“Lysis, or Friendship” - Plato Have I not heard some one say, as I just now rec-example, the dry desires the moist, the cold the hot, ollect, that the like is the greatest enemy of the like, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the void the good of the good?—Yes, and he quoted the au-the full, the full the void, and so of all other things; thority of Hesiod, who says: for the opposite is the food of the opposite, whereas like receives nothing from like. And I thought that
‘Potter quarrels with potter, bard with bard, Beggar he who said this was a charming man, and that he with beggar;’
spoke well. What do the rest of you say?
I should say, at first hearing, that he is right, said and of all other things he affirmed, in like manner, Menexenus.
‘That of necessity the most like are most full of Then we are to say that the greatest friendship is envy, strife, and hatred of one another, and the most of opposites?
unlike, of friendship. For the poor man is compelled Exactly.
to be the friend of the rich, and the weak requires Yes, Menexenus; but will not that be a monstrous the aid of the strong, and the sick man of the phy-answer? and will not the all-wise eristics be down sician; and every one who is ignorant, has to love upon us in triumph, and ask, fairly enough, whether and court him who knows.’ And indeed he went on love is not the very opposite of hate; and what an-to say in grandiloquent language, that the idea of swer shall we make to them—must we not admit friendship existing between similars is not the truth, that they speak the truth?
but the very reverse of the truth, and that the most We must.
opposed are the most friendly; for that everything They will then proceed to ask whether the enemy desires not like but that which is most unlike: for is the friend of the friend, or the friend the friend 29
“Lysis, or Friendship” - Plato of the enemy?
Beauty is certainly a soft, smooth, slippery thing, Neither, he replied.
and therefore of a nature which easily slips in and Well, but is a just man the friend of the unjust, or permeates our souls. For I affirm that the good is the temperate of the intemperate, or the good of the beautiful. You will agree to that?
the bad?
Yes.
I do not see how that is possible.
This I say from a sort of notion that what is nei-And yet, I said, if friendship goes by contraries, ther good nor evil is the friend of the beautiful and the contraries must be friends.
the good, and I will tell you why I am inclined to They must.
think so: I assume that there are three principles—
Then neither like and like nor unlike and unlike the good, the bad, and that which is neither good are friends.
nor bad. You would agree—would you not?
I suppose not.
I agree.
And yet there is a further consideration: may not And neither is the good the friend of the good, all these notions of friendship be erroneous? but nor the evil of the evil, nor the good of the evil;—
may not that which is neither good nor evil still in these alternatives are excluded by the previous ar-some cases be the friend of the good?
gument; and therefore, if there be such a thing as How do you mean? he said.
friendship or love at all, we must infer that what is Why really, I said, the truth is that I do not know; neither good nor evil must be the friend, either of but my head is dizzy with thinking of the argu-the good, or of that which is neither good nor evil, ment, and therefore I hazard the conjecture, that for nothing can be the friend of the bad.
‘the beautiful is the friend,’ as the old proverb says.
True.