Transcript for:
Summary of Plato's Symposium

[Music] a chill books original symposium by plato complete audiobook with relaxing music and visuals to help you stay engaged translated by benjamin joette persons of the dialogue arpalodoros who repeats to his companion the dialogue which he had heard from aristodemus and had already once narrated to glorcon federous possanias arryximakus aristophanes argathon socrates alcibiades a troupe of revellers [Music] seen the house of argathon [Music] concerning the things about which you asked to be informed i believe that i am not ill prepared with an answer for the day before yesterday i was coming from my own home at feller into the city and one of my acquaintance who had caught a sight of me from behind calling out playfully in the distance said arkhalodoros o thou falyrian probably a play of words on greek bald headed man halt so i did as i was bid and then he said i was looking for you arpalodoros only just now that i might ask you about the speeches in praise of love which were delivered by socrates alcibiades and others at argethon supper phoenix the son of philip told another person who told me of them his narrative was very indistinct but he said that you knew and i wish that you would give me an account of them who if not you should be the reporter of the words of your friend and first tell me he said will you present at this meeting your informant glorcon i said must have been very indistinct indeed if you imagine that the occasion was recent or that i could have been at the party why yes he replied i thought so impossible i said are you ignorant that for many years argathon has not resided at athens and not three have elapsed since i became acquainted with socrates and have made it my daily business to know all that he says and does there was a time when i was running about the world fancying myself to be well employed but i was really a most wretched being no better than you are now i thought that i ought to do anything rather than be a philosopher well he said jesting apart tell me when the meeting occurred in our boyhood i replied when arghathon won the prize with his first tragedy on the day after that on which he and his chorus offered the sacrifice of victory then it must have been a long while ago he said and who told you did socrates no indeed i replied but the same person who told phoenix he was a little fellow who never wore any shoes aristodemus of the demi of siddhathenium he had been at arkathon's feast and i think that in those days there was no one who was a more devoted admirer of socrates moreover i have asked socrates about the truth of some parts of his narrative and he confirmed them then said glaucon let us have the tale over again is not the road to athens just made for conversation and so we walked and talked of the discourses on love and therefore as i said at first i am not ill prepared to comply with your request and will have another rehearsal of them if you like for to speak or to hear others speak a philosophy always gives me the greatest pleasure to say nothing of the prophet but when i hear another strain especially that of you rich men and traders such conversation displeases me and i pity you who are my companions because you think that you are doing something when in reality you are doing nothing and i dare say that you pity me in return whom you regard as an unhappy creature and very probably you are right but i certainly know of you what you only think of me there is the difference companion i see upper loderos that you are just the same always speaking evil of yourself and of others and i do believe that you pity all mankind with the exception of socrates yourself first of all true in this to your old name which however deserved i know not how you acquired of arpalo derose the madman for you are always raging against yourself and everybody but socrates arpalodoros yes friend and the reason why i am said to be mad and out of my wits is just because i have these notions of myself and you no other evidence is required companion no more of that apollodaros but let me renew my request that you would repeat the conversation arpalodoros well the tale of love was on this wise but perhaps i had better begin at the beginning and endeavour to give you the exact words of aristodemus he said that he met socrates fresh from the bath and sandals and as the sight of the sandals was unusual he asked him whether he was going that he had been converted into such a bow to a banquet at arghathons he replied whose invitation to his sacrifice of victory i refused yesterday fearing a crowd but promising that i would come today instead and so i have put on my finery because he is such a fine man what say you to going with me unasked i will do as you bid me i replied follow then he said and let us demolish the proverb to the feasts of inferior men the good unbidden go instead of which our proverb will run to the feasts of the good the good unbidden go and this alteration may be supported by the authority of homer himself who not only demolishes but literally outrages the proverb 4. after picturing agamemnon as the most valiant of men he makes menelaus who is but a faint-hearted warrior come unbidden iliad to the banquet of agamemnon who is feasting and offering sacrifices not the better to the worse but the worst to the better i rather fear socrates said aristodemus lest this may still be my case and that like menelaus in homer i shall be the inferior person who to the feasts of the wise unbidden goes but i shall say that i was bitten of you and then you will have to make an excuse two going together he replied in homeric fashion one or other of them may invent an excuse by the way iliad this was the style of their conversation as they went along socrates dropped behind in a fit of abstraction and desired aristodemus who was waiting to go on before him when he reached the house of arghathon he found the doors wide open and a comical thing happened a servant coming out met him and led him at once into the banqueting hall in which the guests were reclining for the banquet was about to begin welcome aristodemus said arghathon as soon as he appeared you were just in time to sup with us if you come on any other matter put it off and make one of us as i was looking for you yesterday and meant to have asked you if i could have found you but what have you done with socrates i turned round but socrates was nowhere to be seen and i had to explain that he had been with me a moment before and that i came by his invitation to the supper you were quite right in coming said arghathon but where is he himself he was behind me just now as i entered he said and i cannot think what has become of him go and look for him boy said arghathon and bring him in and do you aristodemus meanwhile take the place by oriximakus the servant then assisted him to wash and he laid down and presently another servant came in and reported that our friend socrates had retired into the portico of the neighbouring house there he is fixed said he and when i call to him he will not stir how strange said arghathon then you must call him again and keep calling him let him alone said my informant he has a way of stopping anywhere and losing himself without any reason i believe that he will soon appear do not therefore disturb him well if you think so i will leave him said arghathon and then turning to the servants he added let us have supper without waiting for him serve up whatever you please for there is no one to give you orders hitherto i have never left you to yourselves but on this occasion imagine that you are hosts and that i and the company are your guests treat us well and then we shall commend you after this supper was served but still no socrates and during the meal arghathon several times expressed a wish to send for him but aristodemus objected and at last when the feast was about half over for the fit as usual was not of long duration socrates entered arghathon who was reclining alone at the end of the table begged that he would take the place next to him that i may touch you he said and have the benefit of that wise thought which came into your mind in the portico and is now in your possession for i am certain that you would not have come away until you had found what you sought how i wish said socrates taking his place as he was desired that wisdom could be infused by touch out of the fuller into the empty a man as water runs through wool out of a fuller cup into an emptier one if that was so how greatly should i value the privilege of reclining at your side for you would have filled me full with a stream of wisdom plenteous and fair whereas my own is of a very mean and questionable sort no better than a dream but yours is bright and full of promise and was manifested forth in all the splendor of youth the day before yesterday in the presence of more than thirty thousand helene's you are mocking socrates said arghathon and air long euro will have to determine who bears off the palm of wisdom of this dionysus shall be the judge but at present you are better occupied with supper socrates took his place on the couch and sucked with the rest and then libations were offered and after a hymn had been sung to the god and there had been the usual ceremonies they were about to commence drinking when possania said and now my friends how can we drink with least injury to ourselves i can assure you that i feel severely the effect of yesterday's petitions and must have time to recover and i suspect that most of you are in the same predicament for you were of the party yesterday consider then how can the drinking be made easiest i entirely agree said aristophanes that we should by all means avoid hard drinking if i was myself one of those who were yesterday drowned in drink i think that you are right said ariximakkus the son of acumen use but i should still like to hear one other person speak is argathon able to drink heart i am not equal to it said arghathon then said ariximakkus the weak heads like myself aristodemus fidris and others who never can drink are fortunate in finding that the stronger ones are not in a drinking mood i do not include socrates who is able either to drink or to abstain and will not mind whichever we do well as if none of the companies seem disposed to drink much i may be forgiven for saying as a physician that drinking deep is a bad practice which i never follow if i can help and certainly do not recommend to another least of all to anyone who still feels the effects of yesterday's corrals i always do what you advise and especially what you prescribe as a physician rejoined fidris the marine usion and the rest of the company if they are wise will do the same it was agreed that drinking was not to be the order of the day but that they were all to drink only so much as they pleased then said ariximakkus as you are all agreed that drinking is to be voluntary and that there is to be no compulsion i move in the next place that the flute girl who has just made her appearance be told to go away and play to herself or if she likes to the women who are within compare prot today let us have conversation instead and if you will allow me i will tell you what sort of conversation this proposal having been accepted ariximac has proceeded as follows i will begin he said after the manner of melanie in euripides not mind the word which i am about to speak but that of fidris for often he says to me in an indignant tone what a strange thing it is a rixi makkus that whereas other gods have poems and hymns made in their honor the great and glorious god love has no encomies among all the poets who are so many there are the worthy sophists too the excellent protocols for example who have discounted and pros on the virtues of heracles and other heroes and what is still more extraordinary i have met with a philosophical work in which the utility of salt has been made the theme of an eloquent discourse and many other like things have had a like honour bestowed upon them and only to think that there should have been an eager interest created about them and yet that to this day no one has ever dead worthily to him loves praises so entirely has this great deity been neglected now in this fiedra seems to me to be quite right and therefore i want to offer him a contribution also i think that at the present moment we who are here assembled cannot do better than honor the god love if you agree with me there will be no lack of conversation for i mean to propose that each of us in turn going from left to right shall make a speech in honor of love let him give us the best which he can and feed us because he is sitting first on the left hand and because he is the father of the thought she'll begin no one will vote against you oriximakus said socrates how can i oppose your motion who profess to understand nothing but matters of love nor i presume will arghathon and possanious and there can be no doubt of aristophanes whose whole concern is with dionysus and aphrodite nor will anyone disagree of those whom i see around me the proposal as i am aware may seem rather hard upon us whose place is last but we shall be contented if we hear some good speeches first let fedras begin the praise of love and good luck to him all the company expressed their ascent and desired him to do as socrates paid him aristodemus did not recollect all that was said nor do i recollect all that he related to me but i will tell you what i thought most worthy of remembrance and what the chief speaker said features began by affirming that love is a mighty god and wonderful among gods and men but especially wonderful in his birth for he is the eldest of the gods which is an honor to him and a proof of his claim to this honor is that of his parents there is no memorial neither poet nor prose writer has ever affirmed that he had any as he said says first chaos came and then broad blossomed earth the everlasting seat of all that is and love