Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
I was walking from the Academy straight to the Lyceum, taking the road just outside the wall, right along it. When I got to the little gate where the spring of Panops is, I ran into Hippothales son of Hieronymus, and Ctesippus of Paeania, and a group of other young men standing together with them. When Hippothales saw me coming he said, "Socrates, where are you off to, and where from?" "From the Academy," I said, "heading straight for the Lyceum." "Come here first," he said, "straight to us. Won't you stop by? It's worth your while." "Where do you mean," I said, "and who is this 'us' you're talking about?" "Here," he said, pointing to an enclosure across from the wall, with a door standing open. "We spend our time there, all of us, and a great many other fine young men besides."
"And what exactly is this place, and what do you do there?" "It's a wrestling school," he said, "newly built. Most of what we do is talk, and we'd be glad to let you in on it." "That's good of you," I said. "And who teaches there?" "Your friend," he said, "and admirer, Miccus." "By Zeus," I said, "he's no mediocre man, but a competent sophist." "Will you come along, then," he said, "so you can see who's there?" "I'd be glad to hear first what I'd be walking in for, and who the handsome one is." "Different people think differently, Socrates." "And you, Hippothales, who is it for you? Tell me that." And at being asked, he blushed. So I said, "Hippothales, son of Hieronymus, don't say another word about whether you're in love with someone or not. I know not only that you're in love, but that you're already far along on that road. In most things I'm a poor, useless sort of man, but somehow this one thing has been given me by a god: I can quickly tell when someone is in love, and who is the one loved." And hearing this he blushed even more. Then Ctesippus said, "How charming, that you blush, Hippothales, and can't bring yourself to tell Socrates the name—when if this man spends even a little time with you, he's going to be worn out hearing you say it over and over. Our ears, Socrates, are deafened, stuffed full of 'Lysis.' And if he's had a bit to drink, we're liable to wake up out of a sound sleep thinking we hear the name Lysis. What he tells us in plain prose is bad enough, but not unbearably bad—but when he sets about drenching us with his poems and prose-pieces, that's another matter. And worse than that, he actually sings to his darling in an extraordinary voice, which we have to sit and endure. And now, when you ask him, he blushes." "This Lysis," I said, "must be quite young, it seems—I gather that from the fact that hearing the name, I didn't recognize it." "That's because they don't really call him by his own name much," he said. "He's still known by his father's name, because his father is so well known. You surely know well enough what the boy looks like—that alone is enough to identify him." "Tell me," I said, "whose son he is." "Democrates," he said, "of Aexone—the eldest son."
"Well then," I said, "Hippothales, what a noble and spirited love you've found for yourself, in every respect. Come now, show me what you show these others, so I can see whether you know what a lover ought to say about his darling, to the boy himself or to others." "Do you put any stock, Socrates," he said, "in what this fellow says?" "Are you denying," I said, "that you're in love with the one he says?" "Not that," he said, "but that I make poems and write about him." "He's not well," said Ctesippus, "he's raving, out of his mind." And I said, "Hippothales, I don't want to hear the verses, or any song you've composed for the young man, but the substance of it, so I can see in what manner you approach your darling." "This fellow, no doubt, will tell you," he said, "he knows it precisely and remembers it, if it's true, as he says, that it's been dinned into him constantly by hearing it from me." "By the gods," said Ctesippus, "that's exactly right. And it's ridiculous, Socrates. For a man who is a lover, and pays more attention to the boy than anyone else, to have nothing of his own to say that any child couldn't say—how is that not ridiculous? What the whole city sings about Democrates and Lysis's grandfather and all the ancestors—their wealth, their horse-breeding, their victories at Pytho and the Isthmus and Nemea with four-horse teams and single horses—these are the things he composes and recites, and on top of that, things even more stale than these. Just the other day he was going through, in some poem, the entertaining of Heracles—how because of their kinship with Heracles their ancestor received him as a guest, being himself born from Zeus and the daughter of the founder of their deme—the sort of thing old women sing—and a great many other things of that kind, Socrates. These are the things he forces us to listen to, reciting and singing them." And hearing this I said, "Ridiculous Hippothales, are you composing and singing a victory hymn for yourself before you've won?" "But it's not for myself, Socrates," he said, "that I compose or sing." "You don't think so," I said. "Then how does it stand?" he said. "More than anything else," I said, "these songs are aimed straight at you."
