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[quote=Anonymous]On the syllabus that has been posted online they don't actually read much of  Plato’s Symposium. This is the first part

180c He told me that this was the sort of speech Phaedrus delivered, and that after Phaedrus there were a number of others that he did not much remember. Leaving them aside, he recounted Pausanias’ speech.  Pausanias said, “Phaedrus, I do not think our proposal to sing the praises of Love purely and simply has been presented in a proper manner. Indeed, if there were only one Eros, all would be well, but it so happens there is not just one. Since there is not only one Eros, it is better to declare, at the outset, which sort of Love we should praise.

181b Now, I shall try to put this right, firstly by stating which Love we should praise, and then by delivering the praise in a manner worthy of the god. Indeed, we all know that there is no Aphrodite without Love. Therefore, if she were one, Love would be one, but since there are two Aphrodites, there must be two Loves. How could there not be two goddesses? One, the daughter of Uranus, is presumably the elder. She has no mother, and we give her the name ‘Heavenly’, while the other is younger, born of Zeus and Dione, and we call her ‘Common’. So it is also necessary that the Love who works with the latter be called Common, while the other Love be called Heavenly, and it is right to do so. Now, although it is necessary to praise all the gods, I should also attempt to explain what has been allotted to each of these Loves. For the following principle applies to every action: its performance, in its own right, is neither noble nor disgraceful. For example, what we are doing now, whether we drink, sing or converse, not one of these is noble in itself. No, they turn out like that in action, according to how the action is performed. When performed nobly and rightly it becomes good, and when not performed rightly it becomes disgraceful. This also applies to loving and to Love. Not all Love is noble and worthy of paeans of praise, only that which exhorts us to love in a noble manner.

181b   “Now, the Eros belonging to the Common Aphrodite is truly common. He behaves in whatever manner occurs to him, and he is the Love that the ordinary people experience. And such people, in the first place, love women no less than boys; secondly, they love the bodies of those whom they love, rather than their souls; and finally, with a view only to consummation, they engage with the least intelligent people they can find, heedless of whether they are acting nobly or not. Consequently, they do whatever occurs to them to do, regardless of whether it is good or not. For he comes from the goddess who is much the younger of the two, and, by birth, she partakes of the female as well as the male. But the Love belonging to the Heavenly goddess firstly partakes not of the female but of the male only, and so this love is the love of boys. Secondly, it is older with no trace of wantonness. Hence, those who are inspired with this Love are inclined towards the male, admiring the one who is naturally stronger and possesses more intelligence.

“Indeed, one may recognise those who are impelled to boy-loving itself, in a pure manner, by this kind of love; for they do not love young boys, but only those who have begun to acquire intelligence, approaching the stage when the beard begins to grow. Yes, I think that those who love them at this stage are equipped to love them throughout their entire life, being with them and shar-ing a life together, without deceiving them because they trapped them when foolish and young, and making fools of them by leaving them to run off with someone else. There should also be a law against loving mere boys, so that a great deal of effort be not expended upon an unpredictable outcome, for it is unpredictable as to how young boys will turn out, for better or worse, in soul or in body. Now, although good men willingly impose this law upon themselves, it is also necessary to force the common sort of lovers to behave similarly, just as we, to the best of our ability, restrain them from loving free-born women. These are the people who have given rise to the criticism whereby some dare to suggest that it is shameful to gratify lovers. But they say this when they look at these lovers and behold their inappropriate and unjust behaviour, since it would, of course, not be right to censure any action performed in a respectable and lawful manner.

“Furthermore, in other cities, the law relating to love is easy to understand because it has been simply defined. Yet here, and in Sparta, it is complicated. Now, in Elis and Boeotia, and wherever people are not clever speakers, it has been simply decreed that the gratification of lovers is good, and no one, old or young, would suggest that it is a disgrace. This, I presume, is to save them the trouble of trying to persuade the young people when they are such inadequate speakers. On the other hand, in Ionia, and lots of other places where they live under non-Greek rule, the gratification of lovers is regarded as shameful. For among the non-Greeks, this, along with phi-losophy and love of gymnastics, is shameful because the cities are under tyrannical rule. For I sup-pose it is not to the advantage of the rulers that enlarged views be engendered among the citizenry, nor strong friendships and associations either, and this is exactly what all these activities, and espe-cially love, are inclined to bring about. Our own local tyrants learned this by experience, for Aristogeiton’s love and Harmodius’ friendship, which became steadfast, brought an end to the tyrants’ regime. Accordingly, wherever it is decreed that it is disgraceful to gratify lovers, the decree is there because of the bad state of those who established it, avarice on the part of the rulers and cowardice on the part of the citizenry. And wherever it is simplistically designated as noble, that is due to indolence in the souls of those who make the decree...[/quote]

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