Symposium

Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

APOLLODORUS: I think I'm actually well prepared to answer what you're asking. Just the other day I happened to be walking up to the city from my house in Phalerum, when someone I know spotted me from behind, some way off, and called out - joking as he called - "Hey, you there, the man from Phalerum, Apollodorus, won't you wait up?" So I stopped and waited. And he said, "Apollodorus, I was actually just looking for you, because I wanted to ask you about the party at Agathon's - the one with Socrates and Alcibiades and the others who were there at that dinner - what exactly was said about love. Someone else told me about it, from what he'd heard from Phoenix son of Philip, and he said you knew about it too. But he couldn't give me anything clear. So you tell me - you're the right person, since you're used to reporting your companion's words. But first," he said, "tell me - were you actually there yourself, at this gathering, or not?" And I said, "It certainly sounds like whoever told you gave you nothing clear at all, if you think this gathering you're asking about happened recently, so that I could have been there." "That's what I thought," he said. "How could you think that, Glaucon?" I said. "Don't you know that Agathon hasn't lived here for years, and that it's not even three years yet since I've been spending my time with Socrates and making it my business to know whatever he says or does each day?"

APOLLODORUS: Before that I used to run around wherever I happened to go, thinking I was doing something, when really I was more pathetic than anyone - no less than you are right now - thinking one should do anything at all rather than practice philosophy. And he said, "Don't mock me, just tell me when this gathering took place." And I said it was when we were still boys, when Agathon won with his first tragedy, the day after he and his chorus offered the victory sacrifice. "That was a long time ago then, it seems," he said. "But who told you about it? Not Socrates himself?" "No, by Zeus," I said, "the same man who told Phoenix. A man named Aristodemus, from Cydathenaeum, a small fellow, always without sandals - he was there at the gathering, being, I think, about the most devoted of Socrates's admirers at that time. Though I did later ask Socrates some things about what I'd heard from Aristodemus, and he confirmed it just as Aristodemus had told it." "Well then," he said, "why don't you tell it to me? The road to the city is certainly good for talking and listening as we walk." So as we went along we talked it over between us, which is why, as I said at the start, I'm not unprepared. So if I need to tell it to you all as well, that's what I should do. And really, whenever I'm having some conversation about philosophy myself, or listening to others, quite apart from thinking it does me good, I get an extraordinary pleasure from it. But whenever I hear some other kind of talk, especially the kind you rich businessmen go in for, I get annoyed myself and feel sorry for you, my friends, because you think you're accomplishing something when you're accomplishing nothing. And perhaps you in turn think I'm the wretched one - and I suspect you're right to think so. But as for you, I don't just think it, I know it for a fact. COMPANION: You're always the same, Apollodorus - always running yourself down along with everyone else. You seem to me to think absolutely everyone is miserable except Socrates, starting with yourself. And I have no idea where you got this nickname of yours, "the softie" - because in your talk, at least, you're always harsh, both toward yourself and toward everyone else, except Socrates. APOLLODORUS: My dear fellow, isn't it obvious that thinking this way about myself and about all of you means I'm out of my mind, quite mad? COMPANION: This isn't worth arguing about right now, Apollodorus. Just do what we asked - don't put us off, tell us what was said. APOLLODORUS: Well then, it went something like this - or rather, let me try to tell it to you from the beginning, the way Aristodemus told it to me.

He said Socrates ran into him freshly bathed and wearing sandals, which he rarely did, and Aristodemus asked him where he was going, looking so handsome. And Socrates said he was going to dinner at Agathon's. "Yesterday I dodged him at the victory celebration, afraid of the crowd, but I promised to come today. So I've dressed up like this, to go looking handsome to a handsome man's house. But you," he said, "how do you feel about coming along to dinner uninvited?" And Aristodemus said he answered, "Whatever you say." "Come along then," Socrates said, "and let's ruin the old saying, giving it a twist - that good men go uninvited to the feasts of good men. Homer, after all, doesn't just ruin that saying but practically assaults it - he makes Agamemnon an outstandingly good man in war, and Menelaus a weak spearman, and yet when Agamemnon is holding a sacrifice and feast, he has Menelaus come to the banquet uninvited - the lesser man to the better man's table." Hearing this, Aristodemus said, "I suppose I run the same risk myself then, Socrates - not as you put it, but rather as Homer would have it - going as an ordinary man, uninvited, to the feast of a wise one. So think about what defense you'll give for bringing me, since I won't admit to coming uninvited - I'll say you invited me." "Two going together," Socrates said, "can plan on the way what we'll say. Let's go." So, talking along these lines, Aristodemus said, they went on. But Socrates, paying attention to something in his own thoughts along the way, fell behind, and when Aristodemus waited for him, he told him to go on ahead. When they got to Agathon's house, they found the door open, and something funny happened to Aristodemus there. One of the house slaves met him right away and led him to where the others were already reclining, and he found them just about to start dinner. As soon as Agathon saw him he said, "Aristodemus, you've come at just the right time to join us for dinner. If you came for some other reason, put it off for another time - I was looking for you yesterday to invite you and couldn't find you anywhere. But how is it you haven't brought Socrates to us?" And I, said Aristodemus, turned around and saw Socrates wasn't following anywhere behind me. So I said that I had come with Socrates myself, having been invited by him to this dinner. "You did well to come," he said, "but where is he?"

"He was just coming in behind me - I'm actually wondering myself where he could be." "Won't you go look, boy," said Agathon, "and bring Socrates in? And you, Aristodemus, take the couch next to Eryximachus." A slave washed his feet so he could recline, and then another of the slaves came in to report that Socrates had withdrawn and was standing in the neighbors' doorway, and wouldn't come in no matter how they called him. "That's strange," Agathon said. "Go call him again, and don't let him alone." But Aristodemus said, "No, leave him be - it's a habit of his. Sometimes he steps aside wherever he happens to be and just stands there. He'll come soon enough, I think. Don't disturb him, just let him be." "Well, if you think so, that's what we should do," Agathon said. "But the rest of us, slaves, let's have our meal. Just serve whatever you like, since there's no one supervising you now - which I've never done before - so now, treating me and these guests here as if we'd all been invited by you, look after us well, so we'll have reason to praise you." After this, he said, they had dinner, but Socrates still hadn't come in. Agathon kept telling them to go fetch him, but Aristodemus wouldn't allow it. Eventually Socrates did come in, not having taken as long as usual, but just about when they were halfway through dinner. Agathon, who happened to be reclining alone at the far end, said, "Come here, Socrates, lie down next to me, so that by touching you I might get some benefit from that wise thought that came to you in the doorway. Clearly you found it and have it now - otherwise you wouldn't have come away." And Socrates sat down and said, "It would be a fine thing, Agathon, if wisdom were the sort of thing that flowed from the fuller of us into the emptier just by our touching each other, the way water flows through a woolen thread from the fuller cup into the emptier one. If wisdom really worked that way, then I'd value very highly this place next to you, since I think I'd be filled up from you with a great deal of fine wisdom. My own wisdom might be a poor thing, or even doubtful, like a dream, but yours is brilliant and has a great capacity for growth - seeing how it blazed out from you so strongly while you're still young, and became visible just the other day before more than thirty thousand witnesses of the Greeks." "You're being insolent, Socrates," said Agathon. "We'll settle this question of wisdom between us a little later, with Dionysus as our judge. For now, turn your attention to dinner first."

After this, he said, when Socrates had reclined and eaten along with the others, they poured libations, sang a hymn to the god, and did the other customary things, and then turned to drinking. Pausanias, he said, opened up a discussion something like this: "Well, gentlemen," he said, "how can we make our drinking as easy as possible? For my part I'll tell you that I'm really in a bad way from yesterday's drinking, and I need some recovery time - and I think many of you are in the same state, since you were there yesterday too. So let's think about how we might drink as comfortably as possible." Aristophanes said, "That's well said, Pausanias, that we should arrange things somehow to make the drinking easier - I myself am one of those who got thoroughly soaked yesterday." Hearing them, Eryximachus, son of Acumenus, said, "You're both quite right. But there's one more of you I'd like to hear from - how you feel about your strength for drinking, Agathon." "Not at all up to it," he said, "I'm not strong either." "It would be a godsend for us, it seems," Eryximachus said, "for me and Aristodemus and Phaedrus and these others, if you who are the strongest drinkers are worn out now - we're always weak drinkers ourselves. Socrates I leave out of the discussion - he's up to either, so whichever we do will suit him fine. So since it seems to me none of those present is eager for a lot of wine drinking, perhaps I'll be less unwelcome if I tell you the plain truth about what drunkenness is like. This much, I think, has become quite clear to me from medicine - that drunkenness is a hard thing for people. I myself wouldn't willingly want to drink to excess, nor would I advise anyone else to, especially someone still suffering from yesterday's hangover." "Well," said Phaedrus of Myrrhinus, breaking in, "I'm used to obeying you, especially on matters of medicine - and so, I think, will the rest, if they're sensible." Hearing this, they all agreed not to make this present gathering one of heavy drinking, but to drink just for pleasure, as they pleased. "Since this much is decided, then," Eryximachus said, "that each should drink as much as he wants, with no compulsion, I propose next that we send away the flute-girl who just came in - let her play for herself, or for the women inside if she likes - and that we spend today in conversation with each other instead. And if you're willing, I'd like to suggest what kind of conversation."

Everyone, he said, agreed and wanted him to introduce it. So Eryximachus said: my opening, then, follows Euripides' Melanippe—for the story I'm about to tell isn't mine, it's Phaedrus's here. Phaedrus is always complaining to me. Isn't it strange, Eryximachus, he says, that for other gods the poets have composed hymns and paeans, but for Love, who is such a great and important god, not one of all the poets who have ever lived has composed a single encomium? And if you want to consider the accomplished sophists as well—they write prose eulogies of Heracles and others, as the excellent Prodicus does. That's not so surprising, but I've actually come across a book by a clever man in which salt received a marvelous eulogy for its usefulness, and you could find plenty of other such things praised—yet though people have taken such trouble over things like that, no human being to this day has ever dared to hymn Love properly. So great a god has been utterly neglected. This seems right to me, what Phaedrus says. So I want to make a contribution to him and do him this favor, and at the same time it strikes me as fitting, given the occasion, for those of us here to honor the god. So if you all agree too, we could pass the time well enough in speeches: I think each of us in turn, going around to the right, should speak in praise of Love, as fine a speech as he can manage, and Phaedrus should begin, since he's reclining first and is, besides, the father of the idea. No one will vote against you on this, Eryximachus, said Socrates. I certainly won't refuse, since I claim to understand nothing but matters of love, nor will Agathon, I imagine, or Pausanias, nor Aristophanes either, whose whole business is Dionysus and Aphrodite, nor anyone else here that I can see. Though it isn't quite fair to those of us reclining last—but if the ones before us speak well and fully enough, that will satisfy us. Well then, good luck to him—let Phaedrus begin and sing the praises of Love. All the others agreed with this and urged the same as Socrates. Now, Aristodemus didn't remember everything each speaker said, word for word, and I don't remember everything he told me either; but I'll tell you the parts of each speech that stood out most and seemed to me worth recalling.

