Symposium’s setting was described in the introduction to the previous myth (‘The Androgyne’). That featured the fourth of the drinking-party speeches in praise of Love (the god Eros), the one given by the famous writer of comedies Aristophanes. Here we have a substantial part of what will be the sixth and last discourse on Love, that of Socrates, who typically begins by deprecating his own ability to match the others’ achievements.
First Socrates gently corrects the preceding speech by Agathon, host and honorand of the party. In it Agathon had extolled Love as supremely beautiful and good among gods. But is not Love always lacking that which it loves? asks Socrates. Since what it loves is the beautiful, Love cannot itself be beautiful. Now Socrates embarks, in this fragment of Symposium, on what he claims is the teaching about Love of the priestess Diotima when she questioned and corrected Socrates just as he has questioned Agathon. Its opening tells a comic and surprising myth about the birth of Love. Neither beautiful nor ugly, not possessing good things but desiring them, Love is not a god but a daemon, an intermediary between gods and men.
The story of how Poverty (Penia) entrapped the drunken but rich and beautiful Plenty (Poros) into sleeping with her, an event which resulted in the birth of Love from such disparate parents, is Plato’s invention. Love’s parentage explains how he is both needy and resourceful in seeking to remedy the lack. As Socrates reports it, Diotima’s teaching soon abandons story-telling for profound and revolutionary instruction on the true nature of Love. The true lover wants, not another person, but permanent possession of the good. To achieve this, we desire ‘procreation in a beautiful medium’. Some want continuity through their children, others through fame for glorious achievements, but true loving is different from these. It is to progress from the love of persons, first their bodies and then their souls, through the love of beautiful activities and kinds of knowledge, until, leaving all these behind, the lover perceives beauty itself untrammelled by association with particular instances of beauty.
The contrast between beautiful individuals and beauty itself, together with the insistence on aspiring to an understanding of the second, presages Plato’s famous theory of Forms, and his account of what true knowledge consists in (see the next two myths). But to find Diotima espousing this as the goal of love is remarkable. Critics are divided on the extent to which this theory of love is blind to its interpersonal nature, substituting instead an elevated but ultimately egocentric ideal of intellectual striving. Aristophanes’ myth of the androgyne (see the previous myth) emphasized the particularity of love. But while Diotima’s myth of Love’s parentage is also designed to account for the pursuit or striving at the heart of love, the goal of her whole teaching is to play down interpersonal love, as a mere step on the ladder to the pursuit of an abstract beauty.
The solemn atmosphere engendered by the lofty teachings of the fictional priestess will soon be dissipated when the drunken Alcibiades arrives (a scene immortalized in Anselm Feuerbach’s painting Plato’s Symposium, 1869, now part of the permanent collection of Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe); his speech, in praise not of love but of Socrates, will remind the readers of the intensity of feeling which Socrates inspired in his associates.
L.B.
201d ‘Anyway, I’ll leave you in peace now. But there’s an account of Love which I heard from a woman called Diotima, who came from Mantinea and was an expert in love, as well as in a large number of other areas too. For instance, on one occasion when the Athenians performed their sacrificial rites to ward off the plague, she delayed the onset of the disease for ten years.* She also taught me the ways of love, and I’ll try to repeat for you what she told me. I’ll base myself on the conclusions Agathon and I reached, but I’ll see if I can manage on my own now. ‘As you explained, Agathon, it’s important to start with a
e description of Love’s nature and characteristics, before turning to what he does. I think the easiest way for me to do this is to repeat the account the woman from Mantinea once gave me in the course of a question-and-answer session we were having. I’d been saying to her, in my own words, almost exactly what Agathon was just saying to me – that Love is an important god and must be accounted attractive. She used the same arguments I used on him to prove that it actually followed from my own ideas that Love wasn’t attractive or good.
‘“What?” I exclaimed. “Do you mean to tell me, Diotima, that Love is repulsive and bad?”
‘“You should be careful what you say,” she replied. “Do you think that anything which isn’t attractive has to be repulsive?”
