... The sensualist who loves the body
more than the soul is base. His love passes away like the object of his
passion. But the companion of the Olympic goddess is the Eros who fills
the hearts of the lovers with the longing for virtue. The other Eros is
the confederate of the debased Aphrodite." And Aristophanes, another of
the participators in the feast, says: "The yearning does not seem to be
a desire for the pleasures of the senses, the one taking delight in his
intercourse with the other; far from it, it is obvious that each soul is
craving for something which it cannot express in words, but can only
divine and conjecture." And the mysterious Diotima revealed to Socrates
an entirely novel principle in erotic life; the principle which guides
man beyond the pleasures of the senses and--through love--leads him to
the divine. "The slave of his senses runs after women; but he who loves
with his soul and strives to win immortality through virtue and wisdom,
seeks a great and beautiful soul that he may surrender himself to it
completely.
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