Page - 98 - in The Complete Plato

am now advanced in years, am so far from having made a similar acquisition, that I do not even know in what way a friend is acquired. But I want to ask you a question about this, for you have experience: tell me then, when one loves another, is the lover or the beloved the friend; or may either be the friend? Either may, I should think, be the friend of either. Do you mean, I said, that if only one of them loves the other, they are mutual friends? Yes, he said; that is my meaning. But what if the lover is not loved in return? which is a very possible case. Yes. Or is, perhaps, even hated? which is a fancy which sometimes is entertained by lovers respecting their beloved. Nothing can exceed their love; and yet they imagine either that they are not loved in return, or that they are hated. Is not that true? Yes, he said, quite true. In that case, the one loves, and the other is loved? Yes. Then which is the friend of which? Is the lover the friend of the beloved, whether he be loved in return, or hated; or is the beloved the friend; or is there no friendship at all on either side, unless they both love one another? There would seem to be none at all. Then this notion is not in accordance with our previous one. We were saying that both were friends, if one only loved; but now, unless they both love, neither is a friend. That appears to be true. Then nothing which does not love in return is beloved by a lover? I think not. Then they are not lovers of horses, whom the horses do not love in return; nor lovers of quails, nor of dogs, nor of wine, nor of gymnastic exercises, who have no return of love; no, nor of wisdom, unless wisdom loves them in return. Or shall we say that they do love them, although they are not beloved by them; and that the poet was wrong who sings— ‘Happy the man to whom his children are dear, and steeds having single 98