Symposium | Page 6

world. And now I
must beg you not to suppose that I am alluding to Pausanias and
Agathon (compare Protag.), for my words refer to all mankind
everywhere.
Some raillery ensues first between Aristophanes and Eryximachus, and
then between Agathon, who fears a few select friends more than any

number of spectators at the theatre, and Socrates, who is disposed to
begin an argument. This is speedily repressed by Phaedrus, who
reminds the disputants of their tribute to the god. Agathon's speech
follows:--
He will speak of the god first and then of his gifts: He is the fairest and
blessedest and best of the gods, and also the youngest, having had no
existence in the old days of Iapetus and Cronos when the gods were at
war. The things that were done then were done of necessity and not of
love. For love is young and dwells in soft places,--not like Ate in
Homer, walking on the skulls of men, but in their hearts and souls,
which are soft enough. He is all flexibility and grace, and his habitation
is among the flowers, and he cannot do or suffer wrong; for all men
serve and obey him of their own free will, and where there is love there
is obedience, and where obedience, there is justice; for none can be
wronged of his own free will. And he is temperate as well as just, for he
is the ruler of the desires, and if he rules them he must be temperate.
Also he is courageous, for he is the conqueror of the lord of war. And
he is wise too; for he is a poet, and the author of poesy in others. He
created the animals; he is the inventor of the arts; all the gods are his
subjects; he is the fairest and best himself, and the cause of what is
fairest and best in others; he makes men to be of one mind at a banquet,
filling them with affection and emptying them of disaffection; the pilot,
helper, defender, saviour of men, in whose footsteps let every man
follow, chanting a strain of love. Such is the discourse, half playful,
half serious, which I dedicate to the god.
The turn of Socrates comes next. He begins by remarking satirically
that he has not understood the terms of the original agreement, for he
fancied that they meant to speak the true praises of love, but now he
finds that they only say what is good of him, whether true or false. He
begs to be absolved from speaking falsely, but he is willing to speak the
truth, and proposes to begin by questioning Agathon. The result of his
questions may be summed up as follows:--
Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love
is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. And love is of the
beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the
good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also
wants and desires the good. Socrates professes to have asked the same

questions and to have obtained the same answers from Diotima, a wise
woman of Mantinea, who, like Agathon, had spoken first of love and
then of his works. Socrates, like Agathon, had told her that Love is a
mighty god and also fair, and she had shown him in return that Love
was neither, but in a mean between fair and foul, good and evil, and not
a god at all, but only a great demon or intermediate power (compare the
speech of Eryximachus) who conveys to the gods the prayers of men,
and to men the commands of the gods.
Socrates asks: Who are his father and mother? To this Diotima replies
that he is the son of Plenty and Poverty, and partakes of the nature of
both, and is full and starved by turns. Like his mother he is poor and
squalid, lying on mats at doors (compare the speech of Pausanias); like
his father he is bold and strong, and full of arts and resources. Further,
he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge:--in this he
resembles the philosopher who is also in a mean between the wise and
the ignorant. Such is the nature of Love, who is not to be confused with
the beloved.
But Love desires the beautiful; and then arises the question, What does
he desire of the beautiful? He desires, of course, the possession of the
beautiful;--but what is given by that? For the beautiful let us substitute
the good, and we have no difficulty in seeing the possession of the
good to be happiness, and Love to be the desire of happiness, although
the meaning of the word