The Banquet — Plato
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ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΟΝ
Translation/edition: Floyer Sydenham, ed. Thomas Taylor (1804)
Language: English
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## The Banquet¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ ⁷

[172a] Apollodorus: The affair concerning which ye inquire I think myself now not quite unprepared to relate to you. For it happened⁸ a few days since, as I was walking up to the city from my house at Phalerus⁹, that an acquaintance of mine, who was going the same way, seeing me at a considerable distance before him, called out to me; and by way of joke¹⁰ at the same time said, Apollodorus, you Phalerean, will not you stop a while till I come up to you? Upon which I stopped, and stayed for him. [172b] As soon as he had joined me, Apollodorus, said he, I was just now inquiring after you; from a desire I have to be thoroughly acquainted with what passed in the conversation between Agatho, and Socrates, and Alcibiades, and the rest who were of the party, at an entertainment where the subject of their discourse was Love. I should be glad to be informed by you what was said on the occasion. For the person who gave me some account of it, such as he received from Phœnix the son of Philippus, told me that you knew every particular: but that, as to himself, he did not pretend to be at all perfect or exact in his relation. Do you then give me an account of it yourself; for you have the best right to relate a conversation in which an intimate friend of your own had the most distinguished share. But first, said he, tell me, were you yourself one of the company?
[172b] —It appears plainly, said I, indeed, that your author by no means gave you an exact account of the circumstances of that conversation, if you suppose it passed so lately as to admit a possibility of my being of the company.
[172c] —Really I imagined so, replied he.
[172c] — How could it be, said I, Glauco? Do you not know that Agatho has not been at Athens for these many years? whereas it is not yet three since I first became a follower of Socrates, and began, as I have continued ever since, daily to observe and study all his sayings and actions. Before that time, running about here and there, wherever chance led me, and fancying myself all the while well employed, no mortal was in so wretched a condition as I: [172e] it was such as you are in at present, who give every study and every pursuit the preference to that of philosophy.
[173a] —Leave off railing, said he, and tell me when that conversation happened.
[173a] —Before we wrote ourselves men, replied I. It was at the time when Agatho brought his first tragedy upon the stage, and won the prize with it. It was the very next day after that himself and his chrous-singers¹¹ had offered the usual thanksgiving-sacrifice for his victory.
[173a] —It is then, said he, a long time since, it seems. But who was it, continued he, that related the conversation to you? Was it Socrates himself?
[173b] —Not Socrates, by Jupiter, replied I; but the same person who related it to Phœnix. It was one Aristodemus, a Cydathenian¹², a man of remarkably low stature¹³, who always went barefoot¹⁴. He was of the party; being one of those who at that time were the most attached to the person and company of Socrates. Not but that I asked Socrates himself concerning some of the particulars reported by Aristodemus; and he allowed they were reported justly.
[173b] —Why then, said Glauco, should not you favour me with that relation? The way to the city is perfectly convenient for people to converse together, as they go along.
[173c] —Upon which we resumed our walk, and entered into the relation which my friend desired. So that I am now, as I said, not quite unprepared upon the subject. If then I am to relate that affair over again to you, so it must be. Besides, I must own, that when I am discoursing myself, or hearing the discourse of others, upon philosophical subjects, abstracted from the consideration of improvement, I am beyond measure delighted. But when I hear conversation of any other kind, especially the usual discourse between you rich people, who are still contriving to heap up money, I feel a tediousness in myself, and a concern for you my friends, who imagine you are employing your time to good purpose, while you are only trifling. On the other hand, it is possible you may think that I lead an unhappy life; and I believe those thoughts of yours are just: but as to you, I do not say that I believe, for I know, the state which you are in to be unhappy.
[173d] Friend: You are always the same man, Apollodorus, always railing at yourself and the whole world. You seem to me as if you absolutely thought all men wretched, and yourself in the first place; excepting none but Socrates. Whence you acquired the surname of the madman¹⁵, for my part I know not: for, in your discourse, you are always the same as you are now, severe upon yourself and all other people,—Socrates alone excepted.
[173e] Apollodorus: My dearest friend, it is evident enough now, that the entertaining such notions of myself, and of all you, proves me beyond question out of my senses and a madman.
[173e] Friend: It is not worth the while, Apollodorus, to dispute about this at present. Only do what I desired of you, and give me an account of the speeches made at that banquet.
[174a] Apollodorus: The speeches then were as follows:—But I had better, I think, give you the whole history of that affair from the beginning, just as Aristodemus gave it me. For he told me, that he met Socrates fresh out of the bath, and perfectly clean, a condition which he was not in very often; [174b] wearing on his feet likewise a handsome pair of slippers¹⁶, a part of dress which he used only on rare occasions: and that upon asking him, whither he was going, that he had made himself so spruce and fine, Socrates told him, he was going to Agatho’s house to sup with him. For yesterday at the sacrifice, said he, I quitted his company, for fear of the crowd; but promised to be with him to-day. Now thus fine have I made myself, that I may visit so honourable and fine a person in a manner not unbecoming. But what think you, said he, Aristodemus, of going to supper there yourself, without invitation? How do you find yourself disposed upon that point?—And I replied, said Aristodemus, that I was entirely at his disposal.—Follow me then, said Socrates; to corrupt the old proverb¹⁷, by altering it,—and proving, that
[174b] When made by worthy men are feasts,
The worthy go, unbidden guests.
[174b] Homer, before us, seems not merely to have corrupted, but to have offered violence to the proverb, by reversing it. For, notwithstanding that he describes Agamemnon as a man excellent in all military virtues, and Menelaus as a man weak in arms, who
[174b] ¹⁸ Failed of manly force
To fling the well-aimed javelin;
[174b] yet, on occasion of a sacrifice and feast made by Agamemnon, he has brought Menelaus to the banquet uninvited¹⁹, a meaner man to the banquet of his betters.—Perhaps I too, replied Aristodemus, on hearing this, shall incur the imputation of a conduct, not, Socrates, such a one as you have supposed, but like that in Homer, if I go to the banquet of a man of great abilities, without being intitled to it either by merit or invitation. Will you, therefore, if you lead me thither, make an apology for so doing? for, as to myself, I shall not confess my coming without invitation, but shall plead that I was invited by you.—Well, says Socrates,
[174c] ²⁰With social steps, companions of the way,
[174d] as we walk along, we will consult together what speech to make. But come, let us be going.
[174d] —After this little talk together, he said, on they went. But in the way, Socrates musing, and attentive to something in his own mind, was outwalked by him; and, observing him to stop, bid him walk on. When he was come to Agatho’s house, the door of which was open, an incident, he said, happened, which put him into some confusion. For a servant, who was coming out, meeting him there upon the spot, led him directly to the banquet-room, where he found the company just going to supper. Immediately Agatho, on seeing him enter the room, said,—Aristodemus, you are come very opportunely to sup with us. But if any other purpose brings you hither, defer it to another time. I was looking about for you in the temple yesterday, with intention to desire your company, and could not see you. But how came you not to bring us Socrates with you?
[174e] —Upon which I looked back, said he, but could no where see Socrates following me, as I had imagined. However, I declared I came along with Socrates, upon his invitation hither to supper.
[174e] —You did well, said Agatho; but where is he then himself?
[175a] —He was following me in but just now, said I; and for my part, I wonder where he can be.
[175a] —Boy, said Agatho to one of his servants, will you go and see if you can find Socrates, and conduct him in?
[175a] — Then, turning to me, Do you, Aristodemus, said he, take your place next to Eryximachus. And immediately he ordered a servant to come and wash my feet clean²¹, that I might take my place upon the couch²². Just then the boy who had been sent out returned, and told us, that Socrates had with- drawn himself into the porch of some neighbouring house, and was there standing; and when I called to him, said the boy, he refused to come.
[175a] — Absurd! said Agatho: go and call him again; and do not leave him in that manner.
[175b] —But Aristodemus told me, that he himself opposed it, and desired that Socrates might be let alone, for that it was usual with him so to do. As he goes along he will sometimes stop, said he, without regarding where, and stand still a while. I make no doubt but he will be here presently. Let me entreat you, therefore, not to disturb him, but leave him at quiet.
[175b] —Be it so then, if you think it best, said Agatho; but let the rest of us, however, proceed to supper.
[175b] —Then, turning to his servants, Boys, said he, serve us up something or other; it is left to you what, for there is nobody to give you any particular directions: you know it is not my way on these occasions.
[175b] —You are now to suppose me and these gentlemen, my friends here, invited by you to supper: entertain us handsomely, therefore, that you may have our commendations.
[175b] —Immediately upon this, he said, they went to supper; [175c] but Socrates was still missing. Agatho²³, therefore, would every now and then be giving orders to his people to call Socrates in; but I, said he, constantly opposed it. At length Socrates, having staid away, as usual, not very long, entered; about the time, at furthest, when supper was half over. Agatho then, who lay on the couch at the lower end of the table, alone, said, Come hither, Socrates, and lay yourself down by me; that, by being close to you, I may have the benefit of that piece of wisdom²⁴, which you made a new acquisition of in the porch. For it is plain that you found it, and are in possession; otherwise you would never have desisted from the pursuit.
[175d] —Socrates then, sitting down on the couch, said, It would be well, Agatho, if wisdom were a thing of such a nature, as to pass from those who abound with it into such as want it, when they sit close to one another, and are in contact; like water running through the wool²⁵ out of the fuller vessel into the emptier. If this quality attend wisdom, I shall set a high value upon partaking of your couch: for I shall expect to have wisdom flow into me from you in great quantity, and of a kind which appears the fairest. As for the little which I have, it must be mean and trivial²⁶, doubtful and questionable, seeming but a dream²⁷. But the wisdom²⁸ you are master of is splendid, and promises a future great increase of brightness, having already in the morning of your age shone out with so much glory; as more than thirty thousand Grecians, before whom it appeared²⁹ the other day, can witness.
[175e] —You are a joker, Socrates, said Agatho. But this controversy between us about our wisdoms shall be tried by and by, and Bacchus shall decide the cause. At present, turn your thoughts to the table.
[176a] —Upon this, he told me, Socrates reclined himself, and made his supper. After he and the rest of them had done, performed their libations, sung the praises of the God, and gone through the other usual ceremonies, they were beginning to sit-in to drinking; when Pausanias, he said, opened the conversation thus:
[176a] —Well, gentlemen, said he, what method shall we take to find most pleasure in our bottles to-night? For my own part, I confess to you that last night’s debauch sits very heavy upon me, and I want a little respite. I imagine too that many more of us are in the same condition, such as were here at the entertainment yesterday. Consider, therefore, what way is the best to make drinking agreeable and easy to us.
[176a] —Aristophanes then said, It is a good proposal of yours, Pausanias, in my opinion, this, that we should by all means procure ourselves an easy drinking-bout. For I am one of those who were well soaked yesterday.
[176b] —Upon hearing this, Eryximachus the son of Acumenus said, Both of you say well. But I should be glad to be informed about one other person, and that is Agatho; in what condition of strength he finds himself with regard to drinking.
[176b] —I am by no means very strong at present myself neither, said Agatho.
[176c] —It is lucky for us, said Eryximachus, for me, and Aristodemus, and Phædrus, and the rest of us here, if you fail and are disabled, you stout men at the bottle. For we are at all times weak in that respect. Socrates, indeed, I except; for he is equally well qualified to drink, or to let it alone. So that he will be satisfied, and ready to comply, whichever course we take. Since none of the company, therefore, seem inclined to drink hard, I may be the less displeasing, perhaps, if I speak the truth about this matter in plain terms. For I have been convinced myself, from the experience acquired in our profession, that hard drinking is usually attended with ill consequences. For which reason, I should neither choose to venture far in drinking myself, nor advise it to any other person, especially when oppressed with the load of the last night’s debauch.
[176d] —As for me, said Phædrus, addressing himself to Eryximachus, I am accustomed to hearken to your advice in every thing, especially in what relates to your own profession: but now I find all the rest of the company are in the same complying disposition.
[176e] —This they all assented to, and agreed not to make the present meeting a debauch; but to drink, every man, just as much as might be agreeable to him.
[176e] —This point then being determined, said Eryximachus, that we are to drink at our own pleasure, and that no compulsion is to be used; the next thing I have to offer is this, that the piper-girl³⁰, who has just entered the room, may be dismissed, to pipe to herself, or, if she pleases, to the women in the inner rooms; and that we enjoy one another this evening in the way of conversation. The manner and the subject, I am ready, if you permit me, to propose.
[177a] —To this they all unanimously gave consent, and desired him to propose accordingly.
[177a] —Eryximachus then said, I shall begin my proposal after the manner of Euripides in his prologue to the Melanippe, for
[177a] The tale I have to tell is not my own³¹;
[177a] I have it from Phædrus here. For Phædrus is continually saying to me, with an air of indignation, Is it not astonishing, says he, Eryximachus, that the poets have made hymns and odes in honour of some other of the Deities; and yet not one poet, amongst so many in every age, has ever composed a panegyric upon Love; but the praises of a God so powerful, and of so excellent a nature, to this day remain unsung? The same complaint I have to make against the sophists: the best of whom, as you will find, have, in their prosaic compositions, made encomiums on Hercules, and other great and illustrious persons; as the celebrated Prodicus³² has done, for instance. [177b] This, however, is not greatly to be wondered at. But I have lately met with a treatise, written by one of those wise men, containing a high panegyric upon salt on account of its utility³³. And many other things of as little worth you may see set off with great encomiums³⁴. That so much pains should be bestowed upon subjects so mean, and yet that no man should ever to this day have undertaken to give Love his due praises, but that so great a God has been neglected to such a degree, is it not astonishing? Now Phædrus, in all this, which I have repeated from his mouth, seems to me to plead well. I should be glad, therefore, to have him gratified, and to contribute my share to his gratification. [177c] Besides that I think it highly becoming this assembly to decorate with all possible honours the Deity of Love. If all of you then are of the same opinion with me, we may spend our time agreeably enough to-night in discoursing. For my proposal is, that every man of us should deliver an oration in praise of Love³⁵, as proper and handsome a one as he is able, the right hand way down; and that Phædrus should take the lead, as he is at the upper end, and is, besides, the father and founder of the argument.
[177d] —You may be assured, Eryximachus, said Socrates, that none of us will put a negative on your proposal. For by no means ever should I, who pretend not to the knowledge of any other matters than those which belong to Love³⁶: neither would Agatho, nor Pausanias: no more will Aristophanes, without dispute; for his whole time is taken up about Bacchus and Venus: nor indeed will any other person whom I see present. We indeed, who sit lowest, and are to speak last, shall have the disadvantage. However, if the prior speakers speak well and fully to the point, we shall desire nothing more. Let Phædrus then, with our best wishes to attend him, begin, and make his panegyric upon Love.
[177e] —To this all the rest of the company consented, and joined with Socrates in the encouraging Phædrus to begin. Now what was said by each of the several speakers Aristodemus did not perfectly remember; neither can I, indeed, all that he told me: but the speeches of those whom I looked on as the most considerable persons, and every thing which I thought most worth remembering, I will endeavour to relate to you distinctly.
[178a] He told me then, that Phædrus, in compliance with the request made him, spoke first; and began somewhat in this way, with saying—

### The Speech of Phædrus

[178a] That Love was powerful³⁷, and wonderfully great, both on earth and amongst the Gods: that superior dignity belonged to him on many accounts, but especially with regard to his generation.—For to be one of the eldest of the Gods, said he, is a circumstance redounding highly to his honour. And that he enjoys this advantage, appears in that he had no parents³⁸; and that never any writer, whether uninspired or poet, pretended that he had. But Hesiod says,
[178b] Chaos was first produced; Earth rose the next,
Wide-bosom’d, a fix’d seat secure to all
For ever yielding; and with her rose Love.
[178c] Here the poet tells us, that next after Chaos were born these two, Earth and Love. Parmenides relates the generation thus,
[178c] First from th’ eternal council forth came Love,
First of the Gods.——
[178c] Acusilaus says the same thing with Hesiod. On so many different hands³⁹ is it agreed, that Love is among the most antient of the Gods. And as he is thus of highest antiquity in the nature of things, so is he the cause of the greatest good to human kind. For to young persons, at their first setting out in life, I know no greater good than love; to the party beloved, if she has a worthy lover; or to the lover himself, if his mistress be worthy: because that, which should be our leading principle in order to right conduct in every circumstance of life, consanguinity has not the power to excite in us, neither have honours, nor riches, nor aught else, so effectually as love. The principle I mean is the sense of shame attending a base conduct, together with a sense of honour in the doing what is honourable. For, without such a principle, no civil community nor private person can execute any thing great or noble. In confirmation of this, I take upon me to assert that if a man in love be found committing a base action, or suffering base usage from any, through cowardice, or without taking his revenge, he is not in so much pain at being seen by his father, by his intimates, or by any other person, as at being seen by his mistress. The same effect we see it has upon the party beloved, to be more ashamed of her lover’s sight than of the eyes of the whole world, if she be discovered doing aught dishonourable. [178d] If, therefore, there could be any contrivance to have a city or an army composed of lovers and their beloved, the interest of the whole could not be promoted by any better way than this; [178e] in which every individual would have a care not to behave basely, and a zeal to behave nobly, excited by a desire to gain the good opinion of some other. Such a people fighting side by side in battle, a handful of them would conquer, I could almost say, the world. [179a] For a lover deserting his rank, or throwing down his arms, would less endure to be seen by his beloved than by all mankind. Rather than bear this, he would choose to die a thousand deaths: so would he, rather than forsake the defence of his beloved⁴⁰, or rather than forbear flying to her aid, if she had fallen into danger. There is not any man such a dastard, whom Love himself would not inspire, and make an enthusiast in virtue: so that he should become equal to a man born with a disposition the most excellent. For what Homer says of certain of his heroes, that some God inspired them with a force resistless⁴¹, this in reality Love does to lovers; such an effect being produced in them by Love alone. And then to die for another, only lovers are ready; not only men, but women too. A signal instance of this appears in the daughter of Pelias, Alcestis; who, as the story goes among the Grecians, undertook to reprieve her husband’s life by her own death, when no other mortal could be found, willing to die for him⁴², though he had both a father and a mother then living.
[179b] But Love wrought in her heart an affection for him so far surpassing theirs, that she proved them to be, in comparison with herself, strangers to his blood, and in name only his relations. [179c] When, therefore, she had executed her undertaking, the Gods themselves, as well as men, deemed the achievement so singularly noble, that out of many persons, eminent for many virtues, she was added to the number of those select few distinguished by being restored to life again after death as a reward for their distinguished excellence: for to her also was her departed soul sent back again by the Gods, admiring at the heroic greatness of her resolution. So much do they encourage us to make love our care, by bestowing superior honours on all such as exercise upon that subject in particular superior virtue. [179d] But Orpheus the son of Oeager the Gods dismissed from those invisible regions, without granting him to succeed in the purpose of his journey thither; showing him only the phantom of his wife, but not restoring to him the reality: for that he appeared effeminate and cowardly, suitable to his profession, that of a mere fidler; not daring to die for the sake of love, like Alcestis; but contriving actually to go alive to the other world. For this did the Gods assign him an adequate punishment, ordaining his death to be by women. [179e] In a very different way disposed they of Achilles, the son of Thetis, in sending him to the islands of the blest: because, though he had heard from the goddess his mother⁴³, that he must soon die himself after he had slain Hector—but that, if he slew not Hector, he should return home and live to a good old age,—he dared to make death his choice; not only hazarding his life in aid of his friend Patroclus, as ready to die that he might save him, but afterwards avenging his death at the expence of his own life, as resolute not to survive him. This exalted virtue of his the Gods paid a singular regard to; and rewarded with their choicest favours the regard which he had shown to friendship, in setting so high a value on the man who admired and loved him. [180a] For Æschylus talks idly, when he says that Achilles was the admirer of Patroclus; Achilles, whose excellence, though he was but in the dawn of manhood, surpassed not only Patroclus, but all the other Grecian heroes. True it is, that the Gods confer superior honours on all virtue, to the exercise of which love and friendship minister occasion: but they more wonder, more approve, and bestow greater rewards, where the person admired feels all the force of friendship and affection for the admirer, than where the noblest offices of friendship are performed by the other party. For the admirer has more of divinity in him than the person admired, as being full of the God who inspires and possesses him. For this cause did the Gods reward Achilles with a higher degree of happiness than they did Alcestis; for to her they gave only a second life on earth, but to the hero they assigned his mansion in the islands of the blest. [180b] Thus have I performed my part, in asserting Love to be the eldest in age and of highest dignity amongst the Gods; and to be in a peculiar manner the author of virtue and happiness to all of human kind, whilst they continue in life, and when departed.
[180c] Such, Aristodemus told me, was the discourse made by Phædrus. After Phædrus, spoke some others, whose speeches, he said, he did not well remember: omitting these, therefore, he repeated next that of Pausanias, who began thus:—

