emotion (imeros), and is refreshed and warmed by them, and then she
ceases from her pain with joy. But when she is parted from her beloved
and her moisture fails, then the orifices of the passage out of which
the wing shoots dry up and close, and intercept the germ of the wing;
which, being shut up with the emotion, throbbing as with the pulsations
of an artery, pricks the aperture which is nearest, until at length the
entire soul is pierced and maddened and pained, and at the recollection
of beauty is again delighted. And from both of them together the soul is
oppressed at the strangeness of her condition, and is in a great strait
and excitement, and in her madness can neither sleep by night nor abide
in her place by day. And wherever she thinks that she will behold the
beautiful one, thither in her desire she runs. And when she has seen
him, and bathed herself in the waters of beauty, her constraint is
loosened, and she is refreshed, and has no more pangs and pains; and
this is the sweetest of all pleasures at the time, and is the reason
why the soul of the lover will never forsake his beautiful one, whom he
esteems above all; he has forgotten mother and brethren and companions,
and he thinks nothing of the neglect and loss of his property; the rules
and proprieties of life, on which he formerly prided himself, he now
despises, and is ready to sleep like a servant, wherever he is allowed,
as near as he can to his desired one, who is the object of his worship,
and the physician who can alone assuage the greatness of his pain. And
this state, my dear imaginary youth to whom I am talking, is by men
called love, and among the gods has a name at which you, in your
simplicity, may be inclined to mock; there are two lines in the
apocryphal writings of Homer in which the name occurs. One of them is
rather outrageous, and not altogether metrical. They are as follows:

'Mortals call him fluttering love, But the immortals call him winged
one, Because the growing of wings (Or, reading pterothoiton, 'the
movement of wings.') is a necessity to him.'

You may believe this, but not unless you like. At any rate the loves of
lovers and their causes are such as I have described.

Now the lover who is taken to be the attendant of Zeus is better able to
bear the winged god, and can endure a heavier burden; but the attendants
and companions of Ares, when under the influence of love, if they fancy
that they have been at all wronged, are re