Part 106

Socr. Ah, wicked one! how well have you found out how to compel a lover of speeches to do whatever you bid him.

Phæ. Why then do you hesitate?

Socr. I shall not any longer, since you have sworn this oath. For how should I ever be able to debar myself of such a feast?

Phæ. Begin then.

Socr. Do you know then, what I mean to do?

Phæ. About what?

Socr. I shall speak with my face covered, that I may run through my speech as quickly as possible, and that I may not, by looking at you, be put out through shame.

Phæ. Do but speak; and as to the rest, do as you please.

29. Socr. Come then, ye Muses, whether from the character of your song, ye are called tuneful, or whether ye derive this appellation from the musical race of the Ligyans, assist me in the tale which this best of men compels me to relate, that so his friend, who heretofore appeared to him to be wise, may now appear still more so.

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Footnote 119:

There is here a play on the words λίγειαι “tuneful,” and Λιγύων “Ligyans,” which cannot be retained in an English version.

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There was once a boy, or rather a youth, of exceeding beauty; and he had very many lovers. One of them was a cunning fellow; who though he was no less in love than the rest, persuaded the boy that he was not in love. And once, as he was courting him, he endeavoured to persuade him that favour ought to be shewn to one who was not in love, in preference to one who was. And he spoke as follows.

On every subject, my boy, there is one method of beginning, for those who mean to deliberate well; they must know what the thing is about which the deliberation is to be, or else of necessity go altogether astray. But it has escaped the notice of most men that they do not know the essence of each several thing. As if they did know, then, they do not agree with each other at the outset of the enquiry, and as they proceed they pay the probable penalty, for they agree neither with themselves nor with each other. Let not you and I, then, fall into the error which we condemn in others, but since the question proposed to us is, whether we ought rather to enter into a friendship with one who is in love or not, having by mutual agreement settled on a definition of love, what it is, and what power it has, and looking back and referring to this, let us prosecute our enquiry whether it occasions advantage or detriment. 30. That love, then, is a kind of desire, is clear to every one; and we know that they who are not in love, desire beautiful things. How then shall we distinguish a lover from one who is not in love? Here it is necessary to observe, that in each of us there are two ruling and leading principles, which we follow wherever they lead, one being an innate desire of pleasures, the other an acquired opinion, which aims at what is most excellent. These sometimes agree in us, and sometimes are at variance; and sometimes one gets the upper hand, at other times the other. When opinion therefore with the aid of reason leads to that which is best, and gets the upper hand, we give the name of temperance to this power; but when desire drags us irrationally to pleasures and rules within us, this ruling power takes the name of excess. But excess has many names; for it has many limbs and many forms. 31. And of these principles whichever happens to get the predominance gives its own designation to the person who possesses it, and that neither honourable nor worth acquiring. For instance with respect to food, desire that gets the better of the highest reason, and of the other desires, will be called gluttony, and will cause the person who possesses it to be called by the same name; again with respect to drinking, when it has usurped dominion, by leading its possessor in this direction, it is clear what designation it will acquire: and with respect to other things akin to these, and the names of kindred desires, it is manifest how they ought to be called, according as each for the time being happens to be dominant. Why all this has been said is already pretty evident, but every thing becomes in a manner more clear by being mentioned than if not mentioned. 32. For desire without reason having got the upper hand of opinion that tends to what is right, and being driven towards the pleasure derived from beauty, and being strongly impelled by its kindred desires to corporeal beauty, receives its name from this very strength and is called love. But, my dear Phædrus, do I appear to you, as I do to myself, to be moved by some divine influence?

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Footnote 120:

I have followed Stallbaum in omitting the words ἐῤῥωμένως and νικήσασα, but still fear that I have failed to convey the full meaning of this difficult and corrupt passage.

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Phæ. Assuredly, Socrates, an unusual fluency has got possession of you.

Socr. Listen to me then in silence. For in truth the place appears to be divine. If, therefore, in the progress of my speech I should be frequently entranced by the genius of the spot, you must not be surprized. For what I utter now is not very far removed from dithyrambics.

Phæ. You say most truly.

33. Socr. Of this, however, you are the cause. But hear the rest; for perhaps the attack of the trance may be averted: though this will be the care of the deity, but let us again direct our discourse to the boy.

Well then, my excellent boy, what that is, about which we are to deliberate, has been declared and defined. Keeping this in view, then, let us proceed to consider what advantage or detriment will probably accrue from one who is in love and one who is not, to him that shews favour to them.

He that is ruled by desire and is a slave to pleasure, must necessarily, I think, endeavour to make the object of his love as agreeable to himself as possible. But to one diseased every thing is pleasant that does not oppose his wishes; but that which is superior and equal is hateful to him. A lover therefore will never willingly allow his favourite to be either superior to or on an equality with himself, but is always endeavouring to make him inferior and more deficient. An ignorant person is inferior to a wise one, a coward to a brave one, one who is unable to speak to a rhetorician, a dull to a clever one. 34. Since so many evils, and even more than these, are engendered or naturally exist in the mind of the beloved object, the lover must of necessity rejoice at the existence of the one sort and endeavour to introduce the others, or be deprived of immediate pleasure. He must therefore needs be envious, and by debarring his favourite from much other and that profitable society, whence he might become most manly, he is the occasion of great harm, and of the greatest by debarring him of that by means of which he would become most wise; and this is divine philosophy, from which a lover must needs keep his favourite at a distance, through the fear of being despised; and must so manage every thing else, that he may be ignorant of every thing, and look to the lover for every thing, thus being most agreeable to him, but most detrimental to himself. As concerns the mind, then, a man that is in love is in no respect a profitable guardian and companion.

