{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1600/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1600","id":"gutenberg_1600","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1600","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Classical literature","Love -- Early works to 1800","Philosophy, Ancient","Socrates, 470 BC-399 BC"],"text":"Produced by Sue Asscher\n\n\n\n\n\nSYMPOSIUM\n\nBy Plato\n\n\nTranslated by Benjamin Jowett\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nOf all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form,\nand may be truly thought to contain more than any commentator has ever\ndreamed of; or, as Goethe said of one of his own writings, more than the\nauthor himself knew. For in philosophy as in prophecy glimpses of the\nfuture may often be conveyed in words which could hardly have been\nunderstood or interpreted at the time when they were uttered (compare\nSymp.)--which were wiser than the writer of them meant, and could not\nhave been expressed by him if he had been interrogated about them.\nYet Plato was not a mystic, nor in any degree affected by the Eastern\ninfluences which afterwards overspread the Alexandrian world. He was\nnot an enthusiast or a sentimentalist, but one who aspired only to\nsee reasoned truth, and whose thoughts are clearly explained in his\nlanguage. There is no foreign element either of Egypt or of Asia to\nbe found in his writings. And more than any other Platonic work the\nSymposium is Greek both in style and subject, having a beauty 'as of\na statue,' while the companion Dialogue of the Phaedrus is marked by\na sort of Gothic irregularity. More too than in any other of his\nDialogues, Plato is emancipated from former philosophies. The genius of\nGreek art seems to triumph over the traditions of Pythagorean, Eleatic,\nor Megarian systems, and 'the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy' has\nat least a superficial reconcilement. (Rep.)\n\nAn unknown person who had heard of the discourses in praise of love\nspoken by Socrates and others at the banquet of Agathon is desirous of\nhaving an authentic account of them, which he thinks that he can\nobtain from Apollodorus, the same excitable, or rather 'mad' friend of\nSocrates, who is afterwards introduced in the Phaedo. He had imagined\nthat the discourses were recent. There he is mistaken: but they are\nstill fresh in the memory of his informant, who had just been repeating\nthem to Glaucon, and is quite prepared to have another rehearsal of them\nin a walk from the Piraeus to Athens. Although he had not been present\nhimself, he had heard them from the best authority. Aristodemus, who\nis described as having been in past times a humble but inseparable\nattendant of Socrates, had reported them to him (compare Xen. Mem.).\n\nThe narrative which he had heard was as follows:--\n\nAristodemus meeting Socrates in holiday attire, is invited by him to\na banquet at the house of Agathon, who had been sacrificing in\nthanksgiving for his tragic victory on the day previous. But no sooner\nhas he entered the house than he finds that he is alone; Socrates has\nstayed behind in a fit of abstraction, and does not appear until the\nbanquet is half over. On his appearing he and the host jest a little;\nthe question is then asked by Pausanias, one of the guests, 'What shall\nthey do about drinking? as they had been all well drunk on the day\nbefore, and drinking on two successive days is such a bad thing.' This\nis confirmed by the authority of Eryximachus the physician, who further\nproposes that instead of listening to the flute-girl and her 'noise'\nthey shall make speeches in honour of love, one after another, going\nfrom left to right in the order in which they are reclining at the\ntable. All of them agree to this proposal, and Phaedrus, who is\nthe 'father' of the idea, which he has previously communicated to\nEryximachus, begins as follows:--\n\nHe descants first of all upon the antiquity of love, which is proved by\nthe authority of the poets; secondly upon the benefits which love gives\nto man. The greatest of these is the sense of honour and dishonour.\nThe lover is ashamed to be seen by the beloved doing or suffering any\ncowardly or mean act. And a state or army which was made up only of\nlovers and their loves would be invincible. For love will convert the\nveriest coward into an inspired hero.\n\nAnd there have been true loves not only of men but of women also. Such\nwas the love of Alcestis, who dared to die for her husband, and in\nrecompense of her virtue was allowed to come again from the dead. But\nOrpheus, the miserable harper, who went down to Hades alive, that he\nmight bring back his wife, was mocked with an apparition only, and\nthe gods afterwards contrived his death as the punishment of his\ncowardliness. The love of Achilles, like that of Alcestis, was\ncourageous and true; for he was willing to avenge his lover Patroclus,\nalthough he knew that his own death would immediately follow: and\nthe gods, who honour the love of the beloved above that of the lover,\nrewarded him, and sent him to the islands of the blest.\n\nPausanias, who was sitting next, then takes up the tale:--He says that\nPhaedrus should have distinguished the heavenly love from the earthly,\nbefore he praised either. For there are two loves, as there are two\nAphrodites--one the daughter of Uranus, who has no mother and is the\nelder and wiser goddess, and the other, the daughter of Zeus and Dione,\nwho is popular and common. The first of the two loves has a noble\npurpose, and delights only in the intelligent nature of man, and is\nfaithful to the end, and has no shadow of wantonness or lust. The second\nis the coarser kind of love, which is a love of the body rather than of\nthe soul, and is of women and boys as well as of men. Now the actions of\nlovers vary, like every other sort of action, according to the manner of\ntheir performance. And in different countries there is a difference of\nopinion about male loves. Some, like the Boeotians, approve of them;\nothers, like the Ionians, and most of the barbarians, disapprove of\nthem; partly because they are aware of the political dangers which ensue\nfrom them, as may be seen in the instance of Harmodius and Aristogeiton.\nAt Athens and Sparta there is an apparent contradiction about them. For\nat times they are encouraged, and then the lover is allowed to play all\nsorts of fantastic tricks; he may swear and forswear himself (and 'at\nlovers' perjuries they say Jove laughs'); he may be a servant, and lie\non a mat at the door of his love, without any loss of character; but\nthere are also times when elders look grave and guard their young\nrelations, and personal remarks are made. The truth is that some of\nthese loves are disgraceful and others honourable. The vulgar love of\nthe body which takes wing and flies away when the bloom of youth is\nover, is disgraceful, and so is the interested love of power or wealth;\nbut the love of the noble mind is lasting. The lover should be tested,\nand the beloved should not be too ready to yield. The rule in our\ncountry is that the beloved may do the same service to the lover in the\nway of virtue which the lover may do to him.\n\nA voluntary service to be rendered for the sake of virtue and wisdom is\npermitted among us; and when these two customs--one the love of youth,\nthe other the practice of virtue and philosophy--meet in one, then the\nlovers may lawfully unite. Nor is there any disgrace to a disinterested\nlover in being deceived: but the interested lover is doubly disgraced,\nfor if he loses his love he loses his character; whereas the noble\nlove of the other remains the same, although the object of his love is\nunworthy: for nothing can be nobler than love for the sake of virtue.\nThis is that love of the heavenly goddess which is of great price to\nindividuals and cities, making them work together for their improvement.\n\nThe turn of Aristophanes comes next; but he has the hiccough, and\ntherefore proposes that Eryximachus the physician shall cure him\nor speak in his turn. Eryximachus is ready to do both, and after\nprescribing for the hiccough, speaks as follows:--\n\nHe agrees with Pausanias in maintaining that there are two kinds of\nlove; but his art has led him to the further conclusion that the empire\nof this double love extends over all things, and is to be found in\nanimals and plants as well as in man. In the human body also there are\ntwo loves; and the art of medicine shows which is the good and which is\nthe bad love, and persuades the body to accept the good and reject the\nbad, and reconciles conflicting elements and makes them friends. Every\nart, gymnastic and husbandry as well as medicine, is the reconciliation\nof opposites; and this is what Heracleitus meant, when he spoke of a\nharmony of opposites: but in strictness he should rather have spoken of\na harmony which succeeds opposites, for an agreement of disagreements\nthere cannot be. Music too is concerned with the principles of love in\ntheir application to harmony and rhythm. In the abstract, all is simple,\nand we are not troubled with the twofold love; but when they are applied\nin education with their accompaniments of song and metre, then the\ndiscord begins. Then the old tale has to be repeated of fair Urania and\nthe coarse Polyhymnia, who must be indulged sparingly, just as in my\nown art of medicine care must be taken that the taste of the epicure be\ngratified without inflicting upon him the attendant penalty of disease.\n\nThere is a similar harmony or disagreement in the course of the seasons\nand in the relations of moist and dry, hot and cold, hoar frost and\nblight; and diseases of all sorts spring from the excesses or disorders\nof the element of love. The knowledge of these elements of love and\ndiscord in the heavenly bodies is termed astronomy, in the relations of\nmen towards gods and parents is called divination. For divination is the\npeacemaker of gods and men, and works by a knowledge of the tendencies\nof merely human loves to piety and impiety. Such is the power of love;\nand that love which is just and temperate has the greatest power, and\nis the source of all our happiness and friendship with the gods and with\none another. I dare say that I have omitted to mention many things which\nyou, Aristophanes, may supply, as I perceive that you are cured of the\nhiccough.\n\nAristophanes is the next speaker:--\n\nHe professes to open a new vein of discourse, in which he begins by\ntreating of the origin of human nature. The sexes were originally three,\nmen, women, and the union of the two; and they were made round--having\nfour hands, four feet, two faces on a round neck, and the rest to\ncorrespond. Terrible was their strength and swiftness; and they were\nessaying to scale heaven and attack the gods. Doubt reigned in the\ncelestial councils; the gods were divided between the desire of quelling\nthe pride of man and the fear of losing the sacrifices. At last Zeus hit\nupon an expedient. Let us cut them in two, he said; then they will only\nhave half their strength, and we shall have twice as many sacrifices. He\nspake, and split them as you might split an egg with an hair; and when\nthis was done, he told Apollo to give their faces a twist and re-arrange\ntheir persons, taking out the wrinkles and tying the skin in a knot\nabout the navel. The two halves went about looking for one another, and\nwere ready to die of hunger in one another's arms. Then Zeus invented an\nadjustment of the sexes, which enabled them to marry and go their way\nto the business of life. Now the characters of men differ accordingly\nas they are derived from the original man or the original woman, or the\noriginal man-woman. Those who come from the man-woman are lascivious and\nadulterous; those who come from the woman form female attachments; those\nwho are a section of the male follow the male and embrace him, and in\nhim all their desires centre. The pair are inseparable and live together\nin pure and manly affection; yet they cannot tell what they want of one\nanother. But if Hephaestus were to come to them with his instruments\nand propose that they should be melted into one and remain one here and\nhereafter, they would acknowledge that this was the very expression of\ntheir want. For love is the desire of the whole, and the pursuit of the\nwhole is called love. There was a time when the two sexes were only one,\nbut now God has halved them,--much as the Lacedaemonians have cut up\nthe Arcadians,--and if they do not behave themselves he will divide\nthem again, and they will hop about with half a nose and face in basso\nrelievo. Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may obtain\nthe goods of which love is the author, and be reconciled to God, and\nfind our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world. And now I\nmust beg you not to suppose that I am alluding to Pausanias and Agathon\n(compare Protag.), for my words refer to all mankind everywhere.\n\nSome raillery ensues first between Aristophanes and Eryximachus, and\nthen between Agathon, who fears a few select friends more than any\nnumber of spectators at the theatre, and Socrates, who is disposed to\nbegin an argument. This is speedily repressed by Phaedrus, who reminds\nthe disputants of their tribute to the god. Agathon's speech follows:--\n\nHe will speak of the god first and then of his gifts: He is the fairest\nand blessedest and best of the gods, and also the youngest, having had\nno existence in the old days of Iapetus and Cronos when the gods were\nat war. The things that were done then were done of necessity and not\nof love. For love is young and dwells in soft places,--not like Ate\nin Homer, walking on the skulls of men, but in their hearts and\nsouls, which are soft enough. He is all flexibility and grace, and his\nhabitation is among the flowers, and he cannot do or suffer wrong; for\nall men serve and obey him of their own free will, and where there is\nlove there is obedience, and where obedience, there is justice; for\nnone can be wronged of his own free will. And he is temperate as well as\njust, for he is the ruler of the desires, and if he rules them he must\nbe temperate. Also he is courageous, for he is the conqueror of the lord\nof war. And he is wise too; for he is a poet, and the author of poesy in\nothers. He created the animals; he is the inventor of the arts; all the\ngods are his subjects; he is the fairest and best himself, and the cause\nof what is fairest and best in others; he makes men to be of one mind\nat a banquet, filling them with affection and emptying them of\ndisaffection; the pilot, helper, defender, saviour of men, in whose\nfootsteps let every man follow, chanting a strain of love. Such is the\ndiscourse, half playful, half serious, which I dedicate to the god.\n\nThe turn of Socrates comes next. He begins by remarking satirically\nthat he has not understood the terms of the original agreement, for he\nfancied that they meant to speak the true praises of love, but now he\nfinds that they only say what is good of him, whether true or false. He\nbegs to be absolved from speaking falsely, but he is willing to speak\nthe truth, and proposes to begin by questioning Agathon. The result of\nhis questions may be summed up as follows:--\n\nLove is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love\nis or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. And love is of\nthe beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful\nis the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love\nalso wants and desires the good. Socrates professes to have asked the\nsame questions and to have obtained the same answers from Diotima, a\nwise woman of Mantinea, who, like Agathon, had spoken first of love and\nthen of his works. Socrates, like Agathon, had told her that Love is a\nmighty god and also fair, and she had shown him in return that Love was\nneither, but in a mean between fair and foul, good and evil, and not a\ngod at all, but only a great demon or intermediate power (compare the\nspeech of Eryximachus) who conveys to the gods the prayers of men, and\nto men the commands of the gods.\n\nSocrates asks: Who are his father and mother? To this Diotima replies\nthat he is the son of Plenty and Poverty, and partakes of the nature of\nboth, and is full and starved by turns. Like his mother he is poor and\nsqualid, lying on mats at doors (compare the speech of Pausanias);\nlike his father he is bold and strong, and full of arts and resources.\nFurther, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge:--in this he\nresembles the philosopher who is also in a mean between the wise and the\nignorant. Such is the nature of Love, who is not to be confused with the\nbeloved.\n\nBut Love desires the beautiful; and then arises the question, What does\nhe desire of the beautiful? He desires, of course, the possession of\nthe beautiful;--but what is given by that? For the beautiful let us\nsubstitute the good, and we have no difficulty in seeing the possession\nof the good to be happiness, and Love to be the desire of happiness,\nalthough the meaning of the word has been too often confined to one\nkind of love. And Love desires not only the good, but the everlasting\npossession of the good. Why then is there all this flutter and\nexcitement about love? Because all men and women at a certain age are\ndesirous of bringing to the birth. And love is not of beauty only, but\nof birth in beauty; this is the principle of immortality in a mortal\ncreature. When beauty approaches, then the conceiving power is benign\nand diffuse; when foulness, she is averted and morose.\n\nBut why again does this extend not only to men but also to animals?\nBecause they too have an instinct of immortality. Even in the same\nindividual there is a perpetual succession as well of the parts of the\nmaterial body as of the thoughts and desires of the mind; nay, even\nknowledge comes and goes. There is no sameness of existence, but the new\nmortality is always taking the place of the old. This is the reason why\nparents love their children--for the sake of immortality; and this is\nwhy men love the immortality of fame. For the creative soul creates not\nchildren, but conceptions of wisdom and virtue, such as poets and other\ncreators have invented. And the noblest creations of all are those of\nlegislators, in honour of whom temples have been raised. Who would not\nsooner have these children of the mind than the ordinary human ones?\n(Compare Bacon's Essays, 8:--'Certainly the best works and of greatest\nmerit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men;\nwhich both in affection and means have married and endowed the public.')\n\nI will now initiate you, she said, into the greater mysteries; for he\nwho would proceed in due course should love first one fair form, and\nthen many, and learn the connexion of them; and from beautiful bodies\nhe should proceed to beautiful minds, and the beauty of laws and\ninstitutions, until he perceives that all beauty is of one kindred; and\nfrom institutions he should go on to the sciences, until at last the\nvision is revealed to him of a single science of universal beauty, and\nthen he will behold the everlasting nature which is the cause of all,\nand will be near the end. In the contemplation of that supreme being of\nlove he will be purified of earthly leaven, and will behold beauty, not\nwith the bodily eye, but with the eye of the mind, and will bring forth\ntrue creations of virtue and wisdom, and be the friend of God and heir\nof immortality.\n\nSuch, Phaedrus, is the tale which I heard from the stranger of Mantinea,\nand which you may call the encomium of love, or what you please.\n\nThe company applaud the speech of Socrates, and Aristophanes is about to\nsay something, when suddenly a band of revellers breaks into the court,\nand the voice of Alcibiades is heard asking for Agathon. He is led\nin drunk, and welcomed by Agathon, whom he has come to crown with\na garland. He is placed on a couch at his side, but suddenly, on\nrecognizing Socrates, he starts up, and a sort of conflict is carried\non between them, which Agathon is requested to appease. Alcibiades then\ninsists that they shall drink, and has a large wine-cooler filled,\nwhich he first empties himself, and then fills again and passes on to\nSocrates. He is informed of the nature of the entertainment; and is\nready to join, if only in the character of a drunken and disappointed\nlover he may be allowed to sing the praises of Socrates:--\n\nHe begins by comparing Socrates first to the busts of Silenus, which\nhave images of the gods inside them; and, secondly, to Marsyas the\nflute-player. For Socrates produces the same effect with the voice which\nMarsyas did with the flute. He is the great speaker and enchanter\nwho ravishes the souls of men; the convincer of hearts too, as he has\nconvinced Alcibiades, and made him ashamed of his mean and miserable\nlife. Socrates at one time seemed about to fall in love with him; and he\nthought that he would thereby gain a wonderful opportunity of receiving\nlessons of wisdom. He narrates the failure of his design. He has\nsuffered agonies from him, and is at his wit's end. He then proceeds to\nmention some other particulars of the life of Socrates; how they were at\nPotidaea together, where Socrates showed his superior powers of enduring\ncold and fatigue; how on one occasion he had stood for an entire day and\nnight absorbed in reflection amid the wonder of the spectators; how on\nanother occasion he had saved Alcibiades' life; how at the battle\nof Delium, after the defeat, he might be seen stalking about like a\npelican, rolling his eyes as Aristophanes had described him in the\nClouds. He is the most wonderful of human beings, and absolutely unlike\nanyone but a satyr. Like the satyr in his language too; for he uses the\ncommonest words as the outward mask of the divinest truths.\n\nWhen Alcibiades has done speaking, a dispute begins between him\nand Agathon and Socrates. Socrates piques Alcibiades by a pretended\naffection for Agathon. Presently a band of revellers appears, who\nintroduce disorder into the feast; the sober part of the company,\nEryximachus, Phaedrus, and others, withdraw; and Aristodemus, the\nfollower of Socrates, sleeps during the whole of a long winter's night.