On Love — Marsilio Ficino
=========================
COMMENTARIUM IN CONVIVIUM PLATONIS DE AMORE
Translation/edition: Claude AI
Language: English
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## Speech I: Phaedrus


### Chapter 1

[I.1] Plato, the father of philosophers, having completed the eighty-first year of his age, died on the seventh of November, his own birthday, as he reclined at a banquet after the dishes had been cleared away. This banquet, which holds together both the birthday and the anniversary of Plato, all the ancient Platonists down to the times of Plotinus and Porphyry renewed every year. But after Porphyry these solemn feasts were neglected for twelve hundred years. At last, in our own day, the most illustrious Lorenzo de' Medici, intending to renew the Platonic banquet, appointed Francesco Bandini master of the feast. And so, when Bandini had resolved to keep the seventh of November, he received nine Platonist guests with royal pomp at the villa at Careggi: Antonio degli Agli, bishop of Fiesole; Ficino the physician; Cristoforo Landino the poet; Bernardo Nuzzi the rhetorician; Tommaso Benci; our friend Giovanni Cavalcanti, whom the guests named "the Hero" for the excellence of his soul and his outstanding nature; and the two Marsuppini, Cristoforo and Carlo, sons of the poet Carlo. Last of all Bandini wished me to be the ninth, so that with Marsilio Ficino added to those already named the number of the Muses might be made up.
[I.1] When the dishes had been cleared, Bernardo Nuzzi took up the book of Plato entitled the Symposium, on Love, and read all the speeches of that banquet. When he had read them, he asked the other guests each to expound one speech. All agreed. Lots were cast, and the first speech, that of Phaedrus, fell to Giovanni Cavalcanti to expound; the speech of Pausanias to Antonio the theologian; that of Eryximachus the physician to Ficino the physician; that of the poet Aristophanes to Cristoforo the poet; that of the young Agathon to Carlo Marsuppini. To Tommaso Benci was given the discourse of Socrates, and that of Alcibiades to Cristoforo Marsuppini. All approved the lot as it fell. But the bishop and the physician, being obliged to leave, the one for the care of souls, the other for the care of bodies, resigned their parts in the speaking to Giovanni Cavalcanti. The rest turned towards him and fell silent, ready to listen. Then that hero began as follows.

### Chapter 2. By what rule Love is to be praised; what his dignity and greatness are

[I.2] A most welcome lot has fallen to me today, excellent guests, by which it has come about that I should play the part of Phaedrus of Myrrhinus: that Phaedrus, I mean, whose friendship Lysias of Thebes,¹ the consummate orator, valued so highly that he strove to win him with a speech composed over many nights of labour; whose nature Socrates so admired that once, beside the river Ilissus, stirred by his splendour and lifted above himself, he sang divine mysteries, he who until then had professed himself ignorant not only of heavenly things but of all things here below as well; in whose genius Plato took such delight that he dedicated the first fruits of his studies to Phaedrus. To him were addressed Plato's epigrams, to him his elegies, to him his first book, on beauty, which is entitled Phaedrus.²
[I.2] Since, then, I have been judged like this Phaedrus, not by myself, for I claim no such thing, but first by the fall of the lot and then by your applause, under these happy auspices I shall gladly expound his speech first, and then, as far as my powers allow, carry out the parts of Antonio and of Ficino.
[I.2] In every matter, excellent sirs, any philosopher who follows Plato considers three things: what goes before it, what accompanies it, and what follows from it. If these are good, he praises the thing itself; if bad, he blames it. That praise is therefore complete which recounts a thing's origin in the past, describes its present form, and shows the results that follow. From what goes before, a thing is praised as noble; from what is present, as great; from what follows, as useful. From those three, then, these three are gathered in any praise: nobility, greatness, and usefulness.
[I.2] So our Phaedrus, looking first at the present excellence of Love, called him a great god, and added: wonderful to gods and men. And rightly, for it is properly what is great that we wonder at. Great indeed is he to whose rule, as they say, all men and gods are subject. For among the ancients the gods love as much as men do, which is what Orpheus and Hesiod mean when they say that the minds of mortals and immortals are mastered by love. He is called wonderful, moreover, because each one loves that whose beauty he wonders at. The gods, or as our own writers say the angels, wonder at and love the divine beauty; men, the beauty of bodies. This, then, is the praise of Love drawn from the present excellence that attends him.
[I.2] Next Phaedrus praises him from what went before, when he declares him the most ancient of all the gods. Here Love's nobility shines out, as his ancient origin is told. Thirdly he will praise him from what follows, where his marvellous usefulness will appear from its results. But we shall treat first of his ancient and noble origin, and then of the usefulness to come.

### Chapter 3. The origin of Love out of Chaos

[I.3] Orpheus in the Argonautica,³ when he sang of the beginnings of things in the presence of Chiron and the heroes, followed the theology of Hermes Trismegistus: he set Chaos before the world, and placed Love in the bosom of that Chaos, before Saturn, Jupiter and the other gods, and praised him in these words: Love most ancient, perfect in himself, and wisest in counsel. Hesiod in the Theogony, Parmenides the Pythagorean in his book On Nature, and the poet Acusilaus agree with Orpheus and Hermes.⁴ Plato in the Timaeus describes Chaos in the same way and places Love in it; and Phaedrus recounted the same in the Symposium.
[I.3] The Platonists call chaos a formless world, and a world a formed chaos. With them there are three worlds; there will likewise be three chaoses. First of all is God, the author of all things, whom we call the Good itself. He creates first the Angelic Mind, then the Soul of this world, as Plato holds, and last the Body of the world. That highest God we do not call a world, because "world" means an ornament composed of many things, whereas he must be wholly simple; but we declare him the principle and the end of all the worlds. The Angelic Mind is the first world made by God; the second is the Soul of the universal body; the third is this whole fabric that we see. In these three worlds, then, three chaoses are also to be considered.
[I.3] In the beginning God creates the substance of that Mind, which we also call its essence. In the first moment of its creation it is formless and dark. But because it is born of God, it turns towards God, its principle, by a certain inborn appetite. Converted to God, it is illumined by his ray. In the brightness of that ray its appetite is kindled. Once kindled, the appetite cleaves wholly to God; and in cleaving it is formed. For God, who can do all things, fashions in the Mind that cleaves to him the natures of the things to be created. In it, therefore, in a spiritual manner, are painted, so to speak, all the things we perceive in these bodies. There are begotten the spheres of the heavens and the elements, the stars, the natures of the vapours, the forms of stones, metals, plants and animals.
[I.3] These forms of all things, conceived in that higher Mind by a certain fostering warmth of God, we do not doubt are the Ideas. The form and Idea of the heavens we often call the god Heaven; the form of the first planet, the god Saturn; of the second, Jupiter; and so on with the planets that follow. Likewise the Idea of this fire we call the god Vulcan; of air, Jupiter and Juno; of water, Neptune; of earth, Pluto. Thus all the gods assigned to particular parts of the lower world are the Ideas of those parts gathered in that higher Mind.
[I.3] But that conception of the Ideas, completed by God as he gives form, was preceded by the Mind's drawing near to God; that by the kindling of its appetite; that by the infusion of the ray; that by the first conversion of the appetite; and that by the formless essence of the Mind. Now that essence, not yet formed, we take to be Chaos. Its first conversion to God we call the birth of Love; the infusion of the ray, the nourishment of Love; the kindling that follows, the growth of Love; the drawing near, the onrush of Love; the formation, the perfection of Love.
[I.3] The whole assembly of all the forms and Ideas we call in Latin mundus and in Greek kosmos, that is, an ornament. The grace of this ornament is beauty. To it Love, as soon as he was born, drew the Mind, and led the Mind that was before without beauty to that same Mind made beautiful. This, then, is the condition of love: to carry off towards beauty, and to join what is without beauty to what is beautiful.
[I.3] Who then will doubt that Love follows at once upon Chaos, and comes before the world and all the gods who are distributed among the parts of the world? For that appetite of the Mind is prior to its formation, and it is in the Mind once formed that the gods and the world are born. Rightly, therefore, did Orpheus call him most ancient. He also called him perfect in himself, as if to say perfecting himself; because that first impulse of the Mind seems by its own nature to draw its perfection from God, and to pass it on to the Mind that is formed from it and to the gods that are begotten from it. He called him, further, wisest in counsel, and rightly. For all wisdom, to which counsel properly belongs, was given to the Mind for this reason: that, converted to God by love, it shone with his brightness.
[I.3] The Mind is directed towards God in the same way as the eye towards the light of the sun. For the eye first looks; then it sees the light of the sun; thirdly, in the sun's light it takes in the colours and shapes of things. So the eye, dark at first and formless like Chaos, loves the light while it looks towards it; in looking it is irradiated; and in receiving the ray it is formed by the colours and shapes of things.
[I.3] And just as that Mind, newly born and formless, is converted to God by love and formed, so too the World Soul, begotten from there, bends back towards the Mind and God. Though at first it is formless and a chaos, once directed to the Mind by love it receives forms from it and becomes a world. In the same way the Matter of this world, which in the beginning lay a formless chaos without the ornament of forms, at once, through the love inborn in it, turned itself towards the Soul and offered itself obedient to her; and with this love as mediator, receiving from the Soul the ornament of all the forms that are seen in the world, from a chaos it became a world.
[I.3] There are, then, three worlds and three chaoses. In all of them Love attends on Chaos and goes before the world; he rouses what is sluggish, lights what is dark, gives life to what is dead, form to what is formless, completion to what is incomplete. Praises greater than these can hardly be spoken or conceived.

### Chapter 4. On the usefulness of Love

[I.4] So much for his origin and nobility; I think we must now speak of his usefulness. To recount one by one the benefits Love has conferred on mankind would be needless, especially since they can all be summed up briefly. For they all come to this: that we shun what is bad and pursue what is good. For a human being, the bad and the shameful are the same; so likewise are the good and the honourable. Indeed all laws and all teaching strive for nothing else than so to train people that they turn away from shameful things and do honourable ones. Yet this very thing, which almost countless laws and arts barely achieve at last after long time, Love alone accomplishes in a short one. For shame deters us from what is base, and the desire to excel spurs us to what is honourable; and nothing supplies people with these two more easily or more quickly than love.
[I.4] When we say love, understand the desire for beauty; for this is the definition of love among all philosophers. Beauty is a certain grace, which for the most part arises above all from the harmony of several things. It is of three kinds. In souls there is a grace that comes from the harmony of several virtues; in bodies a grace is born from the concord of several colours and lines; and likewise in sounds the greatest grace comes from the consonance of several voices. Beauty is therefore threefold: of souls, of bodies, and of sounds. That of souls is known by the mind; that of bodies is perceived by the eyes; that of sounds by the ears alone.
[I.4] Since, then, mind, sight and hearing are the only means by which we can enjoy beauty, and love is the desire to enjoy beauty, love is always content with the mind, the eyes and the ears. What need has it of smell, of taste, of touch? Those senses perceive odours, flavours, heat, cold, softness and hardness, and things of that kind. None of these is human beauty, since they are simple forms, whereas the beauty of the human body requires a concord of different members. Love looks to the enjoyment of beauty as its end; and that enjoyment belongs to mind, sight and hearing alone. Love therefore stops within these three. The appetite that follows the other senses is called not love but lust and madness.
[I.4] Moreover, if love for a human being desires beauty itself, and the beauty of the human body consists in a certain harmony, and harmony is temperance, then love demands only what is temperate, modest and seemly. The pleasures of taste and touch, therefore, which are so violent and frenzied that they dislodge the mind from its seat and throw the whole person into confusion, love not only does not desire but loathes and flees, as things which by their intemperance are contrary to beauty. Venereal madness drags towards intemperance, and so towards disharmony; it seems, then, likewise to lure towards ugliness, while love draws towards beauty. Ugliness and beauty are contraries; so the movements that carry us towards them are seen to be contrary to one another. Hence the lust for intercourse and love are shown to be not merely different movements but opposed ones.
[I.4] The ancient theologians bear witness to this, who gave to God the name of Love; and the later theologians have most firmly confirmed it. But no name fitting for God is shared with shameful things. Everyone of sound mind should therefore take care not rashly to transfer love, a divine name, to insane passions. Let Dicaearchus blush,⁵ and anyone else who is not afraid to carp at the majesty of Plato for having indulged love too much. For in feelings that are seemly, honourable and divine we can never indulge too much, nor even enough. It follows that all love is honourable and every lover just. For all love is beautiful and seemly, and properly loves what is seemly. But the turbulent heat by which we are swept into wantonness, since it drags towards ugliness, is judged the contrary of love.
[I.4] To return at last to the usefulness of love: the shame that deters us from base things, and the zeal that makes us ardent for honourable ones, proceed easily and quickly from love. First, because love, which seeks beautiful things, always desires what is seemly and splendid; and hating what is ugly, it necessarily flees what is base and foul. Secondly, if two people love one another, they watch one another and desire to please one another. Inasmuch as each is watched by the other, and so is never without a witness, they abstain from base things; inasmuch as they strive to please one another, they always undertake splendid things with burning zeal, so as not to be despised by the beloved but to be thought worthy of love in return.
[I.4] Phaedrus sets out this argument very fully where he gives three examples of love: one of the love of a woman for a man, where he speaks of Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, who was willing to die for her husband; a second of the love of a man for a woman, as of Orpheus for Eurydice; a third of the love of a man for a man, as of Patroclus for Achilles.⁶ There he shows that nothing makes people braver than love. I do not intend at present to search out the allegory of Alcestis or of Orpheus; for these stories express the force and dominion of love more powerfully if they are told as things that happened than if they are thought to be said by way of allegory.
[I.4] Let us then admit without dispute that Love is a great and wonderful god, noble besides and supremely useful; and let us so give ourselves to love that we are content with its own end, which is beauty itself. Now we enjoy with that part of us by which we know; and we know by mind, sight and hearing. With these, therefore, we enjoy; with the other senses we make use not of the beauty that love desires, but rather of whatever else the body needs.
[I.4] With these three, then, we shall hunt for beauty; and through the beauty that shines in voices and in bodies, as through footprints, we shall track down the loveliness of the soul. The one we shall praise; the other we shall prize; and we shall always try to see that our love is as great as the beauty is. Where the body is beautiful but the soul is not, let us love it scarcely and lightly, as a shadowy and passing image of beauty. Where the soul alone is beautiful, let us love ardently this lasting loveliness of soul. And where both beauties meet, let us admire the more intensely. In this way we shall show that we truly belong to the Platonic family, for that family knows nothing but what is festive, joyful, heavenly and high.
[I.4] But let this now suffice for the speech of Phaedrus. Let us come to Pausanias.

## Speech II: Pausanias


### Chapter 1. God is goodness, beauty and justice; beginning, middle and end

[II.1] The Pythagorean philosophers held that the trinity is the measure of all things, for this reason, I think: that God governs things by the number three, and things themselves are also bounded by the number three. Hence that saying of Virgil:⁷
[II.1] God delights in an uneven number.
[II.1] For that supreme author first creates each thing, secondly seizes it, thirdly perfects it. Each thing, too, first flows out from that perennial fountain when it is born; then flows back to the same, when it seeks again that origin of its own; lastly it is perfected, once it has returned to its principle. Orpheus, prophesying this, called Jupiter the beginning, the middle and the end of the universe:⁸ the beginning in that he produces; the middle in that he draws back to himself what he has produced; the end in so far as he perfects what returns. Hence we may name that king of the universe good, beautiful and just, as is often said in Plato: good, I say, where he creates; beautiful where he allures; just where he perfects each thing according to its desert. Beauty, therefore, whose property it is to allure, is placed between goodness and justice. From goodness it flows out; it flows on to justice.

### Chapter 2. How the divine beauty gives birth to love

[II.2] Now this divine beauty has begotten love, that is, desire for itself, in all things. For if God seizes the world to himself and the world is seized, there is one continuous attraction, beginning from God, passing into the world, and ending at last in God, which, as in a kind of circle, returns again to the same point from which it flowed. So one and the same circle, from God to the world and from the world to God, is called by three names: in so far as it begins in God and allures, beauty; in so far as, passing into the world, it seizes it, love; in so far as, returning to its author, it joins his work to him, pleasure. Love, therefore, begins from beauty and ends in pleasure. This was the meaning of that famous hymn of Hierotheus and Dionysius the Areopagite, where these theologians sang thus: "Love is a good circle, revolving for ever from the good to the good."⁹ For love is necessarily good, since, born from the good, it returns to the good. For it is the same God whose beauty all things desire, and in the possession of whom all things rest. From there, then, our desire is kindled. There the ardour of lovers comes to rest; it is not put out, but fulfilled.
[II.2] Nor is it without reason that Dionysius compares God to the sun; for just as the sun gives light and warmth to the body, so God gives to souls the clarity of truth and the ardour of charity. This comparison we certainly gather from the sixth book of Plato's Republic,¹⁰ in the way I shall now describe. The sun, indeed, brings forth both visible bodies and seeing eyes; into the eyes, that they may see, it pours a luminous spirit; bodies, that they may be seen, it paints with colours. Yet neither the ray that belongs to the eyes nor the colours that belong to bodies are enough to complete vision, unless the light itself, one above the many, from which the many particular lights have been distributed to eyes and to bodies, comes upon them, illumines, rouses and strengthens them.
[II.2] In the same way that first act of all things, which is called God, has bestowed form and act on each thing in producing it. This act, indeed, once it has been received in a created thing and in a passive subject, is weak, and powerless to carry out its work. But the perpetual and invisible light of the divine sun, one and the same, is always present to all things; it cherishes, gives life, rouses, completes and strengthens. Of this Orpheus divinely says:
[II.2] Cherishing all things, and bearing himself above them all.
[II.2] In that it is the act of all things and strengthens them, it is called the good. In that it gives life, soothes, caresses and rouses, the beautiful. In that, in the objects which are to be known, it allures those three knowing powers of the soul, mind, sight and hearing, beauty. In that, in the knowing power, it joins that power to the thing known, truth. Finally, as the good, it begets, rules and completes; as the beautiful, it gives light and pours in grace.

### Chapter 3. Beauty is the splendour of the divine goodness, and God is the centre of four circles

[II.3] Nor was it without reason that the ancient theologians placed goodness at the centre and beauty in the circle: goodness, I say, at a single centre, but beauty in four circles. The one centre of all things is God; the four circles for ever revolving around it are Mind, Soul, Nature and Matter. Mind is a stable circle; Soul is mobile of itself; Nature is mobile in another, not by another; Matter is mobile by another and in another. But why we call God the centre, and why we call those four circles, I shall explain.
[II.3] The centre of a circle is a point: one, indivisible, stable. From it many lines, divisible and mobile, are drawn out to a circumference like themselves. This circumference, being divisible, turns about the centre as about a pivot. And such is the nature of the centre that, though it is one, undivided and immobile, yet it is found everywhere in many, or rather in all, of the divisible and mobile lines. For everywhere in a line there is a point. But since nothing can be touched by what is unlike itself, the lines drawn from the circumference all the way to the centre are each compelled to touch this middle point by a certain point of their own, one, simple and immobile.
[II.3] Who denies that God is rightly named the centre of all things, since he is present in all, utterly one, simple and immobile, while all the things produced from him are many, composite and mobile, and as they flow out from him, so they flow back to him, in the manner of lines and circumference? Thus Mind, Soul, Nature and Matter, proceeding from God, strive to return to the same, and from every side, as far as their powers allow, they circle round towards him. And as the central point is found everywhere in the lines and in the whole circle, and through its own point each line touches the middle point of the circle, so God, the centre of all things, who is the simplest unity and the purest act, plants himself in all things; not only because he is present to all, but also because in all the things created by him he has set a certain inmost part or power, most simple and most excellent, which is called the unity of things, from which and towards which, as from their own centre and towards it, the remaining parts and powers of each thing hang. To this centre of their own, to this unity proper to them, created things must plainly gather themselves before they cleave to their creator, so that through their own centre, as we have now often repeated, they may cleave to the centre of all.
[II.3] The Angelic Mind rises to its own summit and head before it ascends to God. So too the Soul and the rest in the same way. And of those invisible circles, namely of Mind, Soul and Nature, the circle of the visible world is the image. For bodies are the shadows and footprints of souls and minds. Now a shadow and a footprint reproduce the figure of that of which they are the shadow and the footprint. So it is not wrong to call those four things four circles.
[II.3] But Mind is an immobile orb, because its operation, like its substance, remains always the same and works in the same way: it always understands in the same manner, and wills in the same way. Yet Mind can sometimes be called mobile for this reason only, that, like all other things, proceeding from God it turns back to the same. The World Soul, and any other soul, is a mobile circle. For soul by its own nature knows by running from one thing to another, and works through courses of time. And a running from one thing to another, and a working in time, is beyond doubt called motion. But if there is any stability in the soul's knowing, it is plainly by the gift of mind rather than of soul.
[II.3] Nature too is a mobile circuit. When we say soul, we mean, in the manner of the ancient theologians, the power placed in reason and sense; when we say nature, the power of the soul placed in generating. The former power in us they called, properly, the man; the latter, the idol and likeness of the man. This faculty of generating is called mobile because it carries out its work in stretches of time. But it differs from that property of the soul in this, that the soul is moved of itself and in itself: of itself, I say, because it is the principle of motion; in itself also, because the operation of reason and sense remains in the very substance of the soul. From these no work necessarily results in the body. But that power of generating, which we call nature, is indeed moved of itself, since it is a certain power of the self-moved soul. Yet it is said to be moved in another, because all its operation ends in the mass of the body. For it nourishes the body, makes it grow and generates it. But Matter, and the mass of the body, is an orb mobile by another and in another: by another, because it is necessarily driven by the soul; in another, because the motion of a body is carried on in the space of a place.
[II.3] Now, therefore, we can clearly understand why the theologians place goodness at the centre and beauty in the circle. For the goodness of all things is the one God himself, and through it all things are good. But beauty is the ray of God, implanted in those four circles that revolve, in a manner, around God. This ray fashions in those four all the forms of all things. These we are accustomed to call Ideas in the Mind, reasons in the Soul, seeds in Nature, forms in Matter. Thus in the four circles there appear to be four splendours: the splendour of the Ideas in the first, of the reasons in the second, of the seeds in the third, of the forms in the last.

### Chapter 4. How Plato is to be expounded on divine things

[II.4] This mystery Plato signified in the letter to King Dionysius,¹¹ when he affirmed that God is the cause of all beautiful things, as being the principle and origin of all beauty. "Around the king of all," he says, "are all things; for his sake are all things; he is the cause of all beautiful things. The second things are around the second. The third are around the third. Now the human soul aspires to understand what those things are like, looking to the things that are akin to itself, none of which is sufficient. But around the king himself and the things I have spoken of, there is nothing of that kind; and what comes after this, the soul says."
[II.4] "Around the king" means not within the king, but outside him. For in God there is no composition. And what that word "around" means Plato explains when he adds: "For his sake are all things; he is the cause of all beautiful things." As if to say: all things are around the king because all things, according to their nature, turn back to him as to their end, just as all things were produced from him as from their principle. "Of all beautiful things", that is, of the whole of beauty, which shines out in the circles spoken of above. For the forms of bodies are led back to God through the seeds, the seeds through the reasons, the reasons through the Ideas; and by the same steps they are produced from God. And properly, when he says "all things", he means the Ideas; for in these the rest are included.
[II.4] "The second things are around the second. The third are around the third." Zoroaster posited three princes of the world, lords of three orders: Ormazd, Mithras and Ahriman.¹² Plato calls these God, Mind and Soul. And he posited three orders among the divine forms: Ideas, reasons and seeds. The first things, then, that is the Ideas, are around the first, that is around God, since they have been given by God to the Mind, and they lead the Mind to which they were given back to the same God. The second are around the second, that is, the reasons around the Mind, since they pass through the Mind into the Soul, and direct the Soul towards the Mind. The third are around the third, that is, the seeds of things around the Soul; for they pass through the Soul into Nature, that is, into that power of generating, and in turn they join Nature to the Soul. In the same order the forms descend from Nature into Matter.
[II.4] But Plato does not count these in the order he has set out, because, being asked by Dionysius about divine things, he brought in as divine the three orders that belong to the incorporeal forms, and passed over the forms of bodies. And he did not wish to call God the first king, but the king of all, lest, if he called him first, he might perhaps seem to place him together with the leaders that follow in some kind of number and equality of rank. Nor did he say that the first things are around him, but all things, lest we should believe him the governor of some one order rather than of all.
[II.4] "The human soul aspires to understand what those things are like." Skilfully, after those three splendours of the divine beauty shining out in the three circles, he added the soul's love for them. For it is from there that the ardour of the soul is kindled. It is indeed fitting that what is divine should desire divine things. "Looking to the things that are akin to itself." Since human knowledge takes its rise from the senses, we are very often accustomed to judge of divine things by those which we see to be more excellent in bodies: through the powers of bodily things we search out the power of God, through their order his wisdom, through their usefulness the goodness of God. And he calls the forms of bodies akin to the soul, as being born next to it. For the forms of bodies are ranked in the step that follows next after the soul.
[II.4] "None of which is sufficient." Forms of this kind neither exist sufficiently, nor show divine things to us sufficiently. For the true things are the Ideas, the reasons and the seeds. But the forms of bodies seem to be shadows of things rather than true things. And just as the shadow of a body does not show the exact and distinct figure of the body, so bodies do not show the proper nature of divine things. "Around the king himself and the things I have spoken of, there is nothing of that kind." For how could mortal things be like immortal, and false things like true? "And what comes after this, the soul says"; that is, the soul, while it judges divine things by mortal ones, speaks falsely about divine things, and declares not divine things but mortal.

### Chapter 5. The divine beauty shines through all things and is loved in all things

[II.5] But to gather many things into a few words: the good is said to be the supereminent existence of God itself; beauty, a certain act or ray penetrating from there through all things: first into the Angelic Mind, secondly into the Soul of the whole and the other souls, thirdly into Nature, fourthly into the Matter of bodies. It adorns the Mind with the order of the Ideas; it fills the Soul with the series of the reasons; it supports Nature with seeds; it decks Matter with forms. And just as a single ray of the sun illumines four bodies, fire, air, water and earth, so a single ray of God gives light to Mind, Soul, Nature and Matter. And whoever looks at the light in these four elements sees the ray of the sun itself, and through it is converted to gaze upon the light of the sun above. So whoever contemplates and loves the loveliness in these four, Mind, Soul, Nature and Body, beholds and loves the brightness of God in them, and through this brightness God himself.

