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any similar affection? Or may we suppose that hunger will re-
main while men and animals remain, but not so as to be
221
hurtful? And the same of thirst and the other affections,
that they will remain, but will not be evil because evil has per-
ished? Or shall I say rather, that to ask what either would be
or would not be has no meaning, for who can tell? This only
we know, that in our present condition hunger may injure us,
and may also benefit us. Is not that true?

Yes.

And in like manner thirst or any similar desire may sometimes be a good and sometimes an evil to us, and sometimes neither one nor the other?

To be sure.

But is there any reason why, because evil perishes, that which is not evil should also perish?

None.

Then, even if evil perishes, the desires which are neither good nor evil will remain?

That is evident.

And must not a man love that which he desires and affects?
He must.

Then, even if evil perishes, there may still remain some elements of love or friendship?

Yes.

But not, if evil is the cause of friendship: for in that case nothing will be the friend of any other thing after the destruction of evil; for the effect cannot remain when the cause is destroyed.

True.

And have we not been saying that the friend loves something for a reason? and the reason was because of the evil which leads the neither good nor evil to love the good?

Very true.

But now our view is changed, and there must be some other cause of friendship?

I suppose that there must.

May not the truth be that, as we were saying, desire is the cause of friendship; for that which desires is dear to that which is desired at the time of desire? and may not the other theory have been just a long story about nothing?

That is possibly true.

But surely, I said, he who desires, desires that of which he

Yes.

And that of which he is in want is dear to him?
True.

And he is in want of that of which he is deprived?
Certainly.

Then love, and desire, and friendship would appear to be of the natural or congenial. That, Lysis and Menexenus, is the inference.

They assented.

Then if you are friends, you must have natures which are congenial to one another?

Certainly, they both said.

And I say, my boys, that no one who loves or desires another would ever have loved or desired or affected him, 222 if he had not been in some way congenial to him, either

in his soul, or in his character, or in his manners, or in his form.

Yes, yes, said Menexenus.

But Lysis was silent.

Then, I said, the conclusion is, that what is of a congenial nature must be loved.

That follows, he said.

Then the true lover, and not the counterfeit, must be loved by his love.

Lysis and Menexenus gave a faint assent to this; and Hippothales changed into all manner of colors with delight.

Here, intending, to revise the argument, I said: Can we point out any difference between the congenial and the like? For if that is possible, then I think, Lysis and Menexenus, there may be some sense in our argument about friendship. But if the congenial is only the like, how will you get rid of the other argument, of the uselessness of like to like in as far as they are like; for to say that what is useless is dear, would be absurd? Suppose, then, that we agree to distinguish between the congenial and the like in the intoxication of argu

ment, that may perhaps be allowed.

Very true.

And shall we further say that the good is congenial, and the evil uncongenial to every one? Or again, that the evil is congenial to the evil, and the good to the good; or that which is neither good nor evil to that which is neither good nor evil. They agreed to the latter alternative.

error; for the unjust will be the friend of the unjust, and th bad of the bad, as well as the good of the good.

That appears to be true.

as the

But again, if we say that the congenial is the same good, in that case the good will only be the friend of the good True.

But that too was a position of ours which, as you will remember, has been already refuted by ourselves.

We remember.

Then what is to be done? Or rather is there anything to be done? I can only, like the wise men who argue in courts, sum up the arguments. If neither the beloved, nor the lover, nor the like, nor the unlike, nor the good, nor the congenial, nor any other of whom we spoke - for there were such a number of them that I can't remember them if, I say, none of these are friends, I know not what remains to be said.

Here I was going to invite the opinion of some older 223 person, when suddenly we were interrupted by the tutors of Lysis and Menexenus, who came upon us like an evil apparition with their brothers, and bade them go home, as it was getting late. At first, we and the bystanders drove them off; but afterwards, as they would not mind, and only went on shouting in their barbarous dialect, and got angry, and kept calling the boys, they appeared to us to have been drinking rather too much at the Hermaea, which made them difficult to manage, we fairly gave way and broke up the company.

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I said, however, a few words to the boys at parting: 0 Menexenus and Lysis, will not the bystanders go away, and say, "Here is a jest; you two boys, and I, an old boy, who would fain be one of you, imagine ourselves to be friends, and we have not as yet been able to discover what is a friend!"

VOL I.

LACHES.

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