The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose Volume I - Greece Part 10

And this, as possessing measure, must undeniably also be an art and science?

They will agree to that....

Then you agree, I said, that the pleasant is the good, and the painful evil. And here I would beg my friend Prodicus not to introduce his distinction of names, whether he is disposed to say pleasurable, delightful, joyful. However and in whatever way he rejoices to name them, I will ask you, most excellent Prodicus, to answer this in my sense.

Prodicus laughed and a.s.sented, as did the others.

Then, my friends, I said, what do you say to this? Are not all actions the tendency of which is to make life painless and pleasant honorable and useful? The honorable work is also useful and good.

This was admitted.

Then, I said, if the pleasant is the good, n.o.body does anything under the idea or conviction that some other thing would be better and is also attainable when he might do the better. And this inferiority of a man to himself is merely ignorance, as the superiority of a man to himself is wisdom.

They all a.s.sented.

And does not ignorance consist in having a false opinion and being deceived about important matters?

To that they unanimously a.s.sented also.

Then, I said, no man voluntarily pursues evil or that which he thinks to be evil. To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

We all agreed to every word of this.

Well, I said, there is a certain thing called fear or terror; and here, Prodicus, I should particularly like to know whether you would agree with me in defining this fear or terror as expectation of evil.

Protagoras and Hippias agreed, but Prodicus said that this was fear and not terror.

Never mind about that, Prodicus, I said; but let me ask whether, if our former a.s.sertions are true, a man will pursue that which he fears when he need not? Would not this be in contradiction to the admission which has been already made, that he thinks the things which he fears to be evil? And no one will pursue or voluntarily accept that which he thinks to be evil.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 59: From the "Protagoras," translated by Benjamin Jowett.

Protagoras, from whom this dialog gets its name, was one of the Greek sophists, born about 481 B.C., and exiled from Athens on a charge of atheism, his work ent.i.tled "On the G.o.ds" being publicly burned. In the dialog, which took place in the house of Calias, a wealthy Athenian gentleman, besides Protagoras there were present other sophists, including Hippias, Prodicus, Hippocrates, Alcibiades, and Critias.]

III

SOCRATES IN PRAISE OF LOVE[60]

And now I will take my leave of you, and rehea.r.s.e the tale of love which I heard once upon a time from Diotima,[61] of Mantinea, who was a wise woman in this and many other branches of knowledge. She was the same who deferred the plague of Athens ten years by a sacrifice, and was my instructress in the art of love. In the attempt that I am about to make, I shall pursue Agathon's method, and begin with his admissions, which are nearly if not quite the same as I made to the wise woman when she questioned me; this will be the easiest way, and I shall take both parts myself as well as I can. For, like Agathon, she spoke first of the being and nature of Love, and then of his works.

And I said to her, in nearly the same words which he used to me, that Love was a mighty G.o.d, and likewise fair; and she proved to me as I proved to him that, in my way of speaking about him, Love was neither fair nor good. "What do you mean, Diotima," I said; "is love then evil and foul?" "Hush," she cried; "is that to be deemed foul which is not fair?" "Certainly," I said. "And is that which is not wise ignorant?

Do you not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance?"

"And what is this?" I said. "Right opinion," she replied, "which, as you know, being incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how could knowledge be devoid of reason? nor, again, ignorance, for neither can ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom." "Quite true," I replied. "Do not then insist," she said, "that what is not fair is of necessity foul or what is not good is evil, or infer that because Love is not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil; for he is in mean between them." "Well," I said, "Love is surely admitted by all to be a great G.o.d." "By those who know or by those who don't know?" "By all."

"And how, Socrates," she said with a smile, "can Love be acknowledged to be a great G.o.d by those who say that he is not a G.o.d at all?" "And who are they?" I said. "You and I are two of them," she replied. "How can that be?" I said. "That is very intelligible," she replied, "as you yourself would acknowledge that the G.o.ds are happy and fair--of course you would--would you dare to say that any G.o.d was not?"

"Certainly not," I replied. "And you mean by the happy those who are the possessors of things good or fair?" "Yes." "And you admitted that Love, because he was in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want?" "Yes, I admitted that." "But how can he be a G.o.d who has no share in the good or the fair?" "That is not to be supposed." "Then you see that you also deny the deity of Love."

"What then is Love?" I asked. "Is he mortal?" "No." "What then?" "As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between them." "What is he then, Diotima?" "He is a great spirit, and like all that is spiritual he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And what is the nature of this spiritual power?" I said. "This is the power," she said, "which interprets and conveys to the G.o.ds the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and rewards of the G.o.ds; and this power spans the chasm which divides them, and in this all is bound together, and through this the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and incantation, find their way. For G.o.d mingles not with man; and through this power all the intercourse and speech of G.o.d with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts or handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and divine, and one of them is Love." "And who," I said, "was his father, and who his mother?" "The tale," she said, "will take time; nevertheless I will tell you. On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the G.o.ds, at which the G.o.d Poros or Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests.