‘“Yes, I certainly do.”
202a ‘“Do you also think that lack of knowledge is the same as ignorance? Haven’t you noticed that there’s middle ground between knowledge and ignorance?”
‘“What middle ground?”
‘“True belief,” she replied. “Don’t you realize that, as long as it isn’t supported by a justification, true belief isn’t knowledge (because you must be able to explain what you know), but isn’t ignorance either (because ignorance can’t have any involvement with the truth of things)? In fact, of course, true belief is what I said it was, an intermediate area between knowledge and ignorance.”
‘“You’re right,” I said.
‘“Stop insisting, then, that ‘not attractive’ is the same as
b ‘repulsive’, or that ‘not good’ is the same as ‘bad’. And then you’ll also stop thinking that, just because – as you yourself have conceded – Love isn’t good or attractive, he therefore has to be repulsive and bad. He might fall between these extremes.”
‘“Still, everyone agrees that he’s an important god,” I said.
‘“Do you mean every expert, or are you counting non-experts too?” she asked.
‘“Absolutely everyone.”
‘Diotima smiled and said, “But how could people who
c deny that he’s even a god admit that he’s an important god, Socrates?”
‘“Who are you talking about?” I asked.
‘“You for one,” she said, “and I’m another.”
‘“How can you say that?” I demanded.
‘“Easily,” she said, “as you’ll see if you answer this question. Don’t you think that good fortune and beauty are attributes which belong to every single god? Can you really see yourself claiming that any god fails to be attractive and to have an enviable life?”*
‘“No, of course I wouldn’t,” I said.
‘“And isn’t it when someone has good and attractive attributes that you call him enviable?”
‘“Yes.”
d ‘“You’ve admitted, however, that it’s precisely because Love lacks the qualities of goodness and attractiveness that he desires them.”
‘“Yes, I have.”
‘“But it’s inconceivable that a god could fail to be attractive and good in any respect, isn’t it?”
‘“I suppose so.”
‘“Can you see now that you’re one of those who don’t regard Love as a god?” she asked.
‘“What is Love, then?” I asked. “Mortal?”
‘“Of course not.”
‘“What, then?”
‘“He occupies middle ground,” she replied, “like those cases we looked at earlier; he lies between mortality and immortality.”
‘“And what does that make him, Diotima?”
‘“An important spirit, Socrates. All spirits occupy the
e middle ground between humans and gods.”
‘“And what’s their function?” I asked.
‘“They translate and carry messages from men to gods and from gods to men. They convey men’s prayers and the gods’ instructions, and men’s offerings and the gods’ returns on these offerings. As mediators between the two, they fill the remaining space, and so make the universe an interconnected whole. They enable divination to take place and priests to perform sacrifices and rituals, cast spells, and do all kinds
203a of prophecy and sorcery. Divinity and humanity cannot meet directly; the gods only ever communicate and converse with men (in their sleep or when conscious) by means of spirits. Skill in this area is what makes a person spiritual, whereas skill in any other art or craft ties a person to the material world. There are a great many different kinds of spirits, then, and one of them is Love.”
‘“But who are his parents?” I asked.
‘“That’s rather a long story,” she replied, “but I’ll tell you
b it all the same.* Once upon a time, the gods were celebrating the birth of Aphrodite, and among them was Plenty, whose mother was Cunning. After the feast, as you’d expect at a festive occasion, Poverty turned up to beg, so there she was by the gate. Now, Plenty had got drunk on nectar (this was before the discovery of wine) and he’d gone into Zeus’ garden, collapsed, and fallen asleep. Prompted by her lack of means, Poverty came up with the idea of having a child by Plenty, so she lay with him and became pregnant with Love. The reason
c Love became Aphrodite’s follower and attendant, then, is that he was conceived during her birthday party; also, he is innately attracted towards beauty and Aphrodite is beautiful.
