Cicero, De Amicitia 22–23 (continued)
In addition to all the other good things it does, friendship gives us hope for the future. One looks on a friend as an image of oneself (exemplar suī), and so even when a friend is absent, he is present.
| 1 | Neque ego nunc dē vulgārī aut dē mediocrī, quae tamen ipsa et dēlectat et prōdest, sed dē vērā et perfectā loquor, quālīs eōrum, quī paucī nōminantur, fuit. |
| 2 | Nam et secundās rēs splendidiōrēs facit amīcitia et adversās partiēns commūnicānsque, leviōrēs. |
| 3 | [23] Quomque plūrimās et maximās commoditātēs amīcitia contineat, tum illa nīmīrum praestat omnibus, quod bonam spem praelūcet in posterum nec dēbilitārī animōs aut cadere patitur. |
| 4 | Vērum enim amīcum quī intuētur, tamquam exemplar aliquod intuētur suī. |
| 5 | Quōcircā et absentēs adsunt et egentēs abundant et inbēcillī valent et, quod difficilius dictū est, mortuī vīvunt; tantus eōs honōs, memoria, dēsīderium prōsequitur amīcōrum. |
| 6 | Ex quō illōrum beāta mors vidētur, hōrum vīta laudābilis. |
| 1 | vulgārī: with this and the following adjectives (mediocrī…vērā…perfectā) understand amīcitia.
Aristotle had first identified pleasurable and profitable friendships as the two inferior modes of friendship. quālīs: one can understand a corresponding tālis in front of quālīs here (which modifies an understood amīcitia), or simply treat this as an extended relative usage of the adjective paucī, which refers to the “few” pairs of friends that were most frequently mentioned in ancient discussions of friendship as being legendary exemplars of “true” friendship: Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Theseus and Peirithous; really this ought to be paucōrum and fall outside the relative clause with eōrum, but Latin likes to subsume antecedents into the relative clause (as we often do in English). |
| 2 | facit: this verb frequently takes a predicate adjective to go along with the direct object: something “makes” some object (to be) the stated adjective (AG 393n). |
| 3 | quomque: quom is an archaic form of cum; here it is being used correctively with tum in one of Cicero’s favorite constructions: “while…so also….”
praelūcet: a rare usage of this verb with a direct object (transitive). |
| 4 | Vērum: at the start of a clause, vērum frequently is a as a strongly corroborative adversative particle, “but in truth, yet”; but here it is an adjective agreeing with amīcum. |
| 5 | egentēs: even friends who are “poor” offer us riches (abundant).
dictū: an abl. supine in the wild! mīrābile vīsū! but do you remember how this construction works? (AG 510). eōs: refers to friends (amīcī). honōs: NOT acc. pl.; remember that in early Latin the letter ’s’ had not yet transformed into the letter ‘r’ through the process of rhotacism. amīcōrum: this is objective gen. with the three subjects (honōs, memoria, dēsīderium): e.g., “memory of (directed towards) friends” not “memory of (possessed by) friends” and it seems redundant but Cicero felt that prosequitur needed an explicit object. |
| 6 | illōrum: refers to the friends who have died (as hōrum refers to those still living). |
Interrogata
- Do your friends share the bad times with you and make them more easy to bear?
- Do you view your friends as “images of yourself’? What does that really mean?
- Do your friends lift you up even when they are absent?
