Dans l'adversité de nos meilleurs amis nous trouvons quelque chose, qui ne nous déplaît pas.
posted by missmellifluous at 9:22 pm
Monday, January 22
Dans l'adversité de nos meilleurs amis nous trouvons quelque chose, qui ne nous déplaît pas.
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10 Comments:
I fear my friends find this true of me. I hope I do not of them.
What? :)
Hi Candy, Follow the link for a translation.
Ohhhhh. Yeah, I succumb to some of what is stated, to my chagrin.
It is an insightful poem. For a while I preferred to think of it as a rather bitter and twisted but inaccurate view of friendship, yet, I have to admit, Swift has observed an all too common truth.
Surely not?
Why not, Radagast? Don't you ever find that friends do not enjoy it when you succeed? That they may be a little jealous or not as pleased as you would hope them to be? Do you think friends hear about your pain and struggles without thinking, "Oh! I am so glad that isn't happening to me!"? Or are you being sarcastic? I cannot tell.
I don't like this quote but I fear it is true. I know I have 'friends' who long to see me fail. Who pretend to enjoy my successes but really don't.
Swift says it much better than me and with much more wit:
This maxim more than all the rest
Is thought too base for human breast:
"In all distresses of our friends,
We first consult our private ends;
While Nature, kindly bent to ease us,
Points out some circumstance to please us."
If this perhaps your patience move,
Let reason and experience prove.
We all behold with envious eyes
Our equal rais'd above our size.
Who would not at a crowded show
Stand high himself, keep others low?
I love my friend as well as you
But would not have him stop my view.
Then let him have the higher post:
I ask but for an inch at most.
At least with Swift we can laugh about it.
The "surely not" was a response to your "I fear my friends find this true of me."
But no, I don't find that friends hate it when I succeed. Some former friends may feel that way, I guess.
swift didn't write this, it is a maxim from the french moralist rochefoucauld.
also: rochefoucauld meant this as a maxim for all society- that in some slight way when our friends face adversity, no matter how close to them we are we still feel some sense of relief that it isn't US which is facing said adversity. It doesn't mean we're "bad" people, it just makes us human.
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