Amatorius

Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

FLAVIANUS: You say, Autobulus, that the discourses on Love took place at Helicon — discourses which, whether you wrote them down or remembered them from having often questioned your father about them, you are now about to report to us at our request.

AUTOBULUS: At Helicon, by the Muses, Flavianus, while the Thespians were celebrating the festival of Love — for they hold this contest every four years, just as they do for the Muses, and to Love too, with great zeal and splendor.

FLAVIANUS: Do you know, then, what we all who have come to hear are about to ask of you?

AUTOBULUS: No — but I shall know once you speak.

FLAVIANUS: Leave out of your account, for now, the poetic meadows and shades, the intertwining of ivy and bindweed, and all the other things of that sort which those who seize upon such settings crave to inscribe — Plato's Ilissus, that agnus-castus tree, and the grass growing on the gently sloping bank — eager to claim it more than they succeed in making it beautiful.

AUTOBULUS: But what need, best Flavianus, has the narrative of such preludes? The very occasion from which the discussions arose demands a chorus for its passion and needs a stage; nothing else proper to a drama is lacking. Let us only pray that the mother of the Muses be present, propitious, and help us save the story together.

For my father, since long ago — before we were born — had recently brought our mother home again after the quarrel and estrangement that had arisen between their parents, and had come to Thespiae to sacrifice to Love, bringing our mother to the festival; for the vow and the sacrifice were hers. Of his friends, those from home who were his usual companions were with him, and at Thespiae he found Daphnaeus, son of Archidamus, and Lysander, in love with Lysandra, daughter of Simon and, of all her suitors, faring best; also Soclarus, who had come from Tithora, the son of Aristion; and Protogenes of Tarsus and Zeuxippus the Spartan, who were guests. My father said that most of his Boeotian acquaintances were present as well.

For two or three days, it seems, they spent their time quietly in the city, philosophizing in the wrestling-grounds and through the theaters together; but then, fleeing a tiresome contest of citharodes — one already overrun by petitions and eager crowds — most of them decamped, as if from enemy territory, to Helicon, and took up quarters there beside the Muses.

At dawn, then, Anthemion and Pisias came to join them, men of repute, both connected to the youth called Bacchon the Handsome, and both, out of a kind of goodwill toward him, at odds with each other. For there was in Thespiae a woman, Ismenodora, splendid in wealth and family and, by Zeus, orderly in the rest of her life as well; for she had lived as a widow for no small time without reproach, although she was young and quite good-looking. Now, while arranging a marriage for Bacchon — who was the son of a woman who was her friend and companion — with a girl who was a relative of his by birth, through being often in his company and conversing with him she herself fell in love with the young man. Hearing and speaking kind words about him, and seeing the multitude of high-born lovers he had, she too was led on into loving him, and resolved to do nothing ignoble, but to marry him openly and live with Bacchon as his wife.

Since the matter appeared surprising in itself, his mother eyed with suspicion the weight and grandeur of the household as ill-matched to the suitor; and some of his hunting companions too, frightening Bacchon with the point that Ismenodora was not suited to him in age, and mocking him, proved harder opponents of the marriage than those who objected in earnest — for, being still a young man, he was ashamed to live with a widow. Still, setting the others aside, he left it to Pisias and Anthemion to deliberate on what was best for him — of whom the one, his older cousin, and Pisias, the sternest of his lovers, was for that reason opposed to the marriage as well, and attacked Anthemion for surrendering the young man to Ismenodora.

Anthemion, in turn, said that Pisias was not acting rightly — that, though decent in other respects, he was imitating base lovers by depriving his friend of a household, a marriage, and great advantages, so that the youth might remain untouched by him and go on stripping as a boy in the wrestling-grounds for as long as possible. So, in order that they might not, by provoking one another, gradually be driven into anger, they came before my father and his companions, as if choosing them for arbiters and judges. And of the other friends, as if by prearrangement, Daphnaeus was present in support of one side and Protogenes of the other — though Protogenes freely spoke ill of Ismenodora.

Daphnaeus said, "Heracles! What might one not expect, if even Protogenes is here to make war on Love — he for whom all play and all earnest business is about Love and through Love, forgetting his studies, forgetting his homeland — not as it was with Laius, who kept only five days' distance from his native land? For his Love was slow-footed and earthbound, but yours, Protogenes, flies swift-winged in circling flight across the sea from Cilicia to Athens, keeping watch over handsome youths and wandering about with them." For indeed, some such reason had truly been the cause of Protogenes' journey abroad.

When laughter arose, Protogenes said, "Do I seem to you to be making war on Love now, rather than fighting on Love's behalf against the licentiousness and outrage that force their way, with the most shameful acts and passions, into the fairest and most solemn of names?" And Daphnaeus said, "Do you call marriage and the union of man and woman the most shameful thing — than which no union has ever come to be, or exists, more sacred?"

"But these things," said Protogenes, "being necessary for procreation, the lawgivers do well to dignify and commend to the many; but of true Love the women's quarters have no share whatsoever, nor do I say that you men who are attached to women or girls are in love at all — any more than flies are in love with milk, or bees with honeycombs, or fatteners and cooks feel affection when they fatten calves and fowl in the dark.

Rather, just as nature leads the appetite toward food and relish in a moderate and sufficient measure, while excess, producing a further condition, is called gluttony or a craving for delicacies — so too it is inherent in nature that women and men need pleasure from one another; but the impulse that drives them to this, when it becomes great and hard to restrain through its violence and force, is called Love, though not properly so. For love, when it takes hold of a well-natured and young soul, ends in virtue through friendship; but from these desires directed at women, if they turn out for the best, all that is left to reap is pleasure and the enjoyment of youthful bloom and body — as Aristippus testified when, to the man who accused Lais of not loving him, he replied that he did not think the wine or the fish loved him either, and yet he made pleasant use of both; for the end of desire is pleasure and enjoyment.

Love, on the other hand, once it has given up the expectation of friendship, is unwilling to remain and tend, for the sake of bloom alone, what is painful and at its peak, if it yields no fruit of character proper to friendship and virtue. You have heard some tragic husband saying to his wife, 'You hate me?' 'And I shall readily be hated, dragging my own dishonor toward profit.' For no one is more truly in love than the man who endures a wretched and loveless woman not for profit but for the sake of sex and intercourse — as Philippides the comic poet, mocking Stratocles the orator, wrote: 'Turning her head away, you barely manage to kiss her.' If, then, this passion too must be called Love, it is a female and bastard sort, as if it had been smuggled into the women's quarters at Cynosarges.

Rather, just as they say there is one genuine, mountain-ranging eagle, which Homer called 'black' and 'the hunter,' while the other kinds are bastard breeds that catch fish around marshes and sluggish birds, and often, when at a loss, cry out something famished and plaintive — so too there is one genuine Love, the love of boys, not 'gleaming with longing,' as Anacreon said of the maidenly boy, nor 'filled with perfumes and gleaming,' but plain to see and unaffected, found in philosophical schools, or somewhere around gymnasia and wrestling-grounds, keenly and nobly urging on toward virtue those worthy of such attention.

But this soft, house-keeping sort, that spends its time in the laps and little couches of women, always pursuing what is delicate, melting away in unmanly, unfriendly, uninspired pleasures — this deserves to be cast down, as Solon too cast it down. For he forbade slaves to love freeborn boys and to anoint themselves with oil, but he did not forbid them the use of intercourse with women; for friendship is noble and refined, while mere pleasure is common and servile. Hence it is not a mark of a free and refined man to love slave boys, for this kind of love is not for intercourse, unlike that toward women."

As Protogenes was still eager to say more, Daphnaeus cut him off: "Well then, by Zeus, you have brought up Solon? He too must be used as the standard of the man in love: 'while he loves a boy in the lovely flower of youth, longing for his thighs and sweet mouth.' Add to Solon also Aeschylus, who says: 'You did not revere the holy awe of thighs, ungrateful one, for all the many kisses.'

Now, some indeed laugh at these poets, if, like sacrificers and diviners, they bid lovers gaze at thighs and loins — but I take this as an enormous piece of evidence on behalf of women. For if intercourse against nature with males does not destroy or harm loving goodwill, it is far more likely that a love of women, which follows nature, arrives at friendship by way of favor.

For indeed, Protogenes, the yielding of the female to the male has been called 'favor' (charis) by the ancients: as Pindar said that Hephaestus was born from Hera 'without the Graces,' and Sappho, addressing a girl not yet of marriageable age, says, 'You seemed to me a small and graceless child.' And Heracles, when asked by someone, 'Did you win the girl's favors by force, or by persuasion?' — that favor which comes from males, if unwilling, comes by force and plunder, but if willing, comes with softness and effeminacy, 'mounted,' as Plato puts it, 'in the manner of a four-footed beast and sown with seed' contrary to nature by those who give in to it — such favor is altogether graceless, unseemly, and without charm.

