Scenery and personages of the Lysis.
Lysis, like Charmidês, is an Athenian youth, of conspicuous beauty, modesty, and promise. His father Demokrates represents an ancient family of the Æxonian Deme in Attica, and is said to be descended from Zeus and the daughter of the Archêgetês or Heroic Founder of that Deme. The family moreover are so wealthy, that they have gained many victories at the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games, both with horses and with chariots and four. Menexenus, companion of Lysis, is somewhat older, and is his affectionate friend. The persons who invite Sokrates into the palæstra, and give occasion to the debate, are Ktesippus and Hippothalês: both of them adults, yet in the vigour of age. Hippothalês is the Erastes of Lysis, passionately attached to him. He is ridiculed by Ktesippus for perpetually talking about Lysis, as well as for addressing to him compositions both in prose and verse, full of praise and flattery; extolling not only his personal beauty, but also his splendid ancestry and position.[1]
[1] Plato, Lysis, 203-205.
Origin of the conversation. Sokrates promises to give an example of the proper way of talking to a youth, for his benefit.
In reference to these addresses, Sokrates remonstrates with Hippothalês on the imprudence and mischief of addressing to a youth flatteries calculated to turn his head. He is himself then invited by Hippothalês to exhibit a specimen of the proper mode of talking to youth; such as shall be at once acceptable to the person addressed, and unobjectionable. Sokrates agrees to do so, if an opportunity be afforded him of conversing with Lysis.[2] Accordingly after some well-imagined incidents, interesting as marks of Greek manners — Sokrates and Ktesippus with others seat themselves in the palæstra, amidst a crowd of listeners.[3] Lysis, too modest at first to approach, is emboldened to sit down by seeing Menexenus seated by the side of Sokrates: while Hippothalês, not daring to put himself where Lysis can see him, listens, but conceals himself behind some of the crowd. Sokrates begins the conversation with Menexenus and Lysis jointly: but presently Menexenus is called away for a moment, and he talks with Lysis singly.
[2] Plato, Lysis, 206.
[3] Plato, Lysis, 206-207.
Conversation of Sokrates with Lysis.
Sokr. — Well — Lysis — your father and mother love you extremely. Lysis. — Assuredly they do. Sokr. — They would wish you therefore to be as happy as possible. Lysis. — Undoubtedly. Sokr. — Do you think any man happy, who is a slave, and who is not allowed to do any thing that he desires? Lysis. — I do not think him happy at all. Sokr. — Since therefore your father and mother are so anxious that you should be happy, they of course allow you to do the things which you desire, and never reprove nor forbid you. Lysis. — Not at all, by Zeus, Sokrates: there are a great many things that they forbid me. Sokr. — How say you! they wish you to be happy — and they hinder you from doing what you wish! Tell me, for example, when one of your father’s chariots is going to run a race, if you wished to mount and take the reins, would not they allow you to do so? Lysis. — No — certainly: they would not allow me. Sokr. — But whom do they allow, then? Lysis. — My father employs a paid charioteer. Sokr. — What! do they permit a hireling, in preference to you, to do what he wishes with the horses? and do they give him pay besides for doing so? Lysis. — Why — to be sure. Sokr. — But doubtless, I imagine, they trust the team of mules to your direction; and if you chose to take the whip and flog, they would allow you? Lysis. — Allow me? not at all. Sokr. — What! is no one allowed to flog them? Lysis. — Yes — certainly — the mule-groom. Sokr. — Is he a slave or free? Lysis. — A slave. Sokr. — Then, it seems, they esteem a slave higher than you their son; trusting their property to him rather than to you, letting him do what he pleases, while they forbid you. But tell me farther: do they allow you to direct yourself — or do not they even trust you so far as that? Lysis. — How can you imagine that they trust me? Sokr. — But does any one else direct you? Lysis. — Yes — this tutor here. Sokr. — Is he a slave? Lysis. — To be sure: belonging to our family. Sokr. — That is shocking: one of free birth to be under the direction of a slave! But what is it that he does, as your director? Lysis. — He conducts me to my teacher’s house. Sokr. — What! do they govern you also, these teachers? Lysis. — Undoubtedly they do. Sokr. — Then your father certainly is bent on putting over you plenty of directors and governors. But surely, when you come home to your mother, she at least, anxious that you should be happy as far as she is concerned, lets you do what you please about the wool or the web, when she is weaving: she does not forbid you to meddle with the bodkin or any of the other instruments of her work? Lysis. — Ridiculous! not only does she forbid me, but I should be beaten if I did meddle. Sokr. — How is this, by Heraklês? Have you done any wrong to