When the feast was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner was, came about the doors to beg. Now Plenty, who was the worse for Nectar (there was no wine in those days), came into the garden of Zeus and fell into a heavy sleep; and Poverty, considering her own straitened circ.u.mstances, plotted to have him for a husband, and accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived Love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on Aphrodite's birthday is her follower and attendant. And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes.

"In the first place, he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is hard-featured and squalid, and has no shoes nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother, he is always in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and the good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a hunter of men, always at some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, and never wanting resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist; for as he is neither mortal nor immortal, he is alive and flouris.h.i.+ng at one moment when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father's nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth, and he is also in a mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter is just this: No G.o.d is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already; nor does any one else who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied; he feels no want, and has therefore no desire." "But who then, Diotima," I said, "are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?" "A child may answer that question," she replied; "they are those who, like Love, are in a mean between the two. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And this again is a quality which Love inherits from his parents; for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Love.

The error in your conception of him was very natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of love and the beloved--this made you think that love was all beautiful. For the beloved is the truly beautiful, delicate, and perfect and blest; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have described."

I said, "O thou strange woman, thou sayest well, and now, a.s.suming Love to be such as you say, what is the use of him?" "That, Socrates,"

she replied, "I will proceed to unfold; of his nature and birth I have already spoken, and you acknowledge that Love is of the beautiful. But some one will say, 'Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima?'--or rather let us put the question more clearly, and ask, When a man loves the beautiful, what does he love?" I answered her, "That the beautiful may be his." "Still," she said, "the answer suggests a further question, which is this, What is given by the possession of beauty?" "That," I replied, "is a question to which I have no answer ready." "Then," she said, "let me put the word 'good'

in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question, What does he who loves the good desire?" "The possession of the good," I said. "And what does he gain who possesses the good?" "Happiness," I replied; "there is no difficulty in answering that." "Yes," she said, "the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final." "That is true," I said. "And is this wish and this desire common to all? and do all men always desire their own good, or only some men?--what think you?" "All men," I replied; "the desire is common to all." "But all men, Socrates," she rejoined, "are not said to love, but only some of them; and you say that all men are always loving the same things." "I myself wonder," I said, "why that is."

"There is nothing to wonder at," she replied; "the reason is that one part of love is separated off and receives the name of the whole, but the other parts have other names." "Give an example," I said. She answered me as follows: "There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex and manifold. And all creation or pa.s.sage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and the processes of all art are creative, and the masters of arts are all poets." "Very true." "Still," she said, "you know that they are not called poets, but have other names; the generic term 'poetry' is confined to that specific art which is separated off from the rest of poetry, and is concerned with music and meter; and this is what is called poetry, and they who possess this kind of poetry are called poets."

"Very true," I said. "And the same holds of love. For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is due to the great and subtle power of Love; but those who, having their affections set upon him, are yet diverted into the paths of money-making or gymnastic philosophy are not called lovers--the name of the genus is reserved for those whose devotion takes one form only--they alone are said to love, or to be lovers." "In that," I said, "I am of opinion that you are right." "Yes," she said, "and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for the half of themselves; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away if they are evil; for they love them not because they are their own, but because they are good, and dislike them not because they are another's, but because they are evil. There is nothing which men love but the good. Do you think that there is?" "Indeed," I answered, "I should say not." "Then," she said, "the conclusion of the whole matter is that men love the good." "Yes," I said. "To which may be added that they love the possession of the good?" "Yes, that may be added." "And not only the possession, but the everlasting possession of the good?" "That may be added too." "Then love," she said, "may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?" "That is most true," I said.

"Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further," she said, "what is the manner of the pursuit? What are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love? Answer me that."

"Nay, Diotima," I said, "if I had known I should not have wondered at your wisdom or have come to you to learn." "Well," she said, "I will teach you: love is only birth in beauty, whether of body or soul."

"The oracle requires an explanation," I said; "I don't understand you." "I will make my meaning clearer," she replied. "I mean to say that which all men are bringing to the birth of their bodies and their souls. There is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation; and this procreation must be in beauty and not in deformity; and this is the mystery of man and woman, which is a divine thing, for conception and generation are a principle of immortality in the mortal creature. And in the inharmonical they can never be. But the deformed is always inharmonical with the divine, and the beautiful harmonious. Beauty, then, is the destiny or G.o.ddess of parturition who presides a birth, and therefore, when approaching beauty the conceiving power is propitious, and diffuse, and benign, and begets and bears fruit; on the appearance of foulness she frowns and contracts in pain, and is averted and morose, and shrinks up, and not without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason why, when the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is full, there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of pain. For love, Socrates, is not, as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only." "What then?" "The love of generation and birth in beauty." "Yes," I said. "Yes, indeed," she replied. "But why of birth?" I said. "Because to the mortal, birth is a sort of eternity and immortality," she replied; "and as has been already admitted, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good if love is of the everlasting possession of the good."