First, then, as I said, Phaedrus began somewhere around here: that Love is a great god, marvelous among both men and gods, in many ways, but not least in his origin. For it is a mark of honor to be among the oldest of the gods, he said, and here is the proof: Love has no parents, and none are mentioned by anyone, whether ordinary person or poet, but Hesiod says that first Chaos came to be—and then broad-breasted Earth, the ever-secure seat of all things, and Love. Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod that these two came into being after Chaos, Earth and Love. And Parmenides says of her origin—first of all the gods she devised Love. So from many sources it is agreed that Love is among the oldest of the gods. And being the oldest, he is the cause of the greatest goods for us. For I myself can't say what greater good there is for a young man, right from the start, than a worthy lover, and for a lover, a worthy boy to love. For what ought to guide people all their lives, if they mean to live well, cannot be instilled so effectively by family ties, or public honors, or wealth, or anything else, as by love. And what do I mean by this? I mean shame at what is disgraceful and ambition for what is honorable—without these, neither a city nor a private person can achieve anything great or fine. So I say that if a man in love were caught doing something shameful, or suffering it from someone else without defending himself out of cowardice, he would be more pained to be seen that way by his beloved than by his father, or his friends, or anyone else in the world. And we see the same thing in the one who is loved: he is especially ashamed before his lovers when he's caught doing something disgraceful. So if there were some way to bring about a city or an army made up of lovers and their beloveds, there could be no better way for them to govern their own affairs than by keeping away from everything disgraceful and competing with one another for honor; and men like that, fighting alongside each other, few as they might be, would practically conquer the whole world.

For a man in love would surely rather be seen by anyone else than by his beloved deserting his post or throwing away his weapons—he'd choose to die many times over before that. And as for abandoning one's beloved, or failing to help him in danger—no one is so cowardly that Love himself couldn't inspire him with courage, making him equal to the man who is bravest by nature; and quite literally, what Homer said—that a god breathed might into some of the heroes—this is exactly what Love provides to those who love, coming from himself. And what's more, only lovers are willing to die for one another—not just men, but women too. Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, gives ample proof of this claim before the Greeks, since she alone was willing to die for her husband, though he had both a father and a mother living; but she so far surpassed them in devotion, because of her love, that she showed them up as strangers to their son, related to him in name only. And when she did this deed, it seemed so noble not only to men but to the gods as well that, of the many people who have done many noble things, the gods granted this privilege to only a few—to bring their soul back up again from Hades—but hers they sent back up, in admiration of her deed. So even the gods honor above all this devotion and excellence concerning love. But Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, they sent away from Hades unsatisfied, showing him only a phantom of the wife he had come for, without giving her to him, because he seemed soft—being a lyre-player, after all—and not brave enough to die for love as Alcestis had, but instead contrived to go down into Hades alive. That's exactly why they punished him, and made it so that he died at the hands of women, rather than honoring him as they honored Achilles, son of Thetis, whom they sent to the Isles of the Blessed, because though he had learned from his mother that he would die if he killed Hector, and would live to old age and go home if he did not, he dared to choose to help his lover Patroclus, and after avenging him, to die not merely for him but after him, since he was already dead. For this the gods were full of admiration and honored him even more highly, because he valued his lover so greatly.

Aeschylus talks nonsense when he claims Achilles was in love with Patroclus—Achilles, who was more beautiful not only than Patroclus but than all the other heroes as well, and still beardless, and moreover much younger, as Homer says. But in truth, while the gods honor this excellence connected with love most of all, they admire and reward it even more, and treat it even better, when the beloved loves his lover than when the lover loves his boy. For the lover is more divine than the beloved, since he is inspired by the god. That is why the gods honored Achilles even above Alcestis, sending him off to the Isles of the Blessed. So I say that Love is among the gods the oldest, the most honored, and the most authoritative for human beings to acquire virtue and happiness, both while they live and after they die. This, more or less, was the speech Phaedrus gave, he said; and after Phaedrus there were some other speeches which he didn't remember very well. Leaving those aside, he went on to describe Pausanias's speech. He said: Phaedrus, I don't think our topic has been well set out for us—simply being told, just like that, to praise Love. If Love were one thing, this would be fine, but as it is, he isn't one thing; and since he isn't one, it's more correct to specify first which kind of Love ought to be praised. So I'll try to correct this: first I'll say which Love should be praised, and then praise him in a way worthy of the god. We all know that there's no Aphrodite without Love. If there were only one Aphrodite, there would be only one Love; but since there are actually two Aphrodites, there must also be two Loves. And surely there are two goddesses—one older, motherless, daughter of Uranus, whom we call Heavenly Aphrodite; the other younger, daughter of Zeus and Dione, whom we call Common Aphrodite. It follows, then, that the Love who works alongside the second should rightly be called Common Love, and the other, Heavenly Love. Now, one ought to praise all the gods, but I must try to say what falls to each of these two. For every action is like this: done just by itself, it is neither noble nor shameful.

Take what we're doing right now, for instance—drinking, or singing, or conversing—none of these is in itself a fine thing, but depending on how it is done, in the doing, it turns out one way or the other; done well and rightly it becomes noble, done wrongly, shameful. And so it is with loving, and with Love: not every Love is noble or worthy of praise, but only the one that inspires us to love nobly. Now the Love that belongs to Common Aphrodite is common indeed, and does whatever chance brings; and this is the Love that inferior people feel. Such people, first of all, love women no less than boys; next, they love bodies rather than souls; and further, they love whoever happens to be least intelligent, looking only to the accomplishment of the act, and caring nothing for whether it is done nobly or not. That's why it turns out for them, as chance would have it, sometimes good, sometimes just the opposite. For this Love comes from the goddess who is much younger than the other, and who partakes in her origin of both female and male. But the Love of Heavenly Aphrodite, first of all, has no share in the female, only in the male—this is the love of boys—and further, she is older, having no part in outrage. That is why those inspired by this Love turn toward the male, cherishing what is naturally stronger and has more sense. And one could recognize, even within the practice of loving boys, those who are moved purely by this Love: they don't fall in love with mere children, but only once the boys begin to show some intelligence, which happens around the time their beards start to grow. For I think those who begin to love at this point are prepared to spend their whole lives together and share their lives in common, not to deceive a young man, catching him off guard while he's still foolish, laugh at him, and run off to someone else. There ought, in fact, to be a law against loving young boys, so that a great deal of effort wouldn't be wasted on something so uncertain—for it's unclear how a boy will turn out, in either vice or virtue of soul and body. Good men set this rule for themselves willingly; but these common lovers ought to be compelled to observe something similar, just as we do our best to keep them from pursuing freeborn women.

These are the men who have brought about the disgrace, so that some people dare to say it's shameful to grant favors to lovers. They say this looking at people like these, seeing their bad timing and injustice — since surely nothing done in an orderly and lawful way could justly incur blame. Now the custom concerning love in other cities is easy to understand, since it's simply defined; but here and in Sparta it's complicated. In Elis and among the Boeotians, and wherever people aren't skilled speakers, it's simply established by law that granting favors to lovers is a fine thing, and no one, young or old, would say it's shameful — I think so that they won't have the trouble of trying to persuade the young with argument, since they're no good at speaking. But in Ionia and many other places under barbarian rule, it's considered shameful. For the barbarians, because of their tyrannies, consider this shameful, along with love of philosophy and love of physical training — for I don't think it serves the interests of rulers to have great ambitions grow up in their subjects, nor strong friendships and partnerships, which above all else love tends to produce. The tyrants here learned this by experience too: the love of Aristogeiton and the friendship of Harmodius, once it became steadfast, brought down their rule. So wherever it's been laid down that granting favors to lovers is shameful, this rests on the badness of those who made the law — the greed of the rulers, and the cowardice of the ruled; and wherever it's been considered simply a fine thing, that's due to the laziness of soul in those who made the law. Here the law has been laid down in a far better way than in those places — though, as I said, it isn't easy to understand.

If you think about it, it's said to be finer to love openly than in secret, and especially to love the noblest and best, even if they're less handsome than others; and also that everyone gives the lover remarkable encouragement, as if he were doing nothing shameful, and that winning his beloved seems admirable while failing seems disgraceful; and the law has given the lover license, when he's attempting to win his beloved, to do astonishing things and still be praised for them — things which, if anyone dared to do them pursuing any other goal whatsoever, he would earn the harshest reproaches from philosophy itself. For if someone wanting to get money from another, or to hold office, or gain some other kind of power, were willing to do the sort of things lovers do toward their beloveds — making supplications and pleading entreaties in their requests, swearing oaths, sleeping on doorsteps, and being willing to perform a slavery that not even a slave would perform — he would be stopped from acting this way by both friends and enemies, the former reproaching him for flattery and servility, the latter admonishing him and feeling ashamed on his behalf. But when a lover does all these same things, there's grace attached to it, and the law grants him license to act this way without reproach, as though he were accomplishing something altogether admirable. And what's strangest of all, so most people say, is that he alone gets forgiveness from the gods for breaking his oaths — for they say there's no such thing as an oath sworn in the name of Aphrodite. Thus both gods and men have granted every license to the lover, as the law here declares. On this basis, then, one might suppose that in this city both loving and being friends with lovers is considered a completely admirable thing. But then, when fathers set tutors over their beloved sons and don't let them converse with their lovers, and the tutor has strict instructions to that effect, and companions their own age reproach them if they see anything like that going on, and the older men don't stop those doing the reproaching or scold them for speaking wrongly — anyone looking at this, in turn, would suppose the opposite, that such behavior is considered utterly shameful here. The truth, I think, is this: the matter isn't simple. As was said at the start, it's neither fine in itself nor shameful in itself, but done in a fine way it's fine, done in a shameful way it's shameful. It's shameful to grant favors to a bad man in a bad way; it's fine to grant them to a good man in a good way. That common lover is bad, the one who loves the body rather than the soul — for he isn't even constant, since what he loves isn't constant either. The moment the bloom of the body he loved begins to fade, he's off and gone, having shamed many fine words and promises. But the one who loves a good character stays devoted for life, since he has attached himself to something constant.

Our law wants to test these lovers thoroughly and well, and to make some worthy of favor while letting others escape it. That's why it urges some to pursue and others to flee, acting as judge and tester to see which sort the lover belongs to, and which sort the beloved. That's the reason, then, why being caught quickly is considered shameful, so that time may intervene — since time seems to be what tests most things well — and also why being caught through money or political power is shameful, whether because the boy, suffering badly, cringes and doesn't hold firm, or because, being benefited with money or political advancement, he doesn't look down on it. None of these things seems either secure or lasting, quite apart from the fact that no noble friendship has ever grown from them. So there's only one path left by our law, if a beloved is to grant favors to a lover in a fine way. Just as it was the rule for lovers that performing any slavery whatsoever willingly for their beloveds was not flattery and not to be reproached, so too there's one other kind of willing slavery left that isn't reproachable — the slavery devoted to excellence. It's our custom that if someone is willing to serve another in the belief that through him he'll become better in some kind of wisdom or in some other part of excellence, this willing slavery is not considered shameful, nor is it flattery. These two customs, then — the one concerning the love of boys and the one concerning philosophy and excellence generally — must come together as one, if it's to turn out to be a fine thing for a beloved to grant favors to a lover. For when a lover and his beloved come together, each holding to his own rule — the one, that he's justified in performing any service whatsoever for a beloved who grants him favors; the other, that he's justified in rendering any service whatsoever to the one who makes him wise and good — the one able to contribute to wisdom and excellence generally, the other in need of acquiring education and wisdom generally — then, when these two customs come together in the same place, it's only here, and nowhere else, that it turns out to be a fine thing for a beloved to grant favors to a lover. And in this case being deceived brings no shame at all; in every other case, whether deceived or not, it brings shame.

