May not the truth be rather, as we were saying just now, that desire is
the cause of friendship; for that which desires is dear to that which
is desired at the time of desiring it? and may not the other theory have
been only a long story about nothing?
Likely enough.
But surely, I said, he who desires, desires that of which he is in want?
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. Such, 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, 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.
It follows, he said.
Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be
loved by his love.
Lysis and Menexenus gave a faint assent to this; and Hippothales changed
into all manner of colours 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 argument,
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; and that which is neither good nor evil
to that which is neither good nor evil?
They agreed to the latter alternative.
Then, my boys, we have again fallen into the old discarded error; for
the unjust will be the friend of the unjust, and the bad of the bad, as
well as the good of the good.
That appears to be the result.
But again, if we say that the congenial is the same as the good, in that
case the good and he only will 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 cannot remember all--if none of these
are friends, I know not what remains to be said.
Here I was going to invite the opinion of some older 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 by-standers 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.
I said, however, a few words to the boys at parting: O Menexenus and
Lysis, how ridiculous that you two boys, and I, an old boy, who would
fain be one of you, should imagine ourselves to be friends--this is what
the by-standers will go away and say--and as yet we have not been able
to discover what is a friend!