symposium   

appears to be the same although in reality new, according to that

law of succession by which all mortal things are preserved, not

absolutely the same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality

leaving another new and similar existence behind unlike the divine,

which is always the same and not another? And in this way, Socrates,

the mortal body, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality; but

the immortal in another way. Marvel not then at the love which all men

have of their offspring; for that universal love and interest is for

the sake of immortality."

I was astonished at her words, and said: "Is this really true, O

thou wise Diotima?" And she answered with all the authority of an

accomplished sophist: "Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;-think

only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the

senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are

stirred by the love of an immortality of fame. They are ready to run

all risks greater far than they would have for their children, and

to spend money and undergo any sort of toil, and even to die, for

the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal. Do

you imagine that Alcestis would have died to save Admetus, or Achilles

to avenge Patroclus, or your own Codrus in order to preserve the

kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the memory of

their virtues, which still survives among us, would be immortal? Nay,"

she said, "I am persuaded that all men do all things, and the better

they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious fame of

immortal virtue; for they desire the immortal.

"Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women

and beget children-this is the character of their love; their

offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them

the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But

souls which are pregnant-for there certainly are men who are more

creative in their souls than in their bodies conceive that which is

proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these