Hence, I think, Solon too wrote those earlier verses while still young and, as Plato says, 'full of much seed'; but these other ones once he had become an old man: 'Dear to me now are the works of the Cyprus-born goddess, and of Dionysus, and of the Muses, which bring men joy' — as though, out of a storm and tempest and the loves of boys, he had settled his life at last in a kind of calm centered on marriage and philosophy.

If, then, we look at the truth, Protogenes, the passion of the Loves toward boys and toward women is one and the same thing. But if you should wish, out of contentiousness, to keep them apart, it is this love of boys that would seem to behave immoderately — as if, having come late and out of season into life, it were a bastard, shadowy thing driving out the genuine, elder Love.

For only yesterday, my friend, and the day before, after the young men had stripped and disrobed, it slipped into the gymnasia, rubbed shoulders quietly at first and made its approach; then, little by little, having grown its feathers in the wrestling-grounds, it can no longer be held in check, but reviles and abuses that other, marital Love — the ally of immortality for our mortal race, which continually rekindles our dying nature through the begetting of children. Yet this new Love denies its own pleasure, for it is ashamed and afraid.

It needs some decent cover when it lays hold of the beautiful and those in their bloom; so friendship and virtue serve as its pretext. It dusts itself with sand and takes cold baths and lifts its eyebrows, and claims, out in public, to be philosophizing and practicing temperance, on account of the law; but then, by night and in quiet, 'sweet is the fruit when the watchman has gone.' But if, as Protogenes says, there is no sexual union among lovers of boys, how can there be Love where Aphrodite is absent — she to whom it has fallen by lot among the gods to tend and attend upon Love, and to share in whatever honor and power he grants her?

And if there is some Love apart from Aphrodite — like drunkenness apart from wine, from a drink made of figs or barley — its disturbing effect is fruitless and incomplete, and quickly cloying and quickly sated."

While this was being said, Pisias was plainly indignant and provoked at Daphnaeus; and after Daphnaeus had left off briefly, he said, "Heracles, what glibness and recklessness! Men who admit that they are joined to the female by their private parts, like dogs, and yet transfer and relocate the god from gymnasia, covered walks, and the pure, open pursuits carried on in the sunlight, shutting him up instead in brothel-keepers' houses among cosmetics, drugs, and love-charms and licentious women! Whereas surely it is not fitting for chaste women either to love or to be loved."

At this point, indeed, my father said that he took up Protogenes' side and said, "This speech arms the Argive host; and, by Zeus, Pisias, by not moderating himself, is only making us allies of Daphnaeus — for he brings into marriage a partnership without love and without any share in inspired friendship, one which, once erotic persuasion and charm have abandoned it, we see held together, only just, by yokes and bridles, under shame and fear."

And Pisias said, "For my part, I care little for the argument; but I see Daphnaeus suffering the same thing as bronze does. For bronze, when poured, is not so much melted by fire itself as by fire-heated, already molten bronze — it melts and flows together, becoming liquefied along with it. And it is not the beauty of Lysandra that troubles this man, but rather, having drawn near to and touched one already scorched through and full of fire for a long time, he too becomes infected; and it is plain that, unless he quickly flees back to us, he will be melted down along with him.

But I see," he said, "that I am doing just what Anthemion would be most eager for — offending the judges, and myself along with them — so I stop." And Anthemion said, "You have done us a service; for you ought from the start to have said something relevant to the matter at hand."

"Well then, I will say it," Pisias said, "having proclaimed in advance, as far as I am concerned, that I would be a lover of any woman whatsoever. My point is this: for the young man's sake, the woman's wealth must be guarded against, lest, by joining him to so great a mass and weight, we unwittingly make him vanish, the way tin disappears when mixed into bronze. For it would be a great advantage if a young man came together with a light and unassuming woman, so that the blending, as with wine, might leave him the dominant partner; but this woman we see is one who seems fit to rule and dominate — for it is not likely that she would have cast aside such reputation, such lineage, and such wealth to court a young man fresh out of the schoolboy's cloak, one who still needs a tutor to look after him, unless she meant to have the upper hand.

That is why sensible men themselves give up in advance and clip off, like wing-feathers, women's excess wealth — wealth which breeds luxury and unstable, empty vanities, lifted up by which women often fly away; and even if they stay, it would be better to be bound, as in Ethiopia, with golden fetters, than...

—on account of a woman's wealth.” “But you don't mention,” said Protogenes, “that we run the risk of turning Hesiod topsy-turvy in an absurd and ridiculous way. He says that neither falling much short of thirty years nor exceeding it by much is the season for marrying, and that the woman should come of age in her fourth year past puberty and be married in the fifth; yet we, by roughly that many years, are attaching an unripe, unseasoned young man—like grafting an unripe wild fig onto a cultivated one—to a woman older than himself.

“For, by Zeus, she is in love with him and burning for him. What then prevents her from reveling before his doors, singing the serenade to a locked door, garlanding his portraits, wrestling with her rival lovers? These are the acts of a lover. Let her knit her brow and give up her comforts, taking on the bearing proper to her passion. But if she is ashamed and exercises self-control, let her sit decorously at home, waiting for her suitors and wooers. As for a woman who declares that she is in love, one might well flee from her and be repelled by her—still less should one make such an unrestrained passion the beginning of a marriage.”

When Protogenes had finished, the father said, “Do you see, Anthemion, that once again they are turning this into a common cause, and forcing the argument upon us who do not deny it? Nor do they escape being fellow-dancers in the chorus of love that concerns marriage.”

“Yes, by Zeus,” said Anthemion, “so now defend yourself at greater length, since you are yourself in love; and further, come to the rescue on the matter of wealth, with which Peisias most tries to frighten us.” “Why,” said the father, “should it be made a charge against a woman if, on account of love and wealth, we are to cast off Ismenodora? She is burdensome and rich—but what if she is also beautiful and young? What if she is proud in birth and distinguished?

Do not sensible women too find a stern, scowling husband oppressive and hard to bear, and call such men Furies, angry with their husbands precisely because they are self-controlled? Is it then best to marry, straight from the marketplace, some Abrotonon the Thracian or Bacchis the Milesian, brought home unbetrothed through purchase and the customary showering of gifts? Yet we know that not a few men have been enslaved most shamefully even to women of that sort. And flute-girls—

Samian women, and dancing-girls—Aristonica, and Oenanthe with her tambourine, and Agathoclea—have risen to wear the diadems of kings. And the Syrian Semiramis was a house-bred slave, a concubine-attendant in the royal household; but when Ninus the great king met her and fell in love with her, she gained such mastery and such contempt for him that she demanded he allow her, for a single day, to sit upon the throne wearing the diadem and transacting the business of state. And when he had granted this,

and ordered everyone to serve and obey her exactly as they would him, she at first exercised her new commands with moderation, testing the bodyguard; but when she saw that they neither objected nor hesitated, she ordered them to seize Ninus, then to bind him, and finally to kill him. Once all this had been carried out, she ruled over Asia in splendor for a long time. And Belestiche—by Zeus, was she not a foreign woman bought in the marketplace, whose shrines and

temples the Alexandrians possess, since the king, out of love, inscribed her name as ‘Aphrodite Belestiche’? She shares a temple here and is a fellow-priestess of Eros, and at Delphi she stands gilded among the statues of kings and queens. With what dowry did she gain mastery over her lovers? No—just as those men, through their own weakness and softness, became, without realizing it, the spoils of women, so too there are other men, obscure and poor. Others, who have joined themselves to rich

and brilliant women, were not corrupted by it, nor did they surrender any of their pride, but lived out their lives honored and in command, in mutual goodwill. But the man who confines his wife and draws her into a narrow compass—like someone with thin fingers, afraid a ring might slip off—is like those who shear their mares and then lead them to a river or a pool: for each mare, seeing her own reflection made unlovely

and misshapen, is said to give up her proud spirit and submit to being mounted even by donkeys. To prefer a woman's wealth over her virtue or her family is unambitious and ignoble; but to shun wealth when it accompanies virtue and good family is simply foolish. Antigonus, writing to the man garrisoning the fortified height of Munychia, ordered him to make not only the collar strong but the watchdog lean, so that

it would not drain away the resources of the Athenians. In the same way, it is not fitting for a man married to a rich or beautiful wife to make himself, in turn, misshapen or poor; rather he should render himself, through self-control and good sense, and by being awed by nothing about her, her equal and unenslaved—adding, as it were, weight and counterpoise to the scale through his own character, so that he is governed and guided by it both justly and to his own advantage. And indeed,

as for the age suitable for marriage, a woman who still has the season for bearing and begetting children is well matched; and I am told that this woman is in her prime.” And smiling at Peisias as he said it, he added, “For she is older than none of the rival lovers, nor does she have gray hair, as do some of those who keep company with Bacchon. And if these men associate with him in due season, what prevents her, too, from caring for the young man better than any young woman whatsoever could? Young things are hard to blend,

