Damon and Pythias

Hello, Miss Brooks.

Well, how are Damon and Pythias today? Damon who? Damon and Pythias.

They were good friends, Stretch, like you and Walter.

Oh, did they go to Madison? Well, if they did, it was before my time.

Where does he come in on this? Oh, they're always together in everything.

They've been thicker than Damon and Pythias for a long time.

They play tennis together, and they're doubles champions of the district, you know, and all kinds of things.

Whenever you find one of them, you'll usually find the other.

It was not hard to be obtained, being naturally more addicted to the English than to the Scotch, insomuch that he endeavoured to forget his native country and his father's house, having none of note about him but English, and but one besides English in any familiarity with him, which was Sir Robert Carr his kinsman.

But above all was Sir Thomas Overbury his Pythias.

Then was the strife between Salisbury and Suffolk, who should engross him and make him their monopoly, each presenting, proffering, and accumulating favours upon Overbury's kindred, the father made a judge in Wales, and himself offered offices.

But Overbury, naturally of an insolent spirit, which was elevated by being so intimate with a favourite, and wholly having engrossed that commodity, which could not be retailed but by him and his favour, with a kind of scorn neglected their friendships, yet made use of both.

There was one, Innosa, a Spanish ambassador extraordinary here, being an old soldier and a gallant fellow, who thought that Buckingham did not give that respect to him was due to his own person or to the person of so great a king whose person he represented.

Innosa, therefore, did as much scorn and slight Buckingham and the prince, whom he found wholly governed by Buckingham.

For now Buckingham had found by many passages the king's desire to be rid of him, he made court to the prince, and so wrought himself into his affection that Damon and Pythias were not more dear to each other, which by no means could the old king away with.

Nor, in truth, did any other like or approve of the prince's poor spirit, fearing it foretold his future inclination, that could ever endure any familiarity with such an one as had put such foul scorns and affronts on him in his time of greatness with the father, especially such as called to mind the bravery of his brother, who hated the whole family for their general baseness, although none of them had ever offended him in particular, as this man had done the prince at two several times.

It is well known that among the Polynesian islanders, for the most part a very gentle and affectionate people, probably inheriting the traditions of a higher culture than they now possess, the most romantic male friendships are, or were, in vogue.

Says Herman Melville in Omu, chapter thirty-nine, quote, The really curious way in which all Polynesians are in the habit of making bosom friends is deserving of remark In the annals of the island Tahiti are examples of extravagant friendships unsurpassed by the story of Damon and Pythias.

In truth, much more wonderful, for notwithstanding the devotion, even of life in some cases to which they led, they were frequently entertained at first sight for some stranger from another island." So thoroughly recognized indeed were these unions that Melville explains in Typee chapter eighteen that if two men of hostile tribes or islands became thus pledged to each other, then each could pass through the enemy's territory without fear of molestation or injury, and the passionate nature of these attachments is indicated by the following passage from Omoo.

"Though little inclined to jealousy in ordinary love matters, the Tahitian will hear of no rivals in his friendship." Even among savage races lower down than these in the scale of evolution and who are generally accused of being governed in their love relations only by the most animal desires, we find a genuine sentiment of comradeship beginning to assert itself, as among the Balonda and other African tribes, where regular ceremonies of the betrothal of comrades take place by the transfusion of a few drops of blood into each other's drinking bowls, by the exchange of names, and the mutual gift of their most precious possessions.

There were no bloodhounds in the cast and a mighty little scenery or anything else alluring, but I was led to believe that I had been trembling upon the verge of something direful, and I was not allowed to go.

What would that pious man have said could he have seen me a few years later strutting and fretting my hour upon the stage? Well, we all saw Damon and Pythias in Barnum's lecture room with real scenery that split up the middle and slid apart over a carpet of green bays, and it was a real play played by real players, at least they were once real players, but that was long before.

It may be their antiquated and failing art rendered them harmless, and then those beguiling words lecture room have such a soothing sound they seemed in those days to hallow the whole function, which was of course the wily wish of the great moral entertainer, and his great moral entertainment was even as the cups that cheer but not inebriate.

It came near it in our case, however.

They became inseparable.

Their college mates dubbed them, variously, Damon and Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, Nisus and Euryalus.

At last they called them the brothers.

All the time Lockiel was at college, he spent his vacations with the d'Harlevilles, who made no difference between the two boys, unless to lavish the more marked attentions upon the young Scotchman, who had become, as it were, a son of the house.

Where does he come in on this? Oh, they're always together in everything.

They've been thicker than Damon and Pythias for a long time.

They play tennis together, and they're doubles champions of the district, you know, and all kinds of things.

Whenever you find one of them, you'll usually find the other.

They became inseparable.

Their college mates dubbed them variously Damon and Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, Nisus and Euryalus.

At last, they called them the brothers.

All the time Lockiel was at college he spent his vacations with the d'Harlevilles, who made no difference between the two boys unless to lavish the more marked attentions upon the young Scotchman, who had become, as it were, a son of the house.

They became inseparable.

Their college mates dubbed them variously Damon and Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, Nisus and Euryalus.

At last they called them the brothers.

All the time Lockie was at college, he spent his vacations with the Dabbervilles, who made no difference between the two boys unless to lavish the more marked attentions upon the young Scotchman who had become, as it were, a son of the house.