SYMPOSIUM (The Banquet)

Apollodoros and Friend Aristodemos, Socrates, Agathon, Pausanias, Aristophanes, Eryximachos, Phaidros, Alcibiades

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The banquet took place in Agathon’s house in 416 B.C.; a few days previously Agathon, the handsome young tragic poet then aged about thirty-one, had won the prize, his first “victory,” when one of his tragedies was first performed at a dramatic festival in the Theatre of Dionysos, the theatre at the foot of the Acropolis at Athens, which accommodated about 30,000 spectators; on SYMPOSIUM (The Banquet) Socrates refers to Agathon’s courage in facing such a huge audience. Agathon appears to have been the first to insert into his tragedies choral odes unconnected with the plot of the drama. He gave this banquet to his friends on the next evening after he and his chorus had offered their sacrifice of thanksgiving for his victory.

Of his guests:

SOCRATESwas then aged fifty-three.

PHAIDROS(Phaedrus), who was invited to preside, was a friend of Plato. The famous dialogue The Phaedrus, not included in this volume, on the subject of love, was named after him.

PAUSANIASwas a disciple of Prodicos, the Sophist, of Ceos.

ARISTOPHANES, the famous comic poet, was then about thirty-two. In his comedy The Clouds, first performed five years previously, he had made fun of Socrates.

ALCIBIADES, the eminent statesman then about thirty-five, a man of remarkable beauty and talent, but unscrupulous and dissolute, was a great admirer of Socrates, as his speech at the banquet shows. Socrates saved his life in battle when Alcibiades was about twenty.

The story of the banquet, as told by Aristodemos, who attended it with Socrates, is here retold by Apollodoros to a friend while they were out walking together about fifteen years after. Apollodoros is described in the dialogue Phaidon (Phaedo) as being present weeping at Socrates’ death about a year later.

APOLLODOROS: I think I am pretty well word-perfect in what you are inquiring about. It so happened a day or two ago that I was coming up to town, from Phaleron, when someone I knew caught sight of me and called out from behind, some distance away, in a bantering tone—“Hullo, you Phalerian there!” he shouted. “Apollodoros! Halt!” I halted and stood still.

Then he said, “Well, Apollodoros, I was just looking for you. I wanted to know about Agathon’s party, Socrates and Alcibiades and the others who were at the dinner then, and the speeches they made about love. Somebody else told me the story; he heard it from Phoinix, Philip’s son, and he said you knew too. But he had nothing very clear to say, so you must tell it to me; you are the best man to report your friend’s speeches. But tell me first of all,” he went on, “were you at the party yourself, or not?”

Then I said, “It is obvious that the story he told was not clear, if you think this party you ask about was held lately, so that I might have been there myself.”

“That is what I thought,” he said.

“How could you think that, my dear Glaucon?” I said.

“Don’t you know that Agathon has been abroad for many years, and it’s only in the last three years I have been spending my time with Socrates, and taking care every day to know whatever he says or does? Before that I used to run all over the place, anywhere, and I thought myself a grand fellow, but I was more miserable than anyone—just as you are now, when you think you would do anything rather than be a philosopher.”

“Oh, don’t jeer,” said he, “just tell me when that party was.”

I said, “It was when we were boys, and Agathon won the prize with his first tragedy—on the next day after he and his chorus offered the sacrifice of thanksgiving.”

“Then that is a long time ago,” he said, “as it seems. But who told you the story—was it Socrates?”

“Oh dear me, no,” I said, “the same man who told Phoinix; he was a Cydathenaian, Aristodemos, a little man who never wore shoes. He was at the party, a lover of Socrates as much as anyone else in those days, I think. I did ask Socrates himself about some things too, which I heard from this man, and he agreed with all the other had told me.”

“Well, I think you might tell me now,” he said, “certainly the road to town will do well enough for us to talk and listen as we go.”

So as we went along we talked about all this; and hence, as I told you to begin with, I am pretty well word-perfect. Well, if I must tell you people the story too, then I must. The truth is that whenever I speak about philosophy myself or hear others doing so, I am highly delighted, besides believing that it does me good. But when I hear other kinds of talk, especially among you rich men and moneymakers, it annoys me, and I pity you, my friends, because you are doing nothing while you think you are doing something. Well, perhaps again you believe I am a poor devil, and I think you think right; but I don’t think you are, I know it well.

FRIEND: Always the same, Apollodoros! Always abusing yourself and everybody else. You really seem to think everyone wretched except Socrates, beginning with yourself! Where you got that nickname of madman, I don’t know exactly, but in what you say you are always mad enough—you rave against yourself and everybody except Socrates!

APOLLODOROS: O my dear man, surely it is plain that I am mad and crazy, if I have such a notion about myself and you all!

FRIEND: It is not worth while quarrelling about this now, Apollodoros; but please do what I begged you—don’t say no, but tell me what the speeches were.

APOLLODOROS: Well, they were something like this—but I will try to tell you the story from the beginning as Aristodemos* told it.

Aristodemos said that he met Socrates coming from the bath, with evening shoes on,† which he did not often wear; and he asked him where he was going so smart; he said, to dinner at Agathon’s; yesterday he had refused him at the victory feast, to avoid the crowd; but he accepted for today. “That’s why I made myself pretty,” he said, “to go pretty to a pretty man! But look here,” he continued, “how about you yourself feeling willing to go to dinner uninvited?”

And I replied (said Aristodemos), “As you like.”

“Come with me, then,” said Socrates, “and we will pervert the proverb a bit, and say, ‘When gents give dinners, gents may just walk in.’‡ For Homer has really perverted this proverb, and made it vulgar too. He draws Agamemnon as a very perfect gentle knight, and Menelaos as a ‘weak warrior’: and when Agamemnon gave a feast and a sacrifice, he brings in Menelaos to the feast uninvited, although he is a low man and the other high.”

Hearing this, my friend said, “Well, perhaps I’ll risk it too, not as you suggest, Socrates, but, as in Homer, I, a poor creature, will go uninvited to a wise man’s feast. Then just think what you will say about it, for I certainly will not admit that I came uninvited, I’ll tell him that you invited me.”

He said, “‘Two heads are better than one’;* we will plan what we shall say. Well, let us go.”

So after some such talk, they started off. On the way, Socrates fell behind, absorbed in his own thoughts; and when my friend was waiting, Socrates told him to go on ahead. When he came to Agathon’s house, he found the door open, and there (he said) something rather ridiculous happened; for a servant from inside met him at once, and led him where the others were on their couches, and he came upon them as they were about to begin dinner. But as soon as Agathon saw him, he said, “My dear Aristodemos, you are just in time to join us at dinner; if you have come for something else, put it off to another time; yesterday I looked for you to invite you, but I could not see you anywhere. But why have you not brought us Socrates?” I turned round (continued Aristodemos) but I could not see Socrates following; so I said I had come with Socrates and he had invited me there to dinner. “Very nice of you to come,” he said, “but where is the man?”

“He was coming in behind me just now; I wonder myself where he could be.”

“You there, you boy,” said Agathon, “look about and bring in Socrates. And you take your place here, Aristodemos, beside Eryximachos.”

Then the boy washed his feet, that he might take his place; and another boy came, and reported, “Socrates went into the porch next door and there he is standing, but though I call him he won’t come in.”

“That’s odd,” said he, “just ask him again and don’t let him go.”

But my friend said, “Don’t do that, leave him alone. That is only his way; he often goes off and stands anywhere. He will come soon, I think. Don’t interfere with him, let him alone.”

Agathon said, “Very well, if you think so, we must do so. Serve the feast for the rest of us, you boys, and put before us just what you choose, whenever no one directs you (I never tried this before!).* Now then, imagine that I also as well as the others here have been invited by you to dinner, and serve us so as to earn our compliments.”

THE BANQUET AT AGATHON’S HOUSE (416 B.C.)

Diagram showing order of reported speeches

NOTE: The diagram is drawn circular for convenience; it is not known how the couches were arranged. The couches usually accommodated two persons each, but some were made longer. From representations on ancient vases it seems that each diner reclined towards his left, supported under his left arm by a large cushion and with his right hand free to help himself from a low stool or table in front of the couch. They had no knives or forks. The wine was usually drunk mixed with water, about three parts of water to two of wine. See A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, by W. Smith, W. Wayte, and G. E. Marindin, 3rd edition (1891), p. 393 on “Cena” and p. 741 on “Symposium.”

After this, he said, they fell to, but no Socrates appeared. Agathon kept on giving orders to send for him, but my friend would not let him. However he did come, after not so long delay as usual, and found them about the middle of dinner. Then Agathon, who was reclining on the lowest seat* alone, on the right, said, “This way, Socrates, come by me, I want to get hold of you, to enjoy that wise thought which came to you in the porch. For it is clear you found it and have it still, or you would never have come away.”

Socrates sat down, and said, “What a blessing it would be, Agathon, if wisdom could run from the fuller amongst us to the emptier, while we touch one another, as when two cups are placed side by side a bit of wool conveys water from the fuller to the emptier! If wisdom is like that, I think it precious to be beside you, for I think I shall be filled up with fine wisdom. Mine would be poor stuff and questionable, like a dream, but yours brilliant and fast growing; see how it has blazed out of you while you are still young, and showed itself to us the other day before over thirty thousand of our nation!”

“You are a scoffer, Socrates!” said Agathon. “Well, we will come into court before long about this, you and I, on our claim for wisdom, and the judge shall be Dionysos:† now first turn to dinner.”

After this (Aristodemos said), Socrates reclined, and he and they all had their dinner; they poured the drops of grace, and sang a chant to the god, and did the usual things, and settled down to drinking. Then (he continued) Pausanias began the talk like this: “Look here, gentlemen,” he said, “how shall we manage our drinking most conveniently? I tell you I am really not up to the mark myself after yesterday’s bout and I want some rest, and so do most of you, I think—for you were present yesterday; just consider then how we could manage our drinking most conveniently.”

Then Aristophanes said, “Now that is good advice, Pausanias, to make the drinking as comfortable as we can; I am one of those myself who had a good soaking yesterday.”

So Eryximachos, Acumenos’ son, when he heard them, said, “Quite right, you two. And one thing more I want to know, how Agathon feels about being fit to drink.”

“No,” said Agathon, “I don’t feel very fit myself either.”

The other said, “It seems it would be a bit of luck for us, me and Aristodemos and Phaidros and our friends here, if you with the strongest heads for drinking have thrown up the sponge; for we are always the weaklings. I do not count Socrates; he can do both ways, and it will content him whichever we choose. Then since it seems no one present votes for a hearty bout of deep wine-drinking, perhaps I should not give offence if I tell you the truth about the effect of getting drunk. I think I have seen quite clearly as a physician that drunkenness is a dangerous thing for mankind; and I am not willing to go far in drinking myself, nor would I advise another to do it, especially if he still has a headache from yesterday.”

Phaidros the Myrrhinusian responded, “Well, I always take your advice, especially on matters of physic and health; and the rest of us will be wise to do the same now.” So all agreed after hearing this not to drink too much during the present party, but everyone should drink just to please himself.

“Very well,” said Eryximachos, “since the motion is passed that each one may drink as much as he likes, but no one must drink, my next motion is, that the piping-girl who has just come in may go out again, and play to herself, or if she pleases to the women inside, and that today we entertain each other with talk; and with your leave, I will propose what kind of talk.” They all agreed, and gave leave, and told him to propose away.