### Chapter 6. The passions of lovers

[II.6] Hence it comes about that the lover's onrush is not quenched by the sight or touch of any body. For he does not desire this body or that; he wonders at, strives after and stands amazed at the splendour of the light from above shining through bodies. That is why lovers do not know what they desire or seek. For they do not know God himself, whose hidden savour has planted in his works a certain most sweet fragrance of himself. By that fragrance we are roused every day. The fragrance we do perceive; the savour, without doubt, we do not know. Since, then, allured by the manifest fragrance, we desire the hidden savour, it is with reason that we do not know what we desire and what we suffer.
[II.6] Hence too it always happens that lovers in some way fear and revere the sight of the beloved. Even brave men (I will say it, though I fear that one of you may blush to hear it), and wise men too, I say, have been used to suffer this in the presence of any beloved, however inferior. Surely it is nothing human that frightens them, that breaks them, that takes hold of them. For human strength is always greater in the braver and the wiser. It is that brightness of divinity flashing out in the beautiful which, like an image of God, compels lovers to be amazed, to tremble and to revere. For the same reason the lover, for the sake of the beloved's presence, despises riches and honours and counts them as nothing. For it is fitting that divine things be set before human.
[II.6] This too often happens, that each one desires to pass over into the person of the beloved. And not without reason. For he desires and strives to become God instead of man. And who would not exchange man for God? It happens also that those caught in the snare of love sigh and rejoice by turns. They sigh because they are losing themselves, because they are destroying themselves, because they are killing themselves. They rejoice because they are passing over into something better. They are also hot and cold by turns, like those whom a tertian fever attacks. With reason they are cold, since they are deserted by their own heat; and they are hot as well, since they are kindled by the brightness of the ray from above. Timidity follows cold; boldness follows heat. So they appear timid and bold by turns as well. Moreover, the dullest of men are made sharper by loving. For who would not see most sharply when the heavenly ray breathes upon him? But of love itself, of beauty and its origin, and of the passions of lovers, let this suffice.

### Chapter 7. On the two kinds of love and on the twofold Venus

[II.7] Next we must discuss briefly the two kinds of love. In Plato, Pausanias asserts that Cupid is the companion of Venus, and he thinks it necessary that there be as many Cupids as there are Venuses. Now he mentions two Venuses, attended likewise by twin Cupids. One Venus he sets down as heavenly, the other as common. The heavenly one was born of Heaven without a mother; the common one was begotten of Jupiter and Dione.¹³
[II.7] The Platonists call the highest God Heaven for this reason: just as this heaven, a body set on high, rules and contains all bodies, so that highest God rises above all spirits. Mind they call by many names. For they call it now Saturn, now Jupiter, now Venus. For that Mind is, lives and understands. Its essence they have been used to call Saturn, its life Jupiter, its intelligence Venus. The World Soul, moreover, we likewise call Saturn and Jupiter and Venus: in so far as it understands the things above, Saturn; in so far as it moves the heavenly things, Jupiter; as it generates the things below, Venus.
[II.7] The first Venus, which is in Mind, is said to be born of Heaven without a mother, because among the natural philosophers mother is matter. But that Mind is a stranger to any partnership with bodily matter. The second Venus, which is placed in the World Soul, is begotten of Jupiter and Dione. Of Jupiter, that is, of that power of the Soul itself which moves the heavenly things. For it was that which created this power, which generates these lower things. They assign her a mother as well for this reason, that, being poured into the matter of the world, she is thought to have commerce with matter.
[II.7] In short, to speak summarily, Venus is twofold. One is certainly that intelligence which we placed in the Angelic Mind. The other is the power of generating assigned to the World Soul. Each has as her companion a love like herself. For the former is seized by an inborn love to understand the beauty of God. The latter likewise is carried by her own love to procreate that same beauty in bodies. The former first embraces the brightness of divinity in herself; then she passes it on to the second Venus. The latter pours the sparks of that brightness into the matter of the world. By the presence of such sparks the several bodies of the world appear beautiful, each according to the capacity of its nature.
[II.7] The beauty of these bodies the human soul perceives through the eyes; and this soul in turn possesses twin powers. For it has the power of understanding; it has also the power of generating. These twin powers are the two Venuses in us, and twin loves attend them. When the beauty of a human body is first presented to our eyes, our mind, which is the first Venus in us, reveres and loves it as an image of the divine loveliness, and through this is often roused towards that. But the power of generating, the second Venus, craves to generate a form like this one. In both, therefore, there is love. There it is the desire of contemplating beauty; here, of generating it. Each love is honourable and to be approved. For each follows the divine image.
[II.7] What, then, does Pausanias condemn in love? I will tell you. If anyone, too eager for generation, abandons contemplation, or pursues generation beyond measure with women, or against the order of nature with males, or prefers the form of the body to the beauty of the soul, he certainly abuses the dignity of love. This abuse of love Pausanias censures. He who uses love rightly does indeed praise the form of the body; but through it he thinks upon the more excellent beauty of soul, of mind and of God, and this he admires and loves more ardently. And he makes use of the office of generation and of union only so far as the natural order and the civil laws laid down by the prudent prescribe. Of these things Pausanias speaks at greater length.

### Chapter 8. An exhortation to love. On simple love and on mutual love

[II.8] But you, my friends, I urge and beg to embrace love with all your strength, for it is certainly a divine thing. And do not let that saying frighten you which they report Plato to have made about a certain lover: "That lover," he said, "is a soul dead in its own body, living in the body of another." Nor let it trouble you, either, what Orpheus sang about the bitter and wretched lot of lovers. How these things are to be taken, and by what way they may be remedied, I beg you now, if you please, to hear with care.
[II.8] Plato calls love a bitter thing. And not wrongly, since whoever loves, dies. Orpheus too calls it γλυκύπικρον, that is, sweet-bitter,¹⁴ because love is a voluntary death. As death, it is a bitter thing; as voluntary, sweet. Now whoever loves, dies. For his thought, forgetful of itself, is always turned upon the beloved. If he does not think of himself, he certainly does not think in himself. Therefore a soul so affected does not operate in itself either, since the chief operation of the soul is thought itself. He who does not operate in himself is not in himself. For these two, being and operation, are equal to one another. There is no being without operation, and operation does not go beyond being itself; no one operates where he is not, and wherever he is, he operates. Therefore the lover's soul is not in itself, because it does not act in itself. If it is not in itself, it does not live in itself either. He who does not live is dead. So whoever loves is dead in himself.
[II.8] Does he at least live in another? There are, to be sure, these two kinds of love: one is simple, the other mutual. Simple love is where the beloved does not love the lover. There the lover is altogether dead. For he neither lives in himself, as we have already sufficiently shown, nor in the beloved, since he is rejected by him. Where, then, does he live? In air, or water, or fire, or earth, or in the body of some beast? By no means. For the human soul lives in no body other than a human one. Or will he perhaps lead his life in some other body, that of a person he does not love? Not that either. For if he does not live in the one where he most ardently craves to live, how will he live in another? So he lives nowhere, who loves another and is not loved by that other. Therefore the unloved lover is altogether dead. Nor will he ever come to life again, unless indignation rouses him.
[II.8] But where the beloved answers in love, in him at least the lover leads his life. Here indeed a wonderful thing happens. Whenever two people embrace each other with mutual goodwill, this one lives in that, and that one in this. Such people exchange themselves in turn, and each gives himself to the other in order to receive the other. How they give themselves while they forget themselves, I see. But how each receives the other, I do not understand. For he who does not have himself will much less possess another. Yet in truth each has himself and has the other. This one has himself, but in that one. That one too possesses himself, but in this one. For my part, while I love you who love me, I find myself in you who are thinking of me; and I recover myself, lost by myself through my own neglect, in you who preserve me. You do the same in me.
[II.8] This too seems wonderful. For after I have lost myself, if I redeem myself through you, through you I have myself. If I have myself through you, I have you sooner and more than I have myself; I am nearer to you than to myself, since I cleave to myself only through you as the mean. In this, certainly, the power of Cupid differs from the violence of Mars. For that is how dominion and love differ. The commander possesses others through himself; the lover takes hold of himself through another, and each of the lovers, becoming farther from himself, becomes nearer to the other, and, dead in himself, comes to life again in the other. In mutual love there is only one death, but a twofold coming to life again. For he who loves dies once in himself, when he neglects himself. He comes to life again in the beloved at once, when the beloved embraces him in ardent thought. He comes to life a second time, when at last he recognises himself in the beloved and does not doubt that he is loved.
[II.8] O happy death, which two lives follow. O wonderful commerce, in which a man gives himself up for another, has the other, and does not cease to have himself. O gain beyond reckoning, when two become one in such a way that each of the two, instead of one alone, becomes two; and, as though doubled, he who had one life now has two, with one death coming between. For he who has died once and twice comes to life again has gained a double life for one life, and two for his one self.
[II.8] Most just, certainly, is the vengeance in mutual love. A murderer must be punished with death. For who would deny that he who is loved is a murderer, since he separates the soul from the lover? And who, again, would deny that this same man dies in like manner, since in like manner he loves the lover? This restitution is owed in full, when this one gives back to that, and that one to this, the soul he received. Each by loving hands over his own, and by loving in return restores the other's through his own. Therefore by right itself whoever is loved ought to love. But he who does not love his lover must be held guilty of murder. Or rather he is a thief, a murderer and a man guilty of sacrilege. Money is possessed by the body, the body by the soul. He, then, who has seized the soul, by which both body and money are possessed, seizes at once soul, body and money, since both body and money are possessed by it. So it comes about that, as thief, murderer and man guilty of sacrilege, he is liable to a threefold death, and, as one utterly infamous and profane, may be killed by anyone with impunity; unless he himself of his own accord fulfils that law, namely by loving his lover. In that case, with him who dies once he too dies once in like manner; with him who twice comes to life again he too twice comes to life again.
[II.8] By the reasons above it has been shown that the beloved ought to love the lover in return. That he not only ought to, but is compelled to, is shown as follows. Likeness begets love. Likeness is a certain nature that is the same in several things. For if I am like you, you also are necessarily like me. Therefore the same likeness that compels me to love you also forces you to love me. Moreover, the lover takes himself away from himself and surrenders himself to the beloved. So the beloved cares for him as his own possession. For to each man his own things are dearest. Add to this that the lover carves the figure of the beloved in his own soul. And so the lover's soul becomes a mirror in which the image of the beloved shines back. For this reason the beloved, when he recognises himself in the lover, is compelled to love him.
[II.8] The astrologers think that the reciprocity of love is strongest between those at whose birth there was an interchange of the lights, that is, of the sun and the moon. For example, if at my birth the sun was in Aries and the moon in Libra, and at yours the sun in Libra and the moon in Aries. Or those for whom the same or a similar sign and the same or a similar planet was rising, or whose ascendant angle the benefic planets aspected in like manner, or for whom Venus was placed in the same house of the nativity and in the same degree. The Platonists add those whose life is guided by the same daemon, or at least a similar one. The natural and the moral philosophers hold that likeness of complexion, of nurture, of education, of habit and of judgement is the cause of like affection. Finally, where several causes come together, there the reciprocity is found to be stronger. Where all come together, there the affections of Pythias and Damon, of Pylades and Orestes, rise again.¹⁵

### Chapter 9. What lovers seek

[II.9] But what do these seek when they love one another? They seek beauty. For love is the desire of enjoying beauty. And beauty is a certain splendour that seizes the human soul to itself. The beauty of the body is surely nothing other than splendour itself in the loveliness of colours and lines. The beauty of the soul, too, is a brightness in the harmony of learning and conduct. That light of the body is perceived not by the ears, nor by smell, nor by taste, nor by touch, but by the eye. If the eye alone recognises it, the eye alone enjoys it. So the eye alone enjoys the beauty of the body. Now since love is nothing other than the desire of enjoying beauty, and this beauty is grasped by the eyes alone, the lover of the body is content with sight alone. The craving to touch is no part of love, nor a passion of the lover, but a kind of wantonness and the disturbance of a servile man. That light and beauty of the soul, moreover, we grasp by the mind alone. So he who seeks the beauty of the soul is content with the gaze of the mind alone.
[II.9] Lastly, between lovers beauty is exchanged for beauty.¹⁶ The man enjoys with his eyes the beauty of the younger beloved. The younger attains with his mind the beauty of the man. And he who is beautiful in body alone becomes, by this companionship, beautiful in soul as well; he who is seemly in soul alone fills the eyes of his body with the beauty of a body. It is plainly a wonderful exchange, honourable, useful and pleasant to both. Honourable, indeed, equally in each: for it is equally honourable to learn and to teach. The pleasure is greater in the elder, who is delighted both by sight and by understanding. But in the younger the usefulness is greater. For by as much as the soul is more excellent than the body, by so much is the gaining of beauty of soul more precious than the gaining of beauty of body. So much for Pausanias; now let us interpret the speech of Eryximachus.

## Speech III: Eryximachus


### Chapter 1. Love is in all things and towards all things, creator of all, master of all

[III.1] Next, it seems, we must treat three things according to the mind of our Eryximachus. First, that Love, implanted in all things, reaches through them all. Second, that he is the maker and preserver of all the works that are according to nature. Third, that he is the master and lord of every art. Three grades of things, certainly, are considered in nature: the higher, the lower and the equal. Those that are above are the causes of the lower; those that are below are the works of the higher; those that are equal are endowed with the same nature as one another. Now causes love their works as parts and images of themselves. Works in turn seek their causes as their own preservers. And those that are placed in the same order are moved towards one another by mutual charity, as like members of one and the same body.
[III.1] Thus God rules and governs the angels with a certain goodwill; the angels, together with God, the souls; and the souls, together with them, bodies. In this the love of the higher for the lower is plainly seen. Bodies, again, are joined to their souls most eagerly and are parted from them most unwillingly. Our souls long for the blessedness of the heavenly beings. The heavenly beings happily revere the majesty of the supreme godhead. And this is the affection of love that the lower have for the higher. Likewise all the parts of fire gladly cling to one another. So again do the parts of earth, of water and of air; and in every species of animal, the animals of the same species always draw one another into mutual companionship. Here love towards equals and likes is seen. Who, then, will doubt that love is inborn in all things towards all things?
[III.1] And this is what Dionysius the Areopagite, in his book On the Divine Names, conveyed in these words, following the mind of Hierotheus:¹⁷ "Whether we speak of love as divine, or angelic, or spiritual, or of the soul, or natural, we understand by it a certain engrafting and commingling power, which moves the higher things to provide for the lower, joins equals in a sharing fellowship with one another, and lastly prompts all the lower things to turn towards the better and the higher." So he says.

### Chapter 2. Love is the author and preserver of all things

[III.2] The second part of our speech, in which Love was called the maker and preserver of all things, is proved as follows. The craving to propagate one's own perfection is a kind of love. Absolute perfection lies in the supreme power of God. The divine intelligence contemplates it. And from this the will longs to propagate that same perfection outside itself; and out of this love of propagating, all things were created by him. That is why our Dionysius says:¹⁸ "Divine love did not allow the king of all things to remain in himself without offspring." The same instinct for propagation has been implanted in all things by that first author. Through it his holy spirits move the heavens and bestow their gifts on all that come after them. Through it the stars pour their light upon the elements. Through it fire moves air by sharing its heat, air moves water, water moves earth; and in turn earth draws water to itself, water draws air, and air draws fire. Plants and trees too, craving to propagate their own seed, beget things like themselves. Brute animals also, and human beings, are swept by the allurements of the same craving to the begetting of offspring.
[III.2] But if Love makes all things, he also preserves all things. For making and preserving are always the office of the same thing. Like things, to be sure, are preserved by like. And Love draws like to like. The several parts of earth, coupled by mutual love, betake themselves to other parts of earth like themselves. The whole earth, too, sinks towards the centre of the world, which is like it, out of eagerness for that centre. The parts of water are likewise carried towards one another and, with the whole body of water, to the place that suits them. The parts of air and of fire do the same; and these two elements, too, are drawn to the upper region, which is fitting for them and like them, by love of that region.
[III.2] The heaven also, as Plato says in his book On Kingship,¹⁹ is moved by an inborn love. For the soul of the heaven is present whole and at once in every point of the heaven. The heaven, therefore, craving to enjoy its soul, runs its course so that through all its parts it may everywhere enjoy the whole soul. And it flies most swiftly, so that, as far as is possible, the whole of it may be at once everywhere, wherever the whole soul is at once. Moreover, the concave surface of the greater sphere is the natural place of the lesser sphere. And because every particle of the lesser sphere agrees equally with every particle of the greater, each one seeks to touch all the particles of the greater. If it stood still, single particles would touch single particles, not each one all. By running it very nearly attains what it could not attain by standing still. And it runs most swiftly, so that each part may touch them all, as far as its strength allows, at almost the same time.
[III.2] Furthermore, all things are preserved by the unity of their parts and perish by the scattering of their parts. And it is the mutual love of the parts that brings about their unity. This may be seen in the humours of our bodies and in the elements of the world; by their concord, as Empedocles the Pythagorean says,²⁰ both the world and our body hold together, and by their discord they are broken up. And concord is given them by the interchange of peace and love. Hence Orpheus:²¹
[III.2] Μοῦνος γὰρ τούτων πάντων οἴηκα κρατύνεις, that is:
You alone hold the reins of all these things.

### Chapter 3. That he is the master and governor of the arts

[III.3] It remains after this to explain how Love is the master and governor of all the arts. We shall understand that he is the master of the arts if only we consider that no one can ever discover or learn any art unless the pleasure of inquiry and the desire of discovery spur him on, and unless he who teaches loves his pupils and the pupils thirst most eagerly for that teaching. He is rightly called governor as well. For whoever loves most both the works of art themselves and the persons for whom they are made carries out the works of his art carefully and finishes them exactly. Add to this that in every art the craftsmen seek and care for nothing other than love. For the present we shall run briefly through those arts which Eryximachus mentions in Plato.
[III.3] For what else does medicine consider than how the four humours of the body may become and remain friends with one another, and which foods and drinks and which other practices of living or of healing nature loves and requires? Here too Eryximachus finds, by a certain likeness, those two loves, the heavenly and the common, which Pausanias had distinguished above. For a temperate condition of the body has a moderate love, and a love for moderate and fitting things. An intemperate condition contains the contrary love, and a love for contrary things. The former is to be indulged; the latter is never to be obeyed. In gymnastic exercise, too, one must find out which habit of body loves and demands which kinds of exercise and which movements. In agriculture, which soil demands which seeds and what kind of tilling, and what manner of tending is loved by each kind of tree.
[III.3] The same is observed in music, whose practitioners inquire which numbers love which numbers more or less. Between one and two, and between one and seven, they find the least love. But between one and three, four, five and six they find a stronger love. Between one and eight, the strongest. They make high and low notes, which are different by nature, more friendly to one another by fixed intervals and measures. From this the composition and sweetness of harmony is born. They also temper slower and faster movements with one another in such a way that they become the best of friends and show rhythm and harmony.
[III.3] Now two kinds of musical melody are handed down. One is grave and steady; the other is soft and wanton. Plato judges, in the books of the Republic and the Laws,²² that the first is useful to those who practise it and the second harmful. In the Symposium he set the Muse Urania over the first and Polymnia over the second. Some love the first kind, others the second. The love of the former is to be obeyed, and the sounds they seek are to be given them; the appetite of the latter is to be resisted. For the love of the former is heavenly, and that of the latter common.
[III.3] There is in the stars and in the four elements a certain friendship, which astronomy considers. In these, in a way, those two loves are found. For there is a moderate love in them when they sound together most temperately with their mutual powers. And there is an immoderate love when some one of them loves itself too much and in a way abandons the others. From the former come a pleasant mildness of the air, calm of the water, fertility of the lands and health of animals; from the latter come the contraries.
[III.3] Lastly, the skill of prophets and priests seems to lie chiefly in this: that they teach us which services of men are friendly to God, and by what means men may become friends of God; what measure of love and charity is to be shown towards God, towards our country, towards our parents and towards others, the living as well as the dead. The same may be inferred in the other arts, and we may conclude in sum that Love is in all things and towards all things, that he is the author and preserver of all, and the lord and master of all the arts. Rightly did the divine Orpheus call him:²³
[III.3] Skilful, of twofold nature, holding the keys of all things.
[III.3] For how he is of a twin nature you have heard first from Pausanias and then from Eryximachus. And in what sense he is said by Orpheus to hold the keys of the world we can understand well enough from what was said above. For, as we have shown, this desire to propagate one's own perfection, inborn in all things, unfolds the hidden, enfolded fruitfulness of each thing, when it compels seeds to sprout into shoots, draws the powers of each thing out of its bosom, conceives offspring, and, opening what has been conceived as if with keys, brings it forth into the light. For this reason all the parts of the world, because they are the works of one craftsman and members of the same fabric, like one another in being and in living, are bound to one another by a certain mutual charity; so that Love may rightly be called the everlasting knot and bond of the world, the unmoving support of its parts, and the firm foundation of the whole fabric.

### Chapter 4. No member of the world hates another member

[III.4] If this is so, the members of this work can in no way be enemies to one another. For fire does not flee water out of hatred of water, but out of love of itself, lest it be put out by the coldness of the water. Nor does water put out fire out of hatred of fire; rather, by a certain appetite for increasing its own coldness, it is drawn to beget water like itself out of the body of the fire. For since every natural appetite tends to good and none to evil, the purpose of water is not to put out fire, which is an evil, but to generate water like itself, which is a good. If it could accomplish this without the destruction of the fire, it would certainly not consume the fire.
[III.4] The same account is given of the other things that seem contrary and hostile. The lamb, indeed, does not hate the life and shape of the wolf, but shrinks from its own destruction, which the wolf brings upon it. Nor does the wolf tear and devour the lamb out of hatred of the lamb, but out of love of itself. Nor does man shrink from man, but from the vices of man. Nor do we envy those who are more powerful or sharper than ourselves their gifts out of hatred of them, but out of goodwill towards ourselves, fearing that we may be wholly overcome by them.
[III.4] Therefore nothing prevents Love from being in all things and passing through all things. This god, then, so great, because he is everywhere and sits within the inmost parts of all things, let us without doubt fear as a powerful lord whose rule we cannot escape, and as a most wise judge from whom our thoughts cannot be hidden. Because he is the creator and preserver of all things, let us revere him as a father, and honour him as a guardian and defence. Because he teaches every art, let us follow him as a teacher. With him as author we are and live; with him as preserver we abide for ever; with him as ruler and judge we are governed; with him as teacher we are instructed and formed for living well and blessedly.

## Speech IV: Aristophanes


### Chapter 1. The text of Plato on the ancient nature of men is recounted

[IV.1] With these words our friend made an end of speaking. After him came Cristoforo Landino, a man of outstanding learning, whom we have known as the foremost Orphic and Platonic poet of our times; and he went on in this way, to unfold the dark and tangled meaning of Aristophanes. Although Giovanni Cavalcanti has by his diligence freed us from long windings of discussion, the meaning of Aristophanes, wrapped as it is in the darkest words, still calls for some untying and some light. Love, says Aristophanes, is beyond the other gods supremely beneficent to the human race: the guardian and protector of men, and their physician. We must first take note of what the nature of men once was, and what it suffered. For it was not then as it is now, but far different.
[IV.1] In the beginning there were three kinds of men: not only the two there are now, male and female, but a third as well, compounded of both. Moreover, the form of each man was whole and round, with back and sides in a circle, four hands and as many legs as hands, and two faces also, joined on a rounded neck and alike in every way. The male kind was born of the Sun, the female of the Earth, the mixed of the Moon. Hence they were lofty in soul and robust in body. And so they tried to fight with the gods and to climb into heaven. Therefore Jupiter cut each of them lengthwise and made two out of one, like those who cut eggs lengthwise with a hair. And if they should again seem to rage against the gods in their arrogance, he threatened that he would divide them once more in the same way.
[IV.1] After the nature of men had been divided in this way, each craved his own half. So they ran together and, throwing their arms about one another, they embraced, striving to be brought back to their former state. And so they would have perished of hunger and torpor, had not the god appointed a way for their coming together. From this, certainly, mutual love is inborn in men, the reconciler of their ancient nature, striving to make one out of two and to heal the nature of men. For each of us is a half of a man, having been cut, just as the little fishes called psettae and gilt-heads, when split, become two out of one. And each seeks his own half. So whenever anyone meets his own half, whichever sex he is eager for, he is most violently stirred, he cleaves to it with burning love, and would not bear to be parted from it even for a moment. The craving and striving to restore the whole, then, has received the name of love. In the present time he helps us greatly, leading each to his own half, once so dear to him; and for the time to come he fills us with the highest hope that, if we worship God devoutly, he will restore us to our ancient figure, heal us, and make us most blessed.

### Chapter 2. Plato's opinion on the ancient figure of man is expounded

[IV.2] These things Aristophanes tells, and very many others, like monsters and portents; and beneath them, as beneath certain veils, we must suppose that divine mysteries lie hidden. For it was the custom of the ancient theologians to cover their sacred and pure secrets with the shade of figures, so that they should not be defiled by the profane and impure. We do not think, however, that every single thing described in the figures above, and in others, bears exactly on the meaning. For Aurelius Augustine says that not everything fashioned in figures must be thought to signify something.²⁴ Many things are added for the sake of order and connection, on account of those that do signify. The earth is cut by the ploughshare alone; but so that this can be done, the other parts of the plough are joined to it as well.
[IV.2] The sum, then, of what is set before us to be expounded is this. Men once had three sexes, the male, the female and the mixed, sons of the Sun, the Earth and the Moon. They were also whole. But because of their pride, when they wished to make themselves equal to God, they were cut in two; and if they are proud again, they are to be split in two once more. The cutting done, half is drawn to half by love, so that wholeness may be restored. When that is complete, the race of men will be blessed. And the sum of our interpretation will be as follows. Men, that is, the souls of men; once, that is, when they are created by God; are whole: they are adorned with two lights, the inborn and the infused, so that by the inborn they might behold things equal and lower, by the infused things higher. They wished to make themselves equal to God: they turned back to the one inborn light alone. At this point they were divided: they lost the infused splendour when they were converted to the inborn alone, and at once they fell into bodies. Grown prouder, they will be divided again: that is, if they trust too much in natural wit, that inborn and natural light which remained will in a manner be put out.
[IV.2] They had three sexes: the male souls born of the Sun, the female of the Earth, the mixed of the Moon. Some received the brightness of God according to fortitude, which is masculine; others according to temperance, which is feminine; others according to justice, which is mixed. These three virtues in us are daughters of three others which God has. But in God those three are called Sun, Moon and Earth; in us, male, female and mixed. The cutting done, half is drawn to half by love: souls now divided and plunged in bodies, as soon as they have come to the years of youth, are roused by the natural and inborn light which they have kept, as by a certain half of themselves, to recover by the pursuit of truth that infused and divine light, once their other half, which they lost in falling. When it is recovered they will be whole, and blessed in the vision of God. This, then, will be the summary of our interpretation.