in other words after chaos the earth and love these two came into being also commended these things of generation first in the train of gods he fashioned love and accusolos agrees with hesiod thus numerous other witnesses who acknowledge love to be the eldest of the gods and not only is he the eldest he is also the source of the greatest benefits to us for i know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover or to the lover than a beloved youth for the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live that principle i say neither kindred nor honor nor wealth nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love of what am i speaking of the sense of honor and dishonor without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work and i say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonorable act or submitting through cowardice when any dishonor is done to him by another will be more pained at being detected by his beloved than at being seen by his father or by his companions or by anyone else the beloved too when he is found in any disgraceful situation has the same feeling about his lover and if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves compare rep they would be the very best governors of their own city abstaining from all dishonor and emulating one another in honor and when fighting at each other's side although a mere handful they would overcome the world for what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms he would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger the various coward would become an inspired hero equal to the bravest at such a time love would inspire him that courage which as homer says the god breathes into the souls of some heroes love of his own nature infuses into the lover love will make men dare to die for their beloved love alone and women as well as men of this alcestis the daughter of peleus is a monument to all helles for she was willing to lay down her life on behalf of her husband when no one else would although he had a father and mother but the tenderness of her love so far exceeded theirs that she made them seem to be strangers in blood to their own son and in name only related to him and so noble did this action of hers appear to the gods as well as to men that among the many who have done virtuously she is one of the very few to whom in admiration of her noble action they have granted the privilege of returning a light to earth such exceeding honor is paid by the gods to the devotion and virtue of love but orpheus the son of oyogras the harper they sent empty away and presented to him an apparition only of her whom he sought but herself they would not give up because he showed no spirit he was only a heart player and did not dare like ancestors to die for love but was contriving how he might enter hades alive moreover they afterwards caused him to suffer death at the hands of women as the punishment of his cowardliness very different was the reward of the true love of achilles towards his lover patroclus his lover and not his love the notion that petroclus was the beloved one is a foolish heir into which aeschylus has fallen for achilles was surely the fairer of the two fairer also than all the other heroes and as homer informs us he was still beardless and younger far and greatly as the gods honour the virtue of love still the return of love on the part of the beloved to the lover is more admired and valued and rewarded by them for the lover is more divine because he is inspired by god now achilles was quite aware for he had been told by his mother that he might avoid death and return home and live to a good old age if he abstained from slaying hector nevertheless he gave his life to revenge his friend and dared to die not only in his defense but after he was dead wherefore the gods honoured him even above alcestis and sent him to the islands of the blessed these are my reasons for affirming that love is the eldest and noblest and mightiest of the gods and the chiefest author and giver of virtue in life and of happiness after death this or something like this was the speech of fidris and some other speeches followed which aristodemus did not remember the next which he repeated was that of possenius federous he said the argument has not been set before us i think quite in the right form we should not be called upon to praise love in such an indiscriminate manner if there were only one love then what you said would be well enough but since there are more loves than one should have begun by determining which of them was to be the theme of our praises i will amend this defect and first of all i will tell you which love is deserving of praise and then try to him the praiseworthy one in a manner worthy of him for we all know that love is inseparable from aphrodite and if there were only one aphrodite there would be only one love but as there are two goddesses there must be two loves and am i not right in asserting that there are two goddesses the elder one having no mother who is called the heavenly aphrodite she is the daughter of uranus the younger who is the daughter of zeus and diony her we call common and the love who is her fellow worker is rightly named common as the other love is called heavenly all the gods ought to have praise given to them but not without distinction of their natures and therefore i must try to distinguish the characters of the two loves now actions vary according to the manner of their performance take for example that which we are now doing drinking singing and talking these actions are not in themselves either good or evil but they turn out in this or that way according to the mode of performing them and when well done they are good and when wrongly done they are evil and in like manner not every love but only that which has a noble purpose is noble and worthy of praise the love who is the offspring of the common aphrodite is essentially common and has no discrimination being such as the mean a sort of men feel and is out to be of women as well as of youths and is of the body rather than of the soul the most foolish beings are the objects of this love which desires only to gain an end but never thinks of accomplishing the end nobly and therefore does good and evil quite indiscriminately the goddess who is his mother is far younger than the other and she was born of the union of the male and female and partakes of both but the offspring of the heavenly aphrodite is derived from a mother in whose birth the female has no part she is from the male only this is that love which is of youths and the goddess being older there is nothing of wantonness in her those who are inspired by this love turn to the male and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature anyone may recognize the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments for they love not boys but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed much about the time at which their beards begin to grow and in choosing young men to be their companions they mean to be faithful to them and pass their whole life in company with them not to take them in their inexperience and deceive them and play the fool with them or run away from one to another of them but the love of young boys should be forbidden by law because their future is uncertain they may turn out good or bad either in body or soul and much noble enthusiasm may be thrown away upon them in this matter the good are a law to themselves and the coarser sort of lovers ought to be restrained by force as we restrain or attempt to restrain them from fixing their affections on women of free birth these are the persons who bring a reproach on love and some have been led to deny the lawfulness of such attachments because they see the impropriety and evil of them for surely nothing that is decorously and lawfully done can justly be censored now here and in lasse demon the rules about love are perplexing but in most cities they are simple and easily intelligible in elis and beosha and in countries having no gifts of eloquence they are very straightforward the law is simply in favor of these connections and no one whether young or old has anything to say to their discredit the reason being as i suppose that they are men a few words in those parts and therefore the lovers do not like the trouble of pleading their suit in eonia and other places and generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians the custom is held to be dishonorable loves of youth share the evil repute in which philosophy and gymnastics are held because they are inimical to tyranny for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit compare arrest politics and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them which love above all other motives is likely to inspire as our athenian tyrants learned by experience for the love of arista gaytin and the constancy of harmonius had a strength which undid their power and therefore the ill repute into which these attachments have fallen is to be ascribed to the evil condition of those who make them to be ill-reputed that is to say to the self-seeking of the governors and the cowardice of the governed on the other hand the indiscriminate honor which is given to them in some countries is attributable to the laziness of those who hold this opinion of them in our own country a far better principle prevails but as i was saying the explanation of it is rather perplexing four observe that open loves are held to be more honorable than secret ones and that the love of the noblest and highest even if their persons are less beautiful than others is especially honorable consider too how great is the encouragement which all the world gives to the lover neither is he supposed to be doing anything dishonorable but if he succeeds he is praised and if he fail he is blamed and in the pursuit of his love the custom of mankind allows him to do many strange things which philosophy would bitterly sense here if they were done from any motive of interest or wish for office or power he may pray and entreat and supplicate and swear and lie on a mat at the door and endure slavery worse than that of any slave in any other case friends and enemies would be equally ready to prevent him but now there is no friend who will be ashamed of him and admonish him and no enemy will charge him with meanness or flattery the actions of a lover have a grace which enables them and custom has decided that they are highly commendable and that they're no loss of character in them and what is strangest of all he only may swear and forswear himself so men say and the gods will forgive his transgression for there is no such thing as a lover's oath such is the entire liberty which gods and men have allowed the lover according to the custom which prevails in our part of the world from this point of view a man fairly argues that in athens to love and to be loved is held to be a very honorable thing but when parents forbid their sons to talk with their lovers and place them under a tutor's care who is appointed to see to these things and their companions and equals cast in their teeth anything of the sort which they may observe and their elders refuse to silence the reprovers and do not rebuke them anyone who reflects on all this will on the contrary think that we hold these practices to be most disgraceful but as i was saying at first the truth as i imagine is that whether such practices are honorable or whether they are dishonorable is not a simple question they are honorable to him who follows them honorably dishonorable to him who follows them dishonorably there is dishonor in yielding to the evil or in an evil manner but there is honor in yielding to the good or in an honorable manner evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul in as much as he is not even stable because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over he takes wing and flies away in spite of all his words and promises whereas the love of the noble disposition is lifelong for it becomes one with the everlasting the custom of our country would have both of them proven well and truly and would have us yield to the one sort of lover and avoid the other and therefore encourages some to pursue and others to fly testing both the lover and beloved in contests and trials until they show to which of the two classes they respectively belong and this is the reason why in the first place a hasty attachment is held to be dishonorable because time is the true test of this as of most other things and secondly there is a dishonor in being overcome by the love of money or of wealth or of political power whether a man is frightened into surrender by the loss of them or having experienced the benefits of money and political corruption is unable to rise above the seductions of them for none of these things are of a permanent or lasting nature not to mention that no generous friendship ever sprang from them there remains then only one way of honorable attachment which custom allows in the beloved and this is the way of virtue for as we admitted that any service which the lover does to him is not to be accounted flattery or a dishonor to himself so the beloved has one way only a voluntary service which is not dishonorable and this is virtuous service for we have a custom and according to our custom a one who does service to another under the idea that he will be improved by him either in wisdom or in some other particular of virtue such a voluntary service i say is not to be regarded as a dishonor and is not open to the charge of flattery and these two customs one the love of youth and the other the practice of philosophy and virtue in general ought to meet in one and then the beloved may honorably indulge the lover for when the lover and beloved come together having each of them a law and the lover thinks that he is right in doing any service which he can to his gracious loving one and the other that he is right in showing