friendship in everyman

Medieval Academy of America

The Doctrine of Friendship in EverymanAuthor(s): John ConleySource: Speculum, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Jul., 1969), pp. 374-382Published by: Medieval Academy of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2855500 .

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THE DOCTRINE OF FRIENDSHIP IN EVERYMAN BY JOHN CONLEY

THE plot of Everyman obviously consists of a test of friendship made by a worldly young man when he suddenly learns that God has summoned him to his reckoning. The doctrine of friendship in this morality is accordingly worth examining even though our conclusion can be anticipated, namely, that this doctrine consists of the essential commonplaces of the mediaeval doctrine of friendship.' As in certain of the Faithful Friend analogues,2 these commonplaces have been adapted to the plot in keeping with two articles of faith in particular: (1) the necessity, for salvation, of good works, and (2) divine judge- ment after death.

One of these commonplaces is that no one should be accounted a friend whose friendship has not been tested. This ancient precept, which has been called "the first law of friendship,"3 occurs, for instance, in Ecclesiasticus vi 7: "If thou wouldst get a friend, try him before thou takest him, and do not credit him easily."4 Petrus Alfonsus, in the introduction to his version of the Faithful

1 On the doctrine of friendship in the Classical and early Christian periods, cf. the following: Leo M. Bond, "A Comparison between Human and Divine Friendship," The Thomist, in (1941), 54-94; Philippe Delhaye, "Deux adaptations du De amicitia de Ciceron au XIIe siecle," Recherches de thiol- ogie ancienne et medievale, xv (1948), 304-331; L. Dugas, L'amiti6 antique (Paris, 1894); R. Egenter, Gottesfreundschaft: Die Lehre von der Gottesfreundschaft in der Scholastik und Mystik de 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts (Augsburg, 1928); Pierre Fabre, Saint Paulin de Nole et l'amitie chretienne (Paris, 1949), Bibliotheque des ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome, CLXVII; Adele M. Fiske, R. S. C. J., The Survival and Development of the Ancient Concept of Friendship in the Early Middle Ages, (diss., Fordham University, 1955, 2 vols.); "Aelred's [sic] of Rievaulx Idea of Friendship and Love," Citeaux, Commentarii Cistercienis, xIII (1962), 5-17, 97-132; "Alcuin and Mystical Friendship," Studi Medievali, 3rd. ser. (1961), 551-575; "Cassian and Monastic Friendship," American Benedictine Review, xII (1961), 190-205; "Hieronymous Circeronianus," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, xcvi (1965), 119-138; "Paradisus Homo Amicus," Speculum, xL (1965), 436-459; "St. Augustine and Friendship," Monastic Studies, II, (1964) 127-135; "St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Friendship," Cit., Comment. Cister., xI (1960), 5-26, 85-103; "William of St. Thierry and Friendship," ibid., xii (1961), 5-27; ltienne Gilson, La theologie mystique de saint Bernard (Paris, 1947), pp. 21-24, 82; Jean Leclerq, "L'amitie dan les lettres du moyen age autour d'un man- uscrit de la bibliotheque de Petrarque," Revue du moyen age latin, i (1945), 391-410; Paul Philippe, Le r6le de l'amitie dans la vie chrEtienne selon saint Thomas d'Aquin (Rome, 1939); Rob Roy Purdy, "The Friendship Motif in Middle English Literature," Vanderbilt Studies in the Humanities, i (1951), 113- 141; G. G. Meersseman, "Pourquoi le Lombard n'a-t-il pas concu la charite comme amitie," Mis- cellanea Lombardiana (Novara, 1956), pp. 165-174; G. Vansteenberghe, "Amitie," Dictionnaire de spiritualite ascetique et mystique, doctrine et histoire (Paris, 1937). On the reasons for the neglect and even disparagement of friendship in recent times, see C. S. Lewis, "Friendship," in The Four Loves (London, 1960), pp. 69 ff.