### Chapter 3. Man is the soul itself, and the soul is immortal

[IV.3] Since body consists of matter and quantity, and since to matter it belongs to receive, and to quantity only to be divided and extended, and since receiving and division are thus passions, it follows that body is by its own nature subject only to passion and corruption. If any action seems to belong to a body, it acts not in so far as it is body, but in so far as there is in it a certain power, in some way incorporeal, and a quality: as heat in the mass of fire, cold in the matter of water, complexion in our body. It is certainly from these qualities that the operations of bodies proceed. For fire heats not because it is long or broad or deep, but because it is hot. Nor does a more extended fire heat more; rather, because of its dispersal, it heats less; the hotter fire heats more. Since, then, operations come about by the benefit of powers and qualities, and the powers and qualities themselves do not consist of matter and quantity, although they are in matter and quantity, it follows that to be acted upon belongs to body, and to act belongs to something incorporeal.
[IV.3] These powers are indeed instruments of operating. But of themselves they are by no means sufficient for operating, because they are not sufficient for existing. For what lies in another and cannot sustain itself surely depends on another. Hence it comes about that qualities, because they are necessarily sustained by a body, are made and ruled by some higher substance, which is neither a body nor lies in a body. Such is the soul, which, present to bodies and seated in them, sustains itself, and gives to bodies the quality and power of complexion; and through these, as through instruments, it carries on various operations in the body and through the body.
[IV.3] Hence man is said to beget, to nourish, to make grow, to run, to stand, to sit, to speak, to fashion works of art, to sense, to understand. But all these the soul itself does, and therefore the soul will be the man. If we say that a man begets, makes grow, nourishes, it is the soul that, as father and craftsman of the body, begets it, makes it grow and nourishes it. If we say that he stands, sits, speaks, it is the soul that holds up the limbs of the body, bends them and moves them to and fro. If that he fashions or runs, it is the soul that stretches out the hands and turns them as it will, and drives the feet. If that he senses, it is the soul that perceives outward bodies through the instruments of the senses, as through windows and openings. If that he understands, it is the soul that attains truth through itself, without any instrument of the body.
[IV.3] Everything, therefore, that man is said to do, the soul itself does; the body suffers it. Therefore man is the soul alone, and the body is man's work and instrument. All the more so because the soul carries on its chief operation, namely understanding, without any instrument of the body, since through understanding it grasps incorporeal things, whereas through the body only corporeal things are known. And so, if the soul does anything by itself, it surely is and lives by itself. Now that which operates without the body lives without the body. If it exists by itself, a certain being of its own belongs to it, not shared with the body. Therefore it can take for itself, apart from the mass of the body, the name of man as its own.
[IV.3] And since this name is spoken of each one of us through the whole of life, for everyone is called a man at every age, it seems to signify something that remains stable. The body flows continually, changed by growing and shrinking, by continual dissolution and melting, by heat and cold in turn. The soul remains always the same, as is clearly shown to us by the search for truth, by the will for the good that is always the same, and by the firm keeping of memory. Who, then, will be so mad as to assign the title of man, which is most firm in us, to the body, always flowing and changed on every side, rather than to the most stable soul? From this it can be clear that, when Aristophanes spoke of men, he meant our souls, in the Platonic manner.

### Chapter 4. That the soul is adorned with two lights, and why it descends into the body. The creation of the soul with two lights

[IV.4] Now the soul, as soon as it is born of God, turns by a certain natural instinct towards God its parent, just as fire, begotten on earth by the power of the higher things, is at once carried by the impulse of its nature towards the higher regions. Converted to him, it is illumined by his rays. But this first brightness, received in the substance of the soul, which was of itself formless before, becomes darker; and, drawn to the capacity of that substance, it comes to be the soul's own and natural to it. And so by it, as by a light equal to itself, the soul does indeed see itself and the things below itself, that is, all bodies; but God and the other higher things it does not see. Yet, brought nearer to God by this first spark, it receives again another, clearer light, by which it may know the things above as well. It has, therefore, a twin light: one natural or inborn, the other divine and infused; so that with the two joined together, as with two wings, it may be able to fly through the region on high. And if it always used the divine light, it would always cleave to divine things; the earth would be empty of rational living creatures.
[IV.4] But it has been decreed by divine providence that the soul should be mistress of itself, and be able to use now both lights together, now one of them. Hence it comes about that, with nature leading, it turns to its own light, lets the divine light go, and takes notice of itself and of its powers that have to do with the building of a body; and it craves to put such powers to work in building bodies. Weighed down by this craving, as they say, it descends into the body, where it exercises the powers of begetting, moving and sensing; and by its presence it adorns the earth, the lowest seat of the world. The earth ought not to lack reason, for this cause: that no part of the world should be left without the presence of rational living beings, just as the world's author, in whose likeness the world was made, is wholly reason. But our soul fell into the body when, letting the divine light go, it used its own light alone and began to be content with itself. God alone, who lacks nothing and above whom there is nothing, remains content with himself, sufficient to himself. And so the soul made itself God's equal at the moment when it chose to be content with itself alone, as if it sufficed to itself no less than God.

### Chapter 5. By how many ways the soul returns to God

[IV.5] This pride, plainly, is what Aristophanes says was the cause that the soul, which was born whole, was cut; that is, that of its twin lights it thereafter used the one and neglected the other. Plunged into the gulf of the body as into the river Lethe, and for a time forgetful of itself, it is swept along by the senses and by lust, as by henchmen and a tyrant. But when the body has grown to maturity and the instruments of the senses have been purged, with learning to help, it comes to itself a little. Then the natural brightness flashes out and searches into the order of natural things. By this search it perceives that there is some architect of this huge fabric. It longs both to see him and to possess him. He is seen only by the divine splendour. Therefore the mind, by the searching of its own light, is most powerfully spurred to recover the divine light. Now this spurring and appetite is true love. With it as guide, the one half of man craves the other half of the same man, because the natural light, which is one half of the soul, strives to kindle again in the soul that divine light, once neglected, which is called its other half. And this is what Plato says in the letter to Dionysius: The human soul aspires to understand what divine things are like, looking to those things that are akin to itself.²⁵
[IV.5] But when God infused his light into the soul, he fitted it above all to this end: to lead men to blessedness, which consists in the possession of him. To this we are led by four virtues: Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Temperance. Prudence first shows us blessedness. The three remaining virtues, like three ways, lead to blessedness. And so God tempers his spark variously in various souls towards this end, so that, with prudence as guide, some return to their author through the duties of fortitude, others through those of justice, others through those of temperance. Some, namely, by grace of this gift, face dangers and death with a brave soul for the worship of God, for what is honourable, for their country. Others so order their life in justice that they neither do wrong to anyone nor, so far as lies in their power, allow it to be done. Others tame their lusts by watching, fasting and toil. These go forward by three paths, it is true, but they strive to reach the same end of blessedness, prudence pointing it out to them. Accordingly these three virtues are contained also in the prudence of God himself. Kindled with desire for these, the souls of men long to reach them through their duties, to cleave to them and to possess them for ever.
[IV.5] The fortitude of men, their strength and boldness, we call masculine. Temperance we call feminine, on account of a certain slack and cooler habit of desire and a gentle nature. Justice we call mixed: feminine in so far as by its innocence it does wrong to no one; masculine in so far as it does not allow wrong to be done to others, and visits unjust men with a sterner censure. Now because it belongs to the male to give and to the female to receive, we call the Sun male, since it takes light from none and bestows it on all; the Moon mixed, from its giving and receiving, since it takes from the Sun and gives to the elements; the Earth we name female, since it takes from all and gives to none. Therefore Sun, Moon and Earth, Fortitude, Justice and Temperance are rightly marked with the names of male, mixed and female. And, that we may give the more excellent title to God, we call these virtues in him Sun, Moon and Earth; in us the male sex, the mixed and the female.
[IV.5] Now to those in whom that divine light was infused at their origin from the Sun of God, together with an affection for fortitude, we say that a masculine light was granted. To those who had it from the Moon of God with an affection for justice, a mixed light. To those who had it from the Earth of God with an affection for temperance, a feminine. That infused and divine light we neglected, turning back at once to the natural. So, having set the one aside, we kept the other; and there, holding half of ourselves, we let half go. But at a certain time of life, led by the natural light, we all aspire to the divine; yet we go forward to gain it in different ways, each differently. By fortitude go those who once received it from the fortitude of God with an affection for fortitude; others likewise by justice or by temperance. In short, each seeks that half of his as he received it. And some, through the masculine light of God, once lost and now recovered, wish to enjoy the masculine fortitude of God; others through the mixed light, likewise, the mixed virtue; others through the feminine in the same way.
[IV.5] This gift, to be sure, is gained only by those who, when the natural spark has shone out in them in their adult years, judge that it is not sufficient for judging divine things, lest by the verdict of the natural spark they should ascribe to the divine majesty the affections either of souls or of bodies, or should think that majesty no more excellent than bodies or souls. In this, indeed, many are said to have erred, who, trusting to natural wit in the search for divine things, either said that God does not exist, as Diagoras; or doubted, as Protagoras; or judged him to be a body, as the Epicureans, the Stoics, the Cyrenaics and very many others; or a kind of soul, as Marcus Varro, Marcus Manilius and some others.
[IV.5] These, as impious men, not only failed to recover the divine light they had once neglected, but also corrupted the natural light by their abuse of it. What is corrupted is not unjustly held to be broken and split. Therefore the souls of those who, as proud men swollen with arrogance, trust in their own powers are cut, as Aristophanes says, a second time, since they also darken with false opinions the natural light which was left to them, and put it out with wicked ways. And so those use the natural light rightly who, recognising that it is maimed and mutilated, judge that it is in some measure adequate for judging natural things; but, thinking that for the things above nature a higher light is needed, they so prepare themselves by a most exact purgation of the soul that the divine light may shine on them again. By its rays they will think rightly of God and will be restored to that former wholeness.

### Chapter 6. Love leads souls back to heaven, distributes the degrees of blessedness, and bestows everlasting joy

[IV.6] This god, then, most excellent guests, who Aristophanes says is beneficent to the human race beyond the other gods, you must make gracious to yourselves with every kind of sacrifice; call on him with devout prayers; embrace him with your whole heart. By his beneficence he first leads souls to the heavenly table, abounding in ambrosia and nectar; then he fits each to its own seat; lastly he keeps them there sweetly for ever. For none return to heaven but those who have pleased the king of the heavens. Those please him who love him above all. To know him truly is, in this present time, altogether impossible. But truly to love him, in whatever way he is known, is both possible and easy. Those who know God do not yet please him, unless they love him once known. Those who know and love are loved by God not because they know but because they love. For we too embrace with charity not those who know us but those who love us. Many, indeed, who know us we have as enemies. What restores us to heaven, then, is not the knowledge of God but love.
[IV.6] Moreover, the order of those who recline at the heavenly table follows the different degrees of the lovers. For those who have loved God more excellently feed there on more excellent dishes. Those, namely, who through works of fortitude have honoured the fortitude of God, enjoy that very fortitude. Those who honoured his justice enjoy justice. Likewise those who honoured his temperance enjoy temperance. And so different souls enjoy different Ideas and reasons of the divine Mind, according to the different rapture of their love. Yet all enjoy the whole of God, because he is whole in each of the Ideas. But those possess the whole of God more excellently who behold him in a more excellent Idea. And each gains that virtue of God which he loved. That is why envy, as Plato says in the Phaedrus, is absent from the divine choir.²⁶ For since the most delightful of all things is to possess the thing loved, anyone, in possessing what he loves, lives content and full. Indeed, if two lovers come to possess their delights, each rests in the possession of his own beloved, and will have no care at all lest the other possess a more beautiful beloved. Thus it has come about by the benefit of Love that, in different degrees of happiness, each is content with his own portion, without any envy.
[IV.6] It also comes about that souls feed on the same dishes for ever without any surfeit. For to delight the guests neither food nor wine is enough, unless hunger and thirst draw them to the feast; and the delight lasts just as long as the eagerness lasts. But who would deny that eagerness is a kind of love? An eternal love, therefore, by which the soul is always moved towards God, brings it about that it always rejoices in God as in a new spectacle. This love is kindled for ever in the soul by the same goodness of God that also makes the lover blessed. To sum up briefly, then, we shall praise three benefits of Love: that by restoring us, once divided, to wholeness, he leads us back to heaven; that he sets each in his own seat and makes all at rest in that allotment; that, driving out all weariness, by a certain ardour of his own he kindles in the soul an ever new delight, as it were, and makes it blessed with a tender and sweet enjoyment.

## Speech V: Agathon


### Chapter 1. Love is most blessed, because he is beautiful and good

[V.1] Carlo Marsuppini, sweet nursling of the Muses, following the poet Landino, takes up the speech of Agathon thus. Our Agathon judges the god Love to be most blessed, because he is most beautiful and best. He carefully counts over what is required for him to be most beautiful, and likewise what is required for him to be best; and in counting these he draws a portrait of Love himself. Last, once he has told what Love is like, he reckons up the benefits Love has bestowed on the human race. And this is the sum of that discourse. Our business is to ask first of all why, in order to show that Love is blessed, he said that he is very beautiful and good; and what the difference is between goodness and beauty.
[V.1] In the Philebus Plato holds that the blessed is that which lacks nothing, and that this is what is perfect on every side.²⁷ Now there is one perfection that is inward, and there is also one that is outward. The inward we call goodness; the outward, beauty. Therefore what is good within and also beautiful we name most blessed, as being perfect on every side. This difference we observe in all things. In precious stones, as the natural philosophers hold, a certain inward mixture of the four elements, most finely tempered, begets the outward lustre. Again, a fruitfulness inborn in root and pith clothes plants and trees in a most pleasing variety of flowers and leaves. In animals a healthy complexion of the humours produces a delightful appearance of features and colours. The virtue of the soul, too, seems to display a certain most honourable loveliness in words, gestures and deeds. The heavens also their own lofty substance bathes in the clearest light. In all these the inner perfection brings forth the outer. The one we may call goodness; the other, beauty.
[V.1] So we hold that beauty is a kind of flower of goodness; and by the charms of this flower, as by a kind of bait, the goodness hidden within draws those who behold it. But since the knowledge of our mind takes its origin from the senses, we should never understand nor desire the goodness itself, set in the inmost parts of things, were we not carried up to it by the plain signs of the outward form. In this the usefulness of this beauty, and of its companion, is seen to be wonderful indeed. By this I think it has been shown well enough that there is as much difference between goodness and beauty as between the seed and the flower; and that, as the flowers of trees, sprung from seeds, themselves also bring forth seeds, so this beauty, the flower of goodness, as it springs from the good, also leads lovers to the good. This our hero here has abundantly proved in what was said before.²⁸

### Chapter 2. How Love is painted, and by which parts of the soul beauty is known and love is begotten

[V.2] After this Agathon counts over at greater length the things required for the beautiful appearance of this god. He is young, he says, tender, nimble, well-proportioned and shining. We must ask first what these contribute to beauty; and then, when they are ascribed to this god, how they ought to be understood. Human beings have reason and sense. Reason by itself grasps the incorporeal reasons of all things. Sense, through the five instruments of its body, reaches the images and qualities of bodies: colours through the eyes, voices through the ears, odours through the nostrils, flavours through the tongue, and through the nerves the simple qualities of the elements, namely heat and cold and the rest. So, as far as the present question is concerned, six powers of the soul are counted as belonging to knowledge: reason, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.
[V.2] Reason is assigned to the highest divinity, sight to fire, hearing to air, smell to the odour of vapours, taste to water, touch to earth. For reason searches out heavenly things, and has no seat of its own in any member of the body, just as divinity has no fixed seat in any part of the world. Sight is placed in the highest part of the body, as fire is in the highest region of the world, and by its nature perceives light, which is the property of fire. Hearing follows sight just as pure air follows fire, and drinks in voices, which are both begotten in broken air and glide into the ears through the interval of air.
[V.2] Smell is assigned entirely to misty air and to the vapours mixed of air and water; for, set between the ears and the tongue as between air and water, it easily catches and most loves those vapours that come from the mixture of air and water, such as the scents of herbs, flowers and fruits, most sweet to the nostrils. Who would hesitate to liken taste to the liquids of water, since it comes after smell as after a thicker air and, steeped in the constant moisture of saliva, delights most keenly in drink and in moist flavours? Who, again, would doubt to ascribe touch to earth, since it arises through all the parts of the earthy body, is completed in the nerves, which are most earthy, and most easily touches things that have solidity and weight, which earth gives to bodies?
[V.2] Hence it also comes about that touch, taste and smell perceive only what is set right against them, and suffer a good deal in perceiving; though smell seems to catch things more remote than taste and touch do. Hearing, however, knows things more remote, and is not so much hurt. Sight looks out farther still, and does in a moment what the ears do in time; for the lightning is seen before the thunder is heard. Reason grasps the most remote things of all. For it perceives not only what is in the world and what is present, as sense does, but also what is above the heaven, and what has been or will be.
[V.2] From this it can be plain to anyone that, of those six powers of the soul, three belong rather to body and matter, namely touch, taste and smell; but the other three, namely reason, sight and hearing, belong to spirit. So those three that lean rather towards the body agree with the body more than with the soul; and the things they perceive, since they move the body that is akin to them, scarcely reach as far as the soul, and please it very little, as being very little like it. But the three higher powers, farthest removed from matter, agree far more with the soul; and they grasp those things which move the body very little indeed, but the soul most strongly.
[V.2] For odours, flavours, heats and the like either greatly harm the body or do it good; to the wonder or the judgement of the soul they contribute only a little, and they are moderately desired by it. The reason of incorporeal truth, colours, shapes and voices move the body either not at all or scarcely and very slightly; but they sharpen the gaze of the soul above all for searching, and seize its desire to themselves. The food of the soul is truth. To find it the eyes, to learn it the ears, contribute greatly. So the soul strives for its own sake after the things that belong to reason, sight and hearing, as after its proper nourishment.
[V.2] But the things that move the other three senses are needful rather to the body, for nourishing it, or warming it, or begetting. These, then, the soul seeks not for its own sake but for the sake of another, that is, of the body. Now we are said to love those things which we desire for our own sake; those which we crave for the sake of something else, not at all. Rightly, then, we hold that love belongs only to knowledge, shapes and voices. And for that reason that grace alone which is found in these three, in virtue of soul, in shape and in voice, because it most calls the soul forth, is named, from καλεῖν, which means "I call", πρόκλησις, that is, a calling forth. And κάλλος in Greek means beauty in Latin.
[V.2] Welcome to us indeed is a true and excellent character of soul; welcome is the shape of a beautiful body; welcome is the harmony of voices. And since the soul, finding these three akin to itself and in a way incorporeal, values them far more highly than the other three, it is fitting that it should take them to itself more eagerly, embrace them more ardently, and wonder at them more intensely. And this very grace, whether of virtue or of shape or of voices, which calls the soul to itself through reason or sight or hearing, and carries it off, is most rightly called beauty.
[V.2] And these are those three Graces of whom Orpheus speaks thus:
[V.2] Ἀγλαΐη τε Θάλεια καὶ Εὐφροσύνη πολύολβε.²⁹
[V.2] Splendour, Greenness and most abundant Gladness. By Splendour he means that grace and beauty of soul which consists in the clarity of truth and virtue; by Greenness, the sweetness of shape and colour, for this flourishes most in the greenness of youth; and by Gladness, that pure, wholesome and lasting delight which we feel in music.

### Chapter 3. Beauty is something incorporeal

[V.3] Since this is so, beauty must be something common to virtue, shape and voices. For we should not call each of these three beautiful alike, unless one definition of beauty were present in all three. Hence the reason of beauty itself cannot be body; since, if beauty were corporeal, it would not at all suit the virtues of the soul, which are incorporeal. Indeed beauty is so far from being body that not only the beauty in the virtues of the soul, but also the beauty in bodies and in voices, cannot be corporeal.
[V.3] For although we call certain bodies beautiful, they are not beautiful from their matter itself. For one and the same human body is beautiful today, and tomorrow, disfigured by some mischance, is ugly; as though it were one thing to be a body and another to be beautiful. Nor are they beautiful from their quantity itself; since some large bodies and likewise some small ones appear beautiful; and often large ones are ugly and small ones beautiful, and again small ones are unsightly and large ones most pleasing. Sometimes too it happens that there is a like beauty in certain large bodies and in small ones. If, then, while the quantity often stays the same, beauty is changed by some chance; and if, when the quantity is sometimes changed, beauty remains; and if it appears alike in large things and in small; surely these two, beauty and quantity, must be wholly different.
[V.3] Moreover, even if the beauty of any body were in some way corporeal in the very thickness of its body, still it would not please the beholder in so far as it was corporeal. The form of a person pleases the soul not as it lies in outward matter, but as its image is caught or conceived by the soul through sight. That image, in sight and in the soul, cannot be a body, since these are incorporeal. For how could the whole heaven, so to speak, be held by the small pupil of the eye, if the pupil received it in a bodily manner? In no way at all. But the spirit takes up in a point the whole breadth of a body, in a spiritual manner and in an incorporeal image. To the soul, surely, only that form is pleasing which is taken up by it. And this, though it is the likeness of an outward body, is nevertheless incorporeal in the soul. Therefore it is an incorporeal form that pleases. What pleases is welcome to each; and what is welcome is, in the end, beautiful. So it comes about that love is referred to something incorporeal, and that beauty itself is a certain spiritual likeness of a thing rather than a corporeal form.
[V.3] Now there are some who think that beauty is a certain placing of all the members, or, to use their own words, a commensuration and proportion, together with a certain sweetness of colours. Their opinion we do not accept, for this reason: since such an arrangement of parts exists only in composite things, no simple things would be beautiful. But as it is we call pure colours, lights, a single voice, the brightness of gold and the whiteness of silver, knowledge, the soul, beautiful, all of which are simple; and these delight us wonderfully, as things that are truly beautiful.
[V.3] Add to this that that proportion takes in all the members of the body put together, and is not in the single members but in all. So the single members will not be beautiful in themselves. Yet the proportion of the whole composite arises from the single parts. From which something most absurd follows: that things which are not beautiful by their own nature should give birth to beauty. Often too it happens that, while the same proportion and measure of the members remains, the body does not please as it did before. The shape of your body, surely, is the same today as it was last year; but its grace is not the same. Nothing grows old more slowly than shape; nothing more quickly than grace. From this it is clear that beauty and shape are not the same.
[V.3] Often too we see in one person a more correct arrangement of parts and measure of members than in another; and yet the other, we know not why, is judged by us more beautiful and is loved more ardently. By this we seem to be warned plainly enough to hold that beauty is something other than the arrangement of parts. The same reason warns us not to suppose that beauty is sweetness of colours. For often the colour is clearer in an older person, and the grace greater in a younger. And among those of the same age it sometimes happens that he who surpasses another in colour is yet surpassed by him in grace and beauty. Nor let anyone dare to assert that beauty is a certain mixture of shape and colours. For in that case neither knowledge nor voices, which lack colour and shape, nor colours and lights, which have no fixed shape, would be judged worthy of love.
[V.3] Besides, anyone's craving is satisfied once he has what he wanted. Hunger and thirst are quieted by food and drink. Love is filled by no sight or embrace of a body. So it burns for no nature of body; it is beauty, surely, that it pursues. Hence beauty cannot be anything corporeal. From all this we gather that those who, kindled by love, thirst for beauty, if only they wish to drink this liquor and quench their most burning thirst, must seek the sweetest moisture of this beauty, by which their thirst is kindled, elsewhere than in the river of matter or in the rivulets of quantity, or shape, or any colours whatever. Where then, wretched lovers, will you turn? Who will put out the fiercest flames of your heart? Who will quiet so great a fire? This is the task, this the toil.³⁰ I will tell you at once. But pay attention.

### Chapter 4. Beauty is the splendour of the divine countenance

[V.4] The divine power, which towers above all things, as soon as the angels and souls are born from it, mercifully pours into them, as into its children, that ray of its own in which there is the fruitful power of all things that are to be created. This ray paints the arrangement and order of the whole world in them, as being nearer to itself, much more exactly than in the matter of the world. Therefore this picture of the world, the whole of which we see, shines more distinctly in the angels and in souls. For in them is the figure of each sphere, of the sun, the moon and the other stars, of the elements too, of stones, of trees, and of each of the animals. Pictures of this kind are called by the Platonists exemplars and Ideas in the angels, reasons and notions in souls, forms and images in the matter of the world: clear indeed in the world, clearer in the soul, clearest in the mind of the Angel.
[V.4] So the one countenance of God shines in three mirrors set in order one after another: the Angel, the soul, the body of the world. In the first, as the nearest, most clearly; in the second, more remote, more dimly; in the last, the most remote, most dimly of all, if you compare it with the others. Hence the holy mind of the Angel, hindered by no service of a body, is turned back upon itself; and there it looks within upon that countenance of God engraved in its own bosom; having looked, it at once wonders at it; and it cleaves to it always most eagerly. The grace of that divine countenance we call beauty. The eagerness of the Angel, cleaving utterly to the countenance of God, we call love.
[V.4] Would that the same befell us. But our soul, born on this condition, that it be wrapped round by an earthly body, sinks towards the office of begetting. Weighed down by this leaning, it neglects the treasure hidden in its own inmost chambers. Then, enfolded in an earthly body, it serves the use of the body for a very long time. To this work it always bends sense, and reason too for longer than it should. So it comes about that it does not notice the radiance of that divine countenance, shining perpetually within itself, until, the body now grown and reason awakened, it considers in thought the countenance of God shining back in the fabric of God and plain to the eyes. By this consideration it is carried up to behold that countenance which shines out within.
[V.4] And since a father's face is dear to his children, the countenance of God the Father must be most dear to souls. The lustre and grace of this countenance, to say the same thing yet again, whether in the Angel, or in the soul, or in the matter of the world, is to be called universal beauty; and the impulse towards it is to be called universal love.
[V.4] We do not doubt that this beauty is everywhere incorporeal. For that in the Angel and in the soul it is not any body, no one doubts. That in bodies too it is incorporeal we have shown above; and for the present we understand it chiefly from this, that the eye sees nothing but the light of the sun. For the shapes and colours of bodies are never perceived unless they are illumined by light, nor do they come to the eyes with their matter. Yet it seems necessary that they be in the eyes in order to be seen by the eyes. So the one light of the sun, painted with the colours and shapes of all the bodies it has illumined, presents itself to the eyes. The eyes, with the help of a certain ray of their own, perceive the light so affected; and once it is perceived they see the light itself and all that is in it.
[V.4] So this whole order of the world which is beheld is seen not in the manner in which it is in the matter of bodies, but in the manner in which it is in the light poured into the eyes. In that light, since it is separated from matter, it is necessarily free of body. This is also plainly apparent from the fact that light itself cannot be a body, since in a moment it fills almost the whole globe from east to west, passes everywhere through the body of air and of water without any hurt, and is nowhere stained when mingled with filth. But these things in no way suit the nature of bodies. For a body is moved not in a moment but in time; nor does one body pass through another without hurt to itself or to the other or to both; and two bodies mixed together stain each other by mutual contagion. This we see in the mingling of water and wine, of fire and earth.
[V.4] Since, then, the light of the sun is incorporeal, whatever it receives it receives in the manner of its own nature. Therefore it receives the colours and shapes of bodies in a spiritual manner; and in the same way it is itself beheld when received by the eyes. So it has come about that this whole loveliness of the world, which is the third countenance of God, presents itself incorporeal to the eyes through the incorporeal light of the sun.

