Symposium

it seems, this was not what it is to praise anything well, but rather 198e to attribute to the thing the greatest and most beautiful things possible, whether they are so or not; and if they were false, that was after all no matter. For what was proposed beforehand, it seems, was that each of us should seem to make an encomium of Love, not that he should make an encomium of him. It is for this reason, I think, that you set every account in motion and attribute it to Love, and say that he is of such a kind and the cause of so many things, so that he may 199a appear most beautiful and best — plainly to those who do not know, for surely not to those who know — and the praise does stand well, and solemnly. But in fact I did not, after all, know the way of the praise, and not knowing it I agreed with you that I too would praise in my turn. So ‘the tongue promised, but the mind did not’; farewell to it, then.¹ For I no longer make an encomium in this way — for I would not be able to — but all the same, the truth at any rate, 199b if you want, I am willing to tell in my own way, not in competition with your speeches, so that I may not incur laughter. See, then, Phaedrus, whether you are in any need of such a speech as well, to hear the truth spoken about Love, but in such wording and placing of expressions as may chance to come along.”

So Phaedrus and the others, he said, told him to speak in whatever way he himself thought he must speak.

“Then further, Phaedrus,” he said, “allow me to ask Agathon a few small things, so that, having come to agreement with him, I may then speak on that footing.”

199c“Well, I allow it,” Phaedrus said; “go on, ask.” After this, then, he said, Socrates began from about this point.

“Indeed, my friend Agathon, you seemed to me to lead off your speech well, saying that one must first display him, of what kind Love is, and afterwards his works. This