any kindness which he can to him who is making him wise and good the one capable of communicating wisdom and virtue the other seeking to acquire them with a view to education and wisdom when the two laws of love are fulfilled and meet in one then and then only may the beloved yield with honor to the lover nor when love is of this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived but in every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being deceived for he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor is disgraced all the same for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to anyone's uses base for the sake of money but this is not honorable and on the same principle he who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man and in the hope that he will be improved by his company shows himself to be virtuous even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain and to have no virtue and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error for he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement than which there can be nothing nobler thus noble in every case is the acceptance of another for the sake of virtue this is that love which is the love of the heavenly goddess and is heavenly and of great price to individuals and cities making the lover and the beloved alike eager in the work of their own improvement but all other loves are the offspring of the other who is the common goddess to you fidris i offer this my contribution in praise of love which is as good as i could make extempory horseanius came to a pause this is the balanced way in which i have been taught by the wise to speak and aristodemus said that the turn of aristophanes was next but either he had eaten too much or from some other cause he had the hiccup and was obliged to change turns with a rixie maccas the physician who was reclining on the couch below him ariximachus he said you ought either to stop my hiccup or to speak in my turn until i have left off i will do both said oriximakus i will speak in your turn and do you speak in mine and while i am speaking let me recommend you to hold your breath and if after you have done so for some time the hiccup is no better then gargle with a little water and if it still continues tickle your nose with something and sneeze and if you sneeze once or twice even the most violent hiccup is sure to go i will do as you prescribe said aristophanes and now get on arriximaka spoke as follows seeing that porsenius made a fair beginning and but a lame ending i must endeavor to supply his deficiency i think that he has rightly distinguished two kinds of love but my art further informs me that the double love is not merely an affection of the soul of man towards the fair or towards anything but is to be found in the bodies of all animals and in productions of the earth and i may say and all that is such is the conclusion which i seem to have gathered from my own heart of medicine once i learn how great and wonderful and universal is the deity of love whose empire extends over all things divine as well as human and from medicine i will begin that i may do honor to my art there are in the human body these two kinds of love which are confessively different and unlike and being unlike they have loves and desires which are unlike and the desire of the healthy is one and the desire of the diseased is another and as possanus was just now saying that to indulge good men is honorable and bad men dishonorable so too in the body the good and healthy elements are to be indulged and the bad elements and the elements of disease are not to be indulged but discouraged and this is what the physician has to do and in this the art of medicine consists for medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body and how to satisfy them or not and the best physician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul or to convert one into the other and he who knows how to eradicate and how to implant love whichever is required and can reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution and make them loving friends is a skillful practitioner now the most hostile are the most opposite such as hot and cold bitter and sweet moist and dry and the like and my ancestor asclepios knowing how to implant friendship and accord in these elements was the creator of our art as our friends the poets here tell us and i believe them and not only medicine in every branch but the arts of gymnastic and husbandry are under his dominion anyone who pays the least attention to the subject will also perceive that in music there is the same reconciliation of opposites and i suppose that this must have been the meaning of heraclitus although his words are not accurate for he says that the one is united by disunion like the harmony of the beau and the liar now there is an absurdity saying that harmony is discord or is composed of elements which are still in a state of discord but what he probably meant was that harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or lower pitch which disagreed once but are now reconciled by the art of music for if the higher and lower notes still disagreed there could be no harmony clearly not for harmony is a symphony and symphony is an agreement but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be you cannot harmonize that which disagrees in like-manner rhythm is compounded of elements short and long once differing and now in accord which accordance as in the former instance medicine so in all these other cases music implants making love and unison to grow up among them and thus music too is concerned with the principles of love in their application to harmony and rhythm again in the essential nature of harmony and rhythm there is no difficulty in discerning love which has not yet become double but when you want to use them in actual life either in the composition of songs or in the correct performance of heirs or meters composed already which latter is called education then the difficulty begins and the good artist is needed then the old tale has to be repeated of fair and heavenly love the love of urania the fair and heavenly muse and of the duty of accepting the temperate and those who are as yet intemperate only that they may become temperate and of preserving their love and again of the vulgar polyhymnia who must be used with circumspection that the pleasure be enjoyed but may not generate licentiousness just as in my own art it is a great matter so to regulate the desires of the epicure that he may gratify his tastes without the attendant evil of disease once i infer that in music in medicine in all other things human as well as divine both loves ought to be noted as far as may be for they are both present the course of the seasons is also full of both these principles and when as i was saying the elements of hot and cold moist and dry attain the harmonious love of one another and blend in temperance and harmony they bring to men animals and plants health and plenty and do them no harm whereas the wanton love getting the upper hand and affecting the seasons of the year is very destructive and injurious being the source of pestilence and bringing many other kinds of diseases on animals and plants for hor frost and hail and blight spring from the excesses and disorders of these elements of love which to know in relation to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and the seasons of the year is termed astronomy furthermore all sacrifices and the whole province of divination which is the art of communion between gods and men these i say are concerned only with the preservation of the good and the cure of the evil love for all manner of impiety is likely to ensue if instead of accepting and honoring and referencing the harmonious love in all his actions a man honors the other love whether in his feelings towards gods or parents towards the living or the dead wherefore the business of divination is to see to these loves and to heal them and divination is the peacemaker of gods and men working by a knowledge of the religious or irreligious tendencies which exist in human loves such is the great and mighty or rather omnipotent force of love in general and the love more especially which is concerned with the good and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice whether among gods or men has the greatest power and is the source of all our happiness and harmony and makes us friends with the gods who are above us and with one another i dare say that i too have omitted several things which might be said in praise of love but this was not intentional and you aristophanes may now supply the omission or take some other line of commendation for i perceive that you are rid of the hiccup yes said aristophanes who followed the hiccup is gone not however until i applied the sneezing and i wonder whether the harmony of the body has a love of such noises and ticklings for i no sooner applied the sneezing than i was cured arriximaka said beware friend aristophanes although you are going to speak you are making fun of me and i shall have to watch and see whether i cannot have a laugh at your expense when you might speak in peace you are right said aristophanes laughing i will unsay my words but do you please not to watch me as i fear that in the speech which i am about to make instead of others laughing with me which is to the manner born of our muse and would be all the better i shall only be laughed at by them do you expect to shoot your bolt and escape aristophanes well perhaps if you are very careful and bear in mind that you will be called to account i may be induced to let you off aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse he had a mind to praise love in another way unlike that either of possanias or oriximakus mankind he said judging by their neglect of him have never as i think at all understood the power of love for if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars and offered solemn sacrifices in his honor but this is not done and most certainly ought to be done since of all the gods he is the best friend of men the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race i will try to describe his power to you and you shall teach the rest of the world what i am teaching you in the first place let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it for the original human nature was not like the present but different the sexes were not two as they are now but originally three in number there was man woman and the union of the two having a name corresponding to this double nature which had once a real existence but is now lost and the word androgynous is only preserved as a term of reproach in the second place the primeval man was round his back and sides forming a circle and he had four hands and four feet one head with two faces looking opposite ways set on a round neck and precisely alike also four ears two privy members and the remainder to correspond he could walk upright as men now do backwards or forwards as he pleased and he could also roll over and over at a great pace turning on his four hands and four feet eight in all like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air this was when he wanted to run fast now the sexes were three and such as i have described them because the sun moon and earth are three and the man was originally the child of the sun the woman of the earth and the man woman of the moon which is made up of sun and earth and they were all round and moved round and round like their parents terrible was their might and strength and the thoughts of their hearts were great and they made an attack upon the gods of them is told the tale of ottie's and epheltas who as homer says dared to scale heaven and would have laid hands upon the gods doubt reigned in the celestial councils should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts as they had done the giants then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them but on the other hand the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained at last after a good deal of reflection zeus discovered a way he said methinks i have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners men shall continue to exist but i will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us they shall walk upright on two legs and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet i will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg he spoke and cut men in two like a sorb apple which is halved for pickling or as you might divide an egg with a hair and as he cut them one after another he made apollo gift the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself he would thus learn a lesson of humility apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms so he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly like the purses which draw in and he made one mouth at the center which he fastened in a knot the same which is called the navel he also molded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles much as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last he left a few however in the region of the belly and naval as a memorial of the primeval state after the division the two parts of man each desiring his other half came together and throwing their arms about one another entwined in mutual embraces longing to grow into one they were on the point of dying from hunger and self-neglect because they did not like to do anything apart and when one of the halves died and the other survived the survivor sought another mate man or woman as we call them being the sections of entire men or women and clung to that they were being destroyed when zeus and pity of them invented a new plan he turned the parts of generation round to the front for this had not been always their position and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground but in one another and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed