Lysis

those who love, nor those who are like, nor those who are unlike, nor the good, nor those who are akin, nor any of the other things we have gone through — for I for my part no longer remember them, there are so many — but if none of these is a friend, I no longer know what to say.”

223aHaving said this, I had it in mind to rouse someone else now, one of the older people; and then, like spirits of some kind, the tutors came up, Menexenus’ and Lysis’, bringing the boys’ brothers, and called to them and told them to go home; for it was already late. At first both we and those standing around set about driving them off; but when they paid no heed to us, but were annoyed, in their half-foreign Greek, and 223b went on calling them none the less, but seemed to us, having had a bit to drink at the Hermaea,¹ impossible to deal with, we yielded to them and broke up the gathering. All the same, as they were already going away, I said, “Now, Lysis and Menexenus, we have become ridiculous, I, an old man, and you. For these people, as they go away, will say that we think we are friends of one another — for I put myself, too, among you — but have not yet been able to find out what the friend is.”