\nWhen he wakes at cockcrow the revellers are nearly all asleep. Only\nSocrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon hold out; they are drinking from a\nlarge goblet, which they pass round, and Socrates is explaining to the\ntwo others, who are half-asleep, that the genius of tragedy is the same\nas that of comedy, and that the writer of tragedy ought to be a writer\nof comedy also. And first Aristophanes drops, and then, as the day is\ndawning, Agathon. Socrates, having laid them to rest, takes a bath and\ngoes to his daily avocations until the evening. Aristodemus follows.\n\n...\n\nIf it be true that there are more things in the Symposium of Plato than\nany commentator has dreamed of, it is also true that many things have\nbeen imagined which are not really to be found there. Some writings\nhardly admit of a more distinct interpretation than a musical\ncomposition; and every reader may form his own accompaniment of thought\nor feeling to the strain which he hears. The Symposium of Plato is a\nwork of this character, and can with difficulty be rendered in any words\nbut the writer's own. There are so many half-lights and cross-lights,\nso much of the colour of mythology, and of the manner of sophistry\nadhering--rhetoric and poetry, the playful and the serious, are so\nsubtly intermingled in it, and vestiges of old philosophy so curiously\nblend with germs of future knowledge, that agreement among interpreters\nis not to be expected. The expression 'poema magis putandum quam\ncomicorum poetarum,' which has been applied to all the writings of\nPlato, is especially applicable to the Symposium.\n\nThe power of love is represented in the Symposium as running through all\nnature and all being: at one end descending to animals and plants, and\nattaining to the highest vision of truth at the other. In an age\nwhen man was seeking for an expression of the world around him, the\nconception of love greatly affected him. One of the first distinctions\nof language and of mythology was that of gender; and at a later period\nthe ancient physicist, anticipating modern science, saw, or thought\nthat he saw, a sex in plants; there were elective affinities among the\nelements, marriages of earth and heaven. (Aesch. Frag. Dan.) Love became\na mythic personage whom philosophy, borrowing from poetry, converted\ninto an efficient cause of creation. The traces of the existence of\nlove, as of number and figure, were everywhere discerned; and in the\nPythagorean list of opposites male and female were ranged side by side\nwith odd and even, finite and infinite.\n\nBut Plato seems also to be aware that there is a mystery of love in man\nas well as in nature, extending beyond the mere immediate relation of\nthe sexes. He is conscious that the highest and noblest things in the\nworld are not easily severed from the sensual desires, or may even be\nregarded as a spiritualized form of them. We may observe that Socrates\nhimself is not represented as originally unimpassioned, but as one who\nhas overcome his passions; the secret of his power over others partly\nlies in his passionate but self-controlled nature. In the Phaedrus and\nSymposium love is not merely the feeling usually so called, but the\nmystical contemplation of the beautiful and the good. The same passion\nwhich may wallow in the mire is capable of rising to the loftiest\nheights--of penetrating the inmost secret of philosophy. The highest\nlove is the love not of a person, but of the highest and purest\nabstraction. This abstraction is the far-off heaven on which the eye of\nthe mind is fixed in fond amazement. The unity of truth, the consistency\nof the warring elements of the world, the enthusiasm for knowledge when\nfirst beaming upon mankind, the relativity of ideas to the human\nmind, and of the human mind to ideas, the faith in the invisible,\nthe adoration of the eternal nature, are all included, consciously or\nunconsciously, in Plato's doctrine of love.\n\nThe successive speeches in praise of love are characteristic of the\nspeakers, and contribute in various degrees to the final result; they\nare all designed to prepare the way for Socrates, who gathers up the\nthreads anew, and skims the highest points of each of them. But they are\nnot to be regarded as the stages of an idea, rising above one another\nto a climax. They are fanciful, partly facetious performances, 'yet also\nhaving a certain measure of seriousness,' which the successive speakers\ndedicate to the god. All of them are rhetorical and poetical rather than\ndialectical, but glimpses of truth appear in them. When Eryximachus says\nthat the principles of music are simple in themselves, but confused\nin their application, he touches lightly upon a difficulty which has\ntroubled the moderns as well as the ancients in music, and may be\nextended to the other applied sciences. That confusion begins in the\nconcrete, was the natural feeling of a mind dwelling in the world of\nideas. When Pausanias remarks that personal attachments are inimical\nto despots. The experience of Greek history confirms the truth of his\nremark. When Aristophanes declares that love is the desire of the whole,\nhe expresses a feeling not unlike that of the German philosopher, who\nsays that 'philosophy is home sickness.' When Agathon says that no man\n'can be wronged of his own free will,' he is alluding playfully to a\nserious problem of Greek philosophy (compare Arist. Nic. Ethics). So\nnaturally does Plato mingle jest and earnest, truth and opinion in the\nsame work.\n\nThe characters--of Phaedrus, who has been the cause of more\nphilosophical discussions than any other man, with the exception of\nSimmias the Theban (Phaedrus); of Aristophanes, who disguises under\ncomic imagery a serious purpose; of Agathon, who in later life is\nsatirized by Aristophanes in the Thesmophoriazusae, for his effeminate\nmanners and the feeble rhythms of his verse; of Alcibiades, who is the\nsame strange contrast of great powers and great vices, which meets us\nin history--are drawn to the life; and we may suppose the less-known\ncharacters of Pausanias and Eryximachus to be also true to the\ntraditional recollection of them (compare Phaedr., Protag.; and compare\nSympos. with Phaedr.). We may also remark that Aristodemus is called\n'the little' in Xenophon's Memorabilia (compare Symp.).\n\nThe speeches have been said to follow each other in pairs: Phaedrus and\nPausanias being the ethical, Eryximachus and Aristophanes the physical\nspeakers, while in Agathon and Socrates poetry and philosophy blend\ntogether. The speech of Phaedrus is also described as the mythological,\nthat of Pausanias as the political, that of Eryximachus as the\nscientific, that of Aristophanes as the artistic (!), that of Socrates\nas the philosophical. But these and similar distinctions are not found\nin Plato;--they are the points of view of his critics, and seem to\nimpede rather than to assist us in understanding him.\n\nWhen the turn of Socrates comes round he cannot be allowed to disturb\nthe arrangement made at first. With the leave of Phaedrus he asks a few\nquestions, and then he throws his argument into the form of a speech\n(compare Gorg., Protag.). But his speech is really the narrative of a\ndialogue between himself and Diotima. And as at a banquet good manners\nwould not allow him to win a victory either over his host or any of\nthe guests, the superiority which he gains over Agathon is ingeniously\nrepresented as having been already gained over himself by her. The\nartifice has the further advantage of maintaining his accustomed\nprofession of ignorance (compare Menex.). Even his knowledge of the\nmysteries of love, to which he lays claim here and elsewhere (Lys.), is\ngiven by Diotima.\n\nThe speeches are attested to us by the very best authority. The madman\nApollodorus, who for three years past has made a daily study of the\nactions of Socrates--to whom the world is summed up in the words 'Great\nis Socrates'--he has heard them from another 'madman,' Aristodemus,\nwho was the 'shadow' of Socrates in days of old, like him going about\nbarefooted, and who had been present at the time. 'Would you desire\nbetter witness?' The extraordinary narrative of Alcibiades is\ningeniously represented as admitted by Socrates, whose silence when he\nis invited to contradict gives consent to the narrator. We may observe,\nby the way, (1) how the very appearance of Aristodemus by himself is\na sufficient indication to Agathon that Socrates has been left behind;\nalso, (2) how the courtesy of Agathon anticipates the excuse which\nSocrates was to have made on Aristodemus' behalf for coming uninvited;\n(3) how the story of the fit or trance of Socrates is confirmed by the\nmention which Alcibiades makes of a similar fit of abstraction occurring\nwhen he was serving with the army at Potidaea; like (4) the drinking\npowers of Socrates and his love of the fair, which receive a similar\nattestation in the concluding scene; or the attachment of Aristodemus,\nwho is not forgotten when Socrates takes his departure. (5) We may\nnotice the manner in which Socrates himself regards the first five\nspeeches, not as true, but as fanciful and exaggerated encomiums of the\ngod Love; (6) the satirical character of them, shown especially in\nthe appeals to mythology, in the reasons which are given by Zeus for\nreconstructing the frame of man, or by the Boeotians and Eleans\nfor encouraging male loves; (7) the ruling passion of Socrates for\ndialectics, who will argue with Agathon instead of making a speech, and\nwill only speak at all upon the condition that he is allowed to speak\nthe truth. We may note also the touch of Socratic irony, (8) which\nadmits of a wide application and reveals a deep insight into the\nworld:--that in speaking of holy things and persons there is a general\nunderstanding that you should praise them, not that you should speak the\ntruth about them--this is the sort of praise which Socrates is unable to\ngive. Lastly, (9) we may remark that the banquet is a real banquet after\nall, at which love is the theme of discourse, and huge quantities of\nwine are drunk.\n\nThe discourse of Phaedrus is half-mythical, half-ethical; and he\nhimself, true to the character which is given him in the Dialogue\nbearing his name, is half-sophist, half-enthusiast. He is the critic\nof poetry also, who compares Homer and Aeschylus in the insipid\nand irrational manner of the schools of the day, characteristically\nreasoning about the probability of matters which do not admit of\nreasoning. He starts from a noble text: 'That without the sense of\nhonour and dishonour neither states nor individuals ever do any good\nor great work.' But he soon passes on to more common-place topics. The\nantiquity of love, the blessing of having a lover, the incentive which\nlove offers to daring deeds, the examples of Alcestis and Achilles, are\nthe chief themes of his discourse. The love of women is regarded by him\nas almost on an equality with that of men; and he makes the singular\nremark that the gods favour the return of love which is made by the\nbeloved more than the original sentiment, because the lover is of a\nnobler and diviner nature.\n\nThere is something of a sophistical ring in the speech of Phaedrus,\nwhich recalls the first speech in imitation of Lysias, occurring in the\nDialogue called the Phaedrus. This is still more marked in the speech of\nPausanias which follows; and which is at once hyperlogical in form and\nalso extremely confused and pedantic. Plato is attacking the logical\nfeebleness of the sophists and rhetoricians, through their pupils, not\nforgetting by the way to satirize the monotonous and unmeaning rhythms\nwhich Prodicus and others were introducing into Attic prose (compare\nProtag.). Of course, he is 'playing both sides of the game,' as in the\nGorgias and Phaedrus; but it is not necessary in order to understand him\nthat we should discuss the fairness of his mode of proceeding. The\nlove of Pausanias for Agathon has already been touched upon in the\nProtagoras, and is alluded to by Aristophanes. Hence he is naturally the\nupholder of male loves, which, like all the other affections or\nactions of men, he regards as varying according to the manner of their\nperformance. Like the sophists and like Plato himself, though in a\ndifferent sense, he begins his discussion by an appeal to mythology,\nand distinguishes between the elder and younger love. The value which\nhe attributes to such loves as motives to virtue and philosophy is at\nvariance with modern and Christian notions, but is in accordance with\nHellenic sentiment. The opinion of Christendom has not altogether\ncondemned passionate friendships between persons of the same sex, but\nhas certainly not encouraged them, because though innocent in themselves\nin a few temperaments they are liable to degenerate into fearful evil.\nPausanias is very earnest in the defence of such loves; and he speaks of\nthem as generally approved among Hellenes and disapproved by barbarians.\nHis speech is 'more words than matter,' and might have been composed by\na pupil of Lysias or of Prodicus, although there is no hint given that\nPlato is specially referring to them. As Eryximachus says, 'he makes a\nfair beginning, but a lame ending.'\n\nPlato transposes the two next speeches, as in the Republic he would\ntranspose the virtues and the mathematical sciences. This is done partly\nto avoid monotony, partly for the sake of making Aristophanes 'the cause\nof wit in others,' and also in order to bring the comic and tragic\npoet into juxtaposition, as if by accident. A suitable 'expectation' of\nAristophanes is raised by the ludicrous circumstance of his having the\nhiccough, which is appropriately cured by his substitute, the physician\nEryximachus. To Eryximachus Love is the good physician; he sees\neverything as an intelligent physicist, and, like many professors of his\nart in modern times, attempts to reduce the moral to the physical; or\nrecognises one law of love which pervades them both. There are loves\nand strifes of the body as well as of the mind. Like Hippocrates the\nAsclepiad, he is a disciple of Heracleitus, whose conception of the\nharmony of opposites he explains in a new way as the harmony after\ndiscord; to his common sense, as to that of many moderns as well as\nancients, the identity of contradictories is an absurdity. His notion of\nlove may be summed up as the harmony of man with himself in soul as well\nas body, and of all things in heaven and earth with one another.\n\nAristophanes is ready to laugh and make laugh before he opens his mouth,\njust as Socrates, true to his character, is ready to argue before he\nbegins to speak. He expresses the very genius of the old comedy, its\ncoarse and forcible imagery, and the licence of its language in speaking\nabout the gods. He has no sophistical notions about love, which\nis brought back by him to its common-sense meaning of love between\nintelligent beings. His account of the origin of the sexes has the\ngreatest (comic) probability and verisimilitude. Nothing in Aristophanes\nis more truly Aristophanic than the description of the human monster\nwhirling round on four arms and four legs, eight in all, with incredible\nrapidity. Yet there is a mixture of earnestness in this jest; three\nserious principles seem to be insinuated:--first, that man cannot exist\nin isolation; he must be reunited if he is to be perfected: secondly,\nthat love is the mediator and reconciler of poor, divided human nature:\nthirdly, that the loves of this world are an indistinct anticipation of\nan ideal union which is not yet realized.\n\nThe speech of Agathon is conceived in a higher strain, and receives the\nreal, if half-ironical, approval of Socrates. It is the speech of the\ntragic poet and a sort of poem, like tragedy, moving among the gods of\nOlympus, and not among the elder or Orphic deities. In the idea of the\nantiquity of love he cannot agree; love is not of the olden time, but\npresent and youthful ever. The speech may be compared with that speech\nof Socrates in the Phaedrus in which he describes himself as talking\ndithyrambs. It is at once a preparation for Socrates and a foil to him.\nThe rhetoric of Agathon elevates the soul to 'sunlit heights,' but at\nthe same time contrasts with the natural and necessary eloquence of\nSocrates. Agathon contributes the distinction between love and the works\nof love, and also hints incidentally that love is always of beauty,\nwhich Socrates afterwards raises into a principle. While the\nconsciousness of discord is stronger in the comic poet Aristophanes,\nAgathon, the tragic poet, has a deeper sense of harmony and\nreconciliation, and speaks of Love as the creator and artist.\n\nAll the earlier speeches embody common opinions coloured with a tinge of\nphilosophy. They furnish the material out of which Socrates proceeds to\nform his discourse, starting, as in other places, from mythology and\nthe opinions of men. From Phaedrus he takes the thought that love is\nstronger than death; from Pausanias, that the true love is akin to\nintellect and political activity; from Eryximachus, that love is a\nuniversal phenomenon and the great power of nature; from Aristophanes,\nthat love is the child of want, and is not merely the love of the\ncongenial or of the whole, but (as he adds) of the good; from Agathon,\nthat love is of beauty, not however of beauty only, but of birth\nin beauty. As it would be out of character for Socrates to make a\nlengthened harangue, the speech takes the form of a dialogue between\nSocrates and a mysterious woman of foreign extraction. She elicits the\nfinal truth from one who knows nothing, and who, speaking by the lips\nof another, and himself a despiser of rhetoric, is proved also to be the\nmost consummate of rhetoricians (compare Menexenus).\n\nThe last of the six discourses begins with a short argument which\noverthrows not only Agathon but all the preceding speakers by the help\nof a distinction which has escaped them. Extravagant praises have been\nascribed to Love as the author of every good; no sort of encomium was\ntoo high for him, whether deserved and true or not. But Socrates has no\ntalent for speaking anything but the truth, and if he is to speak the\ntruth of Love he must honestly confess that he is not a good at all: for\nlove is of the good, and no man can desire that which he has. This\npiece of dialectics is ascribed to Diotima, who has already urged\nupon Socrates the argument which he urges against Agathon. That the\ndistinction is a fallacy is obvious; it is almost acknowledged to be so\nby Socrates himself. For he who has beauty or good may desire more of\nthem; and he who has beauty or good in himself may desire beauty and\ngood in others. The fallacy seems to arise out of a confusion between\nthe abstract ideas of good and beauty, which do not admit of degrees,\nand their partial realization in individuals.\n\nBut Diotima, the prophetess of Mantineia, whose sacred and superhuman\ncharacter raises her above the ordinary proprieties of women, has taught\nSocrates far more than this about the art and mystery of love. She has\ntaught him that love is another aspect of philosophy. The same want in\nthe human soul which is satisfied in the vulgar by the procreation of\nchildren, may become the highest aspiration of intellectual desire.\nAs the Christian might speak of hungering and thirsting after\nrighteousness; or of divine loves under the figure of human (compare\nEph. 'This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the\nchurch'); as the mediaeval saint might speak of the 'fruitio Dei;' as\nDante saw all things contained in his love of Beatrice, so Plato would\nhave us absorb all other loves and desires in the love of knowledge.\nHere is the beginning of Neoplatonism, or rather, perhaps, a proof (of\nwhich there are many) that the so-called mysticism of the East was\nnot strange to the Greek of the fifth century before Christ. The first\ntumult of the affections was not wholly subdued; there were longings of\na creature moving about in worlds not realized, which no art could\nsatisfy. To most men reason and passion appear to be antagonistic both\nin idea and fact. The union of the greatest comprehension of knowledge\nand the burning intensity of love is a contradiction in nature, which\nmay have existed in a far-off primeval age in the mind of some Hebrew\nprophet or other Eastern sage, but has now become an imagination only.\nYet this 'passion of the reason' is the theme of the Symposium of Plato.\nAnd as there is no impossibility in supposing that 'one king, or son of\na king, may be a philosopher,' so also there is a probability that there\nmay be some few--perhaps one or two in a whole generation--in whom the\nlight of truth may not lack the warmth of desire. And if there be such\nnatures, no one will be disposed to deny that 'from them flow most of\nthe benefits of individuals and states;' and even from imperfect\ncombinations of the two elements in teachers or statesmen great good may\noften arise.\n\nYet there is a higher region in which love is not only felt, but\nsatisfied, in the perfect beauty of eternal knowledge, beginning with\nthe beauty of earthly things, and at last reaching a beauty in which\nall existence is seen to be harmonious and one. The limited affection\nis enlarged, and enabled to behold the ideal of all things. And here the\nhighest summit which is reached in the Symposium is seen also to be the\nhighest summit which is attained in the Republic, but approached from\nanother side; and there is 'a way upwards and downwards,' which is the\nsame and not the same in both. The ideal beauty of the one is the ideal\ngood of the other; regarded not with the eye of knowledge, but of faith\nand desire; and they are respectively the source of beauty and the\nsource of good in all other things. And by the steps of a 'ladder\nreaching to heaven' we pass from images of visible beauty (Greek), and\nfrom the hypotheses of the Mathematical sciences, which are not yet\nbased upon the idea of good, through the concrete to the abstract, and,\nby different paths arriving, behold the vision of the eternal (compare\nSymp. (Greek) Republic (Greek) also Phaedrus). Under one aspect 'the\nidea is love'; under another, 'truth.' In both the lover of wisdom is\nthe 'spectator of all time and of all existence.' This is a 'mystery'\nin which Plato also obscurely intimates the union of the spiritual and\nfleshly, the interpenetration of the moral and intellectual faculties.