### Chapter 5. How love and hatred are born, and that beauty is incorporeal

[V.5] From all this it follows that all the grace of the divine countenance, which is called universal beauty, is incorporeal not only in the Angel and in the soul, but also in the sight of the eyes. And we love not only this whole face all together, but also its parts, moved by wonder; and here a particular love is born for a particular beauty. Thus we are also drawn to some one human being, a member of the order of the world, especially when the spark of divine loveliness shines clearly in him.
[V.5] Affection of this kind is born from two causes: both because the image of our Father's countenance pleases us, and also because the form and shape of a well-composed human being agrees most aptly with that reason of humankind which our soul receives from the author of all things and keeps. Hence the image of the outward human being, taken in through the senses and passing into the soul, if it is out of tune with the shape of a human being which the soul possesses, displeases at once and is hated as ugly; if it is in tune, it pleases at once and is loved as beautiful. So it comes about that some who meet us please or displease us immediately, and we do not know the cause of such an affection. For the soul, hindered by the service of the body, by no means looks back upon those inmost forms of its own. But by a certain natural and hidden disagreement or agreement it comes about that the outward form of a thing, striking with its image the form of the same thing painted in the soul, is out of tune or in tune with it; and the soul, moved by this hidden offence or caress, either hates or loves the thing itself.
[V.5] That divine power has implanted in the Angel and in the soul the whole figure of the human being that is to be created. But in the matter of the world, as being farthest removed from that craftsman, the constitution of a human being degenerates from that whole figure of itself. Yet in matter better disposed it comes out more like; in other matter, less like. That which comes out more like squares and agrees with the reason of the soul, as it does with the power of God and the Idea of the Angel. The soul approves this agreement. In that agreement, surely, beauty consists; in that approval, the affection of love. And since Idea and reason are foreign to the matter of body, the constitution of a human being is judged like them not from matter or quantity, but rather from something incorporeal. In so far as it is like, it agrees with them; in so far as it agrees, it is beautiful. Therefore body and beauty are different things.
[V.5] But if anyone asks how the form of a body can be like the form and reason of the soul and of Mind, let him consider, I pray, the building of an architect. In the beginning the architect conceives in his soul the reason and, as it were, the Idea of the building. Then he builds the house, as far as he can, such as he has thought it out. Who will deny that the house is a body, and that it is very like the incorporeal Idea of the craftsman, in whose likeness it was made? Further, it is to be judged like the architect on account of a certain incorporeal order rather than on account of its matter. Come then, take away the matter if you can; and you can take it away in thought; but leave the order. Nothing of body, nothing of matter will remain to you. Rather, the order which came forth from the craftsman and the order which remains in the craftsman will be wholly the same. Do the same with the body of any human being. You will find that its form, squaring with the reason of the soul, is simple and free of matter.

### Chapter 6. How many things are required for a thing to be beautiful, and that beauty is a spiritual gift

[V.6] What, then, is the beauty of the body? A certain act, liveliness and grace, shining in it by the influx of its Idea. Brightness of this kind does not descend into matter before the matter has been most fitly prepared. And the preparation of a living body consists in these three: order, measure and appearance. Order means the intervals of the parts; measure, their quantity; appearance, the lines and the colour.
[V.6] For first of all each member of the body must have its natural place: the ears must be in their own place, and the eyes and the nostrils and the rest; the eyes must be at equal intervals beside the nose, and both ears likewise at equal intervals from the eyes. Nor is this equality of intervals, which belongs to order, enough, unless the measure of the parts is added, which gives to each member a moderate size, keeping the due proportion of the whole body: so that three noses set end to end fill the length of one face, and the half-circles of both ears joined together make the circle of the open mouth. The joining of the eyebrows should do the same. The length of the nose should fill the length of the lip, and likewise that of the ear. The two circles of the eyes should equal the one opening of the mouth. Eight heads should make up the height of the body. The stretch of the arms to the side should show the same height, and likewise that of the legs and feet. Besides this we hold appearance to be necessary, so that the skilful drawing of the lines, and the folds, and the splendour of the eyes may adorn that order and measure of the parts.
[V.6] Now these three, though they are in matter, cannot be any part of the body. The order of the members is certainly no member. For order is in all the members; but no member is found in all the members. Besides, order is nothing other than a seemly interval of parts. And what shall we call an interval but the distance of the parts? Distance, finally, is either nothing, a wholly empty void, or some drawing of lines. But who would call lines bodies, when they lack breadth and depth, which are necessary to a body? Measure, likewise, is not quantity but the limit of quantity. And limits are surfaces, lines and points; and these, since they lack the thickness of depth, are not thought to be bodies. Appearance, too, we place not in matter but in a pleasant concord of lights, shadows and lines.
[V.6] From all this it is plain that beauty is so foreign to the mass of body that it never imparts itself to matter itself, unless the matter has been disposed by those three incorporeal preparations of which we have told. And the foundation of these is a tempered complexion of the four elements, so that our body may be most like the heaven, whose substance is tempered, and may not fall away from the formation of the soul through any excess of the humours. For in this way the heavenly brightness will easily shine in a body very like the heaven; and that perfect form of the human being which the soul possesses will be reflected more distinctly in matter that is quieted and obedient.
[V.6] Voices, besides, are disposed in almost the same way to receive their beauty. For their order is the ascent from the low note to the octave, and the descent from there; their measure, the due progression through the third, fourth, fifth and sixth notes, and likewise through tones and semitones; their appearance, the tuneful intensity of a clear voice. By these three, then, as by certain elements, bodies composed of many members, both trees and animals, and also the gathering of many voices, are disposed to receive beauty. But simpler bodies, such as the four elements, stones and metals, and likewise single voices, are sufficiently fitted for it by a certain inward tempering, fruitfulness and clarity of their own nature.
[V.6] The soul, however, is fitted for beauty by its own nature chiefly in this, that it is both spirit and, as it were, a mirror nearest to God, in which, as we said above, the image of the divine countenance shines out. So, just as nothing at all needs to be added to gold for it to appear beautiful, but the dross of earth, if any clings to it, must be removed; so the soul needs nothing added to it in order to appear beautiful; but care for the body and so anxious a solicitude must be laid down, and the disturbance of craving and fear driven off; at once the natural beauty of the soul will shine out.
[V.6] But, that our speech may not wander too far, let us briefly conclude from what has been said that beauty is a certain lively and spiritual grace, poured by the illumining ray of God first into the Angel, and then also into the souls of men and into the shapes of bodies and into voices; a grace which through reason, sight and hearing moves and delights our souls; in delighting carries them off; and in carrying them off inflames them with burning love.

### Chapter 7. On the portrait of Love

[V.7] Agathon, poet that he is, after the manner of the ancient poets clothes this god in a human likeness; and he paints him as beautiful in the way that men are: young, tender, supple or nimble, well composed and shining. To what end? These are preparations for a beautiful nature rather than beauty itself. For of these five parts the first three signify a tempered complexion of the body, which is the first foundation; the remaining two indicate order, measure and appearance. The natural philosophers have shown that the sign of a tempered constitution is a smooth and firm evenness of tender flesh. Where heat is too much in excess, the body is dry and hairy; where cold, stiff; where dryness, hard and rough; where moisture, loose, slack, uneven, twisted. So an even and firm tenderness of body shows that its condition is moderate in the four humours. For this reason Agathon called him soft, delicate and tender.
[V.7] Why young? Because this tempering is had by the favour not only of nature but also of age. For with length of time the finer parts of the humours are dissolved and the parts that remain are much thicker; and when fire and air have been breathed out, an excess of water and earth prevails. But why nimble and supple? So that you may understand him to be apt and ready for every movement; lest perhaps you think that, when he called him soft, he meant the softness of water, womanish, languid and unfit. For that is contrary to a moderate complexion. After this he added "well composed", that is, most honourably shaped in the order and measure of the parts. He added also "shining", that is, glowing with a sweet appearance of colours. With these preparations set forth, Agathon kept silent about what remained. For it is for us to understand, after these, the coming of grace.
[V.7] These five parts are to be understood in the human figure as we have said; but in the power of Love they seem to need a different understanding. For they show his force and quality. He is called young, because the young are for the most part caught in the net of love; and those caught in his snares long for the age of youth. Soft, because gentle natures are more easily taken; and those who have been taken, though fierce before, are made mild. Nimble and supple, because he flows in secretly and flows out in the same way. Well-proportioned and well composed, because he desires beautiful and ordered things and flees their contraries. Shining, because he breathes upon a person's nature in the flowering and shining time of life, and craves what is in flower. Since Agathon follows these things out very fully, let it be enough to have touched on them briefly.

### Chapter 8. On the virtue of Love

[V.8] What Agathon says of the four virtues, to signify the goodness of Love, is also to be taken in this way: he is declared just, because where love is whole and true, there too is an exchange of goodwill, which admits no insult or injury. So great is the force of this charity that it alone can keep the human race in tranquil peace; which neither prudence, nor courage, nor the force of arms, of laws and of eloquence can bring about without goodwill. He calls him, further, temperate, because he tames base cravings. For since Love seeks beauty, which consists in a certain order and temperance, he scorns cheap and immoderate longings, and always shrinks from base gestures; as you heard well enough from our hero at the beginning.²⁸ And where the affection of love reigns, all other cravings are despised.
[V.8] He added that he is the bravest. For what is braver than daring? And who fights more daringly than a lover for his beloved? Mars surpasses the other gods, that is, the other planets, in courage, because he makes men braver. Venus tames him. For when Mars, set in the angles of the heaven, or in the second house of the nativity, or the eighth, threatens ills to the one being born, Venus often, by her conjunction or opposition or reception, or by a sextile or trine aspect, curbs, so to speak, the malice of Mars. Again, when Mars is lord at a person's birth, he bestows greatness of soul and a hot temper. If Venus comes very near, she does not hinder that virtue of a great soul given by Mars, but she checks the vice of anger; and here she seems to make Mars more gentle and to tame him.
[V.8] But Mars never tames Venus. For if she is the leader, she bestows the affection of love. If Mars leads next to her, by his heat he makes the impulse of Venus more ardent; so that if, at someone's birth, Mars is in a house of Venus, Libra or Taurus, the one then born will, because of the presence of Mars, burn with the fiercest loves. Again, Mars follows Venus; Venus does not follow Mars, since daring is the handmaid of love, not love of daring. For men are not snared by love because they are daring; but for the most part, because they are wounded by love, they become most daring to undergo any dangers fearlessly for the sake of the beloved.
[V.8] Finally, the plainest proof of his courage, which excels all, is this: that all things obey Love, and he obeys none. For the heavenly beings love, and the animals, and all bodies; the brave likewise and the wise, rich men and the greatest kings bow their necks to the rule of Love. But Love is subject to none of these. For the gifts of the rich do not buy love; nor can the threats and violence of the powerful compel us to love or to cease loving. For love is free, and arises of its own accord in a free will, which not even God will compel, since he decreed from the beginning that it should be free. So it comes about that Love, who brings force to bear on all, escapes the violence of all. So great is his freedom that the other affections of the soul, or its arts and activities, for the most part long for some reward different from themselves; but love is content with itself, as its own reward, as though there were no reward besides love that is worthy of love. For he who loves, loves love above all. For this is what he chiefly wants from the beloved: that the beloved should love the lover in return.
[V.8] He is also most wise. In what way Love is the creator and preserver of all things, and the master and lord of every art, I think has been discussed enough in the speech of Eryximachus. In these things the wisdom of Love is shown. From all this it is concluded that Love is most blessed for this reason, that he is most beautiful and best. That he is most beautiful is established from this, that he delights in the most beautiful things as in things like himself. That he is best, from this, that he makes lovers best. And he who makes others best must himself be best.

### Chapter 9. On the gifts of Love

[V.9] What Love is has appeared from that discussion of ours; what he is like, from the words of Agathon above. What gifts he bestows is easily learned from what has been said. For one love is simple, the other mutual. The simple love makes whomever it seizes prudent in foresight, sharp in argument, fluent in speech, great-souled in action, witty in jest, ready in games, and most brave in every serious matter. Mutual love gives safety by driving off dangers, concord by removing dissension, happiness by avoiding misery.
[V.9] For where there is mutual charity, there are no plots; there all things are in common; there lawsuits and thefts and murders cease, and battles. That such tranquillity is given by mutual love not only to animals but also to the heavens and the elements, Agathon touches on here, and it was shown more fully above in the speech of Eryximachus. At the close of this speech Love is said to soothe the minds of gods and men with his song. Anyone will understand this plainly who remembers that it was shown above that Love is in all things and reaches out to all things.

### Chapter 10. Love is both older and younger than the other gods

[V.10] But before I make an end, excellent gentlemen, I shall resolve, as far as my wit allows, three questions that arise in Agathon's discourse. First, it is asked why Phaedrus said that Love is older than Saturn and Jupiter, but Agathon that he is younger. Second, what the reign of Necessity means in Plato, and what the rule of Love. Third, which gods discovered which arts under the reign of Love.
[V.10] God, the father of all, begot those minds that serve him, which move Saturn, Jupiter and the other planets, out of a certain love of propagating his own seed and out of the kindness of his providence. The minds in turn, the instant they are born, recognise their parent and love him. That love by which the heavenly ones are created we call older than they; but that by which they are drawn to their creator, younger. Besides, the Angelic Mind did not receive from its father the Ideas of the planet Saturn and of the others before it was bent towards his face by an inborn love. And again, after it had received them, it loved its parent's gift more ardently. So then the love of that Angel for God is in part older than the Ideas, which are called gods, and in part also younger. Love, therefore, is the beginning and the end, the first of the gods and the last.

### Chapter 11. Love reigns before Necessity

[V.11] Now, to resolve the second question: Love must be said to reign before Necessity for this reason, that the divine Love gave their origin to all things born from him; and in him no violence of necessity is placed. For since he has nothing above him, he does whatever he does not under compulsion but of his own accord. But the Mind that follows him springs up necessarily when he sows. He, then, brings forth by love; it is brought forth by necessity. There the dominion of Love begins; here, that of Necessity. Although this Mind is born from the highest goodness of God and is therefore good, yet, because it proceeds outside God, it necessarily degenerates from the infinite perfection of its parent. For an effect never receives the whole goodness of its cause. In this necessary procession of the effect, and also in its degeneration, the rule of Necessity consists.
[V.11] But Mind, the instant it is begotten, loves its author, as we said; and here the reign of Love rises again. For Mind is lifted towards God by love, and God by love illumines it when it is converted to him. But here again the power of Necessity creeps in. For that light descending from God is not received by Mind, which is dark by its own nature, with as much clarity as it is given by God. For Mind is compelled to receive it according to the capacity of its own nature. So by the violence of the receiving nature the light becomes dimmer.
[V.11] To this necessity the lordship of Love succeeds once more. For Mind, kindled by this first brightness of God, is turned back towards him more ardently, and, spurred by this as by a spark of light, longs for the whole fullness of light. Hence God too, in the kindness of his providence, bestows beyond that first natural light a divine light also. And so the power of Love and the power of Necessity succeed each other by turns. This succession takes place, in divine things, in the order of nature's origin; in other things, in intervals of time; yet in such a way that Love is the first of all and the last.
[V.11] Of the soul too, and of the other things that are made by God, we must judge in the same way as regards these two rules. So, if we speak absolutely, the rule of Love is older than that of Necessity, since the power of Love begins in God, that of Necessity in created things. If we are thinking of the things created by God, the tyranny of Necessity comes before the reign of Love, since the things themselves first proceed by necessity, and degenerate in proceeding, before they turn towards their father by love.
[V.11] Orpheus sang these two rules in two hymns. The rule of Necessity thus, in the hymn to Night:
[V.11] δεινὴ γὰρ ἀνάγκη πάντα κρατύνει,³¹
[V.11] that is: Heavy Necessity is lord over all things. And the reign of Love thus, in the hymn to Venus:
[V.11] καὶ κρατέεις τρισσῶν μοιρῶν, γεννᾷς δὲ τὰ πάντα, ὅσσα τ᾽ ἐν οὐρανῷ ἐστι καὶ ἐν γαίῃ πολυκάρπῳ.³²
[V.11] You command the three Fates and beget all things, those that are in heaven, and those on earth, and those in the sea. Divinely did Orpheus set down the two reigns and compare them with each other; and he set Love before Necessity when he said that Love commands the three Fates, in whom Necessity consists.

### Chapter 12. How, under the reign of Necessity, Saturn castrated Heaven, and Jupiter bound Saturn

[V.12] How it is that, under the dominion of Necessity, the later gods are said by Agathon here to castrate or to bind their parents, we easily understand from what has been said. For these things are not to be taken to mean that the mind of the Angel divides and tears apart God himself, but rather that it divides and tears apart within itself the gift bestowed on it by God. We showed well enough a little earlier that the gifts of God, in the spirit that receives them, necessarily fall short of the highest perfection of God. So it comes about that that fruitfulness of nature, whole indeed in God but lessened in the Angel and in a way maimed, is rightly said to have been castrated. And this is said to happen under the reign of Necessity, because it comes about necessarily, not by the will of the giver nor of the receiver, but by that necessity by which an effect cannot be made equal to its cause.
[V.12] For in this way Saturn, that is, the Angel, seems to castrate Heaven, that is, the highest God; and Jupiter too, that is, the World Soul, seems to bind Saturn, that is, to confine within narrower limits in himself, through the defect of his own nature, the power received from the Angel. For the power of the one is wider than that of the other. So the power which in the Angel, because of its breadth, is unhindered and loose, in the World Soul, because of its narrowness, is now reckoned bound and confined. I pass over what the astrologers hold, that the malice of the planet Saturn is very often restrained by the conjunction of Jupiter, or his reception, or opposition, or by a sextile or trine aspect. But enough of this; let us come down to the third question.

### Chapter 13. Which gods bestow which arts on men

[V.13] Agathon holds that the arts were handed down to the human race by the gods on account of love: the art of ruling by Jupiter; of archery, divination and healing by Apollo; work in bronze by Vulcan; the craft of weaving by Minerva; and lastly music by the Muses. Twelve divinities preside over the twelve signs of the zodiac: Pallas over Aries, Venus over Taurus, Apollo over Gemini, Mercury over Cancer, Jupiter over Leo, Ceres over Virgo, Vulcan over Libra, Mars over Scorpio, Diana over Sagittarius, Vesta over Capricorn, Juno over Aquarius, and Neptune over Pisces.
[V.13] By these all the arts are handed down to our kind. Those signs pour their powers for the several arts into the body; the divinities who preside over them, into the soul. Thus Jupiter through Leo makes a man most apt for the government of gods and men, that is, for the excellent conduct of things both divine and human. Apollo through Gemini grants prophecy, medicine and skill with the bow; Pallas through Aries, skill in weaving; Vulcan through Libra, work in bronze; and the others the remaining arts. And because they lavish their gifts on us magnificently out of the kindness of their providence, we say that they bestow them at the prompting of love.
[V.13] Besides, we hold that from that most swift and most ordered revolution of the heavens a musical consonance is born; and that eight tones are produced by the motions of the eight circles, and from all of them together a certain ninth harmony. So we name the nine sounds of the heavens, from their musical concord, the nine Muses. With the reason of this music our soul was endowed long ago. For to one whose origin is heavenly, a heavenly harmony is rightly said to be inborn. And afterwards the soul imitates it with various instruments and songs. And this gift likewise was granted us by the love of divine providence.
[V.13] Therefore, most illustrious gentlemen, let us love this god because he is most beautiful; imitate him because he is best; and worship him because he is most blessed; so that in his mercy and bounty he may grant us the possession of his own beauty, goodness and blessedness.

## Speech VI: Socrates and Diotima


### Chapter 1. Introduction to the discussion of love

[VI.1] Thus far Carlo Marsuppini. Then Tommaso Benci, a careful imitator of Socrates, turned with a willing mind and a cheerful face to the exposition of Socrates' words. Our Socrates, he said, judged by the oracle of Apollo the wisest of all the Greeks, used to profess the art of loving above all others, as though it were chiefly for skill in this art that Socrates, or anyone else, was to be judged wisest. He used to say that he had received this art not from Anaxagoras, Damon and Archelaus, the natural philosophers, nor from Prodicus of Ceos³³ and Aspasia, the teachers of rhetoric, nor from Connus the musician, from all of whom he had learned much, but from Diotima, a prophetic woman inspired by a divine spirit. He said this, in my judgement, to show that only by the inspiration of divinity can men understand what true beauty is, what lawful love is, and in what way one ought to love. So great is the power of the faculty of love, so great its sublimity.
[VI.1] Away, then, from this heavenly feast; away, I say, you profane,³⁴ who are buried in earthly filth, wholly enslaved to Bacchus and Priapus, and who, like swine, cast love, a heavenly gift, down on the ground and into the mire. But you, most chaste guests, and all others consecrated to Diana and Pallas, who exult in the freedom of a most pure soul and in the unending joy of the mind, be present and welcome, and listen carefully to the divine mysteries revealed to Socrates by Diotima. But before you hear Diotima, a certain dispute must be settled, which has arisen between those who have discussed love above and those who are about to discuss it. For the earlier speakers called Love beautiful, good, blessed, and a god. Socrates and Diotima deny this, and place him midway between the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad, the blessed and the wretched, god and man. We judge both opinions true, though each on a different ground.

### Chapter 2. Love is midway between beauty and ugliness, and between god and man

[VI.2] The lodestone puts into iron a certain quality of its own, by which the iron, made very like the lodestone, inclines towards this stone. Such an inclination, in so far as it arises from the stone and tends towards the stone, is certainly called a stony inclination; in so far as it is in the iron, it is at once of the iron and of the stone. For it is in the matter of the iron, a matter not pure indeed, but already formed by the quality of the stone. So it keeps the property of both. Fire too, to speak more plainly, kindles flax by its own quality, that is, by heat. The flax, lifted by the quality of heat, flies up to the higher region of fire. Such a flight, in so far as it is roused by fire and tends towards fire, we plainly call fiery; in so far as it is in the flax, and not in bare flax but in flax already set alight, we call it, from the nature of both flax and fire, as much flaxen as fiery.
[VI.2] The figure of a man, often on account of an inner goodness happily granted by God, pours a ray of its splendour, most beautiful to see, through the eyes of those who look on it into their soul. Drawn by this spark as by a kind of hook, the soul hastens towards the one that draws it. This drawing, which is also love, since it depends on what is beautiful, good and happy and is bent back to the same, we do not hesitate to call beautiful, good, blessed, and a god, in agreement with Agathon and the other earlier speakers. But since it is in a soul already kindled by the presence of that beautiful ray, we are compelled to call it an affection midway between the beautiful and the not beautiful. For a soul that has not yet received any image of a beautiful thing does not yet love that thing, since it is unknown to it. And one who possesses the whole of beauty is not troubled by the goads of love. For who strives after what he has? It remains that the soul burns with ardent love at the moment when, having found some fair likeness of a beautiful thing, it is spurred by that foretaste towards the full possession of beauty.
[VI.2] Since, then, the soul of the lover partly has the beautiful thing itself and partly has it not, it is not without reason partly beautiful and partly not beautiful. And so we hold that love, from a mixture of this kind, is a certain middle affection between the beautiful and the not beautiful, sharing in both. It was for this reason that Diotima, to come to her now, called Love a daemon; because, just as daemons are midway between heavenly and earthly things, so Love holds the middle place between formlessness and form. This middle region of his, between the formless and the beautiful nature, Giovanni made clear enough in his first and second speech.

### Chapter 3. On the souls of the spheres and on daemons

[VI.3] But how daemons inhabit the middle region between heaven and earth, learn from the words of Diotima in the Symposium, of Socrates in the Phaedrus and the Philebus, and of the Athenian Stranger in the Laws and the Epinomis. Plato holds that the whole fabric of this world is ruled and moved by a certain soul. For the body of the world is a single whole body composed of the four elements in their entirety, and the bodies of all living things are small parts of it. The little body of each animal is a particle of the body of the world. It is not composed of the whole element of fire, air, water and earth, but of certain parts of these elements. So by as much as the whole is more perfect than the part, by so much is the body of the world more perfect than the body of any single living thing. It would be absurd for the imperfect body to have a soul, and for the perfect body neither to have a soul nor to live. For who is so out of his mind as to say that the part lives and to deny that the whole does? The whole body of the world therefore lives, since the bodies of animals, which are its parts, live.
[VI.3] The soul of the whole must be one, just as its matter is one and its structure one. Now since there are twelve spheres of the world, as Plato holds, eight heavens and four elements beneath the heaven, and since these twelve spheres are distinct from one another, differing in kind, in motions and in property, twelve souls must be present to them, differing in kind and in power. There will be, then, one soul of the one prime matter. Of the twelve circles there will be twelve souls. Who would deny that earth and water live, which give life to the animals born from them? And if these dregs of the world live and are full of living things, why should not air and fire, more excellent parts of the world, live, and have living things in them likewise, and the heavens likewise? Now those heavenly animals, which are the stars, and the animals of earth and water, we do see; those of fire and air we do not see, since we do not perceive the pure element of fire or of air either. But there is this difference: on earth there are two kinds of living things, the brute and the rational, and likewise in water, since water, a more excellent body than earth, ought to have its share of reason no less than earth. But the ten higher globes, because of their sublimity, are adorned with rational beings alone.
[VI.3] The World Soul, that is, the soul of prime matter, and the souls of the twelve spheres and of the stars the Platonists call gods, as attendants of the Angelic Mind and of the supreme God. The animals that inhabit the region of ethereal fire placed beneath the moon, or of pure air, or of the misty air next to water, they call daemons. The rational animals that dwell on earth they call men. The gods, moreover, are immortal and impassible; men are passible and mortal; the daemons are indeed immortal, but passible. Yet they do not ascribe to daemons the passions of the body, but certain affections of the soul, by which they in some way love good men and hate bad ones, and involve themselves more closely and more ardently in the government of lower things, and especially of human affairs. All these, to judge by this office, appear good. But some Platonists and the Christian theologians have held that there are certain other daemons who are evil. Of evil daemons, however, we have no discussion at present.
[VI.3] The good ones, our guardians, Dionysius the Areopagite is accustomed to call by their proper name angels, governors of the lower world; and this does not differ at all from Plato's mind. Indeed, those whom Plato calls gods and the souls of the spheres and stars we may, in the manner of Dionysius, call angels, ministers of God. Nor does this disagree with Plato, for this reason: as appears in the tenth book of the Laws, he by no means binds souls of this kind within the confines of their spheres in the way that he binds the souls of earthly creatures to their bodies. Rather, he affirms that they are endowed by the supreme God with such power that they can at once enjoy the vision of God and, without any labour or care, rule and move the globes of the world according to their Father's will, and by moving these easily govern lower things. So between Plato and Dionysius the difference is one of words rather than of meaning.

