Bringing to Birth in the Beautiful
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Diotima — ὅτε δὴ τοῦτο ὁ ἔρως ἐστὶν ἀεί, ἦ δʼ ἥ, τῶν τίνα τρόπον διωκόντων αὐτὸ καὶ ἐν τίνι πράξει ἡ σπουδὴ καὶ ἡ σύντασις ἔρως ἂν καλοῖτο; τί τοῦτο τυγχάνει ὂν τὸ ἔργον; ἔχεις εἰπεῖν;
Socrates — οὐ μεντἂν σέ, ἔφην ἐγώ, ὦ Διοτίμα, ἐθαύμαζον ἐπὶ σοφίᾳ καὶ ἐφοίτων παρὰ σὲ αὐτὰ ταῦτα μαθησόμενος.
Diotima — ἀλλὰ ἐγώ σοι, ἔφη, ἐρῶ. ἔστι γὰρ τοῦτο τόκος ἐν καλῷ καὶ κατὰ τὸ σῶμα καὶ κατὰ τὴν ψυχήν.
Socrates — μαντείας, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, δεῖται ὅτι ποτε λέγεις, καὶ οὐ μανθάνω.
Since this is love, always, said she, in what way, of those pursuing it, and in what activity, would the zeal and straining be called love? What does this work happen to be? Can you say? I would not, Diotima, be admiring you for wisdom, and coming to you to learn these very things. But I, she said, will tell you. For this is a bringing-to-birth in the beautiful, both in body and in soul. It needs divