Symposium
by
Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett.
Modified by Antihubris.com
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Apollodorus, who
repeats to his companion the dialogue which he had heard
from Aristodemus, and had already once narrated to Glaucon.
Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon,
Socrates, Alcibiades, A Troop of Revellers.
SCENE: The House of Agathon.
APOLLODORUS: Concerning the things about which you ask 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 Phalerum to the city, and one of my
acquaintance, who had caught a sight of me from behind,
calling out playfully in the distance, said: Apollodorus, O
thou Phalerian (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, Apollodorus, only just now,
that I might ask you about the speeches in praise of love,
which were delivered by Socrates, Alcibiades, and others,
at Agathon's 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, were you present at this meeting?
Your informant, Glaucon, I said, must have been very
indistinct indeed, if you imagine that the occasion was
recent; or that I could have been of the party.
Why, yes, he replied, I thought so.
Impossible: I said. Are you ignorant that for many years
Agathon 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 Agathon 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 deme of Cydathenaeum. He had been at
Agathon'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 of philosophy
always gives me the greatest pleasure, to say nothing of
the profit. 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, Apollodorus, 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 Apollodorus the madman; for you are always
raging against yourself and everybody but Socrates.
APOLLODORUS: 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, Apollodorus; but let me renew
my request that you would repeat the conversation.
APOLLODORUS: 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
sandalled; and as the sight of the sandals was unusual, he
asked him whither he was going that he had been converted
into such a beau:--
To a banquet at Agathon's, he replied, whose invitation to
his sacrifice of victory I refused yesterday, fearing a
crowd, but promising that I would come to-day 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. For, after picturing Agamemnon as the
most valiant of men, he makes Menelaus, who is but a
fainthearted warrior, come unbidden (Iliad) to the banquet
of Agamemnon, who is feasting and offering sacrifices, not
the better to the worse, but the worse 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 bidden 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 Agathon 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 Agathon, as soon
as he appeared--you are 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 Agathon; 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 Agathon, and bring him in;
and do you, Aristodemus, meanwhile take the place by
Eryximachus.
The servant then assisted him to wash, and he lay 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 Agathon; 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 Agathon. 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 our 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 Agathon 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. Agathon, 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 emptier man, as water runs through wool out
of a fuller cup into an emptier one; if that were 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 splendour of youth the day before yesterday, in the
presence of more than thirty thousand Hellenes.
You are mocking, Socrates, said Agathon, and ere long you
and I 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 supped 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
Pausanias 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 potations, 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, for I was myself one of those
who were yesterday drowned in drink.
I think that you are right, said Eryximachus, the son of
Acumenus; but I should still like to hear one other person
speak: Is Agathon able to drink hard?
I am not equal to it, said Agathon.
Then, said Eryximachus, the weak heads like myself,
Aristodemus, Phaedrus, 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 of none of the company 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 any one who still feels the effects of
yesterday's carouse.
I always do what you advise, and especially what you
prescribe as a physician, rejoined Phaedrus the
Myrrhinusian, 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 Eryximachus, 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.). To-day let us have conversation instead;
and, if you will allow me, I will tell you what sort of
conversation. This proposal having been accepted,
Eryximachus proceeded as follows:--
I will begin, he said, after the manner of Melanippe in
Euripides, 'Not mine the word' which I am about to speak,
but that of Phaedrus. For often he says to me in an
indignant tone:--'What a strange thing it is, Eryximachus,
that, whereas other gods have poems and hymns made in their
honour, the great and glorious god, Love, has no encomiast
among all the poets who are so many. There are the worthy
sophists too--the excellent Prodicus for example, who have
descanted in prose 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 dared worthily to hymn Love's praises! So
entirely has this great deity been neglected.' Now in this
Phaedrus 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 honour 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 honour of Love. Let him give us the best which he
can; and Phaedrus, because he is sitting first on the left
hand, and because he is the father of the thought, shall
begin.
No one will vote against you, Eryximachus, said Socrates.
How can I oppose your motion, who profess to understand
nothing but matters of love; nor, I presume, will Agathon
and Pausanias; and there can be no doubt of Aristophanes,
whose whole concern is with Dionysus and Aphrodite; nor
will any one 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 Phaedrus begin the praise of Love,
and good luck to him. All the company expressed their
assent, and desired him to do as Socrates bade 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 speakers said.
Phaedrus 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
honour to him; and a proof of his claim to this honour is,
that of his parents there is no memorial; neither poet nor
prose-writer has ever affirmed that he had any. As Hesiod
says:--
'First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed 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 Parmenides sings of Generation:
'First in the train of gods, he fashioned Love.'
And Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod. Thus numerous are the
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
honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant
so well as love. Of what am I speaking? Of the sense of
honour and dishonour, 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 dishonourable act, or
submitting through cowardice when any dishonour 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 any one 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
dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; 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 veriest 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 Pelias, is a monument to all Hellas; 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 alive
to earth; such exceeding honour is paid by the gods to the
devotion and virtue of love. But Orpheus, the son of
Oeagrus, 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 harp-player, and did not dare like Alcestis 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 Patroclus was the beloved one
is a foolish error 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
defence, but after he was dead. Wherefore the gods honoured
him even above Alcestis, and sent him to the Islands of the
Blest. 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 Phaedrus;
and some other speeches followed which Aristodemus did not
remember; the next which he repeated was that of Pausanias.
Phaedrus, 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 hymn 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 Dione --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 meaner
sort of men feel, and is apt 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; any one may recognise 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 censured. Now here and in Lacedaemon the
rules about love are perplexing, but in most cities they
are simple and easily intelligible; in Elis and Boeotia,
and in countries having no gifts of eloquence, they are
very straightforward; the law is simply in favour of these
connexions, and no one, whether young or old, has anything
to say to their discredit; the reason being, as I suppose,
that they are men of few words in those parts, and
therefore the lovers do not like the trouble of pleading
their suit. In Ionia and other places, and generally in
countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom
is held to be dishonourable; loves of youths 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 Arist. 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
Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius 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 honour 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. For, observe that open loves
are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and that
the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons
are less beautiful than others, is especially honourable.
Consider, too, how great is the encouragement which all the
world gives to the lover; neither is he supposed to be
doing anything dishonourable; 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 censure 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 a
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
ennobles them; and custom has decided that they are highly
commendable and that there 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 honourable 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--any one 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 honourable or
whether they are dishonourable is not a simple question;
they are honourable to him who follows them honourably,
dishonourable to him who follows them dishonourably. There
is dishonour in yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner;
but there is honour in yielding to the good, or in an
honourable manner. Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the
body rather than the soul, inasmuch 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 life-long, 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 dishonourable, because time is the
true test of this as of most other things; and secondly
there is a dishonour 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
honourable 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 dishonour to himself, so the beloved has one
way only of voluntary service which is not dishonourable,
and this is virtuous service.
For we have a custom, and according to our custom any 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 dishonour, 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
honourably 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 honour 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 any one's 'uses base' for
the sake of money; but this is not honourable. 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 godess,
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,
Phaedrus, I offer this my contribution in praise of love,
which is as good as I could make extempore.
Pausanias 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 hiccough, and was obliged to change turns with
Eryximachus the physician, who was reclining on the couch
below him. Eryximachus, he said, you ought either to stop
my hiccough, or to speak in my turn until I have left off.
I will do both, said Eryximachus: 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 hiccough 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 hiccough is
sure to go. I will do as you prescribe, said Aristophanes,
and now get on.
Eryximachus spoke as follows: Seeing that Pausanias made a
fair beginning, and but a lame ending, I must endeavour 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 in all that is; such is the
conclusion which I seem to have gathered from my own art of
medicine, whence 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 honour to my art. There are in the
human body these two kinds of love, which are confessedly
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
Pausanias was just now saying that to indulge good men is
honourable, and bad men dishonourable:--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 skilful 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, Asclepius,
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. Any one 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
Heracleitus, although his words are not accurate; for he
says that The One is united by disunion, like the harmony
of the bow and the lyre. 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 airs or metres 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. Whence 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
hoar-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 honouring and
reverencing the harmonious love in all his actions, a man
honours 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 hiccough.
Yes, said Aristophanes, who followed, the hiccough 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.
Eryximachus 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 Pausanias or Eryximachus. 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 honour;
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 Otys and Ephialtes 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 bade Apollo
give 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
centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is
called the navel); he also moulded 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 navel, 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 in 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 thus 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 she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.
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 wholly 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?'--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 Arist. Pol.). 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 Lacedaemonians (compare
Arist. Pol.). And if we are not obedient to the gods, there
is a danger that we shall be split up again and go about in
basso-relievo, 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 Eryximachus
not to make fun or to find any allusion in what I am saying
to Pausanias and Agathon, 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,
Eryximachus, 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 Agathon and Socrates
are the only ones left.
Indeed, I am not going to attack you, said Eryximachus, for
I thought your speech charming, and did I not know that
Agathon 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, Eryximachus; but
if you were as I am now, or rather as I shall be when
Agathon has spoken, you would, indeed, be in a great
strait.
You want to cast a spell over me, Socrates, said Agathon,
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, Agathon 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 theatre
altogether undismayed, if I thought that your nerves could
be fluttered at a small party of friends.
Do you think, Socrates, said Agathon, that my head is so
full of the theatre as not to know how much more formidable
to a man of sense a few good judges are than many fools?
