Sokrates: on the price of a true and honourable lover.

Sokrates had asked a young man what price one ought to pay for a true and honourable lover. The young fellow, seeking to show that he knew a thing or two, "answered at once that one ought not to pay anything."

Sokrates replied:

"Many things have their price which are not upon the market. Let us see if this is one of them. If we come into the company of such a lover, it seems to me that one of three things will happen.

Either he will succeed in making us his equal in honour;

or, if he fails to do both this and to free himself from love, seeking to please us he will become less good than he was;

or, if he is of stronger mind, remembering what is due to the gods and to his own soul, he will be master of himself and go away.

Or can you see some other conclusion than these?"

The young man replied that he could see no other conclusion.

Sokrates continued:

"So, then, it now appears, does it not, that the price of an honourable lover is to be honourable ourselves, and that we shall neither get him nor keep him, if we offer anything less? And thus, we find that what we thought was to be had for love turns out to be the costliest of them all."

"Love is not a god, for a god cannot want anything; but love is one of those great spirits who are messengers between gods and men.

Love does not visit fools, who are content with their low condition; but love visits those who are aware of their own need's desire by them embracing those who are beautiful and the good, in order to beget and create goodness and beauty; for creation is man's immortality and brings him nearest to the gods."

"All creatures cherish the children of their flesh; yet the noblest progeny of love are wisdom and glorious deeds, for mortal children die, but these live forever; and these are begotten not of the body but of the soul.

Mortal passion sinks us in mortal pleasure, so that the wings of the soul grow weak; and such lovers may chance to rise to the good, but not to the very best.

But the winged soul rises from love to love, from the beauty that is born and dies, to the beauty that is, in itself, eternal ... the life itself, of which mortal beauty is only a moving shadow flung briefly upon a wall."