🎵 Lysis (or Friendship) by Plato Dramatize Audiobook with Text, Illustrations, Sound Effect, Music

Audiobooks Dimension presents Lysis (or Friendship) by Plato Dramatize Audiobook with Text, Illustrations, Sound Effect, Music

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Author : Plato (Πλάτων)
Written : 380 BCE
Place of Origin : Ancient Greece
Original Media type : Papyrus
Original Language : Ancient Greek
Genre(s) : Ancient Greece, Dialogue
Translator : Benjamin Jowett (1817 - 1893)
Reader : David Rintoul
Musicians : The Turquoise Moon, Nature's Eye
Editor : Audiobooks Dimension
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Lysis (Λύσις) is a dialogue of Plato which discusses the nature of philia (φιλία), often translated as friendship, while the word's original content was of a much larger and more intimate bond.

No answer is given in the Lysis to the question, 'What is Friendship?' any more than in the Charmides to the question, 'What is Temperance?' There are several resemblances in the two Dialogues: the same youthfulness and sense of beauty pervades both of them; they are alike rich in the description of Greek life. The question is again raised of the relation of knowledge to virtue and good, which also recurs in the Laches; and Socrates appears again as the elder friend of the two boys, Lysis and Menexenus. In the Charmides, as also in the Laches, he is described as middle-aged; in the Lysis he is advanced in years.

SOME QUESTIONS RELATING TO FRIENDSHIP.

The subject of friendship has a lower place in the modern than in the ancient world, partly because a higher place is assigned by us to love and marriage. The very meaning of the word has become slighter and more superficial; it seems almost to be borrowed from the ancients, and has nearly disappeared in modern treatises on Moral Philosophy. The received examples of friendship are to be found chiefly among the Greeks and Romans. Hence the casuistical or other questions which arise out of the relations of friends have not often been considered seriously in modern times. Many of them will be found to be the same which are discussed in the Lysis. We may ask with Socrates,

1) whether friendship is 'of similars or dissimilars,' or of both; 

2) whether such a tie exists between the good only and for the sake of the good; or 

3) whether there may not be some peculiar attraction, which draws together 'the neither good nor evil' for the sake of the good and because of the evil; 

4) whether friendship is always mutual,—may there not be a one-sided and unrequited friendship? This question, which, like many others, is only one of a laxer or stricter use of words, seems to have greatly exercised the minds both of Aristotle and Plato.

5) Can we expect friendship to be permanent, or must we acknowledge with Cicero, 'Nihil difficilius quam amicitiam usque ad extremum vitae permanere'? Is not friendship, even more than love, liable to be swayed by the caprices of fancy? The person who pleased us most at first sight or upon a slight acquaintance, when we have seen him again, and under different circumstances, may make a much less favourable impression on our minds. Young people swear 'eternal friendships,' but at these innocent perjuries their elders laugh. No one forms a friendship with the intention of renouncing it; yet in the course of a varied life it is practically certain that many changes will occur of feeling, opinion, locality, occupation, fortune, which will divide us from some persons and unite us to others. 

6) There is an ancient saying, Qui amicos amicum non habet. But is not some less exclusive form of friendship better suited to the condition and nature of man? And in those especially who have no family ties, may not the feeling pass beyond one or a few, and embrace all with whom we come into contact, and, perhaps in a few passionate and exalted natures, all men everywhere? 

7) The ancients had their three kinds of friendship, 'for the sake of the pleasant, the useful, and the good:' is the last to be resolved into the two first; or are the two first to be included in the last? The subject was puzzling to them: they could not say that friendship was only a quality, or a relation, or a virtue, or a kind of virtue; and they had not in the age of Plato reached the point of regarding it, like justice, as a form or attribute of virtue. They had another perplexity: 

8) How could one of the noblest feelings of human nature be so near to one of the most detestable corruptions of it?

Leaving the Greek or ancient point of view, we may regard the question in a more general way. Friendship is the union of two persons in mutual affection and remembrance of one another. The friend can do for his friend what he cannot do for himself. He can give him counsel in time of difficulty; he can teach him 'to see himself as others see him'; he can stand by him, when all the world are against him; he can gladden and enlighten him by his presence; he 'can divide his sorrows,' he can 'double his joys;' he can anticipate his wants. He will discover ways of helping him without creating a sense of his own superiority; he will find out his mental trials, but only that he may minister to them. Among true friends jealousy has no place: they do not complain of one another for making new friends, or for not revealing some secret of their lives; (in friendship too there must be reserves;) they do not intrude upon one another, and they mutually rejoice in any good which happens to either of them, though it may be to the loss of the other. They may live apart and have little intercourse, but when they meet, the old tie is as strong as ever—according to the common saying, they find one another always the same. The greatest good of friendship is not daily intercourse, for circumstances rarely admit of this; but on the great occasions of life, when the advice of a friend is needed, then the word spoken in season about conduct, about health, about marriage, about business,—the letter written from a distance by a disinterested person who sees with clearer eyes may be of inestimable value. When the heart is failing and despair is setting in, then to hear the voice or grasp the hand of a friend, in a shipwreck, in a defeat, in some other failure or misfortune, may restore the necessary courage and composure to the paralysed and disordered mind, and convert the feeble person into a hero;