and the race might continue or if man came to man they might be satisfied and rest and go their ways to the business of life so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us reuniting our original nature making one of two and healing the state of man each of us when separated having one side only like a flat fish is but the indenture of a man and he is always looking for his other half men who are a section of that double nature which was once called androgynous are lovers of women adulterers are generally of this breed and also adulterous women who lust after men the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men but have female attachments the female companions are of this sort but they who are a section of the male follow the male and while they are young being slices of the original man they hang about men and embrace them and they are themselves the best of boys and youths because they have the most manly nature some indeed assert that they are shameless but this is not true for they do not act us from any want of shame but because they are valiant and manly and have a manly countenance and they embrace that which is like them and these when they grow up become our statesmen and these only which is a great proof of the truth of what i am saving when they reach manhood they are lovers of youth and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children if at all they do so only in obedience to the law but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded and such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love always embracing that which is akin to him and when one of them meets with his other half the actual half of himself whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight as i may say even for a moment these are the people who pass their whole lives together yet they could not explain what they desire of one another for the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell and of which he has only a dark and doubtful presentement suppose hephaestus with his instruments to come to the pair who are lying side by side and to say to them what do you people want of one another they would be unable to explain and suppose further that when he saw their perplexity he said do you desire to be holy one always day and night to be in one another's company for if this is what you desire i am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together so that being two you shall become one and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of two i ask whether this is what you lovingly desire and whether you are satisfied to attain this question mark there is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another this becoming one instead of two was the very expression of his ancient need compare arrest paul and the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love there was a time i say when we were one but now because of the wickedness of mankind god has dispersed us as the arcadians were dispersed into villages by the lesser demonians compare aerist paul and if we are not obedient to the gods there is a danger that we shall be split up again and go about in bas or olivo like the profile figures having only half a nose which are sculptured on monuments and that we shall be like tallies wherefore let us exhort all men to piety that we may avoid evil and obtain the good of which love is to us the lord and minister and let no one oppose him he is the enemy of the gods who opposes him for if we are friends of the god and at peace with him we shall find our own true loves which rarely happens in this world at present i am serious and therefore i must beg oriximakus not to make fun or to find any illusion in what i am saying to posanius and arghathon who as i suspect are both of the manly nature and belong to the class which i have been describing but my words have a wider application they include men and women everywhere and i believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished and each one returning to his primeval nature had his original true love then our race would be happy and if this would be best of all the best in the next degree and under present circumstances must be the nearest approach to such an union and that will be the attainment of a congenial love wherefore if we would praise him who has given to us the benefit we must praise the god love who is our greatest benefactor both leading us in this life back to our own nature and giving us high hopes for the future for he promises that if we are pious he will restore us to our original state and heal us and make us happy and blessed this eriximakus is my discourse of love which although different to yours i must beg you to leave unassailed by the shafts of your ridicule in order that each may have his turn each or rather either for argathon and socrates are the only ones left indeed i am not going to attack you said oriximakus for i thought your speech charming and did i not know that argathon and socrates are masters in the art of love i should be really afraid that they would have nothing to say after the world of things which have been said already but for all that i am not without hopes socrates said you played your part well oriximakus but if you were as i am now or rather as i shall be when arghathon has spoken you would indeed be in a great strait you want to cast a spell over me socrates said argathon in the hope that i may be disconcerted at the expectation raised among the audience that i shall speak well i should be strangely forgetful arghathon replied socrates of the courage and magnanimity which you showed when your own compositions were about to be exhibited and you came upon the stage with the actors and faced the vast theater altogether undismayed if i thought that your nerves could be fluttered at a small party of friends do you think socrates said arghathon that my head is so full of the theater as not to know how much more formidable to a man of sense of few good judges other than many fools nay replied socrates i should be very wrong in attributing to you arghathon that or any other want of refinement and i am quite aware that if you happen to meet with any whom you thought wise you would care for their opinion much more than for that of the many but then we having been a part of the foolish many in the theater cannot be regarded as the select wise though i know that if you chance to be in the presence not of one of ourselves but of some really wise man you would be ashamed of disgracing yourself before him would you not yes said arghathon but before the many you would not be ashamed if you thought that you were doing something disgraceful in their presence here fidris interrupted them saying not answer him my dear arghathon for if he can only get a partner with whom he can talk especially a good-looking one he will no longer care about the completion of our plan now i love to hear him talk but just at present i must not forget the encomium on love which i ought to receive from him and from everyone when you and he have paid your tribute to the god then you may talk very good fidris said arghathon i see no reason why i should not proceed with my speech as i shall have many other opportunities of conversing with socrates let me say first how i ought to speak and then speak the previous speakers instead of praising the god love or unfolding his nature appear to have congratulated mankind on the benefits which he confers upon them but i would rather praise the god first and then speak of his gifts this is always the right way of praising everything may i say without impiety or offense that of all the blessed gods he is the most blessed because he is the fairest and best and he is the fairest for in the first place he is the youngest and of his youth he is himself the witness fleeing out of the way of age who is swift enough swifter truly than most of us like love hates him and will not come near him but youth and love live and move together like to like as the proverb says many things were said by fidris about love in which i agree with him but i cannot agree that he is older than iapetus and kronos not so i maintain him to be the youngest of the gods and youthful ever the ancient doings among the gods of which he said and parmenides spoke if the tradition of them be true were done of necessity and not of love had love been in those days there would have been no chaining or mutilation of the gods or other violence but peace and sweetness as there is now in heaven since the rule of love began love is young and also tender he ought to have a poet like homer to describe his tenderness as homer says of eight that she is a goddess and tender her feet are tender for she sets her steps not on the ground but on the heads of men herein is an excellent proof of her tenderness that she walks not upon the heart but upon the soft let us seduce a similar proof of the tenderness of love for he walks not upon the earth nor yet upon the skulls of men which are not so very soft but in the hearts and souls of both gods and men which are of all things the softest in them he walks and dwells and makes his home not in every soul without exception for where there is hardness he departs where there is softness there he dwells and nestling always with his feet and in all manner of ways in the softest of soft places how can he be other than the softest of all things of a truth he is the tenderest as well as the youngest and also he is a flexible form for if he were hard and without flexure he could not enfold all things or wind his way into and out of every soul of man undiscovered and a proof of his flexibility and symmetry of form is his grace which is universally admitted to be in a special manner the attribute of love ungrace and love are always at war with one another the fairness of his complexion is revealed by his habitation among the flowers for he dwells not amid bloomless or fading beauties whether of body or soul or ought else but in the place of flowers and sense there he sits and abides concerning the beauty of the god i have said enough and yet there remains much more which i might say of his virtue i have now to speak his greatest glory is that he can neither do nor suffer wrong to or from any god or any man for he suffers not by force if he suffers force comes not near him neither when he acts does he act by force for all men in all things serve him of their own free will and where there is voluntary agreement there as the laws which are the lords of the city say is justice and not only is he just but exceedingly temperate for temperance is the acknowledged ruler of the pleasures and desires and no pleasure ever masters love he is their master and they are his servants and if he conquers them he must be temperate indeed as to courage even the god of war is no match for him he is the captive and love is the lord for love the love of aphrodite masters him as the tale runs and the master is stronger than the servant and if he conquers the bravest of all others he must be himself the bravest of his courage and justice and temperance i have spoken but i have yet to speak of his wisdom and according to the measure of my ability i must try to do my best in the first place he is a poet and here like a ricksymechus i magnify my art and he is also the source of poesy in others which he could not be if he were not himself a poet and at the touch of him everyone becomes a poet even though he had no music in him before a fragment of the stenoya of euripides this also is a proof that love is a good poet and accomplished in all the fine arts for no one can give to another that which he has not himself or teach that of which he has no knowledge who will deny that the creation of the animals is his doing are they not all the works of his wisdom born and begotten of him and as to the artists do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame he who love touches not walks in darkness the arts of medicine and archery and divination were discovered by apollo under the guidance of love and desire so that he too is a disciple of love also the melody of the muses the metallurgy of hephiestus the weaving of athene the empire of zeus over gods and men are all due to love who was the inventor of them and so love set in order the empire of the gods the love of beauty as is evident for with deformity love has no concern in the days of old as i began by saying dreadful deeds were done among the gods for they were ruled by necessity but now since the birth of love and from the love of the beautiful has sprung every good in heaven and earth therefore fidris i say of love that he is the fairest and best in himself and the cause of what is fairest and best in all other things and there comes into my mind a line of poetry in which he is said to be the god who gives peace on earth and calms the stormy deep who steals the winds and bids the suffer asleep this is he who empties men of disaffection and fills them with affection who makes them to meet together at banquets such as these in sacrifices feasts dances he is our lord who sends courtesy and sends away discourtesy who gives kindness ever and never gives unkindness the friend of the good the wonder of the wise the amazement of the gods desired by those who have no part in him and precious to those who have the better part in him parent of delicacy luxury desire fondness softness grace regard full of the good regardless of the evil in every word work wish fear savior pilate comrade helper glory of gods and men leader best and brightest in whose footsteps let every man follow sweetly singing in his honor and joining that sweet strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men such is the speech fidris half-playful yet having a certain measure of seriousness which according to my ability i dedicate to the god when arghathon had done speaking aristodemus said that there was a general cheer the young man was thought to have spoken in