Nay, replied Socrates, I should be very wrong in
attributing to you, Agathon, that or any other want of
refinement. And I am quite aware that if you happened 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 theatre,
cannot be regarded as the select wise; though I know that
if you chanced 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 Agathon.
But before the many you would not be ashamed, if you
thought that you were doing something disgraceful in their
presence?
Here Phaedrus interrupted them, saying: not answer him, my
dear Agathon; 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
every one. When you and he have paid your tribute to the
god, then you may talk.
Very good, Phaedrus, said Agathon; 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 offence, 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 Phaedrus 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 Hesiod 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 Ate, 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 hard but upon the soft. Let us adduce 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 of flexile 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 an especial 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 aught else, but in the
place of flowers and scents, 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
Eryximachus, 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 every one becomes a
poet, even though he had no music in him before (A fragment
of the Sthenoaoea 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 whom
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 Hephaestus, 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, Phaedrus, 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 stills
the winds and bids the sufferer sleep.'
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;
regardful of the good, regardless of the evil: in every
word, work, wish, fear--saviour, pilot, comrade, helper;
glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest: in whose
footsteps let every man follow, sweetly singing in his
honour and joining in that sweet strain with which love
charms the souls of gods and men. Such is the speech,
Phaedrus, half-playful, yet having a certain measure of
seriousness, which, according to my ability, I dedicate to
the god.
When Agathon 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 Eryximachus, said: Tell me, son of
Acumenus, was there not reason in my fears? and was I not a
true prophet when I said that Agathon would make a
wonderful oration, and that I should be in a strait?
The part of the prophecy which concerns Agathon, replied
Eryximachus, appears to me to be true; but not the other
part--that you will be in a strait.
Why, my dear friend, said Socrates, must not I or any one
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 Gorgias, and at the end of his speech I fancied
that Agathon 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 imagined that the topics of praise
should be true, and that this being presupposed, out of the
true 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. Hyppolytus)) 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, Phaedrus,
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 Phaedrus and the company bid him
speak in any manner which he thought best. Then, he added,
let me have your permission first to ask Agathon a few more
questions, in order that I may take his admissions as the
premisses of my discourse.
I grant the permission, said Phaedrus: 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 Agathon, 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 Agathon.
And you would say the same of a mother?
He assented.
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?
Of 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, Agathon, absolutely and necessarily true. What do
you think?
I agree with you, said Agathon.
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 desired 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, Agathon, 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 Agathon.
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 as yet he has not got:
Very true, he said.
Then he and every one 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 Agathon.
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 assented.
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 wants and does not
possess beauty?
Certainly not.
Then would you still say that love is beautiful?
Agathon replied: I fear that I did not understand what I
was saying.
You made a very good speech, Agathon, 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 Agathon:--Let us assume
that what you say is true.
Say rather, beloved Agathon, that you cannot refute the
truth; for Socrates is easily refuted.
And now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of
love which I heard from Diotima of Mantineia (compare 1
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 instructress in the art
of love, and I shall repeat to you what she said to me,
beginning with the admissions made by Agathon, 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 Gorgias). As you, Agathon, 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, Diotima,' 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 infer that 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,
Diotima?' 'He is a great spirit (daimon), 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 men 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; all 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 Poros or
Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of
the guests. When the feast was over, Penia 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
straitened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him,
and accordingly she lay 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 parentage is, 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, whom he also partly resembles, he is
always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold,
enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some
intrigue 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, Diotima,' I said, 'are the 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, 'O thou stranger 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 some one
will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and
Diotima?--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 metre, 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 are 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 some one 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, Diotima,' 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
sight 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;
whereto 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 thus 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, Diotima, 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, O thou wise Diotima?' 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 Alcestis would have
died to save Admetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or
your own Codrus 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, betake 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
wanders 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 an 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 him tends 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
saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may
say? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of
Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other
places, both among Hellenes 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 honour for the sake of children such as theirs; which
were never raised in honour of any one, 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 proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth
to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his
instructor aright, 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 of form in general is his
pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the
beauty in every form is and 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 honourable
than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous
soul have but a little comeliness, 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)--a 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 Mantineia, '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 a 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 colours and vanities of
human life--thither looking, and holding converse with the
true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that
communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind,
he will be enabled 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, Phaedrus--and I speak not only to you, but to all of
you--were the words of Diotima; 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 honour him
as I myself honour 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, Phaedrus, 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 allusion which Socrates had made to his own speech,
when suddenly there was a great knocking at the door of the
house, as of revellers, and the sound of a flute-girl was
heard. Agathon 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
Agathon? Lead me to Agathon,' 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 ribands. 'Will you have a very drunken man as
a companion of your revels? Or shall I crown Agathon, which
was my intention in coming, and go away? For I was unable
to come yesterday, and therefore I am here to-day, carrying
on my head these ribands, 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 in shall we have the understanding of which I spoke
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 Agathon specially invited him.
