"'He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has
learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes
toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and
this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature
which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or
waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in
another, or at one time or in one relation or in one place fair, at
another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair
to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any
other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge,
or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in
heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute,
separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without
increase, or any change, is imparted to the evergrowing and perishing
beauties of all other things. He who, from these ascending under the
influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from
the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the
things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards
for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from
one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms
to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from
fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last
knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates,' said the
stranger of Mantineia, 'is that life above all others which man should
live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute: a beauty which if you
once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and
garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you;
and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and
conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible,--you
only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes
to see the true beauty--the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and
unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the
colours and vanities of human life--thither looking, and holding
converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that
communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be
enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has
hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and
nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if
mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?'
"Such, Phaedrus--and I speak not only to you, but to all of you--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 helper better than Love.
And therefore, also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I
myself honour him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the
same, and praise the power and spirit of Love according to the measure
of my ability now and ever." [Footnote: Plato, Symp. 201.--Translated by
Jowett.]
I have thought it worth while to quote this passage, in spite of its
length, partly for the sake of its own intrinsic beauty, partly because
no account of the Greek view of life could be complete which did not
insist upon the prominence in their civilisation of the passion of
friendship, and its capacity of being turned to the noblest uses. That
there was another side to the matter goes without saying. This passion,
like any other, has its depths, as well as its heights; and the ideal of
friendship conceived by Plato was as remote, perhaps, from the
experience of the average man, as Dante's presentation of the love