one species of love, which is peculiarly distinguished by the name belonging to the whole. It is asserted by some, that they love, who are seeking the lost half of their divided being. But I assert, that Love is neither the love of the half nor of the whole, unless, my friend, it meets with that which is good; since men willingly cut off their own hands and feet, if they think that they are the cause of evil to them. Nor do they cherish and embrace that which may belong to themselves, merely because it is their own; unless, indeed, any one should choose to say, that that which is good is attached to his own nature and is his own, whilst that which is evil is foreign and accidental; but love nothing but that which is good. Does it not appear so to you?' Assuredly. Can we then simply affirm that men love that which is good - Without doubt.' What, then, must we not add, that, in addition to loving that which is good, they love that it should be present to themselves ?- Indeed that must be added.' And not merely that it should be present, but that it should ever be present? This also must be added.' am, "Love, then, is collectively the desire in men that good should be for ever present to them.'— 'Most true. Since this is the general definition of Love, can you explain in what mode of attaining its object, and in what species of actions, does Love peculiarly consist? If I knew what you ask, O Diotima, I should not have so much wondered at your wisdom, nor have sought you out for the purpose of deriving improvement from your instructions. I will tell you,' she replied: "Love is the desire of generation in the beautiful, both with relation to the body and the soul.'I must be a diviner to comprehend what you say, for, being such as I I confess that I do not understand it.' 'But I will explain it more clearly. The bodies and the souls of all human beings are alike pregnant with their future progeny, and when we arrive at a certain age, our nature impels us to bring forth and propagate. This nature is unable to produce in that which is deformed, but it can produce in that which is beautiful. The intercourse of the male and female in generation, a divine work, through pregnancy and production, is, as it were, something immortal in mortality. These things cannot take place in that which is incongruous; for that which is deformed is incongruous, but that which is beautiful is congruous with what is immortal and divine. Beauty is, therefore, the fate, and the Juno Lucina to generation. Wherefore, whenever that which is pregnant with the generative principle, approaches that which is beautiful, it becomes transported with delight, and is poured forth in overflowing pleasure, and propagates. But when it approaches that whi by sadness, and bein not produce, but which it is pregnant. and, as it were, alre his desire, the impul tiful is intense, on retaining that which O Socrates, is not as beautiful. What, production in the be ration ?- Generati immortal in mortalit has been confessed, immortality together is the desire that go Of necessity Love immortality.' "Diotima taught discourse we had tog in addition, she en Socrates, is the caus you not perceive how earth and of the air, the propagation of weakness and diseas first, longing to be m seeking nourishment feeblest are ready to obedience to this la their young, or to do or suffer anythin nourishment. It mi do these things throu why other animals a I confessed that imagine yourself,' s science of Love, if yo As I said befor well knowing how m But explain to me, I things, and of the ot If,' said Diotima, 'y same nature as we wonder not that su mortal nature seeks, deathless and eterna this desire by gene another new in plac each human being b the same from youth called the same, ne same things, but al loss and change of th both the hair, and the entire body. "And not only does this change take place in the body, but also with respect to the soul. Manners, morals, opinions, desires, pleasures, sorrows, fears; none of these ever remain unchanged in the same persons; but some die away, and others are produced. And, what is yet more strange is, that not only does some knowledge spring up, and another decay, and that we are never the same with respect to our knowledge, but that each several object of our thoughts suffers the same revolution. That which is called meditation, or the exercise of memory, is the science of the escape or departure of memory; for, forgetfulness is the going out of knowledge; and meditation, calling up a new memory in the place of that which has departed, preserves knowledge; so that, though for ever displaced and restored, it seems to be the same. In this manner every thing mortal is preserved: not that it is constant and eternal, like that which is divine; but that in the place of what has grown old and is departed, it leaves another new like that which it was itself. By this contrivance, O Socrates, does what is mortal, the body and all other things, partake of immortality; that which is immortal, is immortal in another manner. Wonder