hard to mix, and only after a long time do they let go their skittishness and unruliness; at the outset they surge and strain against the yoke, all the more if love comes upon them, and, like a gale when the pilot is absent, they throw the marriage into turmoil and confusion, since neither party is able to rule nor willing to be ruled. But if a nurse rules an infant, and a schoolmaster a child, and, for an adolescent,

a gymnasiarch rules, and a lover rules a youth, and once he has come of age, the law and a general rule him—for no one is without a ruler or wholly self-governing—what is so terrible if a sensible woman, though older, should guide the life of a younger husband, being useful to him through her good judgment, and at the same time sweet and gentle through her affection? In general,” he said, “being Boeotians, we ought to revere Heracles and not be troubled by

a marriage that oversteps the usual age, remembering that he too gave his own wife Megara in marriage to Iolaus, who was then sixteen years old, while she herself was thirty-three.” While such talk was passing among them, the father said, a companion of Peisias came riding in from the city on horseback, reporting some astonishing and daring deed. For Ismenodora, it seems, believing that Bacchon himself was not unwilling toward

the marriage but was ashamed on account of those who were dissuading him, resolved not to let the young man go. So, summoning those of her friends who were most youthful in their way of living and shared her passion, along with her closest women friends, and gathering them together, she watched for the hour at which Bacchon was accustomed, on his way to the wrestling grounds, to pass decorously by her house. So then, as he was approaching at that time with two or three companions,

freshly anointed with oil, Ismenodora herself went to meet him at the door and merely touched his cloak, while her friends seized the handsome young man—handsomely, cloak, mantle and all—and carried him off together into the house, all at once, and immediately shut the doors. At the same moment the women inside stripped off his little cloak and threw around him a bridal garment, while the household slaves ran round about wreathing

the doors with olive branches and laurel—not only Ismenodora's doors but Bacchon's as well; and a flute-girl, playing, passed through the lane. Among the Thespians and the visitors present, some laughed, others were indignant and provoked the gymnasiarchs, since these hold strict authority over the young men and pay very close attention to what is done by them. And there was no more talk

of the competitors; instead, abandoning the theater, everyone gathered at Ismenodora's doors, engaged in argument and rivalry with one another. So when Peisias' friend, having spurred his horse forward as if in battle, said in great agitation exactly this—that Ismenodora had seized Bacchon—Zeuxippus, the father said, laughed and, being as it happens a devotee of Euripides, said, ‘Woman, glorying in wealth, mortal things

are what you have in mind.’ But Peisias leapt up and shouted, ‘O gods, what end will there be to this license of ours that is overturning our city? Already, through excessive freedom, things are moving toward lawlessness. And yet perhaps it is absurd to be indignant about laws and rights, when nature itself is being violated, ruled over by women. What is Lemnos, compared to this? Let us go, let us go,’ he said, ‘so that

we may hand over the gymnasium and the council-chamber to the women as well, if the city has been utterly unmanned.’ As Peisias strode ahead, Protogenes did not fall behind, partly sharing his indignation, partly trying to calm him. But Anthemion said, ‘It is indeed a bold, youthful exploit, and truly Lemnian—since we ourselves are its victims—on the part of a woman deeply in love.’ And Socles, smiling faintly, said, ‘Do you really suppose this was an abduction

and an act of violence, rather than an excuse and a stratagem contrived by a sensible young man, who, escaping the embraces of his lovers, has deserted into the arms of a beautiful and wealthy woman?’ ‘Do not say such things, Socles,’ said Anthemion, ‘and do not suspect this of Bacchon; for even if he were not by nature simple and guileless in character, he would not have hidden it from me, since

he shares everything else with me, and in this matter too I see him as Ismenodora's most eager helper. Love is hard to fight, not ‘spirit,’ as Heraclitus says—for whatever it wants, it buys even at the price of the soul, and of money, and of reputation. Besides, what woman in the city is more decorous than Ismenodora? When has any shameful report, or suspicion of base conduct, ever touched her household? No—it seems

that the woman has truly been seized by some divine inspiration, one greater than human reasoning.’ And Pemptides, laughing, said, ‘Of course—there is also a disease of the body that people call “sacred”; so it is nothing strange if some also call the most maddening and greatest passion of the soul “sacred” and “divine.” Once, as it happens, in Egypt I watched two neighbors disputing, when a snake had crept into

the road: both called it a good spirit, and each claimed it as his own. Just so, seeing some of you just now dragging Eros toward the men's quarters and others toward the women's quarters, calling him a superhuman and divine good, I was not surprised that this passion has attained such power and honor, when it is precisely those who ought to be driving it out from everywhere and curbing it who are the ones magnifying it and

lending it dignity. Until now I have kept quiet, since I saw that the dispute concerned private matters rather than shared ones; but now that we are rid of Peisias, I should be glad to hear from you what those who first declared Eros to be a god had in mind when they made that pronouncement.’ When Pemptides had finished, and the father had begun to say something on the subject, another man arrived from the city, since

Ismenodora was sending for Anthemion; for the disturbance had grown worse, and the gymnasiarchs were at odds, one thinking Bacchon should be reclaimed, the other refusing to allow such interference. So Anthemion rose and set off. And the father, addressing Pemptides by name, said, ‘You seem to me to be laying hold of a great and hazardous matter, Pemptides—or rather, to be moving altogether things that ought not to be moved, in the belief we hold concerning the gods,

by demanding, in each case, an account and a proof. The ancestral and time-honored faith is enough by itself; one cannot state or discover any clearer evidence for it, not even if wisdom were found in its most perfect form. Rather, this faith is itself a kind of common foundation and footing underlying piety, and if in even a single case its stability and settled custom is disturbed and shaken, it becomes precarious

for everyone, and open to suspicion. You have surely heard how Euripides caused an uproar when he wrote the opening of that Melanippe of his: ‘Zeus, whoever Zeus may be—for I know him only by report’; but later, when he had a different chorus, and grew bolder, it seems, because the play had already been staged with great acclaim and elaboration, he changed the line to how it now stands: ‘Zeus, as truth itself declares.’ What difference is there, then, between

casting doubt and obscurity, through argument, upon the belief we hold concerning Zeus, or Athena, or Eros? For it is not now, for the first time, that Eros asks for an altar and a sacrifice, nor is he some newcomer arriving out of foreign superstition—like the so-called Attis-figures and Adonis-figures, who steal in secretly through effeminate men and women, reaping honors that do not belong to them, so that they must, as it were, stand trial

for fraudulent registration and illegitimate standing among the gods. But when you hear Empedocles say, ‘my friend, and among them Love, equal in length and breadth—her you must behold with the mind, and not sit gaping at her with your eyes,’ you ought to suppose that this too is said of Eros; for this god is not visible, but is, among the most ancient beliefs, an object of conviction for us. And of each of these beliefs, should you demand

proof, laying hold of every sacred thing and bringing a sophist's testing to every altar, you would leave nothing unaccused and nothing untested by your inquiry. Indeed, I need not go far afield: do you not see how great a goddess Aphrodite is? She it is who sows and bestows desire, of which all of us who dwell upon the earth are the offspring. Empedocles named her, most fittingly and aptly, ‘life-giving,’ and Sophocles, ‘rich in fruit.’ And yet, all the same, this

great and marvelous work belongs to Aphrodite, while it is merely incidental to Eros, when Eros is present alongside her; but when he is not present, what results is left altogether unenviable, ‘without honor and without love.’ For intercourse without love, like hunger and thirst that find their limit only in being sated, arrives at nothing good. But the goddess, through Eros, removes the excess from pleasure and creates affection and true blending. That is why Parmenides

declares that Eros is the eldest of Aphrodite's works, writing in his cosmogony, ‘first of all the gods she devised Eros.’ Hesiod, however, seems to me to do something more in keeping with nature by making Eros the very first-born of all things, so that all things might, through him, come to share in generation. If, then, we cast Eros out of the honors that have always been his, neither will Aphrodite's honors remain in place. For one cannot even say that

some people revile Eros while sparing Aphrodite; rather, we hear from one and the same stage: ‘for love, too, was born to make men idle, even in such pursuits’; and again: ‘O children, Cypris is not Cypris alone, but goes by the name of many things besides. She is Hades; she is imperishable force; she is raving madness’—just as scarcely any of the other gods, either, has escaped this same

abuse born of ignorance. Consider Ares, who occupies, as it were on a bronze tablet, the position directly opposite Eros: how great are the honors he has received from men, and yet again how ill he is spoken of—for, ‘blind, women, and seeing nothing, Ares with a boar's face stirs every evil into confusion.’ And Homer calls him ‘blood-stained’ and ‘ever-shifting,’ while Chrysippus, in explaining the name,

...brings an accusation and slander against the god: for he says that Ares means "destroy," giving grounds to those who suppose that the fighting, quarrelsome, spirited element in us is called Ares. Others in turn will say that Aphrodite is desire, Hermes is reason, the Muses are the arts, and Athena is wisdom. Do you see, then, the abyss of atheism into which we fall if we assign each of the gods to a passion, a power, or a virtue?