### The Speech of Pausanias

[180c] In my opinion, Phædrus, the subject was not fairly and distinctly set before us, when it was proposed in general terms, that we should make encomiums upon Love. This, indeed, would have been right, were there but one Love, or if Love were but of one kind. But since the truth is otherwise, the better way is to declare first, which Love it is our present business to praise. To put this matter, therefore, on a right footing, I shall, in the first place, distinguish that Love whose praises we ought to celebrate; and then do my best to celebrate them myself, in a manner worthy of his Deity. [180d] We all know that it is the office of Love to attend always upon Venus. If then there were only one Venus, there had been no occasion for more than one Love. But since there are two Venuses, there must of necessity be two Loves. For it is undeniable, that two different Goddesses⁴⁴ there are, each of whom is a Venus: one of them elder, who had no mother, and was born only from Uranus, or Heaven, her father; she is called the celestial Venus: the other, younger, daughter of Jupiter and Dione; and to her we give the name of the vulgar Venus. Agreeably to this account, it is proper to call that Love who attends on the latter Venus by the name of the vulgar Love, the other by the name of the celestial. [180e] All the Gods, indeed, it is our duty to honour with our praises: but we ought to distinguish, as well as we are able, each by his peculiar attributes; that we may give to each his due praise. For every action or operation is attended with this condition: [181a] the doing it, considered simply in itself, is neither base nor honourable: as for instance, every one of the things⁴⁵ we are now doing, drinking, singing, or discoursing, is in itself a matter of indifference; but the manner of doing it determines the nature of the thing. Rightly performed, it is right and honourable; performed in a wrong manner, it is wrong and dishonourable. So likewise, not every Love is generous or noble, or merits high encomiums; but that Love only who prompts and impels men to love generously and nobly. The attendant of the vulgar Venus is a Love truly vulgar, suffering himself to be employed in any the meanest actions: [181b] and this Love it is who inspires the mean and the worthless. Those who are the most addicted to this love, are, in the first place, the least disposed to friendship; in the next place, they are more enamoured of the bodies than of the minds of their paramours; and besides, they choose from the objects of their passion the silliest creatures they can light on: for, confining their views to the gratification of their passion by the act of enjoyment, they are regardless in what manner they gratify it, whether basely or honourably. Hence it comes, that in the pursuit of their loves, and afterwards in the enjoyment, they are equally ready for any action which offers itself, whether good or bad, indifferently. [181c] For the Love who inspires them is born of that younger Venus, in whose generation there is a mixture of the male and the female; whence it is that she partakes of both. But the other Love is sprung from the celestial Venus; from her whose properties are these:—in the first place, she partakes not of the female, but of the male only; whence she is the parent of friendship: then, she is in age the elder, and a stranger to brutal lust; and hence it happens, that as many as are inspired by this love addict themselves to friendship, conceiving an affection for that which by nature is of greater strength and understanding. [181d] Now, whether the man who is under the influence of love feels the genuine impulse of this generous affection, is easy to discern. For, if so, he fixes not his love on any person who is not arrived at the maturity of her understanding. But, commencing their loves from this date, one may well presume them duly qualified, both of them, to live together throughout life, partners in all things. Nor is the lover likely in this case to act like one who, after discovering some childish folly in the person he has chosen, exposes her, and turns her into ridicule, forfeits his faith to her and forsakes her, and attaches himself to a new mistress. [181e] To prevent this, there ought to be a law, that no man should make choice of too young a person for the partner of his bed; because, what so young a person may hereafter prove, whether good or bad, either in mind or body, the event is so uncertain. Men of virtue indeed themselves to themselves make this a law: but upon those vulgar lovers we should put a public restraint of this kind; in the same manner as we restrain them, as much as possible, from entering into amorous intrigues with any women above the rank of servitude. For they are of this sort of lovers, they who bring upon their mistresses reproach and shame; and have given occasion to that verse of one of the poets, in which he has dared to vilify the power of Love, by pronouncing,
[182a] ’Tis loss of honour to the fair
To yield, and grant the lover’s prayer.
[182a] But he said this only with a view to lovers of this kind, from seeing their untimely haste and eagerness, their ingratitude and injustice. For certainly no action governed by the rules of justice and of decency can any way merit blame. Now, the rules concerning love established in other states are easy to be understood, as being plain and simple; but our own laws, and those of Sparta upon this head, are complex and intricate. For in Elis⁴⁶, and amongst the Bœotians, and in every other Grecian state where the arts of speaking flourish not, the law⁴⁷ in such places absolutely makes it honourable to gratify the lover; nor can any person there, whether young or old, stain such a piece of conduct with dishonour: the reason of which law, I presume, is to prevent the great trouble they would otherwise have in courting the fair, and trying to win them by the arts of oratory, arts in which they have no abilities. [182b] But in Ionia, and many other places⁴⁸, and in all barbarian countries universally, the same conduct is ordained and held to be dishonourable. For the tyrannical governments under which the people of those countries live, discountenance that way of mutual love, and bring it into disrepute. But the same fate in those countries attends philosophy, or the love of wisdom; as it does no less the love of manly exercises. And the reason, I presume, in all these cases is the same; it is not the interest of the rulers there to have their subjects high-spirited or high-minded; nor to suffer strong friendships to be formed amongst them, or any other ties of a common or joint interest: and these are the usual and natural effects of love, as well as of those other studies and practices prohibited by tyrants. [182c] Those who formerly tyrannized over Athens experienced this to be true. For the firm and stable friendship between Aristogiton⁴⁹ and Harmodius was the destruction of their tyranny. Thus we find, that wherever the stricter ties of love and friendship are forbidden or discouraged, it is owing to vice, to lust of power, and of whatever is the private interest of the governor; to want of spirit and courage, and every other virtue, in the governed: and that wherever they are enjoined or encouraged simply and without restriction, it is owing to a littleness and laziness of soul in those who have the making of the laws. But in our own state the laws relating to this point are put upon a better footing; though, as I said before, it is not obvious or easy to comprehend their meaning. [182d] For, when we consider, that with us it is reputed honourable for men openly to profess love, rather than to make a secret of it; and to fix their best affections on such as excel in the accomplishments of mind, though inferior to others of their sex in outward beauty; that every one highly favours and applauds the lover, as not thinking him engaged in any designs which are base or unbecoming a man; that success in love is held an honour to the lover; disappointment, a dishonour; and that the law allows the lover liberty to do his utmost for the accomplishing his end; and permits such strange actions to be commended in him, such, as were a man to be guilty of in any other pursuit than that of love, and as the means of succeeding in any other design, he would be sure of meeting with the highest reproaches from philosophy.
[182d] For if, with a view either of getting money out of any person, or of attaining to any share in the government, or of acquiring power of any other kind, a man should submit to do such things as lovers ordinarily practise to [182e] gain their mistresses, supplicating and begging in the humblest manner, making vows and oaths, keeping nightly vigils at their doors, and voluntarily stooping to such slavery as no slave would undergo, both his friends and his enemies would prevent him from so doing; his enemies reproaching him for his servility and illiberality; his friends admonishing him and ashamed for him. But in a lover all this is graceful; and the law grants him free leave to do it uncensured, as a business highly commendable for him to undertake and execute. But that which is more than all the rest prodigious is, that the Gods, though they pardon not the crime of perjury in any besides, yet excuse in a lover the violation of his oath, if the opinion of the multitude be true; for oaths in love, they say, are not binding. [183a] Thus the Gods, as well as men, give all kinds of licence to the lover; as says the law established in our state. Viewing now the affair in this light, a man would imagine that among us not only love in the lover, but a grateful return likewise from the beloved party, was reputed honourable. But when we see the parents of the youthful fair appointing governesses and guardians over them, who have it in their instructions not to suffer them to hold discourse in private with their lovers; when we see their acquaintance, and their equals in age, and other people besides, censuring them, if they are guilty of such a piece of imprudence, and the old folks not opposing the censurers, nor reprehending them as guilty of unjust censures; in this view, a man would be apt to think that, on the contrary, we condemned those very things which he might otherwise suppose we had approved of. But, upon the whole, the case, I believe, stands thus: The affair of love, as I said at first, considered simply and generally, is neither right nor wrong; but, carried on and accomplished with honour, is fair and honourable; transacted in a dishonourable manner, is base and dishonourable. Now, it is a dishonour to a maiden to gratify a vicious and bad lover, or to yield to him from base and unworthy motives: [183b] but in granting favours to a good and virtuous lover, [183c] and complying with his love from generous and noble views, she does herself an honour. [183e] The vicious lover is he of the vulgar sort, who is in love with the body rather than the mind. For he is not a lasting lover, being in love with a thing which is not lasting; since, with the flower of youth⁵⁰ when that is gone which he admired, the lover himself too takes wing and flies away, shaming all his fine speeches and fair promises. But the man who is in love with his mistress’s moral character, when her disposition and manners are settled in what is right, he is a lover who abides through life, as being united with that which is durable and abiding.
[184a] Our law wills accordingly, that all lovers should be well and fairly proved; and that, after such probation, upon some the favours of the fair should be bestowed, to others they should be constantly refused. It encourages, therefore, the lover to pursue, but bids the beloved party fly: by all ways of trial, and in every kind of combat, making it appear of which sort the lover is, and of which sort his mistress. For this reason it is that the law deems it dishonourable, in the first place, to be won soon or easily; in order that time may be gained; for of the truth of many things time seems to be the fairest test: [184b] in the next place, it is held dishonourable for the fair one to be won by considerations of profit or power; whether she be used ill, or terrified, and therefore yield, through want of noble endurance; or whether she be flattered with riches or rank, and despise not such kind of obligations. For none of these things appear fixed or durable; much less can they give rise to any generous friendship. There remains then one only way, in which, according to our law, the fair one may honourably yield, and consent to her lover’s passion. [184c] For, as any kind of servitude which the lover undergoes of his own free choice in the service of his mistress is not by our law deemed adulation, nor accounted a matter of disgrace; so, on the other part, there is left only one other servitude or compliance not disgraceful in the fair; and this is that which is for the sake of virtue. For it is a settled rule with us, that whoever pays any court or attendance, whoever yields any service or compliance to another, in expectation of receiving by his means improvement in wisdom, or in any other branch of virtue, is not by such voluntary subjection guilty of servility or base adulation. [184d] Now these two rules are to correspond one with the other, and must concur to the same end, the rule relating to lovers, and this which concerns philosophy and every other part of virtue, in order to make it honourable in the fair one to comply with her lover’s passion. For, when the lover and his mistress meet together, bringing with them their respective rules, each of them; the lover, his—that it is right to minister any way to the service of his mistress; the fair one, hers—that it is right to yield any service or compliance to the person who improves her in wisdom and in virtue; the one also, with abilities to teach and to make better; the other, with a desire of instruction and the being bettered;—then, both those rules thus corresponding and conspiring, in these circumstances only, and in no other, it falls out, by a concurrence of all the necessary requisites, to be honourable in the fair one to gratify her lover. [184e] Besides, in this case it is no dishonour to her to be deceived: but, in the case of compliance on any other terms, she incurs shame equally, whether she be deceived or not. [185a] For if, on a supposition of her lover’s being wealthy, she yields to him with a view of enriching herself, but is disappointed, and gets nothing from her paramour, whom at length she discovers to be poor, it is not at all the less dishonourable to her: because such a woman discovers openly her own heart, and makes it appear, that for the sake of wealth she would yield any thing to any person: and this is highly dishonourable and base. But if, imagining her lover to be a good man, and with a view to her own improvement in virtue through the friendship of her lover, she yields to him, and is deceived, finding him a bad man, unpossessed of virtue, her disappointment, however, is still honourable to her: for a discovery has been also made of her aims; and it has appeared evident, that as a means to acquire virtue, and to be made better, she was ready to resign to any man her all: and this is of all things the most generous and noble. So entirely and absolutely honourable is it in the fair one to comply for the sake of virtue. [185b] This is that Love, the offspring of the celestial Venus, himself celestial; of high importance to the public interest, and no less valuable to private persons; compelling as well the lover, as the beloved, with the utmost care to cultivate virtue. All the other Loves hold of the other Venus, of her the vulgar. Thus much, Phædrus, have I to contribute on this sudden call to the subject you have proposed to us, the praise of Love.
[185c] Pausanias here pausing,—for I learn from the wise to use parities⁵¹ in speaking, and words of similar sound; Aristodemus told me, it came next in turn to Aristophanes to speak: but whether from repletion, or whatever else was the cause, he happened to be seized with a fit of the hiccups⁵², and consequently became unfit for speech-making. Upon which, as he sat next to Eryximachus the physician, he addressed him thus: Eryximachus, says he, you must either drive away my hiccups, or speak in my turn till they have left me.—To which Eryximachus replied, Well; [185d] I will do both. I will speak in your turn, and you, when your hiccups are gone, shall speak in mine: and while I am speaking, if you hold your breath for a considerable time, your hiccups, perhaps, will have an end. Should they continue, notwithstanding, then gargle your throat with water. But if they are very obstinate, take some such thing as this feather, and tickle your nose till you provoke a sneezing. When you have sneezed once or twice⁵³, your hiccups will cease, be they ever so violent.—As soon as you begin your speech, says Aristophanes, I shall set about doing what you bid me.—Eryximachus then began in this manner:

### The Speech of Eryximachus

[185e] Since Pausanias, after setting out so excellently well, ended his discourse imperfectly, it seems a task incumbent on me, to finish the argument which he began. For, in distinguishing two different kinds of Love, he made, I think, a very proper and just distinction. But that Love gives us an attraction not only to beautiful persons, but to many other things beside; and that he dwells not only in human hearts, but has also his seat in other beings, in the bodies of all animals, and in the vegetable productions of the earth; in fine, that he lives throughout all nature; my own art, that of medicine, has given me occasion to observe; and to remark, how great and wonderful a God is Love, stretching every where his attractive power, and reaching at all things, whether human or divine. I shall instance first in medicine; that I may pay my first regards to my own profession. [186a] I say then, that our bodies partake of this twofold love. For bodily health and disease bear an analogy to the two different dispositions of the soul mentioned by Pausanias. And as the body in a state of health, and the body when diseased, are in themselves very different one from the other, so they love and long for very different things. The love in a healthy body is of one kind; [186b] the love in a diseased body is of another kind, quite different. Now, as Pausanias says, it is honourable to comply with a good lover, but dishonourable to yield to one who is vicious: so is it with respect to the body: whatever is in a sound and healthy state, it is commendable and right to please; it is the physician’s duty so to do, and the effectual doing of it denotes him truly a physician⁵⁴. [186c] But to gratify that which is diseased and bad, is blameable⁵⁵; and the physician, who would practise agreeably to the rules of art, must deny it the gratification which it demands⁵⁶. For medical science, to give a summary and brief account of it, is the knowledge of those amorous passions of the body, which tend to filling and emptying⁵⁷. Accordingly, the man who in these passions or appetites can distinguish the right love from that which is wrong, he has most of all men the science belonging to a physician. And the man who is able to effect a change, so as in the place of one of those loves to introduce the other; and knows how to infuse love into those bodies which have it not, yet ought to have it; [186d] and how to expell a love with which they are but ought not to be possessed; he is a skilful practiser of his art. For those things in the body which are most at variance must he be able to reconcile to each other⁵⁸, and to conciliate amity between them and mutual love. [186e] The things most at variance are such as are the most contrary one to the other; as the cold is to the hot, the bitter to the sweet, the dry to the moist, and all others of that sort⁵⁹. Into these things, thus at variance, our ancestor Æsculapius had power to inspire a spirit of love and concord; and, as our friends here the poets tell us, and as I believe, framing into a system the rules for so doing, was properly the author of our art.
[187a] So that medicine, in the manner I have described, is all under the direction and management of Love. So is the gymnastic art in like manner⁶⁰; and so is the art of agriculture⁶¹. And that music is so too, is evident to every man who considers the nature of this art with the least attention; and is perhaps the very thing which Heraclitus meant to say: for his way of expressing himself is inaccurate and obscure. “The one⁶²,” says he, “disagreeing with itself, yet proceeds in amicable concord; like the harmony made by the bow and lyre.” Now it is very absurd to say, that in harmony any disagreement can find place; or that the component parts of harmony can ever disagree. But his meaning perhaps was this; that things in their own nature disagreeing, that is, sounds, some shrill and others deep, at length brought to an agreement by the musical art, compose harmony. [187b] For harmony cannot consist of shrill and deep sounds, whilst they remain in disagreement: because harmony is consonance, or a conspiration of sounds; and consonance is one kind of agreement: but it is impossible that any agreement should be between disagreeing things, so long as they disagree: and no less impossible is it, that things between which there is no agreement should at the same time harmonize together, so as to produce harmony. And as it is with sound so is it with motion; the quick measures and the slow ones, by nature disagreeing, but afterwards brought to agree together, compose rhythm. In both these cases⁶³, where things differ and are opposite to one another, it is the art of music which brings about the reconcilement and agreement; just as the art of medicine does in the former case⁶⁴; inspiring them in the same manner with the spirit of love and concord. And thus musical science is the knowledge of those amorous conjunctions whose offspring are harmony and rhythm. [187c] Now in the systems themselves, whether of harmony or of rhythm, there is no difficulty at all in knowing the amorous conjunctions: for here love is not distinguished into two kinds. But when the intention is to apply rhythm and harmony to the ears of some audience, then comes the difficulty; then is there need of a skilful artist, whether in composing the odes, and setting them to music, or in making a right choice of those ready composed and set⁶⁵, and properly adapting them to the geniuses of youth. [187d] For here that distinction takes place; here must we recur again to that rule of Pausanias, that the decent, the well-ordered, and the virtuous it is right to gratify, for the sake of preserving their love, and of improving such as are yet deficient in virtue. The Love by whom these are inspired is the noble, the celestial; that Love who attends the celestial muse. But the attendant of Polyhymnia, and the follower of every muse at random, is the other Love, he of the vulgar kind: whom we ought cautiously to indulge, whenever we indulge him; that he may enjoy his own pleasures without introducing disorder and debauchery.
[187d] And this is an affair of no less difficulty than in our art it is to manage prudently the appetites which regard the table; so as to permit them the enjoyment of their proper pleasures, without danger of diseases. [187e] Thus, in the practice of music, and of medicine, and in every other employment, whether human or divine, we are to preserve, as far as consistently we may, both Loves: [188a] for both are to be found in all things⁶⁶. Full of both is the constitution of the annual seasons. And when those contraries in nature before mentioned, the hot and the cold, the dry and the moist, under the influence of the modest Love, admit a sober correspondence together, and temperate commixture; they bring along with them, when they come, fair seasons, fine weather, and health to men, brute animals, and plants, doing injury to none. But when that Love who inspires lawless and ungoverned passion prevails in the constitution of the season, he corrupts, injures and ruins many of the fair forms of nature. For the usual fruits of this Love are plagues, and other preter-natural diseases, which come upon animals, and vegetables too; [188b] mildews, hail-storms, and blights being generated from the irregular state of the amorous affections in those elementary beings, and the want of temperance in their conjunctions: the knowledge of which their amorous affections, and consequent conjunctions, considered as owing to the aspects of the heavenly bodies, and as respecting the seasons of the year, is called astronomy. Further, all kinds of sacrifice, and all the subjects of the diviner’s art⁶⁷, those agents employed in carrying on a reciprocal intercourse between the Gods and mortals, are employed with no other view than to preserve the right love, and cure that which is wrong. [188c] For every species of impiety is the usual consequence of not yielding to and gratifying the better Love, the regular; and of not paying to him, but to the other Love⁶⁸, our principal regards, in every thing we do relating to our parents, whether living or deceased, and in every thing relating to the Gods. In all such cases, to superintend the Loves, to cherish the right, and cure the wrong, is the business of divination. And thus Divination is an artist, skilled in procuring and promoting friendliness and good correspondence between the Gods and men, through her knowledge of what amorous affections in men tend to piety and justice, and what are opposite to these, and lead the contrary way. So widely extensive, so highly predominant, or rather all-prevailing, is the power of Love. [188d] Of all love in general this is true; but especially, and the most true is it, of that Love who attains his ends in the attainment of good things, and enjoys them without ever exceeding the bounds of temperance, or violating the laws of justice. For it is this Love who bears the chief sway both in the human nature and the divine; it is this Love who procures for us every kind of happiness; enabling us to live in social converse one with another, and in friendship with beings so much superior to ourselves, the Gods. [188e] It is possible now after all, that, in the panegyric I have made on Love, I may have omitted, as well as Pausanias, many topics of his due praise: it has not, however, been done designedly; and if I have left aught unsaid, it is your business, Aristophanes, to supply that deficiency: or, if your intentions are to celebrate the God in a different way, now that your hiccups are over, you may begin.
[189a] To this Aristophanes replied, I am now indeed no longer troubled with my hiccups: but they would not be easy before I brought the sneezings to them. I wonder that a modest and decent part of the body should be in love with and long for these ticklings, or be pleased with such boisterous roaring noises, such as sneezing is: for, as soon as I had procured it a good sneezing, immediately it was quiet.—Eryximachus upon this said, Friend Aristophanes, consider what you are about: [189b] you are raising up a spirit of ridicule here, just as you are going to begin your speech; and put me upon the watch, to lay hold of something or other in it for the company to laugh at, when you might, if you pleased, have spoken in quiet.—To which Aristophanes in a good-humoured way replied, You are in the right, Eryximachus: what I said just now, let it be looked on as unsaid. But, pray, do not watch me. For I am in pain for the speech I am going to make; not for fear there should be any thing in it to laugh at; for a laugh would be an advantage gained to me, and the natural product of my muse; but for fear it should be really in itself ridiculous.—You shoot your bolt, Aristophanes, said Eryximachus, and then think to march off. But take care of what you say, and expect to be called to a strict account for it. Perhaps, however, I shall be gracious enough to spare you.—Aristophanes then began:

### The Speech of Aristophanes

[189c] My intentions, Eryximachus, are to speak in a way very different, I assure you, from the way taken by you and Pausanias in your speeches. To me men seem utterly insensible what the power of Love is. For, were they sensible of it, they would build temples and erect altars to him the most magnificent, and would offer to him the noblest sacrifices. He would not be neglected as he is now, when none of these honours are paid him, though, of all the Gods, Love ought the most to be thus honoured. For, of all the Gods, Love is the most friendly to man, his relief⁶⁹ and remedy in those evils the perfect cure of which would be productive of the highest happiness to the whole human race. I will do my best, therefore, to make his power known to you, and you shall teach it to others. [189d] But you must first be informed what the human nature is, and what changes it has undergone. For our nature of old was different from what it is at present. In the first place, there were antiently three sorts⁷⁰, or subordinate species, of the human kind; not as at present, only two, male and female; there being, then, a third species beside, which partook of both the others: the name only of which species now remains, the species itself being extinct and lost. For then existed actually and flourished hermaphrodites, who partook of both the other species, the male and the female. But they are now become merely a name, a name of abuse and of reproach. [189e] In the next place, the entire form of every individual of the human kind was cylindrical; for their bodies, back and sides together, were every where, from top to bottom, circular. Every one had four hands, and the same number of legs. They had two faces, each, upon their round necks, every way both alike: but these two faces belonged but to one head; on the sides of which were placed these faces, opposite one to the other. Each had also four ears, and two distinctions of the sex. From this description, it is easy to conceive how all the other parts of the human body were doubled. [190a] They walked upon whichever legs they pleased, on any side; and, as they walk now, upright. But when any one wanted to go with expedition; then, as tumblers, after pitching on their hands, throw their legs upward, and bring them over, and thus tumble themselves round; in the same manner did the people of those days, supported by their eight limbs alternately, and wheeled along with great dispatch. [190b] Now you are to know, that these three species of the human race were precisely so many in number, and their bodies made in such a form, for this reason,—because the male kind was produced originally by the sun, the female rose from the earth, and the third, which partook of the other two, was the offspring of the moon; for the moon, you know, partakes of both the others, the sun and the earth. The bodies, therefore, of each kind were round, and the manner of their running was circular, in resemblance of their first parents. Their force and strength were prodigious; their minds elevated and haughty; so they undertook to invade heaven. And of them is related the same fact which Homer relates of Ephialtus and Otus, that they set about raising an ascent up to the skies, with intention to attack the Gods. Upon which Jupiter and the other Deities consulted together what they should do to these rebels⁷¹; but could come to no determination about the punishment proper to be inflicted on them. They could not resolve upon destroying them by thunder, as they did the giants; for thus the whole human race would be extinct; and then the honours paid them by that race would be extinct together with it, and their temples come to ruin. Nor yet could they suffer those mortals to continue in their insolence. [190c] At length Jupiter, after much consideration of so difficult a case, said, I have a device, by which the race of men may be preserved, and yet an end put to their insolence; as my device will much diminish the greatness of their strength. For I intend, you must know, to divide every one of them into two: by which means their strength will be much abated, and at the same time their number much increased, to our advantage and the increase of our honour. They shall walk upright upon two legs; and if any remains of insolence shall ever appear in them, and they resolve not to be at quiet, I will again divide them, each into two; [190d] and they shall go upon one leg, hopping. As he said, so did he; he cut all the human race in twain, as people cut eggs⁷² to salt them for keeping. The face, together with the half-neck of every half-body, he ordered Apollo to turn half round, and fix it on that side where the other half of the body was cut off; with intention that all people, viewing themselves on that side where they had suffered the loss of half themselves, might be brought to a sober way of thinking, and learn to behave with more modesty. For what remained necessary to be done, he bid him exercise his own healing art.
[190e] —Accordingly, Apollo turned the face of every one about to the reverse of its former situation: and drawing the skin together, like a purse, from all parts of the body, over that which is now called the belly, up to one orifice or opening, he tied up at the middle of the belly this orifice, now called the navel. He then smoothed most part of the wrinkles of the skin, after having framed the bones of the breast under it; in the same manner as shoemakers smooth the wrinkles of the leather, when they have stretched it upon the last. But a few wrinkles, those on the belly and navel, he let remain, for a memorial of their old crime and punishment. [191a] Now, when all the human race were thus bisected, every section longed for its fellow half. And when these happened to meet together, they mutually embraced, folded in each other’s arms, and wishing they could grow together and be united. The consequence of this was, that they both died, through famine, and the other evils naturally brought on by idleness. And if one of these halves died, and left the other behind, the surviving half was immediately employed in looking about for another partner; [191b] and whether it happened to meet with the half of a whole woman, (which half we now call a woman,) or with the half of a whole man, they were continually embracing. After all, Jupiter, seeing them thus in danger of destruction, took pity on them, and contrived another device; which was, to place the distinction of sex before: for till then this had still remained on the other side; and they had engendered, not one with another, but with the earth, like grasshoppers. This scheme Jupiter carried into execution; and thus made the work of generation to be thenceforth carried on by both sexes jointly, the female conceiving from the male. [191c] Now, in making this the sole way of generating, Jupiter had these ends in view: that, if a man should meet with a woman, they might, in the embrace, generate together, and the human kind be thus continued; but if he met with another man, that then both might be surfeited with such commixture; and that, immediately ceasing from their embraces, they might apply themselves to business, and turn their studies and pursuits to the other affairs of life. From all this it appears how deeply mutual love is implanted by nature in all of the human race; bringing them again to their pristine form; coupling them together; endeavouring out of two to make one, and thus to remedy the evils introduced into the human nature. [191d] So that every one of us at present is but the tally of a human creature; which has been cut like a polypus⁷³, and out of one made two. Hence it comes, that we are all in continual search of our several counterparts, to tally with us. As many men, accordingly, as are sections of that double form called the hermaphrodite, are lovers of women: and of this species are the multitude of rakes. So, on the other hand, as many women as are addicted to the love of men are sprung from the same amphibious race.
[191e] But such women as are sections of the female form are not much inclined to men; their affections tend rather to their own sex: and of this kind are the Sapphic lovers. Men, in like manner, such as are sections of the male form, follow the males: and whilst they are children, being originally fragments of men, it is men they love, and it is in men’s company and caresses they are most delighted. Those children and those youths who are of this sort are the best, as being the most manly in their temper and disposition. Some people, I know, say, they are shameless and impudent: but in this they wrong them; for it is not impudence and want of modesty, but it is manly assurance, with a manly temper and turn of mind, by which they are led to associate with those whom they resemble. [192a] A shrewd conjecture may hence be formed, from what race they originally spring; a conjecture justified by their conduct afterwards. For only boys of this manly kind, when they arrive at the age of maturity, apply themselves to political affairs⁷⁴: and as they advance further in the age of manhood, they delight to encourage and forward the youth of their own sex in manly studies and employments; but have naturally no inclination to marry and beget children: they do it only in conformity to the laws, and would choose to live unmarried, in a state of friendship. Such persons as these are indeed by nature formed for friendship solely, and to embrace always whatever is congenial with themselves. [192b] Now, whenever it fortunes that a man meets with that very counterpart of himself, his other half, they are both smitten with love in a wondrous manner; they recognise their antient intimacy; they are strongly attracted together by a consciousness that they belong to each other; and are unwilling to be parted, or become separate again, though for ever so short a time. Those pairs who of free choice live together throughout life, are such as have met with this good fortune. Yet are none of them able to tell what it is they would have one from the other. For it does not seem to be the venereal congress. In all appearance, it is not merely for the sake of this that they feel such extreme delight in the company of each other; [192c] and seek it, when they have it not, with so eager a desire. It is evident, that their souls long for some other thing, which neither can explain; something which they can only give obscure hints of, in the way of ænigmas; and each party can only guess at in the other, as it were, by divination. But when they are together, and caressing each other, were Vulcan to stand by with his tools in his hand, and say, “Mortals! what is it ye want, and would have, one from the other?”—and finding them at a loss what to answer, were he to demand of them again, and say, “Is this what ye long for; to be united together with the most entire union, so as never, either by night or day, to be separate from each other? If ye long for this, I will melt you down, both of you together, and together form you both again; that, instead of two, ye may become one; whilst ye live, living a joint life, as one person; and when ye come to die, dying at once one death; and afterwards, in the state of souls departed, continuing still undivided. Consider now within yourselves, whether ye like the proposal, and whether ye would be glad to have it carried into execution.”
[192d] —I am certain, that not a single mortal to whom Vulcan should make this offer would reject it. It would appear that none had any other wish; and every man would be conscious to himself, that the secret desire which he had of old conceived in his heart, was at length brought to light and expressed in [192e] clear language, that is, to be mingled and melted in with his beloved, and out of two to be made one. [193a] The cause of which desire in us all is this, that our pristine nature was such as I have described it; we were once whole. The desire and pursuit of this wholeness of our nature, our becoming whole again, is called Love. For, as I said, we were antiently one: but now, as a punishment for our breach of the laws of justice, the Gods have compelled us to live asunder in separate bodies: just as the people of Arcady are treated by the Spartans⁷⁵. If, therefore, we behave not to the Gods with reverence and decency, there is reason to fear we shall be again cleft in sunder, and go about with our guilt delineated in our figure, like those who have their crimes engraven on pillars, our noses slit, and our bodies split in two. The consideration of this should engage every man to promote the universal practice of piety toward the Gods; that we may escape this misfortune, and attain to that better state, as it shall please Love to guide and lead us. [193b] Above all, let none of us act in opposition to this benign Deity; whom none oppose but such as are at enmity with the Gods. For, if we are reconciled to Love, and gain his favour, we shall find out and meet with our naturally beloved, the other half of ourselves; which at present is the good fortune but of few. Eryximachus now must not carp at what I say, on a suspicion that I mean Pausanias and Agatho: though perhaps they may be of the fortunate few: but I say it of all in general, whether men or women, through the whole human race, that every one of us might be happy, had we the perfection of Love, and were to meet with our own proper paramours, recovering thus the similitude of our pristine nature. [193c] If this fortune then be the best absolutely, it follows, that the best in our present circumstances must be that which approaches to it the nearest; and that is, to meet with partners in love, whose temper and disposition are the most agreeable and similar to our own. In giving glory to the divine cause of this similarity and mutual fitness, we celebrate in a proper manner the praise of Love; a deity who gives us in our present condition so much relief and consolation, by leading us to our own again; and further, gives us the fairest hopes, that, if we pay due regard and reverence to the Gods, he will hereafter, in recovering to us our antient nature, and curing the evils we now endure, make us blest and happy.
[193c] Thus, Eryximachus, you [193d] have my speech concerning Love, a speech of a different kind from yours, and no way interfering with what you have said. Therefore, as I desired of you before, do not, I pray you, make a jest of it; that we may hear, peaceably and quietly, all the speeches which remain to be spoken; or rather both the speeches; for I think only those of Agatho and Socrates are yet behind.
[193e] —Well; I shall not disobey you, said Eryximachus: for I must acknowledge that I have been highly entertained and pleased with your speech. If I was not perfectly well assured that Socrates and Agatho were deeply versed in the science of Love, I should much fear they would be at a loss for something to say, so copiously and so variously has the subject been already handled. But now, notwithstanding this, I am under no concern about the success of those great masters.
[193e] —I do not wonder, said Socrates, that you are free from all concern, Eryximachus, about the matter; since you have come off so honourably yourself, and are out of all danger. But if you were in the circumstances I am in, much more in those which I shall be in when Agatho shall have made his speech, your fears would be not a few, and your distresses, like mine at present, no trifles.
[194a] —I see, said Agatho, you have a mind, Socrates, by such suggestions, to do as enchanters do with their drugs, that is, to disorder and disturb my thoughts, with imagining this company here to be big with expectations of hearing some fine speech from me.
[194b] —I must have forgotten then, Agatho, said Socrates, the courage and greatness of mind which you discovered lately, and of which I was a spectator, when you came upon the stage, together with the actors just going to exhibit your compositions; when you looked so large an audience in the face without being in the least daunted; I must have forgotten this, if I thought you could be now disturbed on account of us, who are comparatively so few in number.
[194b] —I hope, Socrates, said Agatho, you do not imagine me so full of a theatre, as not to know that a few men of sense make an assembly more respectable and awful to a man who thinks justly, than a multitude of fools.
[194c] —I should be greatly mistaken indeed, said Socrates, if I imagined in you, Agatho, any thing which savoured of rusticity or ill breeding. I am satisfied enough, that if you met with any whom you supposed wise, you would regard them more than you would the multitude. But I doubt we have no pretensions to any such particular regard, because we were at the theatre, and made a part of that multitude. The case, I suppose, is in truth this: Were you in the presence of other sort of men, that is, the wise; in reverence to them, perhaps, you would be ashamed if you were then employed in any action you thought unbecoming or dishonourable. Is it not so? or how say you?
[194c] —It is true, said Agatho.
[194d] —And would you not, said Socrates to him again, revere the multitude too, and be ashamed even in their presence, if you were seen by them doing any thing you thought base or wrong?
[194d] —Phædrus here interposed; and said, My friend Agatho, if you go on giving answers to all the questions put to you by Socrates, he will be under no manner of concern, what becomes of our affair of the speeches, or what the rest of us here are doing in the mean time. It is sufficient for him, if he has but somebody to talk with in his own way, especially if it be a person who is handsome. I must confess I take much pleasure myself in hearing Socrates dispute: but it is necessary for me to look to the affair I set on foot myself, that of the panegyrics on Love, and to take care that I have a speech from every person in this assembly. When you have, each of you, paid your tribute to the God, you may then dispute, with all my heart, at your own pleasure.
[194e] —You say well, Phædrus, said Agatho; and nothing hinders but that I begin my speech. For I shall not want frequent opportunities of disputing again with Socrates.

