburst, the Earl refuses to observe 'common noble's fashions' (in this case reviewing the troops of Duke Casimir) - holding himself above and aloof:
Ren. Twas answer'd like the man you have describ'd.
Clermont. And yet he cast it onely in the way,105
To stay and serve the world. Nor did it fit
His owne true estimate how much it waigh'd;
FOR HEE DESPIS'D IT, and esteem'd it freer
To keepe his owne way straight, and swore that hee
Had rather make away his whole estate110
In things that crost the vulgar then he would
Be frozen up stiffe (like a Sir John Smith,
His countrey-man) in common Nobles fashions;
Affecting, as't the end of noblesse were,
Those SERVILE observations.
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Chapman dedication to Essex:
1598
TO THE MOST HONORED
now living instance of the Achilleian Vertues
eternized by divine HOMERE, the Earle
of ESSEXE, earle
Marshall &c.
(snip)
...To you then (most abundant President of true Noblesse) in whose manifest actions all these sacred objects are divinely pursude, I most humblie and affectionatlie consecrate this President of all learning, vertue, valour, honor societie: who (with his owne soule) hath eternizde Armies of Kings & Princes: whose impreriall Muse, the great Monarch of the world, would say, effected more of his Conquests, then his universall power. And therefore at Achilles toombe (with most holy impression of fame, and the zeale of eternite) pronouncst him most happie, to have so firme and Eternizer as Homere.
Most true Achilees (whom by sacred prophecie Homere did but prefigure in his admirable object) and in whose unmatched vertues shyne the dignities of the soule, and the whole excellence of royall humanitie. Let not the Pessant-common polities of the world, that count all things SERVILE and simple: that pamper not their own private sensualities, burying quick in their filthie sepulchres of earth, the whole bodies and soules of honor, vertue and pitie: stirre your divine temper from perseverance in godlike pursute of Eternitie.
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Interesting to note Chapman's description of Essex as the living instance of 'Achilleian Vertues'. A discussion of Achillean vices appears just before Chapman's description of Oxford in the Revenge.
Act III, Scene iv
When Homer made Achilles passionate,
Wrathfull, revengefull, and insatiate15
In his affections, what man will denie
He did compose it all of industrie
To let men see that men of most renowne,
Strong'st, noblest, fairest, if they set not downe
Decrees within them, for disposing these,20
Of judgement, resolution, uprightnesse,
And certaine knowledge of their use and ends,
Mishap and miserie no lesse extends
To their destruction, with all that they pris'd,
Then to the poorest and the most despis'd?25
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Chapman dedication to Essex:
"Let not the PESSANT'COMMON POLITIES of the world, that count all things SERVILE and SIMPLE: that pamper not their own private sensualities, burying quick in their FILTHIE SEPULCHRES of earth, the whole bodies and soules of honor, vertue and pitie: stirre your divine temper from perseverance in godlike pursute of Eternitie."
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Chapman, Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois
Clermont:
They are the breathing sepulchres of noblesse:
No trulier noble men, then lions pictures
Hung up for signs are lions. (2.1. l.154-156)
(snip)
A man may well
compare them to those foolish great-spleened camels
That, to their high HEADS, begged of Jove horns higher;
Whose most uncomely and RIDICULOUS pride
When he had satisfied, they could not use,
But where they went upright before, they stooped,
And bore their heads much lower for their horns;
As these high men do, low in all true grace,
Their height being privilege to all things BASE.
And as the foolish poet that still writ
All his most self-loved verse in paper royal
Or parchment ruled with lead, smoothed with the pumice,
Bound richly up, and strung with crimson strings;
Never so blest as when he writ and read
The APE-LOVED issue of his brain, and never
But joying in himself, admiring ever,
Yet in his works behold him, and he showed
Like to a ditcher: so these PAINTED MEN
All set on outside, look upon within
And not a PEASANTS entrails you shall find
More foul and measled, nor more starved of mind.
