all Beautiful Bodies, and his vehement love of the one Body he will remit, despising it now and thinking it a small thing. Thereafter cometh the time when he deemeth the Beauty that is in Souls more precious than the Beauty in the Body; so that if any one hath some goodness of Soul, but little comeliness of Body, such an one pleaseth him well, and he loveth him and careth for him, and in companionship with him bringeth to birth, and seeketh after, such Discourse as shall make young men better; seeking after this, he is constrained to survey that Beauty which is in Morals and Laws, and seeth clearly that it is all of one kindred. Apprehending this Beauty, he must needs deem the Beauty of the Body a small thing.

After Morals, behold him next led up to Sciences, that he may see their Beauty; and looking at Beauty now widely extended, may no longer be as a bondman, mean and paltry, enslaved unto the Beauty of one,-unto the Beauty of some boy, or man, or custom,-but having turned him unto the Great Sea of Beauty, and looking upon it, may bring forth many Arguments fair and high, many Thoughts out of the fulness of Philosophy, until, having been there strengthened and increased, he can discern that One Science which comprehendeth that One Beauty. Now, I beseech thee, she said, hearken, as diligently as thou canst, to my words and understand them.

Whosoever hath been led by his preceptor thus far into the Mysteries of Eros, and hath surveyed beautiful things in the right order, when he cometh at last to the end of his Initiation, on a sudden shall behold a marvel, a Thing of Beauty, That Thing, Socrates, for whose sake all the former labours were endured-That Which Alway Is, without generation or destruction, or increase or decrease; which is not, on this side, or at this time, beautiful, and on that side, or at that time, deformed; in comparison with one thing, beautiful, and with another thing, deformed; in one place beautiful, and in another, deformed; beautiful in the eyes of one man, and in the eyes of another, deformed. Nor will the Thing of Beauty appear unto him as a countenance, or as hands, or as aught which Corporeal Body hath belonging unto it; nor as any Speech, or Science, nor as that which is somewhere in some

οὐδέ που ὂν ἐν ἑτέρῳ τινί, οἷον ἐν ζώῳ ἢ ἐν γῇ ἡ ἐν Β οὐρανῷ ἢ ἔν τῷ ἄλλῳ, ἀλλὰ αὐτὸ καθ ̓ αὑτὸ μεθ ̓ αὑτοῦ μονοειδὲς ἀεὶ ὄν, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα πάντα καλὰ ἐκείνου μετέχοντα τρόπον τινὰ τοιοῦτον, οἷον γιγνομένων τε τῶν ἄλλων καὶ ἀπολλυμένων μηδὲν ἐκεῖνο μήτε τι πλέον μήτε ἔλαττον γίγνεσθαι μηδὲ πάσχειν μηδέν. ὅταν δή τις ἀπὸ τῶνδε διὰ τὸ ὀρθῶς παιδεραστεῖν ἐπανιὼν ἐκεῖνο τὸ καλὸν ἄρχηται καθορᾶν, σχεδὸν ἄν τι ἅπτοιτο τοῦ τέλους. τοῦτο γὰρ αδή ἐστι τὸ ὀρθῶς ἐπὶ τὰ ἐρωτικὰ ἰέναι ἢ ὑπ ̓ ἄλλον ἄγεσθαι, ἀρχόμενον ἀπὸ τῶνδε τῶν καλῶν ἐκείνου ἕνεκα τοῦ καλοῦ ἀεὶ ἐπανιέναι, ὥσπερ ἐπαναβασμοῖς χρώμενον, ἀπὸ ἑνὸς ἐπὶ δύο καὶ ἀπὸ δυεῖν ἐπὶ πάντα τὰ καλὰ σώματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν καλῶν σωμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν καλῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ μηθήματα, ἔστ ̓ ἂν ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων ἐπ ̓ ἐκεῖνο τὸ μάθημα τελευτήσῃ, ὅ ἐστιν οὐκ ἄλλου ἢ αὐτοῦ ἐκείνου τοῦ καλοῦ D μάθημα, καὶ γνῷ αὐτὸ τελευτῶν ὃ ἔστι καλόν. Ἐνταῦθα τοῦ βίου, ὦ φίλε Σώκρατες, ἔφη ἡ Μαντινικὴ ξένη, εἴπερ που ἄλλοθι, βιωτὸν ἀνθρώπῳ, θεωμένῳ αὐτὸ τὸ καλόν. ὃ ἐάν ποτε ἴδῃς, οὐ κατὰ χρυσίον τε καὶ ἐσθῆτα καὶ τοὺς καλοὺς παῖδάς τε καὶ νεανίσκους δόξει σοι εἶναι, οὓς νῦν ὁρῶν ἐκπέπληξαι καὶ ἕτοιμος εἶ καὶ σὺ καὶ ἄλλοι πολλοί, ὁρῶντες τὰ παιδικὰ καὶ ξυνόντες ἀεὶ αὐτοῖς, εἴ πως οἷόν τ ̓ ἦν, μήτε ἐσθίειν μήτε πίνειν, ἀλλὰ θεᾶσθαι μόνον καὶ ξυνεῖναι. τί δῆτα, ἔφη, οἰόμεθα, εἴ τῳ γένοιτο αὐτὸ τὸ Ε καλὸν ἰδεῖν εἰλικρινές, καθαρόν, ἄμικτον, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἀνάπλεων σαρκῶν τε ἀνθρωπίνων καὶ χρωμάτων καὶ ἄλλης πολλῆς φλυαρίας θνητῆς, ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὸ τὸ θεῖον καλὸν δύναιτο μονοειδὲς κατιδεῖν; ἆρ ̓ οἴει, ἔφη, φαῦλον βίον γίγνεσθαι 212 ἐκεῖσε βλέποντος ἀνθρώπου κἀκεῖνο ᾧ δεῖ θεωμένου καὶ ξυνόντος αὐτῷ; ἢ οὐκ ἐνθυμεῖ, ἔφη, ὅτι ἐνταῦθα αὐτῷ μοναχοῦ γενήσεται, ὁρῶντι ᾧ ὁρατὸν τὸ καλόν, τίκτειν οὐκ εἴδωλα ἀρετῆς, ἅτε οὐκ εἰδώλου ἐφαπτομένῳ, ἀλλ ̓ ἀληθῆ, ἅτε τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἐφαπτομένῳ, τεκόντι δὲ ἀρετὴν ἀληθῆ καὶ θρεψαμένῳ ὑπάρχει θεοφιλεῖ γενέσθαι καί, εἴπερ τῳ ἄλλῳ ἀνθρώπων, ἀθανάτῳ καὶ ἐκείνῳ;