\n\nThe divine image of beauty which resides within Socrates has been\nrevealed; the Silenus, or outward man, has now to be exhibited.\nThe description of Socrates follows immediately after the speech of\nSocrates; one is the complement of the other. At the height of divine\ninspiration, when the force of nature can no further go, by way of\ncontrast to this extreme idealism, Alcibiades, accompanied by a troop of\nrevellers and a flute-girl, staggers in, and being drunk is able to tell\nof things which he would have been ashamed to make known if he had been\nsober. The state of his affections towards Socrates, unintelligible to\nus and perverted as they appear, affords an illustration of the power\nascribed to the loves of man in the speech of Pausanias. He does not\nsuppose his feelings to be peculiar to himself: there are several other\npersons in the company who have been equally in love with Socrates,\nand like himself have been deceived by him. The singular part of this\nconfession is the combination of the most degrading passion with the\ndesire of virtue and improvement. Such an union is not wholly untrue to\nhuman nature, which is capable of combining good and evil in a degree\nbeyond what we can easily conceive. In imaginative persons, especially,\nthe God and beast in man seem to part asunder more than is natural in\na well-regulated mind. The Platonic Socrates (for of the real Socrates\nthis may be doubted: compare his public rebuke of Critias for his\nshameful love of Euthydemus in Xenophon, Memorabilia) does not regard\nthe greatest evil of Greek life as a thing not to be spoken of; but it\nhas a ridiculous element (Plato's Symp.), and is a subject for irony, no\nless than for moral reprobation (compare Plato's Symp.). It is also used\nas a figure of speech which no one interpreted literally (compare Xen.\nSymp.). Nor does Plato feel any repugnance, such as would be felt in\nmodern times, at bringing his great master and hero into connexion with\nnameless crimes. He is contented with representing him as a saint, who\nhas won 'the Olympian victory' over the temptations of human nature. The\nfault of taste, which to us is so glaring and which was recognized\nby the Greeks of a later age (Athenaeus), was not perceived by Plato\nhimself. We are still more surprised to find that the philosopher is\nincited to take the first step in his upward progress (Symp.) by the\nbeauty of young men and boys, which was alone capable of inspiring the\nmodern feeling of romance in the Greek mind. The passion of love took\nthe spurious form of an enthusiasm for the ideal of beauty--a worship\nas of some godlike image of an Apollo or Antinous. But the love of youth\nwhen not depraved was a love of virtue and modesty as well as of beauty,\nthe one being the expression of the other; and in certain Greek states,\nespecially at Sparta and Thebes, the honourable attachment of a youth to\nan elder man was a part of his education. The 'army of lovers and their\nbeloved who would be invincible if they could be united by such a tie'\n(Symp.), is not a mere fiction of Plato's, but seems actually to have\nexisted at Thebes in the days of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, if we\nmay believe writers cited anonymously by Plutarch, Pelop. Vit. It is\nobservable that Plato never in the least degree excuses the depraved\nlove of the body (compare Charm.; Rep.; Laws; Symp.; and once more\nXenophon, Mem.), nor is there any Greek writer of mark who condones or\napproves such connexions. But owing partly to the puzzling nature of the\nsubject these friendships are spoken of by Plato in a manner different\nfrom that customary among ourselves. To most of them we should hesitate\nto ascribe, any more than to the attachment of Achilles and Patroclus in\nHomer, an immoral or licentious character. There were many, doubtless,\nto whom the love of the fair mind was the noblest form of friendship\n(Rep.), and who deemed the friendship of man with man to be higher\nthan the love of woman, because altogether separated from the bodily\nappetites. The existence of such attachments may be reasonably\nattributed to the inferiority and seclusion of woman, and the want of\na real family or social life and parental influence in Hellenic cities;\nand they were encouraged by the practice of gymnastic exercises, by the\nmeetings of political clubs, and by the tie of military companionship.\nThey were also an educational institution: a young person was specially\nentrusted by his parents to some elder friend who was expected by them\nto train their son in manly exercises and in virtue. It is not likely\nthat a Greek parent committed him to a lover, any more than we should\nto a schoolmaster, in the expectation that he would be corrupted by him,\nbut rather in the hope that his morals would be better cared for than\nwas possible in a great household of slaves.\n\nIt is difficult to adduce the authority of Plato either for or against\nsuch practices or customs, because it is not always easy to determine\nwhether he is speaking of 'the heavenly and philosophical love, or\nof the coarse Polyhymnia:' and he often refers to this (e.g. in the\nSymposium) half in jest, yet 'with a certain degree of seriousness.'\nWe observe that they entered into one part of Greek literature, but not\ninto another, and that the larger part is free from such associations.\nIndecency was an element of the ludicrous in the old Greek Comedy, as\nit has been in other ages and countries. But effeminate love was always\ncondemned as well as ridiculed by the Comic poets; and in the New Comedy\nthe allusions to such topics have disappeared. They seem to have been no\nlonger tolerated by the greater refinement of the age. False sentiment\nis found in the Lyric and Elegiac poets; and in mythology 'the greatest\nof the Gods' (Rep.) is not exempt from evil imputations. But the morals\nof a nation are not to be judged of wholly by its literature. Hellas\nwas not necessarily more corrupted in the days of the Persian and\nPeloponnesian wars, or of Plato and the Orators, than England in the\ntime of Fielding and Smollett, or France in the nineteenth century. No\none supposes certain French novels to be a representation of ordinary\nFrench life. And the greater part of Greek literature, beginning\nwith Homer and including the tragedians, philosophers, and, with the\nexception of the Comic poets (whose business was to raise a laugh\nby whatever means), all the greater writers of Hellas who have been\npreserved to us, are free from the taint of indecency.\n\nSome general considerations occur to our mind when we begin to reflect\non this subject. (1) That good and evil are linked together in human\nnature, and have often existed side by side in the world and in man to\nan extent hardly credible. We cannot distinguish them, and are therefore\nunable to part them; as in the parable 'they grow together unto the\nharvest:' it is only a rule of external decency by which society can\ndivide them. Nor should we be right in inferring from the prevalence of\nany one vice or corruption that a state or individual was demoralized\nin their whole character. Not only has the corruption of the best been\nsometimes thought to be the worst, but it may be remarked that this very\nexcess of evil has been the stimulus to good (compare Plato, Laws, where\nhe says that in the most corrupt cities individuals are to be found\nbeyond all praise). (2) It may be observed that evils which admit of\ndegrees can seldom be rightly estimated, because under the same name\nactions of the most different degrees of culpability may be included. No\ncharge is more easily set going than the imputation of secret wickedness\n(which cannot be either proved or disproved and often cannot be defined)\nwhen directed against a person of whom the world, or a section of it, is\npredisposed to think evil. And it is quite possible that the malignity\nof Greek scandal, aroused by some personal jealousy or party enmity, may\nhave converted the innocent friendship of a great man for a noble youth\ninto a connexion of another kind. Such accusations were brought against\nseveral of the leading men of Hellas, e.g. Cimon, Alcibiades, Critias,\nDemosthenes, Epaminondas: several of the Roman emperors were assailed\nby similar weapons which have been used even in our own day against\nstatesmen of the highest character. (3) While we know that in this\nmatter there is a great gulf fixed between Greek and Christian Ethics,\nyet, if we would do justice to the Greeks, we must also acknowledge that\nthere was a greater outspokenness among them than among ourselves about\nthe things which nature hides, and that the more frequent mention of\nsuch topics is not to be taken as the measure of the prevalence of\noffences, or as a proof of the general corruption of society. It is\nlikely that every religion in the world has used words or practised\nrites in one age, which have become distasteful or repugnant to another.\nWe cannot, though for different reasons, trust the representations\neither of Comedy or Satire; and still less of Christian Apologists.\n(4) We observe that at Thebes and Lacedemon the attachment of an\nelder friend to a beloved youth was often deemed to be a part of his\neducation; and was encouraged by his parents--it was only shameful if\nit degenerated into licentiousness. Such we may believe to have been the\ntie which united Asophychus and Cephisodorus with the great Epaminondas\nin whose companionship they fell (Plutarch, Amat.; Athenaeus on the\nauthority of Theopompus). (5) A small matter: there appears to be a\ndifference of custom among the Greeks and among ourselves, as between\nourselves and continental nations at the present time, in modes of\nsalutation. We must not suspect evil in the hearty kiss or embrace of\na male friend 'returning from the army at Potidaea' any more than in\na similar salutation when practised by members of the same family. But\nthose who make these admissions, and who regard, not without pity, the\nvictims of such illusions in our own day, whose life has been blasted\nby them, may be none the less resolved that the natural and healthy\ninstincts of mankind shall alone be tolerated (Greek); and that the\nlesson of manliness which we have inherited from our fathers shall not\ndegenerate into sentimentalism or effeminacy. The possibility of an\nhonourable connexion of this kind seems to have died out with Greek\ncivilization. Among the Romans, and also among barbarians, such as the\nCelts and Persians, there is no trace of such attachments existing in\nany noble or virtuous form.\n\n(Compare Hoeck's Creta and the admirable and exhaustive article of Meier\nin Ersch and Grueber's Cyclopedia on this subject; Plutarch, Amatores;\nAthenaeus; Lysias contra Simonem; Aesch. c. Timarchum.)\n\nThe character of Alcibiades in the Symposium is hardly less remarkable\nthan that of Socrates, and agrees with the picture given of him in the\nfirst of the two Dialogues which are called by his name, and also with\nthe slight sketch of him in the Protagoras. He is the impersonation of\nlawlessness--'the lion's whelp, who ought not to be reared in the\ncity,' yet not without a certain generosity which gained the hearts of\nmen,--strangely fascinated by Socrates, and possessed of a genius which\nmight have been either the destruction or salvation of Athens. The\ndramatic interest of the character is heightened by the recollection of\nhis after history. He seems to have been present to the mind of Plato\nin the description of the democratic man of the Republic (compare also\nAlcibiades 1).\n\nThere is no criterion of the date of the Symposium, except that which\nis furnished by the allusion to the division of Arcadia after the\ndestruction of Mantinea. This took place in the year B.C. 384, which is\nthe forty-fourth year of Plato's life. The Symposium cannot therefore be\nregarded as a youthful work. As Mantinea was restored in the year 369,\nthe composition of the Dialogue will probably fall between 384 and\n369. Whether the recollection of the event is more likely to have been\nrenewed at the destruction or restoration of the city, rather than at\nsome intermediate period, is a consideration not worth raising.\n\nThe Symposium is connected with the Phaedrus both in style and subject;\nthey are the only Dialogues of Plato in which the theme of love is\ndiscussed at length. In both of them philosophy is regarded as a sort of\nenthusiasm or madness; Socrates is himself 'a prophet new inspired' with\nBacchanalian revelry, which, like his philosophy, he characteristically\npretends to have derived not from himself but from others. The Phaedo\nalso presents some points of comparison with the Symposium. For there,\ntoo, philosophy might be described as 'dying for love;' and there are\nnot wanting many touches of humour and fancy, which remind us of the\nSymposium. But while the Phaedo and Phaedrus look backwards and forwards\nto past and future states of existence, in the Symposium there is no\nbreak between this world and another; and we rise from one to the other\nby a regular series of steps or stages, proceeding from the particulars\nof sense to the universal of reason, and from one universal to many,\nwhich are finally reunited in a single science (compare Rep.). At first\nimmortality means only the succession of existences; even knowledge\ncomes and goes. Then follows, in the language of the mysteries, a higher\nand a higher degree of initiation; at last we arrive at the perfect\nvision of beauty, not relative or changing, but eternal and absolute;\nnot bounded by this world, or in or out of this world, but an aspect of\nthe divine, extending over all things, and having no limit of space or\ntime: this is the highest knowledge of which the human mind is capable.\nPlato does not go on to ask whether the individual is absorbed in the\nsea of light and beauty or retains his personality. Enough for him to\nhave attained the true beauty or good, without enquiring precisely into\nthe relation in which human beings stood to it. That the soul has such\na reach of thought, and is capable of partaking of the eternal nature,\nseems to imply that she too is eternal (compare Phaedrus). But Plato\ndoes not distinguish the eternal in man from the eternal in the world or\nin God. He is willing to rest in the contemplation of the idea, which\nto him is the cause of all things (Rep.), and has no strength to go\nfurther.\n\nThe Symposium of Xenophon, in which Socrates describes himself as\na pander, and also discourses of the difference between sensual\nand sentimental love, likewise offers several interesting points\nof comparison. But the suspicion which hangs over other writings\nof Xenophon, and the numerous minute references to the Phaedrus and\nSymposium, as well as to some of the other writings of Plato, throw\na doubt on the genuineness of the work. The Symposium of Xenophon, if\nwritten by him at all, would certainly show that he wrote against Plato,\nand was acquainted with his works. Of this hostility there is no trace\nin the Memorabilia. Such a rivalry is more characteristic of an imitator\nthan of an original writer. The (so-called) Symposium of Xenophon\nmay therefore have no more title to be regarded as genuine than the\nconfessedly spurious Apology.\n\nThere are no means of determining the relative order in time of the\nPhaedrus, Symposium, Phaedo. The order which has been adopted in\nthis translation rests on no other principle than the desire to bring\ntogether in a series the memorials of the life of Socrates.\n\n\n\n\nSYMPOSIUM\n\n\nPERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Apollodorus, who repeats to his companion\nthe dialogue which he had heard from Aristodemus, and had already once\nnarrated to Glaucon. Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes,\nAgathon, Socrates, Alcibiades, A Troop of Revellers.\n\nSCENE: The House of Agathon.\n\n\nConcerning the things about which you ask to be informed I believe that\nI am not ill-prepared with an answer. For the day before yesterday I\nwas coming from my own home at Phalerum to the city, and one of my\nacquaintance, who had caught a sight of me from behind, calling out\nplayfully in the distance, said: Apollodorus, O thou Phalerian (Probably\na play of words on (Greek), 'bald-headed.') man, halt! So I did as I\nwas bid; and then he said, I was looking for you, Apollodorus, only just\nnow, that I might ask you about the speeches in praise of love, which\nwere delivered by Socrates, Alcibiades, and others, at Agathon's supper.\nPhoenix, the son of Philip, told another person who told me of them;\nhis narrative was very indistinct, but he said that you knew, and I wish\nthat you would give me an account of them. Who, if not you, should be\nthe reporter of the words of your friend? And first tell me, he said,\nwere you present at this meeting?\n\nYour informant, Glaucon, I said, must have been very indistinct indeed,\nif you imagine that the occasion was recent; or that I could have been\nof the party.\n\nWhy, yes, he replied, I thought so.\n\nImpossible: I said. Are you ignorant that for many years Agathon has not\nresided at Athens; and not three have elapsed since I became acquainted\nwith Socrates, and have made it my daily business to know all that he\nsays and does. There was a time when I was running about the world,\nfancying myself to be well employed, but I was really a most wretched\nbeing, no better than you are now. I thought that I ought to do anything\nrather than be a philosopher.\n\nWell, he said, jesting apart, tell me when the meeting occurred.\n\nIn our boyhood, I replied, when Agathon won the prize with his first\ntragedy, on the day after that on which he and his chorus offered the\nsacrifice of victory.\n\nThen it must have been a long while ago, he said; and who told you--did\nSocrates?\n\nNo indeed, I replied, but the same person who told Phoenix;--he was a\nlittle fellow, who never wore any shoes, Aristodemus, of the deme of\nCydathenaeum. He had been at Agathon's feast; and I think that in\nthose days there was no one who was a more devoted admirer of Socrates.\nMoreover, I have asked Socrates about the truth of some parts of his\nnarrative, and he confirmed them. Then, said Glaucon, let us have the\ntale over again; is not the road to Athens just made for conversation?\nAnd so we walked, and talked of the discourses on love; and therefore,\nas I said at first, I am not ill-prepared to comply with your request,\nand will have another rehearsal of them if you like. For to speak or to\nhear others speak of philosophy always gives me the greatest pleasure,\nto say nothing of the profit. But when I hear another strain, especially\nthat of you rich men and traders, such conversation displeases me; and\nI pity you who are my companions, because you think that you are doing\nsomething when in reality you are doing nothing. And I dare say that\nyou pity me in return, whom you regard as an unhappy creature, and very\nprobably you are right. But I certainly know of you what you only think\nof me--there is the difference.\n\nCOMPANION: I see, Apollodorus, that you are just the same--always\nspeaking evil of yourself, and of others; and I do believe that you pity\nall mankind, with the exception of Socrates, yourself first of all, true\nin this to your old name, which, however deserved, I know not how you\nacquired, of Apollodorus the madman; for you are always raging against\nyourself and everybody but Socrates.\n\nAPOLLODORUS: Yes, friend, and the reason why I am said to be mad, and\nout of my wits, is just because I have these notions of myself and you;\nno other evidence is required.\n\nCOMPANION: No more of that, Apollodorus; but let me renew my request\nthat you would repeat the conversation.\n\nAPOLLODORUS: Well, the tale of love was on this wise:--But perhaps I had\nbetter begin at the beginning, and endeavour to give you the exact words\nof Aristodemus:\n\nHe said that he met Socrates fresh from the bath and sandalled; and as\nthe sight of the sandals was unusual, he asked him whither he was going\nthat he had been converted into such a beau:--\n\nTo a banquet at Agathon's, he replied, whose invitation to his sacrifice\nof victory I refused yesterday, fearing a crowd, but promising that I\nwould come to-day instead; and so I have put on my finery, because he is\nsuch a fine man. What say you to going with me unasked?\n\nI will do as you bid me, I replied.\n\nFollow then, he said, and let us demolish the proverb:--\n\n'To the feasts of inferior men the good unbidden go;'\n\ninstead of which our proverb will run:--\n\n'To the feasts of the good the good unbidden go;'\n\nand this alteration may be supported by the authority of Homer himself,\nwho not only demolishes but literally outrages the proverb. For, after\npicturing Agamemnon as the most valiant of men, he makes Menelaus, who\nis but a fainthearted warrior, come unbidden (Iliad) to the banquet of\nAgamemnon, who is feasting and offering sacrifices, not the better to\nthe worse, but the worse to the better.\n\nI rather fear, Socrates, said Aristodemus, lest this may still be my\ncase; and that, like Menelaus in Homer, I shall be the inferior person,\nwho\n\n'To the feasts of the wise unbidden goes.'\n\nBut I shall say that I was bidden of you, and then you will have to make\nan excuse.\n\n'Two going together,'\n\nhe replied, in Homeric fashion, one or other of them may invent an\nexcuse by the way (Iliad).\n\nThis was the style of their conversation as they went along. Socrates\ndropped behind in a fit of abstraction, and desired Aristodemus, who was\nwaiting, to go on before him. When he reached the house of Agathon\nhe found the doors wide open, and a comical thing happened. A servant\ncoming out met him, and led him at once into the banqueting-hall in\nwhich the guests were reclining, for the banquet was about to begin.\nWelcome, Aristodemus, said Agathon, as soon as he appeared--you are just\nin time to sup with us; if you come on any other matter put it off, and\nmake one of us, as I was looking for you yesterday and meant to have\nasked you, if I could have found you. But what have you done with\nSocrates?\n\nI turned round, but Socrates was nowhere to be seen; and I had to\nexplain that he had been with me a moment before, and that I came by his\ninvitation to the supper.