### Chapter 4. On the seven gifts which are bestowed on men by God through the intermediate spirits

[VI.4] The gods, who come next, are said to serve the Ideas of all things, which the divine Mind contains; the daemons are said to serve the gifts of the gods. For all things pass from the highest to the lowest through intermediaries, so that those Ideas, the conceptions of the divine Mind, bestow their gifts on men through the gods and the daemons. Of these gifts seven are the chief: keenness of contemplation, the power of governing, spiritedness, clearness of the senses, the ardour of love, subtlety in interpreting, and fertility in generation. The force of these God contains first in himself. Then he grants their power to the seven gods who move the seven planets, and whom we call angels, in such a way that each receives one gift above the rest. They in turn pass them on to the seven orders of daemons that serve them, one gift chiefly to each order. And these hand them on to men.
[VI.4] God, indeed, pours these gifts into souls as soon as they are born from him. The souls, slipping down from the Milky Way through Cancer into a body,³⁵ are wrapped in a certain heavenly and luminous body, and, clothed in this, they are enclosed in earthly bodies. For the order of nature requires that the most pure soul cannot fall into this most impure body until it has received a certain middle and pure covering. Since this covering is denser than the soul, but purer and finer than this body, the Platonists judge it the most fitting bond of the soul with the earthly body. Hence it comes about that the souls of the planets confirm and strengthen in our souls, and their bodies in our bodies, the forces of those seven gifts given by God, from the very beginning and continually thereafter. Over the same office preside as many natures of daemons, midway between the heavenly beings and men.
[VI.4] Saturn strengthens the gift of contemplation through the Saturnian daemons. Jupiter strengthens the power of governing and commanding, by the ministry of the Jovial daemons. Mars, greatness of soul, through the Martial daemons. The Sun, clearness of the senses and of opinion, from which prophecy follows, with the help of the Solar daemons. Venus inspires love through the Venereal daemons. Mercury, with the Mercurial daemons as go-betweens, aids skill in speaking and interpreting. The Moon, lastly, with the Lunar daemons assisting, fosters the office of generation. Although they impart the capacity for these to all men, they impart it chiefly to those at whose conception and birth they have most power from the disposition of the heavens. And these gifts, though as divinely infused they are honourable, can nevertheless sometimes appear ugly in us through misuse. This is plain in the use of government, of spiritedness, of love and of generation. The instinct of love, not to digress too far, we have had from the supreme God, and from Venus, who is called a goddess, and from the Venereal daemons. Because it descends from God, it is to be called a god; because it is confirmed by daemons, a daemon. So Love was rightly called a god by Agathon and a daemon by Diotima. A Venereal daemon, I mean.

### Chapter 5. On the order of the Venereal daemons, and how they shoot love

[VI.5] Now the Venereal daemon is a threefold love. The first is placed by the Platonists in the heavenly Venus, that is, in the very intelligence of the Angelic Mind. The second is in the common Venus, that is, in the power of generating which the World Soul has. These two are called daemons because they are midway between formlessness and form, as we touched on above and shall explain more fully a little later. The third is the order of daemons that attend the planet Venus. Of these too, that is, of the Venereal daemons, we posit a threefold order. Some are assigned to the element of fire, others to that of the purest air, others to that of the denser and misty air; and all, from the Greek word eros, which means love, are called heroes, that is, beings of love.
[VI.5] The first shoot the darts of love into those men in whom bile, the choleric and fiery humour, is dominant. The second into those in whom blood, the airy humour, is dominant. The third into those in whom phlegm and black bile, the watery and the earthy humour, hold sway. All men are wounded by Cupid's arrows, but four kinds of men most of all. For Plato in the Phaedrus indicated that the souls that are attendants of Jupiter, of Phoebus, of Mars and of Juno, that is, of Venus, are wounded most;³⁶ and that, being inclined to love from the very beginnings of their generation, they are wont to love above all those men who were born under the same stars. Hence Jovial men are strongly moved by Jovial men, Martial by Martial, and likewise the rest by their own kind.

### Chapter 6. How we are caught by love

[VI.6] What I shall say of one case as an example, understand of the other three. Whatever soul slips down into an earthly body under the rule of Jupiter conceives for itself, in the descent itself, a certain definite figure for the making of a man, one that suits the star of Jupiter. This figure it expresses most exactly in its own ethereal body, since that body is very well disposed. If it finds on earth a seed tempered in the same way, it paints in that too a third figure, very like the first and the second. If not, the figure is not so like. It often happens that two souls have descended under Jupiter's reign, though at different intervals of time; and one of them, having found on earth a suitable seed, has shaped its body most correctly according to those earlier Ideas, while the other, because of the unfitness of the matter, has indeed begun the same work but has not carried it out with so great a likeness to its own pattern. The former body is more beautiful than the latter. The two please each other mutually on account of a certain likeness of nature. But the one judged the more beautiful of the two pleases more. So it comes about that all men love most, not those who are most beautiful, but their own, that is, those born in like manner, even if they are less beautiful than many others.
[VI.6] Accordingly those who, as we have said, were born under the same star are so related that the likeness of the more beautiful of them, flowing through the eyes into the soul of the other, fits and is in consonance at every point with a certain similar likeness formed, from its very generation, both in the ethereal body and in the inmost recesses of the soul. The soul thus struck recognises the likeness that meets it as something of its own. And if it is indeed, so far as may be, such as the soul itself has long possessed within, and wished to fashion in its own body but could not, the soul at once sets it beside its own inner likeness; and if anything is wanting in it for the perfect form of a Jovial body, the soul restores it by reforming it. Then it loves that reformed likeness as its own work. Hence it happens that lovers are so deceived that they think the beloved more beautiful than he is. For as time goes on they do not see the beloved in the bare image of him received through the senses; they gaze on him in a likeness already reformed by the soul after the pattern of its own Idea, a likeness more beautiful than the body itself.
[VI.6] They desire, moreover, to look every day on the body from which the likeness first flowed. For although the soul, even when the body is absent, keeps its image with itself, and that is almost enough for the soul, yet the spirit, the instrument of the soul, and the eye do not keep it. There are plainly three things in us: soul, spirit and body. Soul and body, which are very different in nature from each other, are joined by the spirit as a mean. The spirit is a certain very thin and transparent vapour, generated by the heat of the heart from the finest part of the blood. Spread from there through all the limbs, it receives the powers of the soul and pours them into the body. It receives in turn, through the organs of the senses, the images of external bodies. These cannot be fixed in the soul, because an incorporeal substance, which is more excellent than bodies, cannot be formed by them through the reception of images. But the soul, being indeed present to the spirit, easily sees the images of bodies shining in it as in a mirror, and through them judges the bodies. And this knowing is called sense by the Platonists.
[VI.6] While it looks at them, it conceives in itself by its own power images like them, but much purer. Such conceiving we call imagination and phantasy. The images conceived here are kept in the memory. Through these the eye of the soul is often roused to gaze on the universal Ideas of things, which it contains in itself. And so it both perceives a particular man by sense and conceives him by imagination. By intellect it contemplates in common, through the Idea of humanity inborn in it, the reason and definition common to all men; and what has been contemplated it keeps. For the soul, then, which keeps in memory the likeness of a beautiful man once conceived and reformed within itself, it would be enough to have seen the beloved at some time. But the eye and the spirit, which like mirrors receive images when a body is present and lose them when it is absent, need the continual presence of the beautiful body, so that by its illumination they may continually shine, be warmed and be delighted. So these, because of their neediness, demand the presence of the body; and the soul, which for the most part complies with them, is compelled to desire the same.

### Chapter 7. On the birth of Love

[VI.7] But now let us return to Diotima. When she had placed Love among the daemons, for the reasons we have set out, she showed Socrates his origin in this way. On the birthday of Venus, while the gods were feasting, Porus, the son of Counsel, drunk with a draught of nectar, lay with Penia in the garden of Jupiter. From that union Love was born. "On the birthday of Venus": that is, when the Angelic Mind and the World Soul, which we have called Venuses for the reason we gave elsewhere, were arising from the supreme majesty of God. "The gods were feasting": that is, Heaven, Saturn and Jupiter were feeding on their own goods. For when the intelligence in the Angel and the power of generating in the World Soul, which we properly call the twin Venuses, were coming forth into the light, there already existed that supreme God whom they call Heaven. There were, besides, essence and life in the Angel, which we call Saturn and Jupiter; and in the World Soul too there were the knowledge of higher things and the moving of the heavenly bodies, which again we call Saturn and Jupiter.
[VI.7] Porus and Penia signify plenty and want. Porus is the son of Counsel, that is, a spark of the supreme God. For God is called Counsel and the fount of counsel, because he is the truth and the goodness of all things. By his splendour all counsel is made true. Towards his goodness all counsel tends. By the garden of Jupiter she means the fertility of the angelic life. When Porus, that is, that ray of God, descends into it and is mingled with Penia, that is, with the earlier need of that life, he creates love. In the beginning the Angel is and lives through God. With respect to these two, essence and life, it is called Saturn and Jupiter. It has in addition a power of understanding, which we judge to be Venus. This power is by its own nature formless and dark unless it is illumined by God, like the power of the eye before the coming of the sun. This darkness we take to be Penia, a poverty, as it were, and a lack of light. But that power of understanding, bent back to its parent by a certain natural instinct, receives from him the divine ray, which is Porus and plenty. In this ray, as in a kind of seed, the reasons of all things are enclosed. By the flames of this ray that natural instinct is kindled. This burning, this ardour, arising from the earlier darkness and the spark that kindles it, is love, born of poverty and plenty.
[VI.7] "In the garden of Jupiter": that is, begotten under the shade of life. For immediately after the vigour of life there arises the ardour to understand. But why do they bring in Porus drunk with nectar? Because, by reason of the divine vitality, he overflows. Why is love partly rich and partly needy? Because we are not wont to burn either for what we possess completely or for what we wholly lack. For since everyone seeks what he lacks, why should one who possesses the whole thing seek further? Moreover, since no one desires things unknown, what we love must in some way have been known to us beforehand. And not only known, for we are wont to hate many things that are known to us, but also judged to be good and pleasant for us. Nor does even that seem enough for a burning goodwill, unless we judge that we can easily obtain what we have deemed will be pleasant. Whoever loves something, then, does not yet possess it completely in fact. Yet in the thought of his soul he knows it, judges it pleasant, and trusts that he can obtain it. This knowing, this judging, this hope are, as it were, a present anticipation of an absent good. For he would not burn unless the thing pleased him, and it would not please him unless it had in some way been tasted beforehand. Since lovers, then, partly have what they long for and partly do not have it, love is with good reason a mixture of a certain need and plenty.
[VI.7] In this way, then, that higher Venus, kindled by the first taste of the divine ray itself, is borne by love towards the entire fullness of the whole light. Cleaving by this effort more effectively to her parent, she at once flashes with his fullest brightness; and those reasons of things which before were confused and folded up in the ray we call Porus are now unfolded in that power of Venus as it cleaves to him, and shine out more clearly and distinctly. As the Angel stands to God, so the World Soul stands to the Angel and to God. For, bending itself towards the higher things, it likewise receives a ray from them and is kindled, and begets a love that shares in plenty and in poverty. Adorned from this with the forms of all things, it moves the heavens after their pattern, and through its power of generating it generates forms like them in the matter of the elements. Here again we see a twin Venus. One is the power of this soul to know higher things. The other is the power of the same soul to procreate lower things. The former is not proper to the soul, but is an imitation of the angelic contemplation. The latter is proper to the nature of the soul. So whenever we posit one Venus in the soul, we mean its peculiar power, its own Venus. Whenever we posit two, we mean one that it has in common with the Angel, and one proper to the soul itself.
[VI.7] Let there be, then, two Venuses in the soul, the first heavenly, the second common. Let both have a love: the heavenly, for thinking on the divine beauty; the common, for generating that same beauty in the matter of the world. For such loveliness as the former sees, the latter wishes to hand on, as far as it can, to the fabric of the world. Or rather, both are borne towards generating beauty, but each in its own way. The heavenly Venus strives by her intelligence to fashion in herself the most exact beauty of the higher things. The common Venus strives, by the richness of divine seeds, to bring forth in the matter of the world the beauty she has divinely conceived within herself. The former love we sometimes call a god, because it is directed towards divine things; for the most part a daemon, because it is midway between poverty and abundance. The other love we always call a daemon, because it seems to have a certain affection for the body and to be more inclined towards the lower region of the world. And that is foreign to a god, but suits the nature of daemons.

### Chapter 8. In all souls there are two loves, but in ours five

[VI.8] These twin Venuses and twin loves are present not only in the World Soul but also in the souls of the spheres, of the stars, of the daemons and of men. And since all souls are referred to that first soul in the fitting sequence of the natural order, the loves of all must likewise be so referred to its love that they in some way depend on it. For this reason Diotima used to call these simply daemons, but that one the great daemon.³⁷ He, hanging over all things throughout the whole world, does not allow hearts to grow numb, but everywhere rouses them to love. In us, however, not two loves only but five are found. The two at the extremes are daemons; the three in the middle are not daemons only, but affections.
[VI.8] In the mind of man, certainly, there is an eternal love of seeing the divine beauty, and for its sake we pursue the studies of philosophy and the duties of justice and piety. There is also in the power of generation a certain hidden goad to the begetting of offspring; and this love is perpetual, and by it we are continually urged to fashion a likeness of that higher beauty in the form of the child we beget. These two perpetual loves in us are those two daemons which Plato prophesies are always present to our souls, of which one raises us to higher things and the other presses us down to lower; one is a calodaemon, that is, a good daemon, the other a cacodaemon, that is, an evil daemon. In truth both are good, since both the begetting of offspring and the search for truth are held to be necessary and honourable. But the second is called evil because, through our misuse, it often disturbs us, and most of all turns the soul away from its chief good, which consists in the contemplation of truth, and twists it aside to baser mysteries.
[VI.8] Three loves in us hold the middle place between these. Since they are not equally fixed in the soul, as those two are, but begin, grow, diminish and cease, they will more rightly be called motions and affections than daemons. One of them stands at equal distances from the two extremes. The other two incline to one side or the other. Now the figure of some body, through the preparation of its matter, is very much such as the divine Mind contains in the Idea of it. Then, meeting the eyes and passing through the eyes into the spirit, it at once pleases the soul, since it is in consonance with those reasons which both our mind and our power of generation keep as patterns of the thing itself, received long ago from God. From this the threefold love, as we said, creeps in. For we are born or brought up ready and inclined either to the contemplative or to the active or to the voluptuous life.
[VI.8] If to the contemplative, we are at once raised from the sight of the bodily form to the consideration of the spiritual and divine form. If to the voluptuous, we descend at once from sight to the concupiscence of touch. If to the active and moral, we remain in that pleasure alone of seeing and of keeping company. The first are so gifted that they are carried to the heights. The second so dull that they are pressed down to the depths. The third, as men in the middle, remain in the middle region. Every love, then, begins from sight. But the love of the contemplative man ascends from sight into the mind. That of the voluptuous man descends from sight into touch. That of the active man remains in sight. The love of the first turns towards the highest daemon rather than the lowest. That of the second is bent down towards the lowest rather than the highest. That of the third stands at equal distances from both. These three loves are allotted three names. The love of the contemplative man is called divine, that of the active man human, that of the voluptuous man bestial.

### Chapter 9. What passions lovers have on account of Love's mother

[VI.9] We have so far shown that Love is a daemon born of abundance and poverty, and that he is divided into five kinds. Next we shall treat, from the words of Diotima, what affections arise in lovers from such a nature of Love. Because Love, she says, was begotten on the birthday of Venus, he follows Venus and worships her and is seized by the desire of the beautiful, since Venus herself is most beautiful. Because he is the son of Poverty, he is dry, lean and squalid, barefoot, lowly, without a home, without bedding or any covering, sleeping at doors, on the road, under the open sky, and, in short, always needy. Because he is the son of Abundance, he lays snares for the beautiful and the good. He is manly, bold and fierce, vehement, a cunning and keen-scented hunter, always weaving new devices, eager for prudence, eloquent, philosophising through his whole life, an enchanter and a powerful fascinator, a maker of potions and a sophist. By nature he is neither wholly immortal nor mortal. Sometimes on the same day he springs up and lives, whenever he abounds; sometimes he fails, and revives again through his father's nature. But what he has gained slips away from him. So Love is never a beggar, nor yet is he wealthy. He is also set midway between wisdom and ignorance.
[VI.9] Thus Diotima. We shall explain these things as briefly as we can. Although they are present in all the kinds of love, they appear more clearly in the three middle kinds, as being more evident to us. "Begotten on the birthday of Venus, he follows Venus": that is, begotten together with those higher spirits which we have called Venuses, he leads the souls of men back to higher things. "And he is seized by the desire of the beautiful, since Venus herself is most beautiful": that is, he kindles souls with the desire of the highest and divine beauty, since he himself arose in those spirits which, being nearest to God, are most greatly illumined by the loveliness of God, and raise us to the same rays.
[VI.9] Furthermore, since the life of all animals and trees and the fertility of the earth consist in moisture and heat, Diotima, to show the poverty of Love, hinted that he lacks both, moisture as well as heat, when she called him dry, lean and squalid. For who does not know that those things are dry and parched which moisture has left? And who would say that pallor and squalor come from anything other than a lack of the heat of the blood? Indeed, mortals are made pale and lean by long love. For the force of nature is hardly sufficient for two works at once. The whole attention of the lover's soul is taken up in constant thought of the beloved. To that, too, all the force of his natural complexion is directed. So the food in the stomach is not perfectly digested. Hence the greater part is cast out as superfluous waste, and the smaller part, and that raw, is drawn to the liver. There too, for the same reason, it is badly digested. So little blood, and that raw, is spread from there through the veins. And so all the limbs grow thin and pale from the scarcity and rawness of their nourishment.
[VI.9] Furthermore, wherever the constant attention of the soul is carried, there the spirits also fly, which are the chariots or the instruments of the soul. The spirits are created in the heart from the finest part of the blood. The soul of the lover is swept towards the image of the beloved fixed in his phantasy, and towards the beloved himself. The spirits are drawn to the same place. Flying out there, they are continually dissolved. So there is need of a very frequent supply of pure blood to renew the spirits that have been consumed, where all the finer and clearer parts of the blood are breathed out every day in restoring the spirits. Thus, when the pure and clear blood has been dissolved, there remains blood that is stained, thick, dry and black. From this the body dries up and grows squalid; from this, too, lovers become melancholic. For from dry, thick and black blood is made melancholy, that is, black bile, which fills the head with its vapours, dries the brain, and does not cease to trouble the soul day and night with foul and dreadful images. This, we read, befell the Epicurean philosopher Lucretius on account of love: tormented first by love and then by insanity, he at last laid hands on himself.³⁸
[VI.9] These things have usually befallen those who, misusing love, have transferred what belongs to contemplation to the concupiscence of the embrace. For we bear the desire to see more easily than the craving both to see and to touch. When the ancient physicians had observed these things, they said that love is a passion very close to the disease of melancholy. And the physician Rhazes prescribed that it be cured by coitus, fasting, drunkenness and walking. Nor does love only make men such; those who are such by nature are also more inclined to love. Now such are those in whom bile, which they call choler, or black bile, which they call melancholy, prevails over the other humours. Bile is hot and dry; black bile is dry and cold. The former holds the place of fire in the body of living things, the latter that of earth. So by the dry and parched are understood the melancholic, in the likeness of earth; by the squalid and pale, the choleric, in the likeness of fire. The choleric, because of the onrush of the fiery humour, are carried headlong into love. The melancholic, because of the sluggishness of the earthy humour, are slower to love. But because of the stability of that same humour, once they have been snared they persevere for a very long time.
[VI.9] Rightly, then, is Love imagined as dry and squalid, since men who are such are wont to give themselves to love more than others. This, we think, comes about chiefly because the choleric are burned by the fire of bile, and the melancholic are gnawed by the harshness of black bile. Aristotle affirmed this in the seventh book of the Ethics.³⁹ So the troublesome humour always torments both, and forces them to seek some very great and continual solace against the continual trouble of their humours. Of this kind are the delights of music and of love. For to no other pleasures can we devote ourselves so constantly as to the charms of music and of voices and the allurements of beauty. The other senses are quickly sated. But sight and hearing feed for a longer time on slight sounds and on an empty picture.⁴⁰
[VI.9] And the pleasures of these senses are not only more lasting, but also more akin to the human complexion. For what suits the spirits of the human body better than the voices and figures of men, and especially of those who please not only by likeness of nature but also by the grace of beauty? For this reason choleric and melancholic men pursue the pleasures of song and of beauty as the one remedy and solace of their most troublesome complexion. And so they are more prone to the allurements of Venus. Socrates too, whom Aristotle judged to be melancholic,⁴¹ was of all men the most inclined to the art of loving, as he himself professed. We may judge the same of Sappho, who was melancholic, as she herself testifies. And our own Virgil also, whom his portrait shows to have been choleric, was nevertheless, though chaste, rather inclined to love.
[VI.9] "Barefoot." Diotima painted Love so because the lover is so taken up with the affairs of love that in the other duties of life, private as well as public, he does not walk warily, as is fitting, but, with no foresight of dangers, is carried rashly wherever it may be. So in his goings he runs into frequent perils, just like those who do not protect their feet with leather. And so they are hurt by frequent thorns and stones. "Lowly." Plato's Greek word means flying on the ground and through the lowest places. For he saw that lovers, through the misuse of love, often live without sense, and that great goods perish through trifling cares.⁴² These men give themselves up to their beloveds so far that they strive to pass over into them entirely, and to copy them in themselves in words as well as in gestures. And who would not be made effeminate by the constant imitation of boys and girls? Who would not turn out a boy or a woman?
[VI.9] "Without a home." The home of human thought is the soul itself. The home of the soul is the spirit. The home of this spirit is the body. There are three dwellers and three homes. Each of these, having lost its natural home, is in exile. For every thought turns not to the discipline and tranquillity of its own soul, but to the service of the beloved. And the soul abandons the care of its own body and strives to leap across into the body of the beloved. The spirit, the chariot of the soul, while the soul hastens elsewhere, also flies off elsewhere in being breathed out. So thought goes out of its own house, the soul goes out, and the spirit goes out too. Insanity and restlessness attend the first departure; weakness and the fear of death the second; trembling, dread and sighing the third. Therefore Love is deprived of his own hearth, of his natural seat, and of the rest he longs for.
[VI.9] "Without bedding or any covering." For he has nowhere to rest and nothing to cover him. Since all things seek again their own origin, the little fire of love, kindled in the appetite of the lover by the presence of a beautiful body, tries to fly back into that same body. And by this onrush it carries off with it, as it flies, both the appetite and the one who has the appetite. O cruel lot of lovers! O life more wretched than any death, unless perhaps your soul, snatched from its own body by this violence of love, should also disregard the figure of the beloved and withdraw into the temple of the divine splendour, where at last it will rest, where it will be filled. Who, again, would deny that Love wanders without covering and naked? For who could hide love, which a fierce, bull-like, fixed gaze betrays; which broken speech declares; which blushing and pallor of the face, frequent sighs, tossing of the limbs, unending complaint, untimely praises, sudden indignation, boasting, forwardness, wantonness, empty suspicion and the most menial services make known? Just as in the sun and in fire the light of the ray accompanies the heat, so outward signs follow the inward burning of love.
[VI.9] "He sleeps at doors." The doors of the soul appear to be the eyes and the ears. For through these many things are carried into the soul, and the affections and character of the soul shine out most clearly through the eyes. Lovers linger for the most part in looking at figures and listening to voices. Rarely does their mind gather itself into itself. More often it wanders through the eyes and ears. For this reason they are said to lie at the doors. They are also said to lie on the road. For the beauty of the body ought to be a kind of road by which we begin to ascend to a higher beauty. But those who cast themselves down in shameful lusts, or even those who dwell on looking longer than is fitting, appear to stay on the road itself and not to go on to its end.
[VI.9] "Under the open sky." Rightly. For, wholly taken up with one thing, they give no thought to anything in the conduct of affairs. And so, living by chance, they are exposed to all the perils of fortune, as those who live naked under the open sky are exposed to all weathers. "Through his mother's nature always needy." Indeed, since the first origin of love was from need, and what is natural cannot be wholly rooted out, Love is always needy, always thirsty. For as long as something is still wanting to be attained, the heat of love burns. When the whole is possessed on every side, need ceasing, the ardour ceases rather than lasting on without want.

