Plato’s Lysis Lexicon

Reading guide

The Lysis asks what a friend is while showing people already engaged in affection, courtship, companionship, and shared inquiry. Its closing acknowledgment of failure matters to every entry: an explanation tested by Socrates is not automatically a doctrine endorsed by the dialogue. The speakers believe themselves friends, yet have not discovered what the friend is (223b).

How to use an entry

Headwords are ordered by the Greek alphabet, ignoring accents and breathings. Dictionary forms identify inflected words in the text; a headword need not occur in exactly that grammatical form. Related words receive separate entries when the distinction is useful, and tightly linked minor terms may share an entry. Phrases are labelled as phrases. This is a substantial reading lexicon, not a word by word concordance of every particle or inflection.

Each entry gives transliteration and grammatical category. “Example” quotes the edition’s adopted Greek, with its own precise Stephanus reference and a short explanatory gloss. “Passages” gives additional places relevant to the discussion; it is selective, not an exhaustive occurrence list. “See also” links related and contrasting entries. Digital links lead directly to entries.

Transliteration uses ē and ō for eta and omega, y for upsilon, and ph, th, and ch for phi, theta, and chi. Initial rough breathing is represented by h. Transliteration is a reading aid, not a pronunciation guide. Greek accents belong to the headword or quoted inflection; changes of accent in connected speech are preserved in examples.

Distinctions to keep in view

Friend and dear. φίλος may name the person loving, the person loved, a mutual friend, or a valued thing. The supplied translation consistently says “friend”, including where ordinary English would prefer “dear”. The lexicon explains the different senses without concealing that repeated Greek word.

Love and desire. φιλέω is broad affection or attachment; ἐράω and ἔρως concern the lover’s desire; φιλία names friendship or affection; ἐπιθυμία includes wanting and bodily appetite. Their connection is argued, not secured by translating them all as “love”.

Like and akin. ὅμοιος means similar, ἐναντίος opposite, and οἰκεῖος one’s own or akin. The last account depends on distinguishing affinity from likeness and does not finally succeed in doing so.

Good and bad. κακός can mean harmful or deficient, as with illness and ignorance; it need not mean moral evil. Having something bad present does not always mean already having become bad. The intermediate phrase “neither good nor bad” changes explanatory role as the argument develops.

Cause and purpose. διά with an accusative identifies what prompts attachment, while ἕνεκα in the central examples identifies the end sought. At 220e the Greek itself shifts to “for the sake of an enemy”; that shift should not be silently corrected.

No unannounced technical system. Words for figure, presence, sufficiency, and inquiry do not by themselves establish a theory of Forms, participation, self-sufficiency, or dialectic. The entries distinguish what the text says from possible interpretative extensions.

Argument map

These stages locate the vocabulary. They are a map of the inquiry’s changing proposals, not a sequence of settled conclusions.

Courtship and speech

203a–206e

Hippothales’ praise of Lysis prompts Socrates to ask how a lover should speak. Hunting, song, pride, and usefulness already shape the question of becoming dear to someone.

Companions in the wrestling school

206e–207d

The boys’ play and familiar companionship precede the theoretical inquiry. Questions about age, ancestry, and wealth give way to the claim that friends share things.

Parental love and competence

207d–210e

Lysis’ parents love him but restrict his actions. The examples shift from age and status to understanding, trust, usefulness, and the provocative promise that wisdom would make everyone friendly and akin.

Who is a friend of whom

211a–213d

Socrates prizes acquiring friends. The argument tests loving, being loved, and reciprocal love, using lovers, infants, animals, and wisdom to expose the instability of a single narrow definition.

Likeness and the good

213d–215c

Poets and writers on nature supply likeness as a principle. Bad people and then the supposed sufficiency of good people create difficulties for it.

Opposition and need

215c–216b

A rival account appeals to complementary needs and opposites. Its unrestricted form would also make friendship and enmity, or good and bad, friendly to one another.

The intermediate and the good

216c–218c

What is neither good nor bad is proposed as loving the good because badness is present. Medicine, coloured hair, and ignorance distinguish presence from transformation. An apparent discovery is celebrated.

The first friend

218c–220b

Suspicion reopens the inquiry. Distinguishing cause from purpose leads through chains of valued means toward a first friend. The father, son, wine, and vessel illustrate the relation of means to ends.

Desire without badness

220b–221d

If all attachment existed only to remedy badness, it would disappear with badness. Desires can instead be beneficial, harmful, or neither, so badness is challenged as the universal cause.

Lack and what is akin

221d–222b

Desire is linked to lack, deprivation, and what belongs or is naturally akin. A conclusion favorable to the genuine lover receives only hesitant assent from the boys.

The unresolved ending

222b–223b

Akin must differ from like, but the alternatives return to old difficulties. The tutors end the gathering. Socrates includes himself among the boys’ friends while admitting that the definition has not been found.

Source and textual notes

Base edition: Plato, Lysis, Greek text of John Burnet, Oxford 1903, second impression corrected January 1909, with English translation and notes by Diotimos Editions, 2026. The supplied edition covers the complete dialogue, 203a–223b. This companion follows that edition’s adopted Greek and uses its English and notes to identify the local argument and textual decisions.

The short English glosses attached to Greek examples explain the cited wording; they are not presented as verbatim quotations of the edition’s translation. Dictionary headwords normalize inflections, while quoted examples preserve the source’s words. Line breaks and line-end word divisions are removed for continuous reading. References are to Stephanus pages and sections.

Burnet’s square brackets mark words deleted from his adopted text; angle brackets mark supplied words. Apparatus alternatives are not silently treated as running text. Particularly consequential examples include εὐπορῶ at 213c, the active hatred wording at 213a–c, the description of ignorance at 218a–b, the supplied words in 219a–b, and μεθύομεν at 222c. Entries discuss relevant differences locally.

The interpretative restraint of the lexicon is deliberate: the final account of affinity remains exposed to objections, the first friend is not securely identified with a named ultimate object, and the characters’ failure to define friendship is not a denial of their actual attachment. The dramatic scenes belong to the evidence for reading the words.

The text and apparatus used here are those supplied in the edition. This companion is not a new critical edition or an independent collation of manuscripts.

Lexical reference aids

Liddell Scott Jones Greek English Lexicon via the Perseus Scaife Atlas

Perseus Lysis Greek vocabulary listing

Lexical aids support the normalization of difficult headwords. The supplied running Greek remains the authority for quotation and passage location; automatically generated vocabulary analyses are not treated as a substitute for checking an entry.