“I will begin,” said Eryximachos, “by quoting from the Melanippe of Euripides:* ‘the story is not mine’ which I am going to tell, it belongs to Phaidros. For Phaidros is always complaining to me, ‘It’s a shame, Eryximachos, that many other gods have hymns and paeans made for them by the poets, but Love, that ancient mighty god, has not a single one; of all the thousands of poets who have lived, not one has ever made even an ode to praise him! Or look at the worthy professors,* if you please; they compose praises of men like Heracles in prose, as the excellent Prodicos did,† perhaps that is not so surprising, but lately I came across a book by some wise man where salt was lauded to the skies for its usefulness, and you could find many other such things praised up. Just think—to make such a fuss about things like salt, when no human being has ever dared to this day to hymn Love worthily! What neglect for so great a god!’ I think Phaidros is quite right there. So I wish to make my small contribution, and to offer it to him; and at the same time it seems to me proper on this occasion for us now present to glorify the god. If you vote with me, we should find plenty to amuse us in the speeches; for my proposal is that we should deliver a full-dress oration in praise of Love, each one from left to right, and Phaidros must begin first, since he is in the first place‡ and he is also father of the speech.”

Then Socrates said, “No one will vote against you, Eryximachos. I could not refuse myself, I suppose, when love is the only thing I profess to know about; nor will Agathon, I suppose, and Pausanias, nor indeed Aristophanes, who devotes all his time to Dionysos¶ and Aphrodite, nor any other of those I see here. However, it is not quite fair on us who are last.** But if those before us give us some really good speeches, that will do for us. Then let Phaidros be the first, and speak in praise of Love, and good luck to him.” All the others agreed, and asked him to do as Socrates suggested. However, what each one of them all said, Aristodemos could not remember, nor can I remember all he told me. But what I do remember, and what I thought most worth remembering, I will tell you of each of the speeches.

Well, as I say, Phaidros, according to Aristodemos, was the first, and he began hereabouts; that Love was a great god and wonderful on earth and in heaven, especially in his birth. “The god is honourable as being among the most ancient of all,” he said; “and a proof is, that parents Love has none, nor are they mentioned by anyone, poet or not, although Hesiod does say that Chaos came first,*

And then

Broad-breasted Earth, the everlasting seat Of all, and Love.

Acusiles also agreed with Hesiod; he says that after Chaos were produced these two, Earth and Love. But Parmenides says of Birth, that she

Contrivèd Love the first of all the gods.

Thus many agree that Love is most ancient among them. And being most ancient, he is cause of the greatest good for us. For I cannot say what is a greater good for a man in his youth than a lover, and for a lover than a beloved. For that which ought to guide mankind through all his life, if it is to be a good life, noble blood cannot implant in him so well, nor office, nor wealth, nor anything but Love. And what do I mean by that? I mean shame at ugly things, and ambition in beautiful things; for without these neither city nor man can accomplish great and beautiful works. I say then of a man who loves, that if he should be detected in doing something ugly, or allowing himself to be treated in ugly fashion because through cowardice he did not defend himself, he would suffer less pain to be seen by father or friends or anyone else than by his beloved. In the same way we see that the beloved is particularly ashamed before the lover, when seen in any ugly situation. Then if any device could be found how a state or an army could be made up only of lovers and beloved, they could not possibly find a better way of living, since they would abstain from all ugly things and be ambitious in beautiful things towards each other; and in battle side by side, such troops although few would conquer pretty well all the world. For the lover would be less willing to be seen by his beloved than by all the rest of the world, leaving the ranks or throwing away his arms, and he would choose to die many times rather than that; yes, and as to deserting the beloved, or not helping in danger, no one is so base that Love himself would not inspire him to valour, and make him equal to the born hero. And just as Homer says that the god ‘breathes fury’* into some of the heroes, so does Love really give to lovers a power coming from himself.

“And to die for another—this only lovers are willing to do, not only men, but women. Alcestis, Pelias’ daughter,† gives sufficient evidence of this to prove it to our nation; she alone was willing to die for her husband, although he had a father and a mother; these the wife so much surpassed in love because of her affection for her husband that she showed they were aliens to their own son and were relatives only in name. Having done this, she was thought, not only by men, but by gods also, to have done so nobly that they sent up her soul from the dead in admiration for her deed, although of all the many who have done noble deeds one might easily count those to whom the gods gave the privilege of having their souls sent up again from Hades. Thus the gods also honour especially earnestness and valour in love. But Orpheus, Oiagros’ son, they sent back unsuccessful from Hades, showing him a phantom of his wife for whom he came, but not giving her real self because they thought him soft, being a zither-player, and they thought he did not dare to die for his love like Alcestis, but managed to get into Hades alive. For this reason, therefore, they punished him, and made his death come about by women, unlike Achilles, the son of Thetis; but they honoured Achilles and sent him to the Islands of the Blest,‡ because when his mother told him that if he killed Hector he would die, but if he did not kill him he would return home and live to be an old man, he dared to choose, by helping his lover Patroclos and avenging him, not only to die for him, but in his end to perish over his body: hence therefore the gods, admiring him above measure, honoured him particularly, because he set so high the value of his lover. (But Aeschylus is absurd* when he says Achilles was the lover and Patroclos the beloved, when he was more beautiful not only than Patroclos but than all the heroes, and was yet beardless, and again much younger, as Homer says.†) But in fact the gods do most greatly honour this valour for love’s sake; yet they still more respect and admire and reward when the beloved feels affection for the lover, than when the lover does for his beloved. For a lover is more divine than the beloved, since he is inspired. Therefore they honoured Achilles more than Alcestis, and sent him to the Islands of the Blest.

“Thus then I say, that of the gods Love is at once oldest, and most precious, and has most power to provide virtue and happiness for mankind, both living and dead.”

Such or something like it was the speech of Phaidros, as related to me by Aristodemos; and after Phaidros there were some others which he did not remember well; so he passed them by, and reported the speech of Pausanias, who said, “I do not think, Phaidros, that the rules were properly laid down, I mean that we should just simply belaud Love. For if Love were one, that would do, but really he is not one; and since he is not one, it is more proper to say first which we are to praise. Then I will try to set this right, and say first which Love we ought to praise, and then praise that god worthily. For we all know that Aphrodite‡ is never without a Love: if she were one, Love would be one; but since there are really two, there must be two Loves. Of course there are two goddesses. One I take it is older, and motherless, daughter of Heaven, whom we call Heavenly Aphrodite, the other younger, a daughter of Zeus and Dione, whom we call, as you know, Common. It must be then, you see, that Love too, the one who works with this Aphrodite, should be called Common Love, and the other Heavenly Love. It is true we must praise all gods, but I must try to say what is the province of each of these two. For the performance of every action is, in itself, neither beautiful nor ugly. So what we are doing now, whether drinking or singing or speaking, is not itself beautiful, but according as it is done, so it comes out in the doing: when it is done well and rightly, it is beautiful, but when not rightly done, it is ugly. Just so with being in love, and with Love himself; he is not all beautiful and worthy to be praised, but only so far as he leads to right loving.

“The Love, then, which belongs to Common Aphrodite is really and truly common and works at random; and this is the love which inferior men feel. Such persons love firstly women as well as boys; next, when they love, they love bodies rather than souls; and next, they choose the most foolish persons they can, for they look only to getting something done, and care nothing whether well or not. So what happens to them is that they act at random, whether they do good or whether they do its opposite; for this Love springs from the goddess which is much younger than the other, and in her birth had a share of both female and male. But the other Love springs from the Heavenly goddess, who firstly has had no share of the female, but only of the male; next, she is the elder, and has no violence in her: consequently those inspired by this love turn to the male, because they feel affection rather for what is stronger and has more mind. One could recognise even in boy-love those who are driven by this Love pure and simple; for they do not fall in love with those who are little boys, but with those who begin to have mind, and that is nearly when they show the down on their chins. For those who begin to love them from this age, I think, are ready to be with them always for all their lives, and to live with them together; they do not wish to get a boy in the foolishness of youth, and then deceive him and laugh at him and go off running to another. There ought to have been a law against loving little boys, that a great deal of earnestness might not have been spent on what is uncertain; for it is uncertain how little boys will turn out, as regards vice and virtue, both of body and soul. Now those who are good place this law before themselves unbidden; but it ought to be made compulsory for those common lovers, just as we make it compulsory as far, as we can that they shall not make love to freeborn women. For these are they who bring reproach on the whole thing, so that some dare to say that it is ugly to gratify lovers; they say this with their eye on those common ones, when they see their tactlessness and injustice; since I suppose nothing done decently and lawfully could fairly bring discredit.

“Again, here and in Lacedaimon the law about love is confusing, but that in other states is easy to understand. In Elis and Boeotia, and where people are not clever speakers, it is simply laid down that it is right to gratify lovers, and no one young or old would call it ugly; as I think, they wish not to have the trouble of convincing the young, because they cannot argue; but in many other parts of Ionia it is considered ugly, where they are under barbarians. For the barbarians because of the rule of despots call this ugly, as well as philosophy and sports; I suppose it is profitable to their rulers that the subjects should not be great in spirit or make strong friendships and unions, which things love is wont to implant more than anything else. In fact, our own despots* here found that out by experience; for the love of Aristogeiton, and the friendship of Harmodios, grown strong, brought their rule to an end. So where it has been laid down as ugly to gratify lovers, that was from the evil condition of those that made the laws, the grasping habits of the rulers and the cowardice of the ruled; and where it was thought simply good, that was from laziness of soul in those who made the laws. But in these parts, much of the law and custom is better, and as I said, it is not easy to understand.

“For consider that it is called better to love openly than secretly, and especially to love the highest and noblest born, even if they are uglier than others; and consider how wonderfully all encourage the lover—not as if he were doing something ugly, which if he wins is thought beautiful, and if he does not win, ugly; and how the law has allowed the lover, in trying to win, to be praised for doing extraordinary things, which if a man should dare to do in pursuit of anything else except this, or should even wish to accomplish, he would reap the greatest disgrace. For if, wishing to get money from someone, or to win public office, or to get any other power, a man should behave as lovers do towards their beloved, begging and beseeching them in their petitions, and swearing solemn oaths, and sleeping at their doors, and being willing to do slavish services such as no slave would do, he would be hindered both by friends and by enemies from doing his business thus: the friends would be ashamed of such things and warn him, the enemies would upbraid him for flattery and bad manners. But the lover has a grace when he does all this, and the law allows him to do it without discredit, as a thing wholly beautiful; and strangest of all, he alone, as the people say, is pardoned by the gods for breaking the oath he has sworn—for it is said an oath of love simply has no force. Thus both gods and men have given full licence to the lover, as the law here says; so far, then, one might think it was considered wholly beautiful in this city both to love and to feel affection for a lover. But on the other hand when fathers place tutors over the loved ones and forbid them to converse with their lovers, and the tutor is ordered to see to it; when age-mates and companions reproach them if they see anything like this going on; and lastly when the older men do not stop these from reproaching them, nor scold them for talking nonsense—if one looked at this, one would think such a thing was considered very ugly here. The fact is, I think, the case is not simple: as I said at the beginning, it is neither beautiful nor ugly by itself, but beautifully done it is beautiful, and uglily done it is ugly—uglily, is to gratify a base man and basely; beautifully, is to gratify a good man and beautifully. A base man is that common lover who loves the body rather than the soul; for he is not lasting since he loves a thing not lasting. For as soon as the flower of the body fades, which is what he loved, ‘He takes to the wing and away he flies,’* and violates any number of vows and promises; but the lover of a good character remains faithful throughout life, since he has been fused with a lasting thing. These, then, our law wishes to test well and thoroughly; for these reasons, then, it enjoins to pursue the one and eschew the other, setting them tasks and testing them to see which class the lover belongs to, and which class the beloved. Thus you see it is on these grounds that, first of all, to be won quickly is considered ugly—for time should come in, which seems to test everything well; next, to be won by money and political power is ugly, whether it means shrinking from suffering and lack of endurance, or failure to despise the benefits flowing from money or political achievements; for none of these things appears to be firm and lasting, not to mention that genuine affection is never bred from them. Then only one road is left for our law, if the beloved is to gratify the lover beautifully. For our law is, that as it was not counted flattery or disgrace for lovers to be willing slaves in any slavery to the beloved, so for the beloved, there is only one willing slavery which is no disgrace—and that is in pursuit of virtue.