\n\nYou were quite right in coming, said Agathon; but where is he himself?\n\nHe was behind me just now, as I entered, he said, and I cannot think\nwhat has become of him.\n\nGo and look for him, boy, said Agathon, and bring him in; and do you,\nAristodemus, meanwhile take the place by Eryximachus.\n\nThe servant then assisted him to wash, and he lay down, and presently\nanother servant came in and reported that our friend Socrates had\nretired into the portico of the neighbouring house. 'There he is fixed,'\nsaid he, 'and when I call to him he will not stir.'\n\nHow strange, said Agathon; then you must call him again, and keep\ncalling him.\n\nLet him alone, said my informant; he has a way of stopping anywhere and\nlosing himself without any reason. I believe that he will soon appear;\ndo not therefore disturb him.\n\nWell, if you think so, I will leave him, said Agathon. And then, turning\nto the servants, he added, 'Let us have supper without waiting for him.\nServe up whatever you please, for there is no one to give you orders;\nhitherto I have never left you to yourselves. But on this occasion\nimagine that you are our hosts, and that I and the company are your\nguests; treat us well, and then we shall commend you.' After this,\nsupper was served, but still no Socrates; and during the meal Agathon\nseveral times expressed a wish to send for him, but Aristodemus\nobjected; and at last when the feast was about half over--for the fit,\nas usual, was not of long duration--Socrates entered. Agathon, who was\nreclining alone at the end of the table, begged that he would take\nthe place next to him; that 'I may touch you,' he said, 'and have the\nbenefit of that wise thought which came into your mind in the portico,\nand is now in your possession; for I am certain that you would not have\ncome away until you had found what you sought.'\n\nHow I wish, said Socrates, taking his place as he was desired, that\nwisdom could be infused by touch, out of the fuller into the emptier\nman, as water runs through wool out of a fuller cup into an emptier one;\nif that were so, how greatly should I value the privilege of reclining\nat your side! For you would have filled me full with a stream of wisdom\nplenteous and fair; whereas my own is of a very mean and questionable\nsort, no better than a dream. But yours is bright and full of promise,\nand was manifested forth in all the splendour of youth the day before\nyesterday, in the presence of more than thirty thousand Hellenes.\n\nYou are mocking, Socrates, said Agathon, and ere long you and I will\nhave to determine who bears off the palm of wisdom--of this Dionysus\nshall be the judge; but at present you are better occupied with supper.\n\nSocrates took his place on the couch, and supped with the rest; and then\nlibations were offered, and after a hymn had been sung to the god,\nand there had been the usual ceremonies, they were about to commence\ndrinking, when Pausanias said, And now, my friends, how can we drink\nwith least injury to ourselves? I can assure you that I feel severely\nthe effect of yesterday's potations, and must have time to recover; and\nI suspect that most of you are in the same predicament, for you were\nof the party yesterday. Consider then: How can the drinking be made\neasiest?\n\nI entirely agree, said Aristophanes, that we should, by all means, avoid\nhard drinking, for I was myself one of those who were yesterday drowned\nin drink.\n\nI think that you are right, said Eryximachus, the son of Acumenus; but\nI should still like to hear one other person speak: Is Agathon able to\ndrink hard?\n\nI am not equal to it, said Agathon.\n\nThen, said Eryximachus, the weak heads like myself, Aristodemus,\nPhaedrus, and others who never can drink, are fortunate in finding\nthat the stronger ones are not in a drinking mood. (I do not include\nSocrates, who is able either to drink or to abstain, and will not mind,\nwhichever we do.) Well, as of none of the company seem disposed to drink\nmuch, I may be forgiven for saying, as a physician, that drinking deep\nis a bad practice, which I never follow, if I can help, and certainly\ndo not recommend to another, least of all to any one who still feels the\neffects of yesterday's carouse.\n\nI always do what you advise, and especially what you prescribe as a\nphysician, rejoined Phaedrus the Myrrhinusian, and the rest of the\ncompany, if they are wise, will do the same.\n\nIt was agreed that drinking was not to be the order of the day, but that\nthey were all to drink only so much as they pleased.\n\nThen, said Eryximachus, as you are all agreed that drinking is to be\nvoluntary, and that there is to be no compulsion, I move, in the next\nplace, that the flute-girl, who has just made her appearance, be told\nto go away and play to herself, or, if she likes, to the women who are\nwithin (compare Prot.). To-day let us have conversation instead; and,\nif you will allow me, I will tell you what sort of conversation. This\nproposal having been accepted, Eryximachus proceeded as follows:--\n\nI will begin, he said, after the manner of Melanippe in Euripides,\n\n'Not mine the word'\n\nwhich I am about to speak, but that of Phaedrus. For often he says to me\nin an indignant tone:--'What a strange thing it is, Eryximachus, that,\nwhereas other gods have poems and hymns made in their honour, the great\nand glorious god, Love, has no encomiast among all the poets who are\nso many. There are the worthy sophists too--the excellent Prodicus for\nexample, who have descanted in prose on the virtues of Heracles and\nother heroes; and, what is still more extraordinary, I have met with a\nphilosophical work in which the utility of salt has been made the theme\nof an eloquent discourse; and many other like things have had a like\nhonour bestowed upon them. And only to think that there should have been\nan eager interest created about them, and yet that to this day no one\nhas ever dared worthily to hymn Love's praises! So entirely has this\ngreat deity been neglected.' Now in this Phaedrus seems to me to be\nquite right, and therefore I want to offer him a contribution; also I\nthink that at the present moment we who are here assembled cannot do\nbetter than honour the god Love. If you agree with me, there will be\nno lack of conversation; for I mean to propose that each of us in turn,\ngoing from left to right, shall make a speech in honour of Love. Let him\ngive us the best which he can; and Phaedrus, because he is sitting first\non the left hand, and because he is the father of the thought, shall\nbegin.\n\nNo one will vote against you, Eryximachus, said Socrates. How can I\noppose your motion, who profess to understand nothing but matters of\nlove; nor, I presume, will Agathon and Pausanias; and there can be\nno doubt of Aristophanes, whose whole concern is with Dionysus and\nAphrodite; nor will any one disagree of those whom I see around me. The\nproposal, as I am aware, may seem rather hard upon us whose place is\nlast; but we shall be contented if we hear some good speeches first. Let\nPhaedrus begin the praise of Love, and good luck to him. All the company\nexpressed their assent, and desired him to do as Socrates bade him.\n\nAristodemus did not recollect all that was said, nor do I recollect all\nthat he related to me; but I will tell you what I thought most worthy of\nremembrance, and what the chief speakers said.\n\nPhaedrus began by affirming that Love is a mighty god, and wonderful\namong gods and men, but especially wonderful in his birth. For he is the\neldest of the gods, which is an honour to him; and a proof of his claim\nto this honour is, that of his parents there is no memorial; neither\npoet nor prose-writer has ever affirmed that he had any. As Hesiod\nsays:--\n\n'First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed Earth, The everlasting seat of\nall that is, And Love.'\n\nIn other words, after Chaos, the Earth and Love, these two, came into\nbeing. Also Parmenides sings of Generation:\n\n'First in the train of gods, he fashioned Love.'\n\nAnd Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod. Thus numerous are the witnesses who\nacknowledge Love to be the eldest of the gods. And not only is he the\neldest, he is also the source of the greatest benefits to us. For I know\nnot any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a\nvirtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the principle\nwhich ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live--that principle,\nI say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is\nable to implant so well as love. Of what am I speaking? Of the sense of\nhonour and dishonour, without which neither states nor individuals ever\ndo any good or great work. And I say that a lover who is detected in\ndoing any dishonourable act, or submitting through cowardice when\nany dishonour is done to him by another, will be more pained at being\ndetected by his beloved than at being seen by his father, or by his\ncompanions, or by any one else. The beloved too, when he is found in\nany disgraceful situation, has the same feeling about his lover. And if\nthere were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be\nmade up of lovers and their loves (compare Rep.), they would be the very\nbest governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and\nemulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side,\nalthough a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover\nwould not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved,\neither when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be\nready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would\ndesert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward\nwould become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time;\nLove would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the god\nbreathes into the souls of some heroes, Love of his own nature infuses\ninto the lover.\n\nLove will make men dare to die for their beloved--love alone; and women\nas well as men. Of this, Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, is a monument\nto all Hellas; for she was willing to lay down her life on behalf of her\nhusband, when no one else would, although he had a father and mother;\nbut the tenderness of her love so far exceeded theirs, that she made\nthem seem to be strangers in blood to their own son, and in name only\nrelated to him; and so noble did this action of hers appear to the gods,\nas well as to men, that among the many who have done virtuously she is\none of the very few to whom, in admiration of her noble action, they\nhave granted the privilege of returning alive to earth; such exceeding\nhonour is paid by the gods to the devotion and virtue of love. But\nOrpheus, the son of Oeagrus, the harper, they sent empty away, and\npresented to him an apparition only of her whom he sought, but herself\nthey would not give up, because he showed no spirit; he was only a\nharp-player, and did not dare like Alcestis to die for love, but was\ncontriving how he might enter Hades alive; moreover, they afterwards\ncaused him to suffer death at the hands of women, as the punishment\nof his cowardliness. Very different was the reward of the true love of\nAchilles towards his lover Patroclus--his lover and not his love (the\nnotion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which\nAeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two,\nfairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was\nstill beardless, and younger far). And greatly as the gods honour the\nvirtue of love, still the return of love on the part of the beloved to\nthe lover is more admired and valued and rewarded by them, for the lover\nis more divine; because he is inspired by God. Now Achilles was quite\naware, for he had been told by his mother, that he might avoid death and\nreturn home, and live to a good old age, if he abstained from slaying\nHector. Nevertheless he gave his life to revenge his friend, and dared\nto die, not only in his defence, but after he was dead. Wherefore the\ngods honoured him even above Alcestis, and sent him to the Islands of\nthe Blest. These are my reasons for affirming that Love is the eldest\nand noblest and mightiest of the gods; and the chiefest author and giver\nof virtue in life, and of happiness after death.\n\nThis, or something like this, was the speech of Phaedrus; and some other\nspeeches followed which Aristodemus did not remember; the next which he\nrepeated was that of Pausanias. Phaedrus, he said, the argument has not\nbeen set before us, I think, quite in the right form;--we should not be\ncalled upon to praise Love in such an indiscriminate manner. If there\nwere only one Love, then what you said would be well enough; but since\nthere are more Loves than one,--should have begun by determining which\nof them was to be the theme of our praises. I will amend this defect;\nand first of all I will tell you which Love is deserving of praise, and\nthen try to hymn the praiseworthy one in a manner worthy of him. For we\nall know that Love is inseparable from Aphrodite, and if there were\nonly one Aphrodite there would be only one Love; but as there are two\ngoddesses there must be two Loves. And am I not right in asserting that\nthere are two goddesses? The elder one, having no mother, who is called\nthe heavenly Aphrodite--she is the daughter of Uranus; the younger, who\nis the daughter of Zeus and Dione--her we call common; and the Love\nwho is her fellow-worker is rightly named common, as the other love is\ncalled heavenly. All the gods ought to have praise given to them, but\nnot without distinction of their natures; and therefore I must try to\ndistinguish the characters of the two Loves. Now actions vary according\nto the manner of their performance. Take, for example, that which we\nare now doing, drinking, singing and talking--these actions are not in\nthemselves either good or evil, but they turn out in this or that way\naccording to the mode of performing them; and when well done they are\ngood, and when wrongly done they are evil; and in like manner not every\nlove, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy\nof praise. The Love who is the offspring of the common Aphrodite is\nessentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner\nsort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and\nis of the body rather than of the soul--the most foolish beings are the\nobjects of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never thinks\nof accomplishing the end nobly, and therefore does good and evil quite\nindiscriminately. The goddess who is his mother is far younger than\nthe other, and she was born of the union of the male and female, and\npartakes of both. But the offspring of the heavenly Aphrodite is derived\nfrom a mother in whose birth the female has no part,--she is from the\nmale only; this is that love which is of youths, and the goddess being\nolder, there is nothing of wantonness in her. Those who are inspired by\nthis love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant\nand intelligent nature; any one may recognise the pure enthusiasts in\nthe very character of their attachments. For they love not boys, but\nintelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about\nthe time at which their beards begin to grow. And in choosing young men\nto be their companions, they mean to be faithful to them, and pass their\nwhole life in company with them, not to take them in their inexperience,\nand deceive them, and play the fool with them, or run away from one to\nanother of them. But the love of young boys should be forbidden by law,\nbecause their future is uncertain; they may turn out good or bad, either\nin body or soul, and much noble enthusiasm may be thrown away upon them;\nin this matter the good are a law to themselves, and the coarser sort\nof lovers ought to be restrained by force; as we restrain or attempt to\nrestrain them from fixing their affections on women of free birth. These\nare the persons who bring a reproach on love; and some have been led to\ndeny the lawfulness of such attachments because they see the impropriety\nand evil of them; for surely nothing that is decorously and lawfully\ndone can justly be censured. Now here and in Lacedaemon the rules about\nlove are perplexing, but in most cities they are simple and easily\nintelligible; in Elis and Boeotia, and in countries having no gifts of\neloquence, they are very straightforward; the law is simply in favour of\nthese connexions, and no one, whether young or old, has anything to say\nto their discredit; the reason being, as I suppose, that they are men\nof few words in those parts, and therefore the lovers do not like the\ntrouble of pleading their suit. In Ionia and other places, and generally\nin countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held\nto be dishonourable; loves of youths share the evil repute in which\nphilosophy and gymnastics are held, because they are inimical to\ntyranny; for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should\nbe poor in spirit (compare Arist. Politics), and that there should be no\nstrong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all\nother motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by\nexperience; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius\nhad a strength which undid their power. And, therefore, the ill-repute\ninto which these attachments have fallen is to be ascribed to the evil\ncondition of those who make them to be ill-reputed; that is to say, to\nthe self-seeking of the governors and the cowardice of the governed; on\nthe other hand, the indiscriminate honour which is given to them in some\ncountries is attributable to the laziness of those who hold this opinion\nof them. In our own country a far better principle prevails, but, as\nI was saying, the explanation of it is rather perplexing. For, observe\nthat open loves are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and\nthat the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are\nless beautiful than others, is especially honourable. Consider, too,\nhow great is the encouragement which all the world gives to the lover;\nneither is he supposed to be doing anything dishonourable; but if he\nsucceeds he is praised, and if he fail he is blamed. And in the pursuit\nof his love the custom of mankind allows him to do many strange things,\nwhich philosophy would bitterly censure if they were done from any\nmotive of interest, or wish for office or power. He may pray, and\nentreat, and supplicate, and swear, and lie on a mat at the door, and\nendure a slavery worse than that of any slave--in any other case friends\nand enemies would be equally ready to prevent him, but now there is no\nfriend who will be ashamed of him and admonish him, and no enemy will\ncharge him with meanness or flattery; the actions of a lover have a\ngrace which ennobles them; and custom has decided that they are highly\ncommendable and that there no loss of character in them; and, what is\nstrangest of all, he only may swear and forswear himself (so men say),\nand the gods will forgive his transgression, for there is no such thing\nas a lover's oath. Such is the entire liberty which gods and men have\nallowed the lover, according to the custom which prevails in our part of\nthe world. From this point of view a man fairly argues that in Athens\nto love and to be loved is held to be a very honourable thing. But when\nparents forbid their sons to talk with their lovers, and place them\nunder a tutor's care, who is appointed to see to these things, and their\ncompanions and equals cast in their teeth anything of the sort which\nthey may observe, and their elders refuse to silence the reprovers\nand do not rebuke them--any one who reflects on all this will, on the\ncontrary, think that we hold these practices to be most disgraceful.\nBut, as I was saying at first, the truth as I imagine is, that whether\nsuch practices are honourable or whether they are dishonourable is not a\nsimple question; they are honourable to him who follows them honourably,\ndishonourable to him who follows them dishonourably. There is dishonour\nin yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner; but there is honour in\nyielding to the good, or in an honourable manner. Evil is the vulgar\nlover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not\neven stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and\ntherefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he\ntakes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises;\nwhereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes\none with the everlasting. The custom of our country would have both of\nthem proven well and truly, and would have us yield to the one sort of\nlover and avoid the other, and therefore encourages some to pursue,\nand others to fly; testing both the lover and beloved in contests and\ntrials, until they show to which of the two classes they respectively\nbelong. And this is the reason why, in the first place, a hasty\nattachment is held to be dishonourable, because time is the true test of\nthis as of most other things; and secondly there is a dishonour in being\novercome by the love of money, or of wealth, or of political power,\nwhether a man is frightened into surrender by the loss of them, or,\nhaving experienced the benefits of money and political corruption, is\nunable to rise above the seductions of them. For none of these things\nare of a permanent or lasting nature; not to mention that no generous\nfriendship ever sprang from them. There remains, then, only one way of\nhonourable attachment which custom allows in the beloved, and this is\nthe way of virtue; for as we admitted that any service which the lover\ndoes to him is not to be accounted flattery or a dishonour to himself,\nso the beloved has one way only of voluntary service which is not\ndishonourable, and this is virtuous service.