a manner worthy of himself and of the god and socrates looking at a riximakis said tell me son of accu menus was there not reason in my fears and was i not a true prophet when i said that argathon would make a wonderful oration and that i should be in a straight the part of the prophecy which concerns arghathon replied ariximakkus appears to me to be true but not the other part that you will be in a straight why my dear friend said socrates must not i or anyone be in a strait who has to speak after he has heard such a rich and varied discourse i am especially struck with the beauty of the concluding words who could listen to them without amazement when i reflected on the immeasurable inferiority of my own powers i was ready to run away for shame if there had been a possibility of escape for i was reminded of gorgeous and at the end of his speech i fancied that arghathon was shaking at me the gorginian or gorgonian head of the great master of rhetoric which was simply to turn me and my speech into stone as homer says odyssey and strike me dumb and then i perceived how foolish i had been in consenting to take my turn with you in praising love and saying that i too was a master of the art when i really had no conception how anything ought to be praised for in my simplicity i imagine that the topics of praise should be true and that this being presupposed out of the truth the speaker was to choose the best and set them forth in the best manner and i felt quite proud thinking that i knew the nature of true praise and should speak well whereas i now see that the intention was to attribute to love every species of greatness and glory whether really belonging to him or not without regard to truth or falsehood that was no matter for the original proposal seems to have been not that each of you should really praise love but only that you should appear to praise him and so you attribute to love every imaginable form of praise which can be gathered anywhere and you say that he is all this and the cause of all that making him appear the fairest and best of all to those who know him not for you cannot impose upon those who know him and a noble and solemn hymn of praise have you rehearsed but as i misunderstood the nature of the praise when i said that i would take my turn i must beg to be absolved from the promise which i made in ignorance and which as euripides would say eurip hypolitis was a promise of the lips and not of the mind farewell then to such a strain for i do not praise in that way no indeed i cannot but if you like to hear the truth about love i am ready to speak in my own manner though i will not make myself ridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you say then fidris whether you would like to have the truth about love spoken in any words and in any order which may happen to come into my mind at the time will that be agreeable to you aristodemus said that fidris and the company bid him speak in any manner which he thought best then he added let me have your permission first to ask arkathon a few more questions in order that i may take his admissions as the premises of my discourse i grant the permission said fidris put your questions socrates then proceeded as follows in the magnificent oration which you have just uttered i think that you were right my dear arghathon in proposing to speak of the nature of love first and afterwards of his works that is a way of beginning which i very much approve and as you have spoken so eloquently of his nature may i ask you further whether love is the love of something or of nothing and here i must explain myself i do not want you to say that love is the love of a father or the love of a mother that would be ridiculous but to answer as you would if i asked is a father a father of something to which you would find no difficulty in replying of a son or daughter and the answer would be right very true said argefon and you would say the same of a mother he ascented yet let me ask you one more question in order to illustrate my meaning is not a brother to be regarded essentially as a brother of something certainly he replied that is of a brother or sister yes he said and now said socrates i will ask about love is love of something or of nothing or something surely he replied keep in mind what this is and tell me what i want to know whether love desires that of which love is yes surely and does he possess or does he not possess that which he loves and desires probably not i should say nay replied socrates i would have you consider whether necessarily is not rather the word the inference that he who desires something is in want of something and that he who desires nothing is in want of nothing is in my judgment arghathon absolutely and necessarily true what do you think i agree with you said arghathon very good would he who is great desire to be great or he who is strong desire to be strong that would be inconsistent with our previous admissions true for he who is anything cannot want to be that which he is very true and yet added socrates if a man being strong desired to be strong or being swift desired to be swift or being healthy desire to be healthy in that case he might be thought to desire something which he already has or is i give the example in order that we may avoid misconception for the possessors of these qualities argathon must be supposed to have their respective advantages at the time whether they choose or not and who can desire that which he has therefore when a person says i am well and wish to be well or i am rich and wish to be rich and i desire simply to have what i have to him we shall reply you my friend having wealth and health and strength want to have the continuance of them for at this moment whether you choose or no you have them and when you say i desire that which i have and nothing else is not your meaning that you want to have what you now have in the future he must agree with us must he not he must replied arghathon then said socrates he desires that what he has at present may be preserved to him in the future which is equivalent to saying that he desires something which is non-existent to him and which is yet he has not got very true he said then he and everyone who desires desires that which he has not already and which is future and not present and which he has not and is not and of which he is in want these are the sort of things which love and desire seek very true he said then now said socrates let us recapitulate the argument first is not love of something and of something too which is wanting to a man yes he replied remember further what you said in your speech or if you do not remember i will remind you you said that the love of the beautiful set in order the empire of the gods for that of deformed things there is no love did you not say something of that kind yes said arghathon yes my friend and the remark was a just one and if this is true love is the love of beauty and not of deformity he ascended and the admission has been already made that love is of something which a man wants and has not true he said then love wants and has not beauty certainly he replied and would you call that beautiful which once and does not possess beauty certainly not then would you still say that love is beautiful argathon replied i fear that i did not understand what i was saying you made a very good speech arghathon replied socrates but there is yet one small question which i would fain ask is not the good also the beautiful yes then in wanting the beautiful love wants also the good i cannot refute you socrates said arghathon let us assume that what you say is true say rather beloved arghathon that you cannot refute to truth for socrates is easily refuted and now taking my leave of you i would rehearse a tale of love which i heard from diatema of mountaineer compare one alcibiades a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge who in the days of old when the athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague delayed the disease ten years she was my instructors in the art of love and i shall repeat to you what she said to me beginning with the admissions made by arghathon which are nearly if not quite the same which i made to the wise woman when she questioned me i think that this will be the easiest way and i shall take both parts myself as well as i can compare gorgeous as you argathon suggested supra i must speak first of the being and nature of love and then of his works first i said to her in nearly the same words which he used to me that love was a mighty god and likewise fair and she proved to me as i proved to him that by my own showing love was neither fair nor good what do you mean dear tima i said is love then evil and foul hush she cried must that be foul which is not fair certainly i said and is that which is not wise ignorant do you not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance and what may that be i said right opinion she replied which as you know being incapable of giving a reason is not knowledge for how can knowledge be devoid of reason nor again ignorance for neither can ignorance attain the truth but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom quite true i replied do not then insist she said that what is not fair is of necessity foul or what is not good evil or in further because love is not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil for he is in a mean between them well i said love is surely admitted by all to be a great god by those who know or by those who do not know by all and how socrates she said with a smile can love be acknowledged to be a great god by those who say that he is not a god at all and who are they i said you and i are two of them she replied how can that be i said it is quite intelligible she replied for you yourself would acknowledge that the gods are happy and fair of course you would would you dare to say that any god was not certainly not i replied and you mean by the happy those who are the possessors of things good or fair yes and you admitted that love because he was in want desires those good and fair things of which he is in want yes i did but how can he be a god who has no portion in what is either good or fair impossible then you see that you also deny the divinity of love what then is love i asked is he mortal no what then as in the former instance he is neither mortal nor immortal but in a mean between the two what is he diatima he is a great spirit dimon and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal and what i said is his power he interprets she replied between gods and men conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men and to mend the commands and replies of the gods he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them and therefore in him all is bound together and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest their sacrifices and mysteries and charms and all prophecy and incantation find their way for god mingles not with man but through love all the intercourse and converse of god with man whether awake or asleep is carried on the wisdom which understands this is spiritual or other wisdom such as that of arts and handicrafts is mean and vulgar now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse and one of them is love and who i said was his father and who his mother the tale she said will take time nevertheless i will tell you on the birthday of aphrodite there was a feast of the gods at which the god porus or plenty who is the son of metis or discretion was one of the guests when the feast was over pena or poverty as the manner is on such occasions came about the doors to beg now plenty who was the worse for nectar there was no wine in those days went into the garden of zeus and fell into a heavy sleep and poverty considering her own straightened circumstances plotted to have a child by him and accordingly she laid down at his side and conceived love who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful and because aphrodite is herself beautiful and also because he was born on her birthday is her follower and attendant and as his parentages so also are his fortunes in the first place he is always poor and anything but tender and fair as the many imagine him and he is rough and squalid and has no shoes nor a house to dwell in on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven in the streets or at the doors of houses taking his rest and like his mother he is always in distress like his father too comey also partly resembles he is always plotting against the fair and good he is bold enterprising strong a mighty hunter always weaving some entry or other keen in the pursuit of wisdom fertile in resources a philosopher at all times terrible as an enchanter sorcerer sophist he is by nature neither mortal nor immortal but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty and dead at another moment and again alive by reason of his father's nature but that which is always flowing in is always flowing out and so he is never in want and never in wealth and further he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge the truth of the matter is this no god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom for he is wise already nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom for herein is the evil of ignorance that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself he has no desire for that of which he feels no want but who then dear tima i said other lovers of wisdom if they are neither the wise nor the foolish a child may answer that question she replied they are those who are in a mean between the two love is one of them for wisdom is a most beautiful thing and love is of the beautiful and therefore love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant and of this too his birth is the cause for his father is wealthy and wise and his mother poor and foolish such my dear socrates is the nature of the spirit love the error in your conception of