Lysis.
Analysis.
foolish lover of Lysis, rc:c;pecting the style ofconversation which he should address to his beloved.
Arter the return of Menexenus, Socrates, at the requc! t of Lysis, 211asks him a new question: 'What isfriendship? You, Mencxcnus, who have a friend already, can tell me, who am :cilways longing to 212find one, what is the serrd ofthis great blessing.'
When one man loves another, which is th,: friend he who loves, 213 or he who is loved? or are both frieuds? Fron.1 th,: fir ,t of these suppositions they arc c1riven to the second; and from the second
to the thir d; and neither the two boys nor Socrates are satisfi< d with any of the three or with all nf them. Socrates turns to the 214 poets, who affirm that God briugs like to like ([Iomer), aud to philosophers (Empedocles), who also assert that like is the friend
of likt:. But the bad are not friends, for they are not even like themselves, and still less are they like one another. i\nd the good h>tve no need of one another, and therefore do not care about 215 one another. Moreover there are others who say that likeness is
a cause of aversion, and unlikeness of love and friendship; and they too adduce the authority of poets and philosophf'rS in support of their doctrines; for Hesiod says that ‘potter is jealous of
potter, bard of bard;' and subtle doctors tell us that 'moist is the 216 friend of dry, hot of cold,' and the like. But neither can their doctrine be maintained; for then the just would be the friend of
the unjust, good of evil.
Thus we arrive at the conclusion that like is not the friend of like, nor unlike of unlike;, and therefore good is not the friend of good, nor evil of evil, nor good of evil, nor evil of good. What remains but that the indifferent, which is neither good nor evil, should be the friend (not of the indifferent, for that would be 'like 217 the friend of like,' but) of the good, or rather of the beautiful?
e this attachment to the beautiful or good? There are circumstances under which such an attachment would be natural. Suppose the indifferent, say the human body, to be desirous of getting rid of some evil, such as disease, which is not essential but only accidental to it (for if the evil were essent ial the body would cease to be indifferent, and would become evil) in such a case the indifferent becomes a 218 friend of the good for the sake of getting rid of the evil. In this intermediate 'indifferent' position the philosopher or lover of
