How do you mean? I said: they wish you to be happy, and yet hinder you from doing what you like? But answer me this: suppose you desire to ride in one of your father’s chariots and hold the reins in some race; they will not allow you, but will prevent you? That is so, to be sure, he said; they will not allow me. But whom would they allow? There is a driver, in my father’s pay. What do you say? A hireling, whom they trust rather than you, so that he can do whatever he pleases with the horses; and they pay him besides a salary for doing that! Why, of course, he said. Well, but they trust you with the control of the mule-cart, and if you wanted to take the whip and lash the team, they would let you? Nothing of the sort, he said. Why, I asked, is nobody allowed to lash them? Oh yes, he said, the muleteer. Is he a slave, or free? A slave, he replied. So it seems that they value a slave more highly than you, their son, and entrust him rather than you with their property, and allow him to do what he likes, while preventing you? And now there is one thing more you must tell me. Do they let you control your own self, or will they not trust you in that either? Of course they do not, he replied. But some one controls you? Yes, he said, my tutor The παιδαγωγός was a trusted slave who was appointed to attend on a boy out of school hours and to have a general control over his conduct and industry. here. Is he a slave? Why, certainly; he belongs to us, he said. What a strange thing, I exclaimed; a free man controlled by a slave! But how does this tutor actually exert his control over you? By taking me to school, I suppose, he replied. And your schoolmasters, can it be that they also control you? I should think they do! Then quite a large number of masters and controllers are deliberately set over you by your father. But when you come home to your mother, she surely lets you do what you like, that she may make you happy, either with her wool or her loom, when she is weaving? I take it she does not prevent you from handling her batten, or her comb, or any other of her wool-work implements. At this he laughed and said: I promise you, Socrates, not only does she prevent me, but I should get a beating as well, if I laid hands on them. Good heavens! I said; can it be that you have done your father or mother some wrong? On my word, no, he replied.

Well, what reason can they have for so strangely preventing you from being happy and doing what you like? Why do they maintain you all day long in constant servitude to somebody, so that, in a word, you do hardly a single thing that you desire? And thus, it would seem, you get no advantage from all your great possessions— nay, anyone else controls them rather than you—nor from your own person, though so well-born, which is also shepherded and managed by another; while you, Lysis, control nobody, and do nothing that you desire. It is because I am not yet of age, Socrates, he said. That can hardly be the hindrance, son of Democrates, since there is a certain amount, I imagine, that your father and mother entrust to you without waiting until you come of age. For when they want some reading or writing done for them, it is you, I conceive, whom they appoint to do it before any others of the household. Is it not so? Quite so, he replied. And you are free there to choose which letter you shall write first and which second, and you have a like choice in reading. And, I suppose, when you take your lyre, neither your father nor your mother prevents you from tightening or slackening what string you please, or from using your finger or your plectrum at will: or do they prevent you? Oh, no. Then whatever can be the reason, Lysis, why they do not prevent you here, while in the matters we were just mentioning they do? I suppose, he said, because I understand these things, but not those others. Very well, I said, my excellent friend: so it is not your coming of age that your father is waiting for, as the time for entrusting you with everything; but on the day when he considers you to have a better intelligence than himself, he will entrust you with himself and all that is his. Yes, I think so, he said. Very well, I went on, but tell me, does not your neighbor observe the same rule as your father towards you? Do you think he will entrust you with the management of his house, as soon as he considers you to have a better idea of its management than himself, or will he direct it himself? I should say he would entrust it to me. Well then, do you not think that the Athenians will entrust you with their affairs, when they perceive that you have sufficient intelligence? I do. Ah, do let me ask this, I went on: what, pray, of the Great King? Would he allow his eldest son, heir-apparent to the throne of Asia, to put what he chose into the royal stew, or would he prefer us to do it, supposing we came before him and convinced him that we had a better notion than his son of preparing a tasty dish? Clearly he would prefer us, he said. And he would not allow the prince to put in the smallest bit, whereas he would let us have our way even if we wanted to put in salt by the handful. Why, of course.