"I see," said Pemptides, "but it is not pious either to make the gods into passions, or in turn to regard the passions as gods." And the father said, "What then? Do you think Ares is a god, or a passion of ours?" When Pemptides answered that he considered Ares a god, one who adorns the spirited and manly element in us, the father cried out, "Then, Pemptides, the passionate, warlike, combative element has a god, but the affectionate, sociable, gathering element is godless? So there is some god, Enyalius or Stratius, who watches over and presides as umpire when men kill and are killed with weapons and missiles, in siege and plunder — but over the passion of marriage and love, ending as it does in harmony and partnership, no god has ever stood as witness, overseer, guide, or helper to us?

Yet when men hunt gazelles and hares and deer, some rustic god joins the baying and urges them on; and they pray to Aristaeus, who first devised traps for wild beasts, when they snare wolves and bears with pits and nooses. Heracles himself calls on another god when he is about to raise his bow against a bird — "may Apollo the hunter guide the shaft straight," as Aeschylus says. But when a man attempts the noblest quarry of all, to capture friendship, does no god or spirit guide and share in his impulse? For I myself think, dear Daphnaeus, that no oak, no wild olive, not even that vine which Homer solemnly named, is a finer or lesser growth than a human being, when that growth shows the flowering bloom and beauty of body and soul together."

And Daphnaeus said, "Who else could think so, in heaven's name?" "These men do, by Zeus," said the father, "all those who believe that the care of plowing, sowing, and planting belongs to the gods. Do they not have certain nymphs, the dryads, who have been allotted a life span equal to that of the tree? 'And may Dionysus, rich in joy, increase the pasture of the trees,' 'the pure light of the autumn fruit,' as Pindar says. Yet the nurture and growth of youths and children, as they are shaped and formed in their season of bloom, belong to none of the gods or spirits; no one cares whether a growing human being comes out straight into virtue, or is instead turned aside and has his nobility broken through want of a guardian or through the wickedness of those he happens to meet. Is it, perhaps, even offensive and thankless to say this, when we enjoy the love of the divine for mankind, spread everywhere and failing us in no need — even though some of these needs have an outcome more necessary than beautiful?

Consider, for instance, our very birth, which is far from seemly, coming as it does through blood and birth pangs; nevertheless it has a divine overseer, Eileithyia and Locheia. Indeed it would be better not to be born at all than to be born badly, deprived of a good guardian and protector. Nor, again, does a god withdraw from a man who is sick, once he has been allotted the charge and the power over this condition; nor even from a man who has died — there is one there who conveys him from here, who helps those who have reached their end, a settler and a guide of souls, like Sleep: 'for Night did not bear me to be lord of the lyre, nor a prophet, nor a healer, but a mortal, one among souls.'

And such matters as these present many difficulties. But of that god's province one cannot name a holier task, nor any contest or struggle more fitting for a god to watch over and judge, than the care and pursuit that lovers show toward the beautiful and the young. For there is nothing shameful or coerced in it, but persuasion and grace grant it — truly a 'sweet labor' and a 'toil easily borne,' as it guides men toward virtue and friendship, an outcome it reaches not without a god, having no other master and guide than the companion of the Muses, the Graces, and Aphrodite — Eros. For, 'sowing beneath the sweet summer of a man's heart with longing,' as Melanippides says, he mingles the most pleasant things with the most beautiful. Or how do we put it, Zeuxippus?" And Zeuxippus said, "Just so, by Zeus, beyond all question — for the opposite would surely be absurd."

"And is this too not absurd," said the father, "that though friendship has four kinds, as the ancients distinguished them — first the natural, then the kinship-based, third the companionable, and last the erotic — each of these has a presiding god, whether Philios, or Xenios, or Homognios and Patrous, while the erotic kind alone is left abandoned, as though it were unholy and ill-omened and without a master, and that too though it needs the greatest care and guidance of all?" "This too," said Zeuxippus, "has no small unreasonableness in it."

"But surely," said the father, "Plato's arguments would take hold of our discussion here, even as it wanders off course. For there is a madness that turns back from the body upon the soul through certain bad mixtures or combinations, or through some harmful vapor circulating within, and this kind is harsh, difficult, and diseased. But there is another kind, neither godless nor native to us, but an intruding inspiration, a diversion of the reasoning and thinking faculty, having its origin and motion from a greater power — the common name for which is an "enthusiastic" passion. For just as that which is filled with breath is called inspired, and that which is filled with understanding is called sensible, so this surge of the soul has been named enthusiasm, from its participation and communion with a more divine power.

Of enthusiasm, the prophetic kind comes from the inspiration and possession of Apollo, the Bacchic from Dionysus — 'and for the Corybantes too, dance,' says Sophocles, for the rites of the Mother and of Pan share in the Bacchic revels. 'A third kind, taking hold of a tender and untrodden soul from the Muses,' rouses and kindles the poetic and musical faculty. But this one, called martial and warlike, is plain to see which of the gods it is that lets loose and drives into frenzy — 'arousing Ares, danceless, lyreless, tear-bringing, and the war cry that dwells among the people.'

There remains, then, of the transformation and diversion that occurs in man, no dim or quiet portion, Daphnaeus, and it is about this that I wish to question our friend Pemptides here: which of the gods shakes the thyrsus laden with fair fruit, this loving enthusiasm concerning good and modest boys and women — by far the sharpest and hottest of all? Do you not see that the soldier, once he has laid down his arms, ceases from his warlike madness — 'and his joyful attendants then took the armor from his shoulders,' and he sits as an unwarlike spectator of the rest — while the Bacchic and Corybantic leapings are soothed and brought to rest by changing their rhythm from the trochaic and their tune from the Phrygian mode? And likewise the Pythia, once she has stepped down from the tripod and the vapor, passes the rest of her time in calm and quiet?

But the madness of love, once it has truly taken hold of a man and set him ablaze, no music, no charming incantation, no change of place can settle. Rather, present, lovers are in love, and absent, they long; by day they pursue, and by night they keep watch at the door; sober, they call out to the beautiful, and drinking, they sing of them. And it is not, as someone has said, that poetic fantasies are the waking dreams of men because of their vividness — rather it is the fantasies of lovers that are so, conversing as if with people present, embracing them, reproaching them. For sight seems to paint its other images as if on something wet, quickly fading and abandoning the mind; but the images of the beloved, painted by it as if in fire-fixed encaustic, leave behind in the memory living forms —

moving, living, speaking, and remaining for all the rest of time. Cato the Roman used to say that the soul of the lover dwells in that of the beloved; and the beloved's appearance, character, life, and actions, led by which the lover quickly covers a long road — just as the Cynics say they have discovered 'a journey at once intense and short to virtue.' For indeed toward friendship too, as if carried on a wave of passion, one is borne along together with a god. In sum, I say that the enthusiasm of lovers is not godless, nor does it have any other god as overseer and charioteer than this one to whom we are now holding festival and offering sacrifice.

Nevertheless, since it is above all in power and benefit that we judge and name a thing most godlike — just as, among human goods, we consider and call kingship and virtue the most divine of all — it is time to consider first whether Eros yields in power to any god. And yet Cypris too brings forth great strength in victories, as Sophocles says, and great too is the might of Ares; and in a way we see the power of the other gods divided in two between these — the one drawing us toward the beautiful, the other arraying us against the shameful, both implanted in souls from the beginning, as Plato too says somewhere of the Forms.

Let us consider straightaway, then, that the pleasure Aphrodite's work provides in love is worth a mere drachma, and that no one who is not in love has ever endured toil or danger for the sake of sexual pleasure. And — so that we need not name Phryne here, my friend, or some Lais, or little Gnathaenion, lighting her evening lamp and waiting and calling — she is often passed right by; but let a sudden gust of wind come, together with great passion and longing, and this very same thing is made worth as much as the talents of Tantalus, and his kingdom besides. So weak and so quickly sated is the grace of Aphrodite, when Eros has not breathed upon it.

You may see this even more clearly from the following: many have shared their sexual favors with others — not only courtesans but even their own wedded wives — acting as procurers. So it was, my friend, with that Roman, Galba, who was entertaining Maecenas, it seems; and seeing him exchanging glances and skirmishing with his little wife, he quietly bowed his head as though asleep. Meanwhile one of the servants crept up to the table from outside and began stealing the wine, and Galba, glancing up, said, "Wretch, don't you know that I sleep only for Maecenas?"

This, then, is perhaps nothing very terrible, for Galba was a buffoon. But in Argos, Nicostratus was a political rival of Phaullus; and when King Philip was visiting, Phaullus — whose wife was strikingly beautiful — was expected, if she consorted with Philip, to secure for himself some power and office. When Nicostratus and his party perceived this and stationed themselves patrolling before the doors of the house, Phaullus put boots on his wife and threw around her a cloak and a Macedonian cap, and smuggled her in unnoticed as one of the king's young attendants.

