to approach, he with difficulty yields to their entreaties to defer it to a future time. 77. But when the time agreed on comes, reminding them who pretend to forget it, plunging, neighing, and dragging forward, he compels them again to approach the favourite for the same purpose. And when they are near, bending down his head and extending his spear, he champs the bit and drags them on with wantonness. But the charioteer being affected as before, though more strongly, as if he were falling back from the starting rope, pulls back the bit with still greater violence from the teeth of the insolent horse, and covers his railing tongue and jaws with blood, and forcing his legs and haunches to the ground, tortures him with pain. 78. But when by being often treated in the same way, the vicious horse has laid aside his insolence, being humbled he henceforth follows the directions of the charioteer, and when he beholds the beautiful object, he swoons through fear. So that it comes to pass, that thenceforth the soul of the lover follows its favourite with reverence and awe. Since then he is worshipped with all observance as if he were a god, not by a lover who feigns the passion, but who really feels it, and since he is by nature inclined to friendship, he directs his affection to accord with that of his worshipper, even though in past times he may have been misled by his associates or some others, who told him that it was disgraceful to allow a lover to approach him, and he may for this reason have rejected his lover, yet in process of time his age and destiny induce him to admit his lover to familiarity. 79. For surely it was never decreed by fate, that the evil should be a friend to the evil, or the good not a friend to the good. When, therefore, he has admitted him and accepted his conversation and society, the benevolence of the lover being brought into close contact astonishes the beloved, when he perceives that all his other friends and relatives together exhibited no friendship at all towards him in comparison with his inspired friend. But when he has spent some time in doing this, and has approached so near as to come in contact in the gymnastic schools and other places of social intercourse, then the fountain of that stream to which Jupiter, when in love with Ganymede, gave the name of desire, streaming in great abundance upon the lover, partly sinks into him, and partly flows out from him when he is full. And as a wind or any sound rebounding from smooth and hard substances, is borne back again to the place from whence it proceeded, so this stream of beauty, flowing back again to the beautiful one through the eyes, by which way it naturally enters the soul, and having returned thither and fledged itself anew, refreshes the outlets of the feathers, and moves him to put forth wings, and in turn fills the soul of the beloved one with love. 80. Accordingly he is in love, but with whom he knows not; neither is he aware nor is he able to tell what has