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Start listening today at P-O-D-C-A-S-T-L-I-D-R-A-R-Y.org. Start listening today at P-O-D-C-A-S-T-L-I-D-R-A-R-Y.org. Section 3. Now Socrates, what do you think is not the discourse excellent, more especially in the matter of the language?
Yes, quite admirable. The effect that you're reading is actually start listening today at PODCAST L-I-D-R-A-R-Y D-O-R-G Section 3 Now Socrates, what do you think? Is not the discourse excellent, more especially in the matter of the language? Yes, quite admirable.
The effect on me was ravishing. And this I owe to you, Phytrus, for I observed you while reading to be in an ecstasy, and thinking that you are more experienced in these matters than I am. I followed your example, and like you, my divine darling. I became inspired with a frenzy.
Indeed you are pleased to be merry. Do you mean that I am not in earnest? Now don't talk in that way, Socrates, but let me have your real opinion. I enjoy you by Zeus, the god of friendship, to tell me whether you think that any helene could have said more, or spoken better on the same subject.
Well, what do you and I expect it to praise the sentiments of the author, or only the clearness and roundness and finish, and to a near of the language? As to the first, I willingly submit to your better judgment, for I am not worthy to form an opinion, having only attended to the rhetorical manner. And I was doubting whether this could have been defended even by Lucius himself. I thought, will I speak under correction, that he repeated himself two or three times, either from one to words or from one to pain.
And also, he appeared to me ostentatiously to exalt, in showing how well he could say the same thing in two or three ways. Nonsense Socrates, what you call repetition, was the special merit of the speech, for he omitted no topic of which the subject rightly allowed, and I do not think that anyone could have spoken better or more exhaustively. There I cannot go along with you. Ancient sages, men and women, who have spoken and written of these things, would rise up in judgment against me, if out of completions I assented to you.
Who are they? And where did you hear anything better than this? I am sure that I must have heard, but at this moment I do not remember from whom, perhaps from, saffo the fair, or anacryon the wise, or possibly from a prose writer. Why do I say so?
Why, because I perceive that my bosom is full, and that I could make another speech as good as that of Lucius, and different. Now, I am certain that this is not an invention of my own, who am well aware that I know nothing, and therefore I can only infer that I have been filled through the ears, like a picture, on the waters of another, though I have actually forgotten, in my stupidity, who was my informant. That is grand, but never mind where you heard the discourse, or from whom. Let that be a mystery, not to be divulged, even at my earnest desire, only as you say, promise to make another and better oration, equal in length and entirely new on the same object, and I, like the nine archons, will promise to set up a golden image at Delphi, not only of myself, but of you, and as large as life.
You are a dear golden ass, if you suppose me to mean that Lucius has altogether missed the mark, and that I can make a speech from which all his arguments are to be excluded. The worst of authors will say something which is to the point, who, for example, could speak on this thesis of yours without praising the discretion of the non-lover, and blaming the indiscretion of the lover. These are the common places of the subject which must come in, for what else is there to be said, and must be allowed and excused. The only merit is in the arrangement of them, for there can be none in the invention, but when you leave the common places, then there may be some originality.
I admit that there is reason in what you say, and I too will be reasonable, and will allow you to start with the premise that the lover is more disordered in his wits than the non-lover. If in what remains you make a longer and better speech than Lucius, and use other arguments, then I say again that a statue you shall have of beaten gold, and take your place by the colossal offerings of the Cupesilids at Olympia. How profoundly in earnest is the lover, because to tease him I lay a finger upon his love, and so fightous you really imagine that I am going to improve upon the ingenuity of Lucius. There I have you as you had me, and you must just speak as you best can.
Do not let us exchange too quack way, as in a farce, or compel me to say to you as you said to me. I know Socrates as well as I know myself, and he was wanting to speak, but he gave himself heirs. Rather I would have you consider that from this place we stir a knot, not until you have un-buzzomed yourself of the speech. For here are we all alone, and I am stronger remember, and younger than you, who therefore pretend, and do not compel me to use violence.
But my sweet fidrous, how ridiculous it would be of me to compete with Lucius in an extemporous speech, he is a master in his art, and I am an untaught man. You see how matters stand, and therefore let there be no more pretenses. For indeed I know the word that is irresistible. And do not say it.
Yes, but I will, and my word shall be an oath. I say, or rather swear. But what God will be witness of my oath. By this plane tree I swear that unless you repeat the discourse here in the face of this very plane tree I will never tell you another.
Never let you have word of another. Villain, I am conchorded. The poor lover of discourse has no more to say. Then why are you still at your tricks?
I am not going to play tricks, now that you have taken the oath, for I cannot allow myself to be starved. Proceed. Shall I tell you what I will do? What?
I will veil my face and tell it through the discourse as fast as I can, for if I see you I shall feel ashamed and not know what to say. Only go on, and you may do anything else which you please. Come, O you muses, melodious as your court, whether you have received this name from the character of your strains or because the melons are a musical risk. Help, oh, help me in the tale which my good friend here desires me to rehearse, in order that his friend whom he always deemed wise may seem to him to be wiser than ever.
Once upon a time there was a fair boy, or more properly speaking, a youth. He was very fair and had a great many lovers, and there was one special cunning one who had persuaded the youth that he did not love him, but he really loved him all the same, and one day when he was paying his addresses to him he used this very argument that he ought to accept the non-lover rather than the lover. His words were as follows. All good counsel begins in the same way, a man should know what he is advising about, or his counsel will all come to naught, but people imagine that they know about the nature of things when they don't know about them, and not having come to an understanding at first because they think that they know they end as might be expected in contradicting one another and themselves.
Now you and I must not be guilty of this fundamental error which we condemn in others, but as our question is whether the lover or non-lover is to be preferred. Let us first of all agree in defining the nature and power of love, and then keeping our eyes upon the definition, and to this appealing, let us further inquire whether love brings advantage or disadvantage. Everyone sees that love is a desire, and we know also that non-lovers desire the beautiful and good. Now, in what ways the lover to be distinguished from the non-lover?
Let us note that in every one of us there are two guiding and ruling principles which lead us with a they will. One is the natural desire of pleasure. The other is an acquired opinion which aspires after the best, and these two are sometimes in harmony, and then again at war, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other conquers. When opinion by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering principle is called temperance.
But when desire, which is devoid of reason, rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule is called excess. Now, excess has many names, and many members and many forms, and any of these forms when very marked gives a name neither honorable nor creditable to the bearer of the name. The desire of eating, for example, which gets the better of the higher reason and the other desires, is called gluttony, and he who is possessed by it is called a glutton. The tyrannical desire of drink, which inclines the possessor of the desire to drink, has a name which is only too obvious, and there can be as little doubt by what name any other appetite of the same family would be called.
It will be the name of that which happens to be dominant. And now I think that you will perceive the drift of my discourse. But as every spoken word is in a manner planer than the unspoken, I had better say further that the irrational desire which overcomes the tendency of opinion towards right, and is led away to the enjoyment of beauty, and especially of personal beauty, by the desires which are her own kindred. That supreme desire, I say, which by leading conquers and by the force of passion is reinforced, from this very force receiving a name is called love.
Ereminos, Eros. End of section 3