y gifts on its votaries--that is palpable to all--but whether
they derive any further advantage from it. For Euripides, though very
amorous, admired a very small matter, when he wrote the line--

'Love teaches letters to a man unlearn'd.'[115]

For it makes one previously sluggish quick and intelligent, and, as has
been said before, it makes the coward brave, as people harden wood in
the fire and make it strong from being weak. And every lover becomes
liberal and genuine and generous, even if he was mean before, his
littleness and miserliness melting away like iron in the fire, so that
they rejoice to give to their loves more than they do to receive
themselves from others. You know of course that Anytus, the son of
Anthemion, was in love with Alcibiades, and was on one occasion
sumptuously entertaining several of his friends, when Alcibiades broke
in and took from the table half the cups and went away again; and when
some of the guests were indignant and said, 'The stripling has used you
most insolently and contemptuously,' Anytus replied, 'Nay, rather, he
has dealt kindly with me, for when he might have taken all he has left
me half.'"

Sec. XVIII. Zeuxippus was pleased with this story, and said, "O Hercules,
you have been within an ace of making me forget my hereditary hatred to
Anytus for his behaviour to Socrates and philosophy,[116] since he was
so mild and noble to his love." "Be it so," said my father, "Love also
makes peevish and gloomy persons kind and agreeable to those they live
with; for as 'when the fire blazes the house looks brighter,'[117] so
man, it seems, becomes more cheerful through the heat of love. But most
people are affected rather curiously; if they see by night a light in a
house, they look on it with admiration and wonder; but if they see a
little, mean, and ignoble soul suddenly filled with noble-mindedness,
freedom, dignity, grace, and liberality, they do not feel constrained to
say with Telemachus, 'Surely, some god is there within.'[118] And is it
not wonderful, Daphnaeus," continued my father,[119] "in the name of the
Graces, that the lover who cares about hardly anything, either his
companions and friends, or even the laws and magistrates and kings, who
fears nothing, admires nothing, courts nothing, but can even endure to
gaze on 'the forked lightning,'[120] yet directly he looks on his love
'he crouches like a cock with drooping feathers,' and his boldness is
broken and his pride i