“For we have a custom that if one wishes to serve another, because he thinks that the man can make him better either in wisdom or any other part of virtue, this willing slavery is not ugly and it is no flattery. Then let us compare these two customs, that which concerns boy-lovers and that which concerns philosophy and virtue in general, if we are to infer that when the beloved gratifies the lover it is beautiful. For when lover and beloved come together each with his law—the one, that when he serves the consenting beloved in anything whatever the service is right, the other, that by doing any service whatever to one who makes him wise and good he does right service, the one able to contribute something for wisdom and virtue in general, the other desiring to get this for education and wisdom in general—then, you see, these laws meet together, and then only it follows that for beloved to gratify lover is beautiful, but never otherwise. In this case, even to be deceived is not ugly; in all others both to be deceived and not to be deceived is ugly. For if one in pursuit of riches gratifies a lover supposed to be rich, and is deceived and gets no money because the lover turns out to be poor, it is no less ugly; for such a one is thought to show, as far as in him lay, that for money he would do anyone and everyone any and every service, and that is not beautiful. By the same argument observe that even if one gratifies another as being good, expecting to be better himself because of his affection for the lover, but since the other turns out to be bad and not possessed of virtue, he is deceived, nevertheless the deceit is beautiful; for he again is thought to have shown, as far as in him lay, that for virtue and to become better he was ready with everything for everyone. And this again is the most beautiful thing of all; so in every case it is beautiful to gratify for the sake of virtue.

“This is the love of the heavenly goddess, love both heavenly and precious to city and men; for it compels both lover and beloved to take all possible care for virtue. But all other loves belong to the other goddess, the common one. Here, my dear Phaidros, you have my humble contribution on Love, as well as I could make it at the moment.”

Pausanias paused upon this clause—that’s how the stylists teach me to jingle!—and Aristodemos said that Aristophanes ought to have spoken next, but he had a hiccup from surfeit or something, and couldn’t speak. However, he managed to say to Doctor Eryximachos, who was reclining in the place just below him, “My dear Eryximachos, it’s your job either to stop my hiccup, or to speak instead until I stop myself.”

And Eryximachos answered, “Well, I will do both; I will speak in your turn, and when you stop the hiccup you shall speak in mine. And while I am speaking, hold your breath a long time and see if the hiccup will stop; if it won’t, gargle water. But if it still goes strong, pick up something to tickle your nose with, and sneeze; do this once or twice, and stop it will, even if it is very strong.”

“Look sharp,” says Aristophanes, “speak away, and I’ll do all that.”

Then (continued Aristodemos) Eryximachos said, “Pausanias began well, but ended feebly, so I think I must try to put a good end to his oration. He said Love was double, and I think he was right in dividing him. But I think I have seen from our art of medicine how great and wonderful the god is, and how he extends over everything human and divine; he is not only in the souls of mankind and directed towards beautiful people, but he is in all the rest, and directed towards many other things; he is in the bodies of all living creatures, and in what grows in the earth, and, one may say, in everything there is. I will begin my speech with medicine, that we may do special honour to my art. The natural body has this double Love; for bodily health and disease are by common consent different things and unlike, and what is unlike desires and loves things unlike. Then there is one love in the healthy, and another in the diseased. So you see just as, according to what Pausanias said just now, it is beautiful to gratify good men, and ugly to gratify the intemperate, so in the bodies themselves, to gratify the good things in each body and the healthy things is beautiful and must be done, and this gratification is what is called the healing art, but to gratify what is bad and diseased is ugly and must not be done, if one is to practise that art. For the healing art, to put it shortly, is knowledge of the body’s loves for filling and emptying, and one who distinguishes the beautiful and the ugly love in these things is the most complete physician; and one who makes them change, so that they get one love instead of the other, and, where there is no love when there ought to be, one who knows how to put it in, and to take out love that is in, he would be a good practitioner. You see one must be able to make loving friends of the greatest enemies in the body. Now the greatest enemies are the most opposite, hot and cold, bitter and sweet, dry and wet, and so forth; our ancestor Asclepios,* as our poets† here say and I believe, composed our art because he knew how to implant love and concord in these. Then the healing art, as I say, is all guided by this god, and so is gymnastic and agriculture; music too is clearly in the same case with this, as it is plain to anyone who thinks for a moment; and perhaps that is what Heracleitos means, since his words are not very clear. He says, ‘The One at variance with itself is brought together again, like a harmony of bow and lyre.’* It is quite illogical to say that a harmony is at variance with itself or is made up of notes still at variance. But perhaps he meant to say that it was made from the high and low notes—first at variance, then afterwards reconciled together by the art of music. For I suppose there could not be harmony from high and low notes still at variance, for harmony is symphony and symphony is a kind of agreement; but agreement there cannot be of things at variance so long as they are at variance. But what is at variance, and yet is not unable to be brought into agreement, it is possible to harmonize. Just so rhythm is made from quick and slow, first differing, then brought into agreement. But music places agreement here in all these, just as there the art of healing does, by implanting concord and love for each other; and music again is the knowledge of love affairs concerning harmony and rhythm. And in the very composition of harmony and rhythm it is not difficult to distinguish the love affairs, although the double love is not there yet; but whenever one must use rhythm and harmony for men, either composing (which they call melody-making), or rightly using the melodies and verses made (which is called education), that is the time when there are difficulties, and a good craftsman is wanted. Then the same old argument comes round again, that decent men must be gratified, and also those not yet quite decent that they may become so, and their Love must be protected; and this is the beautiful Love, the Heavenly Love, the Love belonging to the ‘Heavenly’ Muse Urania; but that of ‘Manyhymn’ Polymnia is the common one, who must be offered to people with great care whenever he is offered, to let them reap the pleasure from him, but not to implant any intemperance: just so in our art, it is a great business to use well the desires concerned with the art of cookery, so that people may reap the pleasures without disease. So you see, both in music and in physic and in everything else earthly and heavenly, we must watch and protect both Loves as far as we can, for both are there.

“See how the composition of the seasons of the year is full of these two: and so, whenever the things I mentioned just now, hot and cold and dry and wet, have the decent Love towards each other, and get a harmony and a temperate mixture, they come bringing a good season, with health for mankind and the other animals and vegetables and plants, and then they do no harm; but when the violent Love has more power on the seasons of the year, he does harm, and destroys much. For pestilences often come as a result, and many other discordant diseases in wild beasts and growing things: hoarfrosts and hails and blights come from the grasping habits and indecency of such love affairs, knowledge of which as regards the courses of the stars and the seasons of the year is called astronomy. Moreover, all sacrifice and the domain of divination (this is the communion of gods and men together), all this is concerned solely with the protection and healing of Love. For all impiety is wont to occur, as concerns parents both living and dead, and gods, if one does not gratify the decent Love and honour him and put him first in every work, but honours the other. So you see this is what divination is ordered to do, to supervise these Loves and to treat them as a physician; and divination is again the craftsman of friendship between men and gods, by its knowledge of the love affairs of mankind which tend towards good law and piety.

“So Love as a whole has great and mighty power, or rather in a word, omnipotence; but the one concerned with good things, being accomplished with temperance and justice, both here and in heaven, has the greatest power, and provides all happiness for us, and makes us able to have society together, and to be friends with the gods also, who are higher than we are. Perhaps indeed I also omit much in praising Love; but I can’t help it. If I have omitted something, it is your part, Aristophanes, to fill up the gap; or if you intend to praise the god in some other way, go on and do so, since your hiccup is gone.”

So Aristophanes (said Aristodemos) took his turn next, and said, “Oh yes, it has quite gone, but not until sneezing was applied to it; which makes me wonder if the decency of the body desires noises and ticklings like a sneeze; for it stopped at once when I applied the sneeze to it.”

Then Eryximachos said, “My good man, look what you’re doing! You are playing the fool when you are about to make a speech! You compel me to keep a watch on your speech and look out for something laughable, when you might speak in peace!”

And Aristophanes answered, with a laugh, “Quite right, Eryximachos, I take back what I said. But don’t watch me, for as to what I am going to say, I am not at all afraid I may say something laughable, for that would be clear gain and natural to our Muse—but lest the things I say may be just ridiculous!”

“So you think you are going to hurl your shaft, Aristophanes,” he said, “and get off scot free? Take care, take care, and be sure you will have to account for yourself. But perhaps I will let you off, if I am so disposed.”

“Well, Eryximachos,” said Aristophanes, “I intend to speak in a different way from you and Pausanias. For it seems to me that mankind have wholly failed to perceive the power of Love; if they had, they would have built to him their greatest sanctuaries and altars, and they would have made their greatest sacrifice to him; but now nothing of the sort is done, although it most assuredly ought to be done. For he is the most man-loving of gods, being the helper of man, and the healer of those whose healing would be the greatest happiness to the human race. Therefore I will try to introduce you to his power, and you shall teach the others.

“First you must learn about the nature of man and the history of it. Formerly the natural state of man was not what it is now, but quite different. For at first there were three sexes, not two as at present, male and female, but also a third having both together; the name remains with us, but the thing is gone. There was then a male-female sex and a name to match, sharing both male and female, but now nothing is left but the title used in reproach.* Next, the shape of man was quite round, back and ribs passing about it in a circle; and he had four arms and an equal number of legs, and two faces on a round neck, exactly alike; there was one head with these two opposite faces, and four ears, and two privy members, and the rest as you might imagine from this. They walked upright as now, in whichever direction they liked; and when they wanted to run fast, they rolled over and over on the ends of the eight limbs they had in those days, as our tumblers tumble now with their legs straight out. And why there were three sexes, and shaped like this, was because the male was at first born of the sun, and the female of the earth, and the common sex had something of the moon, which combines both male and female; their shape was round and their going was round because they were like their parents. They had terrible strength and force, and great were their ambitions; they attacked the gods, and what Homer said of Otos and Ephialtes is said of them, that they tried to climb into heaven intending to make war upon the gods.†

“So Zeus and the other gods held council what they should do, and they were perplexed; for they really could not kill the tribe with thunderbolts and make them vanish like the giants—since then their honours and the sacrifices of mankind would vanish too—nor could they allow them to go on in this wild way. After a deal of worry Zeus had a happy thought. ‘Look here,’ he said,

‘I think I have found a scheme; we can let men still exist but we can stop them from their violence by making them weaker. I will tell you what I’ll do now,’ says he, ‘I will slice each of them down through the middle! Two improvements at once! They will be weaker, and they will be more useful to us because there will be more of them. They shall walk upright on two legs. And if they choose to go on with their wild doings, and will not keep quiet, I’ll do it again!’ says he, ‘I’ll slice ’em again through the middle! And they shall hop about on one leg! Like those boys that hop on the greasy wineskins at the fair!’* says he; and then he sliced men through the middle, as you slice your serviceberries through the middle for pickle, or as you slice hard-boiled eggs with a hair. While he sliced each, he told Apollo to turn the face and half the neck towards the cut, to make the man see his own cut and be more orderly, and then he told him to heal the rest up. So Apollo turned the face, and gathered up the skin over what is now called the belly, like purses which you pull shut with a string; he made one little mouth, and fastened it at the middle of the belly, what they call the navel. Most of the wrinkles he smoothed out, and shaped the breasts, using a tool like the shoemaker’s when he smooths wrinkles out of his leather on the last; but he left a few, those about the navel and the belly, to remind them of what happened. So when the original body was cut through, each half wanted the other, and hugged it; they threw their arms round each other desiring to grow together in the embrace, and died of starvation and general idleness because they would not do anything apart from each other. When one of the halves died and the other was left, the half which was left hunted for another and embraced it, whether he found the half of a whole woman (which we call woman now), or half of a whole man; and so they perished. But Zeus pitied them and found another scheme; he moved their privy parts in front, for these also were outside before, and they had begotten and brought forth not with each other but with the ground, like the cicadas. So he moved these parts also in front and made the generation come between them, by the male in the female; that in this embrace, if a man met a woman, they might beget and the race might continue, and if a man met a man, they might be satisfied by their union and rest, and might turn to work and care about the general business of life. So you see how ancient is the mutual love implanted in mankind, bringing together the parts of the original body, and trying to make one out of two, and to heal the natural structure of man.