### The Speech of Agatho

[194e] I shall begin by showing in what way a panegyric on Love ought to be made⁷⁶, and then proceed that way in making one myself. For none of those who have gone before me have, in my opinion, celebrated the praise of Love; but all have made it their sole business to felicitate human kind upon the good they enjoy through the beneficence of that God. For what he is in himself, he from whom all this happiness is derived, none of them has shown. Now, whatever the subject of our panegyric be, there is but one right way to take in the composing it: and that is, the showing how excellent is the nature, and how good are the operations or effects, of that person or thing we are to praise. In this way it is that we ought to make our panegyrics on Love; praising, first, the excellence and absolute goodness of his own nature, and then his relative goodness to us in the blessings he bestows. According to this method, I take upon me, in the first place, to say, if without offence to what is sacred and divine I may be allowed to say it, that, though all the Gods enjoy a [195a] state of blessedness, yet Love is blest above all others, as he excells them all in beauty and in virtue. The most beautiful he must be, for these reasons: first, in that he is the youngest of the Gods, my Phædrus! Of this he himself gives us a convincing proof, by his running away from Old Age, and outrunning him who is evidently so swift-footed. For Old Age, you know, arrives and is with us sooner than we desire. Between Love and him there is a natural antipathy: so that Love comes not within a wide distance of him⁷⁷; but makes his abode with youth, and is always found in company with the young. For, as the old proverb rightly has it, “Like always goes to like.” [195b] I must own, therefore, though I agree with Phædrus in many other of his opinions, I cannot agree with him in this, that Love is elder than Saturn and Japetus. Of all the Gods, I affirm, he is the youngest, and enjoys perpetual youth. Accordingly I contend, that, if any such events happened among the Gods as Hesiod and Parmenides report, they were occasioned by the power of Necessity, not that of Love. For, had Love been with them, there had been no castrations⁷⁸, no chains, none of those many other acts of violence had been done or suffered amongst them: but friendship and peace had flourished in heaven, as they now do, and have ever done, since Love began his reign, and became chief amongst the Gods. Thus then it appears that Love is young. Nor is he less delicate and tender. But he wants a poet, such as Homer was, to express in fit terms how great his tenderness. Now Homer, where he tells us that Ate or Mischief was a goddess, of a subtle and fine frame, thus describes the tenderness and delicacy of her feet;
[195c] The tender-footed Goddess shuns the ground;
With airy step, upon the heads of men
Sets her fine treading, and from head to head
Trips it along full nimbly.—
[195d] The poet here produces a fair proof, I think, of her tenderness, her going on the soft place rather than the hard. The same argument shall I make use of, to prove the tenderness of Love. For he neither walks on the ground, nor goes upon human heads (which in truth are places not altogether soft); but the softest places possible to be found does Love make the places of his range, and of his dwelling too. For in the manners and in the souls of Gods and men he fixes his abode: not in all souls indiscriminately; for, if he lights on any whose manners are rough, away he marches, and takes up his residence in tender souls, whose manners are the softest. [195e] Since, therefore, with his feet, and all over his fine frame, he endures not to touch any but the softest persons, nor in any but their softest parts, he cannot but be extremely delicate and tender. Thus have we seen that Love is full of youth, delicacy and tenderness. He is, besides, of a soft and yielding substance. For it would be impossible for him to diffuse himself through every part of us, and penetrate into our inmost soul, or to make his first entry and his final exit unperceived by us, if his substance were hard and resisting to the touch. But a clear proof of his yielding, easy and pliant form is that gracefulness of person, which it is certain belongs to him in the highest degree by the acknowledgment of all: for Ungracefulness and Love never agree, but are always visibly at variance. [196a] That he excels in beauty of colour, is evident from his way of life, in that he is continually conversant with flowers, his own likeness. For Love resides not in a body, or in a soul, or any other place, where flowers never sprung; or, if they did, where they are all fallen, and the place quite deflowered. But wherever a spot is to be found flowery and fragrant, he there seats himself and settles his abode. [196b] Concerning the beauty of this deity thus much is sufficient⁷⁹; though much still remains unsaid. I am to speak next on the subject of his virtue⁸⁰. And here the highest praise which can be attributed to any being is justly due to Love; that he does no injury to God or man; nor by God or man can he be injured. He never acts through compulsion or force himself; for compulsion or force cannot reach Love: nor ever forces he or compels others; for every being obeys freely and willingly every dictate and command of Love: where both parties then are willing, and each is freely consenting to the other, those in the city who are kings, the laws, say there is no injustice done. But not only the perfection of justice belongs to Love; he is equally endued with consummate temperance. [196c] For to be superior to pleasure, and to govern the desires of it, is every where called temperance. Now it is universally agreed, that no pleasure is superior to Love; but, on the contrary, that all pleasures are his inferiors. If so, they must be subjects and servants, all of them, to Love; and he must rule, and be the master. Having dominion thus over all pleasures and all desires, in the highest degree must he be temperate. Then, in point of valour, not Mars himself can pretend to vie with Love. For it is not, Mars has Love, but Love has Mars⁸¹; the Love, as fame says, of Venus. Now the person who has another in his possession must have the mastery over that person whom he possesses. The subduer and master then of him who in valour excels all others, must himself in that virtue excel without exception all. [196d] Thus we have already shown the justice, temperance, and fortitude of this God. To show his wisdom is yet wanting: and I must do my best to be no way wanting to my subject. In the first place then, that I may honour my own art, like Eryximachus, with my first regards, in the wisdom of poetry Love is so great a master, that he is able to make any one a poet⁸². [196e] For, though a man be ever so much a stranger to the Muses, yet, as soon as his soul is touched by Love, he becomes a poet. It concerns me to lay a particular stress on this argument, to prove Love an excellent poet⁸³, in all that kind of creative power⁸⁴ which is the proper province of the Muses. For no being can impart to another that which itself has not, or teach another that which itself knows not. [197a] In the other kind of the creative power, the making of animals, it is undeniably to the wisdom of this deity that all living things owe their generation and production. Then, for the works of the mechanic arts, know we not that every artist who hath Love for his teacher becomes eminent and illustrious; but that the artist whom Love inspires not and animates never rises from obscurity? The bowman’s art, the art of healing, and that of divination, were the inventions of Apollo, under the guidance of Love, and the influence of his auspicious power. [197b] So that the God of Wisdom himself, we see, was the disciple of the God of Love. Prompted by Love, the Muses invented the art of music, Vulcan the art of working metals, Minerva the art of weaving, and Jupiter the art of well governing the Gods and mortals. From the beginning of that æra were the affairs of the Gods well settled; from the time when Love arose and interposed among them,—the Love certainly of beauty; for disorder and deformity are by no means the objects of Love. Antecedent to that time it was, as I observed before, that those many sad and strange accidents, they tell us, befell the Gods: it was when Necessity reigned and ruled in all things. But as soon as the charms of beauty gave birth to the God whom we celebrate, with him rose every good which blesses either Gods or mortals.
[197b] —Thus, Phædrus, in the first place Love, as he appears to me, is most excellent himself in beauty and in virtue; in the next place, he is the cause of the like excellencies in other beings. I feel within me an inclination to make a verse or two on this subject, on the effects which Love produces:—
[197c] The rugged main he smooths, the rage of men
He softens; thro’ the troubled air he spreads
A calm, and lulls the unquiet soul to rest.
[197c] It is he who frees us from reserve and strangeness; [197d] and who procures us openness and intimacy: it is he who establishes social meetings and assemblies, such as this of ours: in festival entertainments, in dances, and in feasts, he is the manager, the leader, and the founder; introducing courtesy and sweetness, banishing rusticity and savageness; dispensing abroad benevolence and kindness, restraining malignity and ill-will: propitious, gracious, and good to all: the admired spectacle of wise men, the heart-felt delight of Gods: the envy of those to whose lot he falls not, the acquisition of such only as are fortunate: the parent of delicacy and tenderness, of elegance and grace, of attractive charms and amorous desires: observant of good, overlooking evil: in difficulties, in fears, in silent wishes, and in soft addresses, the protector, the encourager, the patron, and the inspirer: [197e] of Gods and men, of all linked together, the beauty and the ornament: a guide to all which is good and amiable, the best and the most charming: whom it is the duty of every one to follow; joining in chorus to his praise, or bearing part in that sweet song sung by Love himself, with which he softens the heart and sooths the mind of every God and mortal.—This is my speech, Phædrus, which I consecrate to Love; a speech, partly jocose and partly serious, such as the best of my poor abilities in wit and eloquence are able to furnish out.
[198a] When Agatho had done speaking, Aristodemus told me, the room rang with the applauses of the company; all of them loudly declaring, that Agatho’s speech on Love was worthy of himself, and worthy of the God in whose honour it was spoken.
[198a] —Upon which Socrates, directing his eyes to Eryximachus, said, Well, what think you now, you son of Acumenus? Think you not that I had good grounds for those fears I told you I was under? and that I spake prophetically, when I said that Agatho would make an admirable speech, and that I should be driven to distress?
[198b] —The first thing, replied Eryximachus, I think you foretold truly, “that Agatho’s speech would be excellent;”—but the other, that “yourself would be driven to distress,” I do not believe was a true prophecy.
[198b] —How, my good friend, said Socrates, should I avoid being at a loss, and distressed for something to say? or how, indeed, could any other person, who was to speak, after a speech on the same subject so full of beauty and variety? It was not, I must acknowledge, in all respects, and in all the parts of it, equally admirable: [198c] but who, that heard the conclusion, could help being astonished at the elegant choice of words, and beauty of the diction? For my part, when I consider how little I shall be able to say any thing that will not fall far short of it, I should be tempted to run away for very shame, had I any possibility of making my escape. For, whilst he was speaking, he put me in mind of Gorgias: and, to say the truth, that which Homer relates struck me at that time very sensibly. Now, thought I, what if Agatho should at the last send forth the head of that formidable speaker Gorgias⁸⁵ to assault my imagination; and thus should, by the conclusion of his speech, stop my speech, and turn into stone my speaking faculties!
[198c] —I considered, how ridiculous it was in me to profess myself a great master in love matters, and consent to bear a part with you in making panegyrics on Love, when at the same [198d] time I was entirely ignorant of the affair we undertook, and knew not the right way to celebrate the praise of any thing. For I was so silly⁸⁶ as to imagine that we ought never to say any thing but what was true in our encomiums on any subject whatever; that the real properties of it were the materials which lay before us, as it were, to work on; and that the business of a panegyrist was nothing more than out of these materials to select the handsomest and best, and frame them together in the most skilful and the best manner. Prepossessed with this imagination, I had entertained a strong opinion that I should speak well on the subject proposed, because I well knew what praises were with truth to be ascribed to Love. [198e] Whereas I now find that this is not the right way of making a panegyric; but that, when we praise, we are to attribute to our subject all qualities which are great and good, whether they truly belong to it or not. Should our encomiums happen to be false, the falsehood of them, to be sure, is not material. For the proposal, it seems, was this, that each of us should make a panegyric, which, by common consent, was to pass and be taken for a panegyric made on Love; and not to make a panegyric properly belonging to Love, or such a one as he truly merited. Hence it is, I presume, that you gather from all quarters every topic of praise, and attribute to Love all kinds of perfection; representing him and his operations to be of such a nature, that he cannot fail of appearing in the highest degree beautiful and good—to all those I mean who are unacquainted with him—for he certainly can never be deemed so by those who know him: and thus the panegyric is made fine and pompous. But, for my part, I was an utter stranger to the composing of panegyrics after this manner; and in my ignorance it was that I agreed to be one of the composers. [199a] Only with my tongue, therefore, did I engage myself: my mind was no party to the agreement. And so farewell to it; for I shall never make panegyrics in this way: I should not, indeed, know how. Not but that I am ready to speak the truth concerning the subject proposed, if you have any inclination to hear it, and if I may be allowed to speak after my own manner; for I mean not to set my speech in competition with any of yours, and so run the risk of being deservedly laughed at. Consider, therefore, Phædrus, for it is your affair, whether such a kind of speech as you have to expect from me would be agreeable to you; and whether you would like to hear the truth spoken concerning Love in terms no higher than are adequate and fitting, and with such a disposition of the several particulars as shall happen to arise from the nature of the subject. Phædrus, then, and the rest of the company, made it their joint request to him, that he would speak in the manner which he himself judged to be the most proper.
[199b] —But stay, said Socrates; give me leave first to propose to Agatho a few questions; that, after we have agreed together on some necessary premises, I may the better proceed to what I have to say. You have my consent, said Phædrus; so propose your questions.
[199c] —Socrates then, as Aristodemus told me, began in this manner:—

### Introduction to the Speech of Socrates

[199c] In my opinion, my friend Agatho, you began your speech well, in saying that we ought in the first place to set forth the nature of Love, what he is in himself, and afterward to show his effects, and what he operates in others. This introduction of yours I much approve of. Now, then, tell me further concerning Love: and since you have so fairly and amply displayed the other parts of his nature and character, answer me also to this question, whether Love is a being of such a kind as to be of something⁸⁷; or whether he is of nothing? I ask you not, whether he is of some father or mother; for the question, whether Love is the love of father or mother, would be ridiculous; but I mean it in the same sense as if the subject of my question was the very thing now mentioned, that is, a father; and the question itself was, whether a father was the father of something, or not: in this case you would certainly answer, if you answered rightly, that a father was the father of a son or of a daughter:—would you not?
[199d] —Certainly I should, said Agatho.
[199d] —And an answer of the same kind you would give me, said Socrates, if I asked you concerning a mother.
[199e] —Agatho again assented. —Answer me now, said Socrates, to a question or two more, that you may the better apprehend my meaning. Suppose I were to ask you concerning a brother, with regard to that very circumstance, his being a brother, is he brother to some person or not?
[199e] —Agatho answered in the affirmative.
[199e] —And is not this person, said Socrates, either a brother or a sister?
[199e] —To which when Agatho had assented, Try then, said Socrates, to tell me concerning Love; is it the love of nothing, or of something?
[199e] —Of something, by all means, replied Agatho.
[199e] —Whatever you think that something to be, said Socrates, for the present keep your thought to yourself; only remember it. And let me ask you this question further, relating to Love: Does Love desire that something of which it is the love, or does it not?
[200a] —Desires it, answered Agatho, without doubt.
[200a] —Whether, when possessed of that which it desires, of that which it is in love with, does it then desire it? or only when not possessed of it?
[200a] —Only when not possessed of it, it is probable, replied Agatho. —Instead of being probable, said Socrates, consider if it be not necessary that every being which feels any desire should desire only that which it is in want of; and that as far as any being is free from want, so far it must be free also from desire. Now to me, Agatho, this appears in the highest degree necessary. But how does it appear to you?
[200b] — To me in the same manner, replied Agatho.
[200b] —You say well, said Socrates. I ask you then, Can a man whose size is large wish to be a man of large size? or a man who is strong, can he wish to be strong?
[200b] —The impossibility of this, replied Agatho, follows from what we have just now agreed in. For the man who is what he would wish to be, must in that respect, and so far, be free from want.
[200c] —True, said Socrates: for, if it were possible that the strong could wish to be strong, the swift wish to be swift, and the healthy wish to be healthy, one might then perhaps imagine it equally possible in all cases of the like kind, that such as are possessed of any thing good or advantageous could desire that which they already have. I mention this in general, to prevent our being imposed upon. For the person who enjoys any of these advantages, if you consider, Agatho, must appear to you to have of necessity at present that which he has, whether he wills it, or not: and how can this ever be the object of his desire? Should any man, therefore, say thus: I, who am now in health, desire to be healthy; or, I, who now have riches, desire to be rich, and long for those very things which I have; we should make him this reply:
[200d] —You mean, friend, you that are at present possessed of riches, or health, or strength, would be glad to continue in possession of them always: for at this present you possess them, whether you will or not. When you say, therefore, that you desire what is present with you, consider, whether you mean any other thing than this; you would be glad that what is present with you now might be present with you for the time to come. Would he not acknowledge, think you, that this was his only meaning⁸⁸?
[200d] —Agatho agreed that he would.
[200d] —This then, said Socrates, is to love and desire that from which he is now at some distance, neither as yet has he; and that is, the preserving of what he possesses at the present, and his continuing in possession of it for the future.
[200d] —It certainly is so, replied Agatho.
[200e] —This man, therefore, said Socrates, and every one who feels desire, desires that which lies not ready for his enjoyment, that which is not present with him, that which he has not, that which he himself is not, and that which he is in want of; such things only being the objects of love and of desire.
[200e] —Agatho to this entirely assented.
[200e] —Come then, said Socrates, let us agree upon these conclusions: Is not Love, in the first place, love of something? in the next place, is it not love of that which is wanting?
[201a] —Clearly so, replied Agatho.
[201a] —Now then, said Socrates, recollect what it was you told us in your speech was the proper object of Love. But I, if you please, will remind you of it. I think you said something like this, “that the affairs of the Gods were put in good order, and well established, through love of things beautiful: for that things of opposite kind to these could never be the objects of love.” Did you not tell us some such thing?
[201a] — I own it, answered Agatho.
[201a] —You own the truth, my good friend, replied Socrates. Now, if this be as you say, must not Love be love of beauty, and not of deformity?
[201a] —I agree, said Agatho.
[201a] —And have you not agreed too, said Socrates, that Love is love of something which is wanting, and not of any thing possessed already?
[201b] —True, replied Agatho.
[201b] —It follows then, said Socrates, that Love is not in possession, but in want, of beauty.
[201b] —It follows of necessity, said Agatho.
[201b] —Well then, said Socrates, that to which beauty is absolutely wanting, that which is totally unpossessed of beauty, do you call that beautiful?
[201b] —Certainly not, replied Agatho.
[201b] —Are you still then, said Socrates, of the same opinion, that Love is beautiful, if we have reasoned rightly?
[201b] —Agatho then made answer: I am in danger, Socrates, of being found ignorant in the subject I undertook to praise.
[201b] —You have honestly and fairly spoken, said Socrates. And now answer me to this little question more: Think you not that every thing good is also fair and beautiful?
[201c] —I do, replied Agatho.
[201c] —If then, said Socrates, Love be in want of beauty, and if every thing good be fair and beautiful, Love must be in want of good too.
[201c] — I am not able, replied Agatho, to argue against you, Socrates; and therefore I admit it to be true what you say.
[201c] —You are not able, my beloved Agatho, said Socrates, to argue against the truth: for to argue against Socrates is nothing difficult. [201d] And here shall I dismiss you from being further questioned. But the discourse concerning Love, which I heard formerly from Diotima the prophetess, a woman wise and knowing in these and many other subjects; so profoundly knowing, that when the plague seemed to be approaching Athens, and when the people offered sacrifice to avert it, she caused the coming of that distemper to be delayed for the space of ten years; (she it was who instructed me in the knowledge of all things that appertain to Love;) a discourse, I say, on this subject, which I once heard from her, I will try if I can relate again to you; laying down, for the foundation of it, those points agreed on just now between me and Agatho; but purposing, however, to relate the whole of this by myself, as well as I am able.

