You start by loving one attractive body and step up to two; from there you move on to physical beauty in general, from there to the beauty of people’s activities, from there to the beauty of intellectual endeavours, and from there you ascend to that final intellectual endeavour, which is no more or no less than the study of that beauty, so that you finally recognise true beauty. (Socrates’ speech (of Diotima), Symposium, Plato)
Symposium : Plato
A translation : Robin Waterfield
Oxford World’s Classic
A selected extract : Lun
A translation : Robin Waterfield
Oxford World’s Classic
A selected extract : Lun
A painting image : The Birth of Venus (Nascita di Venere/ Sandro Botticelli, 1485)