Again, if his son has something the matter with his eyes, would he let him meddle with them himself, if he considered him to be no doctor, or would he prevent him? He would prevent him. But if he supposed us to have medical skill, he would not prevent us, I imagine, even though we wanted to pull the eyes open and sprinkle them with ashes, so long as he believed our judgement to be sound. That is true. So he would entrust us, rather than himself or his son, with all his other affairs besides, wherever he felt we were more skilled than they? Necessarily, he said, Socrates. The case then, my dear Lysis, I said, stands thus: with regard to matters in which we become intelligent, every one will entrust us with them, whether Greeks or foreigners, men or women and in such matters we shall do as we please, and nobody will care to obstruct us. Nay, not only shall we ourselves be free and have control of others in these affairs, but they will also belong to us, since we shall derive advantage from them; whereas in all those for which we have failed to acquire intelligence, so far will anyone be from permitting us to deal with them as we think fit, that everybody will do his utmost to obstruct us— not merely strangers, but father and mother and any more intimate person than they; and we on our part shall be subject to others in such matters, which will be no concern of ours, since we shall draw no advantage from them. Do you agree to this account of the case? I agree. Then will anyone count us his friends or have any affection for us in those matters for which we are useless? Surely not, he said. So now, you see, your father does not love you, nor does anyone love anyone else, so far as one is useless. Apparently not, he said. Then if you can become wise, my boy, everybody will be your friend, every one will be intimate with you, since you will be useful and good; otherwise, no one at all, not your father, nor your mother, nor your intimate connections, will be your friends. Now is it possible, Lysis, to have a high notion of yourself in matters of which you have as yet no notion? Why, how can I? he said. Then if you are in need of a teacher, you have as yet no notion of things? True. Nor can you have a great notion of yourself, if you are still notionless. Upon my word, Socrates, he said, I do not see how I can. On hearing him answer this, I glanced at Hippothales, and nearly made a blunder, for it came into my mind to say: This is the way, Hippothales, in which you should talk to your favorite, humbling and reducing him, instead of puffing him up and spoiling him, as you do now.

Well, I noticed that he was in an agony of embarrassment at what we had been saying, and I remembered how, in standing near, he wished to hide himself from Lysis. So I checked myself and withheld this remark. In the meantime, Menexenus came back, and sat down by Lysis in the place he had left on going out. Then Lysis, in a most playful, affectionate manner, unobserved by Menexenus, said softly to me: Socrates, tell Menexenus what you have been saying to me. To which I replied: You shall tell it him yourself, Lysis; for you gave it your closest attention. I did, indeed, he said. Then try, I went on, to recollect it as well as you can, so that you tell him the whole of it clearly: but if you forget any of it, mind that you ask me for it again when next you meet me. I will do so, Socrates, he said, by all means, I assure you. But tell him something else, that I may hear it too, until it is time to go home. Well, I must do so, I said, since it is you who bid me. But be ready to come to my support, in case Menexenus attempts to refute me. You know what a keen disputant he is. Yes, on my word, very keen; that is why I want you to have a talk with him. So that I may make myself ridiculous? I said. No, no, indeed, he replied; I want you to trounce him. How can I? I asked. It is not easy, when the fellow is so formidable—a pupil of Ctesippus. And here—do you not see?—is Ctesippus himself. Take no heed of anyone, Socrates, he said; just go on and have a talk with him. I must comply, I said. Now, as these words passed between us,—What is this feast, said Ctesippus, that you two are having by yourselves, without allowing us a share in your talk? Well, well, I replied, we must give you a share. My friend here fails to understand something that I have been saying, but tells me he thinks Menexenus knows, and he urges me to question him. Why not ask him then? said he. But I am going to, I replied. Now please answer, Menexenus, whatever question I may ask you. There is a certain possession that I have desired from my childhood, as every one does in his own way. One person wants to get possession of horses, another dogs, another money, and another distinctions: of these things I reck little, but for the possession of friends I have quite a passionate longing, and would rather obtain a good friend than the best quail or cock in the world; yes, and rather, I swear, than any horse or dog. I believe, indeed, by the Dog, that rather than all Darius’s gold I would choose to gain a dear comrade—far sooner than I would Darius himself, so fond I am of my comrades.