not, then, if every thing by nature cherishes that which was produced from itself, for this earnest Love is a tendency towards eternity.' "Having heard this discourse, I was astonished, and asked, 'Can these things be true, O wisest Diotima? And she, like an accomplished sophist, said, Know well, O Socrates, that if you only regard that love of glory which inspires men, you will wonder at your own unskilfulness in not having discovered all that I now declare. Observe with how vehement a desire they are affected to become illustrious and to prolong their glory into immortal time, to attain which object, far more ardently than for the sake of their children, all men are ready to engage in many dangers, and expend their fortunes, and submit to any labours and incur any death. Do you believe that Alcestis would have died in the place of Admetus, or Achilles for the revenge of Patroclus, or Codrus for the kingdom of his posterity, if they had not believed that the immortal memory of their actions, which we now cherish, would have remained after their death! Far otherwise; all such deeds are done for the sake of everliving virtue, and this immortal glory which they have obtained; and inasmuch as any one is of an excellent nature, so much the more is he impelled to attain this reward. For they love what is immortal. "Those whose bodies alone are pregnant with this principle of immortality are attracted by women, seeking through the production of children what they imagine to be happiness and immortality and an enduring remembrance; but they whose souls are far more pregnant than their bodies, conceive and produce that which is more suitable to the soul. What is suitable to the soul? Intelligence, and every other power and excellence of the mind; of which all poets, and all other artists who are creative and inventive, are the authors. The greatest and most admirable wisdom is that which regulates the government of families and states, and which is called moderation and justice. Whosoever, therefore, from his youth feels his soul pregnant with the conception of these excellences, is divine; and when due time arrives, desires to bring forth; and wandering about, he seeks the beautiful in which he may propagate what he has conceived; for there is no generation in that which is deformed; he embraces those bodies which are beautiful rather than those which are deformed, in obedience to the principle which is within him, which is ever seeking to perpetuate itself. And if he meets, in conjunction with loveliness of form, a beautiful, generous and gentle soul, he embraces both at once, and immediately undertakes to educate this object of his love, and is inspired with an overflowing persuasion to declare what is virtue, and what he ought to be who would attain to its possession, and what are the duties which it exacts. For, by the intercourse with, and as it were, the very touch of that which is beautiful, he brings forth and produces what he had formerly conceived; and nourishes and educates that which is thus produced together with the object of his love, whose image, whether absent or present, is never divided from his mind. So that those who are thus united are linked by a nobler community and a firmer love, as being the common parents of a lovelier and more endearing progeny than the parents of other children. And every one who considers what posterity Homer and Hesiod, and the other great poets, have left behind them, the sources of their own immortal memory and renown, or what children of his soul Lycurgus has appointed to be the guardians, not only of Lacedæmon, but of all Greece; or what an illustrious progeny of laws Solon has produced, and how many admirable achievements, both among the Greeks and Barbarians, men have left as the pledges of that love which subsisted between them and the beautiful, would choose rather to be the parent of such children than those in a human shape. For divine honours have often been rendered to them on account of such children, but on account of those in human shape, never. "Your own meditation, O Socrates, might perhaps have initiated you in all these things which I have already taught you on the subject of Love. But those perfect and sublime ends, to which these are only the means, I know not that you would have been competent to discover. I will declare them, therefore, and will render them as intelligible as possible: do you meanwhile strain all your attention to trace the obscure depth of the subject. He who aspires to love rightly, ought from his earliest youth to seek an intercourse with beautiful forms, and first to make a single form the object of his love, and therein He ought, to generate intellectual excellences. then, to consider that beauty in whatever form it resides is the brother of that beauty which subsists in another form; and if he ought to pursue that which is beautiful in form, it would be absurd to imagine that beauty is not one and the same thing in all forms, and would therefore remit much of his ardent preference towards one, through his perception