2 Conveniently sketched by A. C. Cawley, ed., Everyman (Manchester, 1961), pp. xviii-xix (cited below as Cawley; all citations from Everyman are to this edition). See also Karl Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus and Hekastus: Ein Beitrag zur internationalen Literaturgeschichte (Hanover, 1865), pp. 1-132, 204-226; Woodburn O. Ross, ed., Middle English Sermons, EETS., o. s. 209 (1940), 345, and Helen S. Thomas, "Some Analogues of Everyman," Mississippi Quarterly, xvi (1963), 97-103. Though I consider Elckerlijc to be prior, the relation of Everyman to Eleckerlijc is not at issue in this paper.

3 Cornelius a Lapide, Commentarii in Scripturam Sacram, v (Lyons and Paris, 1860), 167. 4Cf. Geoffrey of Vend6me, Epist. XXV (Migne, P.L., CLVII, col. 92) and also Publilius Syrus,

line 120 (Publilii Syri Sententiae, ed., Edward Woelfflin, Leipzig, 1869).

374



The Doctrine of Friendship in Everyman 375

Friend, provides an example. A dying Arab asks his youthful son how many friends he has acquired, and on being told, "An hundred, in my opinion," admonishes him not to praise a friend until he has been tested.5 In fact, we find that "probatio" appears among the four steps of friendship in Aelred of Rievaulx' De spirituali amicitia, a treatise that was frequently adapted in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.6 In Everyman "the first law of friendship" in effect is introduced almost at the onset, when God's messenger, Death, admonishes Everyman to "preue thy frendes yf thou can."7 Interestingly, this admonition is lacking in the corresponding passage in Elckerlijc;8 indeed, Everyman might be said to have the more emphatic treatment of friendship, as is further indicated by the following instances of friend, especially "good friend," none of which is paralleled in Elckerlijc: "Except that almes be his good frende -" (Death in reference to every man that "loueth rychesse," 78); "Than be you a good frende at nede" (Everyman to Fellowship, 229); "Alas, than may I wayle and wepe,/For I toke you for my best frende" (Everyman to Five Wits, 847-848); "Thou shalte fynde me a good frende at nede" (Good Deeds to Everyman, 854); "Folysshe frendes and kynnesmen that fayre spake/All fleeth saue Good Dedes, and that am I" (872-873).

The ancient test par excellence of friendship is adversity, a commonplace ex- pressed, for example, by the formula In necessitate probatur amicus, which Aelred cites in his discussion of "probatio."9 Evidently the source of this formula is Proverbs xvii 17: "Omni tempore diligit qui amicus est, et frater in angustiis comprobatur."10 The equivalent formula in the Classical tradition is "Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur,"" which is credited to Ennius and which is cited in

6 Disciplina clericalis, ibid., col. 673: "Respondens filius dixit: 'Centum, ut arbitror, acquisivi amicos.' Dixit pater 'quia philosophus dixit: Ne laudes amicum donee probaveris eum.' " Cf. Cicero, De amicitia, xvii 62.

6 P.L., cxcv, col. 680. On the popularity of this treatise, one compendium of which long passed as St Augustine's, see Dom A. Hoste, ed., "The First Draft of Aelred of Rievaulx' De spiritali amicitia," Sacris Erudiri, x (1958), 186-187 (cited below as Hoste). On this treatise as one of Jean de Meun's sources for the Roman de la Rose, see Lionel J. Friedman, "Jean de Meun and Ethelred of Rievaulx," L'Esprit Createur, ii (1962), 135-141.

7 Cawley, line 142. Laurens J. Mills, One Soul in Bodies Twain: Friendship in Tudor Literature and Stuart Drama (Bloomington, 1937), p. 83, devotes one paragraph to a summary of Everyman in terms of this admonition.

