Son of Poros and Penia
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Diotima — τε παρʼ αὐτῷ καὶ ἐκύησε τὸν ἔρωτα. διὸ δὴ καὶ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης ἀκόλουθος καὶ θεράπων γέγονεν ὁ Ἔρως, γεννηθεὶς ἐν τοῖς ἐκείνης γενεθλίοις, καὶ ἅμα φύσει ἐραστὴς ὢν περὶ τὸ καλὸν καὶ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης καλῆς οὔσης. ἅτε οὖν Πόρου καὶ Πενίας ὑὸς ὢν ὁ Ἔρως ἐν τοιαύτῃ τύχῃ καθέστηκεν. πρῶτον μὲν πένης ἀεί ἐστι, καὶ πολλοῦ δεῖ ἁπαλός τε καὶ καλός, οἷον οἱ πολλοὶ οἴονται, ἀλλὰ σκληρὸς
beside him, and conceived Eros. And for this reason Eros has become a follower and attendant of Aphrodite, having been begotten at her birthday feast, and at once by nature a lover of the beautiful, Aphrodite being beautiful. Inasmuch, then, as he is son of Poros and Penia, Eros finds himself in such a condition. First, he is always poor, and far from being tender and beautiful, as the many suppose, but hard
Penia conceives Eros by the sleeping Poros. So Eros became the follower and attendant of Aphrodite — begotten at her birthday feast, and by nature a lover of the beautiful, since Aphrodite is beautiful. And because he is the son of Resource and Poverty, his condition is fixed: first, he is always poor, and far from being tender and beautiful as most people suppose, but hard. The portrait continues into 203d.
The first stroke of the portrait deliberately overturns the popular image. The many picture Eros as hapalos … kai kalos, tender and beautiful — the soft winged boy of poetry and art, the Eros of Agathon's own speech (195c, where he called love delicate and young). Diotima flatly denies it: he is sklēros, hard, and will be shown barefoot and homeless in the next lines. This is love seen from its mother's side, from want. The correction is the whole method of the speech in miniature: strip away the flattering picture the crowd holds, and find underneath a needier, stranger, more driven thing — the reason the description to come (203d) reads less like a god than like Socrates himself.
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