### Chapter 10. What gifts lovers have on account of Love's father

[VI.10] These things follow from Poverty, the mother of Love; their contraries follow from Abundance, his father. What the contraries are, anyone will recognise once the foregoing is understood. Above he was described as simple, unwary, mean and unarmed. Here the contraries of these are brought in. For he is called cunning, a keen-scented hunter, a contriver, a layer of snares, eager for prudence, a philosopher, manly and bold, vehement, eloquent, a magician and a sophist. The same love which makes the lover careless and idle in other business makes him shrewd and cunning in the affairs of love, so that in wonderful ways he hunts for the favour of the beloved, whether he entangles him with wiles or wins him with services, soothes him with eloquence or charms him with song. The same frenzy that had made him fawning in his service, the same frenzy, I say, supplies him with arms:⁴³ fierceness to those who are indignant against the beloved, and to those who fight for him confidence and unconquered strength.
[VI.10] Love, as we have said, takes its origin from sight. Sight is midway between mind and touch. Hence the soul of the lover is always pulled apart and tossed by turns upwards and downwards. At one time the craving for the embrace rises up, at another the chaste desire of heavenly beauty; and now the one, now the other prevails and leads. In those who have been most honourably brought up and are strong in keenness of mind, the latter more often wins; in others, the former. Those who cast themselves down into the dregs of the body are rightly judged dry, naked, lowly, unarmed and idle. Dry, because they are always hungry and never filled. Naked, because, being rash, they are exposed to every danger, and, being most shameless and uncouth, they are held in ill repute. Lowly, because they think of nothing high, nothing great. Unarmed, because they give way to a shameful craving. Idle, because they are so dull that they do not know where love is drawing them, and they stay on the road and do not reach the end.
[VI.10] Those of the contrary sort appear to be contrarily affected. For, feeding on the solid goods of the soul, they are filled more and love more calmly; they keep their modesty; they disregard the shadowy beauty of the body and are raised higher; and, as if fortified with arms, they drive empty lusts away from themselves and subject the senses to reason. These, as the most skilful and most prudent of all men, philosophise in such a way that they step most providently through the figures of bodies, as through certain footprints or scents; from these they shrewdly track down the sacred loveliness of the soul and of the gods; and so, hunting prudently, they happily attain what they desire.
[VI.10] So great a gift of love proceeds, certainly, from Abundance, his father; for the ray of beauty, which is both Abundance and the father of Love, has this power, that it is bent back to the place from which it came, and draws the lover with it. Now it descends first from God; and passing into the Angel and the Soul as through materials of glass, and flowing easily from the Soul into the body prepared to receive it, it shines out from that body of a younger man, especially through the eyes, the clearest windows of the soul. It flies at once through the air and, piercing the eyes of an older man, transfixes his soul and kindles his appetite; and it leads the wounded soul and the kindled appetite to their healing and their cooling, while it sweeps them with it to the same place from which it had itself descended: by steps, first to the body of the beloved, second to the Soul, third to the Angel, and last to God, the first origin of this splendour.
[VI.10] This is the profitable hunt, this the happy fowling of lovers. It is this hunt that, in Plato's Protagoras, a certain friend of our Socrates ascribes to him. "Where have you come from, Socrates?" he says. "I suppose you are returning from that hunt to which the honourable nature of Alcibiades is always calling you."⁴⁴ She further calls Love a sophist and a magician. Plato, in the dialogue the Sophist, defines the sophist as an ambitious and crafty disputer who, by the cunning of his quibbles, shows us the false in place of the true, and forces those who dispute with him to contradict themselves in their own words. Lovers and beloveds alike sometimes suffer this. For lovers, blinded by the mists of love, often take false things for true, when they think their beloveds more beautiful, sharper and better than they are. They contradict themselves through the violence of love. For reason advises one thing and concupiscence follows another. They change their plans at the command of the beloved; they oppose themselves in order to comply with others. Often, too, the beautiful are caught in the nets of their lovers' cunning, and those who before were obstinate become compliant.
[VI.10] But why do we think Love a magician? Because the whole force of magic consists in love. The work of magic is the attraction of one thing by another from a certain kinship of nature. Now the parts of this world, like the limbs of one animal, all depending on one author, are joined to one another by the sharing of one nature. So, just as in us the brain, the lungs, the heart, the liver and the other members draw something from one another and help one another, and suffer together when any one of them suffers, so the members of this vast animal, that is, all the bodies of the world, bound together in the same way, lend their natures to one another and borrow them. From their common kinship a common love is born; from the love, a common attraction. And this is the true magic. Thus fire is drawn upwards by the hollow of the sphere of the moon, because of a fitness of nature; air by the hollow of fire; earth is drawn to the lowest place by the centre of the world; water too is pulled by its own place. Hence too the lodestone draws iron, amber draws straws, and sulphur fire; the sun turns many flowers and leaves towards itself, and the moon the waters; Mars is wont to stir up the winds; and various herbs also draw to themselves various kinds of animals. In human affairs too each man's own pleasure draws him.⁴⁵
[VI.10] The works of magic, then, are works of nature; art is only the handmaid. For where something is wanting to the natural kinship, art supplies it at the right times through vapours, numbers, figures and qualities; just as in agriculture nature brings forth the crops and art prepares the way. The ancients attributed this art to the daemons, because they understand what the fellowship of natural things is, what suits each thing, and how the concord of things, wherever it is wanting, may be restored. Some are said to have been friends of the daemons through a certain likeness of nature, such as Zoroaster and Socrates, or beloved by them on account of their worship, such as Apollonius of Tyana and Porphyry. So it is told that signs, voices and portents came to them from the daemons when they were awake, or oracles and apparitions when they slept. They appear to have become magicians through the friendship of the daemons, just as the daemons are magicians because they know the friendship of things themselves. And all nature, from this mutual love, is named a magician.
[VI.10] Moreover, everyone who is beautiful fascinates us with his tender eyes. Men charm the beautiful by the force of eloquence and the measures of songs, as by certain incantations, and win them over to themselves. They soothe and capture them, besides, with attentions and gifts, just as with potions. So no one can doubt that Love is a magician, since the whole force of magic consists in love, and the work of love is carried through by fascinations, incantations and potions. "He is neither wholly mortal, nor yet immortal." Not mortal, because two loves, those two which we call daemons, are in us perpetually. Not immortal, because the three in between them change daily, growing and diminishing.
[VI.10] Furthermore, in the appetite of men there is, from the beginnings of life, an inborn heat that cannot be put out, which does not allow the soul to rest and always drives it to apply itself eagerly to some definite thing. The characters of men are diverse, and they do not live by one wish.⁴⁶ Hence that continual heat of concupiscence, which is natural love, drives some to the study of letters, others to music or to figures, others to honourable conduct or the religious life, others to honours, some to heaping up money, a great many to the indulgence of the belly, and others to other things; and it drives the same man to different things at different ages. So the same heat is called both immortal and mortal. Immortal, because it is never put out, and changes its matter rather than vanishing. Mortal, because it does not always bend to the same thing, but, either from a change of nature or from the satiety that comes of long familiarity with the same thing, it seeks new pleasures; and when it has all but failed in one thing, it in a manner comes to life again in another.
[VI.10] He is also called immortal for this reason, that a figure once loved is loved always. For as long as it remains the same in the same man, it is loved in him. But when it has slipped away from him, the figure in him is no longer the same as the one you loved before. For this new figure you do not burn, since you had not burned for it before; yet you do not cease to love that earlier one. There is this difference, however: before, you looked on it in another; now you gaze on it only in yourself, and, as it is always fixed in your memory, you also always love it; and as often as it comes before the eyes of the soul, so often it burns you with love. So, as often as we meet the man who was once most dear to us, we are stirred: the heart leaps or flutters, or the liver melts, or the eyes tremble, and the face takes on changing colours when he stands before it. For his presence brings before the eyes of the soul the figure that lay hidden in the mind, and, as if by blowing, rouses the fires asleep beneath the ashes.⁴⁷ For this reason Love is called immortal.
[VI.10] But this love is also held to be mortal for this reason, that although the faces remain always fixed in the breast, yet they do not present themselves equally to the eyes of the mind. So goodwill seems by turns to grow hot and to cool again. Add to this that neither bestial nor human love can ever be without indignation. Who would not be indignant with one who has taken his soul from him? For as freedom is pleasing above all else, so servitude is a burden. And so you hate the beautiful and love them at once. You hate them as thieves and murderers; you are compelled to admire and love them as mirrors gleaming with heavenly brightness.
[VI.10] What are you to do, wretch? You do not know where to turn, alas, lost man, you do not know. You would not wish to be with this murderer of yourself; nor would you wish to live without the blessed sight. You cannot be with him who destroys you, who kills you. You cannot live without him who steals you from yourself by such wonderful allurements, who claims the whole of you for himself. You long to flee from him who scorches you with his flames. You long also to cling to him, so that, being nearest to him who possesses you, you may also cleave to yourself. You seek yourself outside yourself, wretch, and cling to your captor, so that some day you may ransom the captive that you are. You would not wish to love, madman, because you would not wish to die. Nor would you wish not to love, since you judge that the likeness of heavenly things must be served. So through this alternation it comes about that at every moment, so to speak, love withers and grows green again.
[VI.10] He is also placed by Diotima midway between wisdom and ignorance. Now Love follows what is beautiful. The most beautiful of all things is wisdom. So he has an appetite for wisdom. He who has an appetite for wisdom does not altogether possess it. For who would seek what is present to him? Nor does he altogether lack it. For he is wise in this one thing at least, that he recognises his own ignorance. But he who does not know that he is ignorant is ignorant both of the things themselves and of his own ignorance, and does not seek the knowledge which he does not know that he lacks. The love of wisdom, then, because it is partly deprived of wisdom and partly wise, is placed between wisdom and ignorance. This, says Diotima, is the condition of Love. But the nature of the beautiful itself, that is, of the supreme beauty, is to be delicate, perfect and blessed. Delicate, in so far as by a certain sweetness of its own it draws the appetite of all things to itself. Perfect, in so far as it illumines with its rays the things it has drawn as they approach, and perfects them. Blessed, in so far as it fills what it has illumined with eternal goods.

### Chapter 11. What use love is, from its definition

[VI.11] After Diotima has told what the origin of Love is and what he himself is like, she now reveals where he tends and what good he does to men. We all desire to have good things; and not only to have them, but to have them always. But the several goods of mortals change and fail, and all of them would soon vanish if new ones were not made every day in the place of those that depart. So, in order that good things may in some way last for us always, we desire to remake those that perish. Remaking is done by generating. Hence the instinct of generation is inborn in all. Now generation, since by continuation it makes mortal things like divine things, is surely a divine gift. To divine things, because they are beautiful, ugly things are contrary; beautiful things are like them and friendly. Therefore generation, a divine work, is accomplished perfectly and easily in what is beautiful, and in its contrary the contrary happens. That is why that striving of generation asks for beautiful things and shuns their contraries. Do you ask what the love of men is? What good it does? It is the desire of generation in the beautiful, for the sake of keeping life perpetual in mortal things. This is the love of men living on earth; this is the end of our love.
[VI.11] For indeed, in the very time in which each living creature is said to live and to be the same, as from childhood to old age, although it is called the same, it never holds the same things in itself. It is always being made new, as Plato says,⁴⁸ and puts off the old, in hair, flesh, bones and blood, and in the whole body altogether. Nor does this happen in the body only, but in the soul as well. Manners, habits, opinions, cravings, pleasures, pains and fears are continually changing, and none of them stays the same and alike. The earlier ones are done away; new ones follow and grow up. And indeed, what is more wonderful, with the kinds of knowledge too it is not only that some vanish and others arise, and that we are not always the same in what we know; each single kind of knowledge undergoes almost the same thing. For study and recollection are, as it were, the taking up again of knowledge that is passing away. Forgetting, indeed, seems to be the departure of knowledge. But study, always restoring a new memory in place of the one that departs, preserves the knowledge, so that it seems to be the same. In this way, certainly, whatever is changeable in soul or body is preserved: not because it is always wholly the same, for that belongs to divine things, but because what wastes and departs leaves behind something new and like itself. By this remedy, surely, mortal things are made like immortal ones.
[VI.11] There is, then, in both parts of the soul, both the one that looks to knowledge and the one by which the body is ruled, an inborn love of generation for the perpetual preserving of life. The love that is in the part fitted for ruling the body drives us from the very beginning to take food and drink, so that from this nourishment humours may be generated, by which what continually flows away from the body may be made good. By this generation the body is nourished and grows. When the body is full grown, this love rouses the seed itself and provokes the lust to beget offspring, so that what cannot remain for ever in itself may be kept in offspring very like itself and so remain everlasting. The love of generation assigned to the knowing part of the soul likewise makes the soul desire truth, its proper food, by which in its own way it may be nourished and grow. And if anything slips from the soul through forgetting, or lies numb through sloth and neglect, this love as it were regenerates it by the effort of remembering and study, and calls back into the mind what had perished through forgetting or grown numb through idleness. And once the soul is full grown, it goads it with a most burning craving to teach and to write, so that, knowledge being generated either in writings or in the souls of pupils, the understanding of the teacher, and the truth, may remain among men for ever. And so, by the kindness of love, both the body and the soul of every man seem able to survive for ever in human affairs after death.
[VI.11] Each love pursues beautiful things. The one that rules and governs the body desires to feed its own body on foods as delicate, pleasant and beautiful as may be, and to beget beautiful offspring with a lovely woman. And the one that belongs to the soul strives to steep it in the most polished and most pleasing disciplines; to bring forth, by writing in an ornate and beautiful style, a knowledge as like its own as can be; and by teaching to generate it in some most beautiful soul: a soul, I mean, that is pure, keen and of the best. The soul itself we do not see, and so we do not look upon its beauty either. But the body, the shadow and image of the soul, we do see. And so, guessing from its image, we conjecture that in a beautiful body there is a lovely soul. That is why we teach beautiful people more willingly.

### Chapter 12. On the two loves, and that the soul is born endowed with truth

[VI.12] Of the definition of love we have now said enough. Let us next set out the distinction concerning love which Plato draws from the fertility of the soul and of the body. The body of all men, he says, is pregnant and with child, and the soul is pregnant too. In the body the seeds of all that belongs to it are sown from the beginning. Hence, at fixed turns of time, the teeth break through, the hair comes out, the beard spreads, the seeds of procreation flow. If the body is fertile and heavy with seeds, much more is the soul, which is more excellent than the body, most abundant; and it possesses from the beginning the seeds of all that belongs to it. So the soul was long ago allotted the reasons of morals, arts and disciplines; and from them, if it is rightly tilled, it brings forth its offspring into the light at fixed times. That it has the reasons of all that belongs to it inborn, we learn from its appetite, its seeking, its finding, its judging and its comparing.
[VI.12] Who would deny that the soul, straight from its tender years, longs for things true, good, honourable and useful? But no one longs for what is unknown. Therefore there are in the soul, even before it has any appetite for them, some notions of these things, through which, as through their forms or reasons, it judges that they are to be sought. The same is proved from seeking and finding. If Socrates looks for Alcibiades in a crowd of men, and is at some time to find him, there must be in the mind of Socrates some figure of Alcibiades, so that he may know which man he is seeking before the rest, and, having found him in a gathering of many, may be able to tell Alcibiades from the others. In the same way the soul would neither track down those four nor ever find them, unless it had some notion of them, that is, of truth, goodness, honourableness and usefulness, through which to seek them with the prospect of finding; so that, whenever it comes upon what it had been searching for, it may recognise it and tell it from its contraries.
[VI.12] And we prove this not only from appetite, tracking and finding, but from judgement as well. For whoever judges someone to be his friend or his enemy is not ignorant of what friendship is or what ill will is. How, then, should we judge every day, as we do, that many things are true or false, good or bad, and judge rightly, unless truth and goodness were in some way known to us beforehand? How, again, would many who are not even practised in these arts so often rightly approve and reject works of building, of music, of painting and of the other arts, and the discoveries of the philosophers too, unless some form and reason of those things had been given them by nature?
[VI.12] Comparison shows us the same thing. For whoever compares honey with wine and pronounces the one sweeter than the other recognises what a sweet taste is. And he who, setting Speusippus and Xenocrates beside Plato, judges Xenocrates to be more like Plato than Speusippus is, without doubt knows the figure of Plato. In the same way, since out of many good things we rightly reckon one better than another, and one appears better or worse than another by a greater or lesser participation in goodness, we cannot be ignorant of goodness. Moreover, since out of the many different opinions of philosophers, or of other men too, we often judge very well which is more like the truth and more probable, we cannot be without some sight of truth, so as to know which things are more like it. That is why some in their youth, some even without a teacher, and many from the very few rudiments of learning shown them by teachers, are reported to have become most learned; which could never have happened unless, as we said, nature gave great help. Socrates showed this abundantly to the boys Phaedo, Theaetetus and Meno,⁴⁹ and taught that boys can answer rightly in each of the arts if someone questions them skilfully, since they are endowed by nature with the reasons of all the arts and disciplines.

### Chapter 13. The light of truth is in the soul

[VI.13] In what way reasons of this kind are in the soul seems, in Plato, to be left doubtful. Anyone who follows the books Plato wrote as a younger man, the Phaedrus, the Meno and the Phaedo, will perhaps think that they are painted on the substance of the soul almost as figures are on a wall; a point often touched on above, both by me and by you. For that is what he seems to hint there. But in the sixth book of the Republic that divine man lays the whole matter open, and says that the light of the mind for understanding all things is that very same God by whom all things were made.⁵⁰ For he compares the sun and God with one another in this way: as the sun stands to the eyes, so God stands to minds. The sun generates the eyes and gives them the power of seeing; which would be in vain, and buried in everlasting darkness, if the light of the sun were not present, painted with the colours and shapes of bodies, in which the eye sees the colours and shapes of bodies. Nor does the eye look upon anything other than light. Yet it seems to look upon various things, because the light poured into it is adorned with the various little forms of outward bodies. This light, reflected in bodies, the eye does perceive; but the light itself in its own source it cannot bear at all.
[VI.13] In the same way God creates the soul and bestows on it mind, the power of understanding; which would be empty and dark if the light of God were not present to it, in which it may look upon the reasons of all things. Hence it understands through the light of God, and it is that divine light alone which it knows. Yet it seems to know different things, because it understands that light under the different Ideas and reasons of things. When someone, seeing a man with his eyes, fashions an image of a man in his phantasy and turns it over for some time in judging it, he lifts the gaze of his mind to look up at the reason of man that exists in the divine light. From there a spark at once flashes out in the mind, and the very nature of man is truly understood. And so it is with all other things. Thus we understand all things through the light of God. But the pure light itself, and its source, we cannot see in this life. In this, plainly, the whole fertility of the soul consists: that in its inmost chambers there shines that eternal light of God, most full of the reasons and Ideas of all things. To this light the soul, as often as it will, is converted by purity of life and the utmost effort of study; and once converted, it flashes with the sparks of the Ideas.

### Chapter 14. Whence comes love for males, whence love for women

[VI.14] So the body of men is pregnant, as Plato holds, and the soul is pregnant too, and both are goaded to give birth by the spurs of love. But some, either by nature or by upbringing, are better fitted for the offspring of the soul than for those of the body; others, and they are the greater number, the reverse. The former follow the heavenly love, the latter the common. The former, for this reason, by nature love males, and those indeed already nearly grown, rather than women or boys, because in them sharpness of mind is far more vigorous; and this, by its more excellent beauty, is most fit for the discipline which they are going to generate. The others do the opposite, for the sake of the pleasure of sexual union and the accomplishment of bodily generation.
[VI.14] But since that generative power of the soul, having no share in knowledge, makes no distinction between the sexes, and yet by its own nature is roused to generate whenever we judge some body to be beautiful, it often happens that those who keep company with males, in order to quiet the goads of the generative part, lie with them; those especially at whose birth Venus was in a masculine sign and together with Saturn, or in the terms of Saturn, or in opposition to Saturn. But they ought to have noticed that the promptings of that part aim not at this vain work of waste but at the office of sowing and procreating, and to have carried that power over from males to women. It is from some error of this kind, we think, that that wicked crime arose which Plato in his Laws most sharply denounces as a kind of murder.⁵¹ For he who snatches away a man about to be born must be reckoned no less a murderer than he who takes one already born out of the world. He who cuts off a present life is indeed the bolder; but he who grudges the light to one about to be born, and kills his own sons not yet born, is the more cruel.

### Chapter 15. Above body is soul, above soul the angel, above the angel God

[VI.15] But enough of the twofold abundance of the soul and of the twin loves. Next let us discuss by what steps Diotima raises Socrates from the lowest things to the highest. She leads him back from body to soul, from soul to angel, from angel to God. That there must be these four grades of things in nature may be argued as follows. Every body is moved by something else. It cannot move itself by its own nature, since it has no power to do anything of itself. But because of the presence of soul it seems to be moved by itself, and because of soul to live. And when soul is present it does in a way move itself; but when soul is absent it is moved only by another, as a thing that does not have this nature from itself, whereas it is soul that properly possesses the power of moving itself. For to whatever it is present, it imparts the power of self-movement. And what it imparts to others by its mere presence, it must itself possess far sooner and far more. Soul, therefore, is above bodies, as being able to move itself by its own essence, and for that reason bound to be above those things which gain the power to move themselves not from themselves but from the presence of others.
[VI.15] When we say that the soul is moved by itself, we do not use the word transitively, so to speak, in the sense in which Aristotle would have it that Plato meant it, but absolutely;⁵² as when we affirm that God stands of himself, that the sun shines of itself, that fire is hot of itself. For it is not that one part of the soul moves and another is set in motion; the whole of it, of itself, that is, by its own nature, is moved. That is to say, it runs by reason from one thing to another, and carries through the works of nourishment, growth and generation across intervals of time. This running through time belongs to the soul of itself, because what is above it does not understand different things at different moments, but all things at once in a single point of eternity. Rightly, therefore, Plato places the first motion and the first interval of time in the soul; and from the soul both motion and time pass over into bodies.
[VI.15] But since rest must come before motion, rest being more perfect than motion, above the mobile reason of the soul there must be found some stable intelligence, which is intelligence through the whole of itself and is always intelligence in act. For the soul does not understand with the whole of itself, nor always, but with a certain part of itself and at certain times; and the power of understanding that it has is not sure but wavering. So, in order that what is more perfect may come before what is less perfect, above the mind of the soul, which is mobile, partial, interrupted and doubtful, there must be set the mind of the angel, stable, whole, continuous and most sure. Thus, just as soul, moved of itself, comes before body, which is set in motion by another, so Mind, stable of itself, comes before soul, which is set in motion of itself. And just as body has it from soul that it moves itself, which is why not all bodies but only those with soul are seen to move of their own accord, so soul has it from Mind that it always understands. For if intellect were in soul by soul's own nature, it would belong to all souls, even those of beasts, as the power of setting itself in motion does. Intellect, therefore, does not belong to soul of itself and primarily. So there must come before it something that possesses mind of itself and primarily. Such is the angel, more excellent than souls.
[VI.15] But above the mind of the angel there necessarily stands that principle of things and highest good which Plato in the Parmenides calls the One itself. For above all the multitude of a composite thing there must be the One itself, simple by nature. For number is put together from one, and all composition from simple things. Now that Mind, though it is immobile, is nevertheless not the One itself, pure and simple. For it understands itself; and there these three seem in some way to differ from one another: that which understands, that which is understood, and the understanding. For its reason is one thing in so far as it understands, another in so far as it is understood, and another again in so far as it is the understanding. Besides, it has a power of knowing which, before the act of knowing, is of itself wholly formless; it is formed by knowing, and in understanding it desires and receives the light of truth, which it seems to have lacked before it understood. It also has in itself the multitude of all the Ideas. You see how great and how varied a multitude and composition there is in the angel. And so we are compelled to set before it the One, pure and simple.
[VI.15] But before the One itself, God, we can set nothing, because the true One has no share in any multitude or any composition. If it had anything above itself, it would certainly be made by that thing. Then, depending on it, it would by that very fact fall short of it, as every effect does of its cause. And so it would no longer be one and simple, but composed of at least two things, namely the gift of its cause and its own defect. The One itself, therefore, as Plato holds and Dionysius the Areopagite confirms,⁵³ stands above all things; and both of them judge that the most excellent name of God is the One itself.
[VI.15] Its sublimity is shown to us by this argument also: that the gift of the most eminent cause must be the most ample, and that by the excellence of its power it must reach out to all things. The gift of the One spreads through all things. For not only is Mind one, and each soul one, and each body one, but even formless matter itself, and the privation of things, is in a way called one. For we speak of one silence, one darkness, one death. Yet the gifts of Mind and of soul do not reach as far as that. For Mind bestows form shaped with art, and order; soul gives life and motion. But the formless first matter of the world, and the privation of things, has no share in form or in life. Thus the One itself comes before Mind and soul, since its gift is spread more widely. By the same argument Mind is seen to surpass soul, because life, the gift of soul, is not given to all bodies; yet to all of them Mind grants form and order.

### Chapter 16. How God, angel, soul and body compare

[VI.16] So we ascend from body to soul, from soul to angel, from angel to God. God is above eternity. The angel is wholly in eternity; for its operation as well as its essence remains stable. And rest is proper to eternity. The soul is partly in eternity, partly in time. For its substance endures always the same, without any change of increase or loss. But its operation, as we showed a little earlier, runs through intervals of time. Body is wholly subject to time. For its substance is changed, and every operation of it requires a stretch of time. Therefore the One itself is above rest and motion; the angel is in rest; the soul in rest and motion alike; body is placed in motion only. Again, the One abides above number, motion and place; the angel is set in number, above motion and place; the soul in number and motion, but above place; body is subject to number, motion and place. For the One itself has no number or composition of parts, nor is it in any way changed from what it is, nor is it enclosed in any place. The angel has indeed a number of parts or forms, but is free from motion and place. The soul has a multitude of parts and affections, and is changed by the advance of reasoning and by the variety of its disturbances; but it is exempt from the bounds of place. Body, however, is liable to all of these.

### Chapter 17. How the beauties of God, angel, soul and body compare

[VI.17] The same comparison holds between these four and their forms. The form of body consists in the composition of many parts, is bound to place, and slips away with time. The beauty of the soul suffers the changes of time, indeed, and contains a multitude of parts, but is released from the limits of place. The beauty of the angel has number only, and is free of the other two. But the beauty of God suffers none of these. The form of body you see, of course. Do you wish to look upon the beauty of the soul as well? Take away from the bodily form the weight of matter itself and the bounds of places; leave the rest: now you have the beauty of the soul. Do you wish for that of the angel too? Remove, I beg you, not only the stretches of place but the advance of time as well; keep the manifold composition: at once you will find it. Do you desire to behold the beauty of God also? Take away, besides, that manifold composition of forms; leave a form altogether simple: straightway you will have attained the beauty of God.
[VI.17] But what, pray, will be left to me when those are taken away? Do you think beauty is anything other than light? Indeed the beauty of all bodies is this light of the sun which you see, stained by those three: by a multitude of forms (for you behold it painted with many shapes and colours), by the extent of place, and by change in time. Take away its seat in matter, so that, place apart, it keeps the other two: exactly such is the beauty of the soul. Take from this, if you please, the change of time; leave the rest: there remains a light without place, without motion, most clear, yet engraved with all the reasons of all things. That is the angel; that is the beauty of the angel. Take away, last of all, that number of different Ideas; leave a light that is one, simple and pure, like the light that stays in the very globe of the sun and is not scattered through the air: now in some measure you grasp the beauty of God. It surpasses the other forms at least as far as that light of the sun in itself, pure, one and inviolate, exceeds the splendour of the sun scattered, divided, stained and darkened through cloudy air. And so God is the source of all beauty. And so God is the source of all love.
[VI.17] Moreover, the light of the sun in water is a kind of shadow compared with the clearer light of the same sun in air. Its splendour in air is likewise a shadow compared with its brightness in fire. Its brightness in fire is a shadow compared with the light of the sun shining in the sun itself. The same comparison holds among those four beauties, of body, of soul, of angel, of God. God is never so deceived as to love the shadow of his own beauty in the angel and neglect his own true beauty. Nor is the angel so far taken by the beauty of the soul, which is its shadow, as to be held by its own shadow and forsake its own figure. But our soul, and this is greatly to be lamented, for it is the origin of all our unhappiness, the soul alone, I say, is so charmed by the allurements of bodily form that it sets its own beauty second, and, forgetful of itself, runs after the form of the body, which is the shadow of its own.
[VI.17] Hence that most cruel fate of Narcissus in Orpheus. Hence the pitiable calamity of men. The youth Narcissus, that is, the soul of a rash and inexperienced man, does not look at his own face; he takes no notice at all of his own substance and power. Instead he pursues its shadow in the water and tries to embrace it; that is, he marvels at beauty in a body that is frail and like running water, a beauty which is the shadow of the soul itself. He forsakes his own figure, and the shadow he never catches; because the soul, in running after body, neglects itself, and is not filled by the use of body. For it has no true appetite for the body itself; lured, like Narcissus, by the bodily form, which is the image of its own beauty, it longs for its own beauty. And since it does not notice this at all, while it desires one thing and pursues another, it cannot fulfil its desire. Therefore he wastes away, dissolved in tears; that is, the soul, thus set outside itself and fallen into the body, is racked by ruinous disturbances and, stained by the filth of the body, as it were dies, since it now seems to be body rather than soul. It was certainly so that Socrates might escape this death that Diotima led him back from body to soul, from soul to angel, from angel to God.