Well then, with so many lovers having existed and still existing, do you know of one who, for the sake of honoring Zeus, became a procurer of his own beloved? I think not — for how could there be, when even against tyrants no one speaks or acts in opposition, yet many oppose and rival them over the beautiful and the young? For you hear that Aristogeiton the Athenian, and Antileon of Metapontum, and Melanippus of Acragas did not quarrel with the tyrants even while watching them ruin and outrage everything; but when the tyrants made attempts on their beloveds, they spared not even themselves in defending them, as though defending sacred and inviolable, untouchable things.

It is said too that Alexander wrote to Theodorus, the brother of Proteas: "Send me the music-girl, taking ten talents for her, unless you are in love with her." And when another of his companions, Antipatrides, came to a revel with a harp-girl, and Alexander, finding himself pleasantly disposed toward the woman, asked Antipatrides, "Surely you are not in love with her, are you?" — and when he said, "I certainly am," Alexander said, "Then go hang, wretch," and held back and did not touch the woman.

"Consider then again," he said, "how far Eros surpasses even in deeds of war — not idle, as Euripides said, nor unwarlike, nor spending his nights on the soft cheeks of young girls. For a man filled full with Eros needs no Ares when he fights the enemy, but having his own god present with him, is ready to cross fire and sea and the blasts of the upper air for the sake of his beloved, whatever he may bid. Among Sophocles' Niobids, as they are being shot down and dying, one calls for no other helper or ally than his lover: 'O you who were sent forth on my account.'

And you surely know for what reason Cleomachus of Pharsalus died fighting." "We, at least, Pemptides' companions," they said, "have not heard, but would gladly learn it." "And it is indeed worth hearing," said the father. "He came as an ally to the Chalcidians in the Thessalian war, when the war against the Eretrians was at its height. The infantry seemed to be holding firm for the Chalcidians, but it was a great task to drive back the enemy's cavalry; so the allies urged Cleomachus, a man splendid in spirit, to be the first to charge into the cavalry.

He asked his beloved, who was present, whether he intended to watch the contest; and when the young man said yes, and embraced him affectionately, and set the helmet on his head, Cleomachus, exalted, gathered around himself the best of the Thessalians, rode out splendidly, and fell upon the enemy, so that he threw the cavalry into confusion and routed it. And from this, once the hoplites too had fled, the Chalcidians won a decisive victory. Cleomachus himself, however, happened to die; the Chalcidians show his tomb in the marketplace, on which a great column stands to this day; and though before this they had held love between males in reproach, from then on they honored and esteemed it above other peoples.

Aristotle, however, says that Cleomachus died in another way, after defeating the Eretrians in the battle, and that the one loved by his beloved was one of the Chalcidians from Thrace, who had been sent as an ally to the Chalcidians in Euboea — whence it is sung among the Chalcidians: 'O boys who have obtained the graces of noble fathers, do not begrudge fair youths their company with good men; for along with courage, limb-loosening Eros too flourishes in the cities of the Chalcidians.' Anton was the lover's name, and Philistus the beloved's, as Dionysius the poet recorded in his Aetia.

And among you Thebans, Pemptides, did not the lover give his beloved a full suit of armor when the boy was enrolled among the men? And Pammenes, a man given to love, changed and rearranged the order of the hoplites, finding fault with Homer as unloving, because he mustered the Achaeans by tribes and clans, not stationing the beloved beside the lover, so that it might come about, 'shield pressed on shield, and helmet on helmet,' Eros alone among the generals being unconquerable. For tribesmen and kinsmen, and, by Zeus, even fathers and children —

“...they never abandon: no enemy has ever yet passed through, or ridden through, the space between a lover and his beloved, though there was no need for them to display their love of danger and their disregard for life to anyone who did not ask it of them—as did Theron the Thessalian, who pressed his left hand against the wall and, drawing his sword, cut off his own thumb, in defiance of his rival lover. Another man, fallen face down in battle, when the enemy was about to strike him, begged him to wait a little, so that his beloved might not see him wounded in the back.

It is not only the most warlike of peoples who are the most given to love—the Boeotians and the Spartans and the Cretans—but also, among the ancients, Meleager, Achilles, Aristomenes, Cimon, Epaminondas; for he too had beloveds, Asopichus and Cephisodorus, who died with him at Mantinea and is buried beside him. And the man who became most terrible and formidable to the enemy, the first to stand his ground and strike, Eucnamus of Amphissa, received heroic honors from the Phocians.

As for Heracles, it would be a labor to tell of his other loves, on account of their number; but Iolaus, whom they believe to have been his beloved, they still to this day revere and honor, receiving oaths and pledges of love at his tomb from lovers and their beloveds. It is said, too, that Apollo, being skilled in medicine, saved Alcestis when she had been given up for dead, doing this as a favor to Admetus, whom he loved as a woman loves, though he himself had once been the beloved; for the myth tells that Apollo, having become Admetus’s lover, ‘served as his hireling for a great year.’

Somehow Alcestis has aptly come to our memory. For a woman has no great share in Ares, but the possession that comes from Eros leads her on to dare something contrary to nature, even to die. And if there is any use at all in myths for establishing belief, the story of Alcestis, and of Protesilaus, and of Eurydice the wife of Orpheus makes it plain that Hades, alone of the gods, does what is commanded of him for Love—though toward all others, as Sophocles says, he knows neither fairness nor favor, but loves only

sheer justice pure and simple; yet he respects lovers, and to them alone he is not unconquerable or implacable. Hence it is a good thing, my friend, to take part in the mysteries at Eleusis; but I for my part see that a better lot in Hades belongs to the celebrants and initiates of Love—not that I put faith in the myths, yet I do not disbelieve them altogether either; for indeed those who say, by some divine stroke of fortune, that there is

a way up from Hades into the light for those touched by love speak truly, though they do not know where or how, having lost the path, so to speak, which Plato was the first of men to discern through philosophy. And yet there are certain thin and dim outflowings of the truth scattered within the mythologies of the Egyptians, but they require a skilled tracker, one able to seize great things from small. Let us, then, leave these matters aside, and after considering

the power of Love, which is so great, let us now examine his kindness and favor toward mankind—not whether he provides many good things to those who make use of him (for these are plain to everyone), but whether he benefits the lovers themselves in greater and more numerous ways. For Euripides, though he was himself a lover of love, marveled at the very smallest of its effects when he said that Love teaches a man to be a poet, even one who was unmusical before.

For it makes a man intelligent, even if he was careless before; and it makes the timid man courageous, as has been said—just as those who forge iron make hard what was soft. Every lover becomes generous, simple, and magnanimous, even if he was miserly before, his pettiness and love of money being softened, like iron in the fire, so that he takes pleasure in giving to his beloved things which he would not take pleasure in receiving from others.

You surely know, I suppose, how it was with Anytus the son of Anthemion, who was a lover of Alcibiades and was entertaining guests lavishly and splendidly; Alcibiades burst in on the revel and, taking from the table half of the drinking cups, went away. When the guests were vexed and said, ‘The young man has treated you insolently and arrogantly,’ Anytus said, ‘No, rather with kindness; for though it was in his power to take everything,

he has left even this much for me.’ Zeuxippus, delighted, said, ‘By Heracles, how easily he settled his hereditary quarrel with Anytus, one going back to Socrates and philosophy, if he was so gentle and noble where love was concerned!’ ‘Well then,’ said my father, ‘does it not make men more kindly and pleasant toward their companions, out of those who are difficult and sullen? For when a fire is kindled, a house appears

more stately to look at, and a man, it seems, appears more radiant because of the warmth of love. But most people feel something strange: if they see a gleam of light in a house at night, they think it divine and marvel at it; yet when they see a soul that is small, humble, and ignoble suddenly filled with pride, freedom, ambition, grace, and generosity, they are not compelled to say, as Telemachus did, ‘Surely some god is within.’” “And is not this too,”

said Daphnaeus, “by the Graces, a wondrous thing—that the lover, while despising almost everything else, not only his companions and household, but also the laws and magistrates and kings, and fearing nothing, marveling at nothing, courting no one—yet is such as to endure even ‘the warrior thunderbolt,’ and the moment he sees the beautiful one, ‘he crouches like a slave-cock that has drooped its wing,’

and his boldness is broken and his proud spirit is cut down. It is fitting to remember Sappho here, among the Muses; for the Romans tell that the son of Hephaestus, Cacus, breathed fire and flame streaming out through his mouth; but she truly utters words mingled with fire, and through her songs conveys the heat that comes from her heart, ‘healing her love with the tuneful Muses,’

as Philoxenus says. But if you have not, on account of Lysander, Daphnaeus, forgotten the old love songs, remind us of the ones in which the beautiful Sappho says that when her beloved appears her voice fails and her body catches fire, and pallor seizes her, and wandering and dizziness.” When Daphnaeus had recited those verses, my father took them up and said,

