Where the Two Customs Coincide
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Pausanias — ἄλλην ἀρετὴν συμβάλλεσθαι, ὁ δὲ δεόμενος εἰς παίδευσιν καὶ τὴν ἄλλην σοφίαν κτᾶσθαι, τότε δὴ τούτων συνιόντων εἰς ταὐτὸν τῶν νόμων μοναχοῦ ἐνταῦθα συμπίπτει τὸ καλὸν εἶναι παιδικὰ ἐραστῇ χαρίσασθαι, ἄλλοθι δὲ οὐδαμοῦ. ἐπὶ τούτῳ καὶ ἐξαπατηθῆναι οὐδὲν αἰσχρόν· ἐπὶ δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις πᾶσι καὶ ἐξαπατωμένῳ αἰσχύνην φέρει καὶ μή. εἰ γάρ τις
To contribute virtue in general, while the other, in need, acquires education and wisdom in general— then, indeed, when these customs converge into the same thing, only here does it happen that it is noble for the boy to gratify the lover, and nowhere else. In this case, even to be deceived is nothing shameful; but in all other cases it brings shame, whether deceived or not. For if someone—
Continuing directly from 184d, where Pausanias set the lover who can contribute wisdom and virtue beside the boy who still needs to acquire them: he now states the payoff of the whole argument. Only in the single case where the custom of loving boys and the custom of pursuing virtue truly converge does gratifying a lover become noble — and only there does being deceived about it cost nothing in shame.
Pausanias names the convergence with sympíptei, "it coincides," a verb Greek also uses for two armies falling on each other or two roads meeting at a point. He needs a word for agreement, and the one he reaches for still carries a trace of collision — as if the custom of loving boys and the custom of pursuing virtue were never a natural fit, only two things that happen, in this one instance, to land on the same spot. The rest of his sentence rests on that single coincidence holding.
What follows is the more exposed move: in this one case alone, being deceived costs nothing. If the boy gratifies a man he took for wise and good, and the man turns out neither, Pausanias says there is still no disgrace in it, because the boy's intention was virtue. No such immunity covers any other kind of exchange in this speech — everywhere else, being deceived is exactly what shames a person. Pausanias has built himself a test of motive that cannot be checked against results, which is convenient for him and for every young man in Athens who might misjudge an older suitor's character. It is also the exact gap Diotima will not allow later in the same dialogue, when she ties the ascent to virtue itself and not to anyone's good opinion of a person.
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