him was very natural and as i imagine from what you say has arisen out of a confusion of love and the beloved which made you think that love was all beautiful for the beloved is the truly beautiful and delicate and perfect and blessed but the principle of love is of another nature and is such as i have described i said oh thou strange a woman thou sayest well but assuming love to be such as you say what is the use of him to men that socrates she replied i will attempt to unfold of his nature and birth i have already spoken and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful but someone will say of the beautiful in what socrates and diatema or rather let me put the question more clearly and ask when a man loves the beautiful what does he desire i answered her that the beautiful may be his still she said the answer suggests a further question what is given by the possession of beauty to what you have asked i replied i have no answer ready then she said let me put the word good in the place of the beautiful and repeat the question once more if he who loves loves the good what is it then that he loves the possession of the good i said and what does he gain who possesses the good happiness i replied there is less difficulty in answering that question yes she said the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things nor is there any need to ask why a man desires happiness the answer is already final you are right i said and is this wish and this desire common to all and do all men always desire their own good or only some men what say you all men i replied the desire is common to all why then she rejoined are not all men socrates said to love but only some of them whereas you say that all men are always loving the same things i myself wonder i said why this is there is nothing to wonder at she replied the reason is that one part of love is separated off and receives the name of the whole but the other parts have other names give an illustration i said she answered me as follows there is poetry which as you know is complex and manifold all creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making and the processes of all art are creative and the masters of arts are all poets or makers very true still she said you know that they are not called poets but have other names only that portion of the art which is separated off from the rest and is concerned with music and meter is termed poetry and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word are called poets very true i said and the same holds of love for you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the great and subtle power of love but they who are drawn towards him by any other path whether the path of money-making or gymnastics or philosophy are not called lovers the name of the whole is appropriated to those whose affection takes one form only they alone said to love or to be lovers i dare say i replied that you are right yes she added and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other half but i say that they are seeking neither for the half of themselves nor for the whole unless the half or the whole be also a good and they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away if they are evil for they love not what is their own unless perchance there be someone who calls what belongs to him the good and what belongs to another the evil for there is nothing which men love but the good is there anything certainly i should say that there is nothing then she said the simple truth is that men love the good yes i said to which must be added that they love the possession of the good yes that must be added and not only the possession but the everlasting possession of the good that must be added too then love she said may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good that is most true then if this be the nature of love can you tell me further she said what is the manner of the pursuit what are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love and what is the object which they have in view answer me nay diatima i replied if i had known i should not have wondered at your wisdom neither should i have come to learn from you about this very matter well she said i will teach you the object which they have in view is birth in beauty whether of body or soul i do not understand you i said the oracle requires an explanation i will make my meaning clearer she replied i mean to say that all men are bringing to the birth in their bodies and in their souls there is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation procreation which must be in beauty and not in deformity and this procreation is the union of man and woman and is a divine thing for conception and generation are an immortal principle in the mortal creature and in the inharmonious they can never be but the deformed is always inharmonious with the divine and the beautiful harmonious beauty then is the destiny or goddess of parturition who presides at birth and therefore when approaching beauty the conceiving power is propitious and diffusive and benign and begets and bears fruit at the site of ugliness she frowns and contracts and has a sense of pain and turns away and shrivels up and not without a pang refrains from conception and this is the reason why when the hour of conception arrives and the teeming nature is full there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of the pain of travail for love socrates is not as you imagine the love of the beautiful only what then the love of generation and of birth in beauty yes i said yes indeed she replied but why of generation because to the mortal creature generation is a sort of eternity and immortality she replied and if as has been already admitted love is of the everlasting possession of the good all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good wherefore love is of immortality all this she taught me at various times when she spoke of love and i remember her once saying to me what is the cause socrates of love and the attendant desire see you not how all animals birds as well as beasts in their desire of procreation are in agony when they take the infection of love which begins with the desire of union where to is added the care of offspring on whose behalf the weakest are ready to battle against the strongest even to the uttermost and to die for them and will let themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything in order to maintain their young man may be supposed to act us from reason but why should animals have these passionate feelings can you tell me why again i replied that i did not know she said to me and do you expect ever to become a master in the art of love if you do not know this but i have told you already dear tima that my ignorance is the reason why i come to you for i am conscious that i want a teacher tell me then the cause of this and of the other mysteries of love marvel not she said if you believe that love is of the immortal as we have several times acknowledged for here again and on the same principle too the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal and this is only to be attained by generation because generation always leaves behind a new existence in the place of the old nay even in the life of the same individual there is succession and not absolute unity a man is called the same and yet in the short interval which elapses between youth and age and in which every animal is said to have life and identity he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation hair flesh bones blood and the whole body are always changing which is true not only of the body but also of the soul whose habits tempers opinions desires pleasures pains fears never remain the same in any one of us but are always coming and going and equally true of knowledge and what is still more surprising to us mortals not only do the sciences in general spring up and decay so that in respect of them we are never the same but each of them individually experiences a like change for what is implied in the word recollection but the departure of knowledge which is ever being forgotten and is renewed and preserved by recollection and appears to be the same although in reality new according to that law of succession by which all mortal things are preserved not absolutely the same but by substitution the old worn out mortality leaving another new and similar existence behind unlike the divine which is always the same and not another and in this way socrates the mortal body or mortal anything partakes of immortality but the immortal in another way marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality i was astonished at her words and said is this really true oh thou wise dear tima and she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist of that socrates you may be assured think only of the ambition of men and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame they are ready to run all risks greater far than they would have run for their children and to spend money and undergo any sort of toil and even to die for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal do you imagine that ulcestus would have died to save admetus or achilles to avenge betrochlis or your own codross in order to preserve the kingdom for his sons if they had not imagined that the memory of their virtues which still survives among us would be immortal nay she said i am persuaded that all men do all things and the better they are the more they do them in hope of the glorious fame of immortal virtue for they desire the immortal those who are pregnant in the body only but take themselves to women and beget children this is the character of their love their offspring as they hope will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future but souls which are pregnant for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain and what are these conceptions wisdom and virtue in general and such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor but the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families and which is called temperance and justice and he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate he wonders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring for in deformity he will beget nothing and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body above all when he finds a fair and noble and well-nurtured soul he embraces the two in one person and to such and one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man and he tries to educate him and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory even when absent he brings forth that which he had conceived long before and in company with intends that which he brings forth and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal who when he thinks of homer and hesiod and other great poets would not rather have their children than ordinary human ones who would not emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory or who would not have such children as lycurgus left behind him to be the saviors not only of lassa demon but of helles as one may say there is solon 2 who is the revered father of athenian laws and many others there are in many other places both among helens and barbarians who have given to the world many noble works and have been the parents of virtue of every kind and many temples have been raised in their honor for the sake of children such as theirs which were never raised in honor of anyone for the sake of his mortal children these are the lesser mysteries of love into which even you socrates may enter to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these and to which if you pursue them in a right spirit they will lead i know not whether you will be able to attain but i will do my utmost to inform you and do you follow if you can for he who would precede a right in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms and first if he be guided by his instructor a right to love one such form only out of that he should create fair thoughts and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another and then if beauty or form in general is his pursuit how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form isn't the same and when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one which he will despise and deem a small thing and will become a lover of all beautiful forms in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honorable than the beauty of the outward form so that if a virtuous soul have but a little communist he will be content to love and tend him and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family and that personal beauty is a trifle and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences that he may see their beauty being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution himself a slave mean and narrow-minded but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom until on that shore he grows and waxes strong and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science which is the science of beauty everywhere to this i will proceed please to give me your very best attention he who has been instructed thus far in the things of love and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty and this socrates is the final cause of all our former toils and nature which in the first place is everlasting not growing and decaying or waxing and waning secondly not fair in one point of view and foul in another or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair at another time or in another relation or at another place foul as if fair to some and foul to others or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame or in any form of speech or knowledge or existing in any other being as for example in an animal or in heaven or in earth or in any other place but beauty absolute separate simple and everlasting which without diminution and without increase or any change