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Harvey:
Nashe, the APE of Greene: Greene, the APE of Euphues; Euphues, the APE of Envie, the three famous MAUMETS of the press, and my three notorious feudists, draw all in a yoke, but some scholars excel their masters, and some lusty blood will do more at a deadly pull than two or three of his yoke fellows. It must go hard, but he will emprove himself the incomparable darling of immortal vanity. Howbeit his friends could have wished he had not shown himself to the world such a ridiculous SUFFENUS or SHAKERLY to himself, by advancing the triumphal garland upon his own head before the least skirmish for the victory, which if he ever obtained by any valiancy, or bravure (as he weeneth himself the valiantest and bravest actor that ever managed pen), I am his bondman in fetters, and refuse not the humblest vassalage to the sole of his boot. Much may be done, by close confederacey, in all sorts of cozenage and legerdemain; Monsieur Pontalais in French, or Messer Unico in Italian, never devised such a nipping comedy as might be made in English of some leaguers in the quaint practices of the crossbiting art,
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'Tempestuous' Grandlings - Jonson despairs at ancient nobility's abdication of their responsibilities? :
A Speech according to Horace.
Jonson
(snip)
...In the stead of bold
Beauchamps, and Nevills, Cliffords, Audley's old;
[Waller.
Insert thy Hodges, and those newer Men.
As Stiles, Dike, Ditchfield, Millar, Crips, and Fen:
That keep the War, though now't be grown more tame
Alive yet, in the noise; and still the same,
And could (if our great Men would let their Sons
Come to their Schools,) show 'em the use of Guns.
And there instruct the noble English Heirs
In Politick, and Militar Affairs;
But he that should perswade, to have this done
For Education of our Lordings; Soon
Should he hear of Billow, Wind, and Storm,
From the Tempestuous Grandlings, who'll inform
Us, in our bearing, that are thus, and thus,
Born, bred, allied? what's he dare tutor us?
Are we by Book-worms to be aw'd? must we
Live by their Scale, that dare do nothing free?
Why are we Rich, or Great, except to show
All licence in our Lives? What need we know?
More then to praise a Dog? or Horse? or speak
The Hawking Language? or our Day to break
With Citizens? let Clowns, and Tradesmen breed
Their Sons to study Arts, the Laws, the Creed:
We will believe like Men of our own Rank,
In so much Land a year, or such a Bank,
That turns us so much Monies, at which rate
Our Ancestors impos'd on Prince and State.
Let poor Nobility be vertuous: We,
Descended in a Rope of Titles, be
From Guy, or Bevis, Arthur, or from whom
The Herald will. Our Blood is now become,
Past any need of Vertue. Let them care,
That in the Cradle of their Gentry are;
To serve the State by Councels, and by Arms:
We neither love the Troubles, nor the harms.
What love you then? your Whore? what study? Gate,
Carriage, and Dressing. There is up of late
The Academy, where the Gallants meet ——
What to make Legs? yes, and to smell most sweet,
All that they do at Plays. O, but first here
They learn and study; and then practise there.
But why are all these Irons i' the Fire
Of several makings? helps, helps, t' attire
His Lordship. That is for his Band, his Hair
This, and that Box his Beauty to repair;
This other for his Eye-brows; hence, away,
I may no longer on these Pictures stay,
These Carkasses of Honour; Taylors blocks,
Cover'd with Tissue, whose prosperity mocks
The fate of things: whilst totter'd Vertue holds
Her broken Arms up, to their empty Moulds.
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Jonson, Timber
DE VERE argutis. - I do hear them say often some men are not witty, because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin, lip, or any part else are as necessary and natural in the place. But now nothing is good that is natural; right and natural language seems to have least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no face were fair that were not POWDERED or PAINTED! no beauty to be had but in wresting and writhing our own tongue! Nothing is fashionable till it be DEFORMED; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected and preposterous as our gallants' clothes, sweet-bags, and night-dressings, in which you would think our men lay in, like ladies, it is so CURIOUS.
