Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 6) (Burges, 1854).djvu/436



There is no circumstance in this dialogue to inform us when it happened; but it is certain that Plato wrote it when he was yet a young man, before Ol. 95, 1, for Socrates heard it read. The scene of it is in a Palæstra, then newly built, a little with out the walls of Athens, near the fountain of Panops, between the Academia and the Lycæum. The interlocutors are, Socrates; Hippothales and Ctesippus, two young men of Athens; Lysis, a boy of noble birth and fortune, beloved by Hippothales; and Menexenus, also a boy, and cousin to Ctesippus, and friend to Lysis. The characters are, as usual, elegantly drawn; but what is the end or meaning of the whole dialogue, I do not pretend to say. It turns upon the nature and definition of friendship. Socrates starts a hundred notions about it, and confutes them all himself; nothing is determined, the dialogue is interrupted and there is an end. Perhaps a second dialogue was designed on the same subject and never executed. As to all the mysteries which Serranus has discovered in it, they are mere dreams of his own.

The first part of this dialogue is of that kind called Μαιευτικός, "Obstetrical," and the second part, Πειραστικός, "Tentative."

N. B. The discourse with Menexenus is intended to correct a boy of a bolder and more forward nature than Lysis, by showing him that he knows nothing; and leaves him in the opinion of his own ignorance. The second title of the dialogue is a false or an incorrect one, for friendship is only by accident a part of it. The intent of the whole seems to be, to show in what manner we should converse with young people according to their different dispositions.

P. 204—211. Thus far the dialogue is very easy and elegant, particularly the short conversation with Lysis, which is an example how children of fortune and family ought to be treated, in order to correct that arrogance which those advantages are apt to inspire, and to win them gradually to reflection and good sense.

P. 206. The Hermæa.] A festival celebrated in all the places of education for boys. We see here how little the severe laws of Solon on this head were observed, which particularly forbade grown persons to be admitted on that occasion, as we learn from Æschin. in Timarch.