### The Speech of Socrates

[201d] Right and proper is it, Agatho, to follow the method marked out by you; in the first place, to declare what kind of a being Love is, and afterwards to show what are the effects produced by him. Now I think the easiest way that I can take, in executing this plan, will be to lay before you the whole of this doctrine in the very manner and order in which I myself was examined and lectured on the subject by Diotima. She began with me, on my saying to her much the same things that were asserted just now by Agatho; that Love was a deity excellent in goodness, and was also one of those who were fair and beautiful. And she refuted me with the same arguments I have made use of to refute Agatho; proving to me that Love, according to my own account of him, was neither beautiful nor good. How say you, Diotima? then said I. Is Love an ugly and an evil being?
[201e] —Soft, replied she; no abusive language: do you imagine that every being who is not beautiful, must of course be ugly?
[202a] —Without doubt, answered I.
[202a] —And every being who is not wise, said she, do you conclude it must be ignorant? Do you not see there is something between wisdom and ignorance⁸⁹?
[202a] —I asked her, what that could be.
[202a] —To think of things rightly, as being what they really are, without being able to assign a reason why they are such. Do you not perceive, said she, that this is not to have the science or true knowledge of them? For, where the cause or reason of a thing remains unknown⁹⁰, how can there be science? Nor yet is it ignorance: for that which errs not from the truth, how should that be ignorance? Such then is right opinion, something between wisdom and ignorance.
[202a] —You are certainly in the right, said I.
[202a] —Deem it not necessary then, said she, that what is not beautiful should be ugly; or that what is not good must of consequence be evil. To apply this to the case of Love; though you have agreed, he is neither good nor beautiful, yet imagine not he must ever the more on that account be ugly and evil; but something between those opposites.
[202b] —Well, said I, but he is acknowledged by all to be a powerful God, however.
[202b] —By all who know him, do you mean, said she, or by all who know him not?
[202b] —By all universally, replied I.
[202b] —Upon which she smiled, and said, How, Socrates, should he be acknowledged a powerful God by those who absolutely deny his divinity?
[202c] —Who are they? said I.
[202c] —You yourself, replied she, are one of them, and I am another.
[202c] —Explain your meaning, said I.
[202c] —My meaning, said she, is easy to be explained. For answer me to this question: Say you not that the Gods are, all of them, blest and happy? or would you offer to say of any one of the Gods, that he was not a blest and happy being?
[202c] —Not I, for my part, said I, by Jupiter.
[202c] —By a happy being, said she, do you not mean a being possessed of things fair, beautiful and good?
[202d] —It is granted, answered I.
[202d] —And you granted before, said she, that Love, from his indigence and want of things good and beautiful, desired those things of which he was destitute.
[202d] —I allowed it.
[202d] —How then, said she, can he be a God, he who is destitute of things fair, beautiful and good?
[202d] —It appears, said I, that he by no means can.
[202d] —You see then, said she, that, even in your own judgment, Love is no God.
[202d] —What! said I, must Love then be a mortal?
[202d] —Far from that, replied she.
[202d] —Of what nature was he then? I asked her.
[202d] —Of like kind, answered she, with those natures we have just now been speaking of, an intermediate one, between the mortal and the immortal.
[202d] —But what in particular, O Diotima?
[202e] —A great dæmon⁹¹, replied she. For the dæmonkind⁹² is of an intermediate nature between the divine and the human.
[202e] — What is the power and virtue, said I, of this intermediate kind of being?
[202e] — To transmit and to interpret to the Gods, said she, what comes from men; and to men, in like manner, what comes from the Gods; from men their petitions and their sacrifices; from the Gods, in return, the revelation of their will. Thus these beings, standing in the middle rank between divine and human, fill up the vacant space, and link together all intelligent nature. Through their intervention proceeds every kind of divination, and the priestly art relating to sacrifices, and the mysteries and incantations, with the whole of divination and magic. For divinity is not mingled with man; but by means of that middle nature is carried on all converse and communication between the Gods and mortals, whether in sleep or waking. Whoever has wisdom and skill in things of this kind is a dæmoniacal man: the knowing and skilful in any other thing, whether in the arts, or certain manual operations, are illiberal and sordid. These dæmons are many and various. One of them is Love.
[203a] —But, said I, from what parents was he born?
[203a] —The history of his parentage, replied she, is somewhat long to relate: however, I will give you the relation. At the birth of Venus, the Gods, to celebrate that event, made a feast; at which was present, amongst the rest, Plenty⁹⁴, the son of Counsel. After they had supped, Poverty came abegging, an abundance of dainties being there, and loitered about the door. Just then Plenty, intoxicated with nectar⁹⁵, (for as yet wine⁹⁶ was not) went out into the gardens of Jupiter; [203b] and oppressed with the load of liquor that he had drunk, fell asleep⁹⁷. Poverty, therefore, desiring through her indigence to have a child from Plenty, artfully lay down by him, and became with child of Love. Hence it is that Love is the constant follower and attendant of Venus, as having been begotten on the birth-day of that Goddess: being also, by his natural disposition, fond of all beauty, he is the more attached to Venus herself on account of her being beautiful. [203c] Now, as Love is the son of Plenty and of Poverty, the condition of his life and fortune is as follows: In the first place, he is always poor; and is far from being either fair or tender, as the multitude imagine him; for he is rough, and hard, and dry, without shoes to his feet, and without a house or any covering to his head; always grovelling on the earth, and lying on the bare ground, at doors, and in the streets, in the open air; partaking thus of his mother’s disposition, and living in perpetual want. On the other hand, he derives from his father’s side qualities very different from those others: for hence it is that he is full of designs upon the good and the fair: hence it is that he is courageous, sprightly, and prompt to action; a mighty sportsman, always contriving some new device to entrap his game: [203d] much addicted to thought, and fruitful in expedients; all his life philosophizing; powerful in magic and enchantment, nor less so in sophistry. His nature is not mortal, in the common way of mortality, nor yet is it immortal, after the manner of the immortal Gods; for sometimes, in one and the same day, he lives and flourishes, when he happens to fare well; and presently afterwards he dies; and soon after that revives again, as partaking of his father’s nature. Whatever abundance flows in upon him is continually stealing away from him: so that Love is never absolutely in a state either of affluence or of indigence. Again, he is seated in the midst between Wisdom and Ignorance. For the case is this with regard to wisdom:
[203e] —None of the Gods philosophize, or desire to become wise; for they are so; and if there be any other being beside the Gods who is truly wise, neither does such a being philosophize. Nor yet does philosophy, or the search of Wisdom, belong to the Ignorant⁹⁸. For on this very account is the condition of Ignorance so wretched, that notwithstanding she is neither fair, good, nor wise, yet she thinks she has no need of any kind of amendment or improvement. So that the ignorant, not imagining themselves in need, neither seek nor desire that which they think they want not. —Who are they then, O Diotima, said I, who philosophize, if they are neither the wise nor the ignorant?
[204a] —That is evident, said she: even a child may now discover that they must be such as stand in the middle rank of being; in the number of whom is Love. For wisdom is among the things of highest beauty; and all beauty is the object of love. It follows therefore of necessity, that Love is a philosopher, or a lover of wisdom; and that, as such, he stands between the adept in wisdom and the wholly ignorant. This, as well as all the rest of his condition, is owing to his parentage; as he derives his birth from a father wise and rich in all things, and from a mother unwise and in want of all things. [204b] Such, dear Socrates, is the nature of this dæmon. But that you had other thoughts of that being, whom you took for Love, is not at all surprising. For, if I may guess from the description you gave of him yourself, you seem to have taken for Love that which is beloved, not that which loves: and from this mistake it arose, as I imagine, that Love appeared to you in all respects so beauteous. For the object of love, the amiable, is truly beauteous and delicate, is perfect and completely blest. But to the subject of love, the lover, belongs a different nature, such a one as I have described to you.
[204c] —Be it granted such, Diotima, said I; for what you tell me bids fair to be the truth. But now, such being his nature, of what advantage is he to human kind?
[204d] —This, Socrates, said she, in the next place, I shall do my best to teach you. Already then it appears what kind of being Love is, and of what parents he was born: and that his object is beauty you yourself have asserted. Now what answer shall we make should we be asked this question, “O Socrates and Diotima! how or in what respect mean ye, when ye say that beauty is the object of Love?”
[204d] —To express the meaning of my question in plainer terms, said she, What is it which the lover of beauty longs for?
[204d] —To be in possession, said I, of the beloved beauty.
[204d] —Your answer, said she, draws on a further question: What will be the state or condition of that man who is in possession of his beloved beauty?
[204d] —I told her, I could by no means answer readily to such a question.
[204d] —Suppose then, said she, that changing the subject of the question, and putting good in the place of beauty, one were to ask you thus, and say, Answer me, Socrates, to this question, What is it which the lover of good longs for?
[204d] —To be in possession of that good, answered I.
[204d] —And what, she asked me again, will be the state of that man who is in possession of good?
[204d] —This, said I, is a question [204e] I can answer with much less difficulty, thus: that such a man will be happy.
[205a] —Right, said she; for by the possessing of good things it is that the happy are in that happy state which they enjoy. Nor is there any room to question further, and ask, Why, or for the sake of what, a man wishes to be happy; but a conclusive answer appears to have been given, fully satisfactory.
[205a] —True, said I, without dispute.
[205a] —Now this wishing and this longing, said she, let me ask you, whether in your opinion it is common to all men; whether you think that all wish to be always in possession of things good; or how otherwise?
[205a] —I think just so, replied I, that such a wish is common to all.
[205a] —Well then, Socrates, said she, must we not acknowledge that all men are in love; seeing that the affections of them all are always fixed on the same things? or shall we say that some are in love, and some are not?
[205b] —It is a thought, said I, which, I confess, a little surprises me.
[205b] —Be not surprised, said she; for the case is nothing more than this, that the name of love, which belongs to all love in general, we appropriate to one particular kind of love, singled out from the others, which we distinguish by other names.
[205b] —To make me conceive your meaning more perfectly, said I, cannot you produce some other case parallel to this?
[205b] —I can, said she. The following case is parallel: Making or creating, you know, comprehends many kinds of operation. For all cause by which any thing proceeds out of non-being into being⁹⁹ is creation. So that all the operations and all the works executed through any of the arts, are indeed so many creations: and all the artists and the workmen are real creators, makers, or poets.
[205c] —True, said I.
[205c] —And yet you know, continued she, they are not all of them called poets or makers, but are distinguished by different names: whilst one particular kind of creation, that which is performed in metre through the Muse’s art, is singled out from the other kinds; and the name, to which they have all an equal right, is given to that alone. For that alone is called poesy or making: and the artists in this species of creation only are peculiarly distinguished by the name of poets or makers.
[205c] —Perfectly right, said I. —Just so is it then in the case of Love, said she. [205d] Universally all desire of things good, and all that longing after happiness, which is in every individual of human kind, is the mighty Deity of Love, who by secret ways and stratagems subdues and governs the hearts of all. His votaries in many various ways, such as those engaged in the pursuit of wealth, or strength of body, or wisdom, are not said to be in love; nor is the name of lover allowed to any such. But to those only who are devoted to Love in one particular way, and addict themselves to one certain species of love, we appropriate those terms of love, and lovers, and the being in love, which ought to be considered as general terms, applicable in common to all the different kinds.
[205d] —In all appearance, said I, you are entirely in the right.
[205d] —She proceeded, however, to confirm the truth of what she had said, in the following manner:
[205e] —There is a saying, continued she, that lovers are in search of the other half of themselves. But my doctrine is, that we love neither the half, nor even the whole of ourselves, if it happen not, my friend, some way or other to be good. For we are willing to have our feet and our hands cut off, though our own, if we deem them incurably and absolutely evil. It is not to what is their own that men have so strong an attachment, nor do they treat it so tenderly on that account, unless there be a man who thinks good to be his own, and properly belonging to him, but evil to be foreign to his nature. So true is it, that there is no other object of love to man than good alone. Or do you think there is?
[205e] —By Jupiter, said I, there appears to me no other.
[205e] —Is this now sufficient for us? said she: and have we done justice to our argument if we finish it with this simple and slender conclusion, that all men love what is good?
[206a] —Why not?, said I.
[206a] —What? said she; must we not add this, that they long to have possession of the loved good?
[206a] —This, said I, must be added.
[206a] —And not only now to have possession of it, said she again, but to have possession of it for ever too; must not this be added further?
[206a] —This further, said I.
[206a] —Love then, in fine, said she, is the desire of having good in perpetual possession.
[206a] —Most true, said I; in every tittle you are right.
[206b] —Since then, said she, this general desire is found always to subsist and to operate in all, can you tell me in what particular way it operates on those who are commonly said to be in love? what the aim is of such lovers, and what the work or effect of this kind of love?
[206b] —Were I able to tell, O Diotima, replied I, I should not have been so full of admiration at your wisdom; nor should I have applied myself to you to be taught these very things, if I already knew them.
[206c] —Well, said she, I will teach you then. The aim of these lovers, and the work of this love, is to generate upon the beautiful as well in a mental way as in that which is corporeal.
[206c] —Your words, said I, have need of some diviner to interpret them: I confess I do not apprehend their meaning.
[206c] —I will express myself then, said she, in plainer language. All of human race, O Socrates, are full of the seeds of generation, both in their bodies and in their minds: and when they arrive at maturity of age, they naturally long to generate. But generate they cannot upon the ugly or uncomely, and only upon the fair and the agreeable. For the work of generation is carried on, you know, by means of the natural commerce between the two sexes: and this is a work above human art, it is divine. For to conceive and to impregnate is to imortalize the kind: it is producing immortality out of an animal which is mortal. In each of the sexes, therefore, is some immortal and divine principle, the cause of conception in the one, and of impregnation in the other. But in neither of them can this principle operate effectually, unless the subject on which it operates be suitable to it and corresponding. Now deformity and ugliness but ill suit with aught which is divine. Beauty alone agrees with it and corresponds. [206d] For Beauty is that celestial influence which favours, and that goddess who patronizes, the work of generation. Hence, whenever that which teems with generative power approaches that which is beautiful, it smiles benignly; and through the delight it feels, opening and diffusing itself abroad, breeds or generates. But whenever it meets with that which is deformed or ugly, it grows morose, saddens, and contracts itself; it turns away, retires back, and generates not; but, restraining the swollen power within, which is ready to burst forth, it bears the burthen with uneasiness. Hence it is that they who are full of this, and long to generate, employ much of their creative power upon that which is beautiful: it is because the beautiful frees them from those generative throes with which they labour. But, Socrates, this is not, as you imagined, the love of beauty.
[206e] —What is it then? said I.
[206e] —It is the love, replied she, of generating and begetting issue, there where we find beauty.
[206e] —Be it so, said I. —It certainly is so, she replied.
[206e] —But, said I, what has Love to do with generating?
[206e] —Because generating, answered she, perpetuates and in some manner immortalizes that which is mortal. Now, that the desire of immortality must always accompany the love of good, follows from what we before agreed in, that love was the desire of having good in perpetual possession. For the necessary consequence of that position is this, that Love desires immortality.
[206e] All these things learned I formerly in a conversation with Diotima, discoursing upon Love. [207a] At another time she thus questioned me: What do you imagine, Socrates, to be the cause of that love, and that desire which lately was the subject of conversation between you and me? Do you not observe, how vehement are the passions of all brute animals¹⁰⁰ when the season comes in which they couple? Birds as well as beasts, you may perceive them all sick with love: so intense is their desire, in the first place, to generate and breed. Nor is their ardour less afterwards in the rearing of their young. In defence of these, you see them ready to engage in fight, the weakest animals with the strongest. To support these, you see them willingly themselves perishing with famine; in short, doing and suffering for their sakes the utmost possible. Those indeed of human kind, continued she, one might imagine acted thus from a motive of reason in themselves: but, in brute animals, can you assign the cause why the affections of love should be so deep and strong?
[207b] —I told her, I was at a loss to account for it.
[207c] —And do you think, said she, ever to become a thorough adept in the science of love, if you are at a loss in a case so easy?
[207c] —It is for this very reason, said I, Diotima, as I lately told you, that I come to you for instruction: it is because I am sensible how much I want it. Do you, therefore, teach me what the cause is of those vehement affections you mentioned just now, and of every other sentiment and passion incident to love.
[207d] —Upon which she said, If you believe that love is, what you have often owned it to be, the desire of having good in perpetual possession, you will be at no loss to conceive what the cause is of those affections. For the case of brute animals and that of the human kind are in this respect exactly the same; in both the same principle prevails; the mortal nature seeks to be perpetuated, and, as far as possible, immortalized. Now this is possible in one only way, that is, by generation; in which some new living thing is constantly produced to supply the place of the deceased old one. And in no other manner than this is life continued to any individual being, of which we say that it lives still, and pronounce it to be the same being. Thus every man, for instance, from his infancy on to old age, is called the same person; though he never has any thing in him which abides with him, and is continually a new man; having lost the man he was in his hair, in his flesh, in his bones, in his blood, in fine in his whole body. Nor in his body only, but in his soul too, does he undergo incessant change. His ways, his manners, his opinions, his desires and pleasures; his fears and sorrows; none of these ever continue in any man the same; but new ones are generated and spring up in him, whilst the former fade and die away. [207e] But a paradox much greater than any yet mentioned is with regard to knowledge: not only some new portions of knowledge we acquire¹⁰¹, whilst we lose others, of which we had before been masters; and never continue long the same persons as to the sum of our present knowledge; but we suffer also the like change in every particular article of that knowledge. For what we call meditation supposes some knowledge to have actually, as it were, left us; and indeed oblivion is the departure of this knowledge: meditation then, raising up in the room of this departed knowledge a fresh remembrance in our minds, preserves in some manner and continues to us that which we had lost; [208a] so as to make the memory of it, the likeness, seem the very same thing. Indeed every thing mortal is preserved in this only way, not by the absolute sameness of it for ever, like things divine, but by leaving behind it, when it departs, dies, or vanishes, another in its room, a new being, bearing its resemblance. By this contrivance in nature, Socrates, does body, and every other thing naturally mortal, partake of immortality. Immortal after a different manner is that which naturally is immortal. Wonder not, therefore, that all beings are by nature lovingly affected towards their offspring. For this affectionate regard, this love, follows every being for the sake of immortality.
[208a] —These things, said I, O Diotima, wisest of women! undoubtedly are so.
[208b] —To which she, in the language of the most accomplished sophists, replied, You may be assured, Socrates, it is the truth. [208c] Nor is it less plain, from instances of a different kind, that immortality is the great aim and end of all. For, if you observe how the love of fame and glory operates on men, and what effect it has upon their conduct, you must wonder at their folly in labouring so much and suffering so greatly in the pursuit of it, unless you consider the mighty power of that passion which possesses them, a zeal to become illustrious in after-ages, and to acquire a fame that may last for ever and be immortal. For this, more than for the sake of their families or friends, are they ready to encounter dangers, to expend their treasures, to undergo the severest hardships, and to meet death itself. Do you think, continued she, that Alcestis would have died for her husband Admetus to preserve his life? [208d] or that Achilles would have died for his friend Patroclus to avenge his death? or that your Athenian Codrus would have died for his children’s sake to secure to them the succession of his kingdom? had they not imagined their virtue would live for ever in the remembrance of posterity, as it actually does throughout all Greece at this very day. Assure yourself their conduct had been quite different, had they not been full of this imagination. For, with a view to the immortality of virtue, and the never-dying glory which attends it, have all great actions ever been performed; a view which inspires and animates the performers, in proportion to the degree of their own personal worth and excellence. For they are governed by that universal passion, the desire of immortality. [208e] But though immortality be thus sought by all men, yet men of different dispositions seek it by different ways. In men of certain constitutions, the generative power lies chiefly and eminently in their bodies. Such persons are particularly fond of the other sex, and court intimacies chiefly with the fair: they are easily enamoured in the vulgar way of love; and procure to themselves, by begetting children, the preservation of their names, a remembrance of themselves which they hope will be immortal, a happiness to endure for ever. In men of another stamp, the faculties of generation are, in as eminent a degree, of the mental kind. For those there are who are more prolific in their souls than in their bodies; and are full of the seeds of such an offspring as it peculiarly belongs to the human soul to conceive and to generate. And what offspring is this, but wisdom and every other virtue? Those who generate most, and who are parents of the most numerous progeny in this way, are the poets, and such artists of other kinds as are said to have been the inventors of their respective arts. But by far the most excellent and beauteous part of wisdom is that which is conversant in the founding and well-ordering of cities and other habitations of men; a part of wisdom distinguished by the names of temperance and justice.
[209a] When the soul of any man has been teeming with the seeds of this wisdom from his youth (and of divine souls it is the native property thus to teem), as soon as he arrives at maturity of age, and those seeds are fully ripened, he longs to sow them in the souls of others, and thus to propagate wisdom. In this situation of his mind, his whole employment, I suppose, is to look about and search for beauty, where he may generate; for never can he generate on aught which is ugly or uncomely. Meeting first then with outward beauty, that of the body, he welcomes and embraces it; but turns away from where he sees deformity in the body; for his soul is full of love. [209b] But if, in his further and deeper search, he has the good fortune to meet with the inward and hidden beauty of a well-natured and generous soul, he then entirely attaches himself, and adheres closely to the whole person in whom it is found, the compound of soul and body. He now finds in himself a facility and a copiousness of expression when he entertains this partner of his soul with discourses concerning virtue; by what means it is acquired; what is a character completely good; what studies should be pursued; what arts be learnt; and how time should be employed in order to the forming such a character. Desirous, therefore, thus to form and perfect the object of his love, he undertakes the office of preceptor. Indeed, whilst he is conversing intimately with that which is fair, those seeds of wisdom, which he was before big with, burst forth spontaneous, and he generates. From this time, whether in the presence or absence of his mistress, his mind and memory become prompt and active; [209c] and he readily produces all his mental store. Both the parents then join in cherishing, rearing up, and cultivating the fruits of their love and amorous converse. Hence it is that a friendship of the firmest kind cements such a pair; and they are held together by a much stricter band of union than by an offspring of their bodies; having a common and joint interest in an offspring from themselves more beautiful and more immortal. Who would not choose to be the father of such children, rather than of mortals sprung from his body? Who that considers Homer, Hesiod, and other excellent poets, with the admiration they deserve, would not wish for such an issue as they left behind them, an issue of this mental kind, such as perpetuates their memory with the highest honour, and procures for them an immortality of fame? Or such a posterity, said she, as that whose foundation Lycurgus laid at Lacedæmon, a race of which himself was the first father, the preservers of their country and of all Greece? Amongst yourselves, what honours are paid to the memory of Solon, who begat the Laws! And abroad as well as at home how illustrious are the names of many others, Barbarians as well as Grecians, who have ex- hibited to the world many noble actions, and have thus begotten all kinds of virtue!
[209d] To men like these have temples often been erected, on account of such their progeny: but never was any man thus honoured on account of his mortal merely human offspring. [209e] In the mysteries of Love thus far perhaps, Socrates, you may be initiated and advanced.¹⁰² But to be perfected, and to attain the intuition of what is secret and inmost¹⁰³, introductory to which is all the rest, if undertaken and performed with a mind rightly disposed, I doubt whether you may be able. However, said she, not to be wanting in a readiness to give you thorough information, I will do my best to conduct you till we have reached the end. Do but you your best to follow me. [210a] Whoever then enters upon this great affair in a proper manner, and begins according to a right method, must have been from his earliest youth conversant with bodies that are beautiful. Prepared by this acquaintance with beauty, he must, in the first place, if his leader¹⁰⁴ lead aright, fall in love with some one particular person, fair and beauteous; and on her beget fine sentiments and fair discourse. He must afterwards consider, that the beauty of outward form, that which he admires so highly in his favourite fair one, is sister to a beauty of the same kind, which he cannot but see in some other fair. If he can then pursue this corporeal beauty, and trace it wherever it is to be found, throughout the human species, he must want [210b] understanding not to conceive, that beauty is one and the same thing in all beauteous bodies. With this conception in his mind, he must become a lover of all visible forms, which are partakers of this beauty; and in consequence of this general love, he must moderate the excess of that passion for one only female form, which had hitherto engrossed him wholly: for he cannot now entertain thoughts extravagantly high of the beauty of any particular fair one, a beauty not peculiar to her, but which she partakes of in common with all other corporeal forms that are beauteous. [210c] After this, if he thinks rightly, and knows to estimate the value of things justly, he will esteem that beauty which is inward, and lies deep in the soul, to be of greater value and worthy of more regard than that which is outward, and adorns only the body. As soon, therefore, as he meets with a person of a beauteous soul and generous nature, though flowering forth but a little in superficial beauty, with this little he is satisfied; he has all he wants; he truly loves, and assiduously employs all his thoughts and all his care on the object of his affection. Researching in his mind and memory, he draws forth, he generates such notions of things, such reasonings and discourses, as may best improve his beloved in virtue. Thus he arrives, of course, to view beauty in the arts¹⁰⁵, the subjects of discipline and study; and comes to discover, that beauty is congenial in them all. He now, therefore, accounts all beauty corporeal to be of mean and inconsiderable value, as being but a small and inconsiderable part of beauty.
[210d] From the arts he proceeds further to the sciences, and beholds beauty no less in these¹⁰⁶. And by this time having seen, and now considering within himself, that beauty is manifold and various, he is no longer, like one of our domestics who has conceived a particular affection for some child of the family, a mean and illiberal slave to the beauty of any one particular, whether person or art, study or practice; but betaking himself to the ample sea of beauty, and surveying it with the eye of intellect, he begets many beautiful and magnificent reasonings, and dianoëtic conceptions in prolific philosophy, till thus being strengthened and increased, he perceives what that one¹⁰⁷ science is which is so singularly great, as to be the science of so singularly great a beauty.¹⁰⁸ But now try, continued she, to give me all the attention you are master of. [210e] Whoever then is advanced thus far in the mysteries of Love by a right and regular progress of contemplation, approaching now to perfect intuition, suddenly he will discover, bursting into view, a beauty astonishingly admirable; that very beauty, to the gaining a sight of which the aim of all his preceding studies and labours had been directed: a beauty, whose peculiar characters are these: In the first place, it never had a beginning, nor will ever have an end, but always IS, and always flourishes in perfection, unsusceptible of growth or of decay. In the next place, it is not beautiful only when looked at one way, or seen in one light; [211a] at the same time that, viewed another way, or seen in some other light, it i far from being beautiful: it is not beautiful only at certain times, or with reference only to certain circumstances of things; being at other times, or when things are otherwise circumstanced, quite the contrary: nor is it beautiful only in some places, or as it appears to some persons; whilst in other places, and to other persons, its appearance is the reverse of beautiful. Nor can this beauty, which is indeed no other than the beautiful itself, ever be the object of imagination; as if it had some face or hands of its own, or any other parts belonging to body: nor is it some particular reason, nor some particular science. It resides not in any other being, not in any animal, for instance; nor in the earth, nor in the heavens, nor in any other part of the universe: [211b] but, simple and separate from other things, it subsists alone with itself, and possesses an essence eternally uniform. All other forms which are beauteous participate of this; but in such a manner they participate, that by their generation or destruction this suffers no diminution, receives no addition, nor undergoes any kind of alteration. When from those lower beauties, reascending by the right way of Love, a man begins to gain a sight of this supreme beauty, he must have almost attained somewhat of his end. Now to go, or to be led by another, along the right way of Love, is this: beginning from those beauties of lower rank, to proceed in a continual ascent, all the way proposing this highest beauty as the end; [211c] and using the rest but as so many steps in the ascent; to proceed from one to two, from two¹⁰⁹ to all beauteous bodies; from the beauty of bodies to that of souls¹¹⁰; from the beauty of souls to that of arts; from the beauty of arts to that of disciplines; until at length from the disciplines he arrives at that discipline which is the discipline of no other thing than of that supreme beauty; and thus finally attains to know what is the beautiful itself.
[211d] —Here is to be found, dear Socrates, said the stranger-prophetess¹¹¹, here if any where, the happy life, the ultimate object of desire to man: it is to live in beholding this consummate beauty; the sight of which if ever you attain, it will appear not to be in gold¹¹², nor in magnificent attire, nor in beautiful youths or damsels: with such, however, at present, many of you are so entirely taken up, and with the sight of them so absolutely charmed, that you would rejoice to spend your whole lives, were it possible, in the presence of those enchanting objects, without any thoughts of eating or drinking, but feasting your eyes only with their beauty, and living always in the bare sight of it. [211e] If this be so, what effect, think you, would the sight of beauty itself have upon a man, were he to see it pure and genuine, not corrupted and stained all over with the mixture of flesh, and colours, and much more of like perishing and fading trash; but were able to view that divine essence, the beautiful itself, in its own simplicity of form? [212a] Think you, said she, that the life of such a man would be contemptible or mean; of the man who always directed his eye toward the right object, who looked always at real beauty, and was conversant with it continually? Perceive you not, said she, that in beholding the beautiful with that eye, with which alone it is possible to behold it, thus, and thus only, could a man ever attain to generate, not the images or semblances of virtue, as not having his intimate commerce with an image or a semblance; but virtue true, real, and substantial, from the converse and embraces of that which is real and true. Thus begetting true virtue, and bringing her up till she is grown mature, he would become a favourite of the Gods; and at length would be, if any man ever be, himself one of the immortals.
[212a] —The doctrines which I have now [212b] delivered to you, Phædrus, and to the rest of my friends here, I was taught by Diotima, and am persuaded they are true. Full of this persuasion myself, I endeavour to persuade others, and to show them, that it is difficult for any man to find a better guide or assistant to him than Love, in his way to happiness. And on this account, I further contend, that every man ought to pay all due honours to that patron of human nature. For my own part, I make it my chief study to cultivate the art which Love teaches, and employ myself upon the subjects proper for the exercise of that art with a particular attention; encouraging others to follow my example, and at all times, as well as now, celebrating the power and virtue of Love as far as I am able.
[212c] —This speech, Phædrus, you may accept, if you are so pleased, for a panegyric in praise of Love: or if you choose to call it by any other name, and to take it in any other sense, be that its right name, and that its proper acceptation.

