Symposium

shamelessness that they do this, but from boldness and courage and manliness, welcoming what is like themselves. And here is a great piece of evidence: when they are grown, such men alone turn out to be men in public affairs.¹ And when they become men, 192b they are pederasts, and by nature they pay no attention to marriage and the begetting of children, but are compelled to it by the law; but it is enough for them to live out their lives with one another unmarried. In any case, then, such a one becomes a pederast and a lover of lovers, always welcoming what is kindred. Now whenever the pederast, or anyone else, meets that very half of his own, then they are marvellously struck with friendship and 192c affinity and love, not willing, so to speak, to be separated from one another even for a short time. And these are the ones who continue with one another through life, who could not even say what they want to come to them from one another. For it would seem to no one that this is sexual intercourse, as if it were for the sake of this that the one so delights to be with the other, with such great earnestness; but the soul of each 192d plainly wants something else, which it cannot say, but it divines what it wants, and speaks of it in riddles. And if, as they lay in the same place, Hephaestus stood over them with his tools and asked, ‘What is it, human beings, that you want to come to you from one another?’ and, when they were at a loss, asked again, ’Is it this you desire, to be in the same place as much as possible with one another, so that you are not parted from one another night or day? For if you desire this, I am willing to fuse you together and 192e forge you together² into the same, so that being two you become one, and as long as you live, both live in common, as being one, and when you die, there in Hades in turn you are one instead of two, dead in common. But see whether it is this you are in love with, and