Carus

As Horacio grew older and reflected on his life, he came to the conclusion that he had been blameless because he had been loved by his friends: carus amicis. The heart of this book is friendship, the only generous feeling, and the only one verifiable. A man under the spell of misfortune: today we call that spell nervous depression. What the friends try is to undo that spell through language. 'Who feels that his life is alive,' said Ennius, 'if he does not have the ear of a friend with whom to share it?' Friendship is the only human feeling whose body is pure language. It is that ear always ready for the confession that ignores itself and wanders, the occasion to empty the weight of the heart, the plank that is offered to the memory so that it does not sink. Friendship is the only bond between men where the unspeakable is dissolved, where helplessness receives protection, where the heart, overwhelmed by anguish and sorrow, is transformed not into tears, not into insomnia, not into voluntary death, but into short phrases. that are said and exchanged, so little calculated that they are almost involuntary, when it is not even necessary to say everything.