The Softest Ground
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Agathon — δὴ καὶ ἡμεῖς χρησόμεθα τεκμηρίῳ περὶ ἔρωτα ὅτι ἁπαλός. οὐ γὰρ ἐπὶ γῆς βαίνει οὐδʼ ἐπὶ κρανίων, ἅ ἐστιν οὐ πάνυ μαλακά, ἀλλʼ ἐν τοῖς μαλακωτάτοις τῶν ὄντων καὶ βαίνει καὶ οἰκεῖ. ἐν γὰρ ἤθεσι καὶ ψυχαῖς θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων τὴν οἴκησιν ἵδρυται, καὶ οὐκ αὖ ἑξῆς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ψυχαῖς, ἀλλʼ ᾗτινι ἂν σκληρὸν ἦθος ἐχούσῃ ἐντύχῃ, ἀπέρχεται, ᾗ δʼ ἂν μαλακόν, οἰκίζεται. ἁπτόμενον οὖν ἀεὶ καὶ ποσὶν καὶ πάντῃ ἐν μαλακωτάτοις τῶν μαλακωτάτων, ἁπαλώτατον ἀνάγκη
Indeed, we too will use as evidence concerning Eros that he is tender. For he does not walk on the ground, nor upon skulls — which are not at all soft — but among the softest of existing things he both walks and dwells. For he has fixed his dwelling in the characters and souls of gods and men — and not, again, indiscriminately in every soul, but whichever one he encounters having a hard character, he leaves; and whichever has a soft one, he settles in. Touching, then, always both with his feet and in every way, the softest of the softest things, he must necessarily be most tender—
Agathon turns his proof of Eros's youth into a second proof, about softness: the god only ever sets his feet on the gentlest things that exist, and takes up residence only in souls whose character yields, never in one that resists.
Agathon keeps building his proof of tenderness the same way he built the proof of youth: from a picture, not a definition. Eros does not touch the ground or a skull — both properly hard — but only the softest things that exist, and among those, only the softest of all: the characters and souls of gods and men. The verb he reaches for, βαίνει, is the ordinary word for taking a step; the image is disconcertingly literal, a god feeling out where to plant his feet before he sets them down. When a soul turns out to have a hard ἦθος, Eros leaves it; when the ἦθος is soft, he settles in and stays. The proof runs by exclusion — Agathon can name what Eros avoids far more exactly than what draws him in.
There is a harder edge under the delicacy once you notice what the test actually selects for: not virtue, only pliancy. A σκληρὸν ἦθος, a hard and resistant character, repels the god; a μαλακόν one draws him in and keeps him. Agathon, the most celebrated beauty at the party and for years the object of Pausanias's own courtship, is describing exactly the kind of soul a suitor prizes and calling it the god's own preference, not his. Plato lets the speech praise itself without appearing to notice what it has confessed. This is also the last of Agathon's proofs built this way, from image straight to conclusion, never from an account of what Eros actually is — and it is precisely that method Socrates will take apart a few pages on, when he asks Agathon the plain question no speech so far has answered: is Eros the love of something, or of nothing at all?
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