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"Caviare to the general"?:
Taste, Hearing, and Genre in Hamlet
Allison K. Deutermann
(snip)
...Typically read as a critique of non-naturalistic acting, Hamlet's advice to the players can also be understood as a metadramatic inside joke.11 Through these scenes, Shakespeare references a turn-of-the-century fad for skewering a particular theatrical sound, which was becoming associated with certain kinds of plays—revenge tragedies, heroic romances, and other older but still popular forms. Shakespeare participated in this fad in A Midsummer Night's Dream, when he mocked Bottom's enthusiasm for a part to "tear a cat in."12 But its central participants were John Marston and Ben Jonson. The prince's criticism of players who "tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings" (3.2.9-10) points not only to Bottom's tear-cat speeches, but also to Marston's complaints in Jacke Drum's Entertainment (performed 1599 and 1600) about "mouldy fopperies of stale Poetry" that "torment your listning eares."13 Perhaps even more than Marston, Hamlet ventriloquizes Ben Jonson, whose comedies persistently mock older dramatic forms, particularly revenge tragedies, for their thunderous sound. Matheo, the pretentious fop of Jonson's Every Man in His Humor (first performed 1598), so admires the "fine speeches" of Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy that he reads them aloud, gushing over their literary merit: "Oh eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears!—There's a conceit! Fountains fraught with tears!"14 He concludes, "Is't not simply the best that ever you heard?"15 And in Poetaster, which was first performed either the same year as Hamlet or the year after, the gruff soldier Tucca commands his servants to perform a pastiche of his favorite plays, including an unnamed (or unspecific) revenge tragedy ("Vindicta!" / "Timoria!" / "Vindicta!" / "Timoria!") and a burlesque of The Spanish Tragedy.16 He insists his servant "mouth" these lines in the very way Hamlet detests: "Now thunder, sirrah, you, the rumbling player."17 Like the players who "tear a passion to tatters," Tucca's servant bellows his rumbling speech in the manner of Hamlet's "town-crier" (3.2.3). This theatrical sound is mocked in Poetaster and other satiric comedies. It synecdochically stands for outdated, unsophisticated drama, the kind of production which, Jonson's play self-servingly suggests, is the distinct opposite of Poetaster itself—a cutting-edge play with a cutting-edge sound.18
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Green's Groatsworth
Yes trust them not: for there is an vpstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. O that I might intreat your rare wits to be imploied in more profitable courses: & let those Apes imitate your past excellence, and neuer more acquaint them with your admired inuentions. I knowe the best husband of you all will neuer proue an Vsurer, and the kindest of them all will neuer proue a kind nurse: yet whilest you may, seeke you better Maisters; for it is pittie men of such rare wits, should be subject to the pleasure of such rude groomes.
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Jonson, Timber
Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to such as have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her family. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could have hoped or done for themselves without her favour. Wherein she doth emulate the judicious but preposterous bounty of the time' s grandees, who accumulate all they can upon the parasite or fresh-man in their friendship; but think an old client or honest servant bound by his place to write and starve.
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Oxford/Shakespeare - characterized by neo-classicists as the 'eloquent barbarian'?
Iago/Othello - the rejected/slighted 'friend'/perverted Amicitia - 'I am nothing if not critical'
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Shakespeare's Richard II, "Popularity," and the Early Modern Public Sphere
Jeffrey S. Doty
Abstract
Recent discussions of the early modern public sphere have excluded the theater as a space where substantive political thinking occurred, focusing instead on print culture and on how high-ranking elites conjured a "public" in relation to political controversies. In this article, Doty argues that in Richard II, Shakespeare draws attention to how the commons see, judge, and participate, both cognitively and emotionally, in political life. Shakespeare raises these issues by transforming Bolingbroke into a figure of "popularity." By the mid-1590s, "popularity" was a controversial concept, signifying the cultivation of popular favor. It was also the term that elites used to talk about public opinion and fears about a public that, on the one hand, wanted to feel an intimacy with members of the ruling class, and on the other, wanted to evaluate, discuss, and read about political controversies. By exploring the contemporary phenomenon of popularity, Shakespeare invites his audience to explicate how they are positioned by elites through emotional appeals and public arguments about matters of state. In undertaking this act of explication—in which playgoers are invited to judge first Richard, Bolingbroke, and finally the commons—Shakespeare transforms the theater into a space in which playgoers could practice thinking about how power works in the political domain. Therefore, Richard II not only dramatizes the new phenomenon of popularity, but in its creation of a space in which private people explicated political content, enacts a type of popularity—or, in our critical terminology, a public sphere.