All this she taught me at various times when she spoke of love. And on another occasion she said to me: "What is the reason, Socrates, of this love, and the attendant desire? See you not how all animals, birds as well as beasts, in their desire of procreation, are in agony when they take the infection of love; this begins with the desire of union, to which is added the care of offspring, in behalf of whom the weakest are ready to battle against the strongest even to the uttermost, and to die for them, and will let themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything in order to maintain their offspring.... Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for that universal love and interest are for the sake of immortality."

When I heard this, I was astonished and said, "Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?" And she answered with all the authority of a sophist: "Of that, Socrates, you may be a.s.sured; think only of the ambition of men, and you will marvel at their senselessness unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame.

They are ready to run risks greater far than they would have run for their children, and to spend money and undergo any amount of toil, and even to die for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal. Do you imagine that Alcestis[62] would have died on behalf of Admetus, or Achilles after Patroclus, or your own Codrus in order to preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the memory of their virtues, which is still retained among us, would be immortal? Nay," she said, "for I am persuaded that all men do all things for the sake of the glorious fame of immortal virtue, and the better they are the more they desire this; for they are ravished with the desire of the immortal.

"Men whose bodies only are creative betake themselves to women and beget children--this is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and give them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But creative souls--for there are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies--conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or retain. And what are these conceptions?--wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are all poets and other artists who may be said to have invention. But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate offspring. And he wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring--for in deformity he will beget nothing--and embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed; and when he finds a fair and n.o.ble and well-nurtured soul, and there is union of the two in one person, he gladly embraces it, and to such a soul he is full of fair speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man; and he tries to educate it; and at the touch and presence of the beautiful he brings forth the beautiful which he conceived long before, and the beautiful is ever present with him and in his memory even when absent, and in company they tend that which he brings forth, and they are bound together by a far nearer tie and have a closer friends.h.i.+p than those who beget mortal children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal. Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod[63] and other great poets, would not rather emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory? Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus[64] left behind to be the saviors, not only of Lacedaemon, but of h.e.l.las, as one may say? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there are in various places, both among h.e.l.lenes and barbarians. They all have done many n.o.ble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind, and in honor of their children many temples have been raised, which were never raised in honor of the mortal children of any one.

"These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed rightly in this matter should begin in youth to turn to beautiful forms; and first, if his instructor guide him rightly, he should learn to love one such form only--out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will find himself perceive that the beauty of one form is truly related to the beauty of another; and then if beauty in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is one and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; this will lead him on to consider that the beauty of the mind is more honorable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend it, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until his beloved is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of inst.i.tutions and laws, and understand that all is of one kindred, and that personal beauty is only a trifle; and after laws and inst.i.tutions he will lead him on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or inst.i.tution, himself a slave mean and calculating, but looking at the abundance of beauty and drawing toward the sea of beauty, and creating and beholding many fair and n.o.ble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom, until at length he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere...."

Such, Phaedrus[65]--and I speak not only to you, but to all men--were the words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being persuaded of them, I try to persuade others that in the attainment of this end human nature will not easily find a better helper than Love.

And, therefore, also, I say that every man ought to honor him as I myself honor him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the same, even as I praise the power and spirit of Love according to the measure of my ability now and ever.

The words which I have spoken, you, Phaedrus, may call an encomium of Love or anything else which you please.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 60: From "The Symposium." Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

Mahaffy ranks this work "as greater and more brilliant" than the "Phaedo." Being intensely Greek, it has, however, seemed alien, if not offensive, to many modern readers. Scholars have valued it highly as a vivid picture of the manners of the most refined society of Athens. It has sometimes been called "The Banquet." Under that name, the poet Sh.e.l.ley made a translation. The banquet described took place in the house of the tragic poet Agathon. Agathon was born about 477 B.C., of a rich and eminent Athenian family. He was remarkable for personal accomplishments rather than for high literary genius. He is believed to have died at the age of forty-seven.]

[Footnote 61: Diotima, a priestess, reputed to have been a Pythagorean, but some writers have doubted her existence.]

[Footnote 62: The wife of Admetus, a Thessalian king, who sacrificed her life in order to save that of her husband.]

[Footnote 63: Hesiod, whose home was in Boeotia, is thought to have lived about three centuries after Homer; that is, about 800 B.C. He was a shepherd in his youth, and began to write verses while tending his flocks.]

[Footnote 64: Lived probably in the ninth century B.C., and the traditional author of the laws by which Sparta was governed for several centuries.]

[Footnote 65: An Athenian, son of Pythocles, and friend of Plato, but of whom nothing more is known.]