Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  Surely you can see that no one who received such an offer would turn it down; no one would find anything else that he wanted. Instead, everyone would think he’d found out at last what he had always wanted: to come together and melt together with the one he loves, so that one person emerged from two. Why should this be so? It’s because, as I said, we used to be complete wholes in our original nature, and now “Love” is the name [193] for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.

  Long ago we were united, as I said; but now the god has divided us as punishment for the wrong we did him, just as the Spartans divided the Arcadians.18 So there’s a danger that if we don’t keep order before the gods, we’ll be split in two again, and then we’ll be walking around in the condition of people carved on gravestones in bas-relief, sawn apart between the nostrils, like half dice. We should encourage all men, therefore, to treat [b] the gods with all due reverence, so that we may escape this fate and find wholeness instead. And we will, if Love is our guide and our commander. Let no one work against him. Whoever opposes Love is hateful to the gods, but if we become friends of the god and cease to quarrel with him, then we shall find the young men that are meant for us and win their love, as very few men do nowadays.

  [c] Now don’t get ideas, Eryximachus, and turn this speech into a comedy. Don’t think I’m pointing this at Pausanias and Agathon. Probably, they both do belong to the group that are entirely masculine in nature. But I am speaking about everyone, men and women alike, and I say there’s just one way for the human race to flourish: we must bring love to its perfect conclusion, and each of us must win the favors of his very own young man, so that he can recover his original nature. If that is the ideal, then, of course, the nearest approach to it is best in present circumstances, and that is to win the favor of young men who are naturally sympathetic to us.

  [d] If we are to give due praise to the god who can give us this blessing, then, we must praise Love. Love does the best that can be done for the time being: he draws us towards what belongs to us. But for the future, Love promises the greatest hope of all: if we treat the gods with due reverence, he will restore to us our original nature, and by healing us, he will make us blessed and happy.

  “That,” he said, “is my speech about Love, Eryximachus. It is rather different from yours. As I begged you earlier, don’t make a comedy of it. [e] I’d prefer to hear what all the others will say—or, rather, what each of them will say, since Agathon and Socrates are the only ones left.”

  “I found your speech delightful,” said Eryximachus, “so I’ll do as you say. Really, we’ve had such a rich feast of speeches on Love, that if I couldn’t vouch for the fact that Socrates and Agathon are masters of the art of love, I’d be afraid that they’d have nothing left to say. But as it is, I have no fears on this score.”

  [194] Then Socrates said, “That’s because you did beautifully in the contest, Eryximachus. But if you ever get in my position, or rather the position I’ll be in after Agathon’s spoken so well, then you’ll really be afraid. You’ll be at your wit’s end, as I am now.”

  “You’re trying to bewitch me, Socrates,” said Agathon, “by making me think the audience expects great things of my speech, so I’ll get flustered.” [b]

  “Agathon!” said Socrates, “How forgetful do you think I am? I saw how brave and dignified you were when you walked right up to the theater platform along with the actors and looked straight out at that enormous audience. You were about to put your own writing on display, and you weren’t the least bit panicked. After seeing that, how could I expect you to be flustered by us, when we are so few?”

  “Why, Socrates,” said Agathon. “You must think I have nothing but theater audiences on my mind! So you suppose I don’t realize that, if you’re intelligent, you find a few sensible men much more frightening than a senseless crowd?”

  “No,” he said, “It wouldn’t be very handsome of me to think you crude [c] in any way, Agathon. I’m sure that if you ever run into people you consider wise, you’ll pay more attention to them than to ordinary people. But you can’t suppose we’re in that class; we were at the theater too, you know, part of the ordinary crowd. Still, if you did run into any wise men, other than yourself, you’d certainly be ashamed at the thought of doing anything ugly in front of them. Is that what you mean?”

  ‘That’s true,” he said.

  “On the other hand, you wouldn’t be ashamed to do something ugly [d] in front of ordinary people. Is that it?”

  At that point Phaedrus interrupted: “Agathon, my friend, if you answer Socrates, he’ll no longer care whether we get anywhere with what we’re doing here, so long as he has a partner for discussion. Especially if he’s handsome. Now, like you, I enjoy listening to Socrates in discussion, but it is my duty to see to the praising of Love and to exact a speech from every one of this group. When each of you two has made his offering to the god, then you can have your discussion.” [e]

  “You’re doing a beautiful job, Phaedrus,” said Agathon. “There’s nothing to keep me from giving my speech. Socrates will have many opportunities for discussion later.”

  I wish first to speak of how I ought to speak, and only then to speak. In my opinion, you see, all those who have spoken before me did not so much celebrate the god as congratulate human beings on the good things that come to them from the god. But who it is who gave these gifts, what he is like—no one has spoken about that. Now, only one method is correct [195] for every praise, no matter whose: you must explain what qualities in the subject of your speech enable him to give the benefits for which we praise him. So now, in the case of Love, it is right for us to praise him first for what he is and afterwards for his gifts.

