People Cut Off Their Own Diseased Limbs
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Diotima — ἑαυτῶν ζητῶσιν, οὗτοι ἐρῶσιν· ὁ δʼ ἐμὸς λόγος οὔτε ἡμίσεός φησιν εἶναι τὸν ἔρωτα οὔτε ὅλου, ἐὰν μὴ τυγχάνῃ γέ που, ὦ ἑταῖρε, ἀγαθὸν ὄν, ἐπεὶ αὑτῶν γε καὶ πόδας καὶ χεῖρας ἐθέλουσιν ἀποτέμνεσθαι οἱ ἄνθρωποι, ἐὰν αὐτοῖς δοκῇ τὰ ἑαυτῶν πονηρὰ εἶναι. οὐ γὰρ τὸ ἑαυτῶν οἶμαι ἕκαστοι ἀσπάζονται, εἰ μὴ εἴ τις τὸ μὲν ἀγαθὸν οἰκεῖον καλεῖ καὶ ἑαυτοῦ, τὸ δὲ κακὸν ἀλλότριον· ὡς οὐδέν γε ἄλλο ἐστὶν οὗ
seek their own, these are in love; but my argument says love is neither of a half nor of a whole, unless it happen, I suppose, my friend, to be good; since people are willing to cut off even their own feet and hands, if their own seem to them diseased. For each, I think, does not cling to what is his own, except if one calls the good his own and kindred, and the bad alien; for there is nothing else that
Diotima corrects Aristophanes. Those who seek their own may be called lovers — but her argument says love is not of a half or a whole unless it is also good. Proof: people are willing to cut off their own feet and hands if they seem diseased. So no one clings to what is merely his own, unless he calls the good his own and kindred, and the bad alien. For there is nothing else, she says, that people love — the thought completes in 206a.
The correction reorients the whole erotic tradition. Where Aristophanes rooted love in kinship and belonging, Diotima roots it in value: the oikeion (one's own, the kindred) is loved only because, and insofar as, it is agathon (good). This is why the ascent will be able to leave particular beloveds behind — a lover bound to this body or this person by kinship could never climb, but a lover whose real object is the good can follow the good upward wherever it leads, from one beautiful body to all, to souls, to laws, to knowledge, to Beauty itself. By subordinating belonging to goodness, Diotima clears the last obstacle to the ladder. The summary formula comes in 206a: love is of the good's being one's own forever.
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