But as to the habit and care of the body, what it will be and how he will attend to it, of which a man has become the lord, who is compelled to pursue the pleasant in preference to the good, is next to be considered. 35. He will be seen pursuing some delicate and not hardy youth, not reared in the open air but under the shade of mingled trees, a stranger to manly toil, and dry sweats, but no stranger to a delicate and effeminate mode of life, adorned with foreign colours and ornaments, through want of such as are natural, and studious of all such other things as accompany these: what they are, is clear, and it is not worth while to enter into further detail; but having summed them up under one head, we will proceed to another part of our subject. Such a body both in battle and other great emergencies, enemies will look upon with confidence, but friends and lovers themselves will fear for. This, however, as sufficiently evident, may be dismissed. 36. In the next place we must declare what advantage or what detriment, with respect to our possessions, the society and guardianship of one in love will occasion. But this indeed is manifest to every one, and especially to a lover, that he would desire above all things that the object of his love should be bereft of his dearest, fondest, and holiest treasures: for he would have him gladly deprived of father and mother, kindred and friends, thinking that they are an hindrance to, and blamers of the sweetest intercourse with him. Moreover if he has abundance of gold, or any other property, he will think that he cannot be so easily caught, nor when caught easily managed. Wherefore it must of necessity happen that a lover should grudge his favourite possession of abundance, and should rejoice at its loss. Further still, a lover will wish his favourite to continue as long as possible without a wife, without child, and without home, from a desire to enjoy his own delights for as long a time as possible. 37. There are, indeed, other evils besides these, but some deity has mingled present pleasure with most of them: with a flatterer, for instance, a dreadful beast and great bane, nature has nevertheless mingled a kind of pleasure that is by no means inelegant. And some one perhaps may blame a mistress as detrimental, and many other similar creatures and pursuits, which for the day, however, afford the greatest enjoyment; but to a favourite, a lover besides being detrimental, is the most disagreeable of all for daily intercourse. For the ancient proverb says, that equal delights in equal; I suppose, because an equality of age leading to equal pleasures produces friendship by similarity of tastes. But still the intercourse even of these brings satiety: and moreover, necessity is said to be irksome to every one in every thing; and this in addition to their dissimilarity is especially the case with a lover towards his favourite. 38. For an old man who associates with a young one, does not willingly leave him, either by day or night, but is driven on by necessity and frenzy, which leads him on by constantly giving him pleasure, through seeing, hearing, touching, and by every sense feeling the presence of the beloved object, so that he would with pleasure cling constantly to him: but by giving what solace or what pleasures to the object of his love, can he prevent him during an intercourse of equal duration, from feeling the utmost disgust, while he sees a face old and no longer in its bloom, with the other things that accompany it, which are unpleasant even to hear spoken of, much more so to have actually to do with from an ever-pressing necessity; when he has too to keep a suspicious watch over himself at all times and in all company, and has to listen to unreasonable and extravagant praises, and reproaches as well, which when the lover is sober are intolerable, and when he is drunk, are not only intolerable but disgraceful from the loathsome and undisguised freedom of his language. 39. Thus he that is in love is detrimental and disgusting, but when he ceases to love, he is thenceforth unfaithful towards him who by many promises and with many oaths and entreaties he could hardly prevail on at that time to endure his troublesome familiarity in the hope of advantage. But now, when payment ought to be made, having received within himself another ruler and master, reason and prudence, instead of love and madness, he has become another man unknown to his favourite. He then demands a return for former favours, reminding him of what was done and said, as if he was talking to the same person; but the other through shame, dares neither say that he has become another man, nor is he able to adhere to the oaths and promises of the former insensate reign, now that he has got possession of his senses and has become prudent, fearing lest, by doing the same things as before, he should become like what he was, and the same thing again. 40. Hence he becomes a runaway, and of necessity a defrauder, who was before a lover, and the shell being turned, he changes from pursuit to flight; but the other is forced to pursue him with indignation and curses, having been ignorant from the very beginning that he ought never to have granted favours to one that is in love and of necessity out of his senses, but much rather to one who is not in love, and in his right mind; otherwise he must necessarily give himself up to one that is unfaithful, morose, envious, disgusting, detrimental to his property, detrimental to his bodily habit, but far more detrimental to the cultivation of his soul, than which in truth there neither is nor ever will be any thing more precious in the sight of gods and men. It is right, therefore, my boy, to reflect on these things, and to know that the attachment of a lover is not united with good will, but like food for the sake of repletion, “as wolves love a lamb, so lovers love a boy.”

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Footnote 121: