Symposium

by Plato · c. 380 BCE

Benjamin Jowett's translation, 1871. 2 parts, about 32,580 words, 2 hours of reading. Source edition.

Passages the guide marks

The desire and pursuit of the whole is what we call love.
192e-193a · Read it in Symposium
Love is not a god and not a mortal, but something in between, a spirit born of Poverty and Resource, always needy, always scheming, never rich and never destitute.
203b-204a
Beginning from these beautiful things, he must always climb higher for the sake of that beauty, as if using the steps of a ladder.
211c · Read it in Symposium
He is exactly like those hollow statues of Silenus that open up, and inside are figures of the gods.
215b · Read it in Symposium
When I hear him I am worse off than any Corybant; my heart pounds and tears run out of me, and I have felt this from no other speaker.
215d-e · Read it in Symposium

About this text

Public domain in the United States; the Project Gutenberg edition is free of restrictions under the Project Gutenberg License. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. It is not the edition the programs assign; the guide names that one, and the buy links there point at it.

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