\n\nFor we have a custom, and according to our custom any one who does\nservice to another under the idea that he will be improved by him either\nin wisdom, or in some other particular of virtue--such a voluntary\nservice, I say, is not to be regarded as a dishonour, and is not open\nto the charge of flattery. And these two customs, one the love of youth,\nand the other the practice of philosophy and virtue in general, ought to\nmeet in one, and then the beloved may honourably indulge the lover. For\nwhen the lover and beloved come together, having each of them a law, and\nthe lover thinks that he is right in doing any service which he can to\nhis gracious loving one; and the other that he is right in showing any\nkindness which he can to him who is making him wise and good; the one\ncapable of communicating wisdom and virtue, the other seeking to acquire\nthem with a view to education and wisdom, when the two laws of love are\nfulfilled and meet in one--then, and then only, may the beloved yield\nwith honour to the lover. Nor when love is of this disinterested sort is\nthere any disgrace in being deceived, but in every other case there is\nequal disgrace in being or not being deceived. For he who is gracious to\nhis lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of\nhis gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same:\nfor he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any\none's 'uses base' for the sake of money; but this is not honourable. And\non the same principle he who gives himself to a lover because he is a\ngood man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows\nhimself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn\nout to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has\ncommitted a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do\nanything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which\nthere can be nothing nobler. Thus noble in every case is the acceptance\nof another for the sake of virtue. This is that love which is the\nlove of the heavenly godess, and is heavenly, and of great price to\nindividuals and cities, making the lover and the beloved alike eager in\nthe work of their own improvement. But all other loves are the offspring\nof the other, who is the common goddess. To you, Phaedrus, I offer this\nmy contribution in praise of love, which is as good as I could make\nextempore.\n\nPausanias came to a pause--this is the balanced way in which I have\nbeen taught by the wise to speak; and Aristodemus said that the turn of\nAristophanes was next, but either he had eaten too much, or from some\nother cause he had the hiccough, and was obliged to change turns with\nEryximachus the physician, who was reclining on the couch below him.\nEryximachus, he said, you ought either to stop my hiccough, or to speak\nin my turn until I have left off.\n\nI will do both, said Eryximachus: I will speak in your turn, and do you\nspeak in mine; and while I am speaking let me recommend you to hold your\nbreath, and if after you have done so for some time the hiccough is\nno better, then gargle with a little water; and if it still continues,\ntickle your nose with something and sneeze; and if you sneeze once or\ntwice, even the most violent hiccough is sure to go. I will do as you\nprescribe, said Aristophanes, and now get on.\n\nEryximachus spoke as follows: Seeing that Pausanias made a fair\nbeginning, and but a lame ending, I must endeavour to supply his\ndeficiency. I think that he has rightly distinguished two kinds of love.\nBut my art further informs me that the double love is not merely an\naffection of the soul of man towards the fair, or towards anything, but\nis to be found in the bodies of all animals and in productions of the\nearth, and I may say in all that is; such is the conclusion which I seem\nto have gathered from my own art of medicine, whence I learn how great\nand wonderful and universal is the deity of love, whose empire extends\nover all things, divine as well as human. And from medicine I will begin\nthat I may do honour to my art. There are in the human body these two\nkinds of love, which are confessedly different and unlike, and being\nunlike, they have loves and desires which are unlike; and the desire of\nthe healthy is one, and the desire of the diseased is another; and as\nPausanias was just now saying that to indulge good men is honourable,\nand bad men dishonourable:--so too in the body the good and healthy\nelements are to be indulged, and the bad elements and the elements of\ndisease are not to be indulged, but discouraged. And this is what the\nphysician has to do, and in this the art of medicine consists: for\nmedicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and\ndesires of the body, and how to satisfy them or not; and the best\nphysician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul, or to\nconvert one into the other; and he who knows how to eradicate and how to\nimplant love, whichever is required, and can reconcile the most hostile\nelements in the constitution and make them loving friends, is a skilful\npractitioner. Now the most hostile are the most opposite, such as\nhot and cold, bitter and sweet, moist and dry, and the like. And my\nancestor, Asclepius, knowing how to implant friendship and accord in\nthese elements, was the creator of our art, as our friends the poets\nhere tell us, and I believe them; and not only medicine in every branch\nbut the arts of gymnastic and husbandry are under his dominion. Any one\nwho pays the least attention to the subject will also perceive that in\nmusic there is the same reconciliation of opposites; and I suppose that\nthis must have been the meaning of Heracleitus, although his words are\nnot accurate; for he says that The One is united by disunion, like the\nharmony of the bow and the lyre. Now there is an absurdity saying that\nharmony is discord or is composed of elements which are still in a state\nof discord. But what he probably meant was, that harmony is composed of\ndiffering notes of higher or lower pitch which disagreed once, but are\nnow reconciled by the art of music; for if the higher and lower notes\nstill disagreed, there could be no harmony,--clearly not. For harmony\nis a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of\ndisagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize\nthat which disagrees. In like manner rhythm is compounded of elements\nshort and long, once differing and now in accord; which accordance, as\nin the former instance, medicine, so in all these other cases, music\nimplants, making love and unison to grow up among them; and thus music,\ntoo, is concerned with the principles of love in their application to\nharmony and rhythm. Again, in the essential nature of harmony and rhythm\nthere is no difficulty in discerning love which has not yet become\ndouble. But when you want to use them in actual life, either in the\ncomposition of songs or in the correct performance of airs or metres\ncomposed already, which latter is called education, then the difficulty\nbegins, and the good artist is needed. Then the old tale has to be\nrepeated of fair and heavenly love--the love of Urania the fair and\nheavenly muse, and of the duty of accepting the temperate, and those\nwho are as yet intemperate only that they may become temperate, and of\npreserving their love; and again, of the vulgar Polyhymnia, who must\nbe used with circumspection that the pleasure be enjoyed, but may not\ngenerate licentiousness; just as in my own art it is a great matter so\nto regulate the desires of the epicure that he may gratify his tastes\nwithout the attendant evil of disease. Whence I infer that in music, in\nmedicine, in all other things human as well as divine, both loves ought\nto be noted as far as may be, for they are both present.\n\nThe course of the seasons is also full of both these principles; and\nwhen, as I was saying, the elements of hot and cold, moist and dry,\nattain the harmonious love of one another and blend in temperance and\nharmony, they bring to men, animals, and plants health and plenty, and\ndo them no harm; whereas the wanton love, getting the upper hand and\naffecting the seasons of the year, is very destructive and injurious,\nbeing the source of pestilence, and bringing many other kinds of\ndiseases on animals and plants; for hoar-frost and hail and blight\nspring from the excesses and disorders of these elements of love, which\nto know in relation to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and the\nseasons of the year is termed astronomy. Furthermore all sacrifices and\nthe whole province of divination, which is the art of communion between\ngods and men--these, I say, are concerned only with the preservation\nof the good and the cure of the evil love. For all manner of impiety is\nlikely to ensue if, instead of accepting and honouring and reverencing\nthe harmonious love in all his actions, a man honours the other love,\nwhether in his feelings towards gods or parents, towards the living or\nthe dead. Wherefore the business of divination is to see to these loves\nand to heal them, and divination is the peacemaker of gods and men,\nworking by a knowledge of the religious or irreligious tendencies which\nexist in human loves. Such is the great and mighty, or rather omnipotent\nforce of love in general. And the love, more especially, which is\nconcerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with\ntemperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest\npower, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us\nfriends with the gods who are above us, and with one another. I dare say\nthat I too have omitted several things which might be said in praise\nof Love, but this was not intentional, and you, Aristophanes, may now\nsupply the omission or take some other line of commendation; for I\nperceive that you are rid of the hiccough.\n\nYes, said Aristophanes, who followed, the hiccough is gone; not,\nhowever, until I applied the sneezing; and I wonder whether the harmony\nof the body has a love of such noises and ticklings, for I no sooner\napplied the sneezing than I was cured.\n\nEryximachus said: Beware, friend Aristophanes, although you are going\nto speak, you are making fun of me; and I shall have to watch and see\nwhether I cannot have a laugh at your expense, when you might speak in\npeace.\n\nYou are right, said Aristophanes, laughing. I will unsay my words; but\ndo you please not to watch me, as I fear that in the speech which I\nam about to make, instead of others laughing with me, which is to the\nmanner born of our muse and would be all the better, I shall only be\nlaughed at by them.\n\nDo you expect to shoot your bolt and escape, Aristophanes? Well, perhaps\nif you are very careful and bear in mind that you will be called to\naccount, I may be induced to let you off.\n\nAristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a\nmind to praise Love in another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or\nEryximachus. Mankind, he said, judging by their neglect of him, have\nnever, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had\nunderstood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars,\nand offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and\nmost certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best\nfriend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great\nimpediment to the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his\npower to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am\nteaching you. In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and\nwhat has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like\nthe present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but\noriginally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the\ntwo, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once\na real existence, but is now lost, and the word 'Androgynous' is only\npreserved as a term of reproach. In the second place, the primeval man\nwas round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands\nand four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a\nround neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members,\nand the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do,\nbackwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and\nover at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in\nall, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this\nwas when he wanted to run fast. Now the sexes were three, and such as I\nhave described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three; and the\nman was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the\nman-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were\nall round and moved round and round like their parents. Terrible was\ntheir might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great,\nand they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys\nand Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would\nhave laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils.\nShould they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they\nhad done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and\nworship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods\ncould not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a\ngood deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: 'Methinks I\nhave a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men\nshall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will\nbe diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the\nadvantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright\non two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will\nsplit them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.' He spoke and\ncut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or\nas you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after\nanother, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn\nin order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would\nthus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their\nwounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled\nthe skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called\nthe belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at\nthe centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the\nnavel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles,\nmuch as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few,\nhowever, in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the\nprimeval state. After the division the two parts of man, each desiring\nhis other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one\nanother, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they\nwere on the point of dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they\ndid not like to do anything apart; and when one of the halves died and\nthe other survived, the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as\nwe call them,--being the sections of entire men or women,--and clung to\nthat. They were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of them invented a\nnew plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this\nhad not been always their position, and they sowed the seed no longer as\nhitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another; and after\nthe transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the\nmutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race might\ncontinue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and\ngo their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one\nanother which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making\none of two, and healing the state of man. Each of us when separated,\nhaving one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man,\nand he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section\nof that double nature which was once called Androgynous are lovers of\nwomen; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women\nwho lust after men: the women who are a section of the woman do not care\nfor men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this\nsort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while\nthey are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men\nand embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths,\nbecause they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert that they\nare shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any\nwant of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly\ncountenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these when\nthey grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great\nproof of the truth of what I am saving. When they reach manhood they\nare lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget\nchildren,--if at all, they do so only in obedience to the law; but they\nare satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded;\nand such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always\nembracing that which is akin to him. And when one of them meets with his\nother half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth\nor a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love\nand friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's\nsight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass\ntheir whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire\nof one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards\nthe other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but\nof something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot\ntell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.\nSuppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are\nlying side by side and to say to them, 'What do you people want of one\nanother?' they would be unable to explain. And suppose further, that\nwhen he saw their perplexity he said: 'Do you desire to be wholly one;\nalways day and night to be in one another's company? for if this is what\nyou desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together,\nso that being two you shall become one, and while you live live a common\nlife as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world\nbelow still be one departed soul instead of two--I ask whether this\nis what you lovingly desire, and whether you are satisfied to attain\nthis?'--there is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would\ndeny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one\nanother, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of\nhis ancient need (compare Arist. Pol.). And the reason is that human\nnature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and\npursuit of the whole is called love. There was a time, I say, when we\nwere one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed\nus, as the Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians\n(compare Arist. Pol.). And if we are not obedient to the gods, there is\na danger that we shall be split up again and go about in basso-relievo,\nlike the profile figures having only half a nose which are sculptured\non monuments, and that we shall be like tallies. Wherefore let us exhort\nall men to piety, that we may avoid evil, and obtain the good, of which\nLove is to us the lord and minister; and let no one oppose him--he is\nthe enemy of the gods who opposes him. For if we are friends of the God\nand at peace with him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely\nhappens in this world at present. I am serious, and therefore I must beg\nEryximachus not to make fun or to find any allusion in what I am saying\nto Pausanias and Agathon, who, as I suspect, are both of the manly\nnature, and belong to the class which I have been describing. But my\nwords have a wider application--they include men and women everywhere;\nand I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each\none returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then\nour race would be happy. And if this would be best of all, the best\nin the next degree and under present circumstances must be the nearest\napproach to such an union; and that will be the attainment of a\ncongenial love. Wherefore, if we would praise him who has given to\nus the benefit, we must praise the god Love, who is our greatest\nbenefactor, both leading us in this life back to our own nature, and\ngiving us high hopes for the future, for he promises that if we are\npious, he will restore us to our original state, and heal us and make\nus happy and blessed. This, Eryximachus, is my discourse of love, which,\nalthough different to yours, I must beg you to leave unassailed by the\nshafts of your ridicule, in order that each may have his turn; each, or\nrather either, for Agathon and Socrates are the only ones left.\n\nIndeed, I am not going to attack you, said Eryximachus, for I thought\nyour speech charming, and did I not know that Agathon and Socrates are\nmasters in the art of love, I should be really afraid that they would\nhave nothing to say, after the world of things which have been said\nalready. But, for all that, I am not without hopes.\n\nSocrates said: You played your part well, Eryximachus; but if you were\nas I am now, or rather as I shall be when Agathon has spoken, you would,\nindeed, be in a great strait.\n\nYou want to cast a spell over me, Socrates, said Agathon, in the hope\nthat I may be disconcerted at the expectation raised among the audience\nthat I shall speak well.\n\nI should be strangely forgetful, Agathon replied Socrates, of the\ncourage and magnanimity which you showed when your own compositions were\nabout to be exhibited, and you came upon the stage with the actors and\nfaced the vast theatre altogether undismayed, if I thought that your\nnerves could be fluttered at a small party of friends.\n\nDo you think, Socrates, said Agathon, that my head is so full of the\ntheatre as not to know how much more formidable to a man of sense a few\ngood judges are than many fools?\n\nNay, replied Socrates, I should be very wrong in attributing to you,\nAgathon, that or any other want of refinement. And I am quite aware that\nif you happened to meet with any whom you thought wise, you would care\nfor their opinion much more than for that of the many. But then we,\nhaving been a part of the foolish many in the theatre, cannot be\nregarded as the select wise; though I know that if you chanced to be in\nthe presence, not of one of ourselves, but of some really wise man, you\nwould be ashamed of disgracing yourself before him--would you not?\n\nYes, said Agathon.\n\nBut before the many you would not be ashamed, if you thought that you\nwere doing something disgraceful in their presence?