Symposium

and sent him away to the Isles of the Blessed,¹ because, having been told by his mother that he would die if he killed Hector, but if he did not do this would go home and die an old man,² he dared to choose, by helping his lover Patroclus and 180a avenging him, not only to die for him but to die after him, now that he had met his end; and that is why the gods, admiring him beyond measure, honoured him above all, because he valued his lover so highly. And Aeschylus is talking nonsense in claiming that Achilles was in love with Patroclus³ — Achilles, who was more beautiful not only than Patroclus but at the same time than all the heroes too,⁴ and still beardless, and besides much younger, as Homer says.⁵ But really, though the gods honour most of all this virtue that concerns 180b love, they marvel and admire and do good more when the beloved cherishes his lover than when the lover cherishes his darling. For a lover is a more divine thing than a darling; for he is god-filled. That is also why they honoured Achilles more than Alcestis, sending him away to the Isles of the Blessed.

“So I for my part say that Love is of the gods both the oldest and the most honoured and the most competent for the getting of virtue and happiness, for human beings both living and dead.”

180cPhaedrus, he said, spoke some such speech, and after Phaedrus there were some others whom he did not remember very well; passing over them, he told Pausanias’ speech. And Pausanias said, “It does not seem to me, Phaedrus, that the speech has been well set before us, that we have been told simply like this to make an encomium of Love. For if Love were one, it would be well; but as it is, he is not one; and since he is not one, it is more right to state first 180d what kind we must praise. So I shall try to set this