& then you he must steale Curtesy
from Heavn, & dress hymself in
sutch humillity, as he may pluck
allegiance from men harts euen in
the presence of ye Queene wch els
opinion whc must & doth oft aid help
one to a Crown will still keepe
loyall to posession ….
—Lines written in a commonplace book, circa 1596–98 1
Transcribed into a notebook carried into the Theater during the original run of 1 Henry IV, these lines explicate the political tactics that Bolingbroke used to usurp the crown from Richard II. Indeed, these lines revisit and reframe the most topical and controversial political element of Richard II: how Bolingbroke founded his usurpation on the people's love, or what early moderns were beginning to call "popularity." In this essay, I argue that Richard II reflects late Elizabethan concerns about an emergent public sphere, of which the theater was an important part. The play reveals the high degree to which elites depend upon popular support for political action and represents some of the commons as attentive spectators capable of political analysis. Shakespeare makes private people paying attention to matters of state a topic of inquiry in itself.
(snip)
The second, more common use of "popularity" was to signify an individual's cultivation of popular favor for political ends. In his 1598 dictionary, John Florio defines it as "one that feeleth by all possible and flattring means to have the favour of the people." 19 This meaning was most frequently applied in conjunction with the Earl of Essex who, as Paul E. J. Hammer argues, responded to frustrations within the Privy Council by "actively [seeking] to mobilize public support for aggressive war policies which the Queen disliked and his rivals opposed." 20 Essex addressed and courted a nonelite public so that he could maneuver around a Council faction that wielded far more resources and political clout than he. If his tactics of popularity violated the secrecies of state, that principle of government sanctity was sacrificed to his greater loyalty to the queen and his idea of the Protestant nation. Consider, for example, the events surrounding his successful [End Page 189] rout of the Spanish port town of Cadiz in 1596. According to Hammer, Essex was disappointed that he was recalled by the queen but sought to capitalize on the victory—and to swell public support for the reclaiming of Calais—by seeking to publish an account of the victory under a false name. 21 Fearful of his growing popularity, Elizabeth and the Privy Council forbade any account of the campaign; Elizabeth treated Essex with suspicion. 22 Soon after, Francis Bacon wrote Essex a letter that directly addresses his popularity; it contains one of the earliest uses and explications of the term. Rather than conservatively rejecting Essex's "popular reputation," Bacon argues for its value, calling it "a thing good in itself," gained "bonis artibus" [by good craft]. His popularity is "one of the best flowers of your greatness both present and to come"—but it must "be handled tenderly." Bacon counsels Essex "to quench it verbis and not rebus. And therefore take all occasions, to the Queen, to speak against popularity and popular courses vehemently, and to tax it in all others." 23 In other words, Bacon argues that actual popularity (rebus) will assist Essex in producing a more militaristic foreign policy and in enhancing his position with the Privy Council, but only if he distances himself from the label of popularity (verbis). Popularity and publicity form, therefore, a mutually injurious dialectic: being popular confers influence and power, so long as one avoids the label of "popular."