It is true that friendships are apt to be disappointing: either we expect too much from them; or we are indolent and do not 'keep them in repair;' or being admitted to intimacy with another, we see his faults too clearly and lose our respect for him; and he loses his affection for us. Friendships may be too violent; and they may be too sensitive. The egotism of one of the parties may be too much for the other. The word of counsel or sympathy has been uttered too obtrusively, at the wrong time, or in the wrong manner; or the need of it has not been perceived until too late. 'Oh if he had only told me' has been the silent thought of many a troubled soul. And some things have to be indicated rather than spoken, because the very mention of them tends to disturb the equability of friendship. The alienation of friends, like many other human evils, is commonly due to a want of tact and insight. There is not enough of the Scimus et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim. The sweet draught of sympathy is not inexhaustible; and it tends to weaken the person who too freely partakes of it. Thus we see that there are many causes which impair the happiness of friends.

We may expect a friendship almost divine, such as philosophers have sometimes dreamed of: we find what is human. The good of it is necessarily limited; it does not take the place of marriage; it affords rather a solace than an arm of support. It had better not be based on pecuniary obligations; these more often mar than make a friendship. It is most likely to be permanent when the two friends are equal and independent, or when they are engaged together in some common work or have some public interest in common. It exists among the bad or inferior sort of men almost as much as among the good; the bad and good, and 'the neither bad nor good,' are drawn together in a strange manner by personal attachment. The essence of it is loyalty, without which it would cease to be friendship.

Another question 9) may be raised, whether friendship can safely exist between young persons of different sexes, not connected by ties of relationship, and without the thought of love or marriage; whether, again, a wife or a husband should have any intimate friend, besides his or her partner in marriage. The answer to this latter question is rather perplexing, and would probably be different in different countries. While we do not deny that great good may result from such attachments, for the mind may be drawn out and the character enlarged by them; yet we feel also that they are attended with many dangers, and that this Romance of Heavenly Love requires a strength, a freedom from passion, a self-control, which, in youth especially, are rarely to be found. The propriety of such friendships must be estimated a good deal by the manner in which public opinion regards them; they must be reconciled with the ordinary duties of life; and they must be justified by the result.

Yet another question, 10). Admitting that friendships cannot be always permanent, we may ask when and upon what conditions should they be dissolved. It would be futile to retain the name when the reality has ceased to be. That two friends should part company whenever the relation between them begins to drag may be better for both of them. But then arises the consideration, how should these friends in youth or friends of the past regard or be regarded by one another? They are parted, but there still remain duties mutually owing by them. They will not admit the world to share in their difference any more than in their friendship; the memory of an old attachment, like the memory of the dead, has a kind of sacredness for them on which they will not allow others to intrude. Neither, if they were ever worthy to bear the name of friends, will either of them entertain any enmity or dislike of the other who was once so much to him. Neither will he by 'shadowed hint reveal' the secrets great or small which an unfortunate mistake has placed within his reach. He who is of a noble mind will dwell upon his own faults rather than those of another, and will be ready to take upon himself the blame of their separation. He will feel pain at the loss of a friend; and he will remember with gratitude his ancient kindness. But he will not lightly renew a tie which has not been lightly broken...These are a few of the Problems of Friendship, some of them suggested by the Lysis, others by modern life, which he who wishes to make or keep a friend may profitably study.

Film adaptation : Socrates (1971)
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Persons of the dialogue :

• Ctesippus : Cousin of Menexenus.
• Hippothales : of approximately the same age of Ctesippus. He is in love with Lysis but the other does not seem to return his feelings.
• Lysis (Λύσιδος) : Eldest son of Democrates I of Aexone, in his early teens. Has praise heaped on him by Hippothales but is just annoyed by it.
• Menexenus (Μενέξενος) : Son of Demophon, of the same age as Lysis.
• Socrates (Σωκράτης) [c. 470–399 BCE] : was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon.