other thing, as in a living creature, or in earth, or in heaven, or in any other thing; but he shall see It as That which Is in Itself, with Itself, of one Form, Eternal; and all the other beautiful things he shall see as partaking of It after such manner that, while they come into being and perish, It becometh not a whit greater or less, nor suffereth any change at all. 'Tis when a man ascendeth from these beautiful things by the Right Way of Love, and beginneth to have sight of that Eternal Beauty,-'tis then, methinks, that he toucheth the goal. For this is the right Way to go into the Mysteries of Eros, or to be led by another-beginning from the beautiful things here, to mount up alway unto that Eternal Beauty, using these things as the steps of a ladder-ascending from one to two, and from two to all, Beautiful Bodies, and from Beautiful Bodies to Beautiful Customs, and from Beautiful Customs to Beautiful Doctrines, and from these till at last, being come unto that which is the Doctrine of the Eternal Beauty and of naught else beside, he apprehendeth what Beauty Itself is. 'Tis then, dear Socrates, said the Woman of Mantinea, that life is worth living, and then only, when a man cometh to behold Beauty Itself; the which if thou hast once seen, thou wilt hold wealth, and fine raiment, and fair companions, as naught in comparison with it -yea, those fair companions whom thou now lookest upon with amazement, and art ready-thou and many others of thy like to pass your lives with them, gazing upon them, and, if it were possible, neither eating nor drinking, but only beholding them and being with them alway. What thinkest thou, then, she said, if a man could see Beauty Itself, clear, pure, separate, not gross with human flesh, and tainted with colours, and decked out with perishing gauds-what thinkest thou, if he could behold Beauty Itself, divine, uniform? Thinkest thou, she said, that it would be a paltry life for a man to live, looking unto that, beholding it with the faculty meet therefor, and being with it alway? Understandest thou not that thus only shall he be able, seeing with that whereby Beauty is seen, to bring forth, not Images of Virtue-for 'tis no Image that he layeth hold of, but Things True for he layeth hold of That which is True; and when he hath brought forth True Virtue and nurtured her, understandest thou not that then he hath become above all men beloved of God, and himself immortal!

