There remain those who have
the misfortune to be ignorant, but are not yet hardened in their
ignorance, or void of understanding, and do not as yet fancy that they
know what they do not know: and therefore those who are the lovers
of wisdom are as yet neither good nor bad. But the bad do not love
wisdom any more than the good; for, as we have already seen, neither
is unlike the friend of unlike, nor like of like. You remember that?
Yes, they both said.
And so, Lysis and Menexenus, we have discovered the nature of
friendship-there can be no doubt of it: Friendship is the love which
by reason of the presence of evil the neither good nor evil has of the
good, either in the soul, or in the body, or anywhere.
They both agreed and entirely assented, and for a moment I
rejoiced and was satisfied like a huntsman just holding fast his prey.
But then a most unaccountable suspicion came across me, and I felt
that the conclusion was untrue. I was pained, and said, Alas! Lysis
and Menexenus, I am afraid that we have been grasping at a shadow
only.
Why do you say so? said Menexenus.
I am afraid, I said, that the argument about friendship is false:
arguments, like men, are often pretenders.
How do you mean? he asked.
Well, I said; look at the matter in this way: a friend is the friend
of some one; is he not?
Certainly he is.
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