If someone grants favors to a lover as if to a rich man, for the sake of wealth, and is deceived and gets no money, because the lover turns out to be poor, it's just as shameful — for such a person seems to have shown what he really is, namely that for the sake of money he'd serve anyone in any way, and that's not a fine thing. By the same reasoning, even if someone grants favors to a lover thinking him a good man, expecting to become better himself through this friendship, and is deceived because the man turns out bad, lacking excellence after all — even so the deception is a fine one. For this person too seems to have shown what he really is, namely that for the sake of excellence and becoming better he would go to any lengths for anyone, and that in turn is the finest thing of all. So it's altogether and in every way a fine thing to grant favors for the sake of excellence. This is the love that belongs to the heavenly goddess, itself heavenly, and worth a great deal both to the city and to individuals, since it compels both the lover himself and the beloved to take great care over their own excellence. All the other kinds of love belong to the other goddess, the common one. That, Phaedrus, is my contribution on the subject of Love, offered on the spot as best I could. When Pausanias came to a stop — you see, the clever people have taught me to make these little balanced turns of phrase — Aristodemus said it was Aristophanes' turn to speak, but he happened to have a fit of hiccups, from overeating or something else, and couldn't speak. So instead he said — since the doctor Eryximachus was lying on the couch below him — "Eryximachus, it's only fair that you either stop my hiccups or speak in my place until I can stop." And Eryximachus said, "Well, I'll do both. I'll speak in your turn, and when you stop, you can speak in mine. While I'm speaking, try holding your breath for a good while, and see if the hiccups will stop on their own; if not, gargle with water. And if it's really stubborn, take something to tickle your nose and sneeze with it; if you do that once or twice, even a very stubborn case will stop." "Go ahead and speak, then," said Aristophanes, "and I'll do as you say."

So Eryximachus spoke: Since Pausanias, after making a fine start on his speech, didn't bring it to an adequate conclusion, I think it's necessary for me to try to put a finish on the argument. That love is twofold seems to me a fine distinction to have drawn; but that it isn't found only in the souls of human beings, directed toward the beautiful, but also occurs in many other things and in many other contexts — in the bodies of all living creatures, in things that grow in the earth, and, one might say, in everything that exists — this I think I've come to see through medicine, our own craft, namely how great and wonderful the god is, and how his reach extends over everything, both in human affairs and in divine ones. I'll begin my speech from medicine, so that we may pay due honor to our craft. The nature of bodies contains this twofold love: for the healthy and the diseased in the body are admittedly different and unlike, and the unlike desires and loves what is unlike. So the love directed at what is healthy is one thing, and the love directed at what is diseased is another. Now just as Pausanias was saying a moment ago that it's fine to grant favors to good men and shameful to grant them to unrestrained ones, so too within the bodies themselves it's fine and necessary to gratify what is good and healthy in each body — and this is exactly what is meant by the medical art — while it's shameful, and one must refuse to gratify, what is bad and diseased, if one means to be skilled in the craft. For medicine, to put it briefly, is the science of the erotic affections of the body with respect to filling and emptying, and whoever can distinguish in these the fine love from the shameful one is the most skilled physician; and whoever can produce change, so that one kind of love is acquired in place of the other, and, in bodies that lack the love they should have, knows how to instill it, and to remove it where it's present but shouldn't be, would be a good practitioner. For he must be able to make the most hostile elements in the body into friends, and make them love one another. And the most hostile elements are the most opposite ones — cold to hot, bitter to sweet, dry to wet, and all such things. It was by knowing how to instill love and concord in these that our ancestor Asclepius, as these poets here say and as I myself believe, established our craft.

So medicine, as I say, is entirely governed by this god, and so are gymnastics and farming. As for music, anyone who pays even a little attention can see that it works the same way, which is perhaps what Heraclitus means to say too, though his words don't put it well. He says that the One, being at odds with itself, comes together with itself, like the harmony of a bow or a lyre. But it's quite absurd to say that a harmony is at odds with itself, or that it's still made up of things at odds with each other. What he probably meant was this: that out of the high note and the low note, which were at odds at first, harmony is produced once the art of music brings them into agreement afterward. Surely there could be no harmony while the high and low notes were still at odds with one another; harmony is a kind of concord, and concord is a form of agreement, and agreement between things still at odds with each other is impossible so long as they remain at odds. And a thing that is discordant and out of agreement cannot be harmonized. It's the same with rhythm: it comes from fast and slow, which were at variance at first and are brought into agreement afterward. And in all these cases it's music that installs the agreement, just as medicine does in its own sphere, by producing love and concord between the opposed elements. So music too is a kind of knowledge of the erotic matters that concern harmony and rhythm. In the actual arrangement of harmony and rhythm themselves there's nothing hard about recognizing the erotic principles at work, and the double love hasn't yet appeared there. But when it comes to using rhythm and harmony on human beings — whether in composing, which people call songwriting, or in the correct use of already-composed melodies and meters, which is called education — then it becomes difficult, and calls for a skilled craftsman. And here we come back to the same point: that one must gratify and safeguard the love belonging to the orderly people, and to those not yet orderly insofar as it will help them become so — and that is the beautiful love, the heavenly one, the Love of the Heavenly Muse. But the love of Polyhymnia is the common one, which must be offered cautiously to whomever it's offered, so as to reap its pleasure without producing any excess — just as in our own art it's a great task to make good use of the appetites connected with the culinary art, so as to enjoy the pleasure of it without disease.

So in music, in medicine, and in everything else, both human and divine, so far as it's possible, one must guard against both forms of love, since both are present in all these things. Even the arrangement of the seasons of the year is full of both of them. Whenever the elements I was just describing — the hot and the cold, the dry and the wet — meet each other under the orderly love, and take on a moderate harmony and blending, they arrive bringing good weather and health to human beings and to the other animals and plants, and do no harm. But whenever the love that goes with excess gets the upper hand in the seasons of the year, it destroys much and does much harm. For plagues tend to arise from such things, and many other irregular diseases afflict both animals and plants; and frosts, hailstorms, and blights come from the excess and disorder of these erotic elements in their relations with one another — and the knowledge of these things, as they concern the movements of the stars and the seasons of the year, is called astronomy. Furthermore, all the sacrifices and everything that the art of divination oversees — and this is the whole area of dealings between gods and human beings — concern nothing other than the guarding and healing of Love. For all impiety tends to arise when someone fails to gratify the orderly Love, or to honor and give him first place in everything he does, and instead honors the other one, whether in matters concerning parents, living or dead, or concerning the gods. It's the task assigned to divination to keep watch over lovers in these matters and to heal them, and divination is, in turn, the craftsman of friendship between gods and human beings, through its knowledge of the erotic affairs of human beings that bear on right and piety. So great and so vast — indeed practically total — is the power that Love as a whole possesses; but the love that is directed toward good things and is brought to completion with moderation and justice, both among us and among the gods, has the greatest power of all, and provides us with our whole happiness, making us able to associate with one another and be friends, and even to be dear to the gods who are stronger than we are. Now I too, perhaps, in praising love, am leaving a great deal out — though not willingly. But if I've left anything out, it's your job, Aristophanes, to fill it in. Or if you have some other approach in mind for praising the god, go ahead and praise him, now that you've gotten over your hiccups.

At this point, he said, Aristophanes took over and said that yes, they had indeed stopped, though not before the sneezing had been applied to them — so that I'm amazed, he said, that the orderly part of the body should crave such noises and ticklings as sneezing produces. In any case, it stopped right away, as soon as I applied the sneeze to it. And Eryximachus said, My good Aristophanes, watch what you're doing. You're making jokes just as you're about to speak, and you're forcing me to stand guard over your speech, in case you say something laughable, when you could be speaking in peace. And Aristophanes laughed and said, You're right, Eryximachus — consider everything I've said unsaid. But don't stand guard over me, since what I'm afraid of in what I'm about to say isn't that I'll say something laughable — that would actually be a gain, and right at home with our Muse — but that I'll say something absurd. You think you can throw the ball and dodge it, Aristophanes, he said; but pay attention, and speak as though you'll have to give an account of it. Perhaps, though, if I see fit, I'll let you off. Well, Eryximachus, said Aristophanes, I do intend to speak along rather different lines from the ones you and Pausanias took. It seems to me that people have entirely failed to perceive the power of Love; for if they perceived it, they would have built him the grandest temples and altars, and would be offering him the greatest sacrifices — not as things stand now, when none of this happens for him, though it's more than anything else that ought to happen. For he is the most human-loving of the gods, a helper of human beings and a healer of those ills whose cure would bring the greatest happiness to the human race. So I will try to explain his power to you, and you can go be teachers of it to everyone else. But first you need to learn about human nature and what has happened to it. Our nature long ago was not what it is now, but was of a different kind. In the first place, there were three sexes of human beings, not two as there are now — male and female — but a third besides, which combined both of these; its name still survives, though the thing itself has vanished. There was once a being called androgynous, one in both form and name, combining male and female; but now it exists only as a term of abuse.

In the second place, the shape of each human being was completely round, with back and sides forming a circle; they had four hands, and legs to match the hands, and two faces, exactly alike, on a rounded neck; one head for the two faces, which were set opposite each other; four ears, two sets of genitals, and everything else to match, as you might imagine from this. They walked upright, as we do now, in whichever direction they chose; and whenever they needed to run fast, they moved the way tumblers do, flinging their legs up and spinning around — except that they had eight limbs to push off with, so they went rolling along quickly in a circle. The reason there were three sexes, and of this kind, is that the male was originally an offspring of the sun, the female of the earth, and the one that combined both was an offspring of the moon, since the moon too shares in both sun and earth. They were round, and their motion was rolling, because they resembled their parents. They were tremendous in strength and power, and had great ambitions, and they made an attempt on the gods; what Homer says about Ephialtes and Otus is said of them — that they tried to climb up into heaven, meaning to attack the gods. So Zeus and the other gods took counsel about what they should do with them, and were at a loss; they couldn't bring themselves to kill them and wipe out the race with thunderbolts, as they had done with the Giants — for that would mean losing the honors and sacrifices they received from human beings — and yet they couldn't let them go on behaving so outrageously. At last Zeus, thinking hard, said: I believe I have a plan by which human beings can continue to exist, yet stop their unruly behavior, by being made weaker. I will now, he said, cut each of them in two; this will make them weaker, and at the same time more useful to us, because there will be more of them; and they will walk upright on two legs. And if they still seem to behave outrageously and won't keep quiet, I'll cut them in two again, so they'll have to hop along on one leg. Having said this, he cut human beings in two, the way people slice sorb-apples before pickling them, or the way you'd cut an egg with a hair. And whenever he cut someone, he ordered Apollo to turn the face and the half of the neck around toward the cut, so that the person, seeing his own incision, would become more orderly, and to heal the rest.

So Apollo turned the face around, and pulling the skin together from all sides over what is now called the belly — like a purse drawn tight with a string — he tied off a single opening at the middle of the belly, which is what we now call the navel. He smoothed out most of the other wrinkles and shaped the chest with a tool something like the one shoemakers use to smooth wrinkles out of leather on a last; but he left a few wrinkles, the ones around the belly and the navel itself, as a reminder of the ancient experience. Now once our nature had been cut in two, each half, longing for its own other half, would come together with it; and throwing their arms around each other and tangling themselves together, desperate to grow into one, they began to die of hunger and general inactivity, because neither would do anything apart from the other. And whenever one of the halves died and the other was left, the one left behind would search for another and tangle itself together with that one, whether it happened to meet the half of a whole woman — what we now call a woman — or the half of a man; and so they kept perishing. But Zeus took pity on them and came up with another plan: he moved their genitals around to the front — for until then these too had been on the outside, and they had begotten and given birth not into one another but into the ground, the way cicadas do. So he moved these organs around to the front, and by this means made it possible for them to breed with one another, through the male in the female, for the following reasons: so that in the embrace, if a man met with a woman, they might beget and the race continue; but also so that if male met with male, there might at least be satisfaction in their being together, after which they could rest, turn to their work, and attend to the rest of life. This, then, is the source from which the desire of human beings for one another has been implanted in us since so long ago, drawing our original nature back together, trying to make one out of two, and to heal human nature. Each of us, then, is a mere token of a human being, since each has been sliced in two like a flatfish, cut from one into two; and each of us is forever seeking the token that matches him. All those men who are cut from that combined sex, then called androgynous, are drawn to women, and most adulterers come from this kind; and likewise all the women drawn to men and given to adultery come from this kind. But those women who are cut from an original woman pay hardly any attention to men, being drawn instead to women, and the women who love other women come from this kind.

