The Whole Is Bound Together
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Diotima — μεταξύ ἐστι θεοῦ τε καὶ θνητοῦ.
Socrates — τίνα, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, δύναμιν ἔχον;
Diotima — ἑρμηνεῦον καὶ διαπορθμεῦον θεοῖς τὰ παρʼ ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀνθρώποις τὰ παρὰ θεῶν, τῶν μὲν τὰς δεήσεις καὶ θυσίας, τῶν δὲ τὰς ἐπιτάξεις τε καὶ ἀμοιβὰς τῶν θυσιῶν, ἐν μέσῳ δὲ ὂν ἀμφοτέρων συμπληροῖ, ὥστε τὸ πᾶν αὐτὸ αὑτῷ συνδεδέσθαι. διὰ τούτου καὶ ἡ μαντικὴ πᾶσα χωρεῖ καὶ ἡ τῶν ἱερέων τέχνη τῶν τε περὶ τὰς θυσίας καὶ τελετὰς
It is between god and mortal. And what power, said I, does it have? Interpreting and ferrying across to the gods what comes from men, and to men what comes from the gods — from the one, prayers and sacrifices, from the other, commands and requitals of the sacrifices; and being in the middle of both, it fills the gap, so that the whole is bound together with itself. Through this all prophecy passes, and the priests' craft concerning sacrifices and rites,
Socrates asks what power the daimonic has. Diotima answers: it interprets and ferries between gods and men — carrying prayers and sacrifices up, commands and requitals down — and, standing in the middle of both, it fills the gap, so that the whole is bound together with itself. Through this daimonic power passes all prophecy and the priests' craft of sacrifice and rites. The sentence runs on into 203a.
The cosmic claim is large: to pan auto hautōi syndedesthai, "the whole is bound together with itself" — the daimonic is what makes the universe one connected thing rather than two sealed realms. Without such intermediaries, gods and mortals would have no commerce at all (203a will say the god does not mingle with man directly). This is why prophecy, sacrifice, and ritual all run through the daimonic: they are the channels of that binding. Plato is giving Eros a place in the structure of the cosmos, not just the human heart — love as the connective tissue between the mortal and the divine. It prepares the ascent to come, where erotic desire will carry the soul upward from bodies to Beauty itself.
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