Symposium

the front — for until then they had these too on the outside, and they begot 191c and gave birth not into one another but into the earth, like cicadas — so he moved them round to the front in this way, and through them made birth take place in one another, through the male in the female, for these reasons: so that in their intertwining, if a man met a woman, they might beget and the race might continue, and at the same time, if male met male, there might at least be a surfeit of their intercourse, and they might pause and turn to their work and take care of the rest of their life. So it is from so long ago that 191d love of one another is inborn in human beings, the bringer-together of their ancient nature, trying to make one out of two and to heal human nature. Each of us, then, is a tally of a human being,¹ since each has been cut like the flatfish, two from one; and each is always seeking his own tally. Now those men who are a section of the kind common to both, which was then called androgyne, are lovers of women, and most adulterers have come from this kind; and 191e the women in turn who are lovers of men, and adulteresses, come from this kind. But those women who are a section of a woman pay no great attention to men, but are turned rather toward women, and the hetairistriai come from this kind.² And those who are a section of a male pursue males, and as long as they are boys, being slices of the male, they love men and enjoy lying with and twining with 192a men, and these are the most excellent of the boys and lads, since they are the most courageous by nature. Some say indeed that they are shameless, but they lie; for it is not from