But those who are a slice of the male pursue males. While they are boys, being little cuts of the male, they love men and delight in lying beside them and being wrapped in their arms — and these are the best of boys and young men, because they are by nature the most manly. Some people call them shameless, but that is a lie: they do this not out of shamelessness but out of boldness and courage and manliness, welcoming what is like themselves. And here is strong proof: when they grow up, it is men of this sort, and only they, who turn out fit for public life. When they reach manhood they are lovers of boys, and by nature take no interest in marriage or fathering children, though the law compels them to it; they would be content to live out their lives with one another, unmarried. Such a man, then, always becomes a lover of boys or a lover of his lover, always embracing what is kin to him. And whenever one of them — the boy-lover or anyone else — happens upon his own actual half, then the pair are struck with amazement, with affection and belonging and desire, and they hardly want to be parted from each other for even a moment. These are the ones who stay together their whole lives through, and yet they could not even say what it is they want from one another. No one could suppose it is merely the partnership of sex — that this is why each takes such immense delight in the other's company. No: the soul of each is clearly longing for something else, something it cannot name; it can only divine what it wants, and hint at it in riddles. And suppose, as they lay together, Hephaestus stood over them with his tools and asked: 'What is it, you two, that you want from each other?' And when they could not answer, suppose he asked again: 'Is this what you long for — to be joined together so completely that day and night you never leave each other's side? If that is your desire, I am willing to melt you down and weld you into one, so that from two you become one, and as long as you live you live a single life in common, as one being, and when you die, you die a single death, one instead of two, together even in Hades. Look into yourselves: is this what you love? Would this satisfy you, if you could have it?' We know that on hearing this not a single one would refuse, or show any sign of wanting anything else. Each would think he had heard, at last, the very thing he had longed for all along: to come together and be fused with his beloved, and from two to become one.

And the reason is this: this was our original nature, and we were whole. So the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole is love. Before this, as I say, we were one; but now, because of our wrongdoing, the god has scattered us into separate dwellings, as the Arcadians were scattered by the Spartans. And there is reason to fear that if we do not behave decently toward the gods, we may be split yet again, and go about like the figures carved in profile on grave-reliefs, sawn straight down the nose, turned into something like half-dice tokens. For these reasons every man should urge every other to piety toward the gods, so that we may escape the one fate and win the other, with Love as our leader and general. Let no one act against him — and whoever makes himself hateful to the gods does act against him — for if we become the god's friends and are reconciled to him, we shall find and meet the beloveds who are truly our own, which few men nowadays manage to do. And let Eryximachus not interrupt me and turn my speech into comedy, as if I meant Pausanias and Agathon — though perhaps they really do belong to that class, both being male by nature. I am speaking about everyone, men and women alike: our race would become happy if we brought love to fulfillment and each of us found his own beloved and returned to his original nature. And if that is the best thing, then necessarily the best thing available in our present condition is what comes nearest to it: to find a beloved whose nature answers to one's own mind. And if we would hymn the god responsible for this, we would rightly hymn Love, who in the present does us the greatest service by leading us toward what is our own, and for the future offers us the greatest hopes: that if we render piety to the gods, he will restore us to our original nature, heal us, and make us blessed and happy. There, Eryximachus, is my speech about Love — a different sort from yours. So, as I begged you, don't make a comedy of it; let us hear what each of the rest will say — or rather each of the remaining two, since Agathon and Socrates are left. Well, I'll do as you say, Eryximachus said; in fact I enjoyed your speech. And if I did not know that Socrates and Agathon were masters in matters of love, I would be very much afraid they might be at a loss for words, so much and so varied is what has already been said. As it is, I have every confidence.

Then Socrates said: You fought your own round well, Eryximachus; but if you were where I am now — or rather where I will be when Agathon too has spoken well — you would be thoroughly frightened and at your wits' end, just as I am now. You want to put a spell on me, Socrates, said Agathon, so that I get flustered thinking the audience holds great expectations of my speaking well. I would have a poor memory indeed, Agathon, said Socrates, if — after seeing your courage and composure as you mounted the platform with your actors and faced that enormous audience, about to present your own words, without the slightest sign of panic — I now supposed you would be flustered on account of the few of us here. What, Socrates? said Agathon. Surely you don't think me so stuffed with theater that I don't know a few men of sense are more frightening, to anyone with a mind, than a crowd of fools? No, Agathon, he said, it would be wrong of me to think anything boorish about you. I know quite well that if you met people you considered wise, you would care more for them than for the many. But I doubt we are those people — after all, we were there too, we were part of that crowd. Still, if you met other people who were wise, you would probably feel shame before them if you thought you were doing something shameful. Is that what you mean? That's true, he said. But before the many you would feel no shame, if you thought you were doing something shameful? At that point Phaedrus broke in, he said: My dear Agathon, if you answer Socrates, it will no longer matter to him in the least how anything else here turns out, so long as he has someone to converse with — especially someone beautiful. Now, I enjoy hearing Socrates converse, but it is my duty to look after the encomium to Love and to collect a speech from each one of you. Pay the god his due, each of you, and then converse all you like. You're right, Phaedrus, said Agathon, and there's nothing to stop me speaking; there will be plenty of other chances to converse with Socrates.

I want first to say how I ought to speak, and then to speak. All the previous speakers, it seems to me, have not been praising the god, but congratulating human beings on the good things the god causes for them; what sort of being he himself is, who gave these gifts, no one has said. Yet there is one right method for any praise of anything: to set out in words what sort of being the subject is, and what sort of things he causes. That is how we too ought rightly to praise Love: first what he is, then what he gives. I say, then, that of all the gods — blessed as they all are — Love, if one may say so without offense, is the most blessed, being the most beautiful and the best. He is most beautiful in this way. First, Phaedrus, he is the youngest of the gods. He supplies strong proof of this claim himself: he flees old age in headlong flight — and old age is fast, obviously; at any rate it comes at us faster than it should. Love by nature hates old age and will not come within long range of it. With the young he always keeps company, and young he is; the old saying has it right, that like always draws near to like. And though I agree with Phaedrus on many other points, I do not agree with this one, that Love is older than Kronos and Iapetos. I say he is the youngest of the gods and forever young, and that those ancient dealings among the gods which Hesiod and Parmenides recount happened under Necessity, not Love — if those poets were telling the truth. For there would have been no castrations or chainings of one another, nor all those other violences, if Love had been among them, but friendship and peace, as there is now, ever since Love has been king of the gods. So he is young — and besides being young, he is tender; though it would take a poet like Homer to display a god's tenderness. Homer says that Ate is a god and tender — her feet, at any rate, are tender — when he says: tender indeed are her feet: not on the ground does she set them, but upon the heads of men she walks. A fine piece of evidence, I think, for showing her tenderness: that she walks not on what is hard but on what is soft. We shall use the same evidence about Love, to show he is tender. He walks not upon the earth, nor upon skulls — which are none too soft — but in the softest things that exist he both walks and dwells. For he has set up house in the characters and souls of gods and men; and not, moreover, in all souls without exception — when he meets a soul with a hard character he departs, and where the character is soft, he settles in.

Since, then, he is always touching, with his feet and every part of him, the softest parts of the softest things, he must be supremely tender. So he is youngest and tenderest — and besides these, supple in form. If he were rigid he could not fold himself around us on every side, nor pass unnoticed through every soul as he enters and leaves. Strong proof of his well-proportioned and supple figure is his gracefulness, which by universal agreement Love possesses beyond all others; between gracelessness and Love there is perpetual war. The god's beauty of complexion is shown by his living among flowers: where there is no bloom, or the bloom has faded — in body, in soul, in anything whatever — Love will not settle; but wherever a spot is flowery and fragrant, there he settles and there he stays. About the god's beauty this is enough, though much still remains; after this we must speak of Love's virtue. The greatest point is that Love neither wrongs nor is wronged — not by a god, not against a god; not by a man, not against a man. He does not suffer by force, if he suffers at all, for force does not touch Love; nor does he act by force when he acts, since everyone serves Love in everything willingly — and whatever one willing party agrees with another willing party, the laws, those kings of the city, declare to be just. And beyond justice, he has the fullest share of moderation. Moderation is agreed to be mastery over pleasures and desires, and no pleasure is stronger than Love; so if they are weaker, they are mastered by Love, and he is master — and being master over pleasures and desires, Love would be moderate beyond all others. And as for courage, not even Ares can stand up to Love. For it is not Ares who holds Love, but Love who holds Ares — love for Aphrodite, so the story goes — and the one who holds is stronger than the one held; and mastering the most courageous of all the rest, he would be the most courageous of all. Now the god's justice, moderation, and courage have been spoken of; his wisdom remains — and one must try, as far as possible, to leave nothing out. First, so that I too may honor our art as Eryximachus honored his: the god is a poet so skilled that he can make a poet of another. At any rate everyone becomes a poet, however unmusical he was before, whom Love touches. This we may fittingly use as evidence that Love is a good poet, a maker, in short, of every kind of creation that belongs to the Muses; for what one does not have or does not know, one can neither give to another nor teach him.

And as for the making of all living things — who will deny that this is Love's wisdom, by which every animal comes into being and grows? And in the craftsman's arts, don't we know that whoever has this god for a teacher turns out famous and brilliant, while whoever Love never touches stays in the dark? Archery, medicine, prophecy — Apollo discovered them all with desire and love leading the way, so he too must count as Love's pupil; and so with the Muses in music, Hephaestus in metalwork, Athena in weaving, and Zeus in steering gods and men alike. That is why the affairs of the gods were set in order once Love was born among them — love of beauty, obviously, since Love has nothing to do with ugliness. Before that, as I said at the start, all sorts of terrible things happened among the gods, so the story goes, under the reign of Necessity. But once this god was born, from loving beautiful things every good thing has come, for gods and for human beings. So it seems to me, Phaedrus, that Love is first himself the most beautiful and the best, and after that the cause of the same qualities in others. And I feel moved to put something in verse — that he is the one who makes peace among men, and on the open sea a windless calm; who lays the winds to bed and gives sleep to the troubled. He is the one who empties us of estrangement and fills us with belonging; who brings us together in every gathering like this one, taking the lead at festivals, at dances, at sacrifices. He supplies gentleness and banishes savagery. Generous with goodwill, stingy with ill will. Gracious, kind; a sight for the wise, a wonder to the gods; envied by those who lack him, treasured by those who have him; father of luxury, delicacy, elegance, of graces and longing and desire; careful of the good, careless of the bad; in hardship, in fear, in longing, in speech the finest steersman, shipmate, comrade-in-arms, and rescuer; the ornament of all gods and men together, the leader most beautiful and best, whom every man should follow, singing his praises beautifully, joining in the song he sings as he charms the mind of every god and every human being. There, Phaedrus, he said — let that speech of mine be dedicated to the god, part playfulness, part measured seriousness, as far as my powers allow.

When Agathon finished, Aristodemus said, everyone present burst into applause — the young man had spoken in a way worthy of himself and of the god. Then Socrates looked at Eryximachus and said, Well, son of Acumenus, do you still think the fear I've been fearing was groundless? Wasn't I a prophet when I said just now that Agathon would speak marvelously and I would be stuck for words? On one point, said Eryximachus, I grant you spoke like a prophet — Agathon did speak well. But that you'll be stuck? I doubt it. My dear man, said Socrates, how could I not be stuck — how could anyone not be — having to speak after a speech so beautiful and so rich? The rest of it was not all equally astonishing, but that ending — who could hear the beauty of those words and phrases and not be struck dumb? For my part, when I realized I wouldn't be able to say anything even close to that beautiful, I nearly ran off in shame — I would have, if I'd had anywhere to go. The speech kept reminding me of Gorgias, so that I found myself in exactly Homer's predicament: I was terrified that Agathon would end by sending the head of Gorgias, that terror of a speaker, against my speech, and turn me to stone, speechless. And then I realized what a fool I'd been when I agreed to take my turn with you in praising Love and claimed to be an expert in matters of love — knowing nothing, as it turns out, about the business, about how anything ought to be praised. In my stupidity, I thought you should tell the truth about whatever is being praised; that this was the foundation, and from these truths you'd pick out the most beautiful points and arrange them as attractively as possible. And I was quite proud of myself, sure I'd speak well, since I knew the truth about praising anything. But apparently that's not what fine praising is at all. Apparently it's ascribing to the thing the greatest and most beautiful qualities you can, whether it actually has them or not — and if it's all false, no matter. The proposal, it seems, was that each of us should appear to praise Love, not that we should actually praise him.

