Page:The Dialogues of Plato v. 1.djvu/560

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; ¹⁹⁷ 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 course, half playful, half serious, which I dedicate to the god. ¹⁹⁸

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 ¹⁹⁹ speaking falsely, but he is willing to speak the truth, and proposes poses 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 ²⁰⁰ 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. ²⁰¹ 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 ²⁰² 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 (cp. the speech of Eryximachus, 186 D) who conveys to the gods the prayers of men, and to men the commands ²⁰³ of the gods.

Socrates asks: Who are his father and mother? To this Diotima rephes 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 (cp. the speech of Pausanias, 183 A); like his father he is bold