Of Brotherly Love (6-10)

Wherefore Pisistratus, being about to marry again, his sons being grown up to a mature age, gave them their deserved character of praise, together with the reason of his designs for a second marriage,—that he might be the

Stern Jove has in some angry mood

Condemned our race to solitude.

[*]

But I like not Hesiod’s judgment so well, who is all for a single son’s inheriting. Not so well (I say) from Hesiod, a pupil of the Muses, who being endeared sisters kept always together, and therefore from that inseparate union (ὁμοῦ οὐσαι) were called Muses. To parents therefore the love of brothers is a plain argument of their children’s love to themselves. And to the children of the brothers themselves it is the best of precedents, and that which affords the most effectual advice that can be thought of; as again, they will be forward enough in following the worst of their parents’ humors and inheriting their animosities. But for one who has led his relations a contentious life, and quarrelled himself up into wrinkles and gray hairs,—for such a one to begin a lecture of love to his children is just like him

Who boldly takes the fees,

To cure in others what’s his own disease.

[*]

In a word, his own actions weaken and confute all the arguments of his best counsel. Take Eteocles of Thebes reflecting upon his brother and flying out after this manner:

I’d mount the Heavens, I’d strive to meet the sun

In’s setting forth, I’d travel within him down

Beneath the earth, I’d balk no enterprise,

To gain Jove’s mighty power and tyrannize.

[*]

Suppose, I say, out of this rage, he had presently fallen into the softer strain of good advice to his children, charging them thus:

Prize gentle amity that vies

With none for grandeur; concord prize

That joins together friends and states,

And keeps them long confederates.

Equality!—whatever else deceives

Our trust, ’tis this our very selves outlives;

who is there that would not have despised him? Or what would you have thought of Atreus, after he had treated his brother at a barbarous supper, to hear him afterwards thus instructing his children:

Such love as doth become related friends

Alone, when ills betide, its succor lends?

You will ask me then, What shall a man do with an untoward brother? I answer, every kind and degree of friendship is subject to abuse from the persons, and in that respect has its taint, according to that of Sophocles:

Who into human things makes scrutinies,

He may on most his censures exercise.

For, if you examine the love of relations, the love of associates, or the more sensual passion of fond lovers, you will find none of them all clear, pure, and free from all faults. Wherefore the Spartan, when he married a little wife, said that of evils he had to choose the least. But brothers would do well to bear with one another’s familiar failings, rather than to adventure upon the trial of strangers. For as the former is blameless because it is necessary, so the other is blameworthy because it is voluntary. For it is not to be expected that a sociable guest or a wild crony should be bound by the same

Chains of respect, forged by no human hand,

as one who was nourished from the same breast and carries the same blood in his veins. And therefore it would become a virtuous mind to make a favorable construction of his brother’s miscarriages, and to bespeak him with this candor:

I cannot leave you thus under a cloud

Of infelicities,

[*]

whether debauched with vice or eclipsed with ignorance, for fear my inadvertency to some failing that naturally descends upon you from one of our parents should make me too severe against you. For, as Theophrastus said. as to strangers, judgment must rule affection rather than affection prescribe to judgment; but where nature denies judgment this prerogative, and will not wait for the bushel of

And this may serve for the beginning of my discourse. I shall enter upon my instructions not as others do, with the distribution of the parents’ goods, but with advice rather to avoid envious strifes and emulation whilst the parents are living. Agesilaus was punished with a mulct by the Lacedaemonian council for sending every one of the ancient men an ox as a reward of his fortitude; the reason they gave for their distaste was, that by this means he won too much upon the people, and made the commonalty become wholly serviceable to his own private interest. Now I would persuade the son to show all possible honor and reverence to his parents, but not with that greedy design of engrossing all their love to himself,—of which too many have been guilty, working their brethren out of favor, on purpose to make way for their own interest,—a fault which

Nor sloth, nor silly humor makes him stay;

I am the only cause. All his delay

Waits my attempts:

[*]

and he says that this charge was delivered him by his brother. Fathers willingly allow of the changing of names and have an inclination to believe their children when they make the best interpretation of their brother’s failings,—as when they call carelessness simple honesty, or stupidity goodness, or, if he be quarrelsome, term him a smart-spirited youth and one that will not endure to be trampled on. By this means it comes to pass, that he who makes his brother’s peace and ingratiates him with his offended father at the same time fairly advances his own interest, and grows deservedly the more in favor.