8 See Elckerlijk, a Fifteenth Century Dutch Morality (Presumably by Petrus Dorlandus) and Every- man, a Nearly Contemporary Translation, ed., H. Logeman (Ghent, 1892), p. 18. R. W. Zandvoort observes that this addition is illogical (Collected Papers [Groningen, 1954], p. 47).

9 De spirituali amicitia, P.L., cxcv, col. 687. Cf. also Geoffrey of Vend6me as cited above. Dom Hoste (p. 209) cites for comparison St Ambrose, De officiis, iii, 22, 129 (P.L., xvi, 191 B) and St Bernard of Clairvaux, Epist. CXXV, 1 (P.L., CLXXXII, 970 A). Cf. also The Diets and Sayings of the Philosophers, ed., Curt F. Buhler, EETS., o.s. 211 (1941), 70-72. For equivalent formulas in the Middle Ages, see Samuel Singer, Sprichworter des Mittelalters, in (Bern, 1947), 54; Hans Walther, Proverbia sententiaeque Latinitatis medii aevi, lateinische Sprichwirter und Sentenzen des Mittelalter8 in alphabetischer Anordnung, Pt. 1, Carmina medii aevi posterioris Latina (Gottingen, 1963), 109, and Proverbia Communia, A Fifteenth Century Collection of Dutch Proverbs with the Low German Version, ed. with a commentary by Richard Jente (Bloomington, 1947), Indiana University Publications, Folklore Series No. 4, under item 430, pp. 216-217.

10 Which Aelred quotes in conjunction with the formula just cited. n See Archer Taylor, The Proverb and an Index to the Proverb (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), p. 60.



376 The Doctrine of Friendship in Everyman

a Classical work that provided the Middle Ages with an important definition of friendship - Cicero's De amicitia.l1

In his hour of adversity Everyman turns first to Fellowship, who like a true friend readily promises to help before he knows what will be asked of him. "I wyll not forsake thee to my lyues ende" even "and thou go to hell" (213-232). But as soon as Fellowship learns what Everyman wants of him, he reneges on his promise: "That is mater in dede!" (248). As Fellowship departs, Everyman rue- fully comments, "Lo, Felawshyp forsaketh me in my moost nede" (305). Every- man thus learns a proverbial lesson concerning friendship: "'In prosperyte,' he remarks, 'men frendes may fynde,/Whiche in aduersyte be full vnkynde"' (309-310).13

Everyman then turns hopefully to his kinsmen, "For kynde wyll crepe where it may not go' (316). Like Fellowship's, the greeting of Kindred and Cousin is reassuring: "Here be we now at your commaundement," Kindred responds (319), and Cousin adds (322-324):

Ye, Eueryman, and to vs declare If ye be dysposed to go ony-whyder; For, wete you well, we wyll lyue and dye to-gyder.

Yet, although Everyman pleads, even Cousin refuses to go with him (356-358): No, by our Lady! I haue the crampe in my to. Trust not to me; for, so God me spede, I wyll deceyue you in your moost nede.

Accordingly Everyman turns to his "Goodes that I loued best" (472), hoping to bribe God Himself.

For it is sayd eaer amonge That 'money maketh all ryght that is wronge.' (412-413)

Again, after a reassuring greeting, Everyman is refused, this time with a rebuke for his folly of trusting in a false good.

Then, though he knows that she is "so weke/That she can nother go no speke" (482-483), he turns to Good Deeds, pleading,

I praye you helpe me in this nede, Or elles I am for euer dampned in dede. . . (509-510)

And Good Deeds at once helps Everyman by giving him as a guide her sister, Knowledge, who leads him to Confession, in the House of Salvation. Then, in

12 The definition reads: "Est enim amicitia nihil aliud nisi omnium divinarum humanarumque rerum cum benevolentia et caritate consensio" (vi 20). This is the definition of friendship that Aelred Christianizes in De spir. amic. In the Middle Ages another Ciceronian definition of friendship was preferred, however, because of its simplicity and also because of its freedom from Stoic implications: "Amicitia [est] voluntas erga aliquem rerum bonarum, illius ipsius causa quem diligit cum eius pari voluntate" (De inventione rhetorica, ii 55). See Gilson, La theologie mystique, p. 23.