"If you win over a boy like that, all that's been said and sung will be an ornament to you, and truly a hymn of victory, as for one who has actually won, since you got such a boy for your own. But if he slips away from you, the grander the praises you've spoken of your darling, the grander the good and beautiful things you'll seem to have been deprived of, and the more ridiculous you'll look. So anyone wise in matters of love, my friend, does not praise the one he loves before he has won him, for fear of what the outcome may be. And besides, when handsome boys are praised and puffed up, they get filled with pride and self-importance—don't you think?" "I do," he said. "And the more full of pride they are, the harder they are to catch?" "So it seems." "What kind of hunter, then, do you think a man would be, if by hunting he scared off the game and made it harder to catch?" "A poor one, clearly." "And indeed, to fail to charm with words and songs, but instead to make wild, is a great want of skill—wouldn't you say?" "I think so." "Then take care, Hippothales, not to make yourself liable to all these charges through your poetry. And yet I think you yourself would not be willing to admit that a man who harms himself by his own craft is ever a good practitioner of that craft, if it's harmful to himself." "No, by Zeus," he said, "that would be quite unreasonable. But this is exactly why I'm consulting you, Socrates—and if you have any other advice, tell me what a person might say or do in conversation to become dear to a boy he loves." "That's not easy to say," I said, "but if you'd be willing to get him to come and talk with me, I might perhaps be able to show you what one ought to say to him, instead of the things these fellows say you say and sing." "That's nothing hard," he said. "If you go in with Ctesippus here and sit and talk, I think he'll actually come up to you on his own—he's remarkably fond of listening, Socrates. And besides, since they're celebrating the festival of Hermes, the young men and the boys are all mixed together in the same place—so he'll come up to you. And if not, he's on close terms with Ctesippus, through his cousin Menexenus—Menexenus is in fact his closest companion of all. So let Ctesippus call him over, if he doesn't come up on his own." "That's what we should do," I said. And with that I took Ctesippus and went into the wrestling school, and the others followed behind us. Going in, we found that the boys had just finished a sacrifice, and the business with the offerings was more or less done, and they were all playing at knucklebones, dressed up in their finery. Most of them were playing out in the courtyard, but some were in a corner of the changing room, playing odds-and-evens with a great heap of knucklebones, which they drew out of little baskets. Around these stood others, watching.
Among these was Lysis, standing among the boys and young men, crowned with a garland, and remarkable to look at—worth hearing about not merely as handsome, but as both handsome and good. We withdrew to the opposite side, where it was quiet, and sat down, and talked a little among ourselves. Lysis kept turning around and watching us, and it was plain he wanted to come over. For a while he was at a loss and hesitant to come alone, but then Menexenus, in the middle of playing, came in from the courtyard, and when he saw me and Ctesippus, he came over to sit beside us. And when Lysis saw him, he followed and sat down together with Menexenus. Then the others came up too, and Hippothales as well, once he saw more people gathering—he used them as cover and took a position where he thought Lysis wouldn't notice him, afraid of making himself unwelcome. And standing there like that he listened. I looked at Menexenus and said, "Son of Demophon, which of you two is older?" "We dispute that," he said. "Then you'd also quarrel over which of you is nobler," I said. "Certainly," he said. "And which is more handsome, the same way." They both laughed at that. "I won't ask, though," I said, "which of you is richer, since you're friends. Aren't you?" "Certainly," they both said. "Now, friends are said to hold things in common, so on that point at least there'll be no difference between you, if what you both say about friendship is true." They agreed. I was going on after this to ask which of them was more just and wiser, but at that point someone came up and pulled Menexenus away, saying the trainer was calling him—it seemed he happened to be in the middle of the sacrifice duties. So he went off, and I asked Lysis, "Tell me, Lysis, your father and mother love you very much?" "Very much," he said. "Then they'd want you to be as happy as possible?" "Of course." "Do you think a man is happy who is a slave, and who isn't allowed to do anything he wants?" "No, by Zeus, not I," he said. "Well then, if your father and mother love you and want you to become happy, it's plain that they're eager, in every way, to see that you are happy." "Of course," he said. "So they let you do whatever you want, and never scold you or stop you from doing whatever you desire?" "Yes they do, by Zeus, Socrates—they stop me from a great many things, in fact."
"What do you mean?" I said. "They want you to be happy, and yet they stop you from doing what you want? Tell me this. Suppose you wanted to ride on one of your father's chariots and take the reins yourself, when he's racing—wouldn't they let you? Wouldn't they stop you?" "No, by Zeus," he said, "they wouldn't let me." "Who does drive, then?" "There's a charioteer, in my father's pay." "What do you mean? They trust a hired man more than you to do whatever he wants with the horses, and pay him money for it besides?" "Well, what else?" he said. "But surely they let you take charge of the mule-team, and if you wanted to take the whip and hit them, they'd allow that." "How would they allow it?" he said. "What then?" I said. "Is no one allowed to hit them?" "Yes indeed," he said, "the muleteer is." "A slave, or a free man?" "A slave," he said. "So it seems they think even a slave worth more than you, their own son, and trust their own property to him rather than to you, and let him do what he wants, but stop you? Now tell me this too. Do they let you rule yourself, or don't they even allow that?" "How would they allow that?" he said. "Then who rules you?" "This man here, my attendant." "A slave, surely not?" "Well, what else? He's ours," he said. "How strange," I said, "for a free person to be ruled by a slave. And what does this attendant of yours do, in ruling you?" "He takes me to my teacher, I suppose." "Surely your teachers don't rule you too?" "Certainly they do." "Then your father, quite willingly, sets over you a great many masters and rulers. But now, when you go home to your mother, does she let you do what you want, so that you'll be happy with her, with the wool or the loom, when she's weaving? Surely she doesn't stop you from touching the batten or the shuttle or any of her other weaving tools?" And he laughed and said, "By Zeus, Socrates, not only does she stop me, I'd get a beating if I touched them." "Heracles," I said, "have you done some wrong to your father or mother?" "No, by Zeus, not I," he said.