### Chapter 18. How the soul is raised from the beauty of body to the beauty of God

[VI.18] Come then, dearest guests, imagine Diotima addressing Socrates thus. No body, Socrates, is beautiful on every side. For either it is beautiful in this part and ugly in that; or beautiful today and at another time not at all; or it is judged beautiful by one man and base by another. Therefore the beauty of body, tainted by the touch of baseness, cannot be the pure, true and first beauty. Besides, no one ever suspects that beauty is base, any more than that wisdom is unwise. But the arrangement of bodies we think now fair, now base; and at the same moment different people judge it differently. The first and true beauty, therefore, is not in bodies.
[VI.18] Add that many bodies are called by the one name of beauty. So there is in many bodies one common nature of beauty, through which they are alike named beautiful. Now this one nature, as it is in another, that is, in matter, so you must think it depends on another. For what cannot be sustained in itself can much less depend on itself. Will it depend on matter, then? Not at all. For nothing ugly and imperfect can adorn and perfect itself. And what is one must arise from one. Therefore the one beauty of many bodies depends on some one incorporeal maker. The one maker of all things is God, who through the angels and the souls daily makes all the matter of the world beautiful. For that reason we must hold that the true reason of beauty is found in God and his ministers rather than in the body of the world.
[VI.18] To that beauty, again, you will easily ascend, I think, Socrates, by these steps. If nature had given you the eyes of Lynceus, my Socrates, so that with your gaze you could pierce whatever met you, that body of your Alcibiades, most beautiful on the outside, would seem to you most base. How much is it that you love, my friend? A surface only; or rather a colour carries you off; or rather a certain reflection of lights and the slightest shadow. Or else an empty imagination deceives you; so that you love what you dream rather than what you see. But lest I seem to oppose you altogether, let this Alcibiades be beautiful, by all means. Yet in how large a part is he beautiful? In all his limbs, to be sure, except a snub nose and eyebrows raised higher than is fitting. Yet these are fair in Phaedrus. But in him the thickness of the legs does not please. These would be seemly in Charmides, if his slender neck did not offend you. So if you observe men one by one, you will praise none in every part. Whatever is right anywhere you will gather; you will fashion within yourself a whole figure from the observation of them all, so that the complete beauty of the human race, which is found scattered through many bodies, may be gathered in your soul in the thought of a single image. You will think little of any man's figure, Socrates, if you compare it with that one. And that one you possess by the kindness not so much of bodies as of your own soul. So love that figure which your soul has fashioned, and the soul itself, its maker, rather than that outward one, maimed and scattered.
[VI.18] But what do I bid you love in the soul? The beauty of the soul. Now the beauty of bodies is light; and the beauty of the soul is light also. The light of the soul is truth, which alone your friend Plato seems to ask of God in his prayers. "Grant me, O God," he says, "that my soul may be made beautiful, and that the things that belong to the body may not hinder the beauty of the soul; and may I think the wise man alone rich."⁵⁴ In these words Plato declares that the beauty of the soul consists in truth and wisdom, and that it is granted to men by God. Truth is one; and the same truth, granted to us by God, takes on the names of various virtues in its various effects. In so far as it shows divine things, it is called wisdom, which Plato asked of God before all else; in so far as it shows natural things, knowledge; human things, prudence; as it makes men just, justice; as it makes them unconquered, fortitude; as it makes them tranquil, temperance.
[VI.18] From these, two kinds of virtue are counted: the moral virtues, I mean, and the intellectual, which are more excellent than they. The intellectual are wisdom, knowledge and prudence; the moral, justice, fortitude and temperance. The moral are better known because of their operations and their duties in civil life; the intellectual are more hidden because their truth lies deep. Moreover, a man brought up in honourable ways, being purer than others, is easily lifted to the intellectual virtues. Therefore I bid you consider first the beauty of the soul that consists in morals, so that you may understand that there is one reason of all morals, through which they are alike called honourable: namely the one truth of the purest life, which by the actions of justice, fortitude and temperance leads us to true happiness. Love first, then, this one truth of morals, this most beautiful light of the soul.
[VI.18] Know, moreover, that you will at once ascend above morals to the most lucid truth of wisdom, knowledge and prudence, if you consider that these are granted to a soul brought up in the best morals, and that the most upright rule of moral life is contained in them. And though you behold various teachings of wisdom, knowledge and prudence, yet reckon that in all of them there is a single light of truth, through which all are alike called beautiful. This, as the highest beauty of the soul, I charge you to love above all. But this one truth in many teachings cannot be the first truth of all, because it is in another, being distributed among many teachings. And whatever lies in another certainly depends on another. Yet the one truth is not born of the multitude of teachings. For what is one must arise from one. So there must be above the soul of man some one wisdom which is not divided among different teachings but is one wisdom, from whose single truth the manifold truth of men arises.
[VI.18] That single light of the single wisdom, Socrates, remember to be the beauty of the angel, which you are to revere above the beauty of the soul. As we showed above, it surpasses the beauty of bodies, because it is neither bound to place, nor divided according to the parts of matter, nor corrupted. It surpasses the beauty of the soul as well, because it is wholly eternal and is not moved by any running through time. But since the light of the angel shines in a series of many Ideas, and above all multitude there must be a unity, which is the origin of all number, that light must flow from the one principle of all things, which we call the One itself. And so the light of the One itself, utterly simple, is infinite beauty; because it is not soiled by the filth of matter, like the beauty of body, nor changed by the advance of time, like the form of the soul, nor dispersed in multitude, like the beauty of the angel.
[VI.18] Now every quality set apart from any outside addition is called by the natural philosophers infinite. If heat exists in itself, not hindered by cold and moisture, not weighed down by the mass of matter, it is called infinite heat, because its force is free and is not confined by any limits of addition. Likewise light free of every body is infinite. For what shines by its own nature shines without measure and limit, when it is not bounded by another. And so the light and beauty of God, which is altogether pure, released from all other things, is without doubt called infinite beauty. But infinite beauty requires a measureless love as well. Therefore I beg you, Socrates, to love other things with a certain measure and limit; but love God with an infinite love, and let there be no measure to divine love.

### Chapter 19. How God is to be loved

[VI.19] Thus Diotima to Socrates. But we, most distinguished gentlemen, shall not only love God without measure, as Diotima is imagined to command, but shall love God alone. For the mind stands to God as the gaze of the eyes to the sun. And the eye does not merely have an appetite for light before other things; it has an appetite for light alone. If we love bodies, if we love souls, if we love angels, it is not these we shall love, but God in these: in bodies the shadow of God, in souls the likeness of God, in angels the image of God. So for the present we shall love God in all things, that in the end we may love all things in God. For living thus we shall come to the point where we see both God and all things in God, and love both him and all the things that are in him.
[VI.19] And whoever in this time devotes himself to God in charity will at last recover himself in God. For he will return to his own Idea, through which he was created. There, again, if anything is wanting in him, he will be formed anew; he will cleave to his own Idea for ever. Now the true man and the Idea of man are the same. Therefore each of us on earth, separated from God, is not a true man, since he is parted from his own Idea and form. To it divine love and piety will lead us. And although here we are torn apart and maimed, then, joined by loving to our Idea, we shall come out whole men; so that we shall seem first to have worshipped God in things, in order afterwards to worship things in God; and to venerate things in God for this reason, that we may embrace ourselves before all else; and in loving God we shall seem to have loved ourselves.

## Speech VII: Alcibiades


### Chapter 1. Conclusion of what has been said above, and the opinion of the philosopher Guido Cavalcanti

[VII.1] Last of all Cristoforo Marsuppini, a most cultivated man, who was to take the part of Alcibiades, turned to me with these words. I warmly congratulate, Marsilio, the family of your Giovanni, which, among many knights most distinguished in learning and in deeds, has produced Guido the philosopher, a man who served his republic well and surpassed all of his age in the sharp points of dialectic. He followed this Socratic love in his conduct as much as in his verses, and touched briefly on everything that you have said. For Phaedrus touched on the origin of Love, flowing out from the bowels of Chaos. Pausanias divided Love, once born, into two forms, the heavenly and the common. Eryximachus disclosed his breadth, showing that he is present in all things, divided thus into his two parts. Aristophanes declared what the presence of so very great a god does in each of us, showing that through him broken men are mended. Agathon treated of the greatness of his virtue and power, arguing that by him alone men are made blessed. Socrates, finally, taught by Diotima, set out in sum what Love is and of what kind, whence he arose, how many parts he has, where he tends and how much he can do.
[VII.1] Guido Cavalcanti the philosopher seems to have worked all these things, with the greatest art, into his verses.⁵⁵ A mirror struck in a certain way by a ray of the sun shines in its turn, and by that reflection of splendour sets on fire a piece of wool placed close to it. In the same way, he holds, the part of the soul which they call the dark phantasy and the memory is struck, like a mirror, by an image of beauty itself, which holds the place of the sun, drawn in through the eyes as a kind of ray; and it is so struck that it fashions for itself from that image a second image, the splendour, as it were, of the first; and by this the power of appetite is kindled, just as the wool is, and loves.
[VII.1] He adds that this first love, kindled in the appetite of sense, is created by the form of a body seen through the eyes; but that this form is not imprinted on the phantasy in the way in which it exists in the matter of the body, but without matter; yet in such a way that it is the image of one particular man, set in a definite place and time. Then, he says, a certain form of this image at once shines in the mind; and this no longer seems to be the likeness of some one human body, as it was in the phantasy, but the common reason and definition of the whole human race alike.
[VII.1] And so, just as from the image in the phantasy, taken from the body, there arises in the appetite of sense, which is given over to the body, a love inclined to the senses, so from this form in the mind, this common reason, as from something far removed from the body, another love is born in the will, a complete stranger to commerce with the body. The one he placed in pleasure, the other in contemplation. The one, he thinks, revolves about the particular form of a single body; the other about the universal beauty of the whole human race. These loves, he holds, fight against each other in man: the one thrusts him down to the bestial life of pleasure, the other lifts him up to the angelic life of contemplation. The second, he maintains, is free from perturbation and is found in few; the first is troubled by many passions and takes hold of most men. And so he dispatches the second in a few words, and is more lengthy in recounting the passions of the first.
[VII.1] But since he sets out here most plainly the same things that you too have related above, I have not thought it necessary to go over them now. Let it be enough to know that this philosopher mixed into the begetting of love a certain formlessness of chaos, such as you posited above, when he said that the dark phantasy is illumined, and that love draws its origin from the mixture of that darkness with this light. Who, moreover, would not see in his words that twofold love, the heavenly and the common? He places its first origin, too, in the beauty of divine things, its second in the beauty of bodies. For by the sun he understands the light of God, by the ray the form of bodies. Lastly, he holds that its end answers to its beginnings, since the spur of love carries some as far as the form of the body, others as far as the beauty of God.

### Chapter 2. Socrates was the true lover, and like Cupid

[VII.2] So much for love. Let us come to Alcibiades and Socrates. After the guests had sufficiently praised the god of lovers, it remained that the lawful worshippers of this god should be praised. Socrates, all agree, loved more lawfully than any man. Though through his whole life he served openly in Cupid's camp, with no concealment whatever, he was never censured by anyone for having loved any person less than honourably. The austerity of his life and his frequent rebuke of other men's crimes had made many great men his enemies, as truth is wont to do: Anytus, Meletus and Lycon above all, citizens of the greatest power in the republic; and the orators Thrasymachus, Polus and Callias. He had, besides, the comic poet Aristophanes as his fiercest persecutor. Yet those citizens, in the indictment by which they brought Socrates to trial, wrote down no dishonourable loves; nor did the orators, his enemies, bring any such charge against him; nor did Aristophanes the comic poet, though at the Dionysia he heaps up many other absurd slanders against Socrates. Do you suppose that, if he had defiled himself with so foul a stain, indeed if he had not been utterly beyond suspicion of this charge, he would have escaped the poisonous tongues of such detractors?
[VII.2] Did you not notice above, excellent friends, that when Plato fashions Love himself he paints the whole likeness of Socrates, and draws the figure of that god from the person of Socrates, as though true love and Socrates were exactly alike, and Socrates therefore, above all others, the true and lawful lover? Come now, call back to mind the picture of Love. You will see Socrates figured in it. Set the person of Socrates before your eyes. You will see him lean, dry and squalid: a man, that is, melancholic by nature, as is reported, and shaggy; thin from fasting; shabby from neglect. Naked, moreover: that is, covered by one plain old cloak. Walking without shoes: in Plato, Phaedrus shows that Socrates was always accustomed to walk so.⁵⁶
[VII.2] Lowly, and flying through the lowest places: the gaze of Socrates was always fixed on the ground, as Phaedo says. He frequented mean places besides, for he was to be found either in the shop of Simon the leather-worker or in the workshops of the sculptors. He used rustic and unpolished words, which Callicles throws in his face in the Gorgias. He was so gentle, moreover, that though provoked by many insults, and often even struck, he is said not even to have been moved in soul. Without a home: asked of what country he was, Socrates said, "Of the world." For a man's country is where the good is. Nor had he a hearth of his own, nor a soft bed, nor delicate fare, nor handsome furniture. Sleeping at doors, in the road, under the open sky: in our Socrates these signify an open breast and a heart lying open to all; and also that he delighted in sight and hearing, which are the doors of the soul; and that he walked about untroubled and unafraid, and would lie down anywhere, if need be, wrapped in his cloak.
[VII.2] Always in need: who does not know that Socrates was the son of a sculptor and a midwife, that even into old age he earned his living with his own hand by carving stone, and that he never had enough to feed himself and his sons? He confessed the poverty of his own mind everywhere, questioning everyone and declaring that he himself knew nothing. Manly: for he was of constant soul and unconquered resolve, a man who in the loftiness of his soul scorned even Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of Crannon and Eurylochus of Larissa, since he did not accept the money they sent him and would not himself go to them. Bold and fierce: how great his courage was in war Alcibiades sets out most fully in the Symposium; and to him Socrates, though he had won the day at Potidaea, is said to have yielded the victory of his own accord.
[VII.2] Vehement: for he was, as Zopyrus the physiognomist had rightly judged, of a most excitable nature. Often, indeed, as he talked, the vehemence of his speech drove him to toss his fingers about and to pull at his hair. Eloquent: when he argued, reasons of almost equal weight were at his command on either side. Although he used unpolished words, as Alcibiades says in the Symposium, he nevertheless moved the souls of his hearers more than Themistocles and Pericles and all the other orators. He lies in wait for the beautiful and the good: Alcibiades says that Socrates was always lying in wait for him. Captured by love for those who seemed endowed with an honourable nature, Socrates captured them in turn, by his reasonings, for the study of philosophy.
[VII.2] A cunning and keen-scented hunter: that Socrates was used to hunt out the divine beauty from the form of the body has been sufficiently said above, and Plato bears witness to it in the Protagoras. A contriver: in many ways, as Plato's dialogues show, he refuted the sophists, exhorted the young, and instructed modest men. Zealous for prudence: for he was of such prudence, and so clear-sighted in foreseeing, that whoever ventured on anything against his advice came to ruin; this is told by Plato in the Theages. Philosophising through his whole life: in that defence of his before the judges he declared to them that, if they were to acquit him of death on condition that he never again philosophise, he would rather die than cease to philosophise.
[VII.2] Enchanter, fascinator, sorcerer and sophist: for Alcibiades says that he was more charmed by the words of Socrates than by the melody of those excellent musicians Marsyas and Olympus. That he had a familiar daemon both his accusers and his friends bear witness. Aristophanes the comic poet also called Socrates a sophist, and so did his accusers, since he had an equal power of persuading and dissuading. Midway between wisdom and ignorance: "Since all men are ignorant," says Socrates, "I differ from the rest in this alone, that I am not ignorant of my own ignorance, while the others are wholly ignorant of theirs." So he stood midway between wisdom and ignorance; for though he did not know things themselves, he did know his own ignorance.
[VII.2] For these reasons Alcibiades judged that Socrates, being most like Love and therefore the truest lover, should be praised next after Love himself, so that in his praise we may understand all who love in the same way to have been praised. What the praises of Socrates are you have heard here, and they stand out most clearly in Plato's words, from the mouth of Alcibiades. In what way Socrates loved, anyone can learn who remembers the teaching of Diotima. For Socrates loved just as Diotima taught above.

### Chapter 3. On bestial love, that it is a form of insanity

[VII.3] But someone may perhaps ask what good this Socratic love does the human race, why it should be celebrated with such praises, and what harm its contrary does. I shall tell you, beginning from somewhat further back. Our Plato in the Phaedrus defines frenzy as an alienation of the mind.⁵⁷ Of alienation he teaches that there are two kinds. One, he holds, comes from human diseases, the other from God. The first he names insanity, the second divine frenzy. By the disease of insanity a man is cast down below the form of man, and from a man is made, in a way, a brute.
[VII.3] There are two kinds of insanity. One is born of a fault of the brain, the other of the heart. The brain is often too much taken up with burnt bile, often with burnt blood, sometimes with black bile; and from this men are at times made demented. Those who are troubled by burnt bile fly into the most violent rage even when no one provokes them, shout aloud, rush at those they meet, and strike themselves and others. Those who suffer from burnt blood break out into excessive floods of laughter, boast beyond all custom, promise wonders of themselves, revel in song and leap about in dance. Those who are weighed down by black bile grieve without end; they invent dreams for themselves, to shudder at as present or to dread as still to come.
[VII.3] These three forms of insanity come about through a failing of the brain. For when those humours are held in the heart they produce distress and anxiety, not dementia; they produce derangement only when they have overwhelmed the head; and so they are said to happen through a fault of the brain. But the insanity that properly comes from a disease of the heart is, we judge, that by which those who love to distraction are afflicted. To these the most sacred name of love is falsely given. But lest we should seem too wise against the many, let us too, for the sake of the discussion, use the name for them.

### Chapter 4. Common love is a kind of fascination

[VII.4] Now give the attention of your ears and your mind to what is to be said. In youth the blood is subtle, clear, warm and sweet. For as age advances, the subtler parts being dissolved, it becomes thicker; and for that reason it also becomes darker. For what is thin and rare is pure and transparent; the contrary is the contrary. Why warm and sweet? Because life and the beginning of living, that is, generation itself, consists in heat and moisture, and seed, the first begetting of living things, is warm and moist. Such a nature flourishes in boyhood and youth. In the ages that follow it is changed little by little, of necessity, into the contrary qualities, dryness and cold. So the blood in a young man is subtle, clear, warm and sweet: because it is subtle, it is clear; because it is fresh, it is warm and moist; because it is warm and moist, it seems for that reason to be sweet. For sweetness arises in the mixture of the warm and the moist.
[VII.4] To what end is all this? So that you may understand that the spirits at this age are subtle and clear, warm and sweet. For since they are generated by the heat of the heart from the purer blood, they are always such in us as the humour of the blood is. And just as this vapour of the spirits is created from the blood, so it too sends out rays like itself through the eyes, as through windows of glass. Again, as the sun, the heart of the world, by its circuit sends down light, and through light its powers, to the things below, so the heart of our body, stirring the blood nearest to it by a certain perpetual motion of its own, spreads from it spirits into the whole body, and through them sparks of light: through each of the members, indeed, but most of all through the eyes.
[VII.4] For the spirit, being very light, flies up most of all to the highest parts of the body; and its light flashes out more abundantly through the eyes, since they are transparent and the brightest of all the parts. That there is some light in the eyes and the brain, small though it is, many animals that see by night can testify, whose eyes glitter in the dark. And if anyone presses and twists the corner of his eye with a finger in a certain way, he seems to behold within himself a kind of shining circle. The divine Augustus, too, is said to have had eyes so clear and bright that when he looked at anyone rather keenly he forced him to lower his face, as before the brightness of the sun. Tiberius also is reported to have had very large eyes, and such as could see, wonderful to say, even by night and in the dark; but only for a short time, when they had first opened from sleep; then they grew dull again.⁵⁸
[VII.4] That the ray sent out from the eyes draws with it a vapour of spirit, and that this vapour draws blood, we see from this: that bleary and reddened eyes, by the emission of their ray, force the eyes of one who looks at them from close by to suffer a like disease. Here it is plain both that the ray reaches as far as the person facing it, and that together with the ray there flows out a vapour of corrupted blood, by whose contagion the eye of the one looking is infected. Aristotle writes that women, when the menstrual blood is flowing, often stain a mirror with drops of blood by their gaze.⁵⁹ This happens, I think, because the spirit, which is a vapour of the blood, seems to be a kind of very thin blood, so thin that it escapes the sight of the eyes; but on the surface of a mirror it becomes thicker and is clearly seen.
[VII.4] If it falls on some rarer material, such as cloth or linen, it is not seen, because it does not stay on the surface of that thing but passes into it. If it falls on something dense but rough, such as stones, bricks and the like, it is scattered and broken by the unevenness of that body. But a mirror, because of its hardness, stops the spirit on its surface; because of its evenness and smoothness it keeps it unbroken; because of its brightness it aids and increases the ray of the spirit itself; because of its coldness it gathers that very rare mist into little drops. In much the same way, whenever we breathe hard upon a glass with open mouth, we sprinkle its face with a very fine dew of saliva; for the breath that flies off from the saliva, compressed on that material, falls back into saliva.
[VII.4] What wonder, then, if an eye opened wide and fixed on someone shoots the barbs of its rays into the eyes of the one standing by, and along with those barbs, which are the vehicles of the spirits, aims at him that vapour of blood which we call spirit? From there the poisoned barb pierces through the eyes; and since it is sent from the heart of the one who strikes, it seeks the breast of the one struck, as its own proper region; it wounds the heart, is blunted on the heart's harder back, and turns again into blood. This foreign blood, being in a way alien to the nature of the wounded man, infects his own blood; the infected blood falls sick.
[VII.4] From this a twofold fascination follows. The gaze of a foul old man, or of a woman in her monthly courses, fascinates a boy. The gaze of a young man fascinates an older one. But since the humour of the older man is cold and very slow, it scarcely reaches the back of the heart in the boy; and being ill fitted to pass through, it moves the heart very little, unless the heart is very soft through infancy. This fascination is therefore light; but that by which the younger pierces the breast of the older is the heaviest. This, excellent friends, is what the Platonist Apuleius complains of. "You yourself," he says, "are the whole cause and origin of this present pain of mine, and also its very remedy and my only health. For those eyes of yours, slipping down through my eyes into my inmost breast, stir up the fiercest fire in my marrow. Have pity, then, on one who is perishing on your account."⁶⁰
[VII.4] Set before your eyes, I beg you, Phaedrus of Myrrhinus, and that Theban, the orator Lysias, captured by love of him. Lysias gapes at the face of Phaedrus. Phaedrus drives the sparks of his own eyes into the eyes of Lysias, and with the sparks sends across the spirit too. The ray of Phaedrus is easily coupled with the ray of Lysias; spirit, too, is easily joined to spirit. This vapour, begotten from the heart of Phaedrus, at once makes for the breast of Lysias; by the bluntness of that breast it is made more compact and falls back into the blood of Phaedrus that it was before; so that the blood of Phaedrus, wonderful to say, is now in the heart of Lysias. Hence each at once breaks out into a cry. Lysias to Phaedrus: "My heart, Phaedrus, my own dearest flesh." Phaedrus to Lysias: "O my spirit, O my blood, Lysias."
[VII.4] Phaedrus follows Lysias because his heart demands its humour. Lysias pursues Phaedrus because the humour of the blood asks for its own vessel and claims its own seat. But Lysias pursues Phaedrus the more ardently. For the heart lives more easily without a very small particle of its humour than the humour itself lives without its own heart. The stream needs the spring more than the spring needs the little stream. So, as iron, when it has received the quality of the magnet, is drawn to that stone but does not draw the stone, so Lysias follows Phaedrus more than Phaedrus follows Lysias.

### Chapter 5. How easily we are ensnared by love

[VII.5] Can a thin ray, someone will say, a very light spirit, a very little blood of Phaedrus, so quickly, so violently, so ruinously taint the whole of Lysias? This will certainly not seem strange if you consider the other diseases that arise by contagion: the itch, mange, leprosy, pleurisy, consumption, dysentery, inflammation of the eyes, the plague. But the contagion of love comes about easily and turns out the gravest plague of all.
[VII.5] For that vapour of spirit and blood, cast right into the older man by the younger, has, as we said above, four qualities. It is clear, subtle, warm and sweet. Because it is clear, it accords fully with the clearness of the eyes and spirits in the older man, charms them and draws them on; so that it is greedily drunk in by them. Because it is subtle, it flies very swiftly into the breast; from there it flows very easily through veins and arteries into the whole body. Because it is warm, it acts and moves with force, infects the blood of the older man more strongly, and converts it into its own nature; which Lucretius touched on thus:⁶¹
[VII.5] From this the drop of Venus' sweetness first trickled into your heart,
and chilling care came after.
[VII.5] Moreover, because it is sweet, it in a way warms the inward parts, feeds them and delights them. Hence it comes about that the whole blood of the man, changed into the nature of youthful blood, seeks the body of that younger one, so as to dwell in its own veins, and so that the humour of fresh blood may flow into veins that are also fresh and tender. It comes about too that this sick man is touched by pleasure and pain together. By pleasure, because of the clearness and sweetness of that vapour and blood; for the one draws him on, the other delights him. By pain, because of its subtlety and heat; for the one divides and tears the inward parts, the other takes from the man what is his own and changes it into the nature of another; and by this change it does not allow him to rest in himself, but always draws him to the one by whom he was infected. Lucretius hints at this as follows:⁶²
[VII.5] And the mind seeks the body from which it is wounded with love.
For all men commonly fall towards their wound, and the blood
spurts out in the direction from which we are struck by the blow;
and if he is close at hand, the red humour covers the foe.
[VII.5] In these verses Lucretius means that the blood of a man wounded by a ray from the eyes flows out upon the one who wounds him, just as the blood of a man cut down by the sword flows out upon the one who cuts him down. If you ask the reason for this miracle, so to call it, I will give it. Hector wounds Patroclus and kills him. Patroclus looks upon Hector as he wounds him. From this his thought judges that vengeance must be taken. At once the bile is kindled for revenge; by the bile the blood is inflamed, and it hurries instantly to the wound, both to cherish that part of the body and for revenge.
[VII.5] The spirits too rush to the same place. Being light, they fly as far as Hector and pass into him, and by his heat they are preserved for a time, say for seven hours. If within that same time Hector looks intently, from close by, at the wound of the corpse, the wound throws out blood towards Hector. For the blood can in a way flow out towards the enemy: first because not all the heat is yet extinguished, nor has the inward stirring yet come to rest; then because a little before it had been roused against him; and lastly because the blood seeks its own spirits again, and the spirits also draw their own blood to them. In some such way, that the blood of a man wounded by love hastens towards the one who strikes him, Lucretius hints, and we fully approve.