‘“Now, because his parents are Plenty and Poverty, Love’s situation is as follows. In the first place, he never has any money, and the usual notion that he’s sensitive and attractive is quite wrong: he’s a vagrant, with tough, dry skin and no shoes
d on his feet.* He never has a bed to sleep on, but stretches out on the ground and sleeps in the open in doorways and by the roadside. He takes after his mother in having need as a constant companion. From his father, however, he gets his ingenuity in going after things of beauty and value, his courage, impetuosity, and energy, his skill at hunting (he’s constantly thinking up captivating stratagems), his desire for knowledge, his resourcefulness, his lifelong pursuit of education, and his skills with magic, herbs, and words.
e ‘“He isn’t essentially either immortal or mortal. Sometimes within a single day he starts by being full of life in abundance, when things are going his way, but then he dies away … only to take after his father and come back to life again. He has an income, but it is constantly trickling away, and consequently Love isn’t ever destitute, but isn’t ever well off either. He also falls between knowledge and ignorance, and
204a the reason for this is as follows. No god loves knowledge or desires wisdom, because gods are already wise; by the same token, no one else who is wise loves knowledge. On the other hand, ignorant people don’t love knowledge or desire wisdom either, because the trouble with ignorance is precisely that if a person lacks virtue and knowledge, he’s perfectly satisfied with the way he is. If a person isn’t aware of a lack, he can’t desire the thing which he isn’t aware of lacking.”*
‘“But Diotima,” I said, “if it isn’t either wise people or ignorant people who love wisdom, then who is it?”
b ‘“Even a child would have realized by now that it is those who fall between wisdom and ignorance,” Diotima said, “a category which includes Love, because knowledge is one of the most attractive things there is, and attractive things are Love’s province. Love is bound, therefore, to love knowledge, and anyone who loves knowledge is bound to fall between knowledge and ignorance. Again, it’s the circumstances of his birth which are responsible for this feature of his, given that his father is clever and resourceful and his mother has neither quality.
‘“There you are, then, my dear Socrates: that’s what Love is like. Your conception of Love didn’t surprise me at all,
c though. In so far as I can judge by your words, you saw Love as an object of love, rather than as a lover; that would explain why you imagined that Love was so attractive. I mean, it’s true that a lovable object has to be blessed with beauty, charm, perfection, and so on, but a lover comes from a different mould, whose characteristics I’ve described.”
‘“Well, Diotima,” I remarked, “I like what you’re saying, but if that’s what Love is like, what do we humans gain from him?”
‘“That’s the next point for me to try to explain, then,
d Socrates,” she said. “I mean, we’ve covered Love’s nature and parentage, but there’s also the fact that, according to you, he loves beauty. Suppose we were to be asked, ‘Can you two tell me in what sense Love loves attractive things?’ or, more clearly, ‘A lover loves attractive things — but why?’”
‘“Because he wants them to be his,” I suggested.
‘“But your answer begs another question,” she pointed out. “What will a person gain if he gets these attractive things?”
‘I confessed that I didn’t find that a particularly easy question to answer and she went on, “Well, suppose the questioner changed tack and phrased his question in terms
e of goodness instead of attractiveness. Suppose he asked, ‘Now then, Socrates, a lover loves good things – but why?’”
‘“He wants them to be his,” I replied.
‘“And what will a person gain if he gets these good things?”
‘“That’s a question I think I can cope with better,” I said. “He’ll be happy.”
‘“The point being that it’s the possession of good things
205a that makes people happy,” she said, “and there’s no need for a further question about a person’s reasons for wanting to be happy. Your answer seems conclusive.”*
‘“That’s right,” I said.
‘“Now, do you think this desire, this love, is common to all of us? Do you think everyone wants good things to be his for ever, or do you have a different view?”
‘“No,” I said. “I think it’s common to everyone.”
‘“But if everyone loves the same thing, and always does so, Socrates,” she said, “why don’t we describe everyone as a lover, instead of using the term selectively, for some people but
b not for others?”
‘“Yes, that is odd, isn’t it?” I said.
