a very considerable gain in the direction of temperance, and
the whole education of our youth imposes a law of moderation on them;
moreover, the eye of the rulers is required always to watch over the
young, and never to lose sight of them; and these provisions do, as far
as human means can effect anything, exercise a regulating influence
upon the desires in general. But how can we take precautions against the
unnatural loves of either sex, from which innumerable evils have come
upon individuals and cities? How shall we devise a remedy and way of
escape out of so great a danger? Truly, Cleinias, here is a difficulty.
In many ways Crete and Lacedaemon furnish a great help to those who
make peculiar laws; but in the matter of love, as we are alone, I must
confess that they are quite against us. For if any one following nature
should lay down the law which existed before the days of Laius, and
denounce these lusts as contrary to nature, adducing the animals as a
proof that such unions were monstrous, he might prove his point, but
he would be wholly at variance with the custom of your states. Further,
they are repugnant to a principle which we say that a legislator should
always observe; for we are always enquiring which of our enactments
tends to virtue and which not. And suppose we grant that these loves are
accounted by law to the honourable, or at least not disgraceful, in what
degree will they contribute to virtue? Will such passions implant in the
soul of him who is seduced the habit of courage, or in the soul of the
seducer the principle of temperance? Who will ever believe this? or
rather, who will not blame the effeminacy of him who yields to pleasures
and is unable to hold out against them? Will not all men censure
as womanly him who imitates the woman? And who would ever think of
establishing such a practice by law? certainly no one who had in his
mind the image of true law. How can we prove that what I am saying is
true? He who would rightly consider these matters must see the nature of
friendship and desire, and of these so-called loves, for they are of two
kinds, and out of the two arises a third kind, having the same name; and
this similarity of name causes all the difficulty and obscurity.

CLEINIAS: How is that?

ATHENIAN: Dear is the like in virtue to the like, and the equal to the
equal; dear also, though unlike, is he who has abundance to him who is
in want. And when either of these friendships becomes ex