Unfortunately for Essex, he did the opposite, maintaining a reputation for popularity while losing actual popular support. Accusations of popularity would dog Essex through his treason trial in 1601, in which he was accused of "affecting popularitie." 24 He could dispute his intentions in coming armed into London in 1601, but because he had been so frequently accused of pursuing popular favor, he could hardly contest the charge. Essex's London "uprising" in fact crystallized "popularity" as sedition itself and turned him into its cautionary figure. 25 The [End Page 190] first concerted explication of "popularity"—William Cornwallis's 1600 essay—is a thinly veiled autopsy of Essex's fall. In "Of Popularitie," Cornwallis describes it as an innovation infused with "much cunning, much danger, much applause." 26 Cornwallis argued that an aristocrat who is "bent but to winne" the people's love is not technically seditious, but in practice, such a figure almost always "abuse[s] their loues" and pursues applause and influence "immoderatly." In such cases, popularity is "an offence, for all the possessions of subjects must be limitted, his honor, offices, reuenewes, power, and so the loue of the people, the generalitie and grosse body of which is destinated onely to the Prince."
(snip)
In calling attention to how Bolingbroke's flattering "courtship" inverts hierarchy and contains seditious undertones, Richard mouths the major objections to popularity as the concept came into focus at mid-decade. Critics have long connected Richard's speech about Bolingbroke's "courtship to the common people" to Essex. 31 That there is a relation to Essex is clear. A satire from Everard Guilpin's [End Page 193] Skialetheia and a 1603 broadside ballad both refer to his hat-doffing and humble address in the streets. 32 If Essex, as these poems suggest, made a practice of appearing in public and treating regular Londoners with courtesy, then it is possible that original audience members, having personally witnessed such shows of courtesy, directly connected this speech with him. Many have argued that even if audiences did not make this direct link, they would have connected these lines to Essex by reputation. But critics debate what conclusions audiences would have drawn about Essex through this scene. Reading Richard II as a direct intervention in factional court politics, Chris Fitter argues that Shakespeare attempts to "sabotage" Essex through an "injurious representation." 33 Hammer takes a milder stance, calling these lines "public teasing (which the earl apparently took in conspicuously good humor)." 34 Both agree that "popularity"—that of the real Essex and the virtual Bolingbroke—warrants reproach and that the playgoing audience is expected to plot the depiction somewhere between a gentle but instructive ribbing and a biting, public rebuke.
The problem with interpreting this speech as an "injurious representation" or even as teasing of Bolingbroke (or Essex) is that it is spoken by Richard
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Author: Greville, Fulke, Baron Brooke, 1554-1628. ]
Title: The life of the renowned Sr Philip Sidney. with the true interest of England as it then stood in relation to all forrain princes: and particularly for suppressing the power of Spain stated by him. His principall actions, counsels, designes, and death. Together with a short account of the maximes and policies used by Queen Elizabeth in her government. Written by Sir Fulke Grevil Knight, Lord Brook, a servant to Queen Elizabeth, and his companion & friend.
