Philebus

by Plato

SOCRATES: The fifth class are the pleasures which were defined by us as painless, being the pure pleasures of the soul herself, as we termed them, which accompany, some the sciences, and some the senses.

PROTARCHUS: Perhaps.

SOCRATES: And now, as Orpheus says,

'With the sixth generation cease the glory of my song.'

Here, at the sixth award, let us make an end; all that remains is to set the crown on our discourse.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Then let us sum up and reassert what has been said, thus offering the third libation to the saviour Zeus.

PROTARCHUS: How?

SOCRATES: Philebus affirmed that pleasure was always and absolutely the good.

PROTARCHUS: I understand; this third libation, Socrates, of which you spoke, meant a recapitulation.