“Then each of us is the tally* of a man; he is sliced like a flatfish, and two made of one. So each one seeks his other tally. Then all men who are a cutting of the old common sex which was called manwoman are fond of women, and adulterers generally come of that sex, and all women who are mad for men, and adulteresses. The women who are a cutting of the ancient women do not care much about men, but are more attracted to women, and strumpetesses also come from this sex. But those which are a cutting of the male pursue the male, and while they are boys, being slices of the male, they are fond of men, and enjoy lying with men and embracing them, and these are the best of boys and lads because they are naturally bravest. Some call them shameless, but that is false; no shamelessness makes them do this, but boldness and courage and a manly force, which welcome what is like them. Here is a great proof: when they grow up, such as these alone are men in public affairs. And when they become men, they fancy boys, and naturally do not trouble about marriage and getting a family, but that law and custom compels them; they find it enough themselves to live unmarried together. Such a person is always inclined to be a boy-lover or a beloved, as he always welcomes what is akin. So when one of these meets his own proper half, whether boy-lover or anyone else, then they are wonderfully overwhelmed by affection and intimacy and love, and one may say never wish to be apart for a moment. These are the ones who remain together all their lives, although they could not say what they expect to get from each other; for no one could suppose that this is sensual union, as if this could make anyone delight in another’s company so seriously as all that. Plainly the soul of each wants something else—what, it cannot say, but it divines and riddles what it wants. And as they lie together suppose Hephaistos* were to stand beside them with his tools, and ask, ‘What do you want from each other, men?’ And if they were at a loss, suppose he should ask again, ‘Is it only that you desire to be together as close as possible, and not to be apart from each other night or day? For if that is what you desire, I am ready to melt you and weld you together, so that you two may be made one, and as one you may live together as long as you live, and when you die you may die still one instead of two, and be yonder in the house of Hades together. Think if this is your passion, and if it will satisfy you to get this.’ If that were offered, we know that not a single one would object, or be found to wish anything else; he would simply believe he had heard that which he had so long desired, to be united and melted together with his beloved, and to become one from two. For the reason is that this was our ancient natural shape, when we were one whole; and so the desire for the whole and the pursuit of it is named Love.

“Formerly, as I say, we were one, but now because of doing wrong we have been dispersed by the god, as the Arcadians were dispersed by the Lacedaimonians. There is fear then, if we are not decent towards the gods, that we may be sliced in half again, and we may go about like so many relief carvings of persons shown in half-view on tombstones, sawn right through the nose, like tally-dice cut in half. For these reasons we must exhort all men in everything to be god-fearing men, that we may escape this fate and attain our desire, since Love is our leader and captain. But let no man oppose Love—and whoever is the gods’ enemy does oppose him. For when we are friends with this god and reconciled to him, we shall find and enjoy our very own beloved, which now few are able to do. And don’t let Eryximachos chip in and make fun of my speech, and say that I mean Pausanias and Agathon; I should not be surprised if they are really of this class, and both males by nature, but indeed I speak in general of all men and women, that the way to make our race happy is to make love perfect, and each to get his very own beloved and go back to our original nature. If this is the best thing possible, the best thing to our hand must of course be to come as near it as possible, and that is to get a beloved who suits our mind. Then if we would praise the god who is the cause of this, we should rightly praise Love, who in the present gives us our chief blessing by bringing us home to our own, and for the future offers the greatest hopes; that if we duly worship the god, he will restore us to our ancient nature and heal us and make us blessed and happy.

“There is my speech about Love, Eryximachos, very different from yours. Then, as I begged you, do not make fun of it, but let us hear what each of the others will say, or rather, each of the two others; for only Agathon and Socrates are left.”

“I will do as you ask,” said Eryximachos, “for I did very much enjoy hearing that speech. And if I did not know that both Socrates and Agathon were experts in love matters, I should be afraid they might be puzzled what to say when such a world of things has been said already. But as it is, I don’t fear at all.”

Then Socrates said, “You played your part well yourself, Eryximachos; but if you were where I am now, or rather perhaps where I shall be, when Agathon has made his speech, you would be very much afraid, and like me now, you wouldn’t know where you were.”

“You want to put a spell on me, Socrates,” said Agathon, “and make me shy through thinking that the audience has great expectations of a fine speech from me!”

Socrates answered, “I should have a very bad memory, Agathon, if I thought you would be shy now before a few people like us, since I saw your courage and spirit when you mounted the platform along with the actors, and faced all that huge audience, ready to display your compositions without the smallest sign of confusion.”

“What!” said Agathon, “my dear Socrates, you don’t really think I am so full of the theatre that I don’t know a few men with minds are more formidable to a man of sense than many without minds!”

“I should make a mistake, my dear Agathon,” Socrates said, “if I imagined anything vulgar about you; I am quite sure that if you were in company with any you thought intelligent, you would rate them above the many. However, perhaps we are not intelligent—for we were there too, and we were among the many—but if you should meet with others who are, you would be ashamed of doing before them anything which you might think ugly. What do you say to that?”

“Quite true,” said he.

“And before the many, would you not be ashamed if you thought you were doing something ugly?”

Then Phaidros put in a word, and said, “My dear friend Agathon, if you answer Socrates, he will not care what becomes of our business here! He won’t care anything about anything, so long as he can have someone to converse with, especially someone beautiful. For myself, I like hearing Socrates arguing, but it is my duty to care about the praise of Love, and to exact from each one of you his speech. So just pay up to the god, both of you, and then you may argue.”

“Quite right, Phaidros,” said Agathon, “I am ready to speak; Socrates will be there another time, and often, to talk to.

“First, then, I wish to describe how I ought to speak; then to speak. It seems to me that all who have spoken so far have not praised the god, but have congratulated mankind on the good things which the god has caused for them: what that god was himself who gave these gifts, no one has described. But the one right way for any laudation of anyone is to describe what he is, and then what he causes, whoever may be our subject. Thus, you see, with Love: we also should first praise him for what he is, and then praise his gifts.

“I say then that all gods are happy, but if it is lawful to say this without offence, I say that Love is happiest of them all, being most beautiful and best. And how he is most beautiful, I am about to describe. First of all, Phaidros, he is youngest of the gods. He himself supplies one great proof of what I say, for he flies in full flight away from Old Age, who is a quick one clearly, since he comes too soon to us all. Love hates him naturally and will not come anywhere near him. But he is always associated with the young, and with them he consorts, for the old saying is right, ‘Like ever comes to like.’ I am ready to admit many other things to Phaidros, but one I do not admit, that Love is older than Cronos and Iapetos;* no, I say he is youngest of the gods, and ever young; but that old business of the gods, which Hesiod and Parmenides tell about, was done through Necessity and not through Love, if they told the truth; for if Love had been in them, there would have been no gelding or enchaining of each other and all those violent things, but friendship and peace, as there is now, and has been ever since Love has reigned over the gods. So then, he is young, and besides being young he is tender; but we need a poet like Homer to show the god’s tenderness. For Homer says of Ate† that she was a god and tender—at least her feet were tender—when he says that

Tender are her feet; she comes not near

The ground, but walks upon the heads of men.

I think he gives good proof of her tenderness, that she walks not on the hard but on the soft. Then let us use the same proof for Love, that he is tender. For he walks not on the earth nor on top of heads, which are not so very soft, but both walks and abides in the softest things there are; for his abode is settled in the tempers and souls of gods and men, and again, not in all souls without exception; no, whenever he meets a soul with a hard temper, he departs, but where it is soft, he abides. So since he always touches with feet and all else the softest of the soft, he must needs be tender. You see, then, he is youngest and tenderest, but besides this his figure is supple, for if he were stiff, he could not fold himself in everywhere, or throughout every soul, and come in and go out unnoticed from the first. A great proof of his good proportion and supple shape is his gracefulness, which, as we all know, Love has in high degree; for there is always war between gracelessness and Love. Colours and beauty are testified by the god’s nestling in flowers; for where there is no flower, or flower is past, in body and soul and everything else, Love sits not, but where the place is flowery and fragrant there he both sits and stays.

“Of the god’s beauty much more might be said, but this is enough; the virtue of Love comes next. Chief is that Love wrongs not and is not wronged, wrongs no god and is wronged by none, wrongs no man and is wronged by none. Nothing that happens to him comes by violence, for violence touches not Love; nothing he does is violent, for everyone willingly serves Love in everything, and what a willing person grants to a willing, is just—so say ‘the city’s king, the laws.’* And besides justice, he is full of temperance. It is agreed that temperance is the mastery and control of pleasures and desires, and that no pleasure is stronger than Love. But if they are weaker, then Love would master and control them; and being master of pleasure and desires, Love would be especially temperate. Furthermore, in courage ‘not even Ares† stands up against Love,’ for it is not Ares that holds Love, but Love Ares—love of Aphrodite, as they say; stronger is he that holds than he that is held, and the master of the bravest of all would be himself bravest. Now the justice and temperance and courage of the god have been spoken of, and wisdom is left; so one must try to do the best one is able to do. And first, that I may honour our art as Eryximachos honoured his, Love is so wise a poet that he can make another the same; at least, everyone becomes a poet whom Love touches, even one who before that, had ‘no music in his soul’.‡ This we may fittingly use as a proof that Love is a good poet¶ or active maker in practically all the creations of the fine arts; for what one has not or knows not, one can neither give to another nor teach another. Now take the making of all living things; who will dispute that they are the clever work of Love, by which all living things are made and begotten? And craftsmanship in the arts; don’t we know that where this god is teacher, art turns out notable and illustrious, but where there is no touch of Love, it is all in the dark? Archery, again, and medicine and divination were invented by Apollo, led by desire and love, so that even he would be a pupil of Love; so also the Muses in music and Hephaistos in smithcraft and Athena in weaving and Zeus in ‘pilotage of gods and men.’ Hence you see also, all that business of the gods was arranged when Love came among them—love of beauty, that is plain, for there is no Love in ugliness. Before that, as I said at the beginning, many terrible things happened to the gods because of the reign of Necessity—so the story goes; but when this god Love was born, all became good both for gods and men from loving beautiful things.

“Thus it seems to me, Phaidros, that Love comes first, himself most beautiful and best, and thereafter he is cause of other such things in others. And I am moved to speak something of him in verse myself, that it is he who makes

Peace among men, calm weather on the deep,

Respite from winds, in trouble rest and sleep.*

He empties us of estrangement, and fills us with friendliness, ordaining all such meetings as this one, of people one with another, in feasts, in dances, in sacrifices becoming men’s guide; he provides gentleness and banishes savagery: he loves to give good will, hates to give ill will; gracious, mild; illustrious to the wise, admirable to the gods; enviable to those who have none of him, treasured by those who have some of him; father of luxury, daintiness, delicacy, grace, longing, desire; careful of good things, careless of bad things; in hardship, in fear, in drinking,* in talk a pilot, a comrade, a stand-by† and the best of saviours; of all gods and men an ornament, a guide most beautiful and best, whom every man must follow, hymning him well, sharing in the song he sings as he charms the mind of gods and men.

“This, Phaidros, is my speech,” he said; “may the god accept my dedication, partly play, partly modest seriousness, and the best that I am able to do.”

When Agathon had spoken (Aristodemos told me), all applauded; the young man was thought to have spoken becomingly for himself and for the god. Then Socrates looked at Eryximachos, and said, “Now then, son of Acumenos, do you think there was no reason to fear in the fears I feared?‡ Was I not a prophet when I said, as I did just now, that Agathon would make a wonderful speech, and leave me with nothing to say?”

“Yes, to the first,” said Eryximachos, “you were a prophet there, certainly, about the wonderful speech; but nothing to say? I don’t think so!”