  I maintain, then, that while all the gods are happy, Love—if I may say so without giving offense—is the happiest of them all, for he is the most beautiful and the best. His great beauty lies in this: First, Phaedrus, he is [b] the youngest of the gods.19 He proves my point himself by fleeing old age in headlong flight, fast-moving though it is (that’s obvious—it comes after us faster than it should). Love was born to hate old age and will come nowhere near it. Love always lives with young people and is one of them: the old story holds good that like is always drawn to like. And though on many other points I agree with Phaedrus, I do not agree with this: that [c] Love is more ancient than Cronus and Iapetus. No, I say that he is the youngest of the gods and stays young forever.

  Those old stories Hesiod and Parmenides tell about the gods—those things happened under Necessity, not Love, if what they say is true. For not one of all those violent deeds would have been done—no castrations, no imprisonments—if Love had been present among them. There would have been peace and brotherhood instead, as there has been now as long as Love has been king of the gods.

  [d] So he is young. And besides being young, he is delicate. It takes a poet as good as Homer to show how delicate the god is. For Homer says that Mischief is a god and that she is delicate—well, that her feet are delicate, anyway! He says:

  … hers are delicate feet: not on the ground

  Does she draw nigh; she walks instead upon the heads of men.20

  [e] A lovely proof, I think, to show how delicate she is: she doesn’t walk on anything hard; she walks only on what is soft. We shall use the same proof about Love, then, to show that he is delicate. For he walks not on earth, not even on people’s skulls, which are not really soft at all, but in the softest of all the things that are, there he walks, there he has his home. For he makes his home in the characters, in the souls, of gods and men—and not even in every soul that comes along: when he encounters a soul with a harsh character, he turns away; but when he finds a soft and gentle character, he settles down in it. Always, then, he is touching with his feet [196] and with the whole of himself what is softest in the softest places. He must therefore be most delicate.

  He is youngest, then, and most delicate; in addition he has a fluid, supple shape. For if he were hard, he would n
ot be able to enfold a soul completely or escape notice when he first entered it or withdrew. Besides, his graceful good looks prove that he is balanced and fluid in his nature. Everyone knows that Love has extraordinary good looks, and between ugliness and Love there is unceasing war.

  And the exquisite coloring of his skin! The way the god consorts with [b] flowers shows that. For he never settles in anything, be it a body or a soul, that cannot flower or has lost its bloom. His place is wherever it is flowery and fragrant; there he settles, there he stays.

  Enough for now about the beauty of the god, though much remains still to be said. After this, we should speak of Love’s moral character.21 The main point is that Love is neither the cause nor the victim of any injustice; he does no wrong to gods or men, nor they to him. If anything has an effect on him, it is never by violence, for violence never touches Love. [c] And the effects he has on others are not forced, for every service we give to love we give willingly. And whatever one person agrees on with another, when both are willing, that is right and just; so say “the laws that are kings of society.”22

  And besides justice, he has the biggest share of moderation.23 For moderation, by common agreement, is power over pleasures and passions, and no pleasure is more powerful than Love! But if they are weaker, they are under the power of Love, and he has the power; and because he has power over pleasures and passions, Love is exceptionally moderate.

  And as for manly bravery, “Not even Ares can stand up to” Love!24 For [d] Ares has no hold on Love, but Love does on Ares—love of Aphrodite, so runs the tale.25 But he who has hold is more powerful than he who is held; and so, because Love has power over the bravest of the others, he is bravest of them all.

  Now I have spoken about the god’s justice, moderation, and bravery; his wisdom remains.26 I must try not to leave out anything that can be said on this. In the first place—to honor our profession as Eryximachus [e] did his27—the god is so skilled a poet that he can make others into poets: once Love touches him, anyone becomes a poet,

  … howe’er uncultured he had been before.28

  This, we may fittingly observe, testifies that Love is a good poet, good, in sum, at every kind of artistic production. For you can’t give to another [197] what you don’t have yourself, and you can’t teach what you don’t know.

  And as to the production of animals—who will deny that they are all born and begotten through Love’s skill?

  And as for artisans and professionals—don’t we know that whoever has this god for a teacher ends up in the light of fame, while a man untouched by Love ends in obscurity? Apollo, for one, invented archery, [b] medicine, and prophecy when desire and love showed the way. Even he, therefore, would be a pupil of Love, and so would the Muses in music, Hephaestus in bronze work, Athena in weaving, and Zeus in “the governance of gods and men.”

  That too is how the gods’ quarrels were settled, once Love came to be among them—love of beauty, obviously, because love is not drawn to ugliness. Before that, as I said in the beginning, and as the poets say, many dreadful things happened among the gods, because Necessity was king. [c] But once this god was born, all goods came to gods and men alike through love of beauty.

  This is how I think of Love, Phaedrus: first, he is himself the most beautiful and the best; after that, if anyone else is at all like that, Love is responsible. I am suddenly struck by a need to say something in poetic meter,29 that it is he who—

  Gives peace to men and stillness to the sea,

  [d] Lays winds to rest, and careworn men to sleep.