"But then why do they stop you so severely from being happy and doing whatever you want, and keep you all day long serving one person or another, and in short, doing almost none of the things you actually want? So it seems that all that money does you no good at all—everyone else has more control over it than you do—and your fine body is no use either, since someone else tends and looks after that too. You, Lysis, are in charge of nothing, and you don't do a single thing you want." "Well, I'm not old enough yet, Socrates," he said. "That can't be what's stopping you, son of Democrates—since for at least some things, I think, your father and mother do trust you and don't wait for you to come of age. For instance, whenever they want something read or written for them, you, I imagine, are the first person in the house they call on for that. Isn't that so?" "Certainly," he said. "And in that job you're allowed to write whichever letter you like first and whichever second, and the same goes for reading. And when you pick up the lyre, I imagine neither your father nor your mother stops you from tightening or loosening whichever string you please, or from plucking it and striking it with the pick. Or do they stop you?" "No, they don't." "Then what could possibly explain that, Lysis—why they don't stop you there, but do stop you in the things we mentioned just now?" "Because, I suppose," he said, "I know these things, but not those." "Well then, my excellent friend," I said, "it isn't your age that your father is waiting on before trusting you with everything—it's the day he judges you to think better than he does, that's the day he'll hand over both himself and everything he has to you." "I think so too," he said. "Well then—what about your neighbor? Doesn't the same rule apply to him regarding you as to your father? Do you think he'll trust you to manage his household once he judges you think better than he does about running it, or will he keep watching over it himself?" "He'll trust me, I think." "And what about this—do you think the Athenians won't trust you with their affairs, once they perceive that you have sufficient judgment?" "I do think so." "By Zeus," I said, "then what about the Great King? Would he trust his eldest son, the one who's to inherit the rule of Asia, to throw whatever he likes into the pot while the meat is cooking, or would he trust us instead, if we came to him and showed that we understand the seasoning of a dish better than his son does?" "Us, clearly," he said. "And he wouldn't let his son add even a pinch, while he'd let us throw in fistfuls of salt if we wanted to." "Of course."
"And what if his son had something wrong with his eyes—would the king let him touch his own eyes, if he didn't think him a doctor, or would he stop him?" "He'd stop him." "But if he took us to be skilled in medicine, even if we wanted to pry his eyes open and rub ash into them, I don't think he'd stop us, believing we knew what we were doing." "True." "So he'd trust us with everything else too, more than himself or his son, in every matter where we seemed to him wiser than they are?" "That must be so, Socrates," he said. "That's how it stands, then, dear Lysis: in whatever matters we become wise in, everyone will trust us there—Greeks and foreigners, men and women alike—and we'll do as we please in those matters, and no one will willingly get in our way. We'll be free there and rule over others, and those things will be truly ours—we'll profit from them. But in whatever matters we haven't gained any understanding, no one will trust us to act as we see fit there; instead everyone will obstruct us as much as they can—not just strangers, but even father and mother, and anyone closer to us than they are. In those matters we'll be subject to others, and those things won't be ours at all, since we get no benefit from them. Do you agree that's how it is?" "I agree." "So will anyone be our friend, will anyone love us, in matters where we're useless?" "Certainly not," he said. "Then right now, neither your father nor anyone else loves anyone else, insofar as that person is useless." "It doesn't look like it," he said. "So if you become wise, my boy, everyone will be your friend, everyone will be close to you—since you'll be useful and good. But if not, no one will be your friend, not your father, not your mother, not even your own family. Now, Lysis, can a person think highly of himself in matters where he doesn't yet have any judgment?" "How could he?" he said. "And if you still need a teacher, you don't yet have judgment." "True." "So you're not high-minded either, since you're still without judgment." "By Zeus, Socrates," he said, "I don't think I am." When I heard him say this, I glanced over at Hippothales, and I very nearly made a blunder—it occurred to me to say, "This is how you ought to talk to your darling, Hippothales, cutting him down and humbling him, not puffing him up and spoiling him the way you do."
