ers
of the element of love. The knowledge of these elements of love and
discord in the heavenly bodies is termed astronomy, in the relations of
men towards gods and parents is called divination. For divination is the
peacemaker of gods and men, and works by a knowledge of the tendencies
of merely human loves to piety and impiety. Such is the power of love;
and that love which is just and temperate has the greatest power, and
is the source of all our happiness and friendship with the gods and with
one another. I dare say that I have omitted to mention many things which
you, Aristophanes, may supply, as I perceive that you are cured of the
hiccough.

Aristophanes is the next speaker:--

He professes to open a new vein of discourse, in which he begins by
treating of the origin of human nature. The sexes were originally three,
men, women, and the union of the two; and they were made round--having
four hands, four feet, two faces on a round neck, and the rest to
correspond. Terrible was their strength and swiftness; and they were
essaying to scale heaven and attack the gods. Doubt reigned in the
celestial councils; the gods were divided between the desire of quelling
the pride of man and the fear of losing the sacrifices. At last Zeus hit
upon an expedient. Let us cut them in two, he said; then they will only
have half their strength, and we shall have twice as many sacrifices. He
spake, and split them as you might split an egg with an hair; and when
this was done, he told Apollo to give their faces a twist and re-arrange
their persons, taking out the wrinkles and tying the skin in a knot
about the navel. The two halves went about looking for one another, and
were ready to die of hunger in one another's arms. Then Zeus invented an
adjustment of the sexes, which enabled them to marry and go their way
to the business of life. Now the characters of men differ accordingly
as they are derived from the original man or the original woman, or the
original man-woman. Those who come from the man-woman are lascivious and
adulterous; those who come from the woman form female attachments; those
who are a section of the male follow the male and embrace him, and in
him all their desires centre. The pair are inseparable and live together
in pure and manly affection; yet they cannot tell what they want of one
another. But if Hephaestus were to come to them with his instruments
and propose that they should be melted into one and remain one h