### The Speech of Alcibiades

[212c] Socrates having thus spoken, the rest praised his oration; but Aristophanes endeavoured to say something, because Socrates in his speech had mentioned him. On a sudden, however, a loud knocking was heard at the door of the the porch, together with the voices of the intoxicated, and the sound of the pipe. Upon this Agatho said to the servants, See who are there; and if there is any one among them fit for this company, call him in: if not, say that we are no longer drinking. [212d] Not long after this the voice of Alcibiades, who was very much intoxicated, was heard in the court, asking where Agatho was, and commanding to be led to him. The flute-player, therefore, and some other of his companions, brought him to Agatho, and stood with him at the doors, he being crowned with a garland of ivy and violets, having many fillets on his head, and exclaiming, All hail, my friends! Either receive as your associate in drinking a man very much intoxicated, or let us depart, crowning Agatho alone, for whose sake we came. For I could not, says he, be with you yesterday; but now I come with fillets on my head, that, from my own, I may crown the head of the wisest and the most beautiful person, if I may be allowed so to speak. [212e] Do you, therefore, laugh at me as one intoxicated? However, though you may laugh, I well know that I speak the truth. But tell me immediately, whether I may come in to him or not; and whether you continue drinking or not? [213a] All the company, therefore, was in an uproar, and ordered him to enter and seat himself; which he accordingly did, and called for Agatho. Agatho, therefore, came, led by his companions; and Alcibiades at the same time taking off his fillets, that he might crown him, did not see Socrates, though he sat before him, but sat near Agatho, and between him and Socrates: for Socrates had made way for him that he might sit. Alcibiades, therefore, being seated, saluted and crowned Agatho: [213b] and then Agatho said, Boys, take off the shoes of Alcibiades, that he may recline as the third among us. Alcibiades said, By all means, but asked, Who is this third drinking companion of ours? and at the same time turning himself round saw Socrates; but seeing him, he started, and exclaimed, O Hercules! what is this? Are you again sitting here to ensnare me? as it is usual with you to appear suddenly where I least expected to find you. And now for what purpose are you here? And why do you sit in this place, and not with Aristophanes, or with some other who is ridiculous, and wishes to be so? But you have contrived to sit with the most beautiful of the guests. [213c] Then Socrates said to Agatho, See if you can assist me; for the love of this man is not to me a vile thing; since from the time in which I began to love him I am no longer at liberty either to behold or speak to any beautiful person. Or does not he, in consequence of emulating and envying me in amatory affairs, contrive wonderful devices, and also revile and scarcely keep his hands from me? See, therefore, that he does not do this now, but conciliate us; or, if he should attempt violence, assist me: for the mania of this man, and his amatory impulse, very much terrify me.
[213d] —Alcibiades then said, There is no occasion for any conciliation between you and me. I shall, however, at some other time take vengeance on you for these things. But now, Agatho, says he, give me some of the fillets, that I may crown the wonderful head of this man, that he may not blame me that I have crowned you, but not him who vanquishes all men in discourse, not only lately as you have done, but at all times. And at the same time receiving the fillets, he crowned Socrates, and seated himself. [213e] Being seated, therefore, he said, Come, gentlemen, drink, for you appear to me to be sober. This, however, is not to be allowed; for it was agreed that we should drink. I therefore engage to be your leader in drinking, till you have drunk enough. But, Agatho, pass the cup, if there is any large one. Or, rather, there is no occasion for this; but Bring hither, boy, said he, that cooling vessel, which seems to hold more than eight cotylæ¹¹³. Having filled this vessel, he first drank himself, and afterwards ordered them to pour out of it for Socrates, and at the same time said, This stratagem of mine, gentlemen, is nothing to Socrates; [214a] for, let him drink as much as any one may command, he will not be in the least intoxicated¹¹⁴. Socrates, therefore, the boy having poured out of the large vessel, drank. [214b] But then Eryximachus said, How shall we do, Alcibiades? Shall we neither say any thing, nor sing any thing, over the cup; but act exactly like those that are thirsty? Upon this Alcibiades said, Hail, Eryximachus! best of men, sprung from the best and most prudent of fathers. And hail to you, said Eryximachus. But what shall we do? That which you order us; for it is necessary to be obedient to you. For a man who is a physician is equivalent to many others. Command, therefore, whatever you please. [214c] Hear then, said Eryximachus. Before you entered, it seemed to us to be proper that every one, beginning at the right hand, should deliver an oration in praise of Love, to the best of his ability. All the rest of us, therefore, have delivered our orations; and it is just, since you have not spoken, but have drunk, that you also should deliver one: and when you have spoken, you may order Socrates to do whatever you please, and he may also order him on his right hand, and in a similar manner with respect to the rest. Eryximachus then said, You speak well, Alcibiades; but it is not equitable that a man intoxicated should engage in a verbal competition with those that are sober. But, O blessed man, has Socrates persuaded you with respect to any thing which he just now said? Or do you know that every thing which he said is just the contrary? For if I, he being present, should praise any one, whether God or man, except himself, he would not keep his hands from me. [214d] Will you not predict better things? said Socrates. By Neptune, said Alcibiades, say nothing to these things; for I shall praise no other person when you are present. Do so then, said Eryximachus: if you will, praise Socrates. [214e] How do you say? said Alcibiades. Does it seem to you fit, O Eryximachus, that I should attack this man, and revenge myself before you? So then, said Socrates, what have you in your mind? Will you praise me for things ridiculous? or what will you do? I shall speak the truth. But see if you permit me. Indeed, said Socrates, I not only permit, but order you to speak the truth. [215a] I shall by all means do so, said Alcibiades. But observe, if I should assert any thing that is not true, stop me when you please, and say that in this I have spoken falsely; for I shall not willingly lie in any thing. And do not wonder if, in consequence of recollecting, I narrate different circumstances from different places; for it is not an easy thing for a man in my condition to enumerate readily, and in succession, thy wonderful nature. But, gentlemen, I will thus endeavour to praise Socrates through images. He indeed will, perhaps, suspect that I shall turn my discourse to things ridiculous; but the image will be for the sake of truth, and not for the sake of the ridiculous.
[215a] I say, then, that Socrates is most similar to those Silenuses that are seated in the workshops of statuaries, which the artists have fabricated with pipes or flutes in their hands; and which, when they are bisected, appear to contain within statues¹¹⁵ of the Gods. And I again say, that he resembles the satyr Marsyas. That your outward form, therefore, is similar to these, O Socrates, even you yourself will not deny; [215b] but that you also resemble them in other things, hear in the next place. You are contumelious: or are you not? For, if you do not acknowledge it, I will bring witnesses. Are you not also a piper much more wonderful than Marsyas¹¹⁶? For he charmed men through instruments, by a power proceeding from the mouth; and he also accomplishes this even now, when any one uses that modulation. For I call the modulation of Olympus¹¹⁷ that of Marsyas, because he instructed Olympus in it. That harmony, therefore, whether it is produced by a good piper, or by a bad female player on the pipe, alone detains the hearers, and manifests, because it is divine, those that stand in need¹¹⁸ of the Gods and the mysteries; [215c] but you in this respect only differ from that harmony, that you effect this very same thing by mere words without instruments. We, therefore, when we hear some other person relating the discourse of another, though he that relates it should be a very good rhetorician, yet we pay, as I may say, no attention to it; but when any one hears you, or another person, relating your discourses, though he that repeats them should be a bad speaker, and whether it be a woman, or a man, or a lad, that is the auditor, we are astonished and possessed. I therefore, my friends, unless I should appear to be very much intoxicated, will tell you upon oath in what manner I have been affected by the discourses of this man, and how I am even now affected. [215d] For when I hear him, my heart leaps much more than that of those who celebrate the mysteries of the Corybantes; [215e] and my tears flow from his discourses. I also see many others affected in the same manner. But when I hear Pericles, and other good rhetoricians, I think, indeed, that they speak well, but I suffer nothing of this kind; nor is my soul agitated with tumult, nor is it indignant, as if it were in a servile condition. But by this Marsyas I am often so affected, that it appears to me I ought not to live while I lead such a life as I do. [216a] You will not, Socrates, say that these things are not true. And even now I perceive that, if I were willing to listen to him, I could not bear it, but should be affected in the very same manner. For he would compel me to acknowledge, that, being yet deficient in many things, I neglect myself, but attend to the affairs of the Athenians¹¹⁹. By violence, therefore, restraining my ears, I depart from him, flying, as it were, from the Syrens, lest I should sit with him till I became old. From him alone likewise, of all men, I suffer that which no one would think to be in me, to be ashamed of something. But I am abashed before him alone. For I am conscious that I am unable to deny that what he exhorts me to do ought not to be done; but when I depart from him, I am vanquished by the honour which I receive from the multitude. [216b] I therefore avoid, and fly from him; and when I see him I am ashamed, in consequence of what I had consented to do. And often, indeed, it would be a pleasure to me no longer to see him among men: and yet again, if this should happen, I well know that I should be in a much greater degree afflicted; so that I am ignorant in what manner I should use this man. And from the modulations, indeed, of this satyr, both I and many others have suffered such-like things.
[216c] But hear from me how much he resembles such things as I shall assimilate him to, and what a wonderful power he possesses. For be well assured of this, that no one of you knows him; but I will manifest him, since I have begun to speak. You see then that he is disposed in a very amatory manner towards beautiful things; and that he is always conversant with and astonished about these. And again, he knows all things, and yet knows nothing¹²⁰; [216d] so that this figure of him is very Silenical; for he is externally invested with it, like a carved Silenus. But when he is opened inwardly, would you think, O my fellow guests, how replete he is with temperance? Know also, that neither if any one is beautiful, does he pay any attention to his beauty, but despises it far beyond what you would suppose; nor does he esteem any one for being rich, or for possessing any other honour from the things which are considered as blessed by the multitude. But he thinks that all these possessions are of no worth, and that we are nothing. He also passes the whole of his life among men in irony and jest; [216e] but when he is serious and is opened, I know not whether any one of you has seen the images which are within. I however once saw them, and they appeared to me to be so divine, golden, all-beautiful and wonderful, that I was determined to act in every respect conformably to the advice of Socrates. Thinking too that he paid great attention to my beauty, I considered this as my gain, and as a circumstance wonderfully fortunate, as I conceived that by gratifying Socrates I should hear from him all that he knew. For I formed a great opinion of my beauty, and thought it admirable. Thus conceiving, as prior to this I had never been with him alone without an attendant, I then dismissed my attendant, and remained with him alone: for it is necessary to narrate every thing to you truly.
[217a] But now attend to me; and if I lie, do you, Socrates, confute me. [217b] I was with him, O my fellow guests, I alone with him alone, and expected that he would immediately speak to me in such a manner as lovers are accustomed to speak to the objects of their love in solitude; and I was delighted with the expectation. Nothing however of this kind took place; but he discoursed with me as usual till evening, and then departed. After this, I incited him to engage with me in gymnastic exercises, expecting that I should effect something by this mean. We engaged, therefore, in these exercises, and often wrestled together, no one being present. But what occasion is there to say more? I did not in the least accomplish my purpose. [217c] Not succeeding, therefore, in this in any respect, it appeared to me that I should attack the man more strenuously, since it was my determination to ensnare him. Hear now then what the thing was. I invited him to sup with me, in reality forming the same stratagem as a lover would for the objects of his love. He did not readily accept my invitation: however, some time after he accepted it. But when he came, as soon as he had supped, he wished to depart; [217d] and then I being ashamed consented to his going away. Again however attacking him, after supper, I discoursed with him a considerable part of the night; and when he again wished to depart, observing that it was late, I compelled him to stay. He reposed, therefore, in a bed next to mine, and in which he had supped; and no other person besides us slept in the house. Thus far then, what I have said is well, and might have been said to any one; but you must not hear me narrate what follows without first admitting the proverb, that wine without childhood¹²¹ and with childhood is true. [217e] Besides, to leave in obscurity the proud deed of Socrates appears to me unjust in one who undertakes to praise him. To which I may add, that I am affected in the same manner as he is who is bitten by a viper: for they say he is not willing to tell his feelings except to those that are in a similar condition, as they alone can know them, and will pardon every thing which he may dare to do and say through the pain. I, therefore, have been bit by that which gives more pain, and which indeed causes the most acute of all pains. [218a] For those who have the heart or soul, or whatever else it may be proper to call it, bit and wounded by philosophic discourses, find the pain to be much more acute than that produced by the bite of the viper, and are impelled by it to do and say any thing; when such discourses are received in a soul juvenile and not ignoble. Again, therefore, looking at Phædrus, Agatho, Eryximachus, Pausanias, Aristodemus, Aristophanes, and, in short, Socrates, and the rest of the company; Since all of you, said he, partake with me of the mania and Bacchic fury of philosophy, on this account let all hear me. For you will pardon what I then did, and what I now say.
[218b] But let the servants, or any other profane¹²² and rustic person that may be present, close their ears with mighty gates. [218c] When, therefore, the lamp was exinguished, and the servants had left the room, it appeared to me requisite to employ no dissimulation towards him, but freely to tell him my sentiments. And I said, moving him, Socrates, are you asleep? Not yet, he replied. Do you know then, what I conceive? About what particularly? said he. You appear to me, I replied, to be the only lover worthy of me, though you are not forward in courting me. But, as I am thus affected, I think it would be very stupid, not to gratify you in this particular, and in any thing else of which you may be in want, whether it be my property, or my friends: for nothing is to me more honourable than to become the best of men. But I think that no one can give me more assistance in this than you. And I should much more fear the reprehensions of the wise, in not gratifying such a man, than I should fear the many and the unwise by gratifying him. [218d] Socrates, having heard me, said, very ironically, and very much after his usual manner, O beloved Alcibiades, you appear in reality to be no vile person, if what you say concerning me is true, and there is in me a certain power, through which you can be made better, and if also you perceive in me an immense beauty, and very much excelling the elegance of your form. If, therefore, perceiving this, you endeavour to have communion with me, and to change beauty for beauty, you strive to possess much more than I do; [218e] for instead of the opinion you endeavour to obtain the truth of beauty, and conceive that you shall in reality exchange brass for gold. But, O blessed youth, consider more maturely, nor let me be concealed from you, who am nothing. For then indeed the sight of the dianoëtic power begins to perceive acutely, when that of the eye loses its acme. You, however, are as yet at a distance from these things. [219a] Having heard him, I replied, With respect to myself the particulars are such as I have told you, nor have I said any thing different from what I conceive; but do you advise in such a manner as you may think best both for you and me. This, said he, you say well: for in future let us, consulting together, do that which appears to be best for us, both about these and other particulars. [219b] Having heard and replied to these things, and ceasing to speak, as if I had thought that he was wounded with a dart, I rose, and would not suffer him to speak any more; and wrapping myself round with this old garment (for it was winter), I reclined in it, embracing in my arms this truly divine and wonderful man, and thus lay the whole night. And again, Socrates, neither will you say that I have asserted these things falsely. [219c] But though I acted in this manner, yet he was victorious, and despised, ridiculed, and even insulted my beauty. And as, O my fellow guests, you are judges of the haughtiness of Socrates, I call the Gods and Goddesses to witness, that I rose from Socrates no otherwise than if I had slept with my father, or my elder brother.
[219d] What then do you suppose were my thoughts after this, conceiving that I had been despised, but admiring the nature, the temperance and fortitude of this man? conceiving that I had met with such a man for prudence and fortitude, as I should never have expected to find? Hence I could not be in any respect angry with him, nor could I abandon his conversation, nor discover any means of alluring him. For I well knew that it is much more difficult to subdue him by money, than it was to vanquish Ajax by the sword; and that by which alone I thought he might be ensnared deceived me. Hence I wandered about dubious, and more enslaved by this man than any one by any other. All these things, therefore, were at that time effected by me. [219e] After this, he was my associate and my daily guest in the military expedition against Potidæa. And here, in the first place, he not only surpassed me, but all others, in labours. Hence, when we were compelled through a deficiency of provisions to fast, as is sometimes the case in armies, the rest were nothing to him with respect to endurance. Again, in feasts at the military table, he alone was the only person that appeared to enjoy them; and though he was unwilling to drink, yet when compelled he vanquished all the rest. And what is the most wonderful of all, no one ever saw Socrates intoxicated. However, it seems to me that a confutation of this will immediately follow¹²³. [220a] But with respect to endurance in the severity of the winter (for the winter there is very severe), he performed wonders; and once, the cold being so dreadful that no one could venture out of his tent, or, if he did venture, he was very abundantly clothed, and had his feet bound and wrapt in wool and sheep-skins, Socrates then went out with just the same clothing as before this he was accustomed to wear. He likewise marched through the ice without shoes, more easily than others with shoes. But the soldiers beheld him as one who despised them. And thus much for these particulars.
[220b] Again, what this strenuous man did and endured in that army, it is worth while to hear. For thinking deeply about something one morning, he stood considering it; and though he was not able to discover what he was investigating, he did not desist, but stood exploring. [220c] It was now too mid-day, and the soldiers perceived him, and wondering, said one to the other, that Socrates had stood from the morning cogitating¹²⁴. At length some of the Ionian soldiers when it was evening, having supped (for it was then summer), laid themselves down on the bare ground, that they might observe whether he continued in the same posture through the night. But he stood till it was morning and the sun rose; after which he departed, having first adored the sun. [220d] If you are also willing, hear how he conducted himself in battle; for it is but just to relate this. For in that engagement in which the commanders of the army conferred on me those rewards which are usually given to such as have conducted themselves best in battle, no other man saved me than Socrates; for, as I was wounded, he was not willing to leave me, but preserved both my arms and me. And I indeed, O Socrates, at that time urged the commanders to give you the rewards which are bestowed on the most valiant; and for saying this, you neither blame me, nor accuse me of speaking falsely. The commanders, however, looking to my dignity, wished to give me those rewards, you also being more desirous that I should receive them than yourself.
[220e] Further still, O fellow guests, it was well worth while to behold Socrates when our army fled from Delium; [221a] for I happened to be in that battle among the cavalry, but Socrates was among the foot. The ranks, therefore, being broken, he and Laches retreated; and I meeting with and seeing the troops, immediately exhorted them to take courage, and said that I would not abandon them. Here then I could see Socrates better than at Potidæa; for I was in less fear, because I was on horseback. In the first place, therefore, he greatly surpassed Laches in prudent caution; and, in the next place, he appeared to me, O Aristophanes, to carry himself loftily, as you also say he does here, and darting his eye around calmly to survey both friends and enemies; so that it was manifest to every one, and even to him that was at a considerable distance, that he who touched this man would be very strenuously resisted. Hence both he and his companion retreated with security; for scarcely was any one attacked who thus conducted himself in the battle, but they pursued those that fled rapidly and in disorder.
[221b] There are many other things, indeed, in which Socrates is admirable, and for which he might be praised. [221c] And in other pursuits, others perhaps may merit the same praise; but to resemble no man, neither of the antients nor the moderns, this is a circumstance worthy of all wonder. For such as Achilles was, such also it may be conjectured was Brasidas¹²⁵ and others: and again, such as Pericles was, such also it may be said were Antenor and Nestor. And there are likewise others that after the same manner may be compared with others. But such a prodigy is this man, both as to himself and his discourses, that no one by searching will find any man that nearly resembles him, neither among those of the present age nor among the antients. He can, therefore, only be said to resemble, both in himself and his discourses, those things to which I have compared him, viz. no one among men, but the Silenuses and Satyrs. [221d] For I omitted to mention this before, that his discourses are most similar to the Silenuses when opened. For the discourses of Socrates, to him who is willing to hear them, will at first appear to be perfectly ridiculous; since the nouns and verbs which he employs externally enfold a certain gift of a reviling Satyr. [221e] For he speaks of asses and their burthens, of copper-smiths, shoe-makers and tanners, and he always appears to say the same things through the same; so that every unskilful and ignorant man will ridicule his words. But he who beholds his discourses when opened, and penetrates into their depth, will, in the first place, find that they alone of all other discourses contain intellect within them; and, in the next place, that they are most divine, are replete with numerous images of virtue, and have a very ample extent, or rather extend themselves to every thing which it is fit he should consider who intends to become a truly worthy man. [222a] These then are the things, my fellow guests, for which I praise and also for which I blame Socrates. I have likewise inserted in them the injuries which he has done me. Nor has he alone acted in thismanner towards me, but also towards Charmides the son of Glauco, Euthydemus the son of Diocles, and very many others; [222b] for he has deceived these, as if he had been their lover, when at the same time he rather became the beloved object himself. Hence, I caution you, O Agatho, not to be deceived by this man, but, knowing what I have suffered, take care, and do not, as the proverb says of fools, become wise by experience.
[222c] Aristodemus related, that when Alcibiabes had thus spoken, the freedom of his speech excited a general laugh, because he appeared to have for Socrates an amatory regard. Socrates, therefore, said, You seem to me, O Alcibiades, to be sober; for, otherwise, you would not have attempted in so elegant and circuitous a manner to conceal that for the sake of which you have said all these things, nor would you have asserted that which, as if foreign from the purpose, you have added at the end; as if the intention of all that you have said was not to separate me and Agatho. For you think that I ought to love you and no other, and that Agatho ought to be loved by you, and by no one besides. Neither is this Satyric and Silenic drama of yours concealed from, but is perfectly evident to, us. But, dear Agatho, may none of these his contrivances succeed! and let us endeavour that nothing may separate you and me. [222d] To this Agatho replied, Indeed, Socrates, you appear to speak the truth; and I infer that he sits between you and me, that he may separate us. He will, however, derive no advantage from this; for I will come and sit next to you. By all means, said Socrates, come hither, and sit below me. O Jupiter! Alcibiades exclaimed, how much do I suffer from this man! He thinks it is necessary to surpass me in every thing; but, O wonderful man, suffer Agatho, if no one else, to sit between us. [222e] It is impossible, said Socrates: for you have praised me, and it is necessary that I should now praise him sitting at my right hand. If, therefore, Agatho reclines under you, he certainly will not again praise me before he has been praised by me. But cease, O dæmoniacal man, and do not envy my praise of the lad; for I very much desire to pass an encomium on him. Excellent! excellent! [223a] said Agatho to Alcibiades: there is no reason why I should stay here, but there is every reason that I should change my seat, that I may be praised by Socrates. These things, said Alcibiades, are usual: when Socrates is present, it is impossible for any other to share the favours of the beautiful. And now observe how easily, and with what persuasive language, he draws this youth to him. After this Agatho rose, that he might sit by Socrates: [223b] but on a sudden many revellers came to the gates, and, finding them open, in consequence of some one having gone out, they entered and seated themselves. Hence, all things were full of tumult; and as there was no longer any order observed, every one was compelled to drink a great quantity of wine. Aristodemus therefore said, that Eryximachus and Phædrus, and some others, went home to take some sleep; but that he slept there very abundantly, the nights being long, and rose about daybreak, the cocks then crowing. When, therefore, he had risen, he saw that some of the guests were asleep, and that others had departed; but that Agatho, Aristophanes, and Socrates, were the only persons awake, and were drinking to the right hand out of a great bowl. He also added, that Socrates was discoursing with them; but that he did not recollect what the discourse was, because he was not present at the beginning of it, as he was then asleep. However, the sum of it, he said, was this, that Socrates compelled them to acknowledge that it was the province of the same person to compose comedy and tragedy; and that he who was by art a tragic, was also a comic poet. When they had assented to these things by compulsion, and not very readily, Aristodemus said, they fell asleep; and that Aristophanes fell asleep first, and afterwards, it being now day, Agatho; but that Socrates, they being asleep, rising, went out, he as usual following him. And lastly, that Socrates went to the Lyceum, and, having washed himself as at another time, conversed there the whole day, and in the evening went home to rest.

