Symposium

others, and he would choose to die many times over rather than this. And indeed, as for deserting his darling, or not helping him in danger — no one is so bad that Love himself would not make him god-filled for virtue, so that he is like the man who is best by nature; 179b and simply, what Homer said, that the god ‘breathed might’¹ into some of the heroes, this Love provides to those who are in love, as coming from himself.

“And indeed, to die for another only those who are in love are willing, not only men but women too. And of this, Alcestis too,² the daughter of Pelias, provides sufficient testimony for this account before the Greeks, being willing, alone, to die for her own husband, though he had a father 179c and a mother living, whom she so far surpassed in friendship through her love that she showed them to be strangers to their son, related in name only; and in doing this deed she seemed, not only to human beings but also to gods, to have done a deed so beautiful that, while many have done many beautiful deeds, the gods have given to only a few, easily counted, this prize, to send their soul up again from Hades; but hers they sent up, admiring 179d her deed; so do gods too honour above all the earnestness and the virtue that concern love. But Orpheus the son of Oeagrus they sent away from Hades unsuccessful, showing him a phantom of the wife he had come for, but not giving him the woman herself, because he seemed to be soft, being a singer to the lyre, and not to dare to die for the sake of love as Alcestis did, but to contrive to go into Hades alive.³ Therefore for this they imposed a penalty on him, and made his death 179e come about at the hands of women, not as they honoured Achilles, the son of Thetis,