Friends in Arcadia

I finished reading my list for year 9 yesterday. We have big plans for Christmas week, and I have some sleep to catch up on, so I thought I’d try to write about two books in one post today. That strategy hasn’t saved time in the past, but I’m determined today!

First up is Aelred’s Spiritual Friendship. Aelred of Rievaulx, a twelfth-century monk, loved Cicero’ treatise On Friendship but regretted the world not having a guide to friendship with specifically Christian content because, as he says, without Christ true friendship is not possible. I loved reading through this happy little book of medieval philosophy. Aelred portrays a friendship based on complete trust and mutual enjoyment of good things. For such a relationship, he says, one must select candidates and “test” them (through observation!) before approving them. Reject the irascible, the unstable, the suspicious, and the verbose, he advises. But if a person passes the test and becomes your friend, stick by that friend in almost all circumstances. Even if he plots treason, warn the state quickly, but don’t give up your friendship. Notice that the commandment of love is perfectly compatible with sending your friend to prison (for his good and the safety of the community). But, wow! If a traitorous plot doesn’t end friendship, can anything? Yes, Aelred tells us. My heart thudded when I read these words describing a sadly familiar feeling: “Nothing tortures the spirit more than abandonment or attack by a friend.” Your friend can become a former friend through five means: slander, reproach, pride, betrayal of secrets, or a “treacherous blow.” Even should such a heart-breaking split occur, though, out of respect for the former friendship, one must still be ever willing and ready to offer help and advice if asked for. What a lovely guide for a world filled with broken, self-centered, cruel beings!

Now I must say a few words about Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. I’ll avoid the story of trying to figure out whether I was buying the “Old Arcadia” or the “New Arcadia.” I got a Complete Works on Kindle and read the longer of the two options. If you’re ever in the mood for a 600-page, 16th-century pastoral, I recommend you do the same. I will warn you, though. I found Sidney a little harder to understand than either Chaucer or Mallory in their original language and spelling. There may be translations into modern English, but, as I hinted at before, I don’t know which of those contain the short, original version or the “director’s cut” that he produced later in his life. 

I enjoyed the story a lot. It felt like reading a novel-length narration of a Shakespeare story, and for good reason: it includes a lot of bits and pieces that commonly made their way into stories and plays back then. Take the case of young Pyrocles, who disguises himself as a girl named Zelmane (for reasons I never really fully bought). The king of Arcadia falls in love with “her,” and the queen, seeing through the disguise, falls in love with Pyrocles. This part reminded me of Twelfth Night. So Pyrocles attempts to solve his problem and theirs by inviting them both to a tryst in a cave at night. This part reminded me of any number of Shakespeare comedies. Pyrocles’ plot doesn’t unfold according to plan, of course, and Sidney gets another hundred pages out of the mix-up. There are shipwrecks and rescued princesses and love potions — OK, speaking of heartbreak, yesterday’s tragic news makes me think I couldn’t come up with a list better than the one we hear from Peter Falk’s “Grandpa”: It has “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles . . . .” Not so much with the monsters, but everything else fits perfectly. If I didn’t have family coming and last-minute Christmas duties and a new reading list to start in two weeks, I’d start reading Arcadia all over again right now. Maybe instead, I should go watch The Princess Bride.