of the multitude of claims upon his love. In addition, he would consider the beauty which is in souls more excellent than that which is in form. So that one endowed with an admirable soul, even though the flower of the form were withered, would suffice him as the object of his love and care, and the companion with whom he might seek and produce such conclusions as tend to the improvement of youth; so that it might be led to observe the beauty and the conformity which there is in the observation of its duties and the laws, and to esteem little the mere beauty of the outward form. He would then conduct his pupil to science, so that he might look upon the loveliness of wisdom; and that contemplating thus the universal beauty, no longer would he unworthily and meanly enslave himself to the attractions of one form in love, nor one subject of discipline or science, but would turn towards the wide ocean of intellectual beauty, and from the sight of the lovely and majestic forms which it contains, would abundantly bring forth his conceptions in philosophy; until, strengthened and confirmed, he should at length steadily contemplate one science, which is the science of this universal beauty. "Attempt, I entreat you, to mark what I say with as keen an observation as you can. He who has been disciplined to this point in Love, by contemplating beautiful objects gradually, and in their order, now arriving at the end of all that concerns Love, on a sudden beholds a beauty wonderful in its nature. This is it, O Socrates, for the sake of which all the former labours were endured. It is eternal, unproduced, indestructible; neither subject to increase nor decay: not, like other things, partly beautiful and partly deformed; not at one time beautiful and at another time not; not beau tiful in relation to on lation to another; deformed; not beau person and deformed this supreme beauty like a beautiful face portion of the body any science. Nor that lives or is, eit in any other place and consistent, and other things are bea of it, with this con subject to productio more or less, or end one, ascending from begins to contempl already touches the For such as discipl tem, or are condu ascend through thes beautiful, towards th ceeding as on steps that of two, and fro forms which are b forms to beautiful h institutions to beaut meditation of many which is nothing el supreme beauty itse templation of which "Such a life as claimed the strang contemplation of the to live; which if yo you will esteem far ments, and even th and many others no and are prepared n you may behold a objects of your love to be the aspect o simple, pure, uncon ture of human flesh and unreal shapes divine, the original, beautiful itself? W who dwells with a becomes us all to s him alone is accord forth, not images an in contact not with with virtue itself, in ment of which he b if such a privilege is himself immortal.' "Such, O Phædrus, and my other friends, was fore I exhort every one to honour Love; I hold The whole assembly praised his discourse, and turning round and seeing Socrates, he leaped up and cried out :-"0 Hercules! what have we here? You, Socrates, lying in ambush for me wherever I go! and meeting me just as you always do, when I least expected to see you! And, now, what are you come here for? Why have you chosen to recline exactly in this place, and not near Aristophanes, or any one else who is, or wishes to be ridiculous, but have contrived to take your place beside the most delightful person of the whole party "_"Agathon," said Socrates, "see if you cannot defend me. I declare my friendship for this man is a bad business: from the moment that I first began to know him I have never been permitted to converse with, or so much as to look upon any one else. If I do, he is so jealous and suspicious that he does the most extravagant things, and hardly refrains from beating me. I entreat you to prevent him from doing anything of that kind at present. Procure a reconciliation: or, if he perseveres in attempting any violence, I entreat you to defend me."-"Indeed," said Alcibiades, "I will not be reconciled to you; I shall find another opportunity to punish you for this. But now," said he, addressing Agathon "lend me some of those fillets, that I may crown, the wonderful head of this fellow, lest I incur the blame, that having crowned you, I neglected to crown him who conquers all men with his discourses, not yesterday alone as you did, but ever." Saying this he took the fillets, and having bound the head of Socrates, and again having reclined, said: "Come, my friends, you seem to be sober enough. You must not flinch, but drink, for that was your agreement with me before I came in. I choose as president, until you have drunk enough— myself. Come, Agathon, if you have got a great goblet, fetch it out. But no matter, that winecooler will do; bring it, boy!" And observing that it held more than eight cups, he first drank it off, and then ordered it to be filled for Socrates, and said:"Observe, my friends, I cannot invent any scheme against Socrates, for he will drink as much as any one desires him, and not be in the least drunk." Socrates, after the boy had filled up, drank it off; and Eryximachus said :-"Shall we then have no conversation or singing over our cups, but drink down stupidly, just as if we were thirsty?" And Alcibiades said :--"Ah, Eryximachus, I did not see you before ; hail, you excellent son of a wise and excellent father !"