But then, seeing him in agony, thrown into confusion by what was being said, I remembered that he'd wanted to stand where Lysis wouldn't notice him. So I caught myself and held my tongue. Just then Menexenus came back and sat down beside Lysis, in the seat he'd gotten up from. So Lysis, very much like a boy and very fondly, without Menexenus noticing, said to me quietly, "Socrates, tell Menexenus the same things you've been telling me." And I said, "You can tell him that yourself, Lysis—you were paying close attention the whole time, after all." "Quite so," he said. "Well then," I said, "try to remember it as well as you can, so you can lay it all out clearly for him. And if you forget any part of it, ask me about it again the next time you see me." "I'll do just that, Socrates, very much so, be assured. But say something else to him too, so I can listen as well, until it's time for me to go home." "Well, I ought to do that," I said, "since you're the one asking. But watch out and come to my defense if Menexenus tries to cross-examine me—don't you know he's a fighter?" "Yes, by Zeus," he said, "very much so—that's exactly why I want you to talk with him." "So that I make a fool of myself?" I said. "No, by Zeus," he said, "so that you put him in his place." "How would I manage that?" I said. "It's not easy—the man is formidable, a pupil of Ctesippus. And here he is himself—don't you see him? Ctesippus." "Never mind about that, Socrates," he said. "Go on and talk with him." "I suppose I must," I said. As we were saying this to each other, Ctesippus said, "Why are the two of you feasting all by yourselves, and not sharing the conversation with us?" "Well, we certainly ought to share it," I said. "This fellow here doesn't follow something I'm saying, and claims he thinks Menexenus knows, and tells me to ask him." "Then why don't you ask him?" he said. "I will," I said. "Tell me, Menexenus, whatever I ask you. You see, I've had a longing since I was a child for a certain possession, just as one person longs for one thing and another for something else. Some people want to acquire horses, others dogs, others gold, others honors. As for those things, I'm fairly indifferent, but toward the acquisition of friends I'm downright passionate, and I would rather have a good friend than the finest quail or gamecock in the world—yes, by Zeus, more than a horse or a dog. And, by the Dog, I think I would take a comrade in preference to Darius's gold, and prefer him even to Darius himself—that's how much of a friend-lover I am."
"Now, when I look at the two of you, at you and Lysis, I'm amazed, and I count you lucky, that at your age you're already able to acquire this possession so quickly and so easily—you got him as such a close friend so fast and so completely, and he you in turn. Whereas I'm so far from having this possession myself that I don't even know in what way one person becomes another's friend—and that's exactly what I want to ask you about, since you're experienced in it. So tell me: when someone loves someone, which of the two becomes the friend of which—the one who loves, of the one who is loved, or the one who is loved, of the one who loves? Or does it make no difference?" "It makes no difference, it seems to me," he said. "What do you mean?" I said. "Are both of them then friends of each other, even if only one of the two loves the other?" "Yes, it seems so to me," he said. "But what about this—isn't it possible to love without being loved in return by the one you love?" "It is." "And what about this—is it even possible to be hated while loving? That's what lovers sometimes seem to feel toward their beloveds—loving as intensely as possible, some think they aren't loved back, others even think they're hated. Doesn't that seem true to you?" "Very true," he said. "So in a case like that," I said, "one person loves and the other is loved?" "Yes." "So which of them is the friend of which—is the one who loves a friend of the one who's loved, whether or not he's loved back or even hated, or is the one who's loved a friend of the one who loves? Or is neither, in such a case, a friend of the other, unless both love each other?" "It does seem to be that way, at least." "Then we think differently now than we did before. Before, if one of the two loved, we said both were friends. But now, unless both love, neither is a friend." "It looks that way," he said. "So nothing is a friend to the one who loves it, unless it loves back." "It seems not." "Then neither are men lovers-of-horses, if the horses don't love them back, nor lovers-of-quail, nor lovers-of-dogs, nor lovers-of-wine, nor lovers-of-exercise, nor lovers-of-wisdom, unless wisdom loves them back. Or do people love these things, each their own, yet the things aren't dear to them at all, and the poet is lying who said— 'Blessed is the man whose children are dear to him, and his sure-footed horses, and his hunting dogs, and a host in a foreign land'?" "It doesn't seem so to me," he said. "But does he seem to you to be speaking the truth?" "Yes."