“Bless you,” said Socrates, “and how have I anything to say, I or anyone else, when I have to speak after that beautiful speech, with everything in it? The first part was wonderful enough, but the end! The beauty of those words and phrases! It was quite overwhelming for any listener. The fact is, when I considered that I shall not be able to get anywhere near it, and I have nothing fine to say at all—I was so ashamed that I all but took to my heels and ran, but I had nowhere to go. The speech reminded me of Gorgias,¶ and I really felt quite as in Homer’s story;** I was afraid that Agathon at the end of his speech might be going to produce the Gorgon’s head of Gorgias—the terror in speech-making—directed against my speech, and turn me into stone with dumbness. And I understood then that I was a fool when I told you I would take my turn in singing the honours of Love, and admitted I was terribly clever in love affairs, whereas it seems I really had no idea how a eulogy ought to be made. For I was stupid enough to think that we ought to speak the truth about each person eulogised, and to make this the foundation, and from these truths to choose the most beautiful things and arrange them in the most elegant way; and I was quite proud to think how well I should speak, because I believed that I knew the truth. However, apparently this was not the right way to praise anything, but we should dedicate all that is greatest and most beautiful to the work, whether things are so or not; if they were false it did not matter. For it seems the task laid down was not for each of us to praise Love, but to seem to praise him. For this reason then, I think, you rake up every story, and dedicate it to Love, and say he is so-and-so and the cause of such-and-such, that he may seem to be most beautiful and best, of course to those who don’t know—not to those who do, I suppose—and the laudation is excellent and imposing. But indeed I did not know how an encomium was made, and it was without this knowledge that I agreed to take my part in praising. Therefore the tongue promised, but not the mind,* so good-bye to that. For I take it back now; I make no eulogy in this fashion: I could not do it. However, the truth, if you like: I have no objection to telling the truth, in my own fashion, not in rivalry with your speeches, or I should deserve to be laughed at. Then see whether you want a speech of that sort, Phaidros. Will you listen to the truth being told about Love, in any words and arrangement of phrases such as we may hit on as we go?”

Phaidros and the others (continued Aristodemos) told him to go on just as he thought best. “Then, Phaidros,” he said, “let me ask Agathon a few little things, that I may get his agreement before I speak.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Phaidros, “ask away.” After that Socrates began something like this:

“Indeed, my dear Agathon, I thought you were quite right in the beginning of your speech, when you said that you must first show what Love was like, and afterwards come to his works. That beginning I admire very much. Now then, about Love: you described what he is magnificently well, and so on; but tell me this too—is Love such as to be a love of something, or of nothing? I don’t mean to ask if he is a love of mother or father; for that would be a ridiculous question, whether Love is love for mother or father; I mean it in the sense that one might apply to ‘father’ for instance; is the father a father of something or not? You would say, I suppose, if you wanted to answer right, that the father is father of son or daughter. Is that correct?”

“Certainly,” said Agathon.

“And the same with the mother?”

This was agreed.

“Another, please,” said Socrates, “answer me one or two more, that you may better understand what I want. What if I were to ask: ‘A brother now, in himself, is he brother of something?’”

He said yes.

“Of a brother or sister?”

He agreed.

“Then tell me,” he said, “about Love. Is Love love of nothing or of something?”

“Certainly he is love of something.”

“Now then,” said Socrates, “keep this in your memory, what the object of Love is;* and say whether Love desires the object of his love?”

“Certainly,” said Agathon.

“Is it when he has what he desires and loves that he desires and loves it, or when he has not?”

“Most likely, when he has not,” said he.

“Just consider,” said Socrates, “put ‘necessary’ for ‘likely’; isn’t it necessary that the desiring desires what it lacks, or else does not desire if it does not lack? I think positively myself, Agathon, that it is absolutely necessary; what do you think?”

“I think the same,” said he.

“Good. Then would one being big want to be big, or being strong want to be strong?”

“Impossible, according to what we have agreed.”

“For I suppose he would not be lacking in whichever of these he is?”

“True.”

“For if being strong he wanted to be strong,” said Socrates, “and being swift he wanted to be swift, and being healthy he wanted to be healthy—you might go on forever like this, and you might think that those who were so-and-so and had such-and-such did also desire what they had; but to avoid our being deceived I say this—if you understand me, Agathon, it is obvious that these must have at this present time all they have, whether they wish to or not—and can anyone desire that? And when one says, ‘I am healthy and want to be healthy,’ ‘I am rich and want to be rich,’ ‘I desire what I have,’ we should answer, ‘You, my good man, being possessed of riches and health and strength, wish to go on being possessed of them in the future, since at present you have them whether you want it or not; and when you say, “I desire what I have,” consider—you mean only that you want to have in the future what you have now.’ Wouldn’t he agree?”

Agathon said yes.

Then Socrates went on, “Therefore this love for these blessings to be preserved for him into the future and to be always present for him—this is really loving that which is not yet available for him or possessed by him?”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Then he, and every other who desires, desires what is not in his possession and not there, what he has not, and what he is not himself and what he lacks? Those are the sorts of things of which there is desire and love?”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Come now,” said Socrates, “let us run over again what has been agreed. Love is, first of all, of something; next, of those things which one lacks?”

“Yes,” he said.

“This being granted, then, remember what things you said in your speech were the objects of Love. I will remind you, if you wish. I think you said something like this; the gods arranged their business through love of beautiful things, for there could not be a love for ugly things. Didn’t you say something like that?”

“Yes, I did,” said Agathon.

“And quite reasonably too, my friend,” said Socrates;

“and if this is so, would not Love be love of beauty, not of ugliness?”

He agreed.

“Well now, it has been agreed that he loves what he lacks and has not?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then Love lacks and has not beauty.”

“That must be,” said he.

“Very well: do you say that what lacks beauty and in no wise has beauty is beautiful?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then if that is so, do you still agree that Love is beautiful?”

Agathon answered, “I fear, Socrates, I knew nothing of what I said!”

“Oh no,” said he, “it was a fine speech, Agathon! But one little thing more: don’t you think good things are also beautiful?”

“I do.”

“Then if Love lacks beautiful things, and good things are beautiful, he should lack the good things too.”

“Socrates,” he said, “I really could not contradict you; let it be as you say.”

“Contradict the truth, you should say, beloved Agathon,” he replied; “you can’t do that, but to contradict Socrates is easy enough.

“And now you shall have peace from me; but there is a speech about Love which I heard once from Diotima of Mantineia,* who was wise in this matter and in many others; by making the Athenians perform sacrifices before the plague she even managed to put off the disease for ten years. And she it was who taught me about love affairs. This speech, then, which she made I will try to narrate to you now, beginning with what is agreed between me and Agathon; I will tell it by myself, as well as I can. You will see that I must describe first, as you did, Agathon, who Love is and what like, and then his works. I think it easiest to do it as the lady did in examining me. I said to her very much what Agathon just now did to me, that Love was a great god, and was a love of beautiful things; and she convinced me by saying the same as I did to Agathon, that he is neither beautiful, according to my argument, nor good. Then I said, ‘What do you mean, Diotima? Is Love then ugly and bad?’ And she said, ‘Hush, for shame! Do you think that what is not beautiful must necessarily be ugly?’ ‘Yes, I do.’ ‘And what is not wise, ignorant? Do you not perceive that there is something between wisdom and ignorance?’ ‘What is that?’ ‘To have right opinion without being able to give a reason,’ she said, ‘is neither to understand (for how could an unreasoned thing be understanding?) nor is it ignorance (for how can ignorance hit the truth?). Right opinion is no doubt something between knowledge and ignorance.’ ‘Quite true,’ I said. ‘Then do not try to compel what is not beautiful to be ugly, or what is not good to be bad. So also with Love. He is not good and not beautiful, as you admit yourself, but do not imagine for that reason any the more that he must be ugly and bad, but something between these two,’ said she. ‘Well, anyway,’ I said, ‘he is admitted by all to be a great god.’ ‘All who don’t know,’ she said, ‘or all who know too?’ ‘All without exception.’ At this she said, with a laugh, ‘And how could he be admitted to be a great god, Socrates, by those who say he is not a god at all?’ ‘Who are these?’ said I. ‘You for one,’ said she, ‘and I for another.’ And I asked, ‘How can that be?’ She said, ‘Easily. Tell me, don’t you say that all the gods are happy and beautiful? Or would you dare to say that any one of them is not happy and beautiful?’ ‘Indeed I would not,’ said I. ‘Then don’t you call happy those possessed of good and beautiful things?’ ‘Certainly.’ ‘Yet you admitted that Love, because of a lack of good and beautiful things, actually desired those things which he lacked.’ ‘Yes, I admitted that.’ ‘Then how could he be a god who has no share in beautiful and good things?’ ‘He could not be a god, as it seems.’ ‘Don’t you see then,’ said she, ‘that you yourself deny Love to be a god?’

“‘Then what could Love be?’ I asked. ‘A mortal?’

‘Not at all.’ ‘What then?’ I asked. ‘Just as before, between mortal and immortal.’ ‘What is he then, Diotima?’

‘A great spirit, Socrates; for all the spiritual is between divine and mortal.’ ‘What power has it?’ said I. ‘To interpret and to ferry across to the gods things given by men, and to men things from the gods, from men petitions and sacrifices, from the gods commands and requitals in return; and being in the middle it completes them and binds all together into a whole. Through this intermediary moves all the art of divination, and the art of priests, and all concerned with sacrifice and mysteries and incantations, and all sorcery and witchcraft. For God mingles not with man, but through this comes all the communion and conversation of gods with men and men with gods, both awake and asleep; and he who is expert in this is a spiritual man, but the expert in something other than this, such as common arts or crafts, is a vulgar man. These spirits are many and of all sorts and kinds, and one of them is Love.’

“‘Who was his father,’ said I, ‘and who was his mother?’ She answered, ‘That is rather a long story, but still I will tell you. When Aphrodite was born, the gods held a feast, among them Plenty,* the son of Neverataloss. When they had dined, Poverty came in begging, as might be expected with all that good cheer, and hung about the doors. Plenty then got drunk on the nectar—for there was no wine yet—and went into Zeus’s park all heavy and fell asleep. So Poverty because of her penury made a plan to have a child from Plenty, and lay by his side and conceived Love. This is why Love has become follower and servant of Aphrodite, having been begotten at her birthday party, and at the same time he is by nature a lover busy with beauty because Aphrodite is beautiful. Then since Love is the son of Plenty and Poverty he gets his fortunes from them. First, he is always poor; and far from being tender and beautiful, as most people think, he is hard and rough and unshod and homeless, lying always on the ground without bedding, sleeping by the doors and in the streets in the open air, having his mother’s nature, always dwelling with want. But from his father again he has designs upon beautiful and good things, being brave and go-ahead and high-strung, a mighty hunter, always weaving devices, and a successful coveter of wisdom, a philosopher all his days, a great wizard and sorcerer and sophist. He was born neither mortal nor immortal; but on the same day, sometimes he is blooming and alive, when he has plenty, sometimes he is dying; then again he gets new life through his father’s nature; but what he procures in plenty always trickles away, so that Love is not in want nor in wealth, and again he is between wisdom and ignorance. The truth is this: no god seeks after wisdom or desires to become wise—for wise he is already; nor does anyone else seek after wisdom, if he is wise already. And again, the ignorant do not seek after wisdom nor desire to become wise; for this is the worst of ignorance, that one who is neither beautiful and good* nor intelligent should think himself good enough, so he does not desire it, because he does not think he is lacking in what he does not think he needs.’

“‘Then who are the philosophers, Diotima,’ said I, ‘if those who seek after wisdom are neither the wise nor the ignorant?’ ‘That’s clear enough even to a child,’ she answered; ‘they are those between these two, as Love is. You see, wisdom is one of the most beautiful things, and Love is a love for the beautiful, so Love must necessarily be a philosopher, and, being a philosopher, he must be between wise and ignorant. His birth is the cause of this, for he comes of a wise and resourceful father, but of a mother resourceless and not wise. Well then, dear Socrates, this is the nature of the spirit; but it was no wonder you thought Love what you did think. You thought, if I may infer it from what you say, that Love was the beloved, not the lover. That was why, I think, Love seemed to you wholly beautiful; for the thing loved is in fact beautiful and dainty and perfect and blessed, but the loving thing has a different shape, such as I have described.’