13 Mills, One Soul, observes (p. 85): "The fact that Everyman goes first to Fellowship instead of Goods suggests the influence of the 'table friends' ideas, which were both classical and conventional in medieval thought." The Biblical locus classicus is Ecclesiasticus vi 10: "And there is a friend, a

companion at the table, and he will not abide in the day of distress."




response to Everyman's plea to Good Deeds and Knowledge - "Now, frendes, let vs not parte in twayne" - Knowledge promises, "Nay, Eueryman, that wyll we not, certayne" (655-656). Thereafter, other friends appear, whom Everyman has called together on the advice of the two sisters: Beauty, Strength, Discretion, and Five Wits. When asked by Good Deeds whether "ye wolde with Eueryman go,/And helpe hym in his pylgrymage" (672-673), all four readily assent. In the words of Strength, who is the first to reply, "We wyll brynge hym all thyder, / / To his helpe and comforte/ye may byleue me" (675-676). Later on, after Everyman has received the sacraments of the Eucharist and extreme unction at the urging of Knowledge and Five Wits, several of the new friends re- peat their promises in heightened fashion. Strength speaks twice, at the beginning of the passage and, in an interesting equivocation, at the end, with Discre- tion and Knowledge speaking in between:

Strength. Eueryman, we wyll not fro you go Tyll ye haue done this vyage longe.

Dyscrecion. I, Dyscrecyon, wyll byde by you also. Knowledge. And though this pylgrymage be neuer so

stronge, I wyll neuer parte you fro. Strength. Eueryman, I wyll be as sure by the

As euer I dyde by Iudas Machabee.14 (781-787)

In the end, however, all five fail Everyman, though Knowledge lingers "Tyll I se where ye shall be-come" (863). With typical obtuseness, Everyman has already concluded that all his friends "hath forsaken me" (851). But Good Deeds, the only friend whose reassurance is to be trusted, replies (852-854):

Nay, Eueryman, I wyll byde with the, I wyll not forsake the in dede; Thou shalte fynde me a good frende at nede.

So in adversity Everyman discovers who his true friends are, namely, Good Deeds: "Gramercy, Good Dedes! Now may I true frendes se" (855).

True friendship, then, is lasting. In De amicitia (ix 32) we are told: "For on the assumption that advantage is the cement of friendship, if advantage were removed friendships would fall apart; but since nature is unchangeable, there- fore true friendships are eternal."15 The Biblical locus classicus, as Aelred indicates, is again Proverbs xvii 17: "Omni tempore diligit qui amicus est .... 16 Or as Rabanus Maurus observes, true friendship is a compact that "adversity

14 Three of the four earliest editions of Everyman assign this speech to Knowledge, but it plainly belongs to Strength, as is confirmed by Elckerlijc; cf. Cawley, p. 37, apparatus criticus, and Elekerlijk, ed., Logeman, pp. 73-74. On the ironical import of the reference to Judas Maccabeus, which is lacking in Elckerlijc, see my note "The Reference to Judas Maccabeus in Everyman," Notes and Queries, N.S. xiv (1967), 50-51.

16 Cicero: De senectute, De amicitia, De divinatione, trans., William A. Falconer, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1923), p. 145, except for the substitution of "true" for "real" where the original reads "verae amicitiae."

16 De spir. amic., i (P.L., cxcv, col. 663). Cf. Middle English Sermons, ed., Ross, p. 93 (where verus is interpolated before amicus).




cannot change," a relationship that "death itself cannot sever."17 Indeed, this is precisely the relationship that obtains between Everyman and Good Deeds as Everyman is about to creep into what he has called "this caue" (792), to begin his journey from earth to heaven or from time to eternity. He addresses the audience (867-869):

Take example, all ye that this do here or se, How they that I loued best do fo'sake me, Excepte my Good Dedes that bydeth truely.