That, I suppose, is why you rake up every possible claim and attribute it to Love, and declare him to be such-and-such and the cause of so much — to make him appear as beautiful and as good as possible, obviously to people who don't know him (surely not to those who do); and the praise sounds fine and impressive. But I, it turns out, didn't know this style of praising, and it was in my ignorance that I agreed to take my turn at praise. The tongue promised; the mind did not. So goodbye to all that. I am not going to give an encomium that way — I couldn't. But the truth — if you like, I'm willing to tell the truth, in my own fashion, not in competition with your speeches, or I'd only make myself ridiculous. So decide, Phaedrus, whether there's any use for a speech like that — hearing the truth told about Love, in whatever words and arrangement of phrases happen to come. Phaedrus and the others, he said, urged him to speak in whatever way he himself thought best. Then one more thing, Phaedrus, he said: let me ask Agathon a few small questions, so that I can get his agreement first and then speak on that basis. You have my leave, said Phaedrus; ask away. After that, he said, Socrates began from roughly this point. Truly, my dear Agathon, I thought you opened your speech beautifully when you said one should first show what sort of being Love is, and afterward his works. I admire that beginning very much. So come — since you described everything else about what Love is so beautifully and magnificently, tell me this too: is Love such as to be love of something, or of nothing? I'm not asking whether he is the love of some mother or father — the question whether Love is love of a mother or father would be absurd — but as if I were asking about the very word father: is a father the father of something, or not? You would tell me, presumably, if you wanted to answer properly, that a father is father of a son or a daughter. Wouldn't you? Certainly, said Agathon. And the same for a mother? He agreed to that too. Then answer a little more, said Socrates, so you'll see better what I'm after. Suppose I asked: what about a brother — just insofar as he is a brother — is he a brother of someone, or not? He said he is. Of a brother or a sister, then? He agreed. Now try to say the same about love, said Socrates. Is Love love of nothing, or of something? Of something, certainly.

Well then, said Socrates, keep that safe in your mind — remember what it's of. For now just tell me this: does Love desire the thing he is love of, or not? Certainly, he said. And does he desire and love it while having the very thing he desires and loves, or while not having it? Not having it, he said — most likely. Then consider, said Socrates, whether instead of merely likely it isn't necessary: that what desires, desires what it lacks, and doesn't desire unless it lacks. To me, Agathon, it seems astonishingly clear that it's necessary. What do you think? I think so too, he said. Well said. Now, would anyone who is tall want to be tall, or anyone strong want to be strong? Impossible, from what we've agreed. Because the one who already is those things can't be lacking them. True. For if someone strong wanted to be strong, said Socrates, and someone fast to be fast, and someone healthy to be healthy — since one might perhaps suppose, in these and all such cases, that people who are like this and have these qualities also desire the very things they have, and I say this so we won't be misled — if you think about it, Agathon, these people necessarily have, at the present moment, each of the things they have, whether they want to or not; and who would desire that? But when someone says, I am healthy and I also want to be healthy, I am rich and I also want to be rich, and I desire the very things I have, we would tell him: What you mean, my friend, is that having acquired wealth and health and strength, you want to go on possessing them into the future — since in the present, whether you want to or not, you have them. So when you say, I desire what I already have, consider whether you mean anything but this: I want what is now present to me to remain present in the future as well. He'd have to agree, wouldn't he? Agathon said yes. So then, said Socrates, isn't that loving the thing that isn't yet ready to hand for him, the thing he doesn't have — namely, that these things be preserved for him and present in time to come? Certainly, he said. So this man, and everyone else who desires, desires what isn't ready to hand and isn't present; what he doesn't have, what he himself isn't, what he lacks — these are the sorts of things desire and love are of? Absolutely, he said. Come then, said Socrates, let's sum up what's been said. Love is, first, of certain things; and second, of whatever things he currently lacks. Isn't that so?

Yes, he said. Now, with that settled, remember what things you said Love is love of, in your speech. Or if you like, I'll remind you. I believe you said something like this: that the affairs of the gods were set in order through love of beautiful things — for there could be no love of ugly ones. Wasn't that roughly what you said? I did say it, said Agathon. And a fair thing to say, my friend, said Socrates. And if that's so, Love would be love of beauty, and not of ugliness? He agreed. Now, we agreed that he loves what he lacks and doesn't have? Yes, he said. Then Love lacks beauty and doesn't have it. Necessarily, he said. Well then: what lacks beauty and possesses no beauty at all — do you call that beautiful? Certainly not. Then do you still maintain that Love is beautiful, if all this is so? And Agathon said, I'm afraid, Socrates, I knew nothing of what I was talking about. And yet you spoke beautifully, Agathon, he said. But one small thing more: don't you think good things are also beautiful? I do. Then if Love lacks beautiful things, and good things are beautiful, he would lack good things too. Socrates, he said, I can't argue with you. Let it be as you say. No, dear Agathon, he said — it's the truth you can't argue with; arguing with Socrates is easy enough. And now I'll let you go. Instead, the account of Love that I once heard from a woman of Mantinea, Diotima — wise in this and in many other things; she once got the Athenians, when they made their sacrifices before the plague, a ten-year postponement of the disease; and she is the one who taught me the ways of love — the account she gave, I'll try to go through for you on my own, starting from what Agathon and I have agreed, as best I can. As you laid it out, Agathon, one must first describe Love himself — who he is and what he's like — and then his works. I think it's easiest to go through it the way the stranger once went through it with me, questioning me as she went. For I was saying to her pretty much the same sorts of things Agathon was saying to me just now: that Love is a great god, and that he is love of beautiful things. And she refuted me with the very arguments I used on him — showing that by my own account Love is neither beautiful nor good. And I said, What do you mean, Diotima? Is Love ugly, then, and bad? And she said, Watch your tongue! Do you really think that whatever isn't beautiful must be ugly?

"Certainly. And can something be ignorant without being wise—wait, haven't you noticed there's something in between wisdom and ignorance?" "What's that?" "Having a correct opinion without being able to give a reasoned account of it. Don't you see that this is neither knowledge—for how could something without a reasoned account be knowledge?—nor ignorance—for how could something that hits on what's true be ignorance? Correct opinion is surely something of this sort, between understanding and ignorance." "What you say is true," I said. "Then don't force what isn't beautiful to be ugly, or what isn't good to be bad. And likewise with Love—since you yourself admit he isn't good or beautiful, don't think for that reason he must be ugly and bad, but rather something in between the two." "And yet," I said, "everyone agrees he's a great god." "Everyone who doesn't know, you mean, or everyone including those who do know?" "All of them together." And she laughed and said, "How could it be agreed, Socrates, that he's a great god, by people who say he isn't even a god at all?" "Who are these people?" I asked. "You're one," she said, "and I'm another." "How do you mean?" I said. "Easily," she said. "Tell me—don't you say all gods are happy and beautiful? Or would you dare say any god is not beautiful and happy?" "By Zeus, not I," I said. "And by happy you mean those who possess what's good and beautiful?" "Certainly." "But you've admitted that Love, for lack of good and beautiful things, desires the very things he lacks." "I have." "Then how could he be a god, if he has no share in what's good and beautiful?" "He couldn't, it seems." "So you see," she said, "that you too don't think Love is a god." "Then what could Love be?" I asked. "Mortal?" "Far from it." "Then what?" "As before, something between mortal and immortal." "What is that, Diotima?" "A great spirit, Socrates—for everything spiritual is between god and mortal." "With what power?" I asked. "Interpreting and ferrying between gods and men what comes from each—from men their prayers and sacrifices, from the gods their commands and the returns due for sacrifices—and being in the middle of both, it fills up the space between, so that the whole is bound together with itself.

"Through this power all divination proceeds, and the whole art of priests concerned with sacrifices, rites, incantations, every kind of prophecy and sorcery. God does not mix with man directly, but all the intercourse and conversation between gods and men, whether they're awake or asleep, happens through this power. And the man who is skilled in such matters is a man of spirit, while a man skilled in anything else—some craft or handiwork—is merely a workman. These spirits are many and of every kind, and Love is one of them." "And who are his father and mother?" I asked. "That's rather a long story," she said, "but I'll tell you anyway. When Aphrodite was born, the gods held a feast, and among them was Resource, the son of Cunning. When they had dined, Poverty came begging, as one does when there's a banquet going on, and stood by the doors. Now Resource, drunk on nectar—for there was no wine yet—went into the garden of Zeus and, heavy with drink, fell asleep. Poverty, scheming because of her own lack of means to get a child from Resource, lay down beside him and conceived Love. That's why Love became the follower and attendant of Aphrodite—he was born at her birthday feast, and he is also by nature a lover of beauty, since Aphrodite herself is beautiful. So, being the son of Resource and Poverty, Love finds himself in this condition. First, he's always poor, and far from being delicate and beautiful, as most people think—instead he's rough, unkempt, barefoot, homeless, always sleeping on the bare ground without a bed, lying in doorways and along roadsides under the open sky, having his mother's nature, always dwelling with need. But taking after his father, he schemes to get what's beautiful and good, being bold, impetuous, and intense, a formidable hunter, always weaving some new device, desiring understanding and resourceful in getting it, philosophizing his whole life long, a clever sorcerer, druggist, and sophist. He's not naturally immortal, nor mortal either, but on one and the same day he sometimes flourishes and lives, when he's resourceful, and sometimes he dies, but comes back to life again through his father's nature—yet whatever he gets always slips away, so that Love is never without means, nor ever rich, and he stands in between wisdom and ignorance as well.

"Here's how it stands. None of the gods pursue wisdom or desire to become wise—for they already are—nor does anyone else who is already wise pursue it. Nor, in turn, do the ignorant pursue wisdom or desire to become wise—for this is exactly what makes ignorance so difficult, that a person who is neither beautiful and good nor sensible seems to himself to be quite adequate. The one who doesn't think he's in need doesn't desire the thing he doesn't think he needs." "Then who are the ones who pursue wisdom, Diotima," I said, "if it's neither the wise nor the ignorant?" "That much is obvious even to a child," she said, "it's those in between the two—and Love would be among them. For wisdom is one of the most beautiful things, and Love is love directed at what's beautiful, so Love must necessarily be a lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom, he's between being wise and being ignorant. And the reason for this too lies in his birth: his father is wise and resourceful, his mother lacks wisdom and means. So that, dear Socrates, is the nature of this spirit. As for what you supposed Love to be, it's no wonder you were mistaken. From what you've said, I gather you supposed that the beloved was Love, not the one who loves—that's why I think Love seemed to you altogether beautiful. For what is lovable is truly beautiful, delicate, perfect, and blessed—but what does the loving is a different sort of thing altogether, the sort I've just described." And I said, "Well then, stranger—for what you say is well said—if Love is such as you describe, what use is he to human beings?" "That, Socrates," she said, "is what I'll try to teach you next. Love is indeed of this nature and this birth, and he's directed at beautiful things, as you say. But suppose someone asked us: in what way, Socrates and Diotima, is Love directed at beautiful things? Or to put it more clearly: the lover loves beautiful things—but what does he want from them?" And I said that he wants them to become his own. "But that answer," she said, "still calls for a further question: what will happen to the man who gets the beautiful things he wants?" I said I wasn't at all ready to answer that question offhand. "Well," she said, "suppose someone changed the question, using 'good' instead of 'beautiful,' and asked: tell me, Socrates, the lover loves good things—but what does he want from them?" "To have them become his own," I said. "And what will happen to the man who gets the good things he wants?" "That one I can answer more readily," I said. "He'll be happy."