“Then I said, ‘Very well, madam, what you say is right; but Love being such as you describe, of what use is he to mankind?’ ‘I will try to teach you that next, Socrates,’ she said. ‘Love then is like that, and born like that, and he is love of beautiful things, as you said he is. But suppose someone should ask us: “Socrates and Diotima, what is meant by love of beautiful things?”—I will put it more clearly: “He that loves beautiful things loves what?”’ Then I answered, ‘To get them.’ ‘Still,’ she said, ‘that answer needs another question, like this: “What will he get who gets the beautiful things?”’ I said I could not manage at all to answer that question offhand. ‘Well,’ said she, ‘suppose one should change “beautiful” to “good” and ask that? See here, Socrates, I will say: “What does he love who loves good things?”’ ‘To get them,’ said I. ‘And what will he get who gets the good things?’ ‘That’s easier,’ said I; ‘I can answer that he will be happy.’ ‘Then,’ said she, ‘by getting good things the happy are happy, and there is no need to ask further why he who wishes to be happy does wish that, but the answer seems to be finished.’ ‘Quite true,’ said I. ‘But do you think this wish and this love are common to all mankind,’ Diotima said, ‘and do you think that all men always wish to have the good things, or what do you say?’ ‘That’s it,’ said I, ‘it’s common to all.’ ‘Why then, Socrates,’ said she, ‘do we not say that all men are lovers, if they do in fact all love the same things and always, instead of saying that some are lovers and some are not?’ ‘That surprises me too,’ I said. ‘Don’t let it surprise you,’ she said. ‘For we have taken one kind of love, and given it the name of the whole, love; and there are other cases in which we misapply other names.’ ‘For example?’ said I. ‘Here is one,’ she said. ‘You know that poetry is many kinds of making;* for when anything passes from not-being to being, the cause is always making, or poetry, so that in all the arts the process is making, and all the craftsmen in these are makers, or poets.’ ‘Quite true,’ I said. ‘But yet,’ said she, ‘they are not all called poets; they have other names, and one bit of this making has been taken, that concerning music and verse, and this is called by the name of the whole. For this only is called poetry, and those who have this bit of making are called poets.’ ‘That is true,’ I said. ‘So with love, then; in its general sense it is all the desire for good things and for happiness—Love most mighty and all-ensnaring; but those who turn to him by any other road, whether by way of moneymaking, or of a taste for sports or philosophy, are not said to be in love and are not called lovers, but only those who go after one kind and are earnest about that have the name of the whole, love, and are said to love and to be lovers.’ ‘I think you are right there,’ said I. ‘And there is a story,’ said she, ‘that people in love are those who are seeking for their other half,* but my story tells that love is not for a half, nor indeed the whole, unless that happens to be something good, my friend; since men are willing to cut off their own hands and feet, if their own seem to them to be nasty. For really, I think, no one is pleased with his own thing, except one who calls the good thing his own and his property, and the bad thing another’s; since there is nothing else men love but the good. Don’t you think so?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Then,’ said she, ‘we may say simply that men love the good?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Shall we add,’ she asked, ‘that they love to have the good?’ ‘Yes, add that,’ I said. ‘Not only to have it, but always to have it?’ ‘Add that too.’ ‘Then to sum up,’ she said, ‘it is the love of having the good for oneself always.’ ‘Most true, indeed,’ I said.

“She went on, ‘Now if love is the love of having this always, what is the way men pursue it, and in what actions would their intense earnestness be expressed so as to be called love? What is this process? Can you tell me?’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘or else, Diotima, why should I, in admiration of your wisdom, have come to you as your pupil to find out these very matters?’ ‘Well then, I will tell you,’ she said. ‘It is a breeding in the beautiful, both of body and soul.’ ‘It needs divination,’ I said, ‘to tell what on earth you mean, and I don’t understand.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I will tell you clearer. All men are pregnant, Socrates, both in body and in soul; and when they are of the right age, our nature desires to beget. But it cannot beget in an ugly thing, only in a beautiful thing. And this business is divine, and this is something immortal in a mortal creature, breeding and birth. These cannot be in what is discordant. But the ugly is discordant with everything divine, and the beautiful is concordant. Beauty therefore is Portioner and Lady of Labour at birth. Therefore when the pregnant comes near to a beautiful thing it becomes gracious, and being delighted it is poured out and begets and procreates; when it comes near to an ugly thing, it becomes gloomy and grieved and rolls itself up and is repelled and shrinks back and does not procreate, but holds back the conception and is in a bad way. Hence in the pregnant thing swelling full already, there is great agitation about the beautiful thing because he that has it gains relief from great agony. Finally, Socrates, love is not for the beautiful, as you think.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘It is for begetting and birth in the beautiful.’ ‘Oh, indeed?’ said I. ‘Yes indeed,’ said she. ‘Then why for begetting?’ ‘Because begetting is, for the mortal, something everlasting and immortal. But one must desire immortality along with the good, according to what has been agreed, if love is love of having the good for oneself always. It is necessary then from this argument that love is for immortality also.’

“All this she taught me at different times whenever she came to speak about love affairs; and once she asked, ‘What do you think, Socrates, to be the cause of this love and desire? You perceive that all animals get into a dreadful state when they desire to procreate, indeed birds and beasts alike; all are sick and in a condition of love, about mating first, and then how to find food for their young, and they are ready to fight hard for them, the weakest against the strongest, and to die for them, and to suffer the agonies of starvation themselves in order to feed them, ready to do anything. One might perhaps think that man,’ she said, ‘would do all this from reasoning; but what about beasts? What is the cause of their enamoured state? Can you tell me?’ And I said again that I did not know; and she said, ‘Then how do you ever expect to become expert in love affairs, if you do not understand that?’ ‘Why, Diotima, this is just why I have come to you, as I said; I knew I needed a teacher. Pray tell me the cause of this, and all the other love lore.’

“‘Well then,’ she said, ‘if you believe love is by nature love of that which we often agreed on, don’t be surprised. For on the same principle as before, here mortal nature seeks always as far as it can be to be immortal; and this is the only way it can, by birth, because it leaves something young in place of the old. Consider that for a while each single living creature is said to live and to be the same; for example, a man is said to be the same from boyhood to old age; he has, however, by no means the same things in himself, yet he is called the same: he continually becomes new, though he loses parts of himself, hair and flesh and bones and blood and all the body. Indeed, not only body, even in soul, manners, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears, none of these remains the same, but some perish and others are born. And far stranger still, this happens to knowledge too; not only do some kinds of knowledge perish in us, not only are other kinds born, and not even in our knowledge are we ever the same, but the same happens even in each single kind of knowledge. For what is called study and practice means that knowledge is passing out; forgetting is knowledge leaving us, and study puts in new knowledge instead of that which is passing away, and preserves our knowledge so that it seems to be the same. In this way all the mortal is preserved, not by being wholly the same always, like the divine, but because what grows old and goes leaves behind something new like its past self. By this device, Socrates,’ said she, ‘mortality partakes of immortality, both in body and in all other respects; but it cannot otherwise. Then do not be surprised that everything naturally honours its own offspring; immortality is what all this earnestness and love pursues.’

“I heard this with admiration; and I said, ‘Really, Diotima most wise! Is that really and truly so?’ She answered as the complete Sophists do,* and said, ‘You may be sure of that, Socrates. Just think, if you please, of men’s ambition. You would be surprised at its unreasonableness if you didn’t bear in mind what I have told you; observe what a terrible state they are in with love of becoming renowned, “and to lay up their fame for evermore,”† and for this how ready they are to run all risks even more than for their children, and to spend money and endure hardship to any extent, and to die for it. Do you think Alcestis would have died for Admetos, or Achilles would have died over Patroclos, or your Codros‡ would have died for the royalty of his sons, if they had not thought that “immortal memory of Virtue” would be theirs, which we still keep! Far from it,’ she said; ‘for eternal virtue and glorious fame like that all men do everything, I think, and the better they are, the more they do so; for the immortal is what they love. So those who are pregnant in body,’ she said, ‘turn rather to women and are enamoured in this way, and thus, by begetting children, secure for themselves, so they think, immortality and memory and happiness, “Providing all things for the time to come”;¶ but those who are pregnant in soul—for there are some,’ she said, ‘who conceive in soul still more than in body, what is proper for the soul to conceive and bear; and what is proper? wisdom and virtue in general—to this class belong all creative poets, and those artists and craftsmen who are said to be inventive. But much the greatest wisdom,’ she said, ‘and the most beautiful, is that which is concerned with the ordering of cities and homes, which we call temperance and justice. So again a man with divinity in him, whose soul from his youth is pregnant with these things, desires when he grows up to beget and procreate; and thereupon, I think, he seeks and goes about to find the beautiful thing in which he can beget; for in the ugly he never will. Being pregnant, then, he welcomes bodies which are beautiful rather than ugly, and if he finds a soul beautiful and generous and well-bred, he gladly welcomes the two body and soul together, and for a human being like that he has plenty of talks about virtue, and what the good man ought to be and to practise, and he tries to educate him. For by attaching himself to a person of beauty, I think, and keeping company with him, he begets and procreates what he has long been pregnant with; present and absent he remembers him, and with him fosters what is begotten, so that as a result these people maintain a much closer communion together and a firmer friendship than parents of children, because they have shared between them children more beautiful and more immortal. And everyone would be content to have such children born to him rather than human children; he would look to Homer and Hesiod and the other good poets, and wish to rival them, who leave such offspring behind them, which give their parents the same immortal fame and memory as they have themselves; or if you like,’ she said, ‘think what children Lycurgos* left in Lacedaimon, the saviours of Lacedaimon and, one may say, of all Hellas. Honour came to Solon also, in your country, by the begetting of his laws; and to many others in many countries and times, both Hellenes and barbarians, who performed many beautiful works and begat all kinds of virtue; in their names many sanctuaries have been made because they had such children, but never a one has been so honoured because of human children.

“‘These are some of the mysteries of Love, Socrates, in which perhaps even you may become an initiate; but as for the higher revelations, which initiation leads to if one approaches in the right way, I do not know if you could ever become an adept. At least I will instruct you,’ she said, ‘and no pains will be lacking; you try to follow if you can. It is necessary,’ she said, ‘that one who approaches in the right way should begin this business young, and approach beautiful bodies. First, if his leader leads aright, he should love one body and there beget beautiful speech; then he should take notice that the beauty in one body is akin to the beauty in another body, and if we must pursue beauty in essence, it is great folly not to believe that the beauty in all such bodies is one and the same. When he has learnt this, he must become the lover of all beautiful bodies, and relax the intense passion for one, thinking lightly of it and believing it to be a small thing. Next he must believe beauty in souls to be more precious than beauty in the body; so that if anyone is decent in soul, even if it has little bloom, it should be enough for him to love and care for, and to beget and seek such talks as will make young people better; that he may moreover be compelled to contemplate the beauty in our pursuits and customs, and to see that all beauty is of one and the same kin, and that so he may believe that bodily beauty is a small thing. Next, he must be led from practice to knowledge, that he may see again the beauty in different kinds of knowledge, and, directing his gaze from now on towards beauty as a whole, he may no longer dwell upon one, like a servant, content with the beauty of one boy or one human being or one pursuit, and so be slavish and petty; but he should turn to the great ocean of beauty, and in contemplation of it give birth to many beautiful and magnificent speeches and thoughts in the abundance of philosophy, until being strengthened and grown therein he may catch sight of some one knowledge, the one science of this beauty now to be described. Try to attend,’ she said, ‘as carefully as you can.

