What Is a Friend? 朋友是什麼？

🔊There are three things, he says, for which we can love anything: because it is useful, because it is pleasant, or because it is good. “There are therefore three kinds of friendship.” In the first, each party values the other for some advantage. Business partners are friends in this way, and so are many neighbors and colleagues. In the second, each enjoys the other’s company: the people we drink, travel, or play with. Aristotle does not despise these. He observes two things about them. In both, the other person is loved for something he supplies, and so they last only as long as the supply. “Those who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get from each other.” When the usefulness ends or tastes change, the friendship dissolves, and no one is to blame.

他說，我們之所以能愛任何東西，原因有三：因為它有用，因為它令人愉快，或因為它是善的。「所以友誼有三種。」在第一種裡，雙方各自因為某種好處而看重對方。生意上的夥伴就是這樣的朋友；許多鄰居與同事也是。在第二種裡，雙方各自享受對方的陪伴：跟我們一起喝酒、旅行或玩樂的人。亞里斯多德並不輕視這些。他對它們觀察到兩點。在這兩種裡，對方之所以被愛，都是因為他所提供的某樣東西；所以它們只能維持到那個提供停止為止。「因為有用而彼此相愛的人，並不是因為對方本身而愛對方，而是因為從對方得到的某種好處。」用處沒了，或者口味變了，友誼就消散了，而這不能怪誰。

🔊The third kind is different. “Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue,” and such friends “wish well to their friends for their sake.” Here the person himself is what is loved, his character and not his services. This friendship includes the other two, since good people are both useful and pleasant to each other, and it lasts, because character is the most durable thing about a person. It is also rare. It needs time and shared life, “for men cannot know each other till they have eaten salt together,” and nobody can have it with many people, any more than one can be in love with many at once. Aristotle adds a phrase that has been repeated ever since: a friend of this kind is “another self.”

第三種不一樣。「完美的友誼，是善良而在德行上相似的人之間的友誼」；這樣的朋友「為了朋友本身的緣故而願他好」。在這裡，被愛的是這個人本身，是他的品格，而不是他的效勞。這種友誼包含了另外兩種，因為好人彼此既有用又令人愉快；而且它持久，因為品格是一個人身上最經久的東西。它也很罕見。它需要時間，需要共同的生活；「人若沒有一起吃過鹽，就無法彼此了解」。而且沒有人能跟很多人擁有它，就像一個人不可能同時愛上很多人。亞里斯多德還加了一個從此被一再重複的說法：這一種朋友，是「另一個自己」。

🔊Aristotle’s account makes friendship reasonable: we love the good because it is good. The French essayist Michel de Montaigne, who had one such friend and lost him, thought that this leaves out the center of the experience. He met Étienne de La Boétie at a crowded feast in Bordeaux when both were young magistrates, and from that first meeting, he says, nothing was so near to either as the other. La Boétie died a few years later, at thirty-two. Montaigne wrote the essay on friendship some ten years afterward. In such a friendship, he says, two souls “mix and work themselves into one piece, with so universal a mixture, that there is no more sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined.” Asked for the reason, he can give none. “If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.”

亞里斯多德的說明，使友誼成為合理的：我們愛善，因為它是善的。法國的隨筆作家蒙田有過一位這樣的朋友，又失去了他；他認為，這個說明漏掉了這種經驗的核心。他是在波爾多一場擁擠的宴會上遇見拉波埃西的，當時兩人都是年輕的法官；他說，從那第一次見面起，對兩人來說就沒有什麼比對方更親近的了。幾年後，拉波埃西去世，三十二歲。大約十年之後，蒙田寫下了那篇論友誼的隨筆。他說，在這樣的友誼裡，兩個靈魂「混合、交融成一體，融合得那麼徹底，以致於當初把它們縫合起來的那道接縫，再也看不出痕跡」。問他理由，他給不出來。「如果有人逼我說出我為什麼愛他，我覺得除了這樣回答之外，沒有別的說法：因為是他，因為是我。」

🔊The disagreement is real. For Aristotle a friend is loved for qualities, and anyone with the same qualities would in principle do as well. For Montaigne the friend cannot be replaced, and a list of his virtues would explain nothing. Both seem to be describing something true. We do admire our closest friends, and we would be dismayed to learn that they were cruel. Yet we would not exchange them for someone more admirable.

這個分歧是真實的。對亞里斯多德來說，朋友是因為種種特質而被愛的；而任何具有同樣特質的人，原則上都一樣可以。對蒙田來說，那位朋友無可取代；把他的德行列成清單，什麼也解釋不了。兩人描述的似乎都是真的。我們確實欽佩自己最親近的朋友；如果得知他們是殘忍的人，我們會大為沮喪。然而，我們也不會拿他們去換一個更值得欽佩的人。

🔊The Chinese tradition has its own word for Montaigne’s kind of friend, and it comes from a story. Bo Ya was a master of the zither, and Zhong Ziqi was good at listening. When Bo Ya played with his mind on high mountains, Zhong Ziqi said, “Splendid! Lofty as Mount Tai!” When his mind was on flowing water, Zhong Ziqi said, “Splendid! Broad as the great rivers!” Whatever Bo Ya had in mind, Zhong Ziqi never failed to grasp it. When Zhong Ziqi died, another version adds, Bo Ya broke the zither and cut its strings and never played again, judging that there was no one left in the world worth playing for. The phrase zhīyīn, “one who knows the tone,” has meant a true friend ever since. What the story picks out is being understood. Zhong Ziqi did nothing for Bo Ya and gave him no pleasure that a paying audience could not have given. He heard what was meant.

