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By drawing the thread of friendship, we are confronted with a network of relationships which link brothers, sisters, companions, lovers, husbands, friends. In ancient Japan, as probably in many other cultures, friendship cannot be grasped outside this network.I have no satisfactory explanation for the relative poverty of the oldest sources on friendship. Let’s say that it has not been highlighted. What seems to prevail are the group relationships, hence the fluctuation in translations between friends, companions, mates.Poems on friendship were most often composed at banquets. The sake was to help amplify the expression of feelings. However, unless one argues that all poetry is just baseless artifice, one cannot dismiss these affirmations of friendship as pure literary conventions.