“‘Whoever shall be guided so far towards the mysteries of love, by contemplating beautiful things rightly in due order, is approaching the last grade. Suddenly he will behold a beauty marvellous in its nature, that very Beauty, Socrates, for the sake of which all the earlier hardships had been borne: in the first place, everlasting, and never being born nor perishing, neither increasing nor diminishing; secondly, not beautiful here and ugly there, not beautiful now and ugly then, not beautiful in one direction and ugly in another direction, not beautiful in one place and ugly in another place. Again, this beauty will not show itself to him like a face or hands or any bodily thing at all, nor as a discourse or a science, nor indeed as residing in anything, as in a living creature or in earth or heaven or anything else, but being by itself with itself always in simplicity; while all the beautiful things elsewhere partake of this beauty in such manner, that when they are born and perish it becomes neither less nor more and nothing at all happens to it; so that when anyone by right boy-loving goes up from these beautiful things to that beauty, and begins to catch sight of it, he would almost touch the perfect secret. For let me tell you, the right way to approach the things of love, or to be led there by another, is this: beginning from these beautiful things, to mount for that beauty’s sake ever upwards, as by a flight of steps, from one to two, and from two to all beautiful bodies, and from beautiful bodies to beautiful pursuits and practices, and from practices to beautiful learnings, so that from learnings he may come at last to that perfect learning which is the learning solely of that beauty itself, and may know at last that which is the perfection of beauty. There in life and there alone, my dear Socrates,’ said the inspired woman,* ‘is life worth living for man, while he contemplates Beauty itself. If ever you see this, it will seem to you to be far above gold and raiment and beautiful boys and men, whose beauty you are now entranced to see and you and many others are ready, so long as they see their darlings and remain ever with them, if it could be possible, not to eat nor drink but only to gaze at them and to be with them. What indeed,’ she said, ‘should we think, if it were given to one of us to see beauty undefiled, pure, unmixed, not adulterated with human flesh and colours and much other mortal rubbish, and if he could behold beauty in perfect simplicity? Do you think it a mean life for a man,’ she said, ‘to be looking thither and contemplating that and abiding with it? Do you not reflect,’ said she, ‘that there only it will be possible for him, when he sees the beautiful with the mind, which alone can see it, to give birth not to likenesses of virtue, since he touches no likeness, but to realities, since he touches reality; and when he has given birth to real virtue and brought it up, will it not be granted him to be the friend of God, and immortal if any man ever is?’

“This then, Phaidros and gentlemen, is what Diotima said, and I am quite convinced, and, being convinced, I try to persuade other people also to believe that to attain this possession one could not easily find a better helper for human nature than Love. And so I say that every man ought to honour Love, and I honour love matters myself, and I practise them particularly and encourage others; and now and always I sing the praises of Love’s power and courage, as much as I am able. Then let this be my speech of eulogy to Love, if you please, Phaidros, or call it anything else you like.”

When Socrates had done speaking, there was applause from the rest, and Aristophanes started to say something about Socrates’ allusion to his own speech, when suddenly there came a knocking on the courtyard door and a great din as of some party of revellers, and they heard a girl-piper’s notes. Then Agathon said to the staff, “Boys, go and see about that. If it is one of our friends, ask him in; if not, say we are not drinking now, we are just going to bed.” In a few minutes they heard the voice of Alcibiades in the yard, very drunk and shouting loud, asking where Agathon was, and take him to Agathon. So he was brought in to them by the piping-girl, who with some others of his company supported him; he came to a stand at the door crowned with a thick wreath of ivy and violets and wearing a great lot of ribands on his head, and said, “Good evening, you fellows, will you have a very drunken man to drink with you, or shall we only put a garland on Agathon, which we came for, and then go? For I tell you this,” he said, “I could not get at him yesterday, but here I come with the ribands on my head, that I may take them off my head and just twine them about the head of the cleverest and most beautiful of men, if I may say so. Will you laugh at me because I’m drunk? I tell you, even if you laugh, that this is true and I know it. Look here, tell me straight, do I come in on those terms or not? Will you drink with me or not?”

Then they all cheered and told him to come in and take his place, and Agathon gave him a formal invitation. So he came in leaning on those people, pulling off the ribands at the same time to put them on Agathon, and as he held them in front of his eyes, he did not see Socrates, but sat down beside Agathon, between Socrates and him, for Socrates made room for him. He sat down and embraced Agathon and crowned him. Then Agathon said, “Take off Alcibiades’ shoes, you boys, and let him make a third on our couch.”

“All right,” said Alcibiades, “but who is fellow-drinker number three here?” At the same time he turned round and saw Socrates; when he saw him, he jumped up and cried, “What the deuce is this? Socrates here? You lay there again in wait for me, as you are always turning up all of a sudden where I never thought to see you! And now what have you come for? And again, why did you lie there, not by Aristophanes or some other funny man or would-be funny man, but you managed to get beside the handsomest of the company!”

Then Socrates said, “Agathon, won’t you defend me? I find that this person’s love has become quite a serious thing. From the time when I fell in love with him, I am no longer allowed to look at or talk with a handsome person, not even one, or this jealous and envious creature treats me outrageously, and abuses me, and hardly keeps his hands off me. Then don’t let him try it on now, but do reconcile us, or if he uses force, defend me, for I’m fairly terrified at his madness and passion.”

“No,” said Alcibiades, “there’s no reconciliation between you and me! My word, I’ll punish you for this by and by; but now, Agathon,” he said, “give me some of the ribands, and let me wreath this fellow’s wonderful head—there!—so he can’t quarrel with me and say I wreathed you and didn’t wreath the man who beats all the world at talking, not only the other day like you, but always!” While he spoke he took some of the ribands and wreathed Socrates, and then reclined himself.

When he was settled, he said, “I say, men, I think you are sober. That won’t do, you must drink! We agreed on that. Then I choose as prince of the pots, to see that you drink enough, myself. Let ’em bring it in, Agathon, the biggest goblet you have! No, better than that! You, boy there; bring that cooler,” said he, for he saw it would hold more than half a gallon; first he filled that and drank it off himself, then told the boy to fill for Socrates, saying, “For Socrates, men, my trick is nothing; he drinks as much as anyone tells him, and never gets drunk one bit the more.”

So the boy filled for Socrates, and he drank; then Eryximachos said, “Well, Alcibiades, what do we do? Are we just to say nothing over the cup, and to sing nothing, but only to drink like thirsty men?”

Alcibiades answered, “Good evening to you, Eryximachos, best son of a best father you, and he was very sober too!”*

“Same to you,” said Eryximachos, “but what are we to do?”

“Whatever you say,” he replied, “for we have to obey you. ‘One medicine man is worth a host of laymen.’† Command what you will.”

“Then listen,” said Eryximachos. “Before you came in, we decided that each one in turn from left to right‡ should recite the most excellent speech he could as a eulogy in honour of Love. All the rest of us, then, have made their speeches; but since you have made none, and since you have drunk your bumper, you are the proper one to speak; and when you have spoken, lay your commands on Socrates, what you like, and let him do the same with the next man to the right¶ and so with the rest.”

“Good,” said Alcibiades, “but look here, Eryximachos, I don’t think it’s fair to tell a drunken man to risk a speech before sober men! And at the same time, bless you my dear! do you really believe anything of what Socrates has just said? Don’t you know that the truth is exactly the opposite of what he stated? For if I praise anybody in his presence, god or man other than himself, this man will not keep his two hands off me.”

“Won’t you shut up?” said Socrates.

“On my honour, you need not make any objection,” said Alcibiades. “I would not praise a single other person in your presence!”

“Very well, do this if you like,” said Eryximachos;

“praise Socrates.”

“What’s that?” said Alcibiades. “Must I, Eryximachos? Am I to have at the man and punish him before your faces?”

“Hullo,” said Socrates, “what’s your notion? To praise me and raise a laugh, or what will you do?”

“I’ll tell the truth! Will you let me?”

“Oh yes, let you tell the truth, I even command you to do that.”

“Then I’ll do it at once!” said Alcibiades. “Look here, this is what I want you to do. If I say anything that is not true, stop me in the middle, and say that I am lying; for I won’t tell any lies if I can help it. But if I speak higgledy-piggledy trying to remember, don’t be surprised, for it is not easy to set out all your absurdities nicely in order, for one in my state.

“I am to speak in praise of Socrates, gentlemen, and I will just try to do it by means of similes.* Oh yes, he will think perhaps it is only for a bit of fun, but my simile will be for truth, not for fun. I say then, that he is exactly like a Silenos, the little figures which you see sitting in the statuaries’ shops; as the craftsmen make them, they hold Pan’s-pipes or pipes, and they can be opened down the middle and folded back, and then they show inside them images of the gods. And I say further, he is like Marsyas† the Satyr. Well anyway, Socrates, your face is like them, I don’t suppose you will deny that yourself! In everything else, too, you are like them, listen what comes next. You are a bully! Aren’t you? If you don’t admit that I will find witnesses. Well, aren’t you a piper? Yes, a more wonderful performer than that Marsyas! For he used to bewitch men through instruments by the power of his mouth, and so also now does anyone who pipes his tunes; for those Olympos‡ piped, I say were from Marsyas who taught him; then it is his tunes, whether a good artist plays them or a common piping-girl, which alone enravish us and make plain those who feel the need of the gods and their mysteries, because the tunes are divine. The only difference between you is, that you do the very same without instruments by bare words! We, at least, when we hear someone else making other speeches, even quite a good orator, nobody cares a jot, I might say; but when one hears you, or your words recited by another, even a very poor speaker, let a woman hear, or a man hear, or a boy hear, we are overwhelmed and enravished. I, indeed, my friends, if you would not have thought me completely drunk, would have taken a solemn oath before you, and described to you how this man’s words have made me feel and still make me feel now. When I hear them my heart goes leaping worse than frantic revellers’, and tears run from my eyes at the words of this man, and I see crowds of others in the same state. When I heard Pericles, and other good orators, I thought them fine speakers, but I felt nothing like that, and no confusion in my soul or regret for my slavish condition; but this Marsyas here has brought me very often into such a condition that I thought the life I lead was not worth living. And that, Socrates, you will not say is untrue! And even now at this moment, I know in my conscience that if I would open my ears I could never hold out, but I should be in the same state. For he compels me to admit that I am very remiss, in going on neglecting my own self but attending to Athenian public business. So I force myself, and stop my ears, and off I go running as from the Sirens, or else I should sit down on the spot beside him till I become an old man. I feel towards this one man something which no one would ever think could be in me—to be ashamed before anybody; but I am ashamed before him and before no one else. For I know in my conscience that I cannot contradict him and say it is not my duty to do what he tells me, yet when I leave him, public applause is too much for me. So I show my heels and run from him, and, whenever I see him, I am ashamed of what I confessed to him. Often enough I should be glad to see him no longer among mankind; but if that should happen, I am sure I should be sorrier still, so I don’t know what to do with the fellow.