OBSERVATIONS ON THE DISCOURSE OF DIOTIMA

I

The Myth in which Diotima sets forth the parentage and nature of Eros differs in style from the Myth of the Round People told by Aristophanes, as widely as it is possible for one composition to differ from another. If the Myth of the Round People is so barbarously grotesque that one has difficulty in recognising it as a Platonic Myth, Diotima's Myth is equally hard to bring under that designation, on account of the prevalence of philosophical allegory in its style. It is, indeed, in its first part simply a philosophical allegory1 setting forth pictorially an analysis of Love into elements which are seen to be identical with those given by an analysis of Philosophy. Ἔρως is neither Πόρος nor Πενία, but the child of these two; φιλοσοφία is neither ἀμαθία nor σοφία, but the outcome of both. This point, however, once reached by the way of allegory thinly disguising the results of previous analysis, Diotima's Discourse henceforward assumes the character of true Myth, if not in its matter for no further narrative is added-yet certainly in its essential form: it becomes an imaginative development of the notion of φιλοσοφία: φιλοσοφία is set forth as the Desire of Immortality. Philosophy is not merely a System of Knowledge, but a Life, nay, the Life Eternal-the true Life of the immortal Soul.2 Diotima's Discourse thus ends in the character of a true Myth, setting forth in impassioned imaginative language the Transcendental Idea of the Soul. It is out of the mood which expresses itself in, and is encouraged by, such impassioned imaginative language that prophetic visions arise, and great Myths about the Soul's creation, wanderings, and goal. Diotima's Discourse in its latter, non-allegorical,

1 Plotinus, Enn. iii. 5, may be read for an elaborate interpretation of Diotima's Allegory:-Zeus is vous, Aphrodite is yux, Poros is Aoyos, Penia is An; and much more to the same effect. Cf. Cudworth, Intellectual System, vol. ii. p. 379 (ed. Mosheim and Harrison).

2 See Zeller's Plato, pp. 191-196 (Eng. Tr.), for the connection made, in the Phaedrus and Symposium, between Eros and Philosophy; and, especially p. 194, n. 66, for the meaning of Diotima's Discourse, and a protest against the NeoPlatonic interpretation of its meaning adopted by Jahu in his Diss. Plat. 64 ff. and 249 ff.

part we must regard as a true Myth-although it has no story, no pictures,-because we feel that it might at any moment break out into the language of prophetic vision.

Its identification of Love and Philosophy is intended to bring home to the Imagination the great Platonic doctrine that Philosophy is Life. The outline, or ideal, presented here, without articulation, to the Imagination, is articulated, still for the Imagination, in the astronomical Eschatology of the Phaedrus Myth; and for the Understanding, in the account given in the Republic of the Philosophic Nature and of the Education which it needs. A vast non-articulated ideal, like that held up by Diotima in the latter part of her Discourse, lends itself easily to either kind of articulation-it may be articulated in an abstract way as a great system of laws, or pictorially, as a group of symbols making an Allegory which, because it is so vast, easily assumes the character of Myth. And Myth may be painted as well as spoken. As a scheme of education, articulating for the Imagination the Ideal of "Philosophy is Life," the Spanish Chapel fresco, which has already been instanced as a painted Myth, may well be placed beside the scheme set forth for the Understanding in the Republic. The details in the fresco are the result of minute analysis of the elements which constitute true education; but they are so presented to the eye as to reveal to its intuition the spiritual bond which unites them together in one meaning-in one λóyos Ts μiews which transcends the parts. Faith, Hope, and Charity are hovering in the sky, and beneath them, also in the sky, are Courage, Temperance, Justice, Prudence. Beneath these are seated in a row ten Prophets and Apostles, with S. Thomas Aquinas on a throne in the middle. Beneath these again sit the Sciences Divine and Natural, fourteen of them; and beneath each Science sits her greatest earthly Teacher.

2

The separate figures are symbols, and form groups which

1 485 B ff. That the scheme of education in the Republic articulates for the Understanding an outline, or ideal, presented to the Imagination is plainly admitted. The scheme is called a Mythas 376 E, ἴθι οὖν, ὥσπερ ἐν μύθῳ μυθολογοῦντές τε καὶ σχολὴν ἄγοντες λόγῳ παιδεύομεν τοὺς ἄνδρας: and 501 Ε, ʼn modiтela hy μvloλoyoûμev Xóyw: and see Couturat, de Plat. Mythis, p. 50— Respublica tota ex ipsius auctoris sententia mythica est: cf. Tim. 26 c, Remp. 420 c, 536 в, c, 376 D, 501 E, 443 B, C."

66

2 Supra, pp. 114 and 257.