Date: 1651
Chapter I
(snip)
…Instance that reverend Languet, mentioned for honours sake in Sir Philip's Arcadia, learned usque ad miraculum; wise by the conjunction of practice in the world, with that well grounded Theory of Books, & much valued at home; till this great Worth (even in a Gentlemans fortune) being discovered for a dangerous instrument against Rome and Spain, by some sparkles got light enough, rather to seek employment elswhere, than to tarry, and be driven out of his own Country with disparagement. In Franckford he settles, is entertained Agent for the Duke of Saxony, and an under-hand Minister for his own King. Lodged he was in Wechels house, the Printer of Franckford, where Sir Philip in travail chancing likewise to become a guest, this ingenious old mans fulnesse of knowledge, travailing as much to be delivered from abundance by teaching, as Sir Philip's rich nature, and industry thirsted to be taught, and manured; this harmony of an humble Hearer to an excellent Teacher, so equally fitted them both, as out of a naturall descent both in love, and plenty, the elder grew taken with a net of his own thread, and the younger taught to lift up himself by a thread of the same spinning; so as this reverend Languet, orderly sequestred from his severall Functions under a mighty King, and Saxonie the greatest Prince of Germany, became a Nurse of knowledge to this hopefull young Gentleman, and without any other hire, or motive than this sympathy of affections, accompanyed him in the whole course of his three years travail. By which example the judicious Reader may see, that Worth in every Nation finds her Country, Parents, Neighbours, and Friends, yea, and often, with more honour, dearnesse, and advancement in knowledges, than any pedigree of fleshly kindred, will, or can at home raise, or enlarge them unto. Nay to goe yet farther in this private instance; It may please the Reader to observe, how the same parallel of worth, in what age, or estate soever, as it hath power to win, so hath it likewise absolute power to keep. Far unlike those creations of chance, which hath other birds egges; and by advancing men out of chance or complement, lose them again as fast by neglect. Contrary to which, even when diversity of years, courses of life, and fortunes, enforced these DEAR FRIENDS to divide, there yet passed such a continuall course of intelligence by Letters from one of them to another, as in their losse (if they be lost) there be buried many delicate images, and differences, between the reall, and large complexions of those active times, and the narrow salves of this effeminate age: Because in this excellent mould of their FRIENDSHIP, the greatest businesses of Estate were so mixed with the sweet remissions of ingenuous good will, as men might easily discern in them (as unflattering glasses) that wisdome, and love, in good spirits have great affinity together. For a farther demonstration, behold even the same Languet (after he was sixty six years of age) fashioning himself a journey into England, with the DUKE CASIMIRE, onely to see that excellent Plant of his own polishing. In which loving, and unexpected meeting, I dare confidently affirm, neither side became loser. At the sea they parted, and made many mutuall tears omnious propheciers of their never meeting again.
These little sparks of two large natures I make bold the longer to insist upon, because the youth, life and fortune of this Gentleman were indeed but sparkes of extraordinary greatnesse in him: which for want of clear vent lay concealed, and in a maner smothered up. And again to bring the children of favor, and change, into an equall ballance of comparison with birth, worth, and education: and therein abruptly to conclude, that God creates those in his certain, and eternall mouldes, out of which he elects for himself; where Kings choose creatures out of Pandoras Tun, and so raise up worth, and no worth; friends or enemies at adventure. Therefore what marvail can it be, if these Iacobs, and Esaus strive ambitiously one with another, as well before as after they come out of such erring, and unperfect wombes?
(snip)
In these termes Sir Francis [DRAKE] departs from Plimouth with his ships; vowed and resolved that when he staid for nothing but for a wind, the watch word should come post for Sir Philip. The time of the year made haste away, & Sr Francis to follow it, either made more haste than needed, or at least seemed to make more than really he did. Notwithstanding, as I dare aver that in his own element he was industrous; so dare I not condemn his affections in this misprision of time. Howsoever a letter comes post for Sir Philip, as if the whole fleet stayed onely for him, and the wind. In the mean-season the State hath intelligence that Don Antonio was at sea for England, and resolved to land at Plimouth. Sir Philip turning occasion into wisdome, puts himself into the imployment of conducting up this King; and under that veil leaves the Court without suspicion; over-shoots his father-in-law then Secretary of Estate in his own bow; comes to Plimmouth; was feasted the first night by Sir Francis, with a great deale of outward Pomp and complement.
Yet I that had the honor as of being bred with him from his youth; so now (by his own choice of all England) to be his LOVING, AND BELOVED ACHATES in this journey, OBSERVING THE COUNTENANCE of this gallant mariner more exactly than Sir Philips leisure served him to doe; after we were laid in bed, acquainted him with my observation of the discountenance, and depression which appeared in Sir Francis; as if our coming were both beyond his expectation, and desire. Neverthelesse that ingenuous spirit of Sir Philip's, though apt to give me credit, yet not apt to discredit others, made him suspend his own, & labor to change, or qualifie my judgement; Till within some few daies after, finding the shippes neither ready according to promise, nor possibly to be made ready in many daies; and withall observing some sparcks of false fire, breaking out unawares from his yoke-fellow daily; It pleased him (in the FREEDOM OF OUR FRIENDSHIP) to return me my own stock, with interest.
