lysis,-or-friendship   

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 bystanders