### Chapter 6. On a strange effect of common love

[VII.6] Shall I say what follows, most chaste friends, or shall I rather pass it over? I shall certainly say it, since the matter itself requires it, even though it seems unfit to be spoken. Yet who could speak of shameful things without shame? So great a change in the older man, pressing on towards likeness to the younger, makes him strive to transfer his whole body into the other and to pour the whole of the other into himself, so that either the fresh humour may gain fresh vessels, or the more tender vessels a more tender humour. Hence they are driven to do many things together most shamefully. For since the generative seed flows down from the whole body, they trust that by the mere casting or drawing of this they can hand over the whole body and receive the whole. That Epicurean philosopher Lucretius, unhappiest of all lovers, felt this in himself:⁶³
[VII.6] So, then, he who receives the blows of Venus' darts,
whether a boy with girlish limbs shoots at him,
or a woman casting love from her whole body,
strains towards the place from which he is struck, and longs to unite,
and to cast into that body the humour drawn from his own.
Greedily they press body to body and mingle the moisture
of their mouths, and breathe hard, pressing lips with teeth;
in vain, since they can rub nothing off from there,
nor pass in and be lost, whole body in body.
For at times that is what they seem to wish and to strive to do;
so eagerly do they cling in the bonds of Venus,
while their limbs, loosened by the force of pleasure, melt away.
[VII.6] So says Lucretius the Epicurean. That lovers also long to take the whole beloved into themselves, Artemisia shows, the wife of Mausolus, king of Caria. She is said to have loved her husband beyond what can be believed of human affection, and when he was dead to have reduced his body to powder, put it into water, and drunk it down.⁶⁴

### Chapter 7. Common love is a perturbation of the blood

[VII.7] That this passion is in the blood is proved by this, that such a heat has no intervals of rest. Now a continuous fever is placed by the physicians in the blood; one that leaves six hours for rest, in phlegm; one that leaves a day, in bile; one that leaves two, in the humour of black bile. We are right, then, to place this passion in the blood: in melancholic blood, that is, as you heard in the speech of Socrates. This blood is always attended by a fixing of the contagion of the blood.

### Chapter 8. How lovers become like the beloved

[VII.8] Let none of you wonder, then, if he hears that some lover has taken on in his own body a certain likeness or figure of his beloved. Pregnant women often think intensely about the wine that they most greedily crave. Intense thought moves the inner spirits and paints in them the image of the thing thought of. The spirits move the blood in the same way, and press out the image of the wine on the very soft matter of the unborn child. But a lover craves his delights more ardently than pregnant women do, and thinks of them more intensely and more fixedly. What wonder if features so clinging and so fixed in the breast are painted by thought itself in the spirit, and by the spirit are at once fixed in the blood? Especially since in the veins of Lysias the very soft blood of Phaedrus has now been begotten, so that the face of Phaedrus can very easily shine out in his own blood.
[VII.8] And since the several members of the body, as they dry up every day, so every day revive when they have taken in the dew of nourishment, it follows that day by day each man's body, which has gradually dried out, is little by little remade. Now the members are remade by the blood that flows from the little streams of the veins. Will you wonder, then, if blood painted with a certain likeness imprints the same likeness on the members, so that at length Lysias seems to have become like Phaedrus in some of his colours or features, or feelings, or gestures?

### Chapter 9. By whom we are chiefly ensnared

[VII.9] Someone will perhaps ask by whom chiefly lovers are snared, and in what way, and how they are set free. Women, certainly, capture men easily; more easily those women who display a certain masculine character; and males so much the more easily, as they are more like men than women are, and have blood and spirit that is clearer, warmer and more subtle; and in this the snare of love consists. Among males, those fascinate men or women most swiftly who are above all sanguine, and in some part choleric, and who have large eyes, grey-blue and shining; and especially if they live chastely, and have not, by draining off the clear sap of the humours in intercourse, spoiled the serenity of their faces. For these things are required, as we touched on above, for sending out properly those very arrows that wound the heart.
[VII.9] Those too are quickly ensnared at whose birth Venus was in Leo, or the Moon strongly aspected Venus, and those who are endowed with the same complexion. The phlegmatic, in whom phlegm rules, never; the melancholic, in whom black bile rules, are indeed hardly caught; but once caught they are never afterwards set free. When a sanguine man binds a sanguine man, the yoke is light, the bond sweet; for a like complexion creates mutual love. The sweetness of this humour, moreover, gives the lover hope and confidence. When a choleric binds a choleric, the servitude is harder to bear. The likeness of complexion does produce some return of goodwill between them; but that fiery humour of bile troubles them with frequent anger.
[VII.9] When a sanguine binds a choleric, or the reverse, then because of the mingling of a sweet humour with a sharp one there comes a certain alternation of anger and favour, of pleasure and pain. When a sanguine ties a melancholic, the knot is perpetual but not most wretched; for the sweetness of the blood tempers the bitterness of melancholy. But when a choleric snares a melancholic, it is the most ruinous plague of all. The very sharp humour of the younger man slips everywhere into the inward parts of the older. A soft flame eats the marrow. The unhappy lover burns.⁶⁵ Choler provokes to anger and slaughter; melancholy to grief and perpetual complaint. For these the end of love is often the same as it was for Phyllis, Dido and Lucretius. But a phlegmatic or melancholic young man, because of the thickness of his blood and spirits, captures no one.

### Chapter 10. The manner of the ensnaring

[VII.10] In what way lovers are fascinated we seem to have said sufficiently above, if only we add this: that mortals are most of all fascinated when, by very frequent gazing, directing the edge of sight to the edge of sight, they join eyes to eyes and, poor wretches, drink in together a long draught of love. Of this disease, certainly, as Musaeus holds, the whole cause and origin is the eye.⁶⁶ So if anyone is strong in the brightness of his eyes, though he be less well composed in his other members, he more often drives those who look at him to insanity, in the way we have described. One who is disposed in the opposite way invites to a certain moderate goodwill rather than to burning.
[VII.10] The harmony of the other members, apart from the eyes, seems to have not the force of a cause for this sickness, but the push of an occasion. For such a composition urges the one who sees it from afar to come nearer; then, when he sees it close at hand, it holds him very long in the contemplation of itself. But it is the gaze alone that strikes him as he lingers. To that moderate love, however, which has a share in divinity, and which is for the most part the subject of this banquet, not the eye alone contributes as cause, but the concord and pleasantness of all the parts.

### Chapter 11. The cure of love

[VII.11] So far we have treated of how and by whom we are ensnared; it remains to teach in a few words how we are set free. Release is of two kinds: one by nature, the other by care. The natural release is that which is completed in fixed intervals of time; and it belongs not to this disease alone but to all. For an itch in the skin lasts just as long as the dregs of wasted blood remain strong in the veins, or the saltness of phlegm in the members. When the blood has been cleared of its dregs and the phlegm softened, the itch ceases and the foul blotches on the skin are done away. Yet timely care over the evacuation helps very much. A sudden evacuation, or anointing, is judged most dangerous.
[VII.11] The restlessness of lovers, too, necessarily persists as long as that infection of the blood, cast into the inward parts by fascination, remains there, weighs on the heart with heavy care, feeds the wound in the veins, and scorches the members with unseen flames. For the passage is from the heart into the veins, and from the veins into the members. When at last this infection is purged away, the restlessness of the lovers, or rather of the deranged, ceases. This requires a long space of time in everyone, but the longest in the melancholic, especially if they were ensnared under the influence of Saturn. And add that it is most bitter if they were enslaved when Saturn was retrograde, or in conjunction with Mars, or in opposition to the Sun. Those too are sick for a very long time in whose nativity Venus was in the house of Saturn, or strongly aspected Saturn and the Moon.
[VII.11] To this natural purging must be added the effort of the most careful art. We must take care above all not to try to pluck out or cut off what is not yet ripe, nor to tear apart at the greatest risk what we can more safely unstitch. There must be a break in their company. The greatest care must be taken that the light of eyes is not joined to the light of eyes. If there is any fault in the soul or body of the beloved, it must be carefully turned over in the soul. The soul must be applied to many, various and weighty affairs. Blood must often be let. Clear wine should be used, and sometimes even drunkenness, so that, the old blood being emptied out, new blood may come in, and new spirit. It is good to take exercise often, even to the point of sweating, so that through it the passages of the body may be opened for the purging. All those things, besides, that the physicians apply for the protection of the heart and the nourishment of the brain are of the greatest help. Lucretius also prescribes frequent intercourse:⁶⁷
[VII.11] But it is fitting to flee the images, and to drive away from oneself
the food of love, and to turn the mind elsewhere,
and to cast the gathered humour into any bodies whatever,
and not to hold back the seed, turned towards the love of one alone.

### Chapter 12. How harmful common love is

[VII.12] But lest by speaking longer about insanity we become insane ourselves, let us conclude briefly thus. That anxious care by which common lovers are tormented day and night is a form of insanity. While love lasts they are afflicted first by the burning of bile, then by the scorching of black bile; they rush into rage and fire, and like blind men do not know where they are being hurled. How ruinous this counterfeit love is, to the beloved as much as to the lovers, Lysias the Theban and Socrates show in Plato's Phaedrus.⁶⁸ By this frenzy, then, man is rolled down into the nature of a beast.

### Chapter 13. How useful divine love is, and on its four forms

[VII.13] But by divine frenzy he is raised above the nature of man and passes into God. Divine frenzy is an illumination of the rational soul, through which God draws the soul, fallen from the things above to the things below, back from the things below to the things above. The fall of the soul from the One itself, the principle of all things, to bodies is accomplished through four degrees: through Mind, reason, opinion and nature. For since in the whole order of things there are six degrees, of which the One itself holds the highest and body the lowest, while the middle ones are the four we have just named, whatever falls from the first to the last must fall through the four in between.
[VII.13] The One itself is the limit and measure of all things, free of confusion and of multitude. The Angelic Mind is a multitude of Ideas, indeed, but stable and eternal. The reason of the soul is a multitude of notions and arguments, in motion but ordered. Opinion is a disordered and moving multitude of images, yet one in substance and in point, since the soul itself, in which opinion is, is one substance occupying no place. Nature, that is, the power of nourishing that comes from the soul, and the complexion of the living body, is the same, except that it is spread through the points of the body. Body, lastly, is an undetermined multitude of parts and accidents, subject to motion, and divided in substance, in points and in moments.
[VII.13] Our soul looks towards all of these; through them it descends, and through them it ascends. For in so far as it is produced from the One itself, which is the principle of all things, it has been allotted a certain unity, which unites its whole essence, its powers and its operations; and everything else in the soul stands to this unity, coming from it and going to it, as the lines of a circle stand to the centre. And it unites not only the parts of the soul to one another and to the whole soul, but the whole soul to the One itself, the cause of all things.
[VII.13] In so far as it shines with the ray of the divine Mind, it contemplates the Ideas of all things through mind, in a stable act. In so far as it looks towards itself, it thinks the universal reasons of things, and runs by reasoning from principles to conclusions. In so far as it looks towards bodies, it turns over in opinion the particular forms and images of moving things, received through the senses. In so far as it touches matter, it uses nature as an instrument, by which it unites matter, moves it and forms it; and from this come generations, growths and their contraries. You see, then, that it falls from the One, which is above eternity, into eternal multitude; from eternity into time; from time into place and matter. It falls, I say, when, by embracing the body, it departs too far from that purity in which it was born.

### Chapter 14. By what degrees the divine frenzies raise the soul

[VII.14] Therefore, as it descends through four degrees, it must ascend through four. Now it is divine frenzy that lifts it to the things above, as was settled in its definition. There are, then, four forms of divine frenzy.⁶⁹ The first is the poetic frenzy; the second that of the mysteries; the third prophecy; the fourth is the affection of love. Poetry is from the Muses; mystery from Dionysus; prophecy from Apollo; love from Venus. For the soul cannot return to the One unless it is itself made one. But it has been made many, because it has fallen into the body, is divided among various operations, and looks towards the infinite multitude of bodily things. As a result its higher parts are almost asleep, and the lower rule over the others. The first are affected with torpor, the second with perturbation; and the whole soul is filled with discord and disharmony.
[VII.14] First, then, there is need of the poetic frenzy, to rouse by musical tones the parts that are torpid; to soothe by the sweetness of harmony those that are disturbed; and lastly, by the consonance of different things, to drive out dissonant discord and temper the various parts of the soul. Nor is this enough. For multitude and diversity still remain in the soul. So there is added the mystery that belongs to Dionysus, which by expiations and sacred rites and every kind of divine worship directs the attention of all the parts to the mind, by which God is worshipped. Hence, since the several parts of the soul have been brought back to the one mind, the soul has now been made a single whole out of many.
[VII.14] Besides this, there is need of a third frenzy, to lead the mind back to unity itself, the head of the soul. Apollo brings this about through prophecy. For when the soul rises above mind into unity, it foresees things to come. Finally, when the soul has been made one, that one, I mean, which is in the very nature and essence of the soul, it remains for it to recall itself at once to the One which is above essence, that is, to God. This the heavenly Venus accomplishes through love, that is, through the desire of divine beauty and the burning for the good. So the first frenzy tempers what is inharmonious and dissonant. The second makes what has been tempered into one whole out of parts. The third makes it one whole above parts. The fourth leads it to the One which is above essence and above the whole.
[VII.14] In the Phaedrus Plato calls the mind that is given to divine things the charioteer in the soul of man; the unity of the soul, the charioteer's head; reason and opinion, running through natural things, the good horse; confused phantasy and the appetite of the senses, the bad horse; the nature of the whole soul, the chariot, because its motion, as though circular, begins from itself and at last returns to itself when it observes its own nature; for there its consideration, setting out from the soul, comes back to the same soul. He gives the soul wings, by which it may be borne on high. One of them we take to be that search by which the mind strives constantly towards truth; the other the desire of the good, by which our will is always moved. These parts of the soul lose their order when they are thrown into confusion by the disturbance of the body.
[VII.14] So the first frenzy separates the good horse, that is, reason and opinion, from the bad horse, that is, from confused phantasy and the appetite of the senses. The second subjects the bad horse to the good, and the good to the charioteer, that is, to the mind. The third directs the charioteer towards his own head, that is, towards unity, the summit of the mind. The last turns the head of the charioteer towards the head of all things. There the charioteer is blessed; and halting his horses at the manger, that is, at the divine beauty, which is to say, bringing to it all the parts of the soul that are subject to him, he sets ambrosia before them, and after it nectar to drink: that is, the vision of beauty, and from the vision, joy. These are the works of the four frenzies. Plato discusses them in general in the Phaedrus; but the poetic frenzy in particular in the Ion, and the frenzy of love in the Symposium. That Orpheus was possessed by all these frenzies his books can bear witness. That Sappho, Anacreon and Socrates were seized above all by the frenzy of love, we have been told.

### Chapter 15. Love is more excellent than all these frenzies

[VII.15] The most powerful and most excellent of all is the frenzy of love. The most powerful, I say, because all the others necessarily need it. For we attain neither poetry nor the mysteries nor prophecy without immense zeal, burning piety and assiduous worship of the divine. And what else do we call zeal, piety and worship but love? All of them, therefore, stand by the power of love. It is also the most excellent, because the others are referred to this one as to their end. And it is this one that joins us most closely to God.
[VII.15] These four frenzies seem to be falsely imitated by as many counterfeit affections. The poetic, by that common music which merely flatters the ears. That of the mysteries, by the empty superstition of many men. The prophetic, by the deceitful conjecture of human skill. That of love, by the onrush of lust. For true love is nothing other than a certain striving to fly up to the divine beauty, roused by the sight of bodily beauty. But the counterfeit is a headlong fall from sight into touch.

### Chapter 16. How useful Socratic love is

[VII.16] You ask what good Socratic love does? First, it greatly helps Socrates himself to recover those wings by which he may fly back to his homeland. Then it greatly helps his city to live honourably and happily. It is not stones, certainly, but men that make a city. And men must be tended from a tender age, as trees are from their tenderer years, and guided towards the best fruit. Parents and tutors have the care of boys. But young men no sooner pass beyond the bounds of parents and tutors than they are corrupted by the evil company of the crowd. For they would follow the earlier rule of living that they drank in at home, were they not turned from it by familiarity and company with wicked men, especially those who flatter them.
[VII.16] What then will Socrates do? Will he allow youth, which is the seed of the republic to come, to be corrupted by the contagion of the shameless? But where then is charity towards his country? So Socrates will come to the aid of his country, and will free her sons, who are his brothers, from this ruin. Perhaps he will write laws to keep wanton men away from the company of the young. But we cannot all be Lycurguses or Solons. To few is given the authority to make laws; very few obey the laws once made. What then? Will he use force, and laying hands on them drive the older men away from the young? But Hercules alone is said to have fought with monsters; for everyone else such violence is most dangerous. Perhaps he will warn the wicked, rebuke them, reproach them. But a disturbed soul despises the words of one who warns it and, what is worse, rages against him. That is why Socrates, when he tried this, was struck by one man with a fist and by another with a heel.
[VII.16] One way of safety remains for the young: the company of Socrates. So that wisest of the Greeks, bound to the young by charity, mingles with them everywhere, and walks about with a great crowd of young men attending him. Thus the true lover, like a shepherd, guards his flock of lambs from the maw and the plague of false lovers, as from wolves. And since like most easily gathers with like, he makes himself the equal of the younger men in purity of life, simplicity of speech, games, jests and pleasantries. From an old man he makes himself a boy, above all so that by homely and pleasant familiarity he may one day make boys into old men. Youth, being prone to pleasure, is held by pleasure alone; it flees from stern teachers. Hence the guardian of our youth, for the safety of his country, neglects the management of his own affairs and takes up the care of the young; and first he catches them by the sweetness of pleasant company. When they are thus snared, he then warns them somewhat more severely. Last of all he chastises them with sterner censure.
[VII.16] In this way he redeemed the young Phaedo, who had been prostituted in a public brothel, from that misfortune, and made him a philosopher. Plato, who was given up to poetry, he compelled to commit his tragedies to the fire and to take up more precious studies. Xenophon he led over from common luxury to the sobriety of the wise. Aeschines and Aristippus he made rich from poor, Phaedrus a philosopher from an orator, Alcibiades most learned from ignorant. Charmides he made grave and modest; Theages a just and brave citizen in the republic. Euthydemus and Meno he carried over from the quibbles of the sophists to true wisdom. So it came about that the company of Socrates was not so much pleasant as useful, and that Socrates, as Alcibiades says, was loved by the young men much more ardently than he loved.

### Chapter 17. How thanks are to be given to the Holy Spirit, who has illumined and kindled us for this disputation

[VII.17] And now, excellent guests, we seem to have happily discovered, first from your discourse and then from mine, what love is, who the true lover is, and what the usefulness of the lover is. But be sure of this: the cause and teacher of this most happy discovery was without doubt that same Love who has been discovered. For it was when we were kindled, so to speak, by the love of finding love that we sought love and found him; so that thanks are owed to the same one for the seeking and the finding alike.
[VII.17] O wonderful magnificence of this god! O incomparable kindness of Love! For the other gods show themselves at last, and scarcely, and for a little while, after you have long sought them; Love comes to meet even those who are only about to seek him. For this reason men confess that they owe far more to him than to the others. There are those who often dare to curse the divine Power, which hurls its thunderbolts at our crimes. Some even hate Wisdom, which searches out all our shameful deeds. But Love, the giver of all divine goods, we cannot fail to love. As for us, we shall worship this Love, who is so gracious to us, with such a mind that we revere Wisdom and stand in awe of Power; so that, with Love as our guide, we may have the whole of God, so to speak, gracious to us, and, loving the whole with the ardour of love, may also enjoy the whole of God in perpetual love.

## Notes

[1] Lysias was an Athenian orator of Syracusan descent; "of Thebes" is Ficino's slip. The speech is Phaedrus 230e–234c; Socrates by the Ilissus, 229a and 237a onward.
[2] The ancient report that the Phaedrus was Plato's first dialogue is in Diogenes Laertius 3.38.
[3] Orphic Argonautica, about lines 419–425; the three epithets render the Greek of line 424.
[4] Hesiod, Theogony 116–120; Parmenides fr. 13 DK; Acusilaus. All three are cited by Phaedrus at Symposium 178b.
[5] Dicaearchus' charge against Plato is reported by Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.71.
[6] Symposium 179b–180b. Plato makes Achilles the beloved who dies for his lover Patroclus; Ficino turns it round.
[7] Virgil, Eclogues 8.75.
[8] The Orphic verse on Zeus as beginning, middle and end is alluded to by Plato at Laws IV, 715e, and quoted in the pseudo-Aristotelian On the World 7 (401a–b).
[9] Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names IV.14, on love as an everlasting circle moving from the Good, through the Good, to the Good; the extracts from Hierotheus's Hymns of Love follow at IV.15–17. Ficino's sentence is a summary, not a quotation.
[10] The comparison of God to the sun is in Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names IV.1 and IV.4; Plato's is at Republic VI, 507b–509b.
[11] Plato, Second Letter 312e–313a. The Latin is Ficino's own version, which chapter 4 expounds phrase by phrase.
[12] The Latin has the accusatives Oromasin, Mithrin, Arimanin. The three are named together, with Mithras as the mediator, in Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 46 (369d–e).
[13] Symposium 180d–e: the elder, motherless Aphrodite, daughter of Uranus (Heaven), called Heavenly, and the younger, daughter of Zeus and Dione, called Common (Pandemos).
[14] The word γλυκύπικρον, "sweet-bitter", is best known from Sappho (fr. 130 Lobel–Page), who uses it of Eros. Ficino's ascription of it to Orpheus has not been traced here.
[15] Damon and Phintias, the Pythagorean friends at Syracuse: Cicero, De officiis III.45. Orestes and Pylades as the pattern of friendship: Cicero, De amicitia 24.
[16] Symposium 184c–e, where Pausanias describes the meeting of the lover, who can contribute to wisdom and virtue, with the beloved, who needs to acquire education and wisdom.
[17] Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names IV.15, where Dionysius quotes the Hymns of Love of his teacher Hierotheus.
[18] Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names IV.10.
[19] De regno is Ficino's title for Plato's Statesman; the reference is to the myth of the turning of the heaven (269c–273e), where the world is said to be moved by an inborn desire (272e).
[20] Empedocles' doctrine of Love and Strife, which combine and separate the elements. Ficino calls him a Pythagorean.
[21] Orphic Hymns 58 (to Eros), line 8. The Greek word Ficino renders habenas, "reins", is οἴηκα, "helm" or "tiller".
[22] For the two kinds of music see Republic III, 398c–399e, and the discussions of music in Laws II and VII. Urania and Polymnia are named at Symposium 187d–e.
[23] Orphic Hymns 58 (to Eros), line 4.
[24] Augustine, The City of God XVI.2, where the image of the plough also stands: only the share cuts the earth, but the other parts of the plough are needed for it to do so.
[25] Plato, Letter II (to Dionysius), 312e.
[26] Plato, Phaedrus 247a.
[27] Plato, Philebus 20d and 60c: the good is perfect and sufficient and lacks nothing.
[28] "Our hero" appears to be Giovanni Cavalcanti, who spoke in the earlier speeches; the same reference recurs in chapter 8.
[29] Orphic Hymns 60 (to the Graces), line 3. Ficino's Latin for the three names follows.
[30] Virgil, Aeneid 6.129: "hoc opus, hic labor est."
[31] Orphic Hymns 3 (to Night), line 11.
[32] Orphic Hymns 55 (to Aphrodite), lines 5–7. Ficino's Latin also renders the words "and in the depth of the sea" that follow in the hymn, though the print stops the Greek one phrase earlier.
[33] Ch. 1. The print reads Prodico Chio, literally "of Chios". The sophist meant is Prodicus of Ceos, and the translation gives his usual name.
[34] Ch. 1. The wording echoes Virgil, Aeneid 6.258.
[35] Ch. 4. The descent of souls from the Milky Way through Cancer is the doctrine of Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.12.
[36] Ch. 5. Plato, Phaedrus 252c–253c.
[37] Ch. 8. Plato, Symposium 202d.
[38] Ch. 9. The story of Lucretius' love-madness and suicide comes from Jerome's addition to the Chronicle of Eusebius.
[39] Ch. 9. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 7.14, 1154b.
[40] Ch. 9. The last words echo Virgil, Aeneid 1.464.
[41] Ch. 9. The Aristotelian Problems 30.1, 953a.
[42] Ch. 9. The sentence adapts Propertius 2.12.3–4, on the painter who first drew Love as a boy.
[43] Ch. 10. Virgil, Aeneid 1.150.
[44] Ch. 10. Plato, Protagoras 309a.
[45] Ch. 10. Virgil, Eclogues 2.65.
[46] Ch. 10. Persius, Satires 5.53.
[47] Ch. 10. This paragraph and the next borrow phrases from Virgil: Aeneid 4.701 (the changing colours), 5.743 (the sleeping fires) and 4.4 (the faces fixed in the breast).
[48] Chapter 11, "as Plato says": Symposium 207d–208b, which the whole paragraph follows closely.
[49] Chapter 12: Ficino names the title characters of the Phaedo, Theaetetus and Meno. In the Meno (82b–85b) the one questioned is Meno's slave boy, not Meno.
[50] Chapter 13: Republic VI, 507b–509b, the comparison of the Good to the sun.
[51] Chapter 14: Laws VIII, 838e–839a.
[52] Chapter 15: probably Aristotle, De anima I 3, against the self-moving soul. The first motion placed in the soul is from Phaedrus 245c–e and Laws X, 894b–896b.
[53] Chapter 15: Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names, chapter 13, on "One" as a name of God.
[54] Chapter 18: the prayer that closes the Phaedrus (279b–c). There it is spoken by Socrates and addressed to Pan and the other gods of the place; Ficino gives it to Plato himself and addresses it to God.
[55] Guido Cavalcanti's canzone Donna me prega; the mirror, the "dark" place where memory is, and the two loves are Ficino's Latin paraphrase of it.
[56] The references to Plato named in this chapter appear to be: Phaedrus 229a (Socrates always barefoot); Gorgias 490e–491a (Callicles on his homely talk of cobblers and fullers); Protagoras 309a (the hunt for Alcibiades' beauty); Theages 128d–129e (those who acted against the warning); Apology 29c–d (he will not stop philosophising); Symposium 215b–216a (Marsyas and Olympus), 219e–220e (Potidaea), 221e (the rough words).
[57] Phaedrus 265a: two kinds of madness, one from human sickness, one from a divine release from custom.
[58] Suetonius, Augustus 79 and Tiberius 68.
[59] Aristotle, On Dreams (De insomniis) 2, 459b–460a.
[60] Apuleius, Metamorphoses 10.3 (the stepmother to her stepson).
[61] Lucretius, De rerum natura 4.1059–1060. Ficino's text reads Hinc in te primum, where editions of Lucretius read hinc illaec primum.
[62] Lucretius 4.1048–1051.
[63] Lucretius 4.1052–1056 and 4.1108–1114, run together as one passage.
[64] The story of Artemisia is in Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 10.18.
[65] Unmarked phrases of Virgil: here Aeneid 4.66 and 4.68 (of Dido); in chapter 8, Aeneid 4.4 ("features fixed in the breast"); in chapter 10, Aeneid 1.749 ("drank a long draught of love"); in chapter 11, Aeneid 4.1–2 ("heavy care", "feeds the wound in the veins", "unseen fire"); in chapter 12, Georgics 3.244 ("rush into rage and fire"); in chapter 16, Aeneid 2.40 ("a great crowd attending").
[66] Musaeus, Hero and Leander, the lines on the eye as the road by which beauty reaches the heart (about lines 92–98).
[67] Lucretius 4.1063–1066. Ficino's text has semen conversum, where editions of Lucretius read semel conversum.
[68] Phaedrus 230e–234c (the speech of Lysias) and 237b–241d (the first speech of Socrates).
[69] Phaedrus 244a–245c and 265b for the four frenzies and their gods; 246a–b for the charioteer, the horses and the wings; 247e for the manger, ambrosia and nectar; 248a for the charioteer's head.