symposium   

he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous

beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former

toils)-a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing

and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of

view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at

one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another

place foul, as if fair to some and-foul to others, or in the

likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame,

or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being,

as for example, in an animal, or in heaven or in earth, or in any

other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting,

which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is

imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other

things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true

love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the

true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love,

is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the

sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one

going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms

to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from

fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at

last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates,"

said the stranger of Mantineia, "is that life above all others which

man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty

which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of

gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now

entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live

seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if

that were possible-you only want to look at them and to be with

them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty-the divine

beauty, I mean, pure and dear and unalloyed, not clogged with the

pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human