False friendship, correspondingly, is transitory, as Good Deeds points out in a speech that immediately follows Everyman's address to the audience (870-873):

All erthly thynges is but vanyte: Beaute, Strength / and Dyscrecyon do man forsake, Folysshe frendes and kynnesmen that fayre spake-- All fleeth saue Good Dedes ...

And as the Doctour in turn points out in the final speech of the play (905-907): And remembre Beaute, V. Wytees, Strength, & Dyscrecyon,18 They all at the last do Eueryman forsake, Saue his Good Dedes there dothe be take.

True friendship is also virtuous, as the ancients tell us; in fact, to paraphrase Aristotle, it is lasting precisely because it is virtuous: the friendship of true friends "lasts as long as they are good - and goodness is an enduring thing."19 Cicero remarks through Laelius, "nisi in bonis amicitiam esse non posse."20 In Christian thought, however, true friendship is not simply virtuous - or na- tural - but is supernatural,21 for man's relation to God is involved. Thus, St Ambrose declares, "Non potest enim homini amicus esse, qui Deo fuerit infidus.

17 "Nam ... haec est quot nullis umquam casibus scinditur ... sed ne mors quidem ipsa divellit," Libri decem commentariorum in Ecclesiasticum, iii (P.L., cix, col. 852), though the passage is in fact a quotation from John Cassian's Sixteenth Conference, on friendship (Collationes xxiv, P.L., xLIx, col. 1015).

18 In "Doctrine and Dramatic Structure in Everyman," SPECULUM, xxxII (1957), 730, Lawrence V. Ryan argues that these four characters "can not really be false friends, or else Good Deeds and Knowledge would not have presented them to Everyman." Such an argument conflicts with the equa- tion, noted above and stressed in the plot, of true, with lasting, friendship.

19 Nicomachean Ethics, viii, c. 3, 1156b, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, trans., W. D. Ross, ed., Richard McKeon (New York, 1941), p. 1061. As G. G. Meersseman notes -citing M. De Wulf, Histoire de la philosophic medievale, ii (Louvain, 1946), 39-40 - among the various partial transla- tions of this treatise that appeared around the end of the twelfth century is one consisting of the first third of Book VIII, entitled Liber de amicitia ("Pourquoi le Lombard n'a-t-il pas congu la charity comme amitie," Misc. Lombardiana, p. 171).

20 De amic. v 18. Cf. De spir. amic. iii (P.L., cxcv, col. 687), John of Salisbury, Policraticuw, iii, 12 (ed., C. C. I. Webb, Oxford, 1909, 501a), as well as Purdy, "The Friendship Motif in Middle English Literature," p. 119. This study does not treat Everyman.

21 Cf. G. Vansteenberghe, "Amitie," Dictionnaire de spirituality, especially col. 516. St Thomas Aquinas, in a well-known instance, has defined charity itself as "quaedam amicitia hominis ad Deum" (S.T. II IIae, q. 23, a. 1); on the novelty of this influential definition, see Meersseman, Misc. Lom- bardiana, p. 165. In Classical thought, because equality would be lacking, friendship between deity and man was inconceivable; cf. W. M. Rankin, "Friendship," Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed., James Hastings (New York, 1925), vi, 132.




Pietatis custos amicitia est. . .."22 Accordingly, as Peter of Blois remarks, true friendship is "a gift of God."23

The locus classicus for the doctrine of Christian friendship is John xv 15, which we find cited in a late Middle English sermon on friendship in the following passage. The author has just stated that, according to Aristotle, there are three kinds of friendship, two of which are respectively useful and pleasurable. "The prid maner of frenshippe is frenshippe of wertewe, ]e wiche pat on hathe to an o]ure for is good lyvynge and vertuous. .. . " Then we come to the interesting point: virtuous friendship is said to be "a verry frenshippe pat holy writte spekep of, 'Iam non dico vos seruos, sed amicos,"24 which is an abridgment of the passage from John: "I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you."25

