Sec. XIX. When my father had spoken thus much, Soclarus began, "Do you see that a second time you have committed the same fault, not cancelling your debts as you ought to do--for I must speak my mind--but evading them on purpose, and not delivering to us your promised ideas on a sacred subject? For as some little time back you only just touched on Plato and the Egyptians as if unwilling to enter on the subject more fully, so now you are doing again. However, as to what has been 'eloquently told'[123] by Plato, or rather by the Muses through Plato's mouth, do not tell us that, my good friend, even if we ask for it; but as to your hint that the Egyptian legend about Love corresponded with Plato's views, you need not discuss it fully and minutely, we shall be satisfied if we hear a little of such mighty matters." And as the rest of the company made the same request, my father said, "The Egyptians, (like the Greeks) recognize two Loves, the Pandemian and the Celestial, to which they add the Sun, they also highly venerate Aphrodite. We also see much similarity between Love and the Sun, for neither is a fire, as some think, but a sweet and productive radiance and warmth, the Sun bringing to the body nourishment and light and growth, and Love doing the same to the soul. And as the heat of the Sun is more powerful when it emerges from clouds and after mist, so Love is sweeter and hotter after a jealous tiff with the loved one,[124] and moreover, as some think the Sun is kindled and extinguished, so also do people conceive of Love as mortal and uncertain. Moreover, just as without training the body cannot easily bear the heat of the Sun, so neither can the untrained soul easily bear the yoke of Love, but both are equally out of tune and suffer, for which they blame the deity and not their own weakness. But in this respect they seem to differ, in that the Sun exhibits to the eye things beautiful and ugly alike, whereas Love throws its light only on beautiful things, and persuades lovers to concentrate their attention on these, and to neglect all other things. As to those that call Aphrodite the Moon, they, too, find some points in common between them; for the Moon is divine and heavenly and a sort of halfway-house between mortal and immortal, but inactive in itself and dark without the presence of the Sun, as is the case with Aphrodite in the absence of Love. So we may say that Aphrodite resembles the Moon, and Love the Sun, more than any other deities, yet are not Love and the Sun altogether the same, for just as body and soul are not the same, but something different, so is it with the Sun and Love, the former can be seen, the latter only felt. And if it should not seem too harsh a saying, one might argue that the Sun acts entirely opposite to Love, for it turns the mind away from the world of fancy to the world of reality, beguiling us by its grace and splendid appearance, and persuading us to