\n\nHere Phaedrus interrupted them, saying: not answer him, my dear Agathon;\nfor if he can only get a partner with whom he can talk, especially a\ngood-looking one, he will no longer care about the completion of our\nplan. Now I love to hear him talk; but just at present I must not forget\nthe encomium on Love which I ought to receive from him and from every\none. When you and he have paid your tribute to the god, then you may\ntalk.\n\nVery good, Phaedrus, said Agathon; I see no reason why I should not\nproceed with my speech, as I shall have many other opportunities of\nconversing with Socrates. Let me say first how I ought to speak, and\nthen speak:--\n\nThe previous speakers, instead of praising the god Love, or unfolding\nhis nature, appear to have congratulated mankind on the benefits which\nhe confers upon them. But I would rather praise the god first, and then\nspeak of his gifts; this is always the right way of praising everything.\nMay I say without impiety or offence, that of all the blessed gods he\nis the most blessed because he is the fairest and best? And he is the\nfairest: for, in the first place, he is the youngest, and of his youth\nhe is himself the witness, fleeing out of the way of age, who is swift\nenough, swifter truly than most of us like:--Love hates him and will not\ncome near him; but youth and love live and move together--like to like,\nas the proverb says. Many things were said by Phaedrus about Love in\nwhich I agree with him; but I cannot agree that he is older than Iapetus\nand Kronos:--not so; I maintain him to be the youngest of the gods, and\nyouthful ever. The ancient doings among the gods of which Hesiod\nand Parmenides spoke, if the tradition of them be true, were done of\nNecessity and not of Love; had Love been in those days, there would have\nbeen no chaining or mutilation of the gods, or other violence, but peace\nand sweetness, as there is now in heaven, since the rule of Love began.\nLove is young and also tender; he ought to have a poet like Homer to\ndescribe his tenderness, as Homer says of Ate, that she is a goddess and\ntender:--\n\n'Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps, Not on the ground but on\nthe heads of men:'\n\nherein is an excellent proof of her tenderness,--that she walks not\nupon the hard but upon the soft. Let us adduce a similar proof of the\ntenderness of Love; for he walks not upon the earth, nor yet upon the\nskulls of men, which are not so very soft, but in the hearts and souls\nof both gods and men, which are of all things the softest: in them\nhe walks and dwells and makes his home. Not in every soul without\nexception, for where there is hardness he departs, where there is\nsoftness there he dwells; and nestling always with his feet and in all\nmanner of ways in the softest of soft places, how can he be other than\nthe softest of all things? Of a truth he is the tenderest as well as\nthe youngest, and also he is of flexile form; for if he were hard and\nwithout flexure he could not enfold all things, or wind his way into and\nout of every soul of man undiscovered. And a proof of his flexibility\nand symmetry of form is his grace, which is universally admitted to be\nin an especial manner the attribute of Love; ungrace and love are always\nat war with one another. The fairness of his complexion is revealed by\nhis habitation among the flowers; for he dwells not amid bloomless or\nfading beauties, whether of body or soul or aught else, but in the place\nof flowers and scents, there he sits and abides. Concerning the beauty\nof the god I have said enough; and yet there remains much more which I\nmight say. Of his virtue I have now to speak: his greatest glory is that\nhe can neither do nor suffer wrong to or from any god or any man; for\nhe suffers not by force if he suffers; force comes not near him, neither\nwhen he acts does he act by force. For all men in all things serve him\nof their own free will, and where there is voluntary agreement, there,\nas the laws which are the lords of the city say, is justice. And\nnot only is he just but exceedingly temperate, for Temperance is the\nacknowledged ruler of the pleasures and desires, and no pleasure ever\nmasters Love; he is their master and they are his servants; and if he\nconquers them he must be temperate indeed. As to courage, even the God\nof War is no match for him; he is the captive and Love is the lord,\nfor love, the love of Aphrodite, masters him, as the tale runs; and the\nmaster is stronger than the servant. And if he conquers the bravest of\nall others, he must be himself the bravest. Of his courage and justice\nand temperance I have spoken, but I have yet to speak of his wisdom; and\naccording to the measure of my ability I must try to do my best. In the\nfirst place he is a poet (and here, like Eryximachus, I magnify my art),\nand he is also the source of poesy in others, which he could not be if\nhe were not himself a poet. And at the touch of him every one becomes\na poet, even though he had no music in him before (A fragment of the\nSthenoaoea of Euripides.); this also is a proof that Love is a good poet\nand accomplished in all the fine arts; for no one can give to another\nthat which he has not himself, or teach that of which he has no\nknowledge. Who will deny that the creation of the animals is his doing?\nAre they not all the works of his wisdom, born and begotten of him?\nAnd as to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love\ninspires has the light of fame?--he whom Love touches not walks\nin darkness. The arts of medicine and archery and divination were\ndiscovered by Apollo, under the guidance of love and desire; so that he\ntoo is a disciple of Love. Also the melody of the Muses, the metallurgy\nof Hephaestus, the weaving of Athene, the empire of Zeus over gods and\nmen, are all due to Love, who was the inventor of them. And so Love set\nin order the empire of the gods--the love of beauty, as is evident, for\nwith deformity Love has no concern. In the days of old, as I began by\nsaying, dreadful deeds were done among the gods, for they were ruled\nby Necessity; but now since the birth of Love, and from the Love of\nthe beautiful, has sprung every good in heaven and earth. Therefore,\nPhaedrus, I say of Love that he is the fairest and best in himself, and\nthe cause of what is fairest and best in all other things. And there\ncomes into my mind a line of poetry in which he is said to be the god\nwho\n\n'Gives peace on earth and calms the stormy deep, Who stills the winds\nand bids the sufferer sleep.'\n\nThis is he who empties men of disaffection and fills them with\naffection, who makes them to meet together at banquets such as these: in\nsacrifices, feasts, dances, he is our lord--who sends courtesy and sends\naway discourtesy, who gives kindness ever and never gives unkindness;\nthe friend of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the\ngods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those\nwho have the better part in him; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire,\nfondness, softness, grace; regardful of the good, regardless of the\nevil: in every word, work, wish, fear--saviour, pilot, comrade, helper;\nglory of gods and men, leader best and brightest: in whose footsteps\nlet every man follow, sweetly singing in his honour and joining in that\nsweet strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men. Such\nis the speech, Phaedrus, half-playful, yet having a certain measure of\nseriousness, which, according to my ability, I dedicate to the god.\n\nWhen Agathon had done speaking, Aristodemus said that there was a\ngeneral cheer; the young man was thought to have spoken in a manner\nworthy of himself, and of the god. And Socrates, looking at Eryximachus,\nsaid: Tell me, son of Acumenus, was there not reason in my fears? and\nwas I not a true prophet when I said that Agathon would make a wonderful\noration, and that I should be in a strait?\n\nThe part of the prophecy which concerns Agathon, replied Eryximachus,\nappears to me to be true; but not the other part--that you will be in a\nstrait.\n\nWhy, my dear friend, said Socrates, must not I or any one be in a strait\nwho has to speak after he has heard such a rich and varied discourse? I\nam especially struck with the beauty of the concluding words--who could\nlisten to them without amazement? When I reflected on the immeasurable\ninferiority of my own powers, I was ready to run away for shame, if\nthere had been a possibility of escape. For I was reminded of Gorgias,\nand at the end of his speech I fancied that Agathon was shaking at me\nthe Gorginian or Gorgonian head of the great master of rhetoric, which\nwas simply to turn me and my speech into stone, as Homer says (Odyssey),\nand strike me dumb. And then I perceived how foolish I had been in\nconsenting to take my turn with you in praising love, and saying that\nI too was a master of the art, when I really had no conception how\nanything ought to be praised. For in my simplicity I imagined that the\ntopics of praise should be true, and that this being presupposed, out\nof the true the speaker was to choose the best and set them forth in the\nbest manner. And I felt quite proud, thinking that I knew the nature of\ntrue praise, and should speak well. Whereas I now see that the intention\nwas to attribute to Love every species of greatness and glory,\nwhether really belonging to him or not, without regard to truth or\nfalsehood--that was no matter; for the original proposal seems to have\nbeen not that each of you should really praise Love, but only that\nyou should appear to praise him. And so you attribute to Love every\nimaginable form of praise which can be gathered anywhere; and you say\nthat 'he is all this,' and 'the cause of all that,' making him appear\nthe fairest and best of all to those who know him not, for you cannot\nimpose upon those who know him. And a noble and solemn hymn of praise\nhave you rehearsed. But as I misunderstood the nature of the praise when\nI said that I would take my turn, I must beg to be absolved from the\npromise which I made in ignorance, and which (as Euripides would say\n(Eurip. Hyppolytus)) was a promise of the lips and not of the mind.\nFarewell then to such a strain: for I do not praise in that way; no,\nindeed, I cannot. But if you like to hear the truth about love, I\nam ready to speak in my own manner, though I will not make myself\nridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you. Say then, Phaedrus,\nwhether you would like to have the truth about love, spoken in any words\nand in any order which may happen to come into my mind at the time. Will\nthat be agreeable to you?\n\nAristodemus said that Phaedrus and the company bid him speak in\nany manner which he thought best. Then, he added, let me have your\npermission first to ask Agathon a few more questions, in order that I\nmay take his admissions as the premisses of my discourse.\n\nI grant the permission, said Phaedrus: put your questions. Socrates then\nproceeded as follows:--\n\nIn the magnificent oration which you have just uttered, I think that you\nwere right, my dear Agathon, in proposing to speak of the nature of Love\nfirst and afterwards of his works--that is a way of beginning which I\nvery much approve. And as you have spoken so eloquently of his nature,\nmay I ask you further, Whether love is the love of something or of\nnothing? And here I must explain myself: I do not want you to say that\nlove is the love of a father or the love of a mother--that would be\nridiculous; but to answer as you would, if I asked is a father a father\nof something? to which you would find no difficulty in replying, of a\nson or daughter: and the answer would be right.\n\nVery true, said Agathon.\n\nAnd you would say the same of a mother?\n\nHe assented.\n\nYet let me ask you one more question in order to illustrate my meaning:\nIs not a brother to be regarded essentially as a brother of something?\n\nCertainly, he replied.\n\nThat is, of a brother or sister?\n\nYes, he said.\n\nAnd now, said Socrates, I will ask about Love:--Is Love of something or\nof nothing?\n\nOf something, surely, he replied.\n\nKeep in mind what this is, and tell me what I want to know--whether Love\ndesires that of which love is.\n\nYes, surely.\n\nAnd does he possess, or does he not possess, that which he loves and\ndesires?\n\nProbably not, I should say.\n\nNay, replied Socrates, I would have you consider whether 'necessarily'\nis not rather the word. The inference that he who desires something\nis in want of something, and that he who desires nothing is in want of\nnothing, is in my judgment, Agathon, absolutely and necessarily true.\nWhat do you think?\n\nI agree with you, said Agathon.\n\nVery good. Would he who is great, desire to be great, or he who is\nstrong, desire to be strong?\n\nThat would be inconsistent with our previous admissions.\n\nTrue. For he who is anything cannot want to be that which he is?\n\nVery true.\n\nAnd yet, added Socrates, if a man being strong desired to be strong, or\nbeing swift desired to be swift, or being healthy desired to be healthy,\nin that case he might be thought to desire something which he already\nhas or is. I give the example in order that we may avoid misconception.\nFor the possessors of these qualities, Agathon, must be supposed to have\ntheir respective advantages at the time, whether they choose or not; and\nwho can desire that which he has? Therefore, when a person says, I am\nwell and wish to be well, or I am rich and wish to be rich, and I desire\nsimply to have what I have--to him we shall reply: 'You, my friend,\nhaving wealth and health and strength, want to have the continuance of\nthem; for at this moment, whether you choose or no, you have them. And\nwhen you say, I desire that which I have and nothing else, is not your\nmeaning that you want to have what you now have in the future?' He must\nagree with us--must he not?\n\nHe must, replied Agathon.\n\nThen, said Socrates, he desires that what he has at present may be\npreserved to him in the future, which is equivalent to saying that he\ndesires something which is non-existent to him, and which as yet he has\nnot got:\n\nVery true, he said.\n\nThen he and every one who desires, desires that which he has not\nalready, and which is future and not present, and which he has not, and\nis not, and of which he is in want;--these are the sort of things which\nlove and desire seek?\n\nVery true, he said.\n\nThen now, said Socrates, let us recapitulate the argument. First, is not\nlove of something, and of something too which is wanting to a man?\n\nYes, he replied.\n\nRemember further what you said in your speech, or if you do not remember\nI will remind you: you said that the love of the beautiful set in\norder the empire of the gods, for that of deformed things there is no\nlove--did you not say something of that kind?\n\nYes, said Agathon.\n\nYes, my friend, and the remark was a just one. And if this is true, Love\nis the love of beauty and not of deformity?\n\nHe assented.\n\nAnd the admission has been already made that Love is of something which\na man wants and has not?\n\nTrue, he said.\n\nThen Love wants and has not beauty?\n\nCertainly, he replied.\n\nAnd would you call that beautiful which wants and does not possess\nbeauty?\n\nCertainly not.\n\nThen would you still say that love is beautiful?\n\nAgathon replied: I fear that I did not understand what I was saying.\n\nYou made a very good speech, Agathon, replied Socrates; but there is\nyet one small question which I would fain ask:--Is not the good also the\nbeautiful?\n\nYes.\n\nThen in wanting the beautiful, love wants also the good?\n\nI cannot refute you, Socrates, said Agathon:--Let us assume that what\nyou say is true.\n\nSay rather, beloved Agathon, that you cannot refute the truth; for\nSocrates is easily refuted.\n\nAnd now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of love which I\nheard from Diotima of Mantineia (compare 1 Alcibiades), a woman wise in\nthis and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when\nthe Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed\nthe disease ten years. She was my instructress in the art of love, and\nI shall repeat to you what she said to me, beginning with the admissions\nmade by Agathon, which are nearly if not quite the same which I made\nto the wise woman when she questioned me: I think that this will be\nthe easiest way, and I shall take both parts myself as well as I can\n(compare Gorgias). As you, Agathon, suggested (supra), I must speak\nfirst of the being and nature of Love, and then of his works. First I\nsaid to her in nearly the same words which he used to me, that Love was\na mighty god, and likewise fair; and she proved to me as I proved to him\nthat, by my own showing, Love was neither fair nor good. 'What do you\nmean, Diotima,' I said, 'is love then evil and foul?' 'Hush,' she cried;\n'must that be foul which is not fair?' 'Certainly,' I said. 'And is that\nwhich is not wise, ignorant? do you not see that there is a mean between\nwisdom and ignorance?' 'And what may that be?' I said. 'Right opinion,'\nshe replied; 'which, as you know, being incapable of giving a reason,\nis not knowledge (for how can knowledge be devoid of reason? nor again,\nignorance, for neither can ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly\nsomething which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom.' 'Quite true,'\nI replied. 'Do not then insist,' she said, 'that what is not fair is of\nnecessity foul, or what is not good evil; or infer that because love\nis not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil; for he is in a mean\nbetween them.' 'Well,' I said, 'Love is surely admitted by all to be a\ngreat god.' 'By those who know or by those who do not know?' 'By all.'\n'And how, Socrates,' she said with a smile, 'can Love be acknowledged to\nbe a great god by those who say that he is not a god at all?' 'And who\nare they?' I said. 'You and I are two of them,' she replied. 'How can\nthat be?' I said. 'It is quite intelligible,' she replied; 'for you\nyourself would acknowledge that the gods are happy and fair--of course\nyou would--would you dare to say that any god was not?' 'Certainly not,'\nI replied. 'And you mean by the happy, those who are the possessors of\nthings good or fair?' 'Yes.' 'And you admitted that Love, because he\nwas in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want?'\n'Yes, I did.' 'But how can he be a god who has no portion in what is\neither good or fair?' 'Impossible.' 'Then you see that you also deny the\ndivinity of Love.'\n\n'What then is Love?' I asked; 'Is he mortal?' 'No.' 'What then?' 'As in\nthe former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean\nbetween the two.' 'What is he, Diotima?' 'He is a great spirit (daimon),\nand like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the\nmortal.' 'And what,' I said, 'is his power?' 'He interprets,' she\nreplied, 'between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods\nthe prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies\nof the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them,\nand therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of\nthe prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms,\nand all prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not\nwith man; but through Love all the intercourse and converse of God\nwith man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which\nunderstands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts\nand handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or intermediate\npowers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love.' 'And who,' I\nsaid, 'was his father, and who his mother?' 'The tale,' she said, 'will\ntake time; nevertheless I will tell you. On the birthday of Aphrodite\nthere was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros or Plenty, who is\nthe son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests. When the feast\nwas over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is on such occasions, came\nabout the doors to beg. Now Plenty who was the worse for nectar (there\nwas no wine in those days), went into the garden of Zeus and fell into\na heavy sleep, and Poverty considering her own straitened circumstances,\nplotted to have a child by him, and accordingly she lay down at his side\nand conceived Love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the\nbeautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because\nhe was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant. And as his\nparentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always\npoor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he\nis rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the\nbare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in the streets, or at\nthe doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always\nin distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is\nalways plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising,\nstrong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in\nthe pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times,\nterrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist. He is by nature neither\nmortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is\nin plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his\nfather's nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing\nout, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he\nis in a mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter\nis this: No god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise\nalready; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the\nignorant seek after wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he\nwho is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself:\nhe has no desire for that of which he feels no want.' 'But who then,\nDiotima,' I said, 'are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the\nwise nor the foolish?' 'A child may answer that question,' she replied;\n'they are those who are in a mean between the two; Love is one of them.\nFor wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and\ntherefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and being a\nlover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of\nthis too his birth is the cause; for his father is wealthy and wise, and\nhis mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of\nthe spirit Love. The error in your conception of him was very natural,\nand as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of\nlove and the beloved, which made you think that love was all beautiful.