All this while Don Antonio landes not; the fleet seemed to us (like the weary passengers Inn) still to goe further from our desires; letters came from the Court to hasten it away: it may be the leaden feet, and nimble thoughts of Sir Francis wrought in the day, and unwrought by night; while he watched an opportunity to discover us, without being discovered.
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Cicero's De Amicitia
The duties of friendship between persons differing in ability, rank, or position.
...But what is most remarkable in friendship is that it puts a man on an equality with his inferior. For there often are in a circle of friends those who excel the rest, as was the case with Scipio in our flock, if I may use the word. He never assumed superiority over Philus, never over Rupilius, never over Mummius, never over friends of an order lower than his own. Indeed he always reverenced as a superior, because older than himself, his brother Quintus Maximus
a thoroughly worthy man, but by no means his equal, and in fact he wanted to make all his friends of the more consequence by whatever advantages he himself possessed. This example all ought to imitate, that if they have attained any superiority of virtue, genius, fortune, they may impart it to and share it with those with whom they are the most closely connected; and that if they are of humble parentage, and have kindred of slender ability or fortune, they may increase their means of well-being, and reflect honor and worth upon them, -- as in fable those who were long in servile condition through ignorance of their parentage and race, when they were recognized and found to be sons either of gods or of kings, retained their love for the shepherds whom for many years they supposed to be their fathers. Much more ought the like to be done in the case of real and well-known fathers; for the best fruit of genius, and virtue, and every kind of excellence is reaped when it is thus bestowed on near kindred and friends.
20. Moreover, as among persons bound by ties of friendship and intimacy those who hold the higher place ought to bring themselves down to the same plane with their inferiors, so ought these last not to feel aggrieved because they are surpassed in ability, or fortune, or rank by their friends. Most of them, however, are always finding some ground of complaint, or even of reproach, especially if they can plead any service that they have rendered faithfully, in a friendly way, and with a certain amount of painstaking on their part. Such men, indeed, are hateful when they reproach their friends on the score of services which he on whom they were bestowed ought to bear in mind, but which it is unbecoming for him who conferred them to recount.
Those who are superior ought, undoubtedly, not only to waive all pretension in friendly intercourse, but to do what they can to raise their humbler friends to their own level.[l] There are some who give their friends trouble by imagining that they are held in low esteem, which, however, is not apt to be the case except with those who think meanly of themselves. Those who feel thus ought to be raised to a just self-esteem, not only by kind words, but by substantial service. But what you do for any one must be measured, first by your own ability, and then by the capacity of him whom you would favor and help. For, however great your influence may be, you cannot raise all your friends to the highest positions. Thus Scipio could effect the election of Publius Rupilius to the consulship; but he could not do the same for his brother Lucius.[2] In general, friendships that are properly so called are formed between persons of mature years and established character; nor if young men have been fond of hunting or of ball-playing, is there any need of permanent attachment to those whom they then liked as associates in the same sport. On this principle our nurses and the slaves that led us to school will demand by right of priority the highest grade.
[1 Or, as it might be rendered by supplying a "se" "so ought the humbler to do what they can to raise themselves." Some of the commentators prefer this sense; but if Cicero meant "se," I think that he would have written it.]
[2 The brother of Publius Rupilius, not his own brother.]
of affectionate regard, -- persons, indeed, who are not to be neglected, but who are on a somewhat different footing from that of friends. Friendships formed solely from early associations cannot last; for differences of character grow out of a diversity of pursuits, and unlikeness of character dissolves friendships. Nor is there any reason why good men cannot be the friends of bad men, or bad men of good, except that the dissiliency of pursuits and of character between them is as great as it can be.The Earl of Oxford and the Denaturing of Nobility:
