I will be sure to do so, Socrates; but go on telling him something new, and let me hear, as long as I am allowed to stay. I certainly cannot refuse, I said, since you ask me; but then, as you know, Menexenus is very pugnacious, and therefore you must come to the rescue if he attempts to upset me. Yes, indeed, he said; he is very pugnacious, and that is the reason why I want you to argue with him. That I may make a fool of myself? No, indeed, he said; but I want you to put him down. That is no easy matter, I replied; for he is a terrible fellow--a pupil of Ctesippus. And there is Ctesippus himself: do you see him? Never mind, Socrates, you shall argue with him. Well, I suppose that I must, I replied. Hereupon Ctesippus complained that we were talking in secret, and keeping the feast to ourselves. I shall be happy, I said, to let you have a share. Here is Lysis, who does not understand something that I was saying, and wants me to ask Menexenus, who, as he thinks, is likely to know. And why do you not ask him? he said. Very well, I said, I will; and do you, Menexenus, answer. But first I must tell you that I am one who from my childhood upward have set my heart upon a certain thing. All people have their fancies; some desire horses, and others dogs; and some are fond of gold, and others of honour. Now, I have no violent desire of any of these things; but I have a passion for friends; and I would rather have a good friend than the best cock or quail in the world: I would even go further, and say the best horse or dog. Yea, by the dog of Egypt, I should greatly prefer a real friend to all the gold of Darius, or even to Darius himself: I am such a lover of friends as that. And when I see you and Lysis, at your early age, so easily possessed of this treasure, and so soon, he of you, and you of him, I am amazed and delighted, seeing that I myself, although I 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.