Nietzsche and ‘the Friend as a Cork’. Classical Sources and Hermeneutical Perspectives

In the section On the Friend of Thus spoke Zarathustra, we find some metaphors which are really rare in Nietzsche. One of these is the friend as ‘the cork’: an interesting expression (1) for the peculiarity of the image, which usually is associated with a negative meaning rather than a positive one, (2) for the ancient roots of this metaphor, (3) finally for the light that, once understood, it can shed on the Nietzschean idea of friendship. In line with this three-fold articulation, we will divide our paper into three parts. In the first, we will verify the contexts in which the term ‘Kork’ appears in Nietzsche’s work. In the second, we will try to understand which authors Nietzsche may have made reference to in coining this metaphor (Pindar, Aeschylus, Lucian of Samosata). Finally, we will try to demonstrate the light that the term ‘friend as cork’ can shed – in general – on the interpretation of the question of friendship in Nietzsche.