"Very true," I said. "And the same holds of love. For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is due to the great and subtle power of Love; but those who, having their affections set upon him, are yet diverted into the paths of money-making or gymnastic philosophy are not called lovers--the name of the genus is reserved for those whose devotion takes one form only--they alone are said to love, or to be lovers." "In that," I said, "I am of opinion that you are right." "Yes," she said, "and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for the half of themselves; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away if they are evil; for they love them not because they are their own, but because they are good, and dislike them not because they are another's, but because they are evil. There is nothing which men love but the good. Do you think that there is?" "Indeed," I answered, "I should say not." "Then," she said, "the conclusion of the whole matter is that men love the good." "Yes," I said. "To which may be added that they love the possession of the good?" "Yes, that may be added." "And not only the possession, but the everlasting possession of the good?" "That may be added too." "Then love," she said, "may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?" "That is most true," I said. "Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further," she said, "what is the manner of the pursuit? What are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love? Answer me that." "Nay, Diotima," I said, "if I had known I should not have wondered at your wisdom or have come to you to learn." "Well," she said, "I will teach you: love is only birth in beauty, whether of body or soul." "The oracle requires an explanation," I said; "I don't understand you." "I will make my meaning clearer," she replied. "I mean to say that which all men are bringing to the birth of their bodies and their souls. There is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation; and this procreation must be in beauty and not in deformity; and this is the mystery of man and woman, which is a divine thing, for conception and generation are a principle of immortality in the mortal creature. And in the inharmonical they can never be. But the deformed is always inharmonical with the divine, and the beautiful harmonious. Beauty, then, is the destiny or goddess of parturition who presides a birth, and therefore, when approaching beauty the conceiving power is propitious, and diffuse, and benign, and begets and bears fruit; on the appearance of foulness she frowns and contracts in pain, and is averted and morose, and shrinks up, and not without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason why, when the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is full,