‘“Not really,” she replied. “What we do, in fact, is single out a particular kind of love and apply to it the term which properly belongs to the whole range. We call it ‘love’ and use other terms for other kinds of love.”
‘“Can you give me an analogy?” I asked.
‘“Yes, here’s one. As you know, there are all kinds of creativity. It’s always creativity, after all, which is responsible for something coming into existence when it didn’t exist
c before. And it follows that all artefacts are actually creations or poems and that all artisans are creators or poets.”*
‘“Right.”
‘“As you also know, however,” she went on, “artisans are referred to in all sorts of ways, not exclusively as poets. Just one part of the whole range of creativity, the part whose domain is music and metre, has been singled out and has gained the name of the whole range. The term ‘poetry’ is reserved for it alone, and it’s only those with creativity in this sense who are called ‘poets’.”
‘“You’re right,” I said.
d ‘“The same goes for love. Basically, it’s always the case that the desire for good and for happiness is everyone’s ‘dominant, deceitful love’.* But there is a wide variety of ways of expressing this love, and those who follow other routes – for instance, business, sport, or philosophy – aren’t said to be in love or to be lovers. The terminology which properly applies to the whole range is used only of those who dedicate themselves to one particular manifestation – which is called ‘love’ and ‘being in love’, while they’re called ‘lovers’.”
‘“I suppose you’re right,” I said.
‘“Now,” she continued, “what of the idea one hears that people in love are looking for their other halves?* What I’m
e suggesting, by contrast, my friend, is that love isn’t a search for a half or even a whole unless the half or the whole happens to be good. I mean, we’re even prepared to amputate our arms and legs if we think they’re in a bad state. It’s only when a person describes what he’s got as good and what he hasn’t got as bad that he’s capable of being content with what belongs to him. In other words, the sole object of people’s love is goodness. Do you agree?”
206a ‘“Definitely,” I said.
‘“So,” she said, “the simple truth of the matter is that people love goodness. Yes?”
‘“Yes,” I answered.
‘“But hadn’t we better add that they want to get goodness for themselves?” she asked.
‘“Yes.”
‘“And that’s not all: there’s also the fact that they want goodness to be theirs for ever,” she said.
‘“Yes, we’d better add that too.”
‘“To sum up, then,” she said, “the object of love is the permanent possession of goodness for oneself.”
‘“You’re absolutely right,” I agreed.
‘“Now since this is Love’s purpose in all his manifestations,”
b she said, “we need to ask under what conditions and in what sphere of activity the determination and energy of people with this purpose may be called love.* What does love actually do? Can you tell me?”
‘“Of course not, Diotima,” I said. “If I could, I wouldn’t be so impressed by your knowledge. This is exactly what I come to you to learn about.”
‘“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you. Love’s purpose is physical and mental procreation in an attractive medium.”*
‘“I don’t understand what you mean,” I said. “I need a diviner to interpret it for me.”
‘“All right,” she said. “I’ll speak more plainly. The point
c is, Socrates, that every human being is both physically and mentally pregnant. Once we reach a certain point in the prime of our lives, we instinctively desire to give birth, but we find it possible only in an attractive medium, not a repulsive one – and yes, sex between a man and a woman is a kind of birth.* It’s a divine business; it is immortality in a mortal creature, this matter of pregnancy and birth. But it can’t take place where there’s incompatibility, and whereas repulsiveness is incom.
d patible with anything divine, beauty is compatible with it. So Beauty plays the parts of both Fate and Eileithyia at childbirth.* That’s why proximity to beauty makes a pregnant person obliging, happy, and relaxed, and so we procreate and give birth. Proximity to repulsiveness, however, makes us frown, shrink in pain, back off, and withdraw; no birth takes place, but we retain our children unborn and suffer badly. So the reason why, when pregnant and swollen, ready to burst, we get so excited in the presence of beauty is that the bearer
e of beauty releases us from our agony. You see, Socrates,” she concluded, “the object of love is not beauty, as you imagine.”