"So it seems, Menexenus, that the thing loved is dear to the one who loves it, whether it loves him back or even hates him. Take newborn children, for instance—some of them not yet capable of loving, others even hating, when they're punished by their mother or father—yet even while hating, at that very moment they're the dearest things in the world to their parents." "Yes, that does seem to be how it is," he said. "Then by this reasoning, it isn't the one who loves who is the friend, but the one who is loved." "So it seems." "And the one who is hated is the enemy, then, not the one who hates." "So it appears." "So many people are loved by their enemies and hated by their friends, and are friends to their enemies and enemies to their friends—if the thing loved is what's dear, rather than the thing that loves. And yet that's quite unreasonable, dear friend—impossible, I think, in fact—for someone to be an enemy to his friend and a friend to his enemy." "What you say does seem true, Socrates," he said. "Well then, if that's impossible, it must be the one who loves who is the friend of the one who is loved." "So it appears." "And in turn the one who hates is the enemy of the one who is hated." "That follows." "Then we'll be forced to agree to the same conclusions as before—that a person is often the friend of someone who isn't his friend, indeed often of an enemy, whenever he loves someone who doesn't love him, or even someone who hates him. And often he's the enemy of someone who isn't his enemy, or even of a friend, whenever he hates someone who doesn't hate him, or even someone who loves him." "It does seem so," he said. "Then what are we to do," I said, "if neither those who love nor those who are loved, nor even those who both love and are loved, are going to count as friends? Are we to say there's some other class of people, besides these, who become friends of one another?" "No, by Zeus, Socrates," he said, "I'm quite at a loss myself." "Can it be, Menexenus," I said, "that we've been going about this the wrong way from the start?" "I think we have, Socrates," said Lysis—and as he said it, he blushed. It seemed to me that the words had slipped out of him against his will, so intently had he been following what was said; and he'd plainly been listening that way the whole time. So, wanting to give Menexenus a rest, and pleased by Lysis's love of the discussion, I turned my remarks toward Lysis instead, and said, "Lysis, I think you're right that if we'd been examining this correctly, we wouldn't have gone so far astray."
"Well, let's not go further down that road—the inquiry looks like rough going that way. Let's go back to the path we turned off from, and look at what the poets say, since they're like fathers and guides to us in wisdom. And they don't speak carelessly when they declare who the friends really are—they say the god himself makes people friends, by drawing them to one another. I think they put it something like this: 'God ever draws like to like, and makes them known to each other.' Or have you never come across those lines?" "I have," he said. "And you've come across the writings of the wisest men too, saying this very thing—that like must always be friend to like? These are the men who discuss and write about nature and the universe." "True," he said. "Well then," I said, "are they right?" "Maybe," he said. "Maybe half right," I said, "maybe wholly right, but we don't understand it. Because it seems to us that the wicked man, the closer he gets to another wicked man and the more he associates with him, the more hostile he becomes. For he does wrong—and people who do wrong and are wronged can't possibly be friends. Isn't that so?" "Yes," he said. "Then on that showing, half of the statement wouldn't be true, if the wicked are alike to one another." "True." "But I think what they mean is that the good are alike to one another and are friends, while the bad—just as is said of them—are never even like themselves, but erratic and unstable. And what's unlike and at variance even with itself could hardly become like or friend to anything else. Don't you think so too?" "I do," he said. "This, then, is what I think they're hinting at, my friend, those who say like is friend to like: that the good man alone is friend to the good man alone, while the bad man never enters into true friendship, whether with a good man or a bad one. Do you agree?" He nodded. "So we now have who the friends are—our argument shows us they're whoever is good." "That certainly seems so," he said. "And to me as well," I said. "And yet something in it troubles me. Come, by Zeus, let's see what I'm suspicious of. The like is friend to the like insofar as it's like, and such a person is useful to his like? Or rather, put it this way: what benefit or what harm could any like thing do to another like thing that it couldn't also do to itself?
Or what could it suffer that it couldn't also suffer at its own hands? How, then, could such things be cherished by one another, having no way to help each other? Is there any way?" "There isn't." "And what isn't cherished, how is it a friend?" "Not at all." "So the like isn't friend to the like after all. But could the good be friend to the good insofar as he's good, not insofar as he's like?" "Perhaps." "Well now, isn't the good man, insofar as he's good, sufficient unto himself to just that extent?" "Yes." "And the sufficient man needs nothing, on account of his sufficiency." "Of course." "And the man who needs nothing wouldn't cherish anything either." "No, he wouldn't." "And what doesn't cherish, doesn't love." "Certainly not." "And what doesn't love isn't a friend." "Apparently not." "Then how will the good ever be friends to the good in the first place, when they neither miss each other in absence—since they're sufficient to themselves even apart—nor have any need of each other when present? What device is there for such men to hold each other in high regard?" "None," he said. "But they couldn't be friends without holding each other in high regard." "True. Now watch, Lysis, how we're being led astray. Aren't we being deceived by something whole and entire?" "How so?" he said. "I once heard someone say—and I'm just now recalling it—that like is most hostile to like, and the good most hostile to the good. And indeed he brought forward Hesiod as witness, saying that potter is angry with potter, and singer with singer, and beggar with beggar—and he said everything else works the same way: the most alike things are necessarily filled to the brim with envy, rivalry, and hatred toward one another, while the most unlike things are filled with friendship. For the poor man, he said, is forced to be friend to the rich, and the weak to the strong, for the sake of help, and the sick man to the doctor, and everyone who doesn't know is forced to cherish and love the one who does know. And he went on to develop the argument even more grandly, saying that far from like needing to be friend to like, quite the opposite is true—the most opposite is friend to the most opposite. For each thing desires its opposite, not its like: the dry desires the wet, the cold the hot, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the empty being filled, and the full being emptied, and everything else follows the same pattern.