\nFor the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and\nblessed; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as\nI have described.'\n\nI said, 'O thou stranger woman, thou sayest well; but, assuming Love to\nbe such as you say, what is the use of him to men?' 'That, Socrates,'\nshe replied, 'I will attempt to unfold: of his nature and birth I have\nalready spoken; and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful. But\nsome one will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima?--or\nrather let me put the question more clearly, and ask: When a man loves\nthe beautiful, what does he desire?' I answered her 'That the beautiful\nmay be his.' 'Still,' she said, 'the answer suggests a further question:\nWhat is given by the possession of beauty?' 'To what you have asked,'\nI replied, 'I have no answer ready.' 'Then,' she said, 'let me put the\nword \"good\" in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question once\nmore: If he who loves loves the good, what is it then that he loves?'\n'The possession of the good,' I said. 'And what does he gain who\npossesses the good?' 'Happiness,' I replied; 'there is less difficulty\nin answering that question.' 'Yes,' she said, 'the happy are made happy\nby the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any need to ask why a\nman desires happiness; the answer is already final.' 'You are right.'\nI said. 'And is this wish and this desire common to all? and do all men\nalways desire their own good, or only some men?--what say you?' 'All\nmen,' I replied; 'the desire is common to all.' 'Why, then,' she\nrejoined, 'are not all men, Socrates, said to love, but only some of\nthem? whereas you say that all men are always loving the same things.'\n'I myself wonder,' I said, 'why this is.' 'There is nothing to wonder\nat,' she replied; 'the reason is that one part of love is separated\noff and receives the name of the whole, but the other parts have other\nnames.' 'Give an illustration,' I said. She answered me as follows:\n'There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex and manifold. All\ncreation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and the\nprocesses of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all poets\nor makers.' 'Very true.' 'Still,' she said, 'you know that they are not\ncalled poets, but have other names; only that portion of the art which\nis separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music and metre,\nis termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word\nare called poets.' 'Very true,' I said. 'And the same holds of love. For\nyou may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the\ngreat and subtle power of love; but they who are drawn towards him\nby any other path, whether the path of money-making or gymnastics or\nphilosophy, are not called lovers--the name of the whole is appropriated\nto those whose affection takes one form only--they alone are said to\nlove, or to be lovers.' 'I dare say,' I replied, 'that you are right.'\n'Yes,' she added, 'and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for\ntheir other half; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half\nof themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a\ngood. And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away,\nif they are evil; for they love not what is their own, unless perchance\nthere be some one who calls what belongs to him the good, and what\nbelongs to another the evil. For there is nothing which men love but\nthe good. Is there anything?' 'Certainly, I should say, that there is\nnothing.' 'Then,' she said, 'the simple truth is, that men love the\ngood.' 'Yes,' I said. 'To which must be added that they love the\npossession of the good?' 'Yes, that must be added.' 'And not only the\npossession, but the everlasting possession of the good?' 'That must be\nadded too.' 'Then love,' she said, 'may be described generally as the\nlove of the everlasting possession of the good?' 'That is most true.'\n\n'Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further,' she said,\n'what is the manner of the pursuit? what are they doing who show all\nthis eagerness and heat which is called love? and what is the object\nwhich they have in view? Answer me.' 'Nay, Diotima,' I replied, 'if I\nhad known, I should not have wondered at your wisdom, neither should I\nhave come to learn from you about this very matter.' 'Well,' she said,\n'I will teach you:--The object which they have in view is birth in\nbeauty, whether of body or soul.' 'I do not understand you,' I said;\n'the oracle requires an explanation.' 'I will make my meaning clearer,'\nshe replied. 'I mean to say, that all men are bringing to the birth in\ntheir bodies and in their souls. There is a certain age at which human\nnature is desirous of procreation--procreation which must be in beauty\nand not in deformity; and this procreation is the union of man and\nwoman, and is a divine thing; for conception and generation are an\nimmortal principle in the mortal creature, and in the inharmonious they\ncan never be. But the deformed is always inharmonious with the divine,\nand the beautiful harmonious. Beauty, then, is the destiny or goddess\nof parturition who presides at birth, and therefore, when approaching\nbeauty, the conceiving power is propitious, and diffusive, and benign,\nand begets and bears fruit: at the sight of ugliness she frowns and\ncontracts and has a sense of pain, and turns away, and shrivels up, and\nnot without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason why,\nwhen the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is full,\nthere is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the\nalleviation of the pain of travail. For love, Socrates, is not, as you\nimagine, the love of the beautiful only.' 'What then?' 'The love of\ngeneration and of birth in beauty.' 'Yes,' I said. 'Yes, indeed,' she\nreplied. 'But why of generation?' 'Because to the mortal creature,\ngeneration is a sort of eternity and immortality,' she replied; 'and if,\nas has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession\nof the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with\ngood: Wherefore love is of immortality.'\n\nAll this she taught me at various times when she spoke of love. And I\nremember her once saying to me, 'What is the cause, Socrates, of love,\nand the attendant desire? See you not how all animals, birds, as well as\nbeasts, in their desire of procreation, are in agony when they take the\ninfection of love, which begins with the desire of union; whereto is\nadded the care of offspring, on whose behalf the weakest are ready to\nbattle against the strongest even to the uttermost, and to die for them,\nand will let themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything\nin order to maintain their young. Man may be supposed to act thus from\nreason; but why should animals have these passionate feelings? Can you\ntell me why?' Again I replied that I did not know. She said to me: 'And\ndo you expect ever to become a master in the art of love, if you do not\nknow this?' 'But I have told you already, Diotima, that my ignorance is\nthe reason why I come to you; for I am conscious that I want a teacher;\ntell me then the cause of this and of the other mysteries of love.'\n'Marvel not,' she said, 'if you believe that love is of the immortal,\nas we have several times acknowledged; for here again, and on the same\nprinciple too, the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be\neverlasting and immortal: and this is only to be attained by generation,\nbecause generation always leaves behind a new existence in the place of\nthe old. Nay even in the life of the same individual there is succession\nand not absolute unity: a man is called the same, and yet in the short\ninterval which elapses between youth and age, and in which every animal\nis said to have life and identity, he is undergoing a perpetual process\nof loss and reparation--hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole body\nare always changing. Which is true not only of the body, but also of the\nsoul, whose habits, tempers, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears,\nnever remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and going;\nand equally true of knowledge, and what is still more surprising to us\nmortals, not only do the sciences in general spring up and decay,\nso that in respect of them we are never the same; but each of them\nindividually experiences a like change. For what is implied in the word\n\"recollection,\" but the departure of knowledge, which is ever being\nforgotten, and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and appears to\nbe the same although in reality new, according to that law of succession\nby which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely the same, but\nby substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving another new and\nsimilar existence behind--unlike the divine, which is always the same\nand not another? And in this way, Socrates, the mortal body, or mortal\nanything, partakes of immortality; but the immortal in another way.\nMarvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for\nthat universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality.'\n\nI was astonished at her words, and said: 'Is this really true, O\nthou wise Diotima?' And she answered with all the authority of an\naccomplished sophist: 'Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;--think\nonly of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of\ntheir ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an\nimmortality of fame. They are ready to run all risks greater far than\nthey would have run for their children, and to spend money and undergo\nany sort of toil, and even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them\na name which shall be eternal. Do you imagine that Alcestis would have\ndied to save Admetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or your own\nCodrus in order to preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they had not\nimagined that the memory of their virtues, which still survives among\nus, would be immortal? Nay,' she said, 'I am persuaded that all men do\nall things, and the better they are the more they do them, in hope of\nthe glorious fame of immortal virtue; for they desire the immortal.\n\n'Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and\nbeget children--this is the character of their love; their offspring,\nas they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness\nand immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are\npregnant--for there certainly are men who are more creative in their\nsouls than in their bodies--conceive that which is proper for the soul\nto conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions?--wisdom and\nvirtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are\ndeserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of\nwisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states\nand families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in\nyouth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired,\nwhen he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate. He wanders\nabout seeking beauty that he may beget offspring--for in deformity he\nwill beget nothing--and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than\nthe deformed body; above all when he finds a fair and noble and\nwell-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such an\none he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a\ngood man; and he tries to educate him; and at the touch of the beautiful\nwhich is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he brings forth\nthat which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends\nthat which he brings forth; and they are married by a far nearer tie and\nhave a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the\nchildren who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal.\nWho, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would\nnot rather have their children than ordinary human ones? Who would not\nemulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have\npreserved their memory and given them everlasting glory? Or who would\nnot have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours,\nnot only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say? There is Solon,\ntoo, who is the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there\nare in many other places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, who have\ngiven to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue\nof every kind; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the\nsake of children such as theirs; which were never raised in honour of\nany one, for the sake of his mortal children.\n\n'These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates,\nmay enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of\nthese, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will\nlead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my\nutmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would\nproceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful\nforms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one\nsuch form only--out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon\nhe will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the\nbeauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit,\nhow foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form\nis and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent\nlove of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and\nwill become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will\nconsider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty\nof the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little\ncomeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out\nand bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he\nis compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws,\nand to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that\npersonal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will\ngo on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like\na servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution,\nhimself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and\ncontemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble\nthoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he\ngrows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of\na single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I\nwill proceed; please to give me your very best attention:\n\n'He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has\nlearned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes\ntoward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and\nthis, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature\nwhich in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or\nwaxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul\nin another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at\nanother time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair\nto some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any\nother part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge,\nor existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or\nin heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute,\nseparate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without\nincrease, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing\nbeauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the\ninfluence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from\nthe end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the\nthings of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards\nfor the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from\none going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms\nto fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from\nfair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last\nknows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates,' said the\nstranger of Mantineia, 'is that life above all others which man should\nlive, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you\nonce beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and\ngarments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you;\nand you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and\nconversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible--you\nonly want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes\nto see the true beauty--the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and\nunalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the\ncolours and vanities of human life--thither looking, and holding\nconverse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that\ncommunion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be\nenabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he\nhas hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and\nnourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if\nmortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?'\n\nSuch, Phaedrus--and I speak not only to you, but to all of you--were the\nwords of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being persuaded\nof them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of this\nend human nature will not easily find a helper better than love: And\ntherefore, also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I myself\nhonour him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the same,\nand praise the power and spirit of love according to the measure of my\nability now and ever.\n\nThe words which I have spoken, you, Phaedrus, may call an encomium of\nlove, or anything else which you please.\n\nWhen Socrates had done speaking, the company applauded, and Aristophanes\nwas beginning to say something in answer to the allusion which Socrates\nhad made to his own speech, when suddenly there was a great knocking at\nthe door of the house, as of revellers, and the sound of a flute-girl\nwas heard. Agathon told the attendants to go and see who were the\nintruders. 'If they are friends of ours,' he said, 'invite them in, but\nif not, say that the drinking is over.' A little while afterwards they\nheard the voice of Alcibiades resounding in the court; he was in a great\nstate of intoxication, and kept roaring and shouting 'Where is Agathon?\nLead me to Agathon,' and at length, supported by the flute-girl and some\nof his attendants, he found his way to them. 'Hail, friends,' he said,\nappearing at the door crowned with a massive garland of ivy and violets,\nhis head flowing with ribands. 'Will you have a very drunken man as\na companion of your revels? Or shall I crown Agathon, which was my\nintention in coming, and go away? For I was unable to come yesterday,\nand therefore I am here to-day, carrying on my head these ribands, that\ntaking them from my own head, I may crown the head of this fairest and\nwisest of men, as I may be allowed to call him. Will you laugh at me\nbecause I am drunk? Yet I know very well that I am speaking the truth,\nalthough you may laugh. But first tell me; if I come in shall we have\nthe understanding of which I spoke (supra Will you have a very drunken\nman? etc.)? Will you drink with me or not?'\n\nThe company were vociferous in begging that he would take his place\namong them, and Agathon specially invited him. Thereupon he was led in\nby the people who were with him; and as he was being led, intending to\ncrown Agathon, he took the ribands from his own head and held them in\nfront of his eyes; he was thus prevented from seeing Socrates, who made\nway for him, and Alcibiades took the vacant place between Agathon and\nSocrates, and in taking the place he embraced Agathon and crowned him.\nTake off his sandals, said Agathon, and let him make a third on the same\ncouch.\n\nBy all means; but who makes the third partner in our revels? said\nAlcibiades, turning round and starting up as he caught sight of\nSocrates. By Heracles, he said, what is this? here is Socrates always\nlying in wait for me, and always, as his way is, coming out at all sorts\nof unsuspected places: and now, what have you to say for yourself, and\nwhy are you lying here, where I perceive that you have contrived to find\na place, not by a joker or lover of jokes, like Aristophanes, but by the\nfairest of the company?\n\nSocrates turned to Agathon and said: I must ask you to protect me,\nAgathon; for the passion of this man has grown quite a serious matter to\nme. Since I became his admirer I have never been allowed to speak to\nany other fair one, or so much as to look at them. If I do, he goes wild\nwith envy and jealousy, and not only abuses me but can hardly keep his\nhands off me, and at this moment he may do me some harm. Please to see\nto this, and either reconcile me to him, or, if he attempts violence,\nprotect me, as I am in bodily fear of his mad and passionate attempts.\n\nThere can never be reconciliation between you and me, said Alcibiades;\nbut for the present I will defer your chastisement. And I must beg\nyou, Agathon, to give me back some of the ribands that I may crown the\nmarvellous head of this universal despot--I would not have him complain\nof me for crowning you, and neglecting him, who in conversation is the\nconqueror of all mankind; and this not only once, as you were the day\nbefore yesterday, but always. Whereupon, taking some of the ribands, he\ncrowned Socrates, and again reclined.\n\nThen he said: You seem, my friends, to be sober, which is a thing not to\nbe endured; you must drink--for that was the agreement under which I\nwas admitted--and I elect myself master of the feast until you are\nwell drunk. Let us have a large goblet, Agathon, or rather, he said,\naddressing the attendant, bring me that wine-cooler. The wine-cooler\nwhich had caught his eye was a vessel holding more than two quarts--this\nhe filled and emptied, and bade the attendant fill it again for\nSocrates. Observe, my friends, said Alcibiades, that this ingenious\ntrick of mine will have no effect on Socrates, for he can drink any\nquantity of wine and not be at all nearer being drunk. Socrates drank\nthe cup which the attendant filled for him.