Symposium
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