“Are these not, by Zeus, a manifest seizure by a god? Is this not a divine tumult of the soul? What so great a thing does the Pythia suffer when she takes hold of the tripod? Which of those possessed by inspiration is so carried out of themselves by the flute, the rites of the Mother, and the drum? Many of us look on the same body and the same beauty, yet only the lover is seized—for what reason? For surely

we do not learn this, nor do we understand it, though we hear Menander say that the disease of the soul is opportunity, and the one who is struck is wounded within. But the god is responsible, touching this one and letting that one go. So then, what it would have been more fitting to say at the beginning, I think I shall leave unspoken even now—‘that now it has come upon my lips,’ as Aeschylus says—for indeed it is

a matter of vast scope. For perhaps, my friend, of all the other things too, as many as come to our understanding not through sense-perception, some have gained credence from the start through myth, some through law, and some through reason; but of the belief about the gods, in every respect, the leaders and teachers for us have been the poets and the lawgivers, and third, the philosophers,

all alike positing that gods exist, but differing greatly from one another concerning their number and order, their being and their power. For those gods of the philosophers are free from disease, free from old age, and untouched by toil, having fled the loud-roaring strait of Acheron; hence they do not admit the poets’ Strifes, nor Prayers, nor are they willing that Terror or Fear should be gods and acknowledged as children of Ares. They fight, too,

about many matters, with the lawgivers as well—just as Xenophanes bade the Egyptians, if they consider Osiris mortal, not to honor him as a god, but if they hold him to be a god, not to mourn him. And again, when the poets and lawgivers hear the philosophers making certain forms and numbers, monads and spirits, into gods, they can neither endure to listen nor are able to understand. In general, there is much inconsistency and

disagreement among these opinions. Just as there were once three factions at Athens—the Men of the Shore, the Men of the Highlands, and the Men of the Plain—harshly opposed and at odds with one another, and then all came together and, casting their votes, brought them all to Solon, and chose him in common as arbitrator, ruler, and lawgiver, since he was thought without dispute to hold the first place in virtue—so too the three factions concerning the gods, though divided in opinion

and each casting a different vote, and not readily accepting the view of another on any single point with firm agreement, nevertheless jointly enroll Love among the gods—the best of the poets, the lawgivers, and the philosophers alike, ‘praising him greatly with one united voice,’ just as Alcaeus said the Mytilenaeans chose Pittacus as tyrant. For us, then, Love is king and ruler and governor, brought down, crowned, by Hesiod

and Plato and Solon, from Helicon to the Academy, and he drives in, adorned, with many teams yoked in friendship and fellowship—not such as Euripides speaks of, yoked ‘in fetters unforged of bronze,’ a cold and heavy necessity imposed by shame in time of need, but rather that of a winged power borne toward the fairest and most divine of realities, concerning which it has been better spoken by others.”

When my father had said this, Soclarus said, “Do you see that, having fallen upon the same subjects twice now, you somehow drag yourself away and turn aside by force, unjustly cheating us, if I may say what appears to be the case, when the subject is a sacred one? For just now, too, you touched upon Plato and the Egyptians as if unwillingly, and passed on, and now you are doing the same thing.

As for what has been ‘said with perfect clearness’ by Plato—or rather by these goddesses through Plato, my good sir—‘you shall not speak, even if we bid you’; but as for the point at which you hinted that the Egyptian myth agrees with the Platonists concerning Love, there is no way for you to avoid uncovering and revealing it to us. We shall be content even if we hear only a little about great matters.” When the others also asked, my father said that the Egyptians

know two loves in a manner similar to the Greeks, the common one and the heavenly one, but they also consider a third Love to be the sun, and they hold Aphrodite in especially great reverence. “We, however,” he said, “see a great resemblance between Love and the sun, but none between Aphrodite and the earth; for neither of them is fire, as some suppose, but a radiance and a sweet, generative warmth, and the one

that comes from the sun provides nourishment, light, and growth to the body, while the one from Love does so for souls. And just as the sun is warmer when emerging from clouds and after a mist, so Love, after anger and jealousy, once the beloved is reconciled, is sweeter and more piercing; further, just as some think the sun is kindled and extinguished, so they think the same about Love, as being mortal and unstable.

And indeed, just as an unexercised condition of body cannot bear the sun, so the disposition of an uneducated soul cannot bear Love without pain; each alike is thrown into disorder and falls sick, blaming the power of the god rather than its own weakness. Except that in this respect they would seem to differ, in that the sun shows the beautiful and the ugly alike on the earth to those who see, whereas Love is a light

of beautiful things only, and persuades lovers to look and turn only toward these, and to overlook all else. They touch on no resemblance at all with the earth, but in calling the moon Aphrodite they touch upon a certain likeness; for she too is divine and heavenly, and is the region where the immortal mingles with the mortal, powerless in herself and dark when the sun does not shine upon her, just as Aphrodite is when Love is not present.

It is likely, then, that Aphrodite resembles the moon, and Love the sun, more than the other gods do, yet it is not that they are altogether identical; for body is not the same as soul, but different, just as the sun is visible while Love is intelligible. And if it will not seem too harsh a thing to say, one might also assert that the sun does the opposite of what Love does: for it turns the mind away from things intelligible toward things

perceptible by sense, bewitching and persuading it, by the grace and brightness of what is seen, to seek in itself and around itself, along with everything else, even truth itself, and nowhere else; so that we appear to be, as it were, poor lovers of this thing that gleams upon the earth, as Euripides says, through ignorance of another life, or rather forgetfulness of those things of which Love is a recollection. For just as, when men wake

into a great and bright light, everything that appeared to the soul in sleep vanishes and escapes, so it seems that of the things that happened here and changed, the sun strikes the memory senseless and drugs the understanding, since men forget those things through pleasure and wonder. And yet in truth it is there and about those things that the soul, as if truly awake, has its being, while here it welcomes the things of dreams,

and is amazed and awestruck at what is fairest and most divine. ‘And round about him she poured crafty, kindly dreams,’ the soul here being persuaded that everything is beautiful and precious, unless it happens upon Love, that divine and prudent physician, savior, and guide, who, coming to it by way of bodies, is a leader toward truth from Hades and toward ‘the plain of truth,’ where the great and pure and unfeigned

beauty is established, drawing up and sending back those who long, after so long a time, to embrace and be united with it, guiding them kindly, like a mystagogue standing by at an initiation. And here again, of those who are sent back, Love does not draw near to the soul itself by itself, but through the body. Just as geometers, for children who are not yet able to be initiated on their own into intelligible things belonging to incorporeal and impassive being, fashion tangible and visible likenesses of spheres and cubes and

dodecahedra to hold before them, so for us the heavenly Love, contriving mirrors of beautiful things—beautiful, yet mortal, things that suffer, perceptible copies of things divine and intelligible—shows them gleaming in the forms, colors, and beauty of the young, and gently stirs the memory, first kindled through these. Hence, through clumsiness, some of their friends and relatives, trying by force and without reason to quench the passion, gain

no benefit whatsoever from it, but either fill themselves with smoke and confusion, or, flowing toward dark and unlawful pleasures, wither away ingloriously. But as many as, with prudent reasoning and modesty, have taken away, as it were, only the madness of the fire, and have left the soul its brightness and light along with warmth, do not suffer, as someone has said, a convulsion that drives them toward seed and the slipping away of atoms through smoothness and titillation,

...but rather a marvelous and fertile diffusion, as in a plant that is budding and being nourished, opening channels of docility and friendliness. It would not be long before, passing beyond the body of their beloveds, lovers are carried within and take hold of their character, and, drawing out each other's gaze, look closely and come together for the most part through words and actions with one another, provided they have some fragment of the beautiful and an image of it in their minds. But if not, they let it go and turn to others, just as bees pass by many green and flowering plants that have no honey in them; but wherever they find some trace of the divine, some emanation and fawning likeness, being inspired with pleasure and wonder, and carried about by it, they are gladdened in memory and blaze up again toward that truly lovely and blessed object, dear and beloved to all.