‘“What is it, then?”
‘“It is birth and procreation in a beautiful medium.”* ‘“All right,” I said.
‘“It certainly is,” she said. “Why procreation? Because procreation is as close as a mortal can get to being immortal and undying. Given our agreement that the aim of love is the
207a permanent possession of goodness for oneself, it necessarily follows that we desire immortality along with goodness, and consequently the aim of love has to be immortality as well.”*
‘You can see how much I learned from what she said about the ways of love. Moreover, she once asked me, “Socrates, what do you think causes this love and desire? I mean, you can see what a terrible state animals of all kinds—beasts and birds—get into when they’re seized by the desire for procreation. Their behaviour becomes manic under the influence
b of love. First, all they want is sex with one another, then all they want is to nurture their offspring. The weakest creatures are ready to fight even the strongest ones to the death and to sacrifice themselves for their young; they’ll go to any lengths, including extreme starvation, if that’s what it takes to nurture their young. If it were only human beings,” she pointed out, “you might think this behaviour was based on reason; but what causes animals to behave this way under the influence of love? Can you explain it?”
c ‘When I said that I had no idea, she asked, “How do you expect to become an expert in the ways of love if you don’t understand this?”
‘“But that’s exactly why I come to you, Diotima, as I’ve told you before, because I’m aware of my need for teachers. So will you explain it to me, please – and also anything else I need to know about the ways of love?”
‘“Well,” she said, “provided you’re confident about the view we’ve expressed time and again about what love aims for, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that the same argument applies to animals as to humans: mortal nature does all it can to
d achieve immortality and live for ever. Its sole resource for this is the ability of reproduction constantly to replace the past generation with a new one. I mean, even during the period when any living creature is said to be a living creature and not to change … you know how we say that someone is the same person from childhood all the way up to old age. Although we say this, a person in fact never possesses the same attributes, but is constantly being renewed and constantly losing other qualities; this goes for his hair, flesh, bones, blood, and body in
e general. But it’s not just restricted to the body: no one’s mental characteristics, traits, beliefs, desires, delights, troubles, or fears ever remain the same: they come and go. But what is far more extraordinary even than this is the fact that our knowledge comes and goes as well: we gain some pieces of information
208a and lose others. The implication of this is not just that we don’t remain the same for ever as far as our knowledge is concerned either, but that exactly the same thing happens to every single item of information. What we call ‘practice’, for instance, exists because knowledge leaks away. Forgetfulness is the leakage of information, and practice is the repeated renewal of vanishing information in one’s memory, which preserves the knowledge. This is what makes the knowledge appear to be the same as before.
‘“The point is that the continued existence of any mortal creature does not involve its remaining absolutely unchanging for all time—only gods do that. Instead, as its attributes pass
b away and age, they leave behind a new generation of attributes which resemble the old ones. This process is what enables mortal life—a body or whatever*—to share in immortality, Socrates, but immortal beings do things differently. So you shouldn’t be surprised if everything instinctively values its own offspring: it is immortality which makes this devotion, which is love, a universal feature.”
‘In fact, I did find what she’d said surprising, so I said, “Well, you’re the expert, Diotima, but is what you’ve been telling me really so?”
c ‘She answered like a true sophist* and said, “You can be sure of it, Socrates. I mean, you can see the same principle at work in men’s lives too, if you take a look at their status-seeking. You’ll be surprised at your stupidity if you fail to appreciate the point of what I’ve been saying once you’ve considered how horribly people behave when they’re under the influence of love of prestige and they long to ‘store up fame immortal for ever’.* Look how they’re even more willing to face danger for the sake of fame than they are for their children; look how
d they spend money, endure any kind of hardship, sacrifice their lives. Do you really think that Alcestis would have died for Admetus, that Achilles would have joined Patroclus in death,* or that your Athenian hero Codrus would have died in defence of his sons’ kingdom, if they didn’t think their courage would be remembered for ever, as in fact it is by us? No, they certainly wouldn’t,” she said. “I’m not sure that the prospect of undying virtue and fame of this kind isn’t what motivates people to do anything, and that the better they are, the more
e this is their motivation. The point is, they’re in love with immortality.
