He Will Be Happy
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Diotima — ἀλλʼ ἔφη, ὥσπερ ἂν εἴ τις μεταβαλὼν ἀντὶ τοῦ καλοῦ τῷ ἀγαθῷ χρώμενος πυνθάνοιτο· φέρε, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐρᾷ ὁ ἐρῶν τῶν ἀγαθῶν· τί ἐρᾷ;
Socrates — γενέσθαι, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, αὑτῷ.
Diotima — καὶ τί ἔσται ἐκείνῳ ᾧ ἂν γένηται τἀγαθά;
Socrates — τοῦτʼ εὐπορώτερον, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ἔχω ἀποκρίνασθαι, ὅτι εὐδαίμων ἔσται.
Well, she said, just as if someone, making a change, using the good instead of the beautiful, should inquire: come, Socrates, the lover loves good things; what does he love? That they become his own, said I. And what will there be for him to whom the good things become? This one, said I, I can more easily answer: that he will be happy.
Diotima runs the same question with 'good' put in place of 'beautiful.' The lover loves good things — what does he love in them? That they become his own. And what will he have when they do? This one, Socrates says, he can answer easily: he will be happy.
This is Diotima teaching Socrates his own principle. Throughout Plato the good and the beautiful shade into each other (kalon k'agathon), and the good is what all desire aims at because it delivers happiness — the thesis of the Gorgias and Meno. By reframing love's object as the good, Diotima connects erōs to the whole economy of human wanting: love is not an exotic passion but a form of the universal reach for happiness. The next step (205a) draws the consequence — since everyone wants the good to be theirs always, everyone is, in a sense, a lover; "love" in the narrow sense is only one name for one part of a desire common to all.
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