symposium   

For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning

life than a virtuous lover or to the lover than a beloved youth. For

the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly

live at principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor

any other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I

speaking? Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which

neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. And I

say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable act, or

submitting through cowardice when any dishonour is done to him by

another, will be more pained at being detected by his beloved than

at being seen by his father, or by his companions, or by any one else.

The beloved too, when he is found in any disgraceful situation, has

the same feeling about his lover. And if there were only some way of

contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and

their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own

city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in

honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere

handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not

choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either

when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be

ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would

desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest

coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such

a time; Love would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the

god breathes into the souls of some heroes, Love of his own nature

infuses into the lover.

Love will make men dare to die for their beloved-love alone; and

women as well as men. Of this, Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, is

a monument to all Hellas; for she was willing to lay down her life

on behalf of her husband, when no one else would, although he had a

father and mother; but the tenderness of her love so far exceeded

theirs, that she made them seem to be strangers in blood to their