symposium   

desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original

nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.

Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish,

is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his

other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once

called Androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of

this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men: the women

who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female

attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who

are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young,

being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace

them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because

they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert that they are

shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any

want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a

manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these

when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a

great proof of the truth of what I am saving. When they reach

manhood they are loves of youth, and are not naturally inclined to

marry or beget children,-if at all, they do so only in obedience to

the law; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with

one another unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and ready

to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him. And when

one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself,

whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair

are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and

would not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a

moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together;

yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the

intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not

appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something

else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and