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Persons mentioned in the dialogue :

• Darius (Δαρεῖος) [c. 550 – 486 BCE] : commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of Western Asia, parts of the Balkans (Thrace–Macedonia and Paeonia) and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.
• Democrates : father of Lysis.
• Demophon : father of Menexenus.
• Hesiod (Ἡσίοδος) : was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BCE, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by Western authors as 'the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as an individual persona with an active role to play in his subject.' Ancient authors credited Hesiod and Homer with establishing Greek religious customs. Modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought, Archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping.
• Hieronymus (Ἱερώνυμος) : father of Hippothales.
• Miccus : old friend and admirer of Socrates.

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Deities mentioned in the dialogue :

• Heracles (Ἡρακλῆς) : was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon. He was a descendant and half-brother (as they are both sired by the god Zeus) of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae (Ἡρακλεῖδαι), and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters.
• Zeus (Ζεύς) : is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus.

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Place mentioned in the dialogue :

• Aexone (Αἰξωνή) : was a deme of ancient Attica situated on the coast south of Halimus. Aixone, along with neighbouring Halai Aixonidai, belonged to the Kekropis tribe. Aexone was celebrated for its fisheries.
• Apodyterium (ἀποδυτήριον) : "undressing room" was the primary entry in the public baths, composed of a large changing room with cubicles or shelves where citizens could store clothing and other belongings while bathing.
• Asia : is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population.
• Athens (Ἀθῆναι) : is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BCE.
• Egypt : is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and the Sinai Peninsula in the southwest corner of Asia. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip of Palestine and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country, tracing its heritage along the Nile Delta back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government.
• Fountain of Panops : spring of Hermes.
• Isthmus (ἰσθμός) : is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated.
• Lyceum (Λύκειον) : was a temple in Athens dedicated to Apollo Lyceus. The Lyceum was named for the Greek god Apollo Lyceus. Initially a sanctuary made for worshiping Lyceus, it later became a public exercise area, with a gymnasium being constructed later on. It is unknown when this worship was introduced to Athens or when the Lyceum became the sanctuary.
• Nemea (Νεμέα) : is an ancient site in the northeastern part of the Peloponnese, in Greece. Formerly part of the territory of Cleonae in ancient Argolis. Here, in Greek mythology, Heracles overcame the Nemean Lion, and here, during Antiquity, the Nemean Games were held (ending c. 235 BCE) and were celebrated in the eleven Nemean odes of Pindar.
• Palaestra (παλαίστρα) : was any site of an ancient Greek wrestling school. Events requiring little space, such as boxing and wrestling, took place there. Palaestrae functioned both independently and as a part of public gymnasia; a palaestra could exist without a gymnasium, but no gymnasium existed without a palaestra.

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Term used in the dialogue :

• Athenian : pertaining to Athens (Ἀθῆναι), the capital and largest city of Greece.
• By the dog of Egypt : is an oath apparently unique to Socrates. "The dog" may be Anubis (Ἄνουβις), the god of funerary rites, protector of graves, and guide to the underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head, whose Greek counterpart is Hermes (Ἑρμῆς).
• Game at dice : The ancient Greeks played knuckle bones, and even assigned numerical values to each of the four sides of the pieces, much like modern dice. Ancient Greeks and Romans also began to form cubic dice out of clay in later antiquity. These strongly resembled contemporary dice. While the rules of many of these ancient games have been lost to time, scholars are capable of guessing and estimating some rules based on ancient sources. A well known element of dice games played first in ancient Greece and then in Rome is called “Aphrodite’s throw,” which involves throwing four knuckle bones at once. If all four landed on a different number, it was considered the best result and called “Aphrodite’s throw.”
• Gods : In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the universe or life, for which such a deity is often worshipped".
• Greeks (Έλληνες) : are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Albania, Anatolia, parts of Italy and Egypt, and to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea.
• Hermaea (Ἔρμαια) : were ancient Greek festivals held annually in honour of Hermes, notably at Pheneos at the foot of Mt Cyllene in Arcadia. Usually the Hermaea honoured Hermes as patron of sport and gymnastics, often in conjunction with Heracles. They included athletic contests of various kinds and were normally held in gymnasia and palaestrae.
• Paeanian : were an ancient Indo-European people that dwelt in Paeonia. Paeonia was an old country whose location was to the north of Ancient Macedonia, to the south of Dardania, to the west of Thrace and to the east of Illyria, most of their land was in the Axios (or Vardar) river basin, roughly in what is today North Macedonia.
• Pythian games (Πύθια) : were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. They were held in honour of Apollo at his sanctuary in Delphi every four years, two years after the Olympic Games, and between each Nemean and Isthmian Games. The Pythian Games were founded sometime in the 6th century BCE. In legend they were started by Apollo after he killed Python and set up the oracle at Delphi. They continued until the 4th century AD.

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