## Notes

[1] The readers of Plato will observe, that before each of his dialogues the names of the speakers in it are recited, not in the order either of their real dignity, or of their importance to the dialogue, as the manner is of modern poets before their tragedies and comedies; but according to the order in which they severally make their first appearance; and, since in every scene of conversation two or more must appear at the same time together, these are named according to the order in which they first speak: after the manner we find the persons of the drama enumerated before all the dramatic writings of the antients.
[2] Apollodorus was a disciple of Socrates, but of no long standing at this time. His character, therefore, in the dialogue is properly marked by the vehemence of his attachment to philosophy, and admiration of his master.
[3] This friend is not mentioned by name: a circumstance which alone seems to have induced some to imagine, that by the friend of Apollodorus Plato here meant himself.
[4] If this be the same Glauco who was brother to Plato, and Plato be the friend here introduced, it seems strange that Apollodorus should speak of Plato’s brother to Plato himself, as of one utterly unknown to Plato, mentioning his name, afterwards, only as it were by accident.
[5] Aristodemus was a constant, humble follower of Socrates.
[6] For the characters of all the following persons we refer to the first part of the preceding Introduction.
[7] The scene of conversation between Apollodorus and his friend, the only dramatic part of the dialogue, and where all the rest of it is introduced in the way of narrative, appears to be the house of this friend; as proper a place as any for so long a recital as Apollodorus had to make him; and the most proper where to come to him with that intention. The says, he then made the same long recital. The scene of the short discourse next related between Aristodemus and Socrates is made the street; by which piece of conduct, the breaking it off so abruptly is suitable to the decorum of place. And Agatho’s house is the grand scene of the principal part, the speeches at the entertainment.—S.
[8] The word πρωην, which the older editions give us in this place, is, carelessly as it seems, omitted in that of Stephens: which error, as well as many others, we the rather take notice of, to prevent a repetition of the same in any future edition of Plato where the text of Stephens is likely to be made the standard.—S.
[9] Phalerus was a sea-port town, between four and five miles from the city of Athens; where frequently were furnished out, by way of spectacles of entertainment to the people, pompous cavalcades, issuing probably from thence, and marching to the city. See Xenophon in Hipparchic. p. 560. ed. 2da Steph.—S.
[10] What the joke is, will easily be discerned by help of the preceding note. For it lies in a humorous opposition between the haste with which Apollodorus seems to have been walking, agreeably to his character, and the slowness usual in cavalcades of pomp, with the frequent stopping of those who are foremost, till the more dilatory train behind them is come up.—S.
[11] Those who acted and sung the chorus parts in his play.—S.
[12] In all the editions of the Greek we here read Κυδαθηνευς: but it ought certainly to be printed Κυδαθηναιευς; as appears from Stephanus de Urb. and from an old inscription on a pillar at Athens published in Spon. de Pagis Attic. voce Κυδαθηναιον. See also Meursius de Pop. Attic. in eadem voce.—S.
[13] Xenophon informs us, that Aristodemus was surnamed the Little. This circumstance, therefore, serves to ascertain the man. From the same author we learn, that this little man was also one of the minute philosophers of that age, till better taught by Socrates. For Xenophon represents him as ουτε θυοντα τοις θεοις μηχανωμενον, ουτε μαντικῃ χρωμενον, αλλα και των ποιουντων ταυτα καταγελωντα. We quote the very words of this passage, for the sake of proposing to our learned readers an emendation of the word μηχανωμενον. For we are not satisfied with μητε ευχομενον, the conjecture of H. Stephens, nor with the ουτε ευχομενον of Leunclavius; because sacrifice to the Gods, we apprehend, always implied either petition or thansgiving: nor can we acquiesce in retaining the word μηχανωμενον, making it to signify, when he undertook any thing, and accordingly supposing, with Ernestus, the word τι to be tacitly understood; because the supposition seems not agreeable to any idiom of the Greek language. We approve rather the prudence of Bessarion, who, in his Latin translation of this passage, took no notice at all of the word μηχανωμενον. But, as we must not make so bold with the original, we propose, instead of that word, to be read as in a parenthesis, μη ἑκοντα μεν ουν: by which alteration the sense will be this, that Aristodemus offered no sacrifices to the Gods, no voluntary ones at least, but in compliance only with custom, or in obedience to the laws. And this may appear to be the true meaning, when we consider that atheists in all ages are ready enough to join in public acts of divine worship; and, therefore, not the neglect of these, but of such as were voluntary, could be any indication to Socrates of the real sentiments of Aristodemus. See Xenophon in Memorabil. l. i. c. 4.—S.
[14] By this circumstance Aristodemus was distinguished, it seems, as much as by his littleness. It is probable that, like his fellow disciple Antisthenes the cynic, he imitated what appeared the most rigid and severe in his master’s way of life, as being best suited to the natural roughness of his own temper, and the rudeness of his manners; which led him to entertain atheistical notions of the causes of things, and to ridicule those who paid real worship to what was divine in nature. This circumstance recalls to our mind those epithets of rough, hard, and unyielding, τραχεια και αντιτυπος, given to atheism by Plutarch at the end of his treatise περι δεισιδαιμον—S.
[15] Xenophon in his Apology, and Plato in his Phædo, near the beginning, and again toward the conclusion of it, represent Apollodorus as a man simple and sincere, but with such a kind of weakness in his mind, as made him remarkably hasty, negligent of decorum, and apt to speak inconsiderately and without discretion.—S.
[16] Socrates, in his ordinary way of life, accustomed himself to endure voluntary hardships: from which he drew this advantage, that he suffered less than other men when called to bear hardships that were necessary. In like manner the Cynics and Stoics, in imitation probably of Socrates, did many things ασκησεως ἑνεκα, that is, for the sake of habituating, through exercise, their minds and bodies to endurance. But Socrates, unlike the Cynics, made all this consistent with a regard to the decencies of civil and social life, a due compliance with custom, and conformity to fashion. For he always readily relaxed from his severity, whenever, as on the present occasion, he deemed the practice of it unseasonable. This civility distinguishes the manners of Socrates from the savage rusticity of Aristodemus before mentioned. And we cannot help thinking, that these two seemingly slight circumstances, in the description of these two persons, were mentioned by Plato so near together, on purpose to make that distinction the more easy to be noted. We learn from Ælian, in Var. Hist. l. iv. c. 18. that Socrates was charged, probably by the Cynics, with being curious and nice about his house, and his bed, and his fine slippers. Which confirms the truth of our observation in this note.—S.
[17] The proverb here alluded to, Athenæus, pag. 178. and Zenobius, c. 2. 19. have given us in this verse, which the latter quotes from Eupolis the comic poet,

Αυτοματοι δ’ αγαθοι δειλων επι δαιτας ιασιν.
When made by meaner men are feasts,
Their betters go, unbidden guests.

That is, when they are pleased to honour with their presence such as could not presume to invite them.—S.
[18] Μαλθακον αιχμητην. Menelaus is so called in the 17th book of the Iliad, ver. 588. Athenæus is very angry with Plato for receiving this character of Menelaus as true; and for not considering that Homer puts it into the mouth of Apollo, a partial friend to the Trojans, and of consequence enemy to Menelaus. He, therefore, stands up very stoutly against Apollo and Plato, to prove, by many instances in Homer, that Menelaus was no coward. But in reality he only proves himself so inveterate an enemy to Plato, as, for the sake of abusing him, to misinterpret Homer; who, by the word μαλθακον, meant no more in that passage than, as the old scholiast rightly explains it, ανειμενον τῃ ισχυι, ασθενῃ; and just so much Athenæus himself confesses true of Menelaus, that he was τῃ ῥωμῃ καταδεεστερος, somewhat deficient in strength. Thus much may serve to vindicate Plato in this place against Athenæus. But a better critic than Athenæus, unless he were well versed in Plato’s peculiar manner of writing, would, with more show of justice, reprehend him here for the seemingly cold and insipid length of this digression about the proverb. And, indeed, were this part merely a digression, the criticism would in reality be just. But Plato intended it for a part highly important to his dialogue; to guard it against the misconstruction to which it might be liable from men of severe, sour, and malignant tempers; to signify, that not all people were worthy, or properly qualified, to partake as it were of the banquet he had provided; and to point out, for whom it was particularly improper to be present, τους μαλθακους, molles, the voluptuous, or men of effeminate minds and manners: in which sense the word μαλθακος is often taken. See particularly Xenophon in Mem. l. iii. c. 11. § 10. where it is applied to libidinous love, and opposed to that which inspires the sentiments of friendship. Homer, it is true, had a different meaning, such as we have before explained; and Plato uses a kind of catachresis in adapting this passage to his purpose. But it was sufficient for him, if any way it was applicable. Some passage or other in Homer was here to be introduced, and the reader’s mind to be detained on it for some time. For this observation will be found to hold true throughout all Plato’s writings, that, whenever he cites a verse out of any poet, especially out of Homer, he does it not, like writers of a lower class, to embellish the plainness of prose with fine tags of poetry; but his view is always either to strike the mind of his reader more forcibly in the conveying some important meaning, and to make it sink the deeper in his memory; or else to prepare him for something of importance which is to follow, by ushering it in with the solemnity of verse, and, what in those days was of much weight, the authority of the poet.—S.
[19] See Homer’s Iliad, b. ii. ver. 408.
[20] Iliad, b. x. ver. 224.
[21] Thus in the original: Και εμε εφη απονιζειν τον παιδα, ἱνα που κατακεοιτο. The remarkable enallage, or transition here, in speaking of himself, from the first person to the third, is no unusual thing in Plato; but is too bold, and would be a solecism in English. For, translated as literally as possible, the sentence runs in this manner: “Immediately he bid the [proper] servant to wash off [the dirt] from me, that [says he] he may lie down somewhere.” The words included within hooks, we have added to complete the sense. The first part of the sentence, we see, is merely narrative, and the latter part represents Agatho speaking. But the word εφη, having been used just before, though in a different sense, is here omitted, probably to avoid a repetition of it. Harry Stephens, not aware of this transition, has raised doubts about the right reading of this passage; and has endeavoured, without any necessity, to amend it, by altering κατακεοιτο into κατακεοιμην. The same learned printer and editor has, in a passage of the Euthyphro, where there is a like transition, proposed altering the text in the same manner, from want of observing this peculiarity in Plato’s style, as Dr. Forster has judiciously remarked in his notes on those five dialogues, published by him, pag. 328.—S.
[22] In that polite age, luxury and too great a delicacy and softness of manners had so far prevailed even amongst the brave Grecians, that when they made their evening meal, or supper, which was with them the principal meal of the day, as dinner is with us, they used not to sit on chairs, stools, or benches, at the table, like the modern Europeans; nor to sit or lie upon mats or carpets laid over the floor, like some of the Eastern nations; but their custom was to recline themseves on sofas, couches, or day-beds; the heads of which being placed at the sides of the table, an oblong square, were covered with cushions; and on these they leaned their elbows. It was necessary, therefore, that Aristodemus should have his dirty feet washed before he was fit to lie on one of those sofas. This little incident seems thrown in by Plato, to confirm the account before given of the manners of Aristodemus, and to exhibit them in a stronger light, as opposite in this particular to those of Socrates, about whom we see no such ceremony used, because unnecessary. Different from either of these is the case of Alcibiades, further on in the dialogue. For, as he comes in drunk and dirty, in the midst of his rakehelly rambles about the town, slippers are ordered to be brought him, and not his feet to be washed, as he wore shoes. So minute is Plato in his detail of every circumstance that may contribute to throw light on the characters of those persons he introduces. Whatever weight there is in this observation, be it great or little, so much of importance is there in the blunder committed by all the Latin translators, and by the Italian after them, in making Agatho order water to wash the hands of Aristodemus instead of his feet: and in the same degree is praise due to the judgment and accuracy of Mons. Racine, who, in his translation of this dialogue into French, corrects this error; and though he might justly be supposed prejudiced in favour of washing the hands before meals, after the modern French fashion, as well as the antient Grecian, yet explains rightly the orders of Agatho; as being sensible, no doubt, that washing the feet of Aristodemus, not his hands, was a proper preparative for his laying up his legs on the sofa. But he omits this reason of Agatho’s for giving those orders, though expressly mentioned by Plato; probably because he was at a loss how to translate the words, being puzzled by the doubts raised about them by Stephens, as mentioned in the preceding note.—S.
[23] There is none of Plato’s dialogues in which Socrates is ushered in with so much ceremony as in this. In the first place, that recital of the conversation passed between Apollodorus and Glauco, with which the piece sets out, seems introduced only for the sake of giving the reader a high opinion of the character of Socrates. To this purpose tend the reflections made by Apollodorus upon the singular wisdom of his master. To the same end is directed his account of the alteration produced in him by studying that wisdom. And for the same reason is mention made of the many admirers of that truly admirable man. But all these circumstances are made to appear simple and artless, the more irresistibly to operate their intended effect upon the reader’s mind. The short conversation which follows, between Apollodorus and his friend, carries on the same intention; but goes greater lengths of praise in the character there given of Socrates. Then comes a narration of some little circumstances, immediately previous to the celebrated banquet, serving to prejudice the reader’s mind with an idea of the excellence of the company assembled at Agatho’s: of this kind is the extraordinary care which Socrates we see has taken of his person and dress, as a proper mark of respect to that assembly; and another of the same kind is the argument which he politely urges to Aristodemus, when he is persuading him to be of the party. The circumstances subsequent, the profound meditation of Socrates in his way to Agatho’s, his stealing aside immediately on his coming there, plainly with design to finish his speculations, his staying away till supper was half over, and, during that stay, the conversation turning on Socrates, as the principal person wanting, together with the impatience of Agatho at his absence, are all contrived on purpose to raise the expectation of that great figure Socrates is soon to make, and of that high part he is to bear in a conversation where all the speakers shine in their several characters, upon the finest and most interesting subject in human life.—S.
[24] In the Greek ὁ σοι προσεστη. Perhaps it should be προσετεθη. Whether Cornarius found it so written in the Hessenstein manuscript, he has not told us; but he here translates, as if he had, quæ tibi accessit.—S.
[25] Δια του εριου. It is possible this may mean a woollen bag, made in the manner of our flannel jelly-bags, to strain and purify the liquor running through. Or perhaps it means a string of wool lightly twisted, fastened at one end about the mouth of the cock, in a ewer, or other vessel out of which the water is to run, and hanging down into some bason, or other receptacle; that the water, as it runs along, may leave behind it in the nappiness of the wool any dirt or impure particles with which it may be loaded. This latter conjecture is made the more probable by the information we have from a certain friend, a man of credit and veracity, that in some parts of Wiltshire the like method is practised of purifying water, by letting it run down in the manner we have described, along twisted wool, which they there call accordingly the twist. Cornarius says in his Eclogæ, that he cannot conceive what wool could have to do in the affair; and therefore he supposes, that instead of the word εριου should be read οργανου, meaning, he says, a conduit-pipe to convey water out of one cistern, when full, into another. But by this alteration of the word a very humorous part of the similitude is lost; that which represents wisdom streaming out of one man into another, as it were, by a strong transpiration, through their woollen or cloth garments being in contact together.—S.
[26] See the Greater Hippias.
[27] Socrates taught that outward things, the objects of sense, were the images only of those general ideas which are the objects of mind or intellect; though, like images in dreams, they seemed the very things themselves. The sophists of his time, on the other hand, agreed with the multitude in maintaining that objects of sense were the only realities, and that those ideal things which Socrates cried up for real and true were at best but shadows, outlines, or faint images of the former. So that each seemed to the other to be as it were in a dream, taking the image for the substance. Accordingly, it was questioned between them, who was the dreamer, and who had the perception of a man whose mind was truly awake. See a passage to this purpose in the Theætetus. See also the fifth book of the Republic.—S.
[28] Plato has in his writings used the word “wisdom” in two very different general senses: the one was the philosophical sense of it, as it signified the knowledge of nature, and of the principles of things, the science of mind, or science universal; the other was the vulgar one; the word being at that time commonly used, as it is in this place, to signify excellence in every particular science or art, any knowledge or skill beyond vulgar attainment. Sce the former part of Plato’s Theages, and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, l. vi. c. 7. After this observation made, it will every where be easy to determine, which meaning is intended.—S.
[29] Those who were spectators at the acting of his tragedy.
[30] It was customary with the antients, at or after their feasts and banquets, to entertain their minds, without the laborious exercise of thinking, through those nobler senses which have a near affinity with the mind; regaling their ears with vocal and instrumental music, and their eyes with spectacles either beautiful or wonderful. The performers, therefore, and exhibiters in these several ways used to attend on these occasions. Accordingly in the banquet of Xenophon one of each kind is introduced; and after they have all performed their parts the conversation begins.—Plato has been accused of want of elegance and politeness in not taking the same method in his banquet, but dismissing the female musician so roughly. Those who make this objection seem not to discern the difference between the banquets described by these two excellent writers; nor to be sensible that they framed these, as well as other of their works, on different plans, though on the same subjects. The guests at the entertainment given by Callias, and described by Xenophon, were a mixed company, composed partly of Autolycus and his friends, who either themselves excelled in bodily exercises, or admired most the excellencies of that kind in others; and partly of Socrates and his friends, whose abilities and excellencies lay rather another way, in the exercises of the mind. Such a promiscuous assembly it was proper to entertain in the usual manner. But the guests of Agatho were a select party, who had all a high relish for the rational pleasures of conversation, good sense, wit and humour; and every one of whom probably expected the enjoyment of those pleasures only that evening, and to be able afterward to say to each other, like our poet Cowley to his friend Harvey,

We spent it not in toys, in lust, or wine,
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poetry,
Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine.

It seems also as if Agatho had assembled them for that very purpose; for he had the day before made his grand feast, (as it was the custom to do after a thanksgiving sacrifice,) to which not only his friends and intimates, but a crowd of acquaintance, all such as were known to him, had been invited; and where, as it appears, they had drunk hard, and consequently conversed little. Further; at Callias’s entertainment, in order to furnish matter for some little talk, a proposal was made, that each of the company should declare, on what he most valued himself, and why. This gave occasion to much pleasantry, to many ingenious and shrewd sayings and repartees, on various subjects, in few words: after which, Socrates alone made a discourse, of no considerable length, on the subject of Love; to give time for some short preparations, making without, for playing an interlude of Bacchus and Ariadne. The whole is short, and ends early enough for some of the company to take their accustomed evening walk. But the conversation at Agatho’s had an air of solemnity and formality; as it consisted of oratorical speeches on one subject, but so ample and diversified in matter, so prolix, and protracted to so late an hour of the night, that a variety of other entertainments of a different kind would have been inconsistent, unnecessary, improper and absurd.—S.
[31] The old Grecian tragedies were dramatic representations, each, of some single event, uncommon and important, chiefly such as had happened long before, and made a part of their fabulous or antient story; the whole of which, not being then recorded in any writings, but handed down through oral tradition, was subject to much variety in the telling. This not only permitted the tragic poets great latitude in the choice of their fables, or fabulous stories, to represent; but allowed room also for much invention of their own; especially with regard to circumstances, both of things and persons, and what had happened previous to those signal events celebrated in their tragedies. Of these circumstances, and these prior accidents, which the poet made the foundation of his fable, it was necessary to inform the audience; because they might possibly have heard those stories related with different circumstances; and must certainly have been ignorant of such as were ignota indictaque, or of the poet’s own invention. This was the rise of prologues; in which the audience had the necessary information given them. The prologue was spoken now and then in the person of some deity, the secret cause or leader of the great event going to be represented, but more frequently in the dramatic character of one of the actors in the drama; in either of which cases the prologue made a part of the play itself. Sometimes the player spoke it in his own proper character of player, according to the modern custom: and very rarely, the author spoke it himself, appearing openly and professedly as author; or the player, appearing for him, as his representative. An instance of this kind is the case here cited by Plato: and the reason why Euripides chose such a prologue to his Melanippe probably was this. He had given, it seems, great offence to the ladies in that age, by drawing so many of his female characters bad, and making their infamous actions so frequently the subject of his plays. But none of his characters, except that of Phædra, were likely to be thought more injurious to the sex than this of Melanippe. And in fact so it proved; for we learn from Aristophanes in Θεσμοφορ. that Euripides incurred the displeasure of the fair by no plays more than by these two. When his Melanippe, therefore, was to be brought upon the stage, his business was to ward off this blow, as well as he was able, by an apology beforehand. Accordingly, as in his prologue to the Hippolytus, he had artfully made Venus take upon herself the whole blame of Phædra’s unhappy conduct, so in his prologue to the Melanippe, as appears by the line here quoted, (for the prologue and the play are both lost,) he humorously excuses and exculpates himself, by declaring, with an air of simplicity, that the plot of the play was ready made to his hands, and that he had no finger in it; from whence it was to be concluded, that if Melanippe was a bad woman, he could not help it. The verse of Euripides seems to have been this,

Εμος γαρ ουκ ὁ μυθος, ὁν μελλω λεγειν....

Or, if the γαρ be added by Plato, to weave it into his own style, the verse probably was this,

Ὁ μυθος ουκ εμος εστιν, ὁν μελλω λεγειν.

The intended application of this passage out of the poet is as follows: Eryximachus, being of a grave profession, thought it incumbent on a man of his character to apologize in the same way for introducing such a proposal as this,—that Love should be the subject of discourse that evening; a proposal which would seem much more decent to be made by the youthful and handsome Phædrus; to whom, therefore, he is pleased to attribute it. That is, in fine, Plato himself with infinite address, as usual, apologizes in this manner for making Love the subject of his dialogue. For, as he always exhibits his subject in every light which it can possibly be viewed in, and thoroughly sifts the nature of it, he could not avoid introducing here, amongst the rest of the speeches, those which seemed the most exceptionable. At the same time, also, by beginning like one of the prologues of Euripides, and with a verse taken from thence, he signifies (to such as are acquainted with his manner) his intention, that this first speech of Eryximachus should be, or be taken for, the prologue to the following dramatic entertainment.—S.
[32] Plato here means the dissertation of Prodicus, intitled Ὡραι, so often exhibited, and so much admired; as we learn from Philostratus in his Lives of the Sophists, and from Xenophon in his Memoirs of Socrates. The allegorical story, or fable, of the judgment of Hercules, related in that dissertation, is recorded by the last-mentioned excellent writer, though, as he tells us himself, not in the pompous words of the original author, but in his own simplicity of style, much more elegant. Concerning Prodicus, see notes to the Greater Hippias.—S.
[33] The Greek of this passage runs thus,—βιβλιῳ—εν ᾡ ενησαν ἁλες, επαινον θαυμασιον εχοντες προς ωφελειαν. In translating which words into English, we have thought it most advisable to follow all the translators before us into other languages, just as they seem to have followed one another, down from Ficinus; not because we approve their interpretation, for the Greek words will by no means bear such a one; but because we are at a loss for the true meaning, ourselves: the text in this place being apparently so much corrupted, as to require an abler critic than we deem ourselves to be, for the amendment of it.—S.
[34] Erasmus, in a long list, enumerates many such, some as antient as the time when Plato lived; which he cites as precedents, in the same manner, and for the same reason, that Plato speaks of some such here; that is, to introduce with the better grace, or perhaps to apologize for, a dissertation of his own of the like kind, A Panegyric on Folly: as may be seen in that incomparable piece of humour, near the beginning, and in his Epistle to Sir Thomas More prefixed to it.—S.
[35] Ιστεον, ὁτι παντα ὁι Ἑλληνες, ἁ δυναμιν εχοντα ἑωρων, ουκ ανευ επιστασιας θεων την δυναμιν αυτων ενεργειν ενομιζον· ἑνι δε ονοματι το τε την δυναμιν εχον και τον επιστατουντα τουτῳ θεον ωνομαζον. “It is proper to know that the Greeks held an opinion, that every thing in nature, in which they saw any power (force, or virtue) inherent, exercised not its power without the superintendence of the Gods: and also, that they called by one and the same name that thing which had the power and that Deity who presided over it.” This sentence, with which Moscopulus begins his commentary on Hesiod, will serve very properly instead of a preliminary note to all the following speeches concerning Love.—S. It will be necessary to add in explanation of the above sentence from Moscopulus, that, as according to the Grecian theologists every Deity is the leader of a series which possesses his characteristic properties, in consequence of originating from him, and which extends to the last of things, every link of this series (the golden chain of Homer) was very properly denominated by them after the same manner as its monad, or leader. This observation, when properly understood, is, as I have observed in my Notes on Pausanias, the true key to antient mythology.—T.
[36] From the conclusion of the speech, hereafter spoken by Socrates, it will appear what his meaning is in this place.—S.
[37] The beginning of Phædrus’s speech is not recited in the very words of it, but is related in the way of narration; by which means the transition from the narrative style to the oratorical, and from the preceding narration to the first formal speech, is made the more gentle, easy, and elegant.—S.
[38] Love considered according to his highest subsistence, i. e. as subsisting at the extremity of the intelligible triad, has not indeed Venus for his mother, because this Goddess first subsists in the supermundane which is subordinate to the intelligible order, as will be shown in our Notes on the Cratylus; but he derives his subsistence from the first and second monads of the intelligible triad, and prior to these from the ineffable principle of all things. For a full account of Love see the notes on the speech of Socrates.—T.
[39] This expression may seem strange, when only three writers have been cited. But each of them, on account of his excellence, stands as at the head of a numerous tribe; and may, therefore, justly be supposed, and taken for, the representative of that tribe to which he belongs. Hesiod is singled out from amongst all the poets, to be cited, as being the best of those who composed poems περι θεογονιας, or concerning the generation of the Gods. His beautiful poem on that subject, from whence the quotation here is made, is still extant.—Parmenides, a philosopher of the Italic sect, wrote in verse, as did also most of the disciples of the same school; but, on account of his superior reputation, is chosen to represent all his brother philosophers who taught the principles of things.—And Acusilaus, a writer unfortunately lost, treated of the first or most remote antiquities, and the genealogies of the Gods and Heroes.—S.
[40] In the Greek text of this passage, και μην εγκαταλιπειν, there is a manifest omission of the very material word ἢ, or some other equivalent to it, immediately before the word εγκαταλιπειν.—S.
[41] The passage particularly alluded to, εμπνευσε μενος, is in the twentieth book of the Iliad, ver. 110. But expressions of the same import occur in many other places of Homer, such as ἡκε μενος, ωρσε μενος, &c.—S.
[42] The thought in this sentence is evidently taken from the Alcestis of Euripides; in the prologue to which are these lines,

Παντας δ’ ελεγξας και διεξελθων φιλους,
Πατερα, γεραιαν θ’ ἡ σφ’ ετικτε μητερα,
Ουχ’ εὑρε πλην γυναικος, ἡτις ηθελε
Θανειν προ κεινου——
He try’d his friends all round, their love profest
Proving how real; his father who begat,
His mother fond who bore him; yet found none,
None but the faithful partner of his bed,
Content to die, his dearer life to save.

