49
Socrates
Soc. Make the division, then, on that principle; those of them who have this false conceit and are weak and unable to revenge themselves when they are laughed at you may truly call ridiculous, but those who are strong and able to revenge themselves you will define most correctly to yourself by calling them powerful, terrible, and hateful, for ignorance in the powerful is hateful and infamous—since whether real or feigned it injures their neighbors—but ignorance in the weak appears to us as naturally ridiculous.
Protarchus
Pro. Quite right. But the mixture of pleasure and pain in all this is not yet clear to me.
10
Socrates
Soc. First, then, take up the nature of envy.
Socrates
Soc. Is envy a kind of unrighteous pain and also a pleasure?
Protarchus
Pro. Undoubtedly.
Socrates
Soc. But it is neither wrong nor envious to rejoice in the misfortunes of our enemies, is it?
15
Protarchus
Pro. No, of course not.
Socrates
Soc. But when people sometimes see the misfortunes of their friends and rejoice instead of grieving, is not that wrong?
Protarchus
Pro. Of course it is.
Socrates
Soc. And we said that ignorance was an evil to every one, did we not?
Socrates
Soc. Then the false conceits of our friends concerning their wisdom, their beauty, and their other qualities which we mentioned just now, saying that they belong to three classes, are ridiculous when they are weak, but hateful when they are powerful. Shall we, or shall we not, affirm that, as I said just now, this state of mind when possessed in its harmless form by any of our friends, is ridiculous in the eyes of others?
