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Audiobook edition · 1 h 24 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Why do you love your friends—and does loving someone make you their friend?
In Plato’s Lysis, a walk through Athens leads Socrates to a wrestling school and a question that feels close to home. Hippothales cannot speak to the boy he loves. Socrates challenges his approach to courtship, then draws two boys into a conversation about what makes one person dear to another.
With Menexenus, a lively boy who enjoys argument, Socrates asks whether friendship belongs to the lover or the loved. Does likeness bring people together, or do opposites attract? Each answer faces another question. What begins as an afternoon’s talk opens into an inquiry about friendship, desire, and the good.
What you’ll discover
- An awkward young admirer Meet Hippothales, whose difficulty speaking to the boy he loves gives the inquiry a human starting point.
- The lover and the loved Consider whether affection makes a friend of the person who loves or the person loved.
- Likeness put to the test Follow Socrates as he questions whether similarity or opposition can explain why people become friends.
- Desire for the good Explore the thought that what is neither good nor bad reaches toward what is good.
- Questions worth staying with Watch an argument take shape, meet objections, and leave you with puzzles rather than a tidy moral.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy sharp questions about love, friendship and desire will love this dialogue. It also suits those who like a clever mind testing its own ideas, and newcomers wanting a first taste of Plato.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Friendship becomes a question
- Praise can serve the lover
- Knowledge earns trust and freedom
- One person's love is not enough
- Likeness and opposition both fail
- Recognized lack draws us toward good
- Love points beyond its immediate object
- Every reason invites another question
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Lysis
by Plato
Socrates meets two boys at a festival and asks one simple question, what is a friend, that none of them can answer.
Easy readUnder 2 hours to read2 languages
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In short
Who is a friend? Most of us think we know.
Lysis at a glance
- Reading time
- About 35 min25 min fast, 40 min slow
- Length
- 8,140 words
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
- First published
- about 380 BCby Plato
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Praise your beloved too soon and you lose
Socrates is walking from the Academy to the Lyceum when he meets Hippothales and a group of young men. They invite him into a newly built wrestling school. Socrates asks who the favorite among them is, and Hippothales turns bright red.
His friend Ctesippus explains the blush. Hippothales loves a boy called Lysis and can speak of nothing else. He writes poems about the boy and sings them in a dreadful voice. Their theme is not the boy himself but his wealthy family, its horses and its victories at the great games.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 55 min
- Level
- Easy read
Cite this edition
Plato. Lysis. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/lysis.
Plato. (2026). Lysis. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/lysis (Original work published ca. 380 B.C.E.)
Plato. Lysis. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/lysis.
@book{plato2026lysis,
author = {Plato},
title = {Lysis},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/lysis},
note = {First published ca. 380 BCE}
}
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What is Lysis by Plato about?
It is a conversation in which Socrates asks two Athenian boys, Lysis and Menexenus, what a friend is. They test whether friendship comes from love given, likeness, difference, need or desire, and none of the answers settles the matter.
Who are Lysis, Menexenus and Hippothales?
Lysis is a young, well-born Athenian boy. Menexenus is his close friend. Hippothales is an older youth who loves Lysis and writes poems for him, and Socrates uses the boys to show him how to speak to a beloved.
Does Lysis give a final definition of friendship?
The dialogue tests several definitions, such as the lover, the beloved, like, opposite and the congenial, and it stays open. What it gives is a way to think, with strong reasons on each side, that readers can carry into their own lives.
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