The next sentence alludes to some passages in the scene between Admetus and his father Pheres in the same play: to which we refer such of our readers as study oratory, and know the usefulness of comparing together passages in fine writers, where different turns are given to a thought fundamentally the same.—S.
[43] See Homer’s Iliad, book 18th.
[44] This distinction between the two Venuses, laid down by Pausanias as the foundation of his argument throughout his speech, is not a fanciful one of his own; but is a part of antient mythology. It is sufficiently confirmed and illustrated by the following passage in Xenophon’s Symposium; a sentence which he puts into the mouth of Socrates. Ει μεν ουν μια εστιν Αφροδιτη, ἢ διτται, ουρανια τε και πανδημος, ουκ οιδα· (και γαρ Ζευς, ὁ αυτος δοκων ειναι, πολλας επωνυμιας εχει·) ὁτι γε μεντοι χωρις ἑκατερᾳ βωμοι τε εισι και ναοι και θυσιαι, τῃ μεν πανδημῳ ῥᾳδιουργοτεραι, τῃ δ’ ουρανιᾳ ἁγνοτεραι, οιδα. εικασαις δ’ αν και τους ερωτας την μεν πανδημον των σωματων επιπεμπειν, την δ’ ουρανιαν της ψυχης τε και της φιλιας και των καλων εργων. “Now, whether in reality there be one Venus only, or whether there be two, a celestial Venus and a vulgar one, I know not: (for Jupiter also, whom I presume to be but one and the same being, has many surnames given him:) but this I know, that altars are raised, temples built, and sacrifices offered to each of these two Venuses distinctly; to the vulgar one, such as are common, trivial, and of little worth; to the celestial one, such as are more valuable, pure, and holy. Agreeably to this, it may be supposed of the different Loves, that those of the corporeal or sensual kind are inspired by the vulgar Venus; but that love of the mind, and friendship, a delight in fair and comely deeds, and a desire of performing such ourselves, are inspired by Venus the celestial.”—S. For a theological account of these two Venuses, see the notes on the Cratylus.—T.
[45] In the Greek, instead of ὁιον, ὁ νυν ἡμεις ποιουμεν, we suppose it ought to be read, οἱον, ὡν νυν η. π· For the sentence thus proceeds, ἢ πινειν, ἢ αδειν, ἢ διαλεγεσθαι, (in every one of which verbs the article του seems to be implied,) ουκ εστι τουτων αυτο καθ’ αυτο καλον ουδεν.—S.
[46] It is remarkable that Xenophon, in his Banquet, where he distinguishes between the virtuous friendship established among the Spartans, and the libidinous commerce authorized by fashion and common practice amongst the Bœotians and Eleans, cites this Pausanias as one who had confounded them together, and given them equal praises. He there likewise attributes to Pausanias some of the same sentiments, and those of the most striking kind, which Plato records as delivered by Phædrus in his speech. We cannot help imagining that Xenophon, in citing Pausanias, alludes to what was said at Agatho’s entertainment: and if our conjecture be true, that little circumstantial difference confirms the account given by Plato in the main, and argues it to have some foundation at least in real fact.—S.
[47] The word law here, and wherever else it occurs in this speech, from hence to the end of it, means not a written law, a positive precept or prohibition in express terms, but custom and fashion. For the general acceptance of any rule of conduct, whether rational or not, obtains by length of time the authority of law with the people who follow it; as it receives the essence of law in a civil sense, from the common consent which first established it.—S.
[48] The Greek text in this place is greatly corrupted. Stephens has tried to amend it by some alterations, but without success: for it is probable that more than a few words are wanting. We have, therefore, contented ourselves with the sense of this passage; which we think misrepresented by the former translators. For, by the “many other places,” we imagine that Plato means, besides Sicily, (where in those days tyranny or arbitrary sway commonly prevailed,) all those northern parts of Greece likewise, where the government was absolutely monarchical. For Ionia, Sicily, and all places where the Greek language was spoken by the people, Plato would certainly distinguish from those countries where the vulgar language was different; these last being by the Grecians termed barbarians.—S.
[49] The story is told by Thucydides, and many other antient writers; but in a manner the most agreeable to the mind of our author in this place by Herodotus.—S.
[50] The Greek of this passage, ἁμα γαρ τῳ του σωματος ανθει ληγοντι, ὁυπερ ηρα, we have translated according to the following minute alteration of only one word, ἁμα γαρ— ανθει, ληγοντος ὁυπερ ηρα. The very next words, οιχεται αποπταμενος, allude to a verse of Homer’s, the 71st in the second book of the Iliad; where he speaks of the departure of the dream sent to Agamemnon. By which allusion Plato teaches the fair and young, that the promises of such lovers as are here spoken of are flattering and deceitful, and, like that false dream, tend only to delude and ruin.—S.
[51] These little ornaments of style were introduced into oratory, and taught first by Gorgias; who, it is probable, had observed them there, where every beauty and ornament of speech, great or little, is to be found, that is, in Homer. Isocrates, who had studied the art of oratory under Gorgias, seems to have received from him what his own judgment when mature afterwards rejected, the immoderate and ill-timed use of those superficial ornaments. The foregoing speech of Pausanias, in imitation of Isocrates, abounds with various kinds of them, and those the most puerile and petty; which it was impossible for us to preserve or imitate, in translating those passages into English; because, though all languages admit them, yet every language varies from every other in the signification of almost all those words where they are found. An instance of this appears in the passage now before us, where the Greek Παυσανιου δε παυσαμενου, translated justly, runs thus, “When Pausanias had ceased speaking,” that is, had ended his speech. But all similarity of sound would thus entirely be destroyed. As, therefore, it was necessary in this place to preserve it in some measure, however imperfectly, we found ourselves obliged here to make sense give way to sound.—S.
[52] See the Life of Plato by Olympiodorus, in Vol. I. of this work.—T.
[53] Hippocrates, in Aphorism. sect. vi. n. 13. and Celsus, in lib. ii. c. 8. assure us, that “if sneezing comes upon a man in a fit of the hiccups, it puts an end to the disorder.” Upon this general rule, no doubt, was founded the present prescription of Eryximachus. Dr. G. E. Stahl, however, used to tell his pupils, as appears from his Collegium minus, cas. 53. that the rule indeed was true, where the sneezing was spontaneous, or the work of nature; but that a sneezing procured by art, or forced, was never recommended. “Sternutationes,” says he, “sponte singultui supervenientes, solvunt quidem singultum; sed arte productæ non commendantur.” But we must remark, that this great modern is here putting the case, not of the hiccups when they are the only disorder; but of a malignant fever, and those symptomatic hiccups which are often the concomitants of that and other dangerous diseases.—S.
[54] The words used by Plato, in this place, are still stronger, and signify—“denominates him a physician.” For the preservation of health, through a right use of the non-naturals, that is, such a one as is agreeable to nature, respecting the difference of sex, age, temperament of body, climate, season of the year, and other circumstances, was accounted in the days of Plato not only a part, but the principal one too, of the art of medicine; and was by the old Greek physicians carried to a degree of accuracy and perfection absolutely unknown or totally neglected in after-ages.—S.
[55] This passage is illustrated by that of Hippocrates, near the end of his treatise de Morbo Sacro. Χρη—μη αυξειν τα νουσηματα, αλλα σπευδειν τρυχειν, προσφεροντας τῃ νουσῳ το πολεμιωτατον ἑκαστῃ, μη το φιλον και συνηθες· ὑπο μεν γαρ της συνηθειας θαλλει και αυξεται, ὑπο δε του πολεμιου φθινει και αμαυρουται. Having spoken of nourishment, he says, that “the physician should take care not to nourish and increase diseases, but as soon as possible to exhaust and wear them out; applying to every disease that which is hostile and repugnant to it the most, not that which is friendly, of the same temper with it, or habitual to it: for by the latter it acquires growth and vigour; by the former it decays and is extinguished.” This, by the way, is the foundation of an excellent practic rule; and that is, in chronical diseases sometimes to change the medicines, though at first found ever so beneficial, when they are become too familiar, and the disease is habituated to bear them; for they would then by degrees lose their efficacy.—S.
[56] To administer proper remedies, says our great master, is to counteract the genius or nature of the disease; and never to concur or corrrespond with it. Ιησις αντινοον, [f. και] μη ὁμονοειν τῳ παθει. Hippoc. Epidem. l. vi. § 5. n. 7.—S.
[57] What follows, when stript of the metaphor necessary on the occasion, is the same thing with this of Hippocrates, Τα εναντια των εναντιων εστιν ιηματα. Ιατρικη γαρ εστι προσθεσις και αφαιρεσις· αφαιρεσις μεν των ὑπερβαλλοντων, προσθεσις δε των ελλειποντων. ὁ δε καλλιστα τουτο ποιεων, αριστος ιητρος. Lib. de Flatibus, not far from the beginning. “Contraries are a cure one for the other. For the practice of the art of medicine consists of two operations, adding and subtracting; or supplying and drawing off; a drawing off of that which is over-abundant, a supplying of that which is deficient. Whoever can perform these in the best manner, he is the best physician.”—S.
[58] See Hippocrates, throughout his treatise de Naturâ Hominis.—S.
[59] That is, all such contrary qualities in the humours of the body as are distinguishable by sense.—S.
[60] The end of the medical art is health; that of the gymnastic is strength, or an athletic habit of body. But in the means they make use of to gain their several ends, favouring and indulging the disposition of body which is right, counteracting and correcting such as are wrong, these arts are exactly analogous one to the other.—S.
[61] The genius and condition of the soil bear an analogy to the temperament and present state of the body; the different kinds of manure and other cultivation are analogous to food and medicine. A good soil is improved by a manure homogeneous to it; a bad soil meliorated by an opposite method of cultivation, altering its nature and condition. As to the metaphor, the same has been always used in agriculture to this day. We say, that such a soil loves such a manure; and that such a tree, plant, or other vegetable, loves and delights in such a soil; when they are correspondent, when the nature of the one is fitted to that of the other, and is favourable to it in making it thrive and flourish.—S.
[62] The author of the treatise Περι κοσμου, Concerning the world, printed among the works of Aristotle, and usually ascribed to him, though not from any decisive authority, cites the following passage from the same Heraclitus, which may serve to illustrate the present: συναψειας ουλα και ουχι ουλα, συμφερομενον και διαφερομενον, συναδον και διαδον, και εκ παντων ἑν, και εξ ἑνος παντα. i. e. “You must connect the perfect and the imperfect, the agreeing and the disagreeing, the consonant and the dissonant, and from all things one, and from one all things.” In which passage, by the one from all things he means the universe; and by all things from one, he insinuates the subsistence of all things from the one, the ineffable principle of all.—T.
[63] That of disagreeing sounds, and that of disagreeing measures of time.—S.
[64] That of the disagreeing qualities of the humours in a human body.—S.
[65] Poetry and music were employed by the Grecian masters of education as a principal means to form the manners of their youth, to inspire them with becoming sentiments, and excite them to worthy actions. In the choice, therefore, of poetry and music, proper for this purpose, great judgment was used, and much care taken. It was not left, as nowa-days, to the fancy or humour of men, whose profession is only to teach words, or musical notes, with their several combinations. Legislators and magistrates then thought it an object the most worthy of their own attention: and the greatest philosophers, who framed models of government according to ideal perfection, or laid down maxims fit to be observed by every wise state, treat it as a subject of highest importance; and accordingly are very exact and particular in explaining the natural effects of every species of music, or musical poetry, on the mind. See Plato’s Republic, b. ii. and iii. his Laws, b. ii. and vii. and Aristotle’s Politics, b. viii.—S.
[66] That is, the rational, the regular, and the sober, together with the sensual, the lawless, and the wild or infinite. See Plato’s Philebus, throughout.
[67] Such as dreams, omens, the flight of birds, &c.
[68] In the Greek text some corruption has here crept in. Stephens has endeavoured to amend it in a manner agreeable to Plato’s style in other places, it must be confessed. Yet we must prefer the omission of the word περι before τον ἑτερον, because the sentence is made much easier by this alteration; and because the accidental insertion of the word περι may easily be accounted for; as will appear to any good critic in this way, who will be pleased to consult the original.—S.
[69] Ιατρος τουτων, that is, κακων, not ανθρωπων, as Racine, and all the former translators except Cornarius, erroneously imagined. Their mistake was owing plainly to the wrong punctuation in all editions of the original in this place.—S.
[70] Plato is so far from being a careless writer, that he has always some concealed and important meaning, even in things apparently the most trivial and absurd. For what can be apparently more absurd than this account which Aristophanes gives of the changes which the human nature has undergone? And yet it occultly insinuates a very important truth, that kindred human souls, both of a male and female characteristic, were in a more perfect state of existence united with each other, much more profoundly than they can be in the present state. However, though it insinuates a more perfect condition of being, yet it is by no means that of the soul in its highest state of felicity. For the cylindric bodies indicate its being still conversant with, or rolling about, generation, i. e. the regions under the moon. Plato, therefore, probably indicates in this fable an aërial condition of being. For though the soul, while living there in a descending condition, is in reality in a fallen state, yet she is more perfect than when resident on the earth. Agreeably, and perhaps with allusion to this fable, which I doubt not is of greater antiquity than Plato, Pythagoras defined a friend to be a man’s other self.—T.
[71] Human souls, though in a more excellent condition of being when living in the air than when inhabitants of the earth, yet when they are descending, or gravitating to earth, they may be justly called rebels, because they not only abandon their true country, but are hostile to its manners and laws. Hence, as they no longer cherish, but oppose, legitimate conceptions of divine natures, they may be justly said to be hostile to the Gods.—T.
[72] The Greek original in this place stands at full length thus: ὡσπερ οἱ τα ωα τεμνοντες και μελλοντες ταριχευειν, ἢ ὡσπερ οἱ τα ωα ταις θριξιν. Now the absurdity of supposing eggs ever to have been cut with hairs, when knives, much better instruments for that purpose, were at hand, first led us to imagine that the passage might be corrupt. On a little examination, it appeared probable to us, from the repetition of the words ὡσπερ οἱ τα ωα, that the latter part of this sentence was nothing more than a various reading in the margin of some antient copy. Trying, then, the two last words, ταις θριξιν, by the abbreviations common in old manuscripts, we made our conjecture still more probable (to ourselves at least) by reading the latter part of the sentence thus:—ἢ, ὡσπερ τα ωα τεμνοντες εις ταριχευσιν, which words we suppose written in the margin after this manner, ἢ ὡσπερ ὁι τα ωα τ. εις ταριχ̄σιν. the initial letter of τεμνοντες being put for the whole word, as usual in such cases. Thus the last words, being read (as it was common to do for the greater expedition) by some ignorant librarian to the new copyist, literally as they were written, were easily mistaken by a writer unattentive to the sense, and made ταις θριξιν. That it was customary with the antients to salt and pickle eggs for keeping, after boiling them hard, (it is to be supposed,) and cutting them in two, we learn from Alexis the comic poet, as cited by Athenæus, pag. 57 and 60, as also from Columella: which last-mentioned author tells us further, that sometimes they were hardened for that purpose in a pickle heated over the fire.—S.
[73] All learned naturalists know the great uncertainty we are in now-a-days concerning the rarer animals of all kinds mentioned by the antients. Under this difficulty of ascertaining what animal is meant by the ψηττα mentioned here by Plato, we have translated it a polypus, because the wonderful property ascribed here to the ψηττα is the same with that in the polypus, which a few years since afforded great entertainment to the virtuosi in many parts of Europe.—S.
[74] Aristophanes in this sentence hints at Pausanias: but for fear his hint should not be apprehended by the company, he takes care to explain it to them himself, near the conclusion of his speech, by an ironical and affected caution in guarding against the being so understood.—S.
[75] As Arcadia consisted chiefly of plains and pasture lands, the people of that country had for many ages led a pastoral kind of life, dispersed in small villages; and lived in the enjoyment of perfect peace and liberty. But in process of time, when they were in danger of falling under the yoke of the Spartans, their neighbours, whom they observed a warlike people, growing in greatness, and aspiring to the dominion of all the Peloponnesus, they began to build and fortify cities, where they assembled and consulted together for their common interests. This union gave them courage, not only to be auxiliaries in war to the enemies of the Spartans, but at length, as principals themselves, to make frequent inroads into the Spartan territories. The Spartans, therefore, carrying the war into the country of the Arcadians, compelled them to demolish the fortifications of their chief cities, and even to quit their habitations there, and return to their antient manner of living in villages.—S.
[76] The following speech abounds with wit; but it is wit of a rambling and inconsistent kind, without any fixed idea; so far is it from aiming at truth. The beginning of it is a just specimen of the whole. For after Agatho has undertaken to give a description of the person and qualities of Love under the very first article of this description, the youthfulness of Love, he uses the word love, in no fewer than four different senses. In the first place, he means, as Socrates afterwards observes of him, that which is loved, rather than that which loves; that is, outward beauty, rather than the passion which it excites. Immediately he changes this idea for that of the passion itself. Then at once, without giving notice, he takes a flight to the first cause of orderly motion in the universe. And this he immediately confounds with the harmony of nature, the complete effect of that cause.
[77] We have taken the liberty of translating here, as if in the Greek it was printed ουδ’ εντος πολλου πλησιαζειν, and not ουδ’ οντος, π. π.—S.
[78] For the proper manner in which these things are to be understood, see the apology for the fables of Homer, in Vol. I. of this work.—T.
[79] Thus far Agatho has confounded the object of Love, the amiable, with the passion itself, considered as refined, and peculiarly belonging to the human species.—S.
[80] From allegory, and metaphor, and true wit, Agatho descends to pun and quibble, and playing on words, with scarce a semblance of just thought. In this next part of his description he means, by Love, that grosser part of the passion, common to all animals: and this too he confounds with the satisfaction of it through enjoyment.—S.
[81] To apprehend the wit of this passage, we must observe, that the word has is here used in two senses: in the first part of the sentence, it means the soul being affected with the passion; in the next, it means the passion possessing the soul. There is the same double meaning of the word habeo in the Latin, and every modern language derived from it; and it is no solecism in English. But there seems to be more wit and smartness in a repartee of Aristippus, in which he played on the same word, though somewhat differently; when, on his being reproached with having Laïs, a celebrated courtezan, for his mistress, he replied, Εχω, αλλ’ ουκ εχομαι. True, I have her, that is, enjoy her; but she has not me; that is, has me not in her power.—S.
[82] Agatho, in this part of his description, uses the word Love in three different senses: first, as it means that fine passion in the human species only, which, by rousing and improving the faculties of the soul, supplies the want and does the office of genius: next, as it means the passion, whose power is exerted chiefly in the body, and, by exciting every animal to the work of generation, executes the ends for which nature implanted it in them all: lastly, as it means a particular genius or strong bent of the mind from nature to some particular study, which seldom fails of improving and perfecting every art.—S.
[83] In this sentence Agatho justifies the character which Socrates had given of him just before, and shows himself a truly polite and well-bred man. For, upon his mention of the art of poetry, in which he had lately appeared so excellent, he here modestly declines the attributing any merit in that respect to his own poetic genius, as if he was a favourite of the Muses; and with great gallantry transfers the praise, bestowed upon himself, to Love; as if Love, and not the Muses, had inspired him.—S.
[84] Plato has here contrived an opportunity for Agatho to play upon a word, or use it in more senses than one. For the Greek word ποιησις, which we have translated creative power, signifies not only making or creation, but poetry too: as the word ποιητης signifies both creator and poet. Taking advantage of these different meanings, Agatho attributes ποιησις, or creation, to each of the three kinds of Love mentioned in note 2, p. 486, as the work or effect of each. To the first he attributes poetry, an art which creates, as it were, or makes out of nothing real, out of the mere imagination of the poet, its own subject. To the next he justly ascribes the making or generating of animals in a way peculiar to Nature; who, beginning from the smallest materials, and collecting all the rest by insensible degrees from all neighbouring quarters, forming all the while, and animating whilst she forms, seems to create out of nothing too. And Love, in the sense in which he uses the word last, he no less justly supposes to have the principal hand in making the most excellent works of every art, where the artist hath his subject-matter ready created, and lying all at once before him, and apparently, therefore, creates nothing but the form.—S.
[85] This passage in the Greek runs this:—Εφοβουμην μη μοι τελευτων ὁ Αγαθων Γοργιου κεφαλην δεινου λεγειν εν τῳ λογῳ επι τον εμον λογον πεμψας, κ. τ. λ. In this, as also in the preceding sentence, where Gorgias is mentioned, Cornarius would have us read Γοργους, instead of Γοργιου, and consequently, in this last, δεινος instead of δεινου, referring this attribute to Agatho; and quite insensible, as it seems, to the many strokes of humour in this passage: for he gravely gives this notable reason for his alteration,—that the head of Gorgias, truly, had no such power as is here attributed to it. But he has forgotten to clear up a small difficulty which attends his alteration; and that is, how Agatho the Handsome, for so he was commonly called, or Agatho’s handsome speech, should immediately put Socrates in mind of the Gorgon’s head. The train of thought here is evidently this: Agatho put Socrates in mind of Gorgias, through the similitude of their styles; the thought of Gorgias put him in mind of Gorgon, through the similitude of their names; and, perhaps, because he thought them both alike πελωρα, prodigies; and the thought of Gorgon brought to his mind the following passage in Homer’s Odyssey, l. xi.