"Yes," she said, "the happy are happy by possessing good things, and there's no need to go on asking for what purpose someone wants to be happy—the answer seems to be final." "That's true," I said. "Now this wish, and this love—do you think it's common to all human beings, and that everyone wants good things to be theirs always, or how do you put it?" "Just that," I said, "it's common to everyone." "Then why, Socrates," she said, "don't we say that everyone loves, if indeed everyone loves the same things always—instead we say some people love and others don't?" "I wonder about that myself," I said. "Don't wonder," she said. "We take one particular form of love and call it by the name of the whole—'love'—while for the other forms we use other names." "Like what?" I said. "Like this. You know that poetry—poiesis—covers a great deal, since whatever is responsible for bringing anything at all out of not-being into being is a kind of making, so that all the productive work done under every craft is a kind of making, and all their practitioners are makers." "True." "And yet," she said, "you know they're not called makers, but have other names, and only one part singled out from the whole of making—the part concerned with music and verse—is called by the name of the whole. This alone is called poetry, and those who possess this part of making are called poets." "True," I said. "So it is with love as well. In the broadest sense, all desire for good things and for happiness is love, and it's the greatest and most seductive love there is, in everyone. But those who pursue it by other paths—through making money, or through devotion to athletics, or through philosophy—aren't said to be in love or called lovers, while those who go after it in one particular way, and are devoted to it, get the name of the whole: love, being in love, lovers." "You're probably right," I said. "There is a story told," she said, "that those who seek their other half are the ones who love. But my account says that love is not of a half, nor of a whole, unless, my friend, that half or whole happens to be good—since people are quite willing to have their own feet and hands cut off, if they think their own parts are diseased."

"For I don't think people cherish what's their own, unless someone means by 'his own' the good, and by 'not his own' the bad—since the only thing people love is the good. Or do you think otherwise?" "By Zeus, not I," I said. "Then can we simply say that people love the good?" "Yes," I said. "But shouldn't we add," she said, "that they love the good to be theirs?" "We should add that." "And not only that it be theirs," she said, "but that it be theirs forever?" "That too must be added." "In sum, then," she said, "love is of having the good be one's own forever." "What you say is entirely true," I said. "Since this, then, is always what love is," she said, "in what way, and in what activity, is the eagerness and intensity of those who pursue it to be called love? What exactly is this activity? Can you say?" "If I could," I said, "Diotima, I wouldn't be marveling at your wisdom and coming to you to learn just these things." "Well, I'll tell you," she said. "It is giving birth in beauty, both in body and in soul." "It would take a diviner than me," I said, "to know what you mean—I don't follow." "Then I'll put it more plainly," she said. "All human beings, Socrates, are pregnant both in body and in soul, and when we reach a certain age, our nature desires to give birth. It cannot give birth in what is ugly, only in what is beautiful. The union of a man and a woman is, after all, a kind of birth. This is something divine—this act of conceiving and begetting is an immortal thing present within a mortal creature. But it cannot occur in what is discordant. What is ugly is discordant with everything divine, while the beautiful is in harmony with it. So Beauty is a kind of Fate and Birth-goddess presiding over generation. That's why, when the pregnant thing draws near something beautiful, it becomes gracious, and melts with joy, and gives birth and begets; but when it draws near something ugly, it shrinks back, scowling and grieved, turns away and curls in on itself, and does not beget, but holds its burden painfully. That's why, in the one who is pregnant and already teeming, there's such intense excitement over beauty—because it releases the one who holds it from a great birth-pang. For Love, Socrates," she said, "is not, as you think, of the beautiful." "Then of what?" "Of begetting and bringing to birth in the beautiful." "Well," I said.

"Just so," she said. "So why birth? Because birth is the only way a mortal thing can share in perpetuity and immortality. And it follows from what we've agreed—that love is always love of possessing the good for oneself—that love must also be love of immortality, since it's love of the good." All this she taught me whenever she spoke about matters of love. And once she asked: "What do you suppose causes this love and desire, Socrates? Don't you notice the strange state every animal falls into when it wants to breed—land animals and birds alike—how sick with love they all become, first to mate with one another, then to feed what's born? The weakest creatures are ready to fight the strongest over this, ready to die for it, to starve themselves half to death so as to raise their young, and to do absolutely anything else. Humans, you might suppose, do this out of reasoning. But animals—what causes such a lovesick state in them? Can you say?" And I told her again that I didn't know. "Do you really expect," she said, "to become a master of love someday if you haven't worked this out?" "But that's exactly why I've come to you, Diotima, as I said before—because I know I need teachers. So tell me the cause of this, and of the other facts about love." "Well," she said, "if you believe that love is by nature love of what we've repeatedly agreed it loves, don't be surprised. Because here too, on the same principle, mortal nature seeks, as far as it can, to exist forever and be immortal. And it can do this only one way—through generation—since it always leaves behind something new in place of the old. Even in the time one single living thing is said to live and be itself—as a person is called the same from childhood to old age—that person, even though he never has the same things in himself, is nonetheless still called the same, though he's always becoming new and losing other parts: in hair, flesh, bones, blood, and his whole body. And it isn't just the body—in the soul too, habits, character, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears—none of these ever stay the same in any one person; some are coming into being while others are perishing."

"And stranger still than these is the case of knowledge itself—not only do some branches of knowledge come to be in us while others perish, so that we're never even the same with respect to what we know, but each single piece of knowledge undergoes the very same thing. What we call studying exists because knowledge is leaving us—forgetting is the departure of knowledge, and studying, by putting a fresh memory back in place of the one that's leaving, preserves the knowledge, so that it seems to be the same. It's in this way that everything mortal is preserved—not by staying completely and forever the same, as the divine does, but by what is departing and aging leaving behind something new, of the same kind as it was. By this device, Socrates," she said, "a mortal thing shares in immortality, both in body and in everything else—the immortal shares in it differently. So don't be surprised that everything by nature prizes its own offshoot—this eagerness, this love, exists in all things for the sake of immortality." Hearing this argument, I was amazed, and said, "Well now, wisest Diotima, is this really true?" And she, like a practiced sophist, said, "Be assured of it, Socrates. Just look at human ambition, if you want—you'd be amazed at its irrationality, unless you keep in mind what I've said, and consider how strangely people are affected by the desire to become famous and to lay up undying glory for all time. For this they're ready to run every risk, even more than for their children, to spend money, endure any hardship, and even die. Do you think Alcestis would have died for Admetus, or Achilles would have died along with Patroclus, or your own Codrus would have died before his time to preserve the kingship for his sons, if they hadn't expected to win an undying memory for their courage—the very memory we still hold of them? Far from it," she said. "I think everyone does everything for the sake of undying excellence and this kind of glorious reputation, and the better people are, the more they do it—for they are in love with immortality."

"Now those who are pregnant in body," she said, "turn more toward women, and are lovers in that way, providing themselves—as they suppose—with immortality, remembrance, and happiness for all future time through having children. But there are others who are pregnant in soul—for indeed," she said, "there are those whose souls are pregnant even more than their bodies, pregnant with what is fitting for a soul to conceive and bear. And what is fitting? Wisdom, and excellence in general. Of these the poets are all begetters, and so are all the craftsmen said to be inventive. But by far the greatest and most beautiful branch of wisdom," she said, "is the one concerned with the ordering of cities and households, which goes by the names moderation and justice. When someone has been pregnant in soul with these from youth, being still unmarried and of ripe age, and desires now to bear and beget, he too, I think, goes about seeking the beautiful thing in which he might beget—for he will never beget in what is ugly. So, being pregnant, he welcomes beautiful bodies rather than ugly ones, and if he also meets a soul that's beautiful, noble, and well-formed, he welcomes the combination eagerly, and for such a person he's immediately full of things to say about excellence, about what a good man ought to be and what he ought to practice, and he sets about educating him. For by being in contact with beauty, I think, and keeping company with it, he brings to birth what he had long been carrying, remembering it whether present or absent, and joins with that person in raising what has been born, so that people like this share a far greater bond with one another than parents share through children, and a firmer friendship, since they have shared in children more beautiful and more immortal. And everyone would rather have such children of his own than human ones, looking to Homer and Hesiod and the other good poets, and envying the kind of offspring they leave behind, which grant them undying fame and remembrance, being themselves of such a kind. Or, if you like," she said, "consider what children Lycurgus left behind in Sparta—saviors of Sparta, and virtually of all Greece. Solon too is honored among you for having fathered your laws, and so are many other men elsewhere, among both Greeks and non-Greeks, who have brought many fine achievements to light and begotten every kind of excellence. Temples have already been raised to many of them because of such children, but never yet because of human ones."

"These matters of love, Socrates, are perhaps ones into which even you could be initiated. But whether you're capable of the final, revealed mysteries, for whose sake these very things exist if one pursues them rightly, I don't know. I will tell you," she said, "and spare no eagerness—try to follow, if you can. The one who goes about this rightly must begin, while young, by going toward beautiful bodies, and first, if his guide leads him rightly, he should love one single body and there beget beautiful discourse. Next he must notice that the beauty found in any body whatever is akin to the beauty found in another, and that if he's to pursue beauty of form, it's great folly not to consider the beauty found in all bodies to be one and the same. Having grasped this, he must become a lover of all beautiful bodies, and relax the intensity of his passion for just one, thinking little of it. After this he must come to regard beauty in souls as more valuable than beauty in the body, so that if someone is decent in soul, even with little bloom of body, that's enough for him, and he'll love and cherish him, and beget discourses of the sort that make young people better, and seek them, so that he's forced in turn to gaze upon the beauty in practices and laws, and to see that this too is all akin to itself, so that he comes to regard bodily beauty as a small thing. After practices he must be led on to the branches of knowledge, so that he may see in turn the beauty of these, and looking now toward beauty in its vastness, may no longer be a slave, fixed like a servant on the beauty of one boy, one person, or one practice, mean and small-minded, but turned toward the great open sea of beauty, and gazing upon it, may give birth to many beautiful and magnificent discourses and thoughts in a philosophy without stint, until, having grown strong and full there, he catches sight of a single kind of knowledge, one of this sort—the knowledge of a beauty I'm about to describe. Try now," she said, "to pay me the closest attention you can."

"Whoever has been guided this far in matters of love, viewing beautiful things one after another and in the right order, will now, as he comes to the very end of the ascent, suddenly catch sight of something wonderfully beautiful in its nature—the very thing, Socrates, for whose sake all the earlier labors were undertaken. It is, first, eternal, neither coming to be nor perishing, neither growing nor diminishing; and next, not beautiful in one respect and ugly in another, nor beautiful at one time and not at another, nor beautiful in relation to one thing and ugly in relation to another, nor beautiful here and ugly there, as though it were beautiful to some and ugly to others. Nor again will this beauty appear to him in the shape of a face, or hands, or anything else the body partakes of, nor as any statement or piece of knowledge, nor as residing in anything else, such as in a living creature, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything at all, but itself by itself with itself, single in form forever, while all the other beautiful things share in it in such a way that, though they come to be and pass away, it becomes no greater or less, and undergoes nothing at all. Whenever someone, rising by right love of boys from these particulars, begins to catch sight of that beauty, he is nearly touching the goal. For this is what it means to go rightly toward matters of love, or to be led by another—beginning from these beautiful particulars and always climbing upward for the sake of that beauty, as though using rungs of a ladder, from one body to two, and from two to all beautiful bodies, and from beautiful bodies to beautiful practices, and from practices to beautiful branches of learning, until from these branches of learning one arrives at that final learning, which is learning of nothing other than that beauty itself, and comes to know, at last, what beauty itself is. This, dear Socrates," said the woman of Mantinea, "if anywhere, is the point in life where it is worth living for a human being, when he gazes upon beauty itself. If you ever see it, it will not seem to you to be on the level of gold, clothing, or beautiful boys and young men, the sight of whom now so overwhelms you and everyone else that you're ready, gazing at your beloved and staying always in his company, if it were somehow possible, to give up food and drink altogether, just to look at him and be with him. What then," she said, "do we imagine it would be like, if someone got to see the beautiful itself, unmixed, pure, unadulterated, not stuffed full of human flesh and colors and a great deal of other mortal nonsense, but able to see the divine beauty itself, single in its form?"