-"Hail to you also," replied Eryximachus, "but what shall we do?"—" Whatever you command, for we ought to submit to your directions; a physician is worth a hundred common men. Command us as you Agathon and the whole party desired him to come in, and recline among them; so he came in, led by his companions. He then unbound his fillets that he might crown Agathon, and though Socrates was just before his eyes, he did not see him, but sat down by Agathon, between Socrates and him, for Socrates moved out of the way to make room for him. When he sat down, he embraced Agathon and crowned him; and Agathon desired the slaves to untie his sandals, that he might make a third, and recline on the same couch. "By all means," said Alcibiades, "but what third companion have we here?". And at the same time I please.". "Listen then," said Eryximachus; the muse that he of heaven, and teses enchants men thre For if any music this music, it al ne of men, and from "before you came in, each of us had agreed to deliver as eloquent a discourse as he could in praise of Love, beginning at the right hand; all the rest of us have fulfilled our engagement; you have not spoken, and yet have drunk with us: you ought to bear your part in the discussion; and having done so, command what you please to Socrates, who shall have the privilege of doing so to his right-hand neighbour, and so on to the others."— | circumstance, that "Indeed, there appears some justice in your proposal, Eryx.machus, though it is rather unfair to induce a drunken man to set his discourse in competition with that of those who are sober. And, besides, did Socrates really persuade you that what he just said about me was true, or do you not know that matters are in fact exactly the reverse of his representation! For I seriously believe that, should I praise in his presence, be he god or man, any other beside himself, he would not keep his hands off me. But I assure, you, Socrates, I will praise no one beside yourself, in your presence." “Do so, then," said Eryximachus; "praise Socrates if you please."-" What!" said Alcibiades, “shall I attack him, and punish him before you all ?" | -“What have you got into your head now," said Socrates; "are you going to expose me to ridicule, and to misrepresent me ? Or what are you going to do!”—“I will only speak the truth; will you permit me on this condition ?""I not only permit, but exhort you to say all the truth you know,” replied Socrates. "I obey you willingly," said Alcibiades; "and if I advance anything untrue, do you, if you please, interrupt me, and convict me of misrepresentation, for I would never willingly speak falsely. And bear with me if I do not relate things in their order, but just as I remember them, for it is not easy for a man in my present condition to enumerate systematically all your singularities. "I will begin the praise of Socrates by comparing him to a certain statue. Perhaps he will think that this statue is introduced for the sake of ridicule, but I assure you that it is necessary for the illustration of truth. I assort, then, that Socrates is exactly like those Silenuses that sit in the sculp. tors' shops, and which are carved holding flutes or pipes, but which, when divided into two, are found to contain withinside the images of the gods, I assert that Socrates is like the satyr Marsyan, That your form and appestates are like these satyrs, I think that even you will not venture to deny ; and how like you mis to them in all other things, now hear Are You mu assurund and petulant? If you dem this, I will taing witnesses, Are you not a piper, and bu uue wounderful a one than het Fe Marame and whoever now púpen evident those who initiation. You by mere words, and hear. Pericles, or deliver a discours thing about it b even your words so rude and unsa. woman, man or cila as it were, by the “If I was not aff drunk, I would ex strange effects whic from his words, and him speak, my hear hearts of those who s ries; my tears are I have seen happer. I have heard Perice and have been pleas 1 suffered nothing ever on those occas self-reproach, as if it But this Marsyas hi way I describe, unti hardly worth living. I well know that if you, I could not resis same effects. For, confess that while I many things, I negla attend to those of the therefore, as from the fast as possible, that him and grow old in this man has reduced shame, which I imagine was in me; he alone in awe. For I feel in hi refuting what he says which he directs; bu the glory which the mu me. I escape, therefore and when I see him I a liation, because I have r confessed to him ought often have I wished tha But Been among men. well know that I should |