Symposium
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