is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things he who from these ascending under the influence of true love begins to perceive that beauty is not far from the end and the true order of going or being led by another to the things of love is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty using these as steps only and from one going on to two and from two to all fair forms and from fair forms to fair practices and from fair practices to fair notions until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty and at last knows what the essence of beauty is this my dear socrates said the stranger of mantinea is that life above all others which man should live in the contemplation of beauty absolute a beauty which if you once beheld you would see not to be after the measure of gold and garments and fair boys and youths whose presence now entrances you and you and many are one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink if that were possible you only want to look at them and to be with them but what if man had eyes to see the true beauty the divine beauty i mean pure and clear and unalloyed not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colors and vanities of human life feather looking and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine remember how in that communion only by holding beauty with the eye of the mind he will be unable to bring forth not images of beauty but realities for he has hold not of an image but of a reality and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of god and be immortal if mortal man may would that be an ignoble life such fidris and i speak not only to you but to all of you with the words of diatema and i am persuaded of their truth and being persuaded of them i try to persuade others that in the attainment of this end human nature will not easily find a helper better than love and therefore also i say that every man ought to honor him as i myself honor him and walk in his ways and exhort others to do the same and praise the power and spirit of love according to the measure of my ability now and ever the words which i have spoken you fidris may call an encomium of love or anything else which you please when socrates had done speaking the company applauded and aristophanes was beginning to say something in answer to the illusion which socrates had made to his own speech when suddenly there was a great knocking at the door of the house as of revelers and the sound of a flute girl was heard arghathon told the attendants to go and see who were the intruders if they are friends of ours he said invite them in but if not say that the drinking is over a little while afterwards they heard the voice of alcibiades resounding in the court he was in a great state of intoxication and kept roaring and shouting where is arkathon lead me to arghathon and at length supported by the flute girl and some of his attendants he found his way to them hail friends he said appearing at the door crowned with a massive garland of ivy and violets his head flowing with ribbons will you have a very drunken man as a companion of your revels or shall i crown arghathon which was my intention in coming and go away for i was unable to come yesterday and therefore i am here today carrying on my head these ribbons that taking them from my own head i may crown the head of this fairest and wisest of men as i may be allowed to call him will you laugh at me because i am drunk yet i know very well that i am speaking the truth although you may laugh but first tell me if i come until we have the understanding of which i spoke supra will you have a very drunken man etc will you drink with me or not the company were vociferous in begging that he would take his place among them and arghathon specially invited him thereupon he was led in by the people who were with him and as he was being led intending to crown arghathon he took the ribbons from his own head and held them in front of his eyes he was thus prevented from seeing socrates who made way for him and alcibiades took the vacant place between arghathon and socrates and in taking the place he embraced arghathon and crowned him take off his sandals said arghathon and let him make a third on the same couch by all means but who makes the third partner in our revels said alcibiades turning round and starting up as he caught sight of socrates by heracles he said what is this here is socrates always lying in wait for me and always as his way is coming out at all sorts of unsuspected places and now what have you to say for yourself and why are you lying here where i perceive that you have contrived to find a place not by a joker or lover of jokes like aristophanes but by the fairest of the company socrates turned to arghathon and said i must ask you to protect me arghathon for the passion of this man has grown quite a serious matter to me since i became his admirer i have never been allowed to speak to any other fair one or so much as to look at them if i do he goes wild with envy and jealousy and not only abuses me but can hardly keep his hands off me and at this moment he may do me some harm pleased to see to this and either reconcile me to him or if he attempts violence protect me as i am in bodily fear of his man and passionate attempts there can never be reconciliation between you and me said alcibiades but for the present i will defer your chastisement and i must beg you arghathon to give me back some of the ribbons that i may crown the marvellous head of this universal despot i would not have him complain of me for crowning you and neglecting him who in conversation is the conqueror of all mankind and this not only once as you were the day before yesterday but always whereupon taking some of the ribbons he crowned socrates and again reclined then he said you seem my friends to be sober which is a thing not to be endured you must drink for that was the agreement under which i was admitted and i elect myself master of the feast until you are well drunk let us have a large goblet agathon or rather he said addressing the attendant bring me that wine cooler the wine cooler which had caught his eye was a vessel holding more than two quarts this he filled and emptied and bade the attendant fill it again for socrates observe my friends said alcibiades that this ingenious trick of mine will have no effect on socrates for he can drink any quantity of wine and not be at all nearer being drunk socrates drank the cup which the attendant filled for him arriximaka said what is this alcibiades are we to have neither conversation nor singing over our cups but simply to drink as if we were thirsty alcibiades replied hail worthy son of a most wise and worthy sire the same to you said oriximakus but what shall we do that i leave to you said alcibiades the wise physicians skilled our wounds to heal from pope's homer eel shall prescribe and we will obey what do you want well said oriximakus before you appeared we had passed a resolution that each one of us in turn should make a speech in praise of love and as good a one as he could the turn was passed round from left to right and as all of us have spoken and you have not spoken but have well drunken you ought to speak and then impose upon socrates any task which you please and he on his right hand neighbor and so on that is good oriximakus said alcibiades and yet the comparison of a drunken man's speech with those of sober men is hardly fair and i should like to know sweet friend whether you really believe what socrates was just now saying for i can assure you that the very reverse is the fact and that if i praise anyone but himself in his presence whether god or man he will hardly keep his hands off me for shame said socrates hold your tongue said alcibiades for by poseidon there is no one else whom i will praise when you are of the company well then said oriximakus if you like praise socrates what do you think ariximakkus said alcibiades shall i attack him and inflict the punishment before you all what are you about said socrates are you going to raise a laugh at my expense is that the meaning of your praise i am going to speak the truth if you will commit me i not only permit but exhort you to speak the truth then i will begin at once said alcibiades and if i say anything which is not true you may interrupt me if you will and say that is a lie though my intention is to speak the truth but you must not wonder if i speak anyhow as things come into my mind for the fluent and orderly enumeration of all your singularities is not a task which is easy to a man in my condition and now my boys i shall pray socrates in a figure which will appear to him to be a caricature and yet i speak not to make fun of him but only for the truth sake i say that he is exactly like the busts of silence which are set up in the statuary's shops holding pipes and flutes in their mouths and they are made to open in the middle and have images of gods inside them i say also that he is like marcius the satter you yourself will not deny socrates that your face is like that of a satter i and there is a resemblance in other points too for example you are a bully as i can prove by witnesses if you will not confess and are you not a flute player that you are and a performer far more wonderful than marcius he indeed with instruments used to charm the souls of men by the power of his breath and the players of his music do so still for the melodies of olympus compare arrest paul are derived from marcias who taught them and these whether they are played by a great master or by a miserable flute girl have a power which no others have they alone possess the soul and reveal the wants of those who have need of gods and mysteries because they are divine but you produce the same effect with your words only and do not require the flute that is the difference between you and him when we hear any other speaker even a very good one he produces absolutely no effect upon us or not much whereas the mere fragments of you and your words even at second hand and however imperfectly repeated amaze and possess the souls of every man woman and child who comes within hearing of them and if i were not afraid that you would think me hopelessly drunk i would have sworn as well as spoken to the influence which they have always had and still have over me for my heart leaps within me more than that of any cory banshen reveller and my eyes reign tears when i hear them and i observe that many others are affected in the same manner i have heard pericles and other great orators and i thought that they spoke well but i never had any similar feeling my soul was not stirred by them nor was i angry at the thought of my own slavish state but this marcius has often brought me to such a pass that i have felt as if i could hardly endure the life which i am leading this socrates you will admit and i am conscious that if i did not shut my ears against him and fly us from the voice of the siren my fate would be like that of others he would transfix me and i should grow old sitting at his feet for he makes me confess that i ought not to live as i do neglecting the wants of my own soul and busying myself with the concerns of the athenians therefore i hold my ears and tear myself away from him and he is the only person who ever made me ashamed which you might think not to be in my nature and there is no one else who does the same for i know that i cannot answer him or say that i ought not to do as he bids but when i leave his presence the love of popularity gets the better of me and therefore i run away and fly from him and when i see him i am ashamed of what i have confessed to him many a time have i wished that he were dead and yet i know that i should be much more sorry than glad if he were to die so that i am at my wit's end and this is what i and many others have suffered from the flute playing of this satur yet hear me once more while i show you how exact the image is and how marvelous his power for let me tell you none of you know him but i will reveal him to you having begun i must go on see how fond he is of the fair he is always with them and is always being smitten by them and then again he knows nothing and is ignorant of all things such is the appearance which he puts on is he not like a silence in this to be sure he is his outer mask is the carved head of the silenus but oh my companions in drink when he has opened what temperance there is residing within know you that beauty and wealth and honor at which the many wonder are of no account with him and are utterly despised by him he regards not at all the persons who are gifted with them mankind and nothing to him all his life is spent in mocking and flatting at them but when i opened him and looked within at his serious purpose i saw in him divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that i was ready to do in a moment whatever socrates commanded they may have escaped the observation of others but i saw them now i fancy that he was seriously enamored of my beauty and i thought that i should therefore have a grand opportunity of hearing him tell what he knew for i had a wonderful opinion of the attractions of my youth in the prosecution of this design when i next went to him i sent away the attendant who usually accompanied me i will confess the whole truth and beg you to listen and if i speak falsely do you socrates expose the falsehood well he and i were alone together and i thought that when there was nobody with us i should hear him speak the language which lovers use to their loves when they are by themselves and i was delighted nothing of the sort he conversed as usual and spent the day with me and then went away afterwards i challenged him to the palestra and he wrestled and closed with me several times when there was no one present i fancied that i might succeed in this manner not a bit i made no way with him lastly as i had failed here the two i thought that i must take stronger measures and attack him boldly and as i had