And now I will take my leave of you, and rehearse the tale of love which I heard once upon a time from Diotima,[61] of Mantinea, who was a wise woman in this and many other branches of knowledge. She was the same who deferred the plague of Athens ten years by a sacrifice, and was my instructress in the art of love. In the attempt that I am about to make, I shall pursue Agathon's method, and begin with his admissions, which are nearly if not quite the same as I made to the wise woman when she questioned me; this will be the easiest way, and I shall take both parts myself as well as I can. For, like Agathon, she spoke first of the being and nature of Love, and then of his works. And I said to her, in nearly the same words which he used to me, that Love was a mighty god, and likewise fair; and she proved to me as I proved to him that, in my way of speaking about him, Love was neither fair nor good. "What do you mean, Diotima," I said; "is love then evil and foul?" "Hush," she cried; "is that to be deemed foul which is not fair?" "Certainly," I said. "And is that which is not wise ignorant? Do you not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance?" "And what is this?" I said. "Right opinion," she replied, "which, as you know, being incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how could knowledge be devoid of reason? nor, again, ignorance, for neither can ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom." "Quite true," I replied. "Do not then insist," she said, "that what is not fair is of necessity foul or what is not good is evil, or infer that because Love is not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil; for he is in mean between them." "Well," I said, "Love is surely admitted by all to be a great god." "By those who know or by those who don't know?" "By all." "And how, Socrates," she said with a smile, "can Love be acknowledged to be a great god by those who say that he is not a god at all?" "And who are they?" I said. "You and I are two of them," she replied. "How can that be?" I said. "That is very intelligible," she replied, "as you yourself would acknowledge that the gods are happy and fair--of course you would--would you dare to say that any god was not?" "Certainly not," I replied. "And you mean by the happy those who are the possessors of things good or fair?" "Yes." "And you admitted that Love, because he was in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want?" "Yes, I admitted that." "But how can he be a god who has no share in the good or the fair?" "That is not to be supposed." "Then you see that you also deny the deity of Love."