The virtuous lover. ODJ And in the pursuit of his love the custom of mankind allows Sym- him to do many strange things, which philosophy would /"""'«• ¹⁸³ bitterly censure if they were done from any motive of pausanias. interest, or wish for office or power. He may pray, and Custom entreat, and supplicate, and swear, and lie on a mat at the j^^^^. ^^ ^^ door, and endure a slavery worse than that of any slave — in strange •any other case friends and enemies would be equally ready ' ™^^' to prevent him, but now there is no friend who will be ashamed of him and admonish him, and no enemy will charge him with meanness or flattery; the actions of a lover have a grace which ennobles them ; and custom has decided that they are highly commendable and that there is no loss of character in them ; and, what is strangest of all, he only may swear and forswear himself (so men say), and the gods will forgive his transgression, for there is no such thing as a lover's oath. Such is the entire liberty which gods and men have allowed the lover, according to the custom which prevails in our part of the world. From this point of view a man fairly argues that in Athens to love and to be loved is held to be a very honourable thing. But when parents forbid their sons to talk with their lovers, and place them under a tutor's care, who is appointed to see to these things, and their companions and equals cast in their teeth anything of the sort which they may observe, and their elders refuse to silence the reprovers and do not rebuke them — any one who reflects on all this will, on the contrary, think that we hold these practices to be most disgraceful. But, as I was saying at first, the truth as I imagine is, that whether such practices are honourable or whether they are dishonourable is not a simple question ; they are honourable to him who follows them honourably, dishonourable to him who follows them dishonourably. There is dishonour in yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner ; but there is honour in yielding to the good, or in an honourable manner. Evil is the vulgar The true lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as J"^*^ '^ ^'^ ... love of the he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is m soul, which itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which ^^^ "° ■■<=' .... , , . in* • gard to he was desinng is over, he takes wing and flies away, in beauty or spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the money or noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the which'when