"Do you think," she said, "that a person's life is worthless when he looks toward that vision and beholds it in the way he should, and lives in its company? Don't you realize," she said, "that there, and only there, seeing beauty with the faculty that can see it, he will be able to bring to birth not images of virtue, since he is not grasping an image, but true virtue, since he grasps the truth? And to the one who gives birth to true virtue and nurtures it, it falls to become dear to the gods, and if any human being ever becomes immortal, it is he." This, then, Phaedrus and the rest of you, is what Diotima told me, and I am convinced of it. And being convinced, I try to persuade others too that for acquiring this good, human nature could not easily find a better partner than Eros. That is why I say every man should honor love, and why I myself honor the things of love and pursue them above everything else, and urge others to do the same, and why now and always I praise the power and courage of Eros as far as I am able. Take this speech, Phaedrus, if you like, as a formal tribute to love; or if you prefer to call it something else, call it whatever pleases you." When Socrates had finished, the others applauded, but Aristophanes tried to say something, since Socrates had mentioned him earlier in his speech. But just then there came a loud knocking at the courtyard door, as of revelers, and the sound of a flute-girl could be heard. "Go and see who it is," Agathon said to the slaves. "If it's one of our friends, invite him in; otherwise tell them we've stopped drinking and are already resting." Not long after, they heard Alcibiades' voice in the courtyard, very drunk and shouting loudly, asking where Agathon was and demanding to be taken to him. So the flute-girl and some of his other companions supported him and brought him in, and he appeared in the doorway crowned with a thick wreath of ivy and violets, with a great many ribbons on his head, and said: "Greetings, gentlemen. Will you take on a drinking companion who is thoroughly drunk, or should we just leave, once we've crowned Agathon, which is what we came for? I wasn't able to come yesterday," he said, "but now I'm here with these ribbons on my head, so that I can take them from my own head and bind them around the head of the wisest and most beautiful man here, if I may put it that way.

"Will you all laugh at me for being drunk? Well, laugh if you like—I still know perfectly well that I'm telling the truth. But tell me right now, on these terms: do I come in, or not? Will you drink with me, or won't you?" Everyone shouted out in encouragement and told him to come in and take a seat, and Agathon called him over personally. So he went in, led by his companions, and as he was undoing the ribbons to crown Agathon, they fell in front of his eyes so that he didn't notice Socrates, and he sat down next to Agathon, between him and Socrates—for Socrates had moved aside when he saw him coming. Sitting down beside Agathon, he embraced him and put the wreath on his head. "Slaves," said Agathon, "take off Alcibiades' sandals, so he can recline here as a third with us." "By all means," said Alcibiades, "but who is this third drinking companion of ours?" And as he turned around he saw Socrates, and on seeing him he jumped up and cried, "Heracles! What is this? Socrates! You were lying in wait for me here, just like you always do, suddenly turning up wherever I least expect you. And now why have you come? And why did you take this particular spot, instead of next to Aristophanes or someone else who's funny and wants to be, but managed to arrange it so you're reclining next to the most beautiful person in the room?" "Agathon," said Socrates, "see if you can defend me. Loving this man has become no small trouble for me. From the moment I fell in love with him, I haven't been allowed so much as to look at a handsome man or talk to one, or he flies into a jealous rage and makes an awful scene, hurling abuse and practically laying his hands on me. So watch that he doesn't do something now too—make peace between us, or if he tries to use force, protect me, because his lover's madness and possessiveness terrify me." "There will be no peace between you and me," said Alcibiades. "But I'll get you back for this some other time. For now, Agathon," he said, "give me some of those ribbons, so I can crown this remarkable head of his too, and he won't complain that I crowned you but failed to crown him—a man who defeats everyone in argument, not just once, the other day, the way you did, but always." And taking some of the ribbons, he crowned Socrates and settled down to recline. Once he was settled, he said: "Well now, gentlemen—you seem to me to be sober. That can't be allowed; you must drink, since that was our agreement. So I appoint myself master of the drinking, until you've all had enough. Agathon, have them bring me a large cup, if there is one."

"Actually, never mind, just bring me that wine-cooler," he said, once he'd spotted it holding more than eight kotylai. He had it filled and drained it himself first, then told them to pour for Socrates, saying as he did: "Against Socrates, gentlemen, my trick is useless—he'll drink however much you tell him to and never get any more drunk for it." So the slave poured for Socrates and he drank. Then Eryximachus said, "What are we doing, Alcibiades? Are we just going to drink like this, without a word said or a song sung over the cup, the way thirsty men do?" And Alcibiades replied, "Eryximachus, best son of the best and most temperate of fathers, greetings." "And to you as well," said Eryximachus. "But what should we do?" "Whatever you say. We ought to obey you—'a physician is worth many other men'—so give whatever order you like." "Listen, then," said Eryximachus. "Before you came in, we decided that each of us in turn, going around to the right, should give the best speech he could in praise of Eros. The rest of us have all spoken already. Since you haven't spoken, and you've had your drink, it's only fair that you speak now, and once you've spoken, you can set Socrates whatever task you like, and he can set one for the man on his right, and so around the circle." "That's all very well, Eryximachus," said Alcibiades, "but it's hardly fair to match a drunk man's speeches against sober men's. Besides, my dear fellow, surely Socrates hasn't talked you into believing what he just said? Don't you know the truth is the exact opposite of what he claimed? He's the one—if I praise anyone in his presence, god or man, other than himself, he won't keep his hands off me." "Watch your tongue," said Socrates. "By Poseidon," said Alcibiades, "don't try to stop me, since I wouldn't praise anyone else while you're here, not a single person." "Well, do that then, if you like," said Eryximachus. "Praise Socrates." "You mean it?" said Alcibiades. "You think I should, Eryximachus? Should I attack the man and get my revenge in front of you all?" "Here," said Socrates, "what have you got in mind? Are you going to praise me just to make me look ridiculous? Or what will you do?" "I'll tell the truth. See if you'll allow that." "Well, the truth, certainly—that I allow, and I insist on it." "Then I won't hold back," said Alcibiades. "And you do this for me."

"If I say anything untrue, stop me partway through if you like, and say that I'm lying there—because I won't lie on purpose. But if I jump from one thing to another as memories come to me, don't be surprised; it isn't easy for someone in my condition to list your peculiarities smoothly and in order. I'm going to try to praise Socrates, gentlemen, in this way: through images. He'll probably think I mean it to make him look ridiculous, but the image is for the sake of truth, not ridicule. I say he's most like those figures of Silenus you find sitting in the sculptors' shops, the ones the craftsmen make holding pipes or flutes, which open up in the middle to reveal images of the gods inside. And I also say he's like the satyr Marsyas. Now that you resemble them in appearance, Socrates, you surely won't dispute yourself—but hear how you resemble them in other ways too. You're an insolent fellow, aren't you? If you deny it, I'll produce witnesses. And aren't you a flute-player? Far more remarkable than Marsyas was. He used instruments to charm people through the power coming from his mouth, and so does anyone today who plays what he used to play—for what Olympus played, I mean, was taught to him by Marsyas—so whether it's a good flute-player or a poor flute-girl playing his tunes, they alone can possess people and reveal who needs the gods and their rites, because they are themselves something divine. You differ from him only in this: you do the very same thing with bare words, without any instrument. Whenever we hear anyone else speak, even a very good speaker, giving other speeches, it means practically nothing to any of us; but when someone hears you, or hears your words repeated by someone else, even if the speaker is quite poor, whether it's a woman listening, or a man, or a young boy, we're struck dumb and possessed. As for me, gentlemen, if I weren't afraid you'd think I was hopelessly drunk, I would swear to you and tell you what I myself have suffered from his words, and still suffer even now. When I listen to him my heart pounds far more than it does for the corybantic dancers, and tears pour out of me because of what he says—and I see a great many others experiencing the same thing. When I listened to Pericles and other fine speakers, I thought they spoke well, but I never felt anything like this—my soul was never thrown into turmoil, never indignant at being kept, as it were, in slavish subjection. But this Marsyas here has often put me in such a state that I've felt life wasn't worth living, the way I'm living it.

And you won't say this isn't true, Socrates. Even now I know within myself that if I were willing to lend him my ears, I couldn't hold out—I'd feel the very same thing all over again. He forces me to admit that though I'm sorely lacking myself, I still neglect myself and instead handle the affairs of Athens. So by force, as if from the Sirens, I stop up my ears and flee, so that I won't just sit there beside him and grow old. He's the only man alive who's made me feel something no one would think was in me—shame, in front of anyone at all. He's the only one I feel ashamed before. I know in myself that I have no way to argue that I shouldn't do what he tells me to do, and yet when I leave him, I'm overcome again by the honor the crowd gives me. So I run away from him and avoid him, and whenever I see him, I feel ashamed of what I've already admitted to be true. Many times I would gladly see him gone from among the living, and yet if that actually happened I know I'd be far more grieved—so I simply don't know what to do with this man. That's how his flute-playing has affected me and many others, this satyr's flute-playing. But hear something else from me, how well he matches the things I compared him to, and what astonishing power he has. Know well that none of you really understands him. But I'll show you, since I've started. You see how Socrates is disposed erotically toward beautiful people, and always around them, struck with wonder—and yet he knows nothing at all, understands nothing, or so he'd have you believe. Isn't this very pose of his exactly like Silenus? Absolutely. That's just the outer shell he wraps himself in, like the carved figure of Silenus—but open him up, and how full of moderation do you think you'll find him inside, fellow drinkers? Know this: it doesn't matter to him in the least whether someone is beautiful—he looks down on that to a degree no one would believe—nor whether someone is rich, nor whether he holds any of the other honors the crowd considers blessed. He regards all these possessions as worth nothing, and regards us as nothing too—I tell you plainly—and he spends his whole life playing at irony, making a game of people.

When he grew serious and opened up, I don't know if anyone has ever seen the figures inside him. I saw them once myself, and they struck me as so godlike, golden, so beautiful and astonishing, that whatever Socrates told me to do, I felt I simply had to do it. I assumed he was serious about my youthful looks, and I thought it was a windfall, an amazing stroke of luck for me -- that by gratifying Socrates I'd get to hear everything he knew, since I was tremendously proud of my looks at the time. So with that plan in mind, I stopped doing what I'd always done before, which was never to be alone with him without an attendant present -- now I sent the attendant away and met with him alone. I have to tell you the whole truth, so pay attention, and if I'm lying, Socrates, call me out. I met with him, gentlemen, alone with him alone, and I expected he'd immediately start talking to me the way a lover talks to his beloved when they're by themselves, and I was thrilled. But none of that happened at all -- he'd just talk with me the way he always did, spend the day with me, and then leave. After that I invited him to work out with me at the gym, and we trained together, thinking something might come of it that way. So he worked out with me and even wrestled with me, often with no one else around -- but why go on? Nothing came of it. Since I wasn't getting anywhere that way, I decided I had to go after the man more forcefully and not let up, now that I'd started -- I had to find out once and for all what this was about. So I invited him to dinner, exactly like a lover scheming against his beloved. He didn't even agree to that quickly, but eventually I talked him into it. The first time he came, he wanted to eat and leave right after. That time I was too embarrassed to stop him. But I tried again -- after we'd eaten, I kept the conversation going late into the night, and when he wanted to leave, I claimed it was too late and forced him to stay. So he lay down to rest on the couch next to mine, the one where he'd had dinner, and no one else was sleeping in the room but the two of us. Up to this point in my story, it would be fine to tell it to anyone at all. But what comes next you wouldn't have heard from me if it weren't true, first, as the saying goes, that wine -- with or without children present -- speaks the truth, and second, because it seems unjust to me to hide away an act of Socrates' extraordinary pride once I've started praising him.