‘“Now, when men are physically pregnant,” she continued, “they’re more likely to be attracted to women; their love manifests in trying to gain immortality, renown, and what they take to be happiness by producing children. Those who are mentally pregnant, however … I mean, there are people
209a whose minds are far more pregnant than their bodies; they’re filled with the offspring you might expect a mind to bear and produce. What offspring? Virtue, and especially wisdom. For instance, there are the creations brought into the world by the poets and any craftsmen who count as having done original work, and then there’s the most important and attractive kind of wisdom by far, the kind which enables people to manage political and domestic affairs – in other words, self-discipline and justice. And here’s another case: when someone’s mind has been pregnant with virtue from an early age and he’s
b never had a partner, then once he reaches adulthood, he longs to procreate and give birth, and so he’s another one, in my opinion, who goes around searching for beauty, so that he can give birth there, since he’ll never do it in an unattractive medium. Since he’s pregnant, he prefers physical beauty to ugliness, and he’s particularly pleased if he comes across a mind which is attractive, upright, and gifted at the same time. This is a person he immediately finds he can talk fluently to about virtue and about what qualities and practices it takes for a man to be good. In short, he takes on this person’s education.*
c ‘“What I’m saying, in other words, is that once he’s come into contact with an attractive person and become intimate with him, he produces and gives birth to the offspring he’s been pregnant with for so long. He thinks of his partner all the time, whether or not he’s there, and together they share in raising their offspring. Consequently, this kind of relationship involves a far stronger bond and far more constant affection than is experienced by people who are united by ordinary children, because the offspring of this relationship are particularly attractive and are closer to immortality than ordinary children.* We’d all prefer to have children of this sort rather than the human kind, and we cast envious glances at good poets like Homer and Hesiod because the kind of children they
d leave behind are those which earn their parents renown and ‘fame immortal’, since the children themselves are immortal. Or what about the children Lycurgus left in Sparta who maintain the integrity of Sparta and, it’s hardly going too far to say, of Greece as a whole? Then there’s Solon, whom you Athenians hold in high regard as the father of your constitution.
e All over the world, in fact, in Greece and abroad, various men in various places have on a number of occasions engendered virtue in some form or other by creating works of beauty for public display. Quite a few of these men have even been awarded cults before now because of the immortality of their children, whereas no human child has ever yet earned his father a cult.
‘“Now, it’s not impossible, Socrates, that you too could be initiated into the ways of love I’ve spoken of so far. But I don’t
210a know whether you’re ready for the final grade of Watcher,* which is where even the mysteries I’ve spoken of lead if you go about them properly. All I can do”, she said, “is tell you about them, which I’m perfectly willing to do; you must try to follow as best you can.
‘“The proper way to go about this business”, she said, “is for someone to start as a young man by focusing on physical beauty and initially – this depends on whether his guide* is giving him proper guidance – to love just one person’s body and to give birth in that medium to beautiful reasoning. He should realize next that the beauty of any one body hardly
b differs from that of any other body, and that if it’s physical beauty he’s after, it’s very foolish of him not to regard the beauty of all bodies as absolutely identical. Once he’s realized this and so become capable of loving every single beautiful body in the world, his obsession with just one body grows less intense and strikes him as ridiculous and petty. The next stage is for him to value mental beauty so much more than physical beauty that even if someone is almost entirely lacking the bloom of youth, but still has an attractive mind, that’s enough
c to kindle his love and affection, and that’s all he needs to give birth to and enquire after the kinds of reasoning which help young men’s moral progress. And this in turn leaves him no choice but to look at what makes people’s activities and institutions attractive and to see that here too any form of beauty is much the same as any other, so that he comes to regard physical beauty as unimportant. Then, after activities, he must press on towards the things people know, until he can see the beauty there too. Now he has beauty before his eyes in abundance, no longer a single instance of it; now the slavish
d love of isolated cases of youthful beauty or human beauty of any kind is a thing of the past, as is his love of some single activity. No longer a paltry and small-minded slave, he faces instead the vast sea of beauty, and in gazing upon it his boundless love of knowledge becomes the medium in which he gives birth to plenty of beautiful, expansive reasoning and thinking, until he gains enough energy and bulk there to catch sight of a unique kind of knowledge whose natural object is the kind of beauty I will now describe.