Similarly, the friendship of Good Deeds is supernaturally virtuous; dependent on grace and performed in a state of grace, good deeds, as the play reminds us, enable every man to save his soul provided that he be free from mortal sin at the moment of death. Among the good deeds that Everyman performs during the play itself is the prayer that comprises his last speech (880-887), beginning "In to thy handes, Lorde, my soule I commende .... "; the worthy reception of three sacraments: penance (545-650), the Eucharist and extreme unction (cf. 773-774); almsgiving, when Everyman bequeathes half of his goods to charity (699-700).26 Plainly, in Everyman with its emphasis on good deeds - as well as in the moralizations of the various analogues27 - the supernatural character of true friendship is premised.

If lasting and virtuous true friendship is obviously precious, or in the words of Ecclesiasticus vi 14-15, "he that hath found" a true friend "hath found a treasure";28 indeed, "nothing can be compared to a faithful friend, and no weight of gold and silver is able to countervail the goodness of his fidelity." In the Nicomachean Ethics ix, c. 9,1169b, we find, in a section treating the question whether a happy man needs friends, that friends "are thought the greatest of external goods."29 And Cicero observes, "I am inclined to think that, with the exception of wisdom, no better thing [than friendship] has been given to man by the immortal gods,"30 though the misguided prefer riches, health, power, honors, and even pleasures.

In Everyman true friendship is something precious indeed. In general, the

22 De officiis ministrorum, III, xxii (P.L., xvI, col. 192). 23 De amicitia christiana et de dilectione Dei et proximi, ii, 1 (Un trait de l'amour du XIIO siecle,

ed., M. M. Davy, [Paris, 1932], p. 234). 24 Middle English Sermons, p. 16. Cf. St Thomas Aquinas, S.T., II, IIae, q. 23, a.l. 25 Cf. Peter of Blois, Un trait, p. 196. 26 Cf. the Parson's Tale, X (1), 381-385 (The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed., F. N. Robinson, 2nd

ed., Boston, 1957). 27 Cf. Goedeke, Every-man, Homulus and Hekastus, pp. 12 ff. and 204 ff. 28 Cf. Lydgate, "A Freond at Neode," The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed., H. N. MacCracken,

Pt. II, EETS, o. s. 192, p. 758, pl. 121-123. 29 Basic Works of Aristotle, p. 1088. 30 De amic. vi 20 (Cicero, trans., Falconer, p. 131). Cf. Boethius, Consolatio Philosophiae, ii, pr. 8.




presentation follows the traditional, tripartite, and hierarchic classification of goods, one form of which, the classification into external goods, goods of the body, and goods of the soul antedates Aristotle.31 A Christianized version that accords with the classification in Everyman, that is followed in the Parson's Tale,32 and that may antedate the influential Summa de Vitiis of Guilielmus Peraldus (ca 1260)33 is goods of fortune (cf. Fellowship, Cousin, Kinsmen, and Goods), goods of nature, subdivided into goods of the body and of the soul (cf. Beauty and Strength, on the one hand, and Discretion on the other), and, finally, goods of grace (cf. Knowledge and Good Deeds). Though the goods of the soul, or the various internal powers, are especially valuable, they cease with death; thus only the goods of grace are "durable and salutary," or, in other words, true and precious.

