Never Poor, Never Rich
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Diotima — ἀθάνατος πέφυκεν οὔτε ὡς θνητός, ἀλλὰ τοτὲ μὲν τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρας θάλλει τε καὶ ζῇ, ὅταν εὐπορήσῃ, τοτὲ δὲ ἀποθνῄσκει, πάλιν δὲ ἀναβιώσκεται διὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς φύσιν, τὸ δὲ ποριζόμενον ἀεὶ ὑπεκρεῖ, ὥστε οὔτε ἀπορεῖ Ἔρως ποτὲ οὔτε πλουτεῖ, σοφίας τε αὖ καὶ ἀμαθίας ἐν μέσῳ ἐστίν.
is he by nature immortal, nor as mortal, but at one moment, the same day, he flourishes and lives, when he has plenty, and at another he dies, but comes back to life again through his father's nature; and what is provided always slips away, so that Eros is never at a loss, nor is he rich, and is in the middle of wisdom and ignorance.
Diotima ends the portrait. Eros is neither immortal nor mortal by nature: on the same day he flourishes and lives when he has plenty, then dies, then revives again through his father's nature — and whatever is provided him is always slipping away. So Eros is never at a loss and never rich, but stands in the middle between wisdom and ignorance.
The last clause returns to where the teaching began (202a): sophias … kai amathias en mesōi, in the middle between wisdom and ignorance. That is the exact place Diotima assigned to right opinion, and it is the place of the philosopher — the one who is neither wise (and so would not seek) nor ignorant (and so would not know to seek), but in between, and therefore desiring. The next lines (204a–b) draw the moral explicitly: the gods do not philosophize, for they are wise; the ignorant do not, for they think themselves fine as they are; only the in-between beings, like Eros, love wisdom. Everything in the portrait — the bare feet, the scheming, the drug-craft, the dying and reviving — has been building this single identification of Eros with the philosophic life, the life that lives on lack.
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