  Love fills us with togetherness and drains all of our divisiveness away. Love calls gatherings like these together. In feasts, in dances, and in ceremonies, he gives the lead. Love moves us to mildness, removes from us wildness. He is giver of kindness, never of meanness. Gracious, kindly30—let wise men see and gods admire! Treasure to lovers, envy to others, father of elegance, luxury, delicacy, grace, yearning, desire. Love cares [e] well for good men, cares not for bad ones. In pain, in fear, in desire, or speech, Love is our best guide and guard; he is our comrade and our savior. Ornament of all gods and men, most beautiful leader and the best! Every man should follow Love, sing beautifully his hymns, and join with him in the song he sings that charms the mind of god or man.

  This, Phaedrus, is the speech I have to offer. Let it be dedicated to the [198] god, part of it in fun, part of it moderately serious, as best I could manage.

  When Agathon finished, Aristodemus said, everyone there burst into applause, so becoming to himself and to the god did they think the young man’s speech.

  Then Socrates glanced at Eryximachus and said, “Now do you think I was foolish to feel the fear I felt before? Didn’t I speak like a prophet a while ago when I said that Agathon would give an amazing speech and I would be tongue-tied?”

  “You were prophetic about one thing, I think,” said Eryximachus, “that Agathon would speak well. But you, tongue-tied? No, I don’t believe that.” [b]

  “Bless you,” said Socrates. “How am I not going to be tongue-tied, I or anyone else, after a speech delivered with such beauty and variety? The other parts may not have been so wonderful, but that at the end! Who would not be struck dumb on hearing the beauty of the words and phrases? Anyway, I was worried that I’d not be able to say anything that came close to them in beauty, and so I would almost have run away and escaped, [c] if there had been a place to go. And, you see, the speech reminded me of Gorgias, so that I actually experienced what Homer describes: I was afraid that Agathon would end by sending the Gorgian head,31 awesome at speaking in a speech, against my speech, and this would turn me to stone by striking me dumb. Then I realized how ridiculous I’d been to agree to join [d] with you in praising Love and to say that I was a master of the art of love, when I knew nothing whatever of this business, of how anything whatever ought to be praised. In my foolishness, I thought you should tell the truth about whatever you praise, that this should be your basis, and that from this a speaker should select the most beautiful truths and arrange them most suitably. I was quite vain, thinking that I would talk well and that I knew the truth about praising anything whatever. But now it appears that this is not what it is to praise anything whatever; rather, it is to apply [e] to the object the grandest and the most beautiful qualities, whether he actually has them or not. And if they are false, that is no objection; for the proposal, apparently, was that everyone here make the rest of us think he is praising Love—and not that he actually praise him. I think that is why you stir up every word and apply it to Love; your description of him and [199] his gifts is designed to make him look better and more beautiful than anything else—to ignorant listeners, plainly, for of course he wouldn’t look that way to those who knew. And your praise did seem beautiful and respectful. But I didn’t even know the method for giving praise; and it was in ignorance that I agreed to take part in this. So “the tongue” promised, and “the mind” did not.32 Goodbye to that! I’m not giving another eulogy using that method, not at all—I wouldn’t be able to do [b] it!—but, if you wish, I’d like to tell the truth my way. I want to avoid any comparison with your speeches, so as not to give you a reason to laugh at me. So look, Phaedrus, would a speech like this satisfy your requirement? You will hear the truth about Love, and the words and phrasing will take care of themselves.”

  Then Aristodemus said that Phaedrus and the others urged him to speak in the way he thought was required, whatever it was.

  “Well then, Phaedrus,” said Socrates, “allow me to ask Agathon a few [c] little questions, so that, once I have his agreement, I may speak on that basis.”

  “You have my permission,” said Phaedrus. “Ask away.”

  After that, said Aristodemus, Socrates began: “Indeed, Agathon, my friend, I thought you led the way beautifully into your speech when you said that one should first show the qualities of Love himself, and only then those of his deeds. I must admire that beginning. Come, then, since [d] you have beautifully and magn
ificently expounded his qualities in other ways, tell me this, too, about Love. Is Love such as to be a love of something or of nothing? I’m not asking if he is born of some mother or father, (for the question whether Love is love of mother or of father would really be ridiculous), but it’s as if I’m asking this about a father—whether a father is the father of something or not. You’d tell me, of course, if you wanted to give me a good answer, that it’s of a son or a daughter that a father is the father. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Certainly,” said Agathon.

  “Then does the same go for the mother?”

  [e] He agreed to that also.

  “Well, then,” said Socrates, “answer a little more fully, and you will understand better what I want. If I should ask, ‘What about this: a brother, just insofar as he is a brother, is he the brother of something or not?’ ”

  He said that he was.

  “And he’s of a brother or a sister, isn’t he?”

  He agreed.

  “Now try to tell me about love,” he said. “Is Love the love of nothing or of something?”