Symposium

by Plato

‘So, as I say, Love is one of the most ancient and venerated gods, and one of the most effective in helping a person, during his lifetime or after it, attain goodness and happiness.’

only the Love who incites us to love properly is good and deserves our praise.*

society e sanctions approval of the most extraordinary actions on a lover’s part—actions which…well, if anyone else were to dare to behave in these ways in pursuit of any other object, with any other goal in mind, he would earn 183a unmitigated disapproval.*

That is why our society encourages lovers to chase their boyfriends, and the boyfriends to run away: this enables us to come to a decision and to find out, as a result of this test, whether a given lover and his beloved are good or bad.

Love draws our original nature back together; he tries to reintegrate us and heal the split in our nature.

“Love” is just the name we give to the desire for and pursuit of wholeness.*

We human beings will never attain happiness unless we find perfect love, unless we each come across the love of our lives and thereby recover our original nature.