"Now in most cases the poets seem to be playing games with the god when they write about him and sing in his revels, but a few things have been said by them in earnest -- whether by mind and reasoning, or by touching the truth with the god's help. One of these is the boldest saying about his birth: that swift, fair-sandaled Iris was born from union with golden-haired Zephyr -- unless the grammarians have persuaded you too, saying that the comparison was made with reference to the variegated, flowery character of the passion." And Daphnaeus said, "With reference to what else, indeed?" "Listen," said the father, "for the phenomenon itself forces one to put it this way. The rainbow is, I suppose, a case of the eye's being affected by reflection,

whenever the sight, falling gently on a moist, smooth cloud of moderate thickness, touches the sun by reflection, and, seeing the radiance around it and its light, produces in us the impression that the image is actually in the cloud. This, then, is the amatory device and sophistry: in well-natured, beauty-loving souls it produces a reflection of memory from the things that appear and are called beautiful here, back to that truly divine, lovely, blessed, and wondrous beauty. But most men, chasing and groping after its image as it appears in boys and women as though in mirrors, can grasp nothing more secure than a pleasure mixed with pain. Rather, this looks like the dizziness and wandering of Ixion, hunting

an empty object of desire in the clouds as though it were shadows -- like children eager to grasp the rainbow with their two hands, drawn on by its mere appearance. But there is another way, for the well-natured and temperate lover: for in him the reflection turns back toward the divine and intelligible beauty. Encountering the beauty of a visible body and using it as a kind of instrument of memory, he embraces and loves it, and, being together with it and rejoicing, is kindled all the more in his understanding. Such men, while still here in the body, do not sit yearning for and marveling at this light alone; nor, once they have arrived there after death, do they turn back here again and, running off like fugitives, roll about at the doorways of newlyweds and in bedchambers -- those wretched little phantoms of pleasure-loving and body-loving men and women who are not rightly called lovers at all. For the man who is truly a lover, once he has arrived there

and has consorted with the beautiful, as is right, is winged and initiated, and continues on high, dancing and circling about his own god, until he comes once more to the meadows of the Moon and Aphrodite, and, falling asleep there, begins another birth. But these matters," he said, "call for a larger discussion than we have time for now. Yet this too belongs to Love, as to the other gods:

as Euripides says, 'to rejoice in being honored by men' -- and the opposite as well, for he is most gracious to those who receive him harmoniously, but heavy upon those who behave arrogantly toward him. Neither does Zeus the God of Strangers pursue wrongs done to strangers and suppliants, nor Zeus the God of Birth avenge a parent's curses, as swiftly and readily as Love answers the call of lovers who have been treated with contempt -- a punisher of the ill-bred and the arrogant. What indeed could one say of

Euxynthetus, and of Leucomantis in Cyprus, who is still even now called 'the Peeping Woman'? But perhaps you have not heard of the punishment of Gorgo the Cretan, who suffered something similar to the Peeping Woman -- except that the latter was turned to stone as she peeped out to watch her lover being carried out for burial, whereas in Gorgo's case a certain Asander fell in love with her, a young man of decent character and brilliant birth, though he had come down from brilliant circumstances to humble and mean ones. Even so, he

was disdained by no one; and, being a kinsman, he asked for Gorgo -- who, on account of her wealth, was, it seems, much fought over and much courted -- as his wife, having many good men joined with him in wooing her, and having won over all the girl's guardians and relatives." "Further, as for the causes and origins of love that people speak of, they are peculiar to neither sex but common to both. For indeed the images

that enter into those in love, running through them, stirring up and titillating the body's mass, slipping down together with the other configurations into seed -- is this possible from boys but impossible from women? And these beautiful, sacred remembrances of that divine, true, Olympian beauty, by which the soul grows its wings -- what would prevent them from arising from boys and

young men, and equally from girls and women, whenever a pure, well-ordered character becomes visible through the bloom and grace of the form -- just as an upright shoe reveals the good shape of a foot, as Ariston used to say -- whenever those skilled at perceiving such things discern, in beautiful forms and unspoiled bodies, bright, settled traces of a soul that is upright and unbroken? For it is not the case that the pleasure-lover,

when asked whether he inclines more toward the female or the male, and answering 'wherever beauty is present,' seemed to give an answer suited to his own desire, being, as it were, ambidextrous, while the lover of beauty and the noble man bases his loves not on beauty or good form as such but on differences of anatomy. A lover of horses embraces the fine qualities of Podargus no less than those of 'Aithe, Agamemnon's mare'; and

a lover of hunting takes pleasure not only in male dogs but also raises Cretan and Laconian bitches. But the lover of beauty and of humanity is not uniform or alike toward both sexes; instead he thinks, as if there were differences between garments, that there are differences between loving women and loving men. And yet they say that youthful bloom is 'the flower of virtue,' while denying that the female sex can flower at all, or manifest any natural excellence

in relation to virtue -- which is absurd. Indeed Aeschylus rightly wrote: 'the burning eye of a young woman who has tasted a man will not escape my notice.' So then, do the signs of a bold, unchaste, corrupted character run across the features of women, while no light of orderliness and prudence attaches to their form at all? Or does much indeed attach and show itself there too, yet move nothing and call forth

no love at all? Neither answer is reasonable or true. Rather, as has been shown, these things belong in common to both sexes alike, since the contest, so to speak, is a shared one. So, Daphnaeus, let us take up arms against those arguments which Zeuxippus went through just now, making Love the same thing as unruly desire that carries the soul off toward licentiousness -- not that I myself am so persuaded, but because I have often heard it said by difficult,

loveless men. Some of these, dragging wretched little wives along with their dowries and money into household management and mean calculations, keep them constantly at hand, quarreling like yoke-mates day after day. Others, wanting children rather than wives -- just as cicadas discharge their seed onto a squill or some such plant -- likewise in haste beget offspring in whatever bodies happen to be at hand, and once they have gathered the fruit of it, let the marriage go its own way from then on, caring nothing

whether it lasts or not, and not thinking it worthwhile either to love or to be loved. But 'to be cherished' and 'to cherish,' differing by a single letter from 'to shelter,' seem to me to show at once an affection mixed, of necessity, with mere time and habit. But whomever Love seizes and breathes into, he will first of all have no 'mine' and 'not mine,' as in Plato's ideal city -- for it is not simply that

'friends' goods are held in common' among everyone, but only among those who, though bounded by separate bodies, forcibly bring their souls together and fuse them, wishing to be not two but one, and believing themselves so. Then again, chastity between partners, which marriage needs above all: in most married people it comes more from outside, from the laws, than from willingness, being constrained by shame and fear -- the work of many bridles and rudders together -- and it stands guard

constantly over those who live together. But Love has so great a share of self-control, order, and fidelity, that even if he ever touches a licentious soul, he turns it away from all its other lovers, cutting out its boldness, breaking its arrogance and unruliness, instilling shame, silence, and quiet, and clothing it in a decorous bearing, so that he makes it obedient to one alone. You know, I suppose, by report, that famous and much-desired Lais, how

she used to set Greece ablaze with desire -- indeed she was fought over by both seas. But when Love touched her because of Hippolochus the Thessalian, she left behind 'Acrocorinth, washed by pale-green water,' and, fleeing secretly from her great host of other lovers, went off in modest fashion. There the women, out of envy and jealousy over her beauty, led her out to the temple of Aphrodite, stoned her, and killed her; whence,

it seems, they still call that shrine 'Aphrodite the Man-Slayer' even now. We know, too, of slave-girls who flee their masters' embraces, and of commoners who look down on princesses, once they have taken Love as master within their soul. For just as in Rome, they say, once the man called Dictator has been proclaimed, those holding other offices lay them down, so too those in whom Love has become established as lord are freed and released from every other master and ruler,

and remain thereafter like temple slaves. And a noble woman joined to her lawful husband through Love would rather endure the embrace of bears and serpents than the touch and bed of another man." "Though there is no lack of examples for you, fellow initiates and devotees of the god, still it would not be right to pass over the story of Camma the Galatian; for she, being most striking in appearance,

had been married to Sinatus the tetrarch, when Sinorix, the most powerful of the Galatians, fell in love with her and killed Sinatus, since he could neither force nor persuade the woman while her husband lived. Camma's refuge and consolation for her grief was her ancestral priesthood of Artemis; she spent most of her time in the goddess's service, admitting no one, though many kings and potentates sought her hand. When, however, Sinorix ventured

to approach her about marriage, she did not shrink from the attempt, nor did she reproach him for what had happened, on the ground that Sinorix had been driven to it by goodwill and longing for her, not by any other wickedness. So he came, trusting her, and asked for the marriage. She met him, greeted him warmly, and, leading him to the goddess's altar, poured a libation from a bowl of honeyed milk which, it seems, had been poisoned. Then, drinking off about half

of it herself first, she handed the rest to the Galatian. And when she saw that he had drunk it, she cried out loudly in triumph, and, speaking the name of her dead husband, said: 'This is the day, dearest husband, that I have waited for: living apart from you until now, I lived in grief. But now receive me gladly -- for I have taken vengeance on your behalf against the vilest of men, and have gladly become his partner in death, as I once was your partner in life.'