Thereupon he was led in by the people who were with him;
and as he was being led, intending to crown Agathon, he
took the ribands 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 Agathon and Socrates, and in taking the place he
embraced Agathon and crowned him. Take off his sandals,
said Agathon, 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 Agathon and said: I must ask you to
protect me, Agathon; 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. Please 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 mad 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, Agathon, to give me back
some of the ribands 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 ribands, 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.
Eryximachus 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 Eryximachus; but what shall we do?
That I leave to you, said Alcibiades.
'The wise physician skilled our wounds to heal (from Pope's
Homer, Il.)'
You shall prescribe and we will obey. What do you want?
Well, said Eryximachus, 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 neighbour, and
so on.
That is good, Eryximachus, 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 any one 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 Eryximachus, if you like praise Socrates.
What do you think, Eryximachus? 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 permit 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 any how
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 praise 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's sake. I say,
that he is exactly like the busts of Silenus, which are set
up in the statuaries' 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
Marsyas the satyr. You yourself will not deny, Socrates,
that your face is like that of a satyr. Aye, 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 Marsyas. 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 Arist. Pol.) are derived
from Marsyas 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
Corybantian reveller, and my eyes rain 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
Marsyas 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 as 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 satyr. Yet hear me once more while I
show you how exact the image is, and how marvellous 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 you
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 Silenus in
this? To be sure he is: his outer mask is the carved head
of the Silenus; but, O my companions in drink, when he is
opened, what temperance there is residing within! Know you
that beauty and wealth and honour, 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 are nothing to him; all his life
is spent in mocking and flouting 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 fancied that he was seriously enamoured 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 palaestra; 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
hitherto, 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 lay
down on the couch next to me, the same on which he had
supped, and there was no one but ourselves sleeping in the
apartment. All this may be told without shame to any one.
But what follows I could hardly tell you if I were 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's 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 wrung 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 pang of philosophy, which will
make a man say or do anything. And you whom I see around
me, Phaedrus and Agathon and Eryximachus and Pausanias 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 favour, 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 any one else. And
I should certainly have more reason to be ashamed of what
wise men would say if I were to refuse a favour 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 Diomede, 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 and act as
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--hear, 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 dishonour? And yet I
could not help wondering 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 Ajax could not be wounded by steel, much less
he by 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
Potidaea; 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 if
compelled beat us 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 shod, 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 rumour 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 sun, 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 the prize of
valour: 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 valour 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 and not he should have the
prize. There was another occasion on which his behaviour
was very remarkable--in the flight of the army after the
battle of Delium, where he served among the heavy-armed,--I
had a better opportunity of seeing him than at Potidaea,
for I was myself on horseback, and therefore comparatively
out of danger. He and Laches 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 is never touched in war; those only are pursued
who are running away headlong. I particularly observed how
superior he was to Laches in presence of mind. Many are the
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 is or ever
has been is perfectly astonishing. You may imagine Brasidas
and others to have been like Achilles; or you may imagine
Nestor and Antenor 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 who ever have
been--other than that which I have already suggested of
Silenus and the satyrs; and they represent in a figure not
only himself, but his words. For, 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 satyr--for his talk is of pack-asses and
smiths and cobblers and curriers, 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 in fair images of virtue, and of the
widest comprehension, or rather extending to the whole duty
of a good and honourable 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 Charmides the son of Glaucon,
and Euthydemus 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,
Agathon, '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 satyr's praises, for all this long story is only an
ingenious circumlocution, of which the point comes in by
the way at the end; you want to get up a quarrel between me
and Agathon, and your notion is that I ought to love you
and nobody else, and that you and you only ought to love
Agathon. But the plot of this Satyric or Silenic drama has
been detected, and you must not allow him, Agathon, to set
us at variance.
I believe you are right, said Agathon, 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 Agathon to lie between us.
Certainly not, said Socrates, as you praised me, and I in
turn ought to praise my neighbour 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 Agathon to
himself.
Agathon arose in order that he might take his place on the
couch by Socrates, when suddenly a band of revellers
entered, and spoiled the order of the banquet. Some one who
was going out having left the door open, they had found
their way in, and made themselves at home; great confusion
ensued, and every one was compelled to drink large
quantities of wine. Aristodemus said that Eryximachus,
Phaedrus, and others went away--he himself fell asleep, and
as the nights were long took a good rest: he was awakened
towards daybreak by a crowing of cocks, and when he awoke,
the others were either asleep, or had gone away; there
remained only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon, 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 assent, being drowsy, and not quite
following the argument. And first of all Aristophanes
dropped off, then, when the day was already dawning,
Agathon. 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.