“The pipings of this satyr have put many others into the same state as me; but let me tell you something else to show how like he is to my simile, and how wonderful his power is. I assure you that not one of you knows this man; but I will show you, since I have begun. You see, of course, that Socrates has a loving eye for beauty, he’s always interested in such people and quite smitten with them, and again he is ignorant of everything and knows nothing; that is his pose. Isn’t that Silenosity? Very much so! He wraps that round him like a cloak, like the outside of the carved Silenos figure; but inside, when he is opened—what do you think he is full of, gentlemen pot-fellows? Temperance! Let me say that he cares not a straw if one is a beauty, he despises that as no one would ever believe; and the same if one is rich, or has one of those mob distinctions which people think so grand. He thinks all those possessions are worthless and we are nothing, yes, I tell you! Pretending ignorance and making fun of his fellows all his life—that’s how he goes on. But when he’s in earnest, and opened out—I don’t know if anyone has seen the images inside; but I saw them once, and I thought them divine and golden and all-beautiful and wonderful, so that one must in short do whatever Socrates commands. I thought he was in earnest over my youthful bloom, I thought I had found a godsend and a wonderful piece of luck, in that by gratifying Socrates I had the chance to hear all he knew; I thought a lot of my blooming beauty, you know, an awful lot. With this notion—you see, before that, I never used to visit him alone without an attendant—but after that I sent my attendant away and always went in alone; for I must tell you all the truth; now Socrates, attend and refute me if I tell a lie. Well, I paid him visits, gentlemen, I alone and he alone, and I thought he would talk to me as a lover would talk to his darling in solitude, and I was happy. Nothing came of it, nothing, he just talked as usual, and when we had had a nice day together, he always went off. Next I challenged him to gymnastics with me, and I went through it hoping for something then; well, he exercised with me, and we wrestled together often, with nobody there. What’s the good of talking? I got nothing by it. Since I was none the better for all that, I resolved to try stronger measures with the man, and not to give in after I had undertaken something, but to find out what was behind the business. So I invited him to dinner with me, exactly like a lover with designs on his beloved. For a long time he would not even consent to come, but at last I persuaded him. The first time he came he wanted to go after dinner. That time I was ashamed, and let him go; but I made my plot again, and after we had dined, I went on talking till late at night, and when he wanted to go, I forced him to stay by pretending it was late. So he rested on the couch next to mine, where he had dined, and no one else was sleeping in the room, only we two. So far I could tell my story to anyone; but what follows you would never have heard me tell, only first, wine is true, as they say—whether children are there or not*—secondly, to hide a superimperious deed of Socrates is unfair, I think, for one who has come to sing his praises. Moreover, I too have ‘felt the viper’s bite,’ as the saying goes. You know they say that one who felt it would not tell what it was like except to other people who had been bitten, since they alone would know it and would not be hard on him for what he allowed himself to do and say in his agony. Well, I have been bitten by a more painful viper, and in the most painful spot where one could be bitten—the heart, or soul, or whatever it should be called—stung and bitten by his discourses in philosophy, which hang on more cruelly than a viper when they seize on a soul young and not ungenerous, and make it do and say anything—and when I see men like Phaidros, Agathon, Eryximachos, Pausanias, Aristodemos, too, and Aristophanes—Socrates himself I need not mention—and how many more! For you have all shared in the philosopher’s madness and passion! Then you shall all hear; for you will not be hard on what was done then and what is being said now; but you servants, and anyone else who is common and boorish, clap strong doors on your ears!

“Well then, gentlemen, when the lamp was out and the servants outside, I thought it necessary not to mince matters but to say freely what I felt; so I stirred him up, and said, ‘Asleep, Socrates?’ ‘Not at all,’ said he. ‘Do you know what is in my mind?’ ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘I think,’ said I, ‘that you are the only lover I have ever had worthy of me, and now you won’t speak a word to me. I’ll tell you how I feel: I consider it simply silly not to gratify you in this, and anything else you want of my property or from my friends. For myself, I think nothing more precious than to attain the height of excellence, and to help me in this there is no one more competent than you. Then I should be much more ashamed before the wise if I did not gratify such a man than I should be ashamed before the multitude of fools if I did.’ He answered, playing the innocent as usual, quite like himself,

‘My dearest Alcibiades, you are really and truly no bad hand at a bargain, if what you say is really true about me, and if there is in me some power which can make you better; you must see some inconceivable beauty in me immensely greater than your own loveliness. If then you spy it there, and if you are trying to do a deal and exchange beauty for beauty, you want to get very much the better of me, you want to get real beauties for sham, and indeed to exchange “golden for bronze.”* Bless you, my dear, spy better, and you’ll see I am nothing. The sight of the mind begins to see sharp when the sight of the eyes is losing its keenness, and you are far from that still.’ I heard him, and said, ‘That is what I have to tell you, and I have said exactly what I mean; consider yourself, then, what you believe best for you and me.’ ‘That’s well said,’ he answered, ‘another time we will consider, and do whatever seems best for us both in this and other matters.’

“When I heard this and said this, and as it were shot my shafts, I thought he was wounded; so I got up, and without letting this man† say another word, I threw my own mantle over the man and crept in under this man’s threadbare cloak—for it was winter—and threw my arms round this man, this really astonishing and wonderful man, and there I lay the whole night! You will not say that is a lie, either, Socrates! Though I had done all this, yet this man was so much above me and so despised me and laughed at my bloom, and insulted me in the point where I did think I was something, gentlemen of the jury—for jury you are, to give a verdict on the superimperiosity of Socrates—that I swear by the gods, I swear by the goddesses, when I got up I had no more slept with Socrates than if I had been with a father or elder brother.

“How do you think I felt after that! I thought I had been disgraced, and yet I admired the way this man was made, and his temperance and courage; and I had met such a human being for wisdom and endurance as I never expected to find in the world, so that I could not bring myself to quarrel and lose his company, nor could I think of any way to attract him. For I knew quite well that to money he was much less vulnerable than Aias to steel, and in what I thought would alone win him, he had escaped me. So I was at a loss, and I walked about, a slave to the creature as no one ever was to anyone. Well, all this happened before our expedition went to Poteidaia;* we were both in it, and we were messmates there. And first of all, in bearing hardships he not only beat me but everyone else; when we were cut off somewhere, and had to go without food, as happens on campaign, the others were nothing for endurance. Yet when there was plenty of good cheer, he was the only one who could really enjoy it; particularly, although he did not care for drinking, when he was compelled to drink he beat them all, and what is most wonderful of all, no one in the world has ever seen Socrates drunk. That we shall be able to test presently, as I think. That was not all; in his endurance of the cold winter—the winters were dreadful there—he did wonders, and here is a specimen. Once there was a most dreadful frost, and no one would go out of doors, or if he did he put on an awful lot of things, and swathed his legs, and wrapped up his feet in felt and sheepskin, but this man went out in that weather wearing only such a cloak as he used to wear before, and unshod he marched over the ice more easily than others did with boots on. The soldiers looked black at him thinking he despised them.

“So much for that;

But here’s a doughty deed the strong man did,*

once on that expedition, and it is worth hearing. He got some notion into his head, and there he stood on one spot from dawn, thinking, and when it did not come out, he would not give in but still stood pondering. It was already midday, and people noticed it, and wondered, and said to one another that Socrates had been standing thinking about something ever since dawn. At last when evening came, some of the Ionians after dinner—it was summertime then—brought out their pallets and slept near in the cool, and watched him from time to time to see if he would stand all night. He did stand until it was dawn, and the sun rose; then he offered a prayer to the sun and walked away.

“Now with your leave we will take the battles; for it is fair to pay him his due. When there was that battle† after which the generals actually gave me the prize of valour, this man, when not a single other person came to my rescue, saved my life. I was wounded, but he would not leave me, and saved my weapons and me too. Then I begged the generals myself, Socrates, to give you the prize for valour, and here you will not find fault with me or say I am lying; but the fact is, when the generals looked at my rank and wanted to give me the prize, you were more eager than the generals that I should get it and not yourself. Again, gentlemen, it was worth while to see Socrates when the army was routed and retreating from Delion.‡ I happened to be there on horseback, and he on foot. This man and Laches were retreating together in the rout; I met them, and told them to cheer up, and said I would not desert them. There indeed I had an even better view of Socrates than at Poteidaia, for I had less to fear, being on horseback. First I saw how he kept his head much better than Laches; next I really thought, Aristophanes, to quote your words,* that he marched exactly as he does here, ‘with swaggering gait and rolling eye,’ quietly looking round at friends and enemies, and making it quite clear to everyone even a long way off that if anyone laid a finger on this man, he would defend himself stoutly. And therefore he came off safe, both this man and his companion; for in war where men are like that, people usually don’t touch them with a finger, but pursue those who are running headlong.

“One could quote many other things in praise of Socrates, wonderful things: of his other habits one might perhaps say much the same about another man, and yet it is his not being like any other man in the world, ancient or modern, that is worthy of all wonder. Men like Achilles might be found, one might take, for example, Brasidas and others; and again men like Pericles,† such as Nestor and Antenor, and there are more besides; and so we might go on with our comparisons. But as for this man, so odd, both the man and his talk, none could ever be found to come near him, neither modern nor ancient, unless he is to be compared to no man at all, but to the Silenoses and satyrs to which I have compared him—him and his talk.

“For indeed there is something which I left out when I began, that even his talk is very like the opening Silenoses. When you agree to listen to the talk of Socrates, it might seem at first to be nothing but absurdity; such words and phrases are wrapped outside it, like the hide of a boisterous satyr. Pack-asses and smiths and shoemakers and tanners are what he talks about, and he seems to be always saying the same things in the same words, so that any ignorant and foolish man would laugh at them. But when they are opened out, and you get inside them, you will find his words first full of sense, as no others are; next, most divine and containing the finest images of virtue, and reaching farthest, in fact reaching to everything which it profits a man to study who is to become noble and good.

“This, gentlemen, is my laudation of Socrates; and I have mixed in as well some blame, by telling you of the way he insulted me. I am not the only one he has treated so; he has done the same to Charmides, Glaucon’s son, and Euthydemos, Diocles’ son, and very many others, whom he has tricked as a lover and made them treat him as beloved instead. That is a warning to you, Agathon, not to be deceived by this man; try to learn from our experience, and take care not to be the fool in the proverb, who could only learn by his own.”*

When Alcibiades had ended his speech, there was much laughter at his frankness, because he seemed to be still in love with Socrates. But Socrates said, “You’re sober, I think, Alcibiades, or you would never have wrapped all that smart mantle round you in trying to hide why you have said all this, and put your point in a postscript at the end; for your real aim in all you said was to make me and Agathon quarrel: you think I ought to be your lover and love no one else, and Agathon should be your beloved and loved by no one else. But I see through you; your satyric and silenic drama has been shown up. Now, my dearest Agathon, don’t let him gain anything by it; only take care that no one shall make you and me quarrel.”

Then Agathon said, “Upon my word, Socrates, that’s the truth, I am sure. I notice how he reclined between me and you in order to keep us apart. Then he shall gain nothing by it, and I will come past you and recline there.”

“Yes, do,” said Socrates, “recline here below me.”

“Oh Zeus!” cried Alcibiades, “how the creature treats me! He thinks he must have the best of me everywhere! Well, if nothing else, you plague, let Agathon recline between us.”

“Impossible!” said Socrates. “For you have sung my praises, and it is my duty to praise the next man to the right.* Then if Agathon reclines below you—I don’t suppose he is going to praise me again, before I have praised him as I should? Then let him alone, you rascal, and don’t grudge my praise to the lad; for I want very much to sing his glory.”

“Hooray, hooray!” cried Agathon, “I can’t stay here, Alcibiades. I must and will change my place, and then Socrates will praise me!”

“Here we are again,” said Alcibiades, “the usual thing; where Socrates is, there is no one else can get a share of the beauties! And now how easily he has invented a plausible reason why this one should be beside him!”

Then Agathon got up to go and lie down beside Socrates, but suddenly a great crowd of revellers came to the doors; seeing them open as someone was going out, they marched straight in and found places among the diners, and the whole place was in an uproar. No order was kept any longer and they were forced to drink a great deal of wine. Eryximachos and Phaidros and some others went out and departed (so Aristodemos told me), and he fell asleep himself, and slept soundly for a long time, as the nights were long then, and he woke up towards day when the cocks were already crowing. When he awoke he saw the others were either asleep or had gone, but Agathon and Aristophanes and Socrates were the only ones still awake, and they were drinking out of a large bowl from left to right. Socrates was arguing with them; Aristodemos told me he could not remember much of what was said, for he was not listening from the beginning and he was rather drowsy, but he told me the upshot of it was that Socrates was compelling them to admit that the same man ought to understand how to compose both comedy and tragedy, and that he who has skill as a tragic poet has skill for a comic poet. While they were being forced to this, and not following very well, they began to nod, and first Aristophanes fell asleep, and while day was dawning, Agathon too. Socrates made them comfortable, then got up and went away, and Aristodemos himself followed as usual. Socrates went to the Lyceum and had a wash, and spent the day as he generally did, and after spending the day so, in the evening went home to bed.