Lysis

Then the loved object is a friend to the lover, it would seem, Menexenus, alike whether it loves or hates: for instance, new-born children, who have either not begun to love, or already hate, if punished by their mother or their father, are yet at that very moment, and in spite of their hate, especially and pre-eminently friends to their parents. I think, he said, that is the case. Then this argument shows that it is not the lover who is a friend, but the loved. Apparently. And it is the hated who is an enemy, not the hater. Evidently. Then people must often be loved by their enemies, and hated by their friends, and be friends to their enemies and enemies to their friends, if the loved object is a friend rather than the loving agent. And yet it is a gross absurdity, my dear friend—I should say rather, an impossibility—that one should be an enemy to one’s friend and a friend to one’s enemy. You appear to be right there, Socrates, he said. Then if that is impossible, it is the loving that must be a friend of the loved. Evidently. And so the hating, on the other hand, will be an enemy of the hated. Necessarily. Hence in the end we shall find ourselves compelled to agree to the same statement as we made before, that frequently a man is a friend of one who is no friend, and frequently even of an enemy, when he loves one who loves not, or even hates; while frequently a man may be an enemy of one who is no enemy or even a friend, when he hates one who hates not, or even loves. [*](In this argument Socrates makes play, like one of the eristic sophists, with the ambiguous meaning of φίλος (friend or dear) and ἐχθρός (enemy or hateful). Beneath his immediate purpose of puzzling the young man lies the intention of pointing out the obscurity of the very terms friend and enemy.) It looks like it, he said. What then are we to make of it, I asked, if neither the loving are to be friends, nor the loved, nor both the loving and loved together? [*](Socrates cannot be said to have disposed of this third proposition.) For apart from these, are there any others left for us to cite as becoming friends to one another? For my part, Socrates, he said, I declare I can see no sort of shift. Can it be, Menexenus, I asked, that all through there has been something wrong with our inquiry? I think there has, Socrates, said Lysis, and blushed as soon as he said it; for it struck me that the words escaped him unintentionally, through his closely applying his mind to our talk—as he had noticeably done all the time he was listening. So then, as I wanted to give Menexenus a rest, and was delighted with the other’s taste for philosophy, I took occasion to shift the discussion over to Lysis, and said: Lysis, I think your remark is true, that if we were inquiring correctly we could never have gone so sadly astray.