As applied to Everyman, however, this classification does not allow for the hierarchic distinction made in the play between Knowledge34 and Good Deeds. For though they are sisters, Good Deeds is implicitly presented as belonging to a higher order of goods than Knowledge; thus, unlike her sister, she remains with Everyman and accordingly is Everyman's one true, or only lasting, friend. A version of goods that does accord strictly with the one implicit in Everyman is to be found in a popular religious treatise of the Middle Ages, Speculum S. Edmundi, by Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury. I quote from a Middle English translation:

3it, dere Frende, on a oler syde, wit ]ou lat all maner of gude pat es, Ou]er it es erthely gude, or gastely gude, or gude lastande endles. For erthely gude we praye, when we saye Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie; For gastely gude we praye, when we say Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in celo et in terra; For endles gude we praye, when we say Adveniat regnum tuum; and confermyng of all this we praye, when we say Sanctificetur nomen tuum.35

In Everyman, Knowledge thus may be classified as a spiritual good by contrast with the even more precious good, the lasting good, which, in the special terms of the play, is exemplified by only one of Everyman's friends, Good Deeds.

Finally, true friendship provides counsel and comfort pertaining not only to this life but also to the next life. In the Christian tradition the locus classicus is Ecclesiasticus vi 16: "A faithful friend is the medicine of life and immortality."36

31 See Nic. Ethics, i, 8, 1098b (Basic Works of Aristotle, p. 944). 82 Cant. Tales, X (1), 450 ff. (Works of ... Chaucer, ed., Robinson), as Cawley has pointed out

(Everyman, p. xxi, footnote), though he implies that the term used in the tale is gifts. 3 See John B. Dwyer, S. J., The Tradition of Medieval Manuals of Religious Instruction in the Poems

of John Gower, (diss., U. of N. Carolina, 1950), p. 302. I am also indebted to Father Dwyer's account of the traditional classification of goods (pp. 300-305).

34 That is, knowledge of God or knowledge of what is necessary for salvation; as Cawley notes (p. xxi), such knowledge involves self-knowledge (see St. Edmuund's Mirror, in Religious Pieces in Prose and Verse, ed., George G. Perry, EETS, o. s. 26 [London, 1867], p. 17). It is odd that Cawley refers the reader (p. xxii), for "a discussion of the meaning of knowledge," to Ryan, "Doctrine and Dramat- ic Structure," p. 728, where the much too narrow interpretation of Henry de Vocht and others is followed, i.e., " 'contrition' or, better, 'acknowledgment of one's sin.' " See Helen S. Thomas, "The Meaning of the Character Knowledge in Everyman," Mississippi Quarterly, xiv (1961), 3-13.

36 Religious Pieces, ed., Perry, p. 87. N Cf. De amic. christ., i, 3 (Davy, p. 118) and Lapide, Comment. in Script. Sac., v (1860), 173-174.




Following his rejection by Fellowship, Cousin, and Kindred, Everyman for the first time in the play specifically asks for counsel when he turns to Goods: "Come hyder ... in al the hast thou may/For of conseyll I must desyre the" (399400). But all that Everyman receives is a rebuke, as he notes afterwards: "For my Goodes sharpely dyd me tell/That he bryngeth many in to hell" (474-475). Thereupon Everyman asks himself (479), "Of whome shall I now counseyll take?" With the enlightenment of his newly acquired humility, he concludes, "I thynke that I shall neuer spede/Tyll that I go to my Good Dede" (480-481). On finding her, he exclaims, "0 Good Dedes, I stand in fere!/I must you pray of counseyll . ." (489-490). When Good Deeds expresses sorrow over his "fall," re- marking, "fayne wolde I helpe you, and I were able" (514-515), Everyman repeats his request (516): "Good Dedes, your counseyll I pray you gyue me." And Good Deeds replies (517-521):

That shall I do veryly. Thougbe that on my fete I may not go, I haue a syster that shall with you also, Called Knowlege, whiche shall with you abyde, To helpe you to make that dredefull rekenynge.

Knowledge then acts as her sister's deputy, and Everyman goes to "that holy man, Confessyon" (539). Accordingly it is Knowledge, echoing in part her sister's promise, who informs Everyman when he is about to begin his penance (577-580):

Eueryman, loke your penaunce that ye fulfyll, What payne that euer it to you be; And Knowlege shall gyue you counseyll at wyll How your accounte ye shall make clerely.

