course between
men and women, but the intercourse between men and men, or women and
women, is contrary to nature.[152] The bold attempt at overleaping
Nature's laws was due originally to unbridled lust.

This position is developed in the eighth book (p. 836), where Plato
directs his criticism, not only against what would now be termed the
criminal intercourse between persons of the same sex, but also against
incontinence in general. While framing a law of almost monastic rigour
for the regulation of the sexual appetite, he remains an ancient Greek.
He does not reach the point of view from which women are regarded as the
proper objects of both passion and friendship, as the fit companions of
men in all relations of life; far less does he revert to his earlier
speculations upon the enthusiasm generated by a noble passion. The
modern ideal of marriage and the chivalrous conception of womanhood as
worthy to be worshipped are like unknown to him. Abstinence from the
delights of love, continence except for the sole end of procreation, is
the rule which he proposes to the world.

* * * * *

There are three distinct things, Plato argues, which, owing to the
inadequacy of language to represent states of thought, have been
confounded.[153] These are friendship, desire, and a third mixed
species. Friendship is further described as the virtuous affection of
equals in taste, age and station. Desire is always founded on a sense of
contrast. While friendship is "gentle and mutual through life," desire
is "fierce and wild."[154] The true friend seeks to live chastely with
the chaste object of his attachment, whose soul he loves. The lustful
lover longs to enjoy the flower of his youth and cares only for the
body. The third sort is mixed of these; and a lover of this composite
kind is torn asunder by two impulses, "the one commanding him to enjoy
the youth's person, the other forbidding him to do so."[155] The
description of the lover of the third species so exactly suits the
paiderast of nobler quality in Greece, as I conceive him to have
actually existed, that I shall give a full quotation of this
passage:[156]--

"As to the mixed sort, which is made up of them both, there is,
first of all, a difficulty in determining what he who is possessed
by this third love desires; moreover, he is drawn different ways,
and is in doubt between the two principles, the one exhorting him
to