For nourishment is the opposite acting on the opposite—like gets no benefit at all from like. And really, my friend, the man saying this seemed rather clever—he put it well. What do you two think of it?" "Well put," said Menexenus, "at least on first hearing." "Shall we say, then, that opposite is most friend to opposite?" "Certainly." "Well now," I said, "isn't that strange, Menexenus? Won't those endlessly clever men, the contrarians, pounce on us at once, delighted, and ask whether hatred isn't the very opposite of friendship? What will we answer them? Or must we agree that what they say is true?" "We must." "Will they then ask: is the hostile friend to the friendly, or the friendly to the hostile?" "Neither," he said. "But is the just friend to the unjust, or the moderate to the licentious, or the good to the bad?" "That doesn't seem right to me." "But surely," I said, "if something is friend to something else on the basis of opposition, these must be friends too." "They must." "So neither is like friend to like, nor opposite friend to opposite." "It doesn't look like it. Let's examine this further too, in case what's truly friend is escaping our notice even more—that it's neither of these, but rather what is neither good nor bad becomes friend, in some fashion, to the good." "What do you mean?" he said. "By Zeus," I said, "I don't know—I'm actually growing dizzy myself from the perplexity of the argument, and it may be that, as the old proverb says, the beautiful is what's friend. At any rate it resembles something soft and smooth and sleek—which is perhaps why it so easily slips and slides past us, being such a thing. For I say the good is beautiful. Don't you think so?" "I do." "Well then, I say, prophesying as it were, that what's neither good nor bad is friend to the beautiful and good. And listen to what leads me to this divination. It seems to me there are, as it were, three kinds of things: the good, the bad, and what's neither good nor bad. What do you think?" "The same," he said. "And neither is the good friend to the good, nor the bad to the bad, nor the good to the bad—just as our earlier argument won't allow. So it remains, if anything is friend to anything, that what's neither good nor bad is friend either to the good, or to something of its own kind. For surely nothing could become friend to the bad." "True." "And we also said just now that like isn't friend to like—right?" "Yes." "So the thing that's neither good nor bad won't be friend to its own kind either." "Apparently not."
"So it turns out that what's neither good nor bad becomes friend only to the good, and to nothing else." "So it seems, necessarily." "Well then, my boys," I said, "is what we're now saying leading us well? If we consider a healthy body, for instance, it needs no doctoring or help—it's sufficient as it is, so that no one in health is friend to a doctor on account of health. Right?" "No one." "But the sick man is, I suppose, on account of his disease." "Of course." "Now disease is bad, and medicine is beneficial and good." "Yes." "And the body, considered just as body, is neither good nor bad." "Just so." "But the body is forced by disease to welcome and love medicine." "I think so." "So what's neither bad nor good becomes friend to the good because of the presence of the bad." "So it seems." "And clearly this happens before the thing itself has become bad from the bad it has in it. For surely, once it has actually become bad, it could no longer desire the good and be its friend—we said it's impossible for bad to be friend to good." "Impossible, yes." "Now consider what I'm saying. I mean that some things are the same in kind as whatever is present in them, and some are not. For instance, if someone wants to coat something with some color, the coating is present in the thing coated." "Certainly." "Well, is the coated thing then actually the same color as what's applied to it?" "I don't follow," he said. "Let me put it this way," I said. "If someone were to smear white lead on your hair, which is fair, would it then be white, or only appear so?" "Only appear so," he said. "And yet whiteness would be present in it." "Yes." "But it still wouldn't be white in the least for that—rather, with whiteness present, it would be neither white nor black." "True." "But, my friend, when old age brings that same color upon it, then it becomes like what's present—white by the presence of white." "Of course." "So this is what I'm now asking: when something has a quality present in it, will the thing that has it be like what's present? Or will it be so only if the quality is present in a certain way, and not otherwise?" "The latter is more likely," he said. "So what's neither bad nor good is sometimes, when the bad is present, not yet bad—but there are times when it has already become such." "Certainly." "Now when it's not yet bad though the bad is present, this presence makes it desire the good; but the presence that makes it bad robs it at once of both the desire and the friendship for the good."