Then, on the advice of Good Deeds and Knowledge, Everyman calls together Discretion, Strength, Beauty, and Five Wits to help him in his journey, and they respond according to their natures. Thus Discretion says (690-691): "Eueryman, aduyse you fyrst of all;/Go with a good aduysement and delyberacyon"; Five Wits' counselling consists of two long speeches (712-727; 730-749), both of which second Knowledge's injunction that Everyman receive of Priesthood the "holy sacrament and oyntement togyder" (709). For as Five Wits explains (717- 720):

He bereth the keyes, and therof hath the cure For mannes redemcyon - it is euer sure- Whiche God for our soules medycyne Gaue vs out of his herte with grete pyne.

Appropriately, it is Good Deeds, rather than Knowledge, who of Everyman's friends speaks the last words of counsel, beginning, "All erthly thynges is but vanyte.. ." (870).

Concerning the higher species of earthly goods, Strength and Beauty, they provide a brief and delusive comfort, ironically underscored by Strength's declara- tion to Good Deeds (675-676): "We wyll brynge hym all thyder,/To his helpe

Important scriptural texts for the offices of friendship include Proverbs xxvii 5, 6, 9-10; see Lapide, inI (1865), 786-787; 792-794.




and comforte//ye may byleue me." But there is nothing comforting to Everyman about their farewell speeches.

Discretion and Five Wits provide, as spiritual goods,37 some measure of spiritual comfort. Just before Everyman makes his will, Discretion says, "We all gyue you vertuous monycyon/That all shall be well" (692-693). And Five Wits assures Everyman as he is about to receive the Eucharist and extreme unction (731): "God wyll you to saluacyon brynge ...." But the two fail to comfort Everyman in extremis, though, unlike Beauty and Strength, they refrain from chiding him as in turn he implores each of the four to enter the grave.

Knowledge obviously provides comfort both by deed, as she leads Everyman to Confession, and by words. It is she who assures Everyman that they will find in the House of Salvation him "That shall vs comforte, by Goddes grace" (542); when Good Deeds, now able to walk as a result of Everyman's good confession, approaches Knowledge and Everyman, Knowledge declares, "Now, Eueryman, be mery and glad!/Your Good Deeds cometh now; ye may not be sad" (623- 624). A few lines later, following Good Deeds' greeting to Everyman, Knowledge comforts him in similar fashion (636-637): "Be no more sad, but euer reioyce;/ God seeth thy lyuynge in his trone aboue." Yet the only abiding comfort, as dic- tated by the theme and plot of the play, is provided by Good Deeds, a lasting good. Fittingly she is the first one of Everyman's friends to give him comfort, tell- ing him as he is about to be conducted to Confession by Knowledge (527-531):

And whan she hath brought you there Where thou shalte hele the of thy smarte, Than go you with your rekenynge & your Good Dedes togyder, For to make you ioyfull at herte Before the Blessyd Trynyte.

And it is Good Deeds who says to Everyman, lying in the grave and forsaken by all except her, "Fere not; I wyll speke for the" (876).

In conclusion, then, the doctrine of friendship in Everyman may be said to con- sist of the essential commonplaces of the mediaeval doctrine of friendship: that no man should be accounted a friend whose friendship had not been tested; that true friendship is lasting; that it is virtuous, indeed supernatural- a gift of God; that, correspondingly, it is precious; finally, that it provides counsel and comfort pertaining not only to this life but also to the next life. These commonplaces have been adapted to the plot in keeping with two articles of faith in particular: (1) the necessity, for salvation, of good works, and (2) divine judgment after death. Further, implicit in this adaptation is a special version of the traditional classification of goods, one for which precedent may be found in the popular Speculum S. Edmundi: earthly, spiritual, and lasting goods.38

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO CIRCLE

'7 In its role of counsellor and comforter, Five Wits primarily signifies the inner senses. 38 I am indebted to Prof Morton W. Bloomfield for suggestions concerning the presentation of

this paper.



friendship in everyman

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