m,
if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?" "A child may answer
that question," she replied; "they are those who, like Love, are in a
mean between the two. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love
is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover
of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise
and the ignorant. And this again is a quality which Love inherits from
his parents; for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor
and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Love.
The error in your conception of him was very natural, and as I imagine
from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of love and the
beloved--this made you think that love was all beautiful. For the
beloved is the truly beautiful, delicate, and perfect and blest; but
the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have
described."

I said, "O thou strange woman, thou sayest well, and now, assuming
Love to be such as you say, what is the use of him?" "That, Socrates,"
she replied, "I will proceed to unfold; of his nature and birth I have
already spoken, and you acknowledge that Love is of the beautiful. But
some one will say, 'Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and
Diotima?'--or rather let us put the question more clearly, and ask,
When a man loves the beautiful, what does he love?" I answered her,
"That the beautiful may be his." "Still," she said, "the answer
suggests a further question, which is this, What is given by the
possession of beauty?" "That," I replied, "is a question to which I
have no answer ready." "Then," she said, "let me put the word 'good'
in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question, What does he
who loves the good desire?" "The possession of the good," I said. "And
what does he gain who possesses the good?" "Happiness," I replied;
"there is no difficulty in answering that." "Yes," she said, "the
happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there
any need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already
final." "That is true," I said. "And is this wish and this desire
common to all? and do all men always desire their own good, or only
some men?--what think you?" "All men," I replied; "the desire is
common to all." "But all men, Socrates," she rejoined, "are not said
to love, but only some of them; and you say that all men are always
loving the same things." "I myself wonder," I said, "why that is."