—— εμε δε χλωρον δεος ηρει,
Μη μοι Γοργειην κεφαλην δεινοιο πελωρου,
Εξ αϊδος πεμψειεν αγαυη Περσεφονεια.
Pale fear then seized me, and the dreadful thought,—
—Now should the Gorgon’s head, that prodigy
Terrific, by stern Proserpine be sent,
Forth from her viewless realm, to assault my eyes,
Visible in all its horrors!——

It is easy to observe, that Socrates not only alludes humorously to Homer’s thought in this passage, but, to heighten the humour, has used several of Homer’s words. We have followed him in so doing, where it was possible for us; adapting these passages one to the other in the translation. doing, where it was possible for us; adapting these passages one to the other in the translation. But in one of the words, an important one to the humour, we found it scarcely possible. For the word δεινος, here in Homer, signifies terrible, or frightful; and the same word as used here by Plato signifies great, weighty, or powerful. Now in English both these meanings are not to be expressed fully and exactly by the same word. The word “formidable,” however, though it would weaken the sense in Homer, may serve to express the allusion in Plato to Homer’s “terrific.” This double meaning of the word δεινος, and the similitude of sound between Gorgon and Gorgias, or between Γοργειη [κεφαλη] and Γοργιειη, seem to be humorous imitations of the style of Agatho and Gorgias, who were, both of them, fond of such puns and puerilities. It is necessary to take notice of some other words in this passage, because Stephens has thrown in a suspicion of their not being genuine, the words εν τῳ λογῳ,—probably imagining them to be a marginal gloss on the word λεγειν: whereas they are in truth absolutely necessary to the sense; λογῳ here being opposed to εργῳ, to the actual sending forth, and presenting visibly, the head of Gorgias. Besides that the omission of those words would much diminish the glare of another Gorgiasm, which seems intended in λεγειν, λογῳ, and λογον, the repetition of the words “speak” and “speech.”—S.
[86] Socrates, having satirized Agatho’s style, with regard to the affected ornaments of it, and its want of simplicity; but doing it with that delicate and fine humour in which he led the way to all the politer satirists, particularly to the Roman poet Horace, and our own Addison; proceeds now, in that ironical way peculiar to himself, to satirize the sentiments in Agatho’s speech, with regard to their want of truth, justness of thought, and pertinence to the subject.—S.
[87] That is, whether his nature is absolute, not of necessity inferring the coexistence of any other being; or whether it is relative, in which the being of some correlative is implied.— S.
[88] In Stephens’s edition of the original we here read, αλλο τι ὁμολογοι’ αν; as if the confession was demanded from Agatho in his own person. In all the former editions, however, it is rightly printed, ὁμολογοιτ’ αν. But we presume they are all wrong in giving us αλλο τι [δια δυοιν] instead of αλλοτι [δι’ ἑνος] whether; misled probably by the preceding sentence, where αλλο τι signifies any other thing, and is therefore rightly there divided into two words.—S.
[89] See the Meno near the conclusion, and the fifth and seventh books of the Republic. It may suffice for the present to observe, that true opinion is a medium between wisdom properly so called, i. e. an intellectual knowledge of the causes and principles of things, and ignorance.—T.
[90] We have here taken the liberty to paraphrase a little, for the sake of rendering this passage more easy to be understood. In the Greek it runs thus, αλογον γαρ πραγμα πως αν ειη επιστημη; Aristotle expresses the same meaning in the same concise way, thus, μετα λογου γαρ ἡ επιστημη. Ethic. Nicomach. lib. vi. cap. 6. where λογος is the same thing with that which Plato in his Meno calls λογισμος αιτιας, that is, the rational account of a thing, deriving it from its cause. For the cause [the formal cause] of every particular truth is some general truth, in which that particular is virtually included. Accordingly, in a perfect syllogism we may see the truth of the conclusion virtually included in the truth of the major proposition. Nor can we properly be said to know any one truth, till we see the whole of that higher truth, in which the particular one is contained.—S.
[91] The following admirable account of Love, in which it is shown why he is called by Plato a great dæmon, is from the MS. commentary of Proclus on the First Alcibiades: There are different properties of different Gods: for some are artificers of wholes, of the form of beings, and of their essential ornament: but others are the suppliers of life, and are the sources of its various genera: but others preserve the unchangeable order, and guard the indissoluble connection of things: and others, lastly, who are allotted a different power, preserve all things by their beneficent energies. In like manner every amatory order is the cause to all things of conversion to divine beauty, leading back, conjoining, and establishing all secondary natures in the beautiful, replenishing them from thence, and irradiating all things with the gifts of its light. On this account it is asserted in The Banquet that Love is a great dæmon, because Love first demonstrates in itself a power of this kind, and is the medium between the object of desire and the desiring nature, and is the cause of the conversion of subsequent to prior natures. The whole amatory series, therefore, being established in the vestibule of the cause of beauty, calls upwards all things to this cause, and forms a middle progression between the object of Love and the natures which are recalled by Love. Hence it pre-establishes in itself the exemplar of the whole dæmoniacal order, obtaining the same middle situation among the Gods as dæmons between divine and mortal natures. Since, therefore, every amatory series possesses this property among the Gods, we must consider its uniform and occult summit as ineffably established in the first orders of the Gods, and conjoined with the first and intelligible beauty; but its middle process as shining forth among the supermundane Gods, with an intellectual condition; but its third progression as possessing an exempt power among the liberated Gods; and its fourth as multifariously distributed about the world, producing many orders and powers from itself, and distributing gifts of this kind to the different parts of the world. But after the unific and first principle of Love, and after the tripartite essence perfected from thence, a various multitude of Loves shines forth with divine light, from whence the choirs of angels are filled with Love; and the herds of dæmons full of this God attend on the Gods who are recalled to intelligible beauty. Add too, that the army of heroes, together with dæmons and angels, are agitated about the participation of the beautiful with divine bacchanalian fury. Lastly, all things are excited, revive and flourish, through the influx of the beautiful. But the souls of such men as receive an inspiration of this kind, and are naturally allied to the God, assiduously move about beauty, and fall into the realms of generation, for the purpose of benefiting more imperfect souls, and providing for those natures which require to be saved. The Gods indeed and the attendants on the Gods, abiding in their proper habits, benefit all following natures, and convert them to themselves: but the souls of men descending, and touching on the coast of generation, imitate the beneficent providence of the Gods. As, therefore, souls established according to some other God descend with purity into the regions of mortality, and benefit souls that revolve in it; and some indeed benefit more imperfect souls by prophecy, others by mystic ceremonies, and others by divine medicinal skill: so likewise souls that choose an amatory life are moved about the deity who presides over beautiful natures, for the purpose of taking care of well-born souls. But from apparent beauty they are led back to divine beauty, and together with themselves elevate those who are the objects of their love. And this also divine Love primarily effects in intelligibles: for he unites himself to the object of love, extends to it the participants of his power, and inserts in all things one bond, and one indissoluble friendship with each other, and with the beautiful itself. Souls, therefore, possessed with love, and participating the inspiration thence derived, in consequence of using an undefiled vehicle, are led from apparent to intelligible beauty, and make this the end of their energy. Likewise enkindling a light in more imperfect souls, they also lead these back to a divine nature, and are divinely agitated together with them about the fountain of all-perfect beauty. But such souls as from a perverse education fall from the gift which is thence derived, but are allotted an amatory nature, these, through their ignorance of true beauty, are busily employed about that which is material and divisible, at which also they are astonished in consequence of not knowing the passion which they suffer. Hence they abandon every thing divine, and gradually decline into impiety and the darkness of matter. They appear indeed to hasten to a union with the beautiful, in the same manner as perfectly amatory souls; but they are ignorant of the union, and tend to a dissipated condition of life, and to the sea of dissimilitude. They are also conjoined with the base itself, and material privation of form. For where are material natures able to pervade through each other? Or where is apparent beauty, pure and genuine, being thus mingled with matter, and replete with the deformity of its subject? Some souls, therefore, genuinely participate the gifts of Love, and by others these gifts are perverted. For as according to Plotinus the defluxion of intellect produces craft, and an erroneous participation of wisdom sophistry, so likewise the illumination of Love, when it meets with a depraved recipient, produces a tyrannic and intemperate life. After this, in another part of the same admirable commentary, he presents us, as he says, with some of the more arcane assertions concerning Love; and these are as follow: Love is neither to be placed in the first nor among the last of beings. Not in the first, because the object of Love is superior to Love: nor yet among the last, because the lover participates of Love. It is requisite, therefore, that Love should be established between the object of love and the lover, and that it should be posterior to the beautiful, but prior to every nature endued with love. Where then does it first subsist? How does it extend itself through the universe, and with what monads does it leap forth? There are three hypostases, therefore, among the intelligible and occult Gods; and the first indeed is characterized by the good, understanding the good itself, and residing in that place where according to the oracle the paternal monad abides: but the second is characterized by wisdom, where the first intelligence flourishes; and the third by the beautiful, where, as Timæus says, the most beautiful of intelligibles abides. But there are three monads according to these intelligible causes subsisting uniformly according to cause in intelligibles, but first unfolding themselves into light
[92] For a copious account of dæmons, their nature, species, and employments, see the second Note on the First Alcibiades. in the ineffable order⁹³ of the Gods, I mean faith, truth, and love. And faith indeed establishes all things in good; but truth unfolds all the knowledge in beings; and lastly, love converts all things, and congregates them into the nature of the beautiful. This triad indeed thence proceeds through all the orders of the Gods, and imparts to all things by its light a union with intelligible itself. It also unfolds itself differently in different orders, every where combining its powers with the idioms of the Gods. And among some it subsists ineffably, incomprehensibly, and unifically; but among others, as the cause of connecting and binding; and among others, as endued with a perfective and forming power. Here again it subsists intellectually and paternally; there, in a manner entirely motive, vivific, and effective: here, as governing and assimilating; there, in a liberated and undefiled manner; and elsewhere, according to a multiplied and divisive mode. Love, therefore, supernally descends from intelligibles to mundane concerns, calling all things upwards to divine beauty. Truth also proceeds through all things, illuminating all things with knowledge. And lastly, faith proceeds through the universe, establishing all things unically in good. Hence the oracles assert that all things are governed by, and abide in, these. And on this account they order Theurgists to conjoin themselves to divinity through this triad. Intelligibles themselves, indeed, do not require the amatory medium, on account of their ineffable union. But where there is a union and separation of beings, there also Love abides. For it is the binder and conciliator of natures posterior and prior to itself; but the convertor of subsequent into prior, and the anagogic and perfecting cause of imperfect natures. The oracles, therefore, speak of Love as binding, and residing in all things: and hence, if it connects all things, it also copulates us with the governments of dæmons. But Diotima calls Love a great dæmon, because it every where fills up the medium between desiring and desirable natures. And, indeed, that which is the object of Love vindicates to itself the first order, but that which loves is in the third order from the beloved object. Lastly, Love usurps a middle situation between each, congregating and collecting together that which desires and that which is desired, and filling subordinate from better natures. But among the intelligible and occult Gods it unites intelligible intellect to the first and secret beauty by a certain life better than intelligence. Hence, the theologist of the Greeks calls this Love blind; for he says “feeding in his breast blind, rapid Love:” ποιμαινων πραπεδεσσιν ανομματον ωκυν ερωτα. But in natures posterior to intelligibles, it imparts by illumination an indissoluble bond to all things perfected by itself: for a bond is a certain union, but accompanied with much separation. On this account the oracles are accustomed to call the fire of this Love a copulator: for, proceeding from intelligible intellect, it binds all following natures with each other, and with itself. Hence, it conjoins all the Gods with intelligible beauty, and dæmons with Gods; but it conjoins us with both Gods and dæmons. In the Gods, indeed, it has a primary subsistence, in dæmons a secondary one, and in partial souls a subsistence through a certain third procession from principles. Again, in the Gods it subsists above essence: for every genus of Gods is superessential. But in dæmons it subsists according to essence; and in souls according to illumination. And this triple order appears similar to the triple power of intellect. For one intellect subsists as imparticipable, being exempt from all partial genera; but another as participated, of which also the souls of the Gods participate as of a better nature; and another is from this ingenerated in souls, and which is, indeed, their perfection. And these three distinctions of intellect Timæus himself signifies. That Love, therefore, which subsists in the Gods must be considered as analogous to imparticipable intellect: for this is exempt from all the beings which receive and are illuminated by its nature. But dæmoniacal Love is analogous to participated intellect: for this is essential, and is perfected from itself, in the same manner as participated intellect is proximately resident in souls. And the third Love is analogous to intellect which subsists as a habit, and which inserts an illumination in souls. Nor is it unjustly that we consider Love as coordinate with this intellectual difference: for in intelligible intellect it possesses its first and occult hypostasis: and if it thence leaps forth, it is also established there according to cause. And it appears to me that Plato, finding that intelligible intellect was called by Orpheus both Love and a great Dæmon, was himself pleased to celebrate Love in a similar manner. Very properly, therefore, does Diotima call it a great dæmon; and Socrates conjoins the discourse about Love with that concerning Dæmons. For, as every thing dæmoniacal is suspended from the amatory medium, so also the discourse concerning a dæmoniacal nature is conjoined with that concerning Love, and is allied to it. For Love is a medium between the object of love and the lover; and a dæmon is a medium between man and divinity.—T.
[93] i. e. In the summit of that order which is called intelligible and at the same time intellectual.
[94] By Plenty, the son of Counsel, we must understand that divine cause of abundance which subsists in Jupiter the demiurgus of the world. For Jupiter is called Μητις, or Counsel, by Orpheus, as we are informed by Proclus in Tim. p. 102. Poverty is Matter, which in itself is destitute of all things, but is filled as far as it can be filled from Plenty, whose overflowing fullness terminates in its dark and rebounding seat. Plato, therefore, in calling Love the offspring of Plenty and Poverty, appears to comprehend its whole series. For Love, considered as the same with Desire, is, according to its subsistence in Jupiter, the son of Plenty; but, according to its ultimate subsistence, it is the offspring of Matter: for Matter also desires good, though her desire is most debile and evanescent. But by Poverty being pregnant with Love at the birth of Venus, Plato occultly intimates that the divine abundance in the demiurgus of the world proceeds into matter in conjunction with the illuminations of divine beauty.—T.
[95] Intoxication with nectar signifies that deific energy through which divine natures are enabled to provide immutably for all things.—T.
[96] This signifies nothing more than that wine belongs to the sensible, and not to the intelligible world. By the gardens of Jupiter, we may conceive that the splendour, grace, and empyræan beauty of the demiurgic illuminations of the maker of the universe are signified.—T.
[97] Sleep, when applied to divine natures, signifies an energy separate from sensibles.—T.
[98] This passage in the Greek original is thus printed: αυτο γαρ τουτο εστι χαλεπον αμαθια; but we presume that either the last word of these should be printed αμαθιᾳ, figuratively meaning αμαθει, or else, that the first words should be thus printed, αυτῳ γαρ τουτῳ.— S.
[99] Being does not here signify being or entity in general, but the particular form or essence of any thing, the being what it is. So non-being, just before, does not signify absolute non-entity, but the non-being of some particular thing, or the want of some form, which is afterwards introduced into existence. Accordingly creation, immediately after, signifies not what is now-a-days generally understood by that term, a making of something out of mere nothing; for Plato seems to have had no notion of the possibility of this; but here is to be understood the making some form or being, in the sense just now mentioned, newly to exist, a particular one, which existed not before.—S.
[100] The following account of the generation of animals and their succession in a continued series of individuals, by which the kind is for ever kept up in existence, gives us a just representation of all outward nature: for it is in the same manner that the world itself, though continually passing away, and changing in every part, yet remains for ever the same in its whole and entire form; life continually arising, and repairing the ruins made by death in every kind of things; and the fresh growth keeping pace with the decay. To preserve this living beauty in such its immortality and unfading youth, animals have those affections, impulses or instincts, here described, given to them, as imparted from the mundane soul: analogous to which are the powers of gravitation, attraction, mixture, cohesion, and others of like kind, which are indeed so many vital powers given to the insensible parts of the universe, as partaking of the life of nature.—S.
[101] All this necessarily follows from the nature of the human soul; all her energies being temporal, though her essence is eternal. She is however able to energize super-temporally through a union with an intellect superior to her own.—T.
[102] We have here a pause, or break, more solemn and awful than any to be met with elsewhere in Plato. But it has great propriety in this place, as it becomes the sublime and mysterious character of Diotima; and as it is necessary, besides, for ushering in with the greater solemnity those very sublime and mysterious speculations which follow it.—S.
[103] Great decorum of character is here observed in putting into the mouth of the prophetess a metaphor, taken from the method of initiation into those religious mysteries which at that time were held in the highest reverence. For, to make this initiation perfect, three orderly steps or degrees were to be taken. The first was called purgation, the second illumination, and the third intuition; to which last but few persons were ever deemed worthy to be raised.—Agreeable to this gradation is the method observed by Diotima in her initiation of Socrates into the mysteries of wisdom. Her confutation of his pretended former notions, but, in reality, of the preceding speeches in this dialogue, answers to the purgative part of initiation into the religious mysteries. Her succeeding positive instructions in the true doctrine of Love answer to the illuminative part. And what remains of her discourse, as she herself here plainly gives us to understand, alludes to the last part of the religious initiation, the intuitive.—S.
[104] That is, his dæmon.—T.
[105] The word here used by Plato is επιτηδευμασι, in which he means to include all the particulars of right discipline; every study, and every exercise enjoined or recommended by antient policy to the youth of good families and fortunes; in a word, all the accomplishments formed by a liberal education. These may all be reduced to three kinds; habits of regular and polite behaviour, knowledge of the liberal arts, and practice of the liberal exercises of the body. But as all of them depend on principles of art, and are acquired by study and discipline, we have used these very words art, study, and discipline, in translating Plato’s επιτηδευματα, as the most expressive of his whole meaning.—S.
[106] The sciences here meant are those by the Platonists termed mathematical, as being the μαθηματα, the learning, which they deemed a necessary preparation for the study of true philosophy. These were arithmetic, geometry, music in its theory, and astronomy. In these sciences every step which the mind takes is from beauty to beauty: for every theorem new to the mind in any of these sciences opens to her view some proportion or symmetry, some harmony or order, undiscovered before. Each different science seems a different world of beauty, still enlarging on the mind’s eye, as her views become more and more extensive in the science. For proportion in arithmetic differs from proportion in geometry; musical proportion differs from them both; and the science of the celestial orbs, of their several revolutions, their mutual aspects, and their distances from each other, and from their common centre, is conversant in each of those three different proportions, and comprehends them all.—S.
[107] This one science is comprehended in Plato’s dialectic, concerning which see the Introduction to the Parmenides.—T.
[108] This, which is the last pause in the speech, intended to renew and invigorate the attention, is very requisite in this place; for it precedes a description as admirable and as full of wonder as the being which it describes: and accordingly the strongest attention is here expressly demanded.—S.
[109] Plato, in speaking of the ascent in corporeal beauty, very properly says, that after passing from one to two, we must proceed to all beautiful bodies: for it is necessary to ascend rapidly from the beauty of body to a higher beauty. Mr. Sydenham, therefore, by changing the word two (though used by Plato) for many in his translation, has, I conceive, entirely perverted the accurate sense of the present passage.—T.
[110] In the Greek original there seems here to be a considerable omission, which we have endeavoured to supply as follows: the supplemental words being those included between these marks []; απο των καλων σωματων [επι τας καλας ψυχας, και απο των καλων ψυχων] επι τα καλα επιτηδευματα, κ. τ. λ. Some such words are plainly necessary to make this recapitulation agreeable to the account at large given before.—S.
[111] In all editions of the Greek original, we here read Μαντινικη. This seems to have been the ground on which Harry Stephens and Dr. Davis built their supposition, that the word μαντικη, where it occurred in a prior passage, was a corrupt reading, and should be changed into Μαντινικη. But we are inclined to think, that the passage now before us ought to be accommodated to that, rather than to this; especially since the reading of μαντικη in this place, as well as in that other, is favoured by the Latin translation of Ficinus; a translation which has always had the authority of a manuscript allowed it, as having been made from a manuscript copy, not consulted by any of the editors, with an exactness almost verbal, and accordingly with very little regard to style, and with no great attention to the sense.—S.
[112] I am sorry to say that nothing can be more absurd than the notes of Mr. Sydenham on this part of the dialogue. In consequence of being perfectly ignorant of the polytheism of the Greeks, he is continually offering violence to the meaning of Plato, in order to make that philosopher join with him in ridiculing the religion of Greece. Hence, according to Mr. Sydenham, Plato, when he here says that the beautiful itself is not in gold, nor in beautiful youths or damsels, intends by it to ridicule gilt statues, and the notion that such beautiful forms as those of Ganymede and Hebe were the ornaments of the court of heaven, and the delight of Jupiter himself!—T.
[113] That is, 8/12ths of a peck.
[114] What Plato says near the end of his first book of Laws concerning drinking largely, may serve as a comment on what is here, and in other parts of this oration, related of Socrates: “If some one,” says he, “confiding in his own nature, and being properly prepared by meditation, should not refuse to exercise himself with many drinking associates, and should evince, in the necessary consumption of the liquor, a power so transcendent and strong, as neither greatly to err through impudence, nor to be changed through virtue; but towards the end of the liquor should depart without being intoxicated, fearing any human potion the least of all things;—in this case, he would do something well.” And to this Clinias, one of the persons of the dialogue, replies: “Certainly. For such a one, by thus acting, would conduct himself with temperance and modesty.” Plato, doubtless, alluded to Socrates in writing this.
[115] Corresponding with this is the following passage from the Scholia of Maximus on the works of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: Εκεινοι γαρ (i. e. Græci) ὁια τινας ανδριαντας εποιουν, μητε χειρας, μητε ποδας εχοντας, ὁυς ἑρμας εκαλουν. εποιουν δε αυτους διακενους θυρας εχοντας, καθαπερ τοιχοπυργισκους. εσωθεν ουν αυτων ετιθεσαν αγαλματα, ὡν εσεβον θεων, εξωθεν δε απεκλειον τους ἑρμας· εφαινοντο ουν ὁι ἑρμαι ευτελεις, εσωθεν δε τουτων, θεων αυτων καλλωπισμους ειχον. Dionysii Opera, tom. ii. p. 209. i. e. “The Greeks made certain statues, having neither hands nor feet, which they called Hermæ. They fashioned these with avenues, like turrets on a wall. Within these, therefore, they placed the statues of the Gods whom they worshipped; but they closed the Hermæ externally. Hence these Hermæ appeared to be things of no value; but inwardly they contained the ornaments of the Gods themselves.”
[116] A celebrated piper of Celæne in Phrygia. He was so skilful in playing on the flute, that he is generally considered as the inventor of it. It is fabled of him, that he challenged Apollo to a trial of his skill as a musician; and, being vanquished, the God flayed him alive.
[117] Olympus was both a poet and a musician: he was the disciple of Marsyas, and flourished before the Trojan war.
[118] Proclus, in his MS. Commentary on the First Alcibiades, where he makes a division of musical instruments, observes, that those of an exciting nature were most adapted to enthusiastic energy. Hence, says he, in the mysteries, and in the greatest of mystic sacrifices, the pipe is useful: for they employ its motive power in order to excite the dianoëtic part to divinity. Τα δη κινητικα προς ενθουσιαν οικειοτατα· διο δη και εν τοις μυστηριοις και εν ταις τελεταις χρησιμος αυλος. χρωνται γαρ αυτου τῳ κινητικῳ προς την της διανοιας εγερσιν επι το θειον. Such, therefore, as were excited by the melody of the pipe in a very small degree, may be supposed to be implied by those that stand in need of the Gods and mysteries; as the other machinery of the mysteries, in conjunction with the pipe, would necessarily produce that excitation which the pipe alone was, in such as these, incapable of effecting.
[119] See the First Alcibiades.
[120] Very few have penetrated the profound meaning of Socrates when he said that he knew nothing. But he doubtless intended to signify by this the nothingness of human compared with divine knowledge. For to know that this is the true condition of human knowledge, it is necessary to know previously all the natures superior to man.
[121] Meaning that wine makes both children and others speak the truth.
[122] Plato when he wrote this had doubtless that Orphic verse in his mind,

Φθεξομαι ὁις θεμις εστι, θυρας δ’ επιθεσθε βεβηλοι.

i. e. “I speak to those to whom it is lawful; shut your gates, ye profane.” And Proclus informs us in his MS. Commentary on the First Alcibiades, that there was an inscription in the Eleusinian grove forbidding the uninitiated to enter into the adyta or secret recesses of the temple. Τοις γαρ εις το των Ελευσινιων τεμενος εισιουσιν, εδηλον το προγραμμα μη χωρειν εισω των αδυτων, αμυητοις ουσι και ατελεστοις. Alcibiades, therefore, as he is about to relate a circumstance which, considered independently of the design with which it is mentioned, is indecent, very properly forbids the profane to be auditors of it. For in this he follows the mysteries, in which, as I have shown in my Dissertation on them, p. 123, the indecent was introduced. In the mysteries too, as exhibitions of this kind were designed to free the initiated from licentious passions by gratifying the sight, and at the same time vanquishing desire through the awful sanctity with which these rites were accompanied, so what is now related by Alcibiades is introduced by Plato, in order to liberate his countrymen from an unnatural vice. So that it benefits the reader at the same time that it exalts the character of Socrates. Admirably, therefore, is it observed by Jamblichus, (De Myst. p. 22.) “that as in comedies and tragedies, on beholding the passions of others we repress our own, render them moderate, and are purified from them; in like manner in the mysteries, by seeing and hearing things indecent, we are liberated from the injury with which the performance of them is attended.” He adds, “Things of this kind, therefore, are introduced for the sake of healing our soul, moderating the maladies which adhere to it through generation, and freeing it from its bonds; and hence Heraclitus very properly called them reme- dies. Δια τουτο εν τῃ κωμῳδιᾳ και τραγῳδιᾳ αλλοτρια παθη θεωρουντες ισταμεν τα οικεια παθη, και μετριωτερα απεργαζομεθα, και αποκαθαιρομεν· εν τε τοῖς ἱεροις, θεαμασι τισι και ακουσμασι των αισχρων, απολυομεθα της επι των εργων απ’ αυτων συμπιπτουσης βλαβης. Θεραπειας ουν ἑνεκα της εν ἡμιν ψυχης, και μετριοτητος των δια την γενεσιν προσφυομενων αυτῃ κακων, λυσεως τε απο των δεσμων, και απαλλαγης χαριν, τα τοιαυτα προσαγεται· και δια τουτο εικοτως αυτα ακεα Ἡρακλειτος προσειπεν.
[123] Alcibiades says this as being intoxicated himself.
[124] Socrates is not the only instance of this dominion of the rational soul over the body, but a similar abstraction is related of other philosophers. It is said of Xenocrates, the disciple of Plato, that he was for one hour every day abstracted from body. Archimedes was so intent on geometrical figures that he was insensible to the capture of his country, and to the enemy standing before him. Plotinus, as his disciple Porphyry informs us, was often so abstracted from body, as to be united by an ineffable energy with the highest God; and this also once happened to Porphyry. Heraclitus and Democritus, in order to obtain this abstraction in perfection, withdrew into solitude. Hence the former of these through intense study was of a sorrowful aspect; and the latter, when he began to recall his intellect from the senses, and was impeded by his eyes, blinded himself. In short, all those who have made great discoveries in the regions of science have accomplished this by retiring from body into the sublime tower of intellect. Hence Plato says in the Phædrus, that the intellects of philosophers especially recover the wings of the soul, because they are always attentive to divine concerns; and on this account he at one time calls such philosophers divine, and at another sons of the Gods. Hence too Aristotle says, in his Problems, that all who have excelled in any art have been melancholy, whether they were born such, or whether they became such by continued meditation.
[125] Brasidas was a famous Spartan general, who, after many great victories obtained over Athens and other Grecian states, died of a wound at Amphipolis, which Cleon the Athenian had besieged.