Wednesday, March 06, 2024
False Friends
Euripides, Orestes 454-455 (tr. Edward P. Coleridge):
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For such friends as desert us in adversity are friends in name but not in deed.M.L. West ad loc.:
ὄνομα γάρ, ἔργον δ᾽ οὐκ ἔχουσιν οἱ φίλοι
οἱ μὴ 'πὶ ταῖσι συμφοραῖς ὄντες φίλοι.
The unreliability of friends in misfortune is a commonplace, cf. Thgn. 79-82, 299, 697 f., 857-60, 929f., Democr. DK 68 B 101, 106; in Euripides, Med. 561, El. 605-7, 1131, HF 57-9, etc.Perhaps it's a commonplace because it happens so often in real life.