"For it's no longer neither bad nor good, but bad—and bad was not friend to good." "No, indeed." "On this account, then, we'd say that those who are already wise no longer love wisdom, whether they're gods or men; nor again do those love wisdom who are so ignorant as to be bad—for no one bad and stupid loves wisdom. There remain, then, those who have this bad thing, ignorance, but are not yet rendered senseless or stupid by it—who still think they don't know what they in fact don't know. This is why those who are neither good nor bad yet love wisdom, while all who are bad don't love it, nor do the good—since neither the opposite of the opposite, nor the like of the like, showed itself to us as friend in our earlier discussion. Or don't you remember?" "We certainly do," they both said. "So now, Lysis and Menexenus," I said, "we've found out, more surely than anything, what the friend is and what it isn't. We say that it—in soul, in body, everywhere—is what's neither bad nor good, and that it's friend to the good through the presence of the bad." They both agreed entirely that this was so. And I myself was thoroughly delighted, like a hunter holding gladly what he'd been hunting. And then, from I don't know where, a most strange suspicion came over me, that what we'd agreed on wasn't true, and at once, troubled, I said: "Well now, Lysis and Menexenus, it looks like we've only gotten rich in a dream." "How do you mean?" said Menexenus. "I'm afraid," I said, "that we've run into some false arguments about the friend, like men putting on airs." "How so?" he said. "Let's look at it this way," I said. "Whoever is a friend—is he a friend to someone, or not?" "He must be," he said. "For no reason at all and on account of nothing, or for the sake of something and on account of something?" "For the sake of something and on account of something." "Is that thing, for whose sake the friend is friend to his friend, itself a friend, or neither friend nor enemy?" "I'm not quite following," he said. "Naturally enough," I said, "but perhaps you'll follow this way—and I think I myself will understand better what I'm saying. We said just now that the sick man is friend to the doctor—right?" "Yes." "So he's friend to the doctor on account of disease, for the sake of health?" "Yes." "And disease is bad?" "Of course." "And what about health?" I said. "Good, bad, or neither?"
"Good," he said. "So we were saying, it seems, that the body—being neither good nor bad—is dear to medicine because of the disease, and the disease is bad, while medicine is good; and medicine took up this friendship for the sake of health, and health is good. Isn't that so?" "Yes." "And is health a friend, or not a friend?" "A friend." "And disease is an enemy?" "Certainly." "So the thing that is neither bad nor good is a friend to the good because of the bad and the hostile, and for the sake of the good and the friendly?" "So it appears." "So it is for the sake of the friend that the friend is a friend to the friend, because of the enemy?" "So it seems." "Well then," I said, "now that we've come this far, boys, let's pay attention, so we aren't deceived. That the friend has become a friend of a friend—I'll let that pass, and that like becomes friend to like, which we say is impossible—but all the same let's examine this, so that what's now being said doesn't trick us. Medicine, we say, is a friend for the sake of health." "Yes." "So health too is a friend?" "Certainly." "And if it's a friend, it's for the sake of something." "Yes." "For the sake of some friend, that is, if it's going to follow the agreement we made before." "Certainly." "So that thing in turn will also be a friend for the sake of a friend?" "Yes." "Then isn't it necessary, going on this way, that we either give up, or arrive at some starting point which will no longer refer us on to another friend, but will reach that which is first a friend, for the sake of which we say all the other things are friends too?" "Necessary." "This, then, is what I mean: I'm afraid that all the other things we said were friends for the sake of that first thing, being like images of it, may be deceiving us, while that first thing is the one that is truly a friend. Let's think of it this way: when someone values something highly—the way a father sometimes prizes his son above all his other possessions—such a man, because he holds his son above everything, would he also value something else highly? For instance, if he perceived that his son had drunk hemlock, would he value wine highly, if he thought wine would save his son?" "Of course," he said. "And wouldn't he also value the vessel the wine was in?" "Certainly." "So at that moment he values a clay cup no more than his own son, nor three cups of wine more than his son?"
"Or rather it's like this: all such earnest concern isn't really directed at these things—the things prepared for the sake of something else—but at that for the sake of which all such things are prepared. It's not that we often say we value gold and silver highly; the truth of the matter isn't really like that at all—rather, what we value above everything is whatever turns out to be that for the sake of which gold and everything else we prepare is prepared. Shall we say it's like that?" "Certainly." "So doesn't the same account apply to the friend too? For all the things we say are friends to us for the sake of some other friend, we're clearly only speaking of them that way in words; but what is really a friend seems likely to be that very thing in which all these so-called friendships end." "That does seem to be the case," he said. "So what is really a friend is not a friend for the sake of some other friend?" "True." "Well, that much is settled, then—that the friend is not a friend for the sake of some friend. But is the good a friend?" "It seems so to me." "So is the good loved because of the bad, and does it work like this: if, of the three things we were just talking about—the good, the bad, and what is neither good nor bad—the bad were removed and ceased to affect anything, neither body nor soul nor any of the other things which we say are in themselves neither bad nor good, would the good then be of any use to us at all, or would it have become useless? For if nothing could harm us any longer, we would need no benefit at all, and so it would become clear that we cherished and loved the good because of the bad, treating the good as a remedy for the bad, and the bad as a disease—and where there's no disease, there's no need of a remedy. Is that the nature of the good, and is that why we love it because of the bad—we who stand between the bad and the good—while it has no use in itself, for its own sake?" "It does seem to be that way," he said. "So the friend we have—the one in which all the other things ended, which we said were friends for the sake of some other friend—resembles none of those things. For those are called friends for the sake of a friend, but what is truly a friend appears to be exactly the opposite of that: it turned out to be a friend to us for the sake of an enemy, and if the enemy were to go away, it seems it would no longer be a friend to us." "It doesn't seem so to me," he said, "at least not as it's being put now."
