symposium   

is no love-did you not say something of that kind?

Yes, said Agathon.

Yes, my friend, and the remark was a just one. And if this is

true, Love is the love of beauty and not of deformity?

He assented.

And the admission has been already made that Love is of something

which a man wants and has not?

True, he said.

Then Love wants and has not beauty?

Certainly, he replied.

And would you call that beautiful which wants and does not possess

beauty?

Certainly not.

Then would you still say that love is beautiful?

Agathon replied: I fear that I did not understand what I was saying.

You made a very good speech, Agathon, replied Socrates; but there is

yet one small question which I would fain ask:-Is not the good also

the beautiful?

Yes.

Then in wanting the beautiful, love wants also the good?

I cannot refute you, Socrates, said Agathon:-Let us assume that what

you say is true.

Say rather, beloved Agathon, that you cannot refute the truth; for

Socrates is easily refuted.

And now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of love

which I heard from Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this and in

many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when the

Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed

the disease ten years. She was my instructress in the art of love, and

I shall repeat to you what she said to me, beginning with the

admissions made by Agathon, which are nearly if not quite the same

which I made to the wise woman when she questioned me-I think that