begun not give him up but see how matters stood between him and me so i invited him to sup with me just as if he were a fair youth and i a designing lover he was not easily persuaded to come he did however after a while accept the invitation and when he came the first time he wanted to go away at once as soon as supper was over and i had not the face to detain him the second time still in pursuance of my design after we had supped i went on conversing far into the night and when he wanted to go away i pretended that the hour was late and that he had much better remain so he laid down on the couch next to me the same on which he had sucked and there was no one but ourselves sleeping in the apartment all this may be told without shame to anyone but what follows i could hardly tell you if i was sober yet as the proverb says in vino veritas whether with boys or without them in allusion to two proverbs and therefore i must speak nor again should i be justified in concealing the lofty actions of socrates when i come to praise him moreover i have felt the serpent sting and he who has suffered as they say is willing to tell his fellow sufferers only as they alone will be likely to understand him and will not be extreme in judging of the sayings or doings which have been rung from his agony for i have been bitten by a more than viper's tooth i have known in my soul or in my heart or in some other part that worst of pangs more violent in ingenuous youth than any serpent's tooth the panga philosophy which will make a man say or do anything and you whom i see around me features and argathon and ariximachus and posanius and aristodemus and aristophanes all of you and i need not say socrates himself have had experience of the same madness and passion in your longing after wisdom therefore listen and excuse my doings then and my sayings now but let the attendants and other profane and unmannered persons close up the doors of their ears when the lamp was put out and the servants had gone away i thought that i must be plain with him and have no more ambiguity so i gave him a shake and i said socrates are you asleep no he said do you know what i am meditating what are you meditating he said i think i replied that of all the lovers whom i have ever had you are the only one who is worthy of me and you appear to be too modest to speak now i feel that i should be a fool to refuse you this or any other favor and therefore i come to lay at your feet all that i have and all that my friends have in the hope that you will assist me in the way of virtue which i desire above all things and in which i believe that you can help me better than anyone else and i should certainly have more reason to be ashamed of what wise men would say if i were to refuse a favor to such as you than of what the world who are mostly fools would say of me if i granted it to these words he replied in the ironical manner which is so characteristic of him alcibiades my friend you have indeed an elevated aim if what you say is true and if there really is in me any power by which you may become better truly you must see in me some rare beauty of a kind infinitely higher than any which i see in you and therefore if you mean to share with me and to exchange beauty for beauty you will have greatly the advantage of me you will gain true beauty in return for appearance like diameter gold in exchange for brass but look again sweet friend and see whether you are not deceived in me the mind begins to grow critical when the bodily eye fails and it will be a long time before you get old hearing this i said i have told you my purpose which is quite serious and do you consider what you think best for you and me that is good he said at some other time then we will consider an actor seems best about this and about other matters whereupon i fancied that he was smitten and that the words which i had uttered like arrows had wounded him and so without waiting to hear more i got up and throwing my coat about him crept under his threadbare cloak as the time of year was winter and there i lay during the whole night having this wonderful monster in my arms this again socrates will not be denied by you and yet notwithstanding all he was so superior to my solicitations so contemptuous and derisive and disdainful of my beauty which really as i fancied had some attractions here o judges for judges you shall be of the haughty virtue of socrates nothing more happened but in the morning when i awoke let all the gods and goddesses be my witnesses i arose as from the couch of a father or an elder brother what do you suppose must have been my feelings after this rejection at the thought of my own dishonor and yet i could not help wandering at his natural temperance and self-restraint and manliness i never imagined that i could have met with a man such as he is in wisdom and endurance and therefore i could not be angry with him or renounce his company any more than i could hope to win him for i well knew that if ix could not be wounded by steel much less he buy money and my only chance of captivating him by my personal attractions had failed so i was at my wit's end no one was ever more hopelessly enslaved by another all this happened before he and i went on the expedition to potter dear there we messed together and i had the opportunity of observing his extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue his endurance was simply marvellous when being cut off from our supplies we were compelled to go without food on such occasions which often happen in time of war he was superior not only to me but to everybody there was no one to be compared to him yet at a festival he was the only person who had any real powers of enjoyment though not willing to drink he could have compelled peter's all at that wonderful to relate no human being had ever seen socrates drunk and his powers if i am not mistaken will be tested before long his fortitude in enduring cold was also surprising there was a severe frost for the winter in that region is really tremendous and everybody else either remained indoors or if they went out had on an amazing quantity of clothes and were well shot and had their feet swathed in felt and fleeces in the midst of this socrates with his bare feet on the ice and in his ordinary dress marched better than the other soldiers who had shoes and they looked daggers at him because he seemed to despise them i have told you one tale and now i must tell you another which is worth hearing of the doings and sufferings of the enduring man while he was on the expedition one morning he was thinking about something which he could not resolve he would not give it up but continued thinking from early dawn until noon there he stood fixed in thought and at noon attention was drawn to him and the rumor ran through the wondering crowd that socrates had been standing and thinking about something ever since the break of day at last in the evening after supper some ionians out of curiosity i should explain that this was not in winter but in summer brought out their mats and slept in the open air that they might watch him and see whether he would stand all night there he stood until the following morning and with the return of light he offered up a prayer to the son and went his way compare supra i will also tell if you please and indeed i am bound to tell of his courage in battle for who but he saved my life now this was the engagement in which i received a prize of valor for i was wounded and he would not leave me but he rescued me and my arms and he ought to have received the prize of valor which the generals wanted to confer on me partly on account of my rank and i told them so this again socrates will not impeach or deny but he was more eager than the generals that i not he should have the prize there was another occasion on which his behavior was very remarkable in the flight of the army after the battle of delhium where he served among the heavy armed i had a better opportunity of seeing him than at potadia for i was myself on horseback and therefore comparatively out of danger he and latches were retreating for the troops were in flight and i met them and told them not to be discouraged and promised to remain with them and there you might see him aristophanes as you describe aristoph clouds just as he is in the streets of athens stalking like a pelican and rolling his eyes calmly contemplating enemies as well as friends and making very intelligible to anybody even from a distance that whoever attacked him would be likely to meet with a stout resistance and in this way he and his companion escaped for this is the sort of man who was never touched in war those only are pursued who are running away headlong i particularly observed how superior he was to latches in presence of mind many other marvels which i might narrate in praise of socrates most of his ways might perhaps be paralleled in another man but his absolute unlikeness to any human being that his or ever has been is perfectly astonishing you may imagine bresidus and others to have been like achilles or you may imagine nestor and auntie nor to have been like pericles and the same may be said of other famous men but of this strange being you will never be able to find any likeness however remote either among men who now are or whoever have been other than that which i have already suggested of silence and the satires and they represent in a figure not only himself but his words four although i forgot to mention this to you before his words are like the images of silenus which open they are ridiculous when you first hear them he clothes himself in language that is like the skin of the wanton satter for his talk is of pack arses and smiths and cobblers and couriers and he is always repeating the same things in the same words compare gorg so that any ignorant or inexperienced person might feel disposed to laugh at him but he who opens the bust and sees what is within will find that they are the only words which have a meaning in them and also the most divine abounding and fair images of virtue and of the widest comprehension or rather extending to the whole duty of a good and honorable man this friends is my praise of socrates i have added my blame of him for his ill treatment of me and he has ill-treated not only me but comedies the son of glorcon and euphidimus the son of diocles and many others in the same way beginning as their lover he has ended by making them pay their addresses to him wherefore i say to you arghathon be not deceived by him learn from me and take warning and do not be a fool and learn by experience as the proverb says when alcibiades had finished there was a laugh at his outspokenness for he seemed to be still in love with socrates you are sober alcibiades said socrates or you would never have gone so far about to hide the purpose of your satis praises for all this long story is only an ingenious circumcision of which the point comes in by the way at the end you want to get up a quarrel between me and arghathon and your notion is that i ought to love you and nobody else and that you and you only ought to love argathon but the plot of this satiric or silent drama has been detected and you must not allow him arghathon to set us at variance i believe you are right said arghathon and i am disposed to think that his intention in placing himself between you and me was only to divide us but he shall gain nothing by that move for i will go and lie on the couch next to you yes yes replied socrates by all means come here and lie on the couch below me alas said alcibiades how i am fooled by this man he is determined to get the better of me at every turn i do beseech you allow arghathon to lie between us certainly not said socrates as you praised me and i in turn ought to praise my neighbor on the right he will be out of order in praising me again when he ought rather to be praised by me and i must entreat you to consent to this and not be jealous for i have a great desire to praise the youth hurrah cried agathon i will rise instantly that i may be praised by socrates the usual way said alcibiades where socrates is no one else has any chance with the fair and now how readily has he invented a specious reason for attracting arghathon to himself arghathon arose in order that he might take his place on the couch by socrates when suddenly a band of revelers entered and spoiled the order of the banquet someone who was going out having left the door open they had found their way in and made themselves at home great confusion ensued and everyone was compelled to drink large quantities of wine aristodemus said that oriximakus phedris and others went away he himself fell asleep and as the knights were long took a good rest he was awakened towards daybreak by a crowing of [ __ ] and when he awoke the others were either asleep or had gone away there remained only socrates aristophanes and arghathon who were drinking out of a large goblet which they passed round and socrates was discoursing to them aristodemus was only half awake and he did not hear the beginning of the discourse the chief thing which he remembered was socrates compelling the other two to acknowledge that the genius of comedy was the same with that of tragedy and that the true artist in tragedy was an artist in comedy also to this they were constrained to ascent being drowsy and not quite following the argument and first of all aristophanes dropped off then when the day was already dawning arghathon socrates having laid them to sleep rose to depart aristodemus as his manner was following him at the lyceum he took a bath and passed the day as usual in the evening he retired to rest at his own home [Music] end of symposium by plato please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this chill book thanks for listening [Music] pride and prejudice by jane austen the great gatsby by f scott fitzgerald it was the best of times it was the worst of times the art of war by tsun tzu [Music]