symposium   

vulgar Polyhymnia, who must be used with circumspection that the

pleasure be enjoyed, but may not generate licentiousness; just as in

my own art it is a great matter so to regulate the desires of the

epicure that he may gratify his tastes without the attendant evil of

disease. Whence I infer that in music, in medicine, in all other

things human as which as divine, both loves ought to be noted as far

as may be, for they are both present.

The course of the seasons is also full of both these principles; and

when, as I was saying, the elements of hot and cold, moist and dry,

attain the harmonious love of one another and blend in temperance

and harmony, they bring to men, animals, and plants health and plenty,

and do them no harm; whereas the wanton love, getting the upper hand

and affecting the seasons of the year, is very destructive and

injurious, being the source of pestilence, and bringing many other

kinds of diseases on animals and plants; for hoar-frost and hail and

blight spring from the excesses and disorders of these elements of

love, which to know in relation to the revolutions of the heavenly

bodies and the seasons of the year is termed astronomy. Furthermore

all sacrifices and the whole province of divination, which is the

art of communion between gods and men-these, I say, are concerned with

the preservation of the good and the cure of the evil love. For all

manner of impiety is likely to ensue if, instead of accepting and

honouring and reverencing the harmonious love in all his actions, a

man honours the other love, whether in his feelings towards gods or

parents, towards the living or the dead. Wherefore the business of

divination is to see to these loves and to heal them, and divination

is the peacemaker of gods and men, working by a knowledge of the

religious or irreligious tendencies which exist in human loves. Such

is the great and mighty, or rather omnipotent force of love in

general. And the love, more especially, which is concerned with the

good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice,

whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source