Poverte a spectacle is, as thynketh me,
Thurgh which he may his verray freendes see.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath’s Tale. There’s probably something in what the Loathly Lady says when she uses the metaphor that poverty is an eye glass through which one may see your true friends. For a person who sticks by you when you’re poor is the real friend, not the fair-weather variety. A similar theme is echoed in the old blues song, "Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out."