_Sokr._--Well--Lysis--your father and mother love you extremely. _Lysis._--Assuredly they do. _Sokr._--They would wish you therefore to be as happy as possible. _Lysis._--Undoubtedly. _Sokr._--Do you think any man happy, who is a slave, and who is not allowed to do any thing that he desires? _Lysis._--I do not think him happy at all. _Sokr._--Since therefore your father and mother are so anxious that you should be happy, they of course allow you to do the things which you desire, and never reprove nor forbid you. _Lysis._--Not at all, by Zeus, Sokrates: there are a great many things that they forbid me. _Sokr._--How say you! they wish you to be happy--and they hinder you from doing what you wish! Tell me, for example, when one of your father's chariots is going to run a race, if you wished to mount and take the reins, would not they allow you to do so? _Lysis._--No--certainly: they would not allow me. _Sokr._--But whom do they allow, then? _Lysis._--My father employs a paid charioteer. _Sokr._--What! do they permit a hireling, in preference to _you_, to do what he wishes with the horses? and do they give him pay besides for doing so? _Lysis._--Why--to be sure. _Sokr._--But doubtless, I imagine, they trust the team of mules to your direction; and if you chose to take the whip and flog, they would allow you? _Lysis._--Allow me? not at all. _Sokr._--What! is no one allowed to flog them? _Lysis._--Yes--certainly--the mule-groom. _Sokr._--Is he a slave or free? _Lysis._--A slave. _Sokr._--Then, it seems, they esteem a slave higher than you their son; trusting their property to him rather than to you, letting _him_ do what he pleases, while they forbid you. But tell me farther: do they allow you to direct yourself--or do not they even trust you so far as that? _Lysis._--How can you imagine that they trust me? _Sokr._--But does any one else direct you? _Lysis._--Yes--this tutor here. _Sokr._--Is he a slave? _Lysis._--To be sure: belonging to our family. _Sokr._--That is shocking: one of free birth to be under the direction of a slave! But what is it that he does, as your director? _Lysis._--He conducts me to my teacher's house. _Sokr._--What! do _they_ govern you also, these teachers? _Lysis._--Undoubtedly they do. _Sokr._--Then your father certainly is bent on putting over you plenty of directors and governors. But surely, when you come home to your mother, she at least, anxious that you should be happy as far as she is concerned, lets you do what you please about the wool or the web, when she is weaving: she does not forbid you to meddle with the bodkin or any of the other instruments of her work? _Lysis._--Ridiculous! not only does she forbid me, but I should be beaten if I did meddle. _Sokr._--How is this, by Heraklês? Have you done any wrong to your father and mother? _Lysis._--Never at all, by Zeus. _Sokr._--From what provocation is it, then, that they prevent you in this terrible way, from being happy and doing what you wish?