So Sinorix, being carried off in a litter, died a short time later, while Camma, having lived through that day and the following night, is said to have died very bravely and cheerfully." "Since many such things have happened both among us and among barbarians, who could tolerate those who slander Aphrodite, as though, when joined with Love and present, she prevents friendship from coming into being? As for the union of male with male,

or rather -- one might well say, on reflection -- incontinence and assault, 'it is outrage, not Aphrodite, that brings this about.' For this reason we place those who take pleasure in submitting to it in the very worst class of vice, and grant them no share of fidelity, shame, or friendship. Truly, as Sophocles says, of such 'friends,' those who are deprived of them rejoice, while those who have them pray to escape them. But as for those

who, not being bad by nature, were deceived or forced into yielding and giving themselves up, these continue for the rest of their lives to suspect and hate, more than anyone else, the men who so used them, and take bitter revenge whenever the chance is given. Crateas killed Archelaus after having been his beloved, and Pythólaus killed Alexander of Pherae. Periander, the tyrant of the Ambraciots, once asked his beloved whether he was not yet pregnant, and the boy, provoked, killed him. But

for wedded wives, by contrast, such acts are the beginnings of friendship, like a shared participation in great mysteries. The pleasure involved is a small thing; but the honor, favor, mutual affection, and trust that grow from it day by day neither convict the Delphians of talking nonsense when they call Aphrodite 'Harmony,' nor Homer, when he calls such intercourse 'love-union.' It also bears witness that Solon proved himself the most expert

lawgiver in matters of marriage when he ordained that a husband must approach his wedded wife not less than three times a month -- not for pleasure's sake, one might ask? No: rather, just as cities from time to time renew their treaties with one another, so he wished the marriage likewise to be renewed, through such tokens of affection, against the vexations that build up on every occasion. But, it will be said, many love-affairs with women are base and mad. Well, are those with boys not even more so?

...gazing with tender intimacy, [the poet] slipped into loving a beardless, soft-skinned, handsome youth, wishing to fasten himself to him and die, and so win an epitaph. But just as this is boy-madness, so that other passion is woman-madness; neither of them is Love. It is absurd, then, to say that women have no share in virtue at all, or in any other excellence. Indeed, what need is there to speak of their prudence and understanding, and further their fidelity and justice, when even courage and

boldness and greatness of soul have shown themselves plainly in many of them? To grant that their nature is fine in every other respect, yet to fault it and declare it unfit for friendship alone, is altogether outrageous. For indeed they are devoted to their children, devoted to their husbands, and altogether affectionate by nature; and, like fertile, receptive soil for friendship, they are found wanting neither in persuasiveness nor in charm. Just as poetry, by fitting to plain speech the sweeteners

of melody, meter, and rhythm, makes its instructive element more moving and its harmful element less guarded against, so nature, by clothing woman with grace of appearance, persuasiveness of voice, and an attractive form of beauty, has, in the licentious woman, contributed greatly toward pleasure and deception, but in the chaste woman, toward a husband's goodwill and friendship. Plato, for his part, used to urge Xenocrates -- who was in other respects a noble man

and great, though very austere in character, Plato nevertheless urged him to sacrifice to the Graces. And one might advise a good and sensible wife to sacrifice to Eros as well, so that he may dwell in the marriage kindly disposed and be sweet toward its concerns, and so that the husband, not drifting off toward some other woman, may not be forced to speak the words from comedy: "What a wrong I do this woman — wretched man that I am!" For to be loved in marriage is a greater good than merely to love.

It frees one from many faults, or rather from all those that corrupt and ruin a marriage. As for the passionate, biting stage at the beginning, my dear Zeuxippus, do not fear it as though it were a wound or an itch; and yet even a kind of wound may be nothing terrible when it comes from growing together, like grafted trees, with a good woman. For a wounding is also the beginning of conception, since there is no mingling between things that have not been affected by one another.

Learning, too, disturbs children when they begin it, and philosophy disturbs the young; but neither in them does the biting quality remain forever, nor does it in lovers. Rather, just as when liquids fall together there seems to be some seething and disturbance at first, so too Eros, once it has settled and been calmed by time, produces the most stable disposition of all.

For this is truly what is called a blending "through and through" — the blending of lovers; whereas the union of those who merely live together in some other way resembles the contacts and interminglings described by Epicurus, full of collisions and reboundings, producing no such unity as Love creates when it takes hold of a marital partnership. For there are no greater pleasures to be had from others, nor more constant needs met by others, nor is the beauty of friendship found elsewhere so

glorious and enviable as when a husband and wife, of one mind in their thoughts, keep house together. Indeed the law assists it, and nature shows that even the gods have need of shared begetting and of Love. Thus the poets say that "the earth loves the rain," and the sky loves the earth; the natural philosophers say that the moon loves the sun, and unites with it, and conceives; and that the earth, too, mother

of men and of every animal and plant, would necessarily perish at some point and be utterly quenched, once the god's dread love or longing abandoned matter and matter ceased desiring and pursuing from that source its origin and motion. But, so that we may not seem to wander too far afield or talk sheer nonsense — you know how much is said about the instability of love for boys, and

how people mock it, saying that their friendship, like an egg, can be split with a hair; that such lovers, like nomads, pitch camp for a season among those in bloom and flower, and then strike camp again as though from hostile territory. Still more crudely, the sophist Bion used to call the hairs of handsome boys "Harmodiuses" and "Aristogeitons," since by their growth lovers are freed at once from a beautiful tyranny. These charges, however, are not justly brought against genuine lovers.

But what Euripides said is elegant: for he, embracing and warmly kissing the fair Agathon, already bearded, said that of fair men the autumn too is welcomed — the only season that grows gray in nothing, reaching its prime even with wrinkles, but remaining faithful all the way to tombs and monuments. And one could count few lasting unions born of love for boys, but countless born of love for women, sharing every trust together, faithfully and eagerly, to the very end. I wish

to relate one thing that happened in our own time, under the emperor Vespasian. Civilis, who stirred up the revolt in Gaul, had, naturally enough, many partners in the affair, among them Sabinus, a young man of no mean birth, but the most conspicuous of all in wealth and reputation. Having laid hold of great undertakings, they failed, and expecting to pay the penalty, some took their own lives, while others, in flight,

were captured. For Sabinus, everything else made it easy enough to slip away and take refuge among the barbarians; but the wife he had taken, the best of all women — there they called her Empona, though in Greek one might name her Heroïs — he could neither leave behind nor bring along with him. Now, having on his estate underground storerooms dug for his money, of which only two

of his freedmen knew, he dismissed the rest of the household servants, giving out that he meant to kill himself with poison, and taking the two trusted men with him went down into the underground chambers. To his wife he sent his freedman Martialius to report that he had died by poison and that the farmhouse had burned down together with his body; for he wanted to make use of his wife's genuine grief as proof of his supposed death, which

indeed came about. For, throwing herself down just as she was, amid laments and wailing, she held out for three days and nights without food. When Sabinus learned of this and grew afraid that she would utterly destroy herself, he had Martialius tell her secretly that he was alive and in hiding, and that he begged her to persevere a little longer in her mourning, and to make her pretense convincing.

So the rest of her performance was carried out by the woman in anguished keeping with the appearance of her grief; but, longing to see him, she went off by night, and came back again. From this point on, unbeknownst to everyone else, she came within a little of actually living with her husband in Hades itself, for more than seven months running, during which time, having disguised Sabinus with a change of clothes, a haircut, and a covering for his head, she brought him, unrecognized, with her to Rome,

on the strength of certain hopes that had been held out to her. But having achieved nothing, she went back again, and for the most part lived with him underground, though from time to time she would go up into the city to be seen by her women friends and relatives. And the most incredible thing of all: she managed to conceal that she was pregnant even while bathing with the other women, for the preparation with which women anoint their hair to make it golden and reddish contains a kind of oil

that builds up the flesh, or loosens it, so as to produce a sort of swelling or distension. Using this liberally on the rest of her body, she hid the swelling of her belly, since it too rose and filled out along with the rest. Her labor pains she bore entirely alone, diving down to her husband as a lioness does into her den, and she reared the male cubs that were born to her — for she bore two. Of these

sons, one fell and died in Egypt, while the other has only just recently been here among us at Delphi, a man named Sabinus. As for her, Caesar put her to death; but having killed her, he paid the penalty for it, since in a short time his whole line was utterly wiped out. For that reign produced nothing grimmer, and no other sight is likely to have turned away the eyes of gods and spirits more

than that one. And yet her boldness and her lofty words took away the pity of those watching — words with which she provoked Vespasian most of all, once she had given up hope of survival, when she urged him to trade places with her, saying that she had lived more sweetly in the darkness underground than he had in ruling as king. At this point my father said that their discourse on Love came to an end, since they were now close to Thespiae,

and that one of Pisias's companions, Diogenes, was seen approaching them at more than a walking pace. When Socles called out to him while he was still some way off, "Not news of war, I hope, Diogenes," the man answered, "Hush now — there is a wedding on, so keep quiet and come along faster, since the sacrifice is waiting for you." At this everyone was delighted, and Zeuxippus asked whether he was still being difficult.

"Why, he has already given in to Ismenodora," Diogenes said, "and now, willingly taking up a garland and a white cloak, he is ready to lead the way through the marketplace to the god." "Well then, by Zeus, let us go," my father said, "let us go, so that we may have our laugh at the man and pay our respects to the god; for it is plain that he is glad, and that he looks favorably on what is being done."

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