And besides, I feel the way someone bitten by a snake feels. They say a man who's suffered that won't describe what it was like except to others who've been bitten too, since only they will understand and forgive him for anything he dared do or say because of the pain. Well, I've been bitten by something more painful, and in the most painful place anyone can be bitten -- struck and bitten in the heart, or the soul, or whatever you want to call it, by the words of philosophy, which grip harder than any snake once they take hold of a young soul with some natural gift, and make it do and say anything at all. And I look around and see Phaedruses, Agathons, Eryximachuses, Pausaniases, Aristodemuses, and Aristophaneses here -- not to mention Socrates himself, and everyone else. All of you have shared in this philosophic madness, this Bacchic frenzy -- which is why you'll all listen; you'll forgive both what was done back then and what's being said now. But you slaves, and anyone else who's uninitiated and coarse, shut great big doors over your ears. Once the lamp had gone out, gentlemen, and the slaves had left, I decided there was no point being clever with him -- I'd just say freely what I had in mind. So I shook him and said, 'Socrates, are you asleep?' 'Not at all,' he said. 'Do you know what I've decided?' 'What exactly?' he said. 'I think,' I said, 'that you're the only lover who's ever been worthy of me, and you seem to be holding back from mentioning it to me. Here's how I feel about it: I think it would be completely foolish of me not to grant you this favor, or anything else you might need from my property or my friends. Nothing matters more to me than becoming as good as possible, and I don't think anyone could help me toward that more than you. I'd be far more ashamed in front of sensible people for not granting a favor to a man like you than I would be in front of the masses and the foolish for granting it.' Hearing this, he answered in that thoroughly ironic way of his, so typical of him: 'My dear Alcibiades, you may really turn out not to be worthless, if what you say about me happens to be true, and there really is some power in me that could make you better. You must be seeing an impossible kind of beauty in me, one very different from the good looks you have.

'Now, if you've noticed that and you're trying to strike a deal with me, exchanging beauty for beauty, you're planning to get a lot more than your share out of me -- you're trying to get true beauty in exchange for its mere appearance, and really planning to trade bronze for gold. But look more carefully, my blessed friend, so I don't slip past you as being worth nothing. The mind's sight starts to see clearly only when the eyes' sharpness begins to fade, and you're still a long way from that.' Hearing this, I said, 'Well, that's my side of things, and none of it was said any way other than how I actually think. Now it's up to you to decide what's best for both of us.' 'Well,' he said, 'that's a good point -- in the time to come, we'll think it over and do whatever seems best to us both, about this and everything else.' So after this exchange, having said my piece and let fly what I thought were arrows, I figured I'd wounded him. I got up, and without even letting him say another word, I wrapped my own cloak around him -- it was winter -- lay down under his worn coat, threw my arms around this truly superhuman and remarkable man, and spent the whole night lying there like that. And you won't say I'm lying about this either, Socrates. But after I'd done all that, he got the better of me so completely that he scorned and mocked my youthful beauty and treated it with contempt -- and that beauty was the one thing I thought I had going for me, gentlemen of the jury (yes, you're the jury judging Socrates' arrogance). Know this well, by the gods and goddesses: I got up from sleeping with Socrates having experienced nothing more than if I'd slept beside my own father or older brother. What do you suppose my state of mind was after that, feeling that I'd been insulted, yet admiring his nature, his self-control, his courage, having met a man the likes of whom I never thought I'd encounter, for wisdom and endurance? So I couldn't bring myself to be angry with him and cut myself off from his company, nor could I find a way to win him over. I knew very well that he was far harder to wound with money than Ajax was with iron, and the one weapon I thought would surely catch him had failed me. So I was at a loss, enslaved by this man as no one has ever been enslaved by anyone else. All this had already happened to me, and after it we were sent together on campaign to Potidaea, and we messed together there.

First of all, in enduring hardship he wasn't just better than me, he was better than everyone -- whenever we were cut off somewhere and forced to go without food, as happens on campaign, the rest of us were nothing compared to him for holding out. And then again at feasts, he was the only one able to enjoy himself properly, and though he didn't care to drink, whenever he was forced to, he outdrank everyone -- and most amazing of all, no one has ever seen Socrates drunk. I think you'll get proof of that soon enough. And when it came to enduring the winter -- the winters there are fierce -- he did astonishing things, and once, when there was a frost as bad as could be, and everyone either stayed inside or, if they went out, wrapped themselves up in unbelievable amounts of clothing and shoes, wound their feet in felt and sheepskins, he went out among them wearing the same kind of cloak he always used to wear before, and walked over the ice barefoot more easily than the others did in their shoes. The soldiers looked at him sideways, thinking he was showing contempt for them. So much for that. But here's another thing this tough man did and endured there once on campaign, worth hearing. He'd been thinking about something from early morning, standing there working it out, and since it wasn't coming to him, he wouldn't give up but kept standing there searching. It was already noon, and people noticed, and in amazement told one another that Socrates had been standing there thinking about something since dawn. Finally, toward evening, some of the Ionians, after they'd had dinner -- it was summer then -- brought out their bedding and slept in the cool air, partly to keep watch and see whether he'd go on standing there through the night too. And he stood there until dawn came and the sun rose; then he walked off, after saying a prayer to the sun. And if you like, in battles -- since it's only fair to give him his due there -- when the battle happened in which the generals gave me the prize for bravery, no one else saved me but him; he refused to leave me behind when I was wounded, and saved both my weapons and me myself. And I told the generals then too, Socrates, to give the prize to you, and you won't blame me for that or say I'm lying. But when the generals, looking to my rank, wanted to give the prize to me, you were more eager than they were that I should get it rather than you.

There's something else too, gentlemen, well worth seeing -- Socrates when the army was retreating in flight from Delium. I happened to be there on horseback, while he was on foot with the heavy infantry. He was retreating along with Laches, the men already scattered, and I came upon them by chance, and as soon as I saw them I told them both to keep their courage up, and said I wouldn't leave them. There I got an even better look at Socrates than I had at Potidaea, since I was less afraid myself, being on horseback. First of all, how much more collected he was than Laches; and then it seemed to me, Aristophanes, exactly as you put it once, that he walked along there just as he does here, 'strutting like a proud bird, glancing sideways,' calmly keeping an eye on both friend and enemy, making it clear to anyone, even from a great distance, that if someone laid a hand on this man, he'd defend himself with real force. That's why he got away safely, both he and his companion -- for as a rule, people in that state of mind aren't even touched in war; it's the ones who flee headlong that they chase down. One could say many other admirable things in praise of Socrates. But while for his other habits one might perhaps say similar things about someone else, the fact that he's like no one else, not among people of the past, nor among those alive now, that's a thing worth every kind of wonder. You could compare Achilles to Brasidas and others of that sort, or Pericles to Nestor or Antenor -- there are others too -- and compare the rest by the same standard. But the sheer strangeness of this man here, both himself and his way of talking, you couldn't find anything close to it if you searched, not among people now nor those of the past, unless you compared him, as I do, to no human being at all, but to the Silenus figures and the satyrs, both the man himself and his words. And in fact I left out something important earlier: that his words too are exactly like those hollow Silenus figures that open up. If you were willing to listen to Socrates talk, his words would seem completely ridiculous at first -- he wraps them up in language and phrases like that, the hide of some insolent satyr.

He talks about pack-donkeys, he says, and blacksmiths and cobblers and tanners, and he always seems to be saying the same things through the same examples, so that anyone inexperienced or thoughtless would laugh at his arguments. But if you open them up and get inside them, you'll find, first, that they're the only arguments with any sense in them, and second, that they're the most godlike, holding within them the most images of virtue, and reaching toward the widest range of things -- really, toward everything a person needs to consider who means to become truly good. That's what I have to praise Socrates for, gentlemen. And as for what I blame him for, I've mixed that in too and told you how he's mistreated me. And it isn't only me he's done this to -- Charmides son of Glaucon, and Euthydemus son of Diocles, and a great many others -- he deceives them, playing the beloved when really he's the lover, not the other way around. So I'm warning you too, Agathon, don't be taken in by him. Learn from what's happened to us, and be on your guard, and don't wait to learn it the hard way, the way the proverb says the fool does." When Alcibiades said this, there was laughter at his frankness, because he still seemed to be in love with Socrates. And Socrates said, "You seem sober to me, Alcibiades. Otherwise you'd never have tried so cleverly to wrap everything around and hide the real reason you said all this, tossing it in at the end as if it were an afterthought -- as though you hadn't said the whole thing just to set Agathon and me against each other. You think I ought to love you and no one else, and that Agathon ought to be loved by you and no one else. But you weren't as subtle as you thought -- that little satyr-and-Silenus drama of yours came through clear as day. Well, my dear Agathon, don't let him get away with it -- make sure no one turns the two of us against each other." And Agathon said, "Really, Socrates, I think you may be right. I take it as a sign that he lay down between the two of us, just to keep us apart. But it won't do him any good -- I'll come over and lie down next to you." "By all means," said Socrates, "come lie down here, below me." "Zeus!" cried Alcibiades. "Look what I put up with from this man! He thinks he has to get the better of me every way there is. But if nothing else, you remarkable man, at least let Agathon lie between us." "That's impossible," said Socrates. "You praised me, so now it's my turn to praise the man on my right. If Agathon lies down next to you, he'll have to praise me all over again instead of being praised by me, which is what he should be.

So no, dear friend, don't grudge the boy a little praise from me -- I'm quite eager to sing his praises myself." "Ha!" said Agathon. "Alcibiades, there's no way I can stay here now -- I'll get up and move at once, so that I can be praised by Socrates." "There it is," said Alcibiades, "the usual thing. Whenever Socrates is around, no one else gets a chance with the good-looking ones. See how easily, how persuasively, he's just found a reason to get this one to lie down beside him." So Agathon got up to go lie down next to Socrates. But just then a great crowd of revelers arrived at the door, and finding it open because someone was just leaving, they came straight in and took their places among the company, and everything filled up with noise, and there was no more order to anything -- people were forced to drink enormous quantities of wine. At that point, Aristodemus said, Eryximachus and Phaedrus and some of the others got up and left, while he himself fell asleep and slept a long while, since the nights were long at that season. He woke up close to dawn, when the roosters were already crowing, and when he woke he saw that the others were either asleep or had gone, and that only Agathon, Aristophanes, and Socrates were still awake, drinking from a large bowl that was being passed around to the right. Socrates was talking with them, and Aristodemus said he didn't remember most of what was said, since he hadn't been there from the beginning and kept dozing off -- but the main point, he said, was that Socrates was forcing them to agree that the same man ought to know how to write both comedy and tragedy, and that the skilled tragic poet was, by the same skill, a comic poet too. Pressed into this argument, and not following it very closely, they were nodding off -- Aristophanes fell asleep first, and then, as day was already breaking, Agathon too. Socrates, having gotten them both settled to sleep, got up and left, and Aristodemus, as usual, went with him. He went to the Lyceum, washed himself, and spent the rest of the day there just as he would any other day, and after spending it so, rested at home that evening.

← All of Plato: Republic · Laws · Timaeus · Crito