\n\nEryximachus said: What is this, Alcibiades? Are we to have neither\nconversation nor singing over our cups; but simply to drink as if we\nwere thirsty?\n\nAlcibiades replied: Hail, worthy son of a most wise and worthy sire!\n\nThe same to you, said Eryximachus; but what shall we do?\n\nThat I leave to you, said Alcibiades.\n\n'The wise physician skilled our wounds to heal (from Pope's Homer, Il.)'\n\nshall prescribe and we will obey. What do you want?\n\nWell, said Eryximachus, before you appeared we had passed a resolution\nthat each one of us in turn should make a speech in praise of love, and\nas good a one as he could: the turn was passed round from left to right;\nand as all of us have spoken, and you have not spoken but have well\ndrunken, you ought to speak, and then impose upon Socrates any task\nwhich you please, and he on his right hand neighbour, and so on.\n\nThat is good, Eryximachus, said Alcibiades; and yet the comparison of\na drunken man's speech with those of sober men is hardly fair; and\nI should like to know, sweet friend, whether you really believe what\nSocrates was just now saying; for I can assure you that the very reverse\nis the fact, and that if I praise any one but himself in his presence,\nwhether God or man, he will hardly keep his hands off me.\n\nFor shame, said Socrates.\n\nHold your tongue, said Alcibiades, for by Poseidon, there is no one else\nwhom I will praise when you are of the company.\n\nWell then, said Eryximachus, if you like praise Socrates.\n\nWhat do you think, Eryximachus? said Alcibiades: shall I attack him and\ninflict the punishment before you all?\n\nWhat are you about? said Socrates; are you going to raise a laugh at my\nexpense? Is that the meaning of your praise?\n\nI am going to speak the truth, if you will permit me.\n\nI not only permit, but exhort you to speak the truth.\n\nThen I will begin at once, said Alcibiades, and if I say anything which\nis not true, you may interrupt me if you will, and say 'that is a lie,'\nthough my intention is to speak the truth. But you must not wonder if\nI speak any how as things come into my mind; for the fluent and orderly\nenumeration of all your singularities is not a task which is easy to a\nman in my condition.\n\nAnd now, my boys, I shall praise Socrates in a figure which will appear\nto him to be a caricature, and yet I speak, not to make fun of him, but\nonly for the truth's sake. I say, that he is exactly like the busts of\nSilenus, which are set up in the statuaries' shops, holding pipes and\nflutes in their mouths; and they are made to open in the middle, and\nhave images of gods inside them. I say also that he is like Marsyas the\nsatyr. You yourself will not deny, Socrates, that your face is like that\nof a satyr. Aye, and there is a resemblance in other points too. For\nexample, you are a bully, as I can prove by witnesses, if you will not\nconfess. And are you not a flute-player? That you are, and a performer\nfar more wonderful than Marsyas. He indeed with instruments used to\ncharm the souls of men by the power of his breath, and the players of\nhis music do so still: for the melodies of Olympus (compare Arist. Pol.)\nare derived from Marsyas who taught them, and these, whether they are\nplayed by a great master or by a miserable flute-girl, have a power\nwhich no others have; they alone possess the soul and reveal the wants\nof those who have need of gods and mysteries, because they are divine.\nBut you produce the same effect with your words only, and do not require\nthe flute: that is the difference between you and him. When we hear any\nother speaker, even a very good one, he produces absolutely no effect\nupon us, or not much, whereas the mere fragments of you and your words,\neven at second-hand, and however imperfectly repeated, amaze and possess\nthe souls of every man, woman, and child who comes within hearing of\nthem. And if I were not afraid that you would think me hopelessly drunk,\nI would have sworn as well as spoken to the influence which they have\nalways had and still have over me. For my heart leaps within me more\nthan that of any Corybantian reveller, and my eyes rain tears when\nI hear them. And I observe that many others are affected in the same\nmanner. I have heard Pericles and other great orators, and I thought\nthat they spoke well, but I never had any similar feeling; my soul was\nnot stirred by them, nor was I angry at the thought of my own slavish\nstate. But this Marsyas has often brought me to such a pass, that I\nhave felt as if I could hardly endure the life which I am leading (this,\nSocrates, you will admit); and I am conscious that if I did not shut my\nears against him, and fly as from the voice of the siren, my fate would\nbe like that of others,--he would transfix me, and I should grow old\nsitting at his feet. For he makes me confess that I ought not to live as\nI do, neglecting the wants of my own soul, and busying myself with the\nconcerns of the Athenians; therefore I hold my ears and tear myself away\nfrom him. And he is the only person who ever made me ashamed, which you\nmight think not to be in my nature, and there is no one else who does\nthe same. For I know that I cannot answer him or say that I ought not to\ndo as he bids, but when I leave his presence the love of popularity gets\nthe better of me. And therefore I run away and fly from him, and when I\nsee him I am ashamed of what I have confessed to him. Many a time have\nI wished that he were dead, and yet I know that I should be much more\nsorry than glad, if he were to die: so that I am at my wit's end.\n\nAnd this is what I and many others have suffered from the flute-playing\nof this satyr. Yet hear me once more while I show you how exact the\nimage is, and how marvellous his power. For let me tell you; none of you\nknow him; but I will reveal him to you; having begun, I must go on. See\nyou how fond he is of the fair? He is always with them and is always\nbeing smitten by them, and then again he knows nothing and is ignorant\nof all things--such is the appearance which he puts on. Is he not like a\nSilenus in this? To be sure he is: his outer mask is the carved head\nof the Silenus; but, O my companions in drink, when he is opened, what\ntemperance there is residing within! Know you that beauty and wealth and\nhonour, at which the many wonder, are of no account with him, and are\nutterly despised by him: he regards not at all the persons who are\ngifted with them; mankind are nothing to him; all his life is spent in\nmocking and flouting at them. But when I opened him, and looked within\nat his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of such\nfascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment whatever Socrates\ncommanded: they may have escaped the observation of others, but I saw\nthem. Now I fancied that he was seriously enamoured of my beauty, and I\nthought that I should therefore have a grand opportunity of hearing him\ntell what he knew, for I had a wonderful opinion of the attractions of\nmy youth. In the prosecution of this design, when I next went to him, I\nsent away the attendant who usually accompanied me (I will confess the\nwhole truth, and beg you to listen; and if I speak falsely, do you,\nSocrates, expose the falsehood). Well, he and I were alone together, and\nI thought that when there was nobody with us, I should hear him\nspeak the language which lovers use to their loves when they are by\nthemselves, and I was delighted. Nothing of the sort; he conversed\nas usual, and spent the day with me and then went away. Afterwards I\nchallenged him to the palaestra; and he wrestled and closed with me\nseveral times when there was no one present; I fancied that I might\nsucceed in this manner. Not a bit; I made no way with him. Lastly, as\nI had failed hitherto, I thought that I must take stronger measures and\nattack him boldly, and, as I had begun, not give him up, but see how\nmatters stood between him and me. So I invited him to sup with me, just\nas if he were a fair youth, and I a designing lover. He was not easily\npersuaded to come; he did, however, after a while accept the invitation,\nand when he came the first time, he wanted to go away at once as soon as\nsupper was over, and I had not the face to detain him. The second\ntime, still in pursuance of my design, after we had supped, I went\non conversing far into the night, and when he wanted to go away, I\npretended that the hour was late and that he had much better remain. So\nhe lay down on the couch next to me, the same on which he had supped,\nand there was no one but ourselves sleeping in the apartment. All this\nmay be told without shame to any one. But what follows I could hardly\ntell you if I were sober. Yet as the proverb says, 'In vino veritas,'\nwhether with boys, or without them (In allusion to two proverbs.); and\ntherefore I must speak. Nor, again, should I be justified in concealing\nthe lofty actions of Socrates when I come to praise him. Moreover I\nhave felt the serpent's sting; and he who has suffered, as they say, is\nwilling to tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they alone will be likely\nto understand him, and will not be extreme in judging of the sayings or\ndoings which have been wrung from his agony. For I have been bitten by a\nmore than viper's tooth; I have known in my soul, or in my heart, or in\nsome other part, that worst of pangs, more violent in ingenuous youth\nthan any serpent's tooth, the pang of philosophy, which will make a man\nsay or do anything. And you whom I see around me, Phaedrus and Agathon\nand Eryximachus and Pausanias and Aristodemus and Aristophanes, all of\nyou, and I need not say Socrates himself, have had experience of the\nsame madness and passion in your longing after wisdom. Therefore listen\nand excuse my doings then and my sayings now. But let the attendants and\nother profane and unmannered persons close up the doors of their ears.\n\nWhen the lamp was put out and the servants had gone away, I thought that\nI must be plain with him and have no more ambiguity. So I gave him a\nshake, and I said: 'Socrates, are you asleep?' 'No,' he said. 'Do\nyou know what I am meditating? 'What are you meditating?' he said. 'I\nthink,' I replied, 'that of all the lovers whom I have ever had you are\nthe only one who is worthy of me, and you appear to be too modest to\nspeak. Now I feel that I should be a fool to refuse you this or any\nother favour, and therefore I come to lay at your feet all that I have\nand all that my friends have, in the hope that you will assist me in the\nway of virtue, which I desire above all things, and in which I believe\nthat you can help me better than any one else. And I should certainly\nhave more reason to be ashamed of what wise men would say if I were to\nrefuse a favour to such as you, than of what the world, who are mostly\nfools, would say of me if I granted it.' To these words he replied in\nthe ironical manner which is so characteristic of him:--'Alcibiades, my\nfriend, you have indeed an elevated aim if what you say is true, and if\nthere really is in me any power by which you may become better; truly\nyou must see in me some rare beauty of a kind infinitely higher than any\nwhich I see in you. And therefore, if you mean to share with me and to\nexchange beauty for beauty, you will have greatly the advantage of me;\nyou will gain true beauty in return for appearance--like Diomede, gold\nin exchange for brass. But look again, sweet friend, and see whether you\nare not deceived in me. The mind begins to grow critical when the bodily\neye fails, and it will be a long time before you get old.' Hearing this,\nI said: 'I have told you my purpose, which is quite serious, and do you\nconsider what you think best for you and me.' 'That is good,' he said;\n'at some other time then we will consider and act as seems best about\nthis and about other matters.' Whereupon, I fancied that he was smitten,\nand that the words which I had uttered like arrows had wounded him, and\nso without waiting to hear more I got up, and throwing my coat about him\ncrept under his threadbare cloak, as the time of year was winter, and\nthere I lay during the whole night having this wonderful monster in\nmy arms. This again, Socrates, will not be denied by you. And yet,\nnotwithstanding all, he was so superior to my solicitations, so\ncontemptuous and derisive and disdainful of my beauty--which really, as\nI fancied, had some attractions--hear, O judges; for judges you shall\nbe of the haughty virtue of Socrates--nothing more happened, but in the\nmorning when I awoke (let all the gods and goddesses be my witnesses) I\narose as from the couch of a father or an elder brother.\n\nWhat do you suppose must have been my feelings, after this rejection, at\nthe thought of my own dishonour? And yet I could not help wondering\nat his natural temperance and self-restraint and manliness. I never\nimagined that I could have met with a man such as he is in wisdom and\nendurance. And therefore I could not be angry with him or renounce his\ncompany, any more than I could hope to win him. For I well knew that if\nAjax could not be wounded by steel, much less he by money; and my only\nchance of captivating him by my personal attractions had failed. So\nI was at my wit's end; no one was ever more hopelessly enslaved by\nanother. All this happened before he and I went on the expedition\nto Potidaea; there we messed together, and I had the opportunity of\nobserving his extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue. His endurance\nwas simply marvellous when, being cut off from our supplies, we were\ncompelled to go without food--on such occasions, which often happen in\ntime of war, he was superior not only to me but to everybody; there was\nno one to be compared to him. Yet at a festival he was the only person\nwho had any real powers of enjoyment; though not willing to drink, he\ncould if compelled beat us all at that,--wonderful to relate! no\nhuman being had ever seen Socrates drunk; and his powers, if I am not\nmistaken, will be tested before long. His fortitude in enduring cold was\nalso surprising. There was a severe frost, for the winter in that region\nis really tremendous, and everybody else either remained indoors, or if\nthey went out had on an amazing quantity of clothes, and were well shod,\nand had their feet swathed in felt and fleeces: in the midst of this,\nSocrates with his bare feet on the ice and in his ordinary dress marched\nbetter than the other soldiers who had shoes, and they looked daggers at\nhim because he seemed to despise them.\n\nI have told you one tale, and now I must tell you another, which is\nworth hearing,\n\n'Of the doings and sufferings of the enduring man'\n\nwhile he was on the expedition. One morning he was thinking about\nsomething which he could not resolve; he would not give it up, but\ncontinued thinking from early dawn until noon--there he stood fixed\nin thought; and at noon attention was drawn to him, and the rumour ran\nthrough the wondering crowd that Socrates had been standing and thinking\nabout something ever since the break of day. At last, in the evening\nafter supper, some Ionians out of curiosity (I should explain that this\nwas not in winter but in summer), brought out their mats and slept in\nthe open air that they might watch him and see whether he would stand\nall night. There he stood until the following morning; and with the\nreturn of light he offered up a prayer to the sun, and went his way\n(compare supra). I will also tell, if you please--and indeed I am bound\nto tell--of his courage in battle; for who but he saved my life? Now\nthis was the engagement in which I received the prize of valour: for I\nwas wounded and he would not leave me, but he rescued me and my arms;\nand he ought to have received the prize of valour which the generals\nwanted to confer on me partly on account of my rank, and I told them so,\n(this, again, Socrates will not impeach or deny), but he was more eager\nthan the generals that I and not he should have the prize. There was\nanother occasion on which his behaviour was very remarkable--in the\nflight of the army after the battle of Delium, where he served among the\nheavy-armed,--I had a better opportunity of seeing him than at Potidaea,\nfor I was myself on horseback, and therefore comparatively out of\ndanger. He and Laches were retreating, for the troops were in flight,\nand I met them and told them not to be discouraged, and promised to\nremain with them; and there you might see him, Aristophanes, as you\ndescribe (Aristoph. Clouds), just as he is in the streets of Athens,\nstalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes, calmly contemplating\nenemies as well as friends, and making very intelligible to anybody,\neven from a distance, that whoever attacked him would be likely to\nmeet with a stout resistance; and in this way he and his companion\nescaped--for this is the sort of man who is never touched in war; those\nonly are pursued who are running away headlong. I particularly observed\nhow superior he was to Laches in presence of mind. Many are the marvels\nwhich I might narrate in praise of Socrates; most of his ways might\nperhaps be paralleled in another man, but his absolute unlikeness to any\nhuman being that is or ever has been is perfectly astonishing. You\nmay imagine Brasidas and others to have been like Achilles; or you may\nimagine Nestor and Antenor to have been like Pericles; and the same may\nbe said of other famous men, but of this strange being you will never be\nable to find any likeness, however remote, either among men who now are\nor who ever have been--other than that which I have already suggested of\nSilenus and the satyrs; and they represent in a figure not only himself,\nbut his words. For, although I forgot to mention this to you before,\nhis words are like the images of Silenus which open; they are ridiculous\nwhen you first hear them; he clothes himself in language that is like\nthe skin of the wanton satyr--for his talk is of pack-asses and smiths\nand cobblers and curriers, and he is always repeating the same things\nin the same words (compare Gorg.), so that any ignorant or inexperienced\nperson might feel disposed to laugh at him; but he who opens the bust\nand sees what is within will find that they are the only words which\nhave a meaning in them, and also the most divine, abounding in fair\nimages of virtue, and of the widest comprehension, or rather extending\nto the whole duty of a good and honourable man.\n\nThis, friends, is my praise of Socrates. I have added my blame of him\nfor his ill-treatment of me; and he has ill-treated not only me, but\nCharmides the son of Glaucon, and Euthydemus the son of Diocles, and\nmany others in the same way--beginning as their lover he has ended by\nmaking them pay their addresses to him. Wherefore I say to you, Agathon,\n'Be not deceived by him; learn from me and take warning, and do not be a\nfool and learn by experience, as the proverb says.'\n\nWhen Alcibiades had finished, there was a laugh at his outspokenness;\nfor he seemed to be still in love with Socrates. You are sober,\nAlcibiades, said Socrates, or you would never have gone so far about\nto hide the purpose of your satyr's praises, for all this long story is\nonly an ingenious circumlocution, of which the point comes in by the\nway at the end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and\nyour notion is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you\nand you only ought to love Agathon. But the plot of this Satyric or\nSilenic drama has been detected, and you must not allow him, Agathon, to\nset us at variance.\n\nI believe you are right, said Agathon, and I am disposed to think that\nhis intention in placing himself between you and me was only to divide\nus; but he shall gain nothing by that move; for I will go and lie on the\ncouch next to you.\n\nYes, yes, replied Socrates, by all means come here and lie on the couch\nbelow me.\n\nAlas, said Alcibiades, how I am fooled by this man; he is determined to\nget the better of me at every turn. I do beseech you, allow Agathon to\nlie between us.\n\nCertainly not, said Socrates, as you praised me, and I in turn ought to\npraise my neighbour on the right, he will be out of order in praising me\nagain when he ought rather to be praised by me, and I must entreat you\nto consent to this, and not be jealous, for I have a great desire to\npraise the youth.\n\nHurrah! cried Agathon, I will rise instantly, that I may be praised by\nSocrates.\n\nThe usual way, said Alcibiades; where Socrates is, no one else has any\nchance with the fair; and now how readily has he invented a specious\nreason for attracting Agathon to himself.\n\nAgathon arose in order that he might take his place on the couch by\nSocrates, when suddenly a band of revellers entered, and spoiled the\norder of the banquet. Some one who was going out having left the door\nopen, they had found their way in, and made themselves at home; great\nconfusion ensued, and every one was compelled to drink large quantities\nof wine. Aristodemus said that Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and others went\naway--he himself fell asleep, and as the nights were long took a good\nrest: he was awakened towards daybreak by a crowing of cocks, and\nwhen he awoke, the others were either asleep, or had gone away; there\nremained only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon, who were drinking out\nof a large goblet which they passed round, and Socrates was discoursing\nto them. Aristodemus was only half awake, and he did not hear the\nbeginning of the discourse; the chief thing which he remembered was\nSocrates compelling the other two to acknowledge that the genius of\ncomedy was the same with that of tragedy, and that the true artist in\ntragedy was an artist in comedy also. To this they were constrained to\nassent, being drowsy, and not quite following the argument. And first\nof all Aristophanes dropped off, then, when the day was already\ndawning, Agathon. Socrates, having laid them to sleep, rose to depart;\nAristodemus, as his manner was, following him. At the Lyceum he took a\nbath, and passed the day as usual. In the evening he retired to rest at\nhis own home.","title":"Symposium","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":32593}