your father and mother? Lysis. — Never at all, by Zeus. Sokr. — From what provocation is it, then, that they prevent you in this terrible way, from being happy and doing what you wish? keeping you the whole day in servitude to some one, and never your own master? so that you derive no benefit either from the great wealth of the family, which is managed by every one else rather than by you — or from your own body, noble as it is. Even that is consigned to the watch and direction of another: while you, Lysis, are master of nothing, nor can do any one thing of what you desire. Lysis. — The reason is, Sokrates, that I am not yet old enough. Sokr. — That can hardly be the reason; for to a certain extent your father and mother do trust you, without waiting for you to grow older. If they want any thing to be written or read for them, they employ you for that purpose in preference to any one in the house: and you are then allowed to write or read first, whichever of the letters you think proper. Again, when you take up the lyre, neither father nor mother hinder you from tightening or relaxing the strings, or striking them either with your finger or with the plectrum. Lysis. — They do not. Sokr. — Why is it, then, that they do not hinder you in this last case, as they did in the cases before mentioned? Lysis. — I suppose it is because I know this last, but did not know the others. Sokr. — Well, my good friend, you see that it is not your increase of years that your father waits for; but on the very day that he becomes convinced that you know better than he, he will entrust both himself and his property to your management. Lysis. — I suppose that he will. Sokr. — Ay — and your neighbour too will judge in the same way as your father. As soon as he is satisfied that you understand house-management better than he does, which do you think he will rather do — confide his house to you, or continue to manage it himself? Lysis. — I think he will confide it to me. Sokr. — The Athenians too: do not you think that they also will put their affairs into your management, as soon as they perceive that you have intelligence adequate to the task? Lysis. — Yes: I do. Sokr. — What do you say about the Great King also, by Zeus! When his meat is being boiled, would he permit his eldest son who is to succeed to the rule of Asia, to throw in any thing that he pleases into the sauce, rather than us, if we come and prove to him that we know better than his son the way of preparing sauce? Lysis. — Clearly, he will rather permit us. Sokr. — The Great King will not let his son throw in even a pinch of salt: while we, if we chose to take up an entire handful, should be allowed to throw it in. Lysis. — No doubt. Sokr. — What if his son has a complaint in his eyes; would the Great King, knowing him to be ignorant of medicine, allow him even to touch his own eyes or would he forbid him? Lysis. — He would forbid him. Sokr. — As to us, on the contrary, if he accounted us good physicians, and if we desired even to open the eyes and drop a powder into them, he would not hinder us, in the conviction that we understood what we were doing. Lysis. — You speak truly. Sokr. — All other matters, in short, on which he believed us to be wiser than himself or his son, he would entrust to us rather than to himself or his son? Lysis. — Necessarily so, Sokrates. Sokr. — This is the state of the case, then, my dear Lysis: On those matters on which we shall have become intelligent, all persons will put trust in us — Greeks as well as barbarians, men as well as women. We shall do whatever we please respecting them: no one will be at all inclined to interfere with us on such matters; not only we shall be ourselves free, but we shall have command over others besides. These matters will be really ours, because we shall derive real good from them.[4] As to those subjects, on the contrary, on which we shall not have acquired intelligence, no one will trust us to do what we think right: every one, — not merely strangers, but father and mother and nearer relatives if there were any, — will obstruct us as much as they can: we shall be in servitude so far as these subjects are concerned; and they will be really alien to us, for we shall derive no real good from them. Do you admit that this is the case?[5] Lysis. — I do admit it. Sokr. — Shall we then be friends to any one, or will any one love us, on those matters on which we are unprofitable Lysis. — Certainly not. Sokr. — You see that neither does your father love you, nor does any man love another, in so far as he is useless? Lysis. — Apparently not. Sokr. — If then you become intelligent, my boy, all persons will be your friends and all persons will be your kinsmen: for you will be useful and good: if you do not, no one will be your friend, — not even your father nor your mother nor your other relatives.
[4] Plato, Lysis, 210 B. καὶ οὐδεὶς ἡμᾶς ἑκὼν εἶναι ἐμποδιεῖ, ἀλλ’ αὐτοί τε ἐλεύθεροι ἐσόμεθα ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ ἄλλων ἄρχοντες, ἡμέτερά τε ταῦτα ἔσται· ὀνησόμεθα γὰρ ἀπ’ αὐτῶν.