"Then tell me, by Zeus," I said, "if the bad were destroyed, would there be no more hunger or thirst or anything of that kind? Or would there still be hunger, so long as men and other animals exist, only it wouldn't be harmful? And thirst too, and the other desires, only they wouldn't be bad, since the bad would have perished? Or is the question absurd—what will or won't exist then? Who knows? But this much we do know: even now it's possible to be harmed by being hungry, and it's also possible to be benefited. Isn't that so?" "Certainly." "And so with someone who is thirsty, or has any of the other such desires—it's possible sometimes to desire beneficially, sometimes harmfully, and sometimes neither?" "Very much so." "So if bad things perish, why should things that don't happen to be bad perish along with the bad?" "No reason at all." "So there will still be desires that are neither good nor bad, even if bad things perish." "So it appears." "Now is it possible for someone who desires and loves the thing he desires and loves not to feel affection for it?" "It doesn't seem so to me." "So even with bad things gone, it seems there will still be certain things that are friends." "Yes." "But if the bad were the cause of something being a friend, then once it was gone, one thing could not be a friend to another. For once a cause is removed, surely it's impossible for the thing that depended on that cause to still exist." "Rightly said." "So haven't we agreed that a friend loves something, and for some reason—and we thought, at the time, that it was because of the bad that the thing that is neither good nor bad loves the good?" "True." "But now, it seems, some other cause for loving and being loved has come to light." "So it seems." "Isn't it really, then, as we were just saying—desire is the cause of friendship, and the thing that desires is a friend to whatever it desires, and at whatever moment it desires it, whereas what we said earlier was a friend was some kind of nonsense, like a long poem strung together?" "That does seem likely," he said. "But surely," I said, "the thing that desires, desires whatever it happens to lack. Isn't that so?" "Yes." "And so what lacks is a friend to that which it lacks?" "I think so." "And a thing comes to lack something when something is taken away from it." "Of course." "So it's for what belongs to it, it seems, that erotic longing and friendship and desire turn out to exist, as it appears, Menexenus and Lysis." They both agreed. "So if the two of you are friends to each other, you are in some way naturally akin to one another." "Absolutely," they said.
"And if one person desires another," I said, "boys, or is erotically drawn to him, he would never desire or be drawn to him or love him, unless he happened to be somehow akin to his beloved, either in soul, or in some trait of soul's character, or in ways, or in appearance." "Certainly," said Menexenus; but Lysis fell silent. "Well then," I said. "It has become clear to us that we must, of necessity, love what is naturally akin to us." "So it seems," he said. "So it's necessary that the genuine lover, and not the pretend one, be loved in return by his beloved." Lysis and Menexenus nodded, somewhat reluctantly, while Hippothales, out of sheer delight, kept changing all sorts of colors. And I said, wanting to examine the argument further: if what belongs to us is in any way different from what is like us, we would be saying something, I think, Lysis and Menexenus, about what a friend is; but if being alike and belonging to one another happen to be the same thing, it won't be easy to throw out our earlier argument, that what is alike is useless to what is alike, in respect of that likeness—and it would be absurd to admit that the useless is a friend. Do you want us, then, I said, since we're practically drunk on the argument, to agree and say that what belongs to us is something different from what is like us? "Certainly." "Shall we then say that the good belongs to everyone, while the bad is foreign to it? Or that the bad belongs to the bad, and the good to the good, and to what is neither good nor bad belongs what is neither good nor bad?" They said it seemed to them that each thing belonged to its own kind in that way. "So once again, boys," I said, "we've fallen back into the very arguments about friendship that we threw out at first. For the unjust will be no less a friend to the unjust, and the bad to the bad, than the good is to the good." "So it seems," he said. "But what about this—if we say the good and what belongs to us are the same thing, doesn't it follow that only the good is a friend to the good?" "Certainly." "But surely we also thought we had refuted ourselves on that point—or don't you remember?" "We remember." "So what further use can we make of the argument? Clearly none at all. So I ask, like the clever speakers in the courts, that we go back over everything that's been said. For if neither those who are loved, nor those who love, nor the alike, nor the unalike, nor the good, nor those who belong to one another, nor any of the other things we've gone through—for I myself no longer remember them all, there have been so many—if none of these is a friend, then I no longer have anything to say."
Having said this, I intended to set some other one of the older men in motion; but then, like a couple of guardian spirits, the tutors came up—Menexenus's and Lysis's—bringing the boys' brothers with them, and called and told them to go home, for it was already late. At first we, and the bystanders, tried to drive them off; but since they paid us no attention and only grew more irritated, jabbering in their foreign accents and calling all the more insistently, they seemed to us to have had a bit too much to drink at the Hermaea and to be difficult to deal with—so we gave in and broke up the gathering. Still, just as they were leaving, I said, "Well, Lysis and Menexenus, we've made ourselves ridiculous today—I, an old man, and the two of you as well. For these boys, as they go off, will say that we think we are friends to one another—for I count myself among you—and yet we still haven't been able to discover what a friend actually is."