PHILEBUS by Plato - Complete text

Page 54

Soc. There still remains one other sort of admixture of pleasures and pains.

Pro. What is that?

Soc. The union which, as we were saying, the mind often experiences of purely mental feelings.

Pro. What do you mean?

Soc. Why, do we not speak of anger, fear, desire, sorrow, love, emulation, envy, and the like, as pains which belong to the soul only? Pro. Yes.

Soc. And shall we not find them also full of the most wonderful pleasures? need I remind you of the anger -

Which stirs even a wise man to violence,

And is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb? - And you remember how pleasures mingle with pains in lamentation and bereavement?

Pro. Yes, there is a natural connection between them.

Soc. And you remember also how at the sight of tragedies the spectators smile through their tear?

Pro. Certainly I do.

Soc. And are you aware that even at a comedy the soul experiences a mixed feeling of pain and pleasure?

Pro. I do not quite understand you.

Soc. I admit, Protarchus, that there is some difficulty in recognizing this mixture of feelings at a comedy.

Pro. There is, I think.

Soc. And the greater the obscurity of the case the more desirable the examination of it because the difficulty in detecting other cases of mixed pleasures and pains will be less.

Pro. Proceed.

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Plato : PHILEBUS

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