Symposium

and entreaties in their pleading, and swearing oaths, and sleeping at doors, and being willing to be slaves in a slavery such as not even a slave would be, he would be hindered from acting in this way both by friends and by enemies, 183b the ones reproaching them with flattery and servility, the others admonishing them and being ashamed on their behalf — but on the one in love who does all these things grace attends, and he is allowed by the law to act without reproach, as one achieving something altogether beautiful; and what is most dreadful, as the many say at least, he alone is pardoned by the gods when he swears an oath and breaks it — for an oath of Aphrodite, they say, is no oath;¹ so 183c both gods and human beings have granted complete licence to the one in love, as the law here declares — in this way, then, one would think that in this city both being in love and becoming friends to lovers are held to be altogether beautiful. But when fathers set tutors over the beloved and do not let them converse with their lovers, and the tutor has been given these orders, and their age-mates and companions² reproach them if they see anything of the kind happening, and the 183d elders in turn do not stop those who reproach them, nor revile them as not speaking rightly, then anyone looking in turn at these things would believe, on the contrary, that such a thing is held here to be most shameful. But it is like this, I think: it is not simple; as was said at the beginning, it is, itself by itself, neither beautiful nor shameful, but done well it is beautiful, and done shamefully, shameful. Now to gratify a base man, and basely, is to do it shamefully; and to gratify a decent man, and well, is to do it well.³ And base is that lover, the common