Page - 916 - in The Complete Plato

PROTARCHUS: Clearly we feel pleasure. SOCRATES: And was not envy the source of this pleasure which we feel at the misfortunes of friends? PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then the argument shows that when we laugh at the folly of our friends, pleasure, in mingling with envy, mingles with pain, for envy has been acknowledged by us to be mental pain, and laughter is pleasant; and so we envy and laugh at the same instant. PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: And the argument implies that there are combinations of pleasure and pain in lamentations, and in tragedy and comedy, not only on the stage, but on the greater stage of human life; and so in endless other cases. PROTARCHUS: I do not see how any one can deny what you say, Socrates, however eager he may be to assert the opposite opinion. SOCRATES: I mentioned anger, desire, sorrow, fear, love, emulation, envy, and similar emotions, as examples in which we should find a mixture of the two elements so often named; did I not? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: We may observe that our conclusions hitherto have had reference only to sorrow and envy and anger. PROTARCHUS: I see. SOCRATES: Then many other cases still remain? PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And why do you suppose me to have pointed out to you the admixture which takes place in comedy? Why but to convince you that there was no difficulty in showing the mixed nature of fear and love and similar affections; and I thought that when I had given you the illustration, you would have let me off, and have acknowledged as a general truth that the body without the soul, and the soul without the body, as well as the two united, are susceptible of all sorts of admixtures of pleasures and pains; and so further discussion would have been unnecessary. And now I want to know whether I may depart; or will you keep me here until midnight? I fancy that I may obtain my release without many words;—if I promise that to-morrow I will give you an account of all these cases. But at present I would rather sail in another direction, and go to other matters which remain to be settled, before the judgment can be given which Philebus demands. 916