The name of love
SocratesFrom this mingling of joy and pain the soul is bewildered. It cannot understand its strange condition, rages in perplexity and, in its madness, cannot sleep at night or stay still by day. It runs in longing wherever it thinks it might see the one who has beauty. At the sight of him it receives the current of longing again; the passages that were closed open, the soul draws breath, its stings and pains cease, and it enjoys the sweetest of pleasures for the present. So it will not willingly leave him and values no one above the beautiful youth. It has forgotten mother, brothers and all its friends; it counts as nothing the property it loses through neglect. It despises the customs and good manners it once took pride in, ready to serve and sleep wherever it is allowed, if only it can be near the one it longs for. Besides revering the bearer of beauty, it has found in him its only healer for the worst of pains.
This condition, beautiful boy to whom I speak, human beings call love. You may well laugh, being young, when you hear what the gods call it. Some of the Homerids quote two verses about love from their hidden poems, one of them very impudent and not quite metrical. They sing: “Mortals call him flying Love; / immortals call him Wing-Love, for he makes wings grow.” We may believe them or not. All the same, this is the cause and condition of lovers.