‘“Try as hard as you can to pay attention now,” she said,
e “because anyone who has been guided and trained in the ways of love up to this point, who has viewed things of beauty in the proper order and manner,* will now approach the culmination of love’s ways and will suddenly catch sight of something of unbelievable beauty – something, Socrates, which in fact gives meaning to all his previous efforts. What he’ll see is, in the first place, eternal; it doesn’t come to be or cease to be,
211a and it doesn’t increase or diminish. In the second place, it isn’t attractive in one respect and repulsive in another, or attractive at one time but not at another, or attractive in one setting but repulsive in another, or attractive here and repulsive elsewhere, depending on how people find it. Then again, he won’t perceive beauty as a face or hands or any other physical feature, or as a piece of reasoning or knowledge, and he won’t perceive it as being anywhere else either – in something like a creature or the earth or the heavens. No, he’ll perceive it in itself and by itself, constant and eternal, and he’ll see that every other
b beautiful object somehow partakes of it, but in such a way that their coming to be and ceasing to be don’t increase or diminish it at all, and it remains entirely unaffected.*
‘“So the right kind of love for a boy* can help you ascend from the things of this world until you begin to catch sight of that beauty, and then you’re almost within striking distance of the goal. The proper way to go about or be guided through
c the ways of love is to start with beautiful things in this world and always make the beauty I’ve been talking about the reason for your ascent. You should use the things of this world as rungs in a ladder. You start by loving one attractive body and step up to two; from there you move on to physical beauty in general, from there to the beauty of people’s activities, from there to the beauty of intellectual endeavours, and from there you ascend to that final intellectual endeavour,* which is no more and no less than the study of that beauty, so that you finally recognize true beauty.
d ‘“What else could make life worth living, my dear Socrates,” the woman from Mantinea said, “than seeing true beauty? If you ever do catch sight of it, gold and clothing and good-looking boys and youths will pale into insignificance beside it. At the moment, however, you get so excited by seeing an attractive boy that you want to keep him in your sight and by your side for ever, and you’d be ready – you’re far from being the only one, of course – to go without food and drink, if that were possible, and to try to survive only on the sight and presence of your beloved. How do you think someone would react, then, to the sight of beauty itself, in its perfect,
e immaculate purity – not beauty tainted by human flesh and colouring and all that mortal rubbish, but absolute beauty, divine and constant? Do you think someone with his gaze fixed
212a there has a miserable life? Is that what you think about someone who uses the appropriate faculty to see beauty and enjoy its presence? I mean, don’t you appreciate that there’s no other medium in which someone who uses the appropriate faculty to see beauty can give birth to true goodness instead of phantom goodness, because it is truth rather than illusion whose company he is in? And don’t you realize that the gods smile on a person who bears and nurtures true goodness and that, to the extent that any human being does, it is he who has the potential for immortality?”*
‘So there you are, Phaedrus—not forgetting the rest of you.
b That’s what Diotima told me, and I believe her. As a believer, I try to win others as well round to the view that, in the business of acquiring immortality, it would be hard for human nature to find a better partner than Love. That’s the basis of my claim that everyone should treat Love with reverence, and that’s why I for one consider the ways of love to be very important. So I follow them exceptionally carefully myself and recommend others to do the same. It’s also why, today and every day, I do all I can to praise Love’s power and courage.
‘That’s my contribution, then, Phaedrus. You can think of it
c as a eulogy of Love if you want, or you can call it whatever you like. It’s up to you.’