中國的傳統，對蒙田那一種朋友有它自己的詞；而這個詞來自一個故事。伯牙善於彈琴，鍾子期善於聽。伯牙彈琴，心裡想著高山，鍾子期說：「善哉！峩峩兮若泰山！」心裡想著流水，鍾子期說：「善哉！洋洋兮若江河！」伯牙心裡想的是什麼，鍾子期必定聽得出來。另一個版本接著說：鍾子期死了，伯牙「破琴絕弦，終身不復鼓琴，以為世無足復為鼓琴者」。從此以後，「知音」（懂得那個音的人）就是真朋友的意思。這個故事挑出來的，是「被了解」。鍾子期沒有為伯牙做任何事，他給伯牙的快樂，也沒有哪一樣是付錢的聽眾給不了的。他聽出了伯牙的意思。

🔊The historian Sima Qian preserves a second example in the words of the statesman Guan Zhong. When he was poor and took the larger share of their profits, his friend Bao Shuya did not think him greedy, knowing that he was poor. When he fled three times in battle, Bao did not think him a coward, knowing that he had an old mother. “It was my parents who gave me life,” Guan Zhong said, “and it is Bao who knows me.” To be known in this way is to be seen at one’s worst and read correctly. It asks more of a friend than Aristotle’s likeness in virtue.

史家司馬遷用政治家管仲自己的話，保存了第二個例子。他窮的時候，跟鮑叔牙合夥做生意，分錢時自己多拿，鮑叔不認為他貪，知道他窮。他打仗時三次臨陣脫逃，鮑叔不認為他膽小，知道他家有老母。管仲說：「生我者父母，知我者鮑子也。」以這種方式被了解，就是在自己最糟的時候被看見，並且被正確地解讀。這對朋友的要求，比亞里斯多德的「德行相似」更多。

🔊Confucius approaches the matter as a teacher would, by asking what a friend does to you. “Three kinds of friends are a gain and three are a loss. To have friends who are upright, friends who are true to their word, and friends who have heard much is a gain. To have friends who are smooth, friends who are soft and pleasing, and friends who are glib is a loss.” The helpful friend tells you the truth, can be relied on, and knows things you do not. The harmful ones are, in Aristotle’s terms, friends of pleasure. They agree with you. His student Zengzi states the purpose in a line: the gentleman “uses his friends to support his humaneness.” A friend is a partner in becoming a better person, and friendship is the one relationship among the five Confucian bonds that is chosen and that holds between equals.

孔子是像一位老師那樣切入這件事的：他問的是朋友對你「做了什麼」。「益者三友，損者三友：友直，友諒，友多聞，益矣；友便辟，友善柔，友便佞，損矣。」有益的朋友對你說實話、靠得住，並且知道你不知道的事。有害的那幾種，用亞里斯多德的話說，就是快樂的朋友。他們順著你。他的學生曾子用一句話說出了目的：君子「以友輔仁」。朋友是「成為更好的人」這件事上的夥伴；而在儒家的五倫當中，朋友是唯一出於選擇、而且存在於平等者之間的一倫。

🔊Zhuangzi offers a caution about warmth. “The friendship of the gentleman is plain as water. The friendship of the small man is sweet as rich wine. The gentleman’s plainness brings closeness. The small man’s sweetness ends in a break.” A relation that needs constant sweetness is being held together by something other than the two people.

莊子對「熱絡」提出了一個警告。「君子之交淡若水，小人之交甘若醴；君子淡以親，小人甘以絕。」一段需要不斷加糖的關係，把它維繫在一起的，是這兩個人之外的別的東西。

🔊The word has recently been stretched. A person may now have a thousand “friends” on a screen, most of whom he has not eaten salt with. The anthropologist Robin Dunbar has argued, from the size of primate brains and from counts of human groups, that a person can keep up stable relationships with about a hundred and fifty people, of whom about fifteen are close and about five are intimate. The numbers have held up fairly well in studies of telephone records and of online networks. They are Aristotle’s point in figures: the highest kind of friendship needs shared time, and time is limited.

這個詞近來被拉長了。一個人現在可以在螢幕上有一千個「朋友」，其中大多數他沒有跟對方一起吃過鹽。人類學家鄧巴根據靈長類腦的大小與對人類群體的計數，論證一個人能夠維持穩定關係的對象大約是一百五十人，其中大約十五人算親近，大約五人算親密。在對電話紀錄與線上網絡的研究裡，這些數字相當站得住。它們就是用數字說出來的亞里斯多德的論點：最高的那一種友誼需要共度的時間，而時間是有限的。

🔊That leaves a question the exercise below is meant to raise. Most of the people we call friends are friends of use or of pleasure, and there is nothing wrong with that. The difficulty comes from not knowing which is which. We are hurt when a friendship of convenience ends with the convenience, and we neglect, because it is plain as water, the one that would have lasted.

這就留下了一個問題，下面的練習就是要把它提出來。我們稱為朋友的人，大多數是有用的朋友或快樂的朋友，而這並沒有什麼不對。困難來自分不清哪一個是哪一種。一段因方便而起的友誼，隨著方便的結束而結束時，我們感到受傷；而那段本來可以長久的友誼，因為它淡若水，我們卻疏忽了。