The Schemer After the Beautiful
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Diotima — καὶ αὐχμηρὸς καὶ ἀνυπόδητος καὶ ἄοικος, χαμαιπετὴς ἀεὶ ὢν καὶ ἄστρωτος, ἐπὶ θύραις καὶ ἐν ὁδοῖς ὑπαίθριος κοιμώμενος, τὴν τῆς μητρὸς φύσιν ἔχων, ἀεὶ ἐνδείᾳ σύνοικος. κατὰ δὲ αὖ τὸν πατέρα ἐπίβουλός ἐστι τοῖς καλοῖς καὶ τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς, ἀνδρεῖος ὢν καὶ ἴτης καὶ σύντονος, θηρευτὴς δεινός, ἀεί τινας πλέκων μηχανάς, καὶ φρονήσεως ἐπιθυμητὴς καὶ πόριμος, φιλοσοφῶν διὰ παντὸς τοῦ βίου, δεινὸς γόης καὶ φαρμακεὺς καὶ σοφιστής· καὶ οὔτε ὡς
and squalid and unshod and homeless, always lying on the ground and without a bed, sleeping at doorsteps and in the roads, under the open sky, having his mother's nature, always housemate to want. But after his father, in turn, he is a schemer after the beautiful and good, being brave and headlong and intense, a formidable hunter, always weaving some devices, a craver of wisdom and resourceful, philosophizing all his life, a formidable sorcerer and druggist and sophist; and neither as
Diotima completes the double portrait. From his mother Penia, Eros is squalid, unshod, homeless, bedding down at doorsteps and in the road under the open sky — always housemate to want. But after his father Poros, he is a bold schemer after the beautiful and good, an intense hunter, forever weaving devices, a craver of wisdom, resourceful, philosophizing all his life, a formidable sorcerer, druggist, and sophist. The sentence runs on into 203e.
Two words repay attention. Eros is philosophōn dia pantos tou biou, "philosophizing all his life" — the first appearance in the speech of the key idea that the lover is the philosopher, the one who lacks wisdom and therefore pursues it. And the trio that ends the line — goēs kai pharmakeus kai sophistēs, sorcerer and druggist and sophist — is startling: love binds like a spell and a drug. The pharmakon is at once remedy and poison, and to call Eros a pharmakeus is to grant love that same double power to heal and to harm. The line refuses to make love simply noble; the reaching that drives philosophy is also the enchantment that can deceive. Between the mother's want and the father's cunning, Eros is neither god nor beast but the restless, resourceful, needy pursuer — 203e will add that he is neither immortal nor mortal either.
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