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Yes, she said, the happy are happy by acquisition of good things, and we have no more need to ask for what end a man wishes to be happy, when such is his wish: the answer seems to be ultimate. Quite true, I said. Now do you suppose this wish or this love to be common to all mankind, and that every one always wishes to have good things? Or what do you say? Even so, I said; it is common to all. Well then, Socrates, she said, we do not mean that all men love, when we say that all men love the same things always; we mean that some people love and others do not? I am wondering myself, I replied. But you should not wonder, she said; for we have singled out a certain form of love, and applying thereto the name of the whole, we call it love; and there are other names that we commonly abuse. As, for example—? I asked. Take the following: you know that poetry Cf. above, Plat. Sym. 197a. is more than a single thing. For of anything whatever that passes from not being into being the whole cause is composing or poetry; so that the productions of all arts are kinds of poetry, and their craftsmen are all poets. That is true. But still, as you are aware, said she, they are not called poets: they have other names, while a single section disparted from the whole of poetry—merely the business of music and meters—is entitled with the name of the whole. This and no more is called poetry; those only who possess this branch of the art are poets. Quite true, I said. Well, it is just the same with love. Generically, indeed, it is all that desire of good things and of being happy Cf. above, Plat. Sym. 204e-205a.—Love most mighty and all-beguiling. Yet, whereas those who resort to him in various other ways—in money-making, an inclination to sports, or philosophy—are not described either as loving or as lovers, all those who pursue him seriously in one of his several forms obtain, as loving and as lovers, the name of the whole. I fancy you are right, I said. >And certainly there runs a story, she continued, that all who go seeking their other half A prophetic allusion to Aristophanes’ speech, Plat. Sym. 192ff. are in love; though by my account love is neither for half nor for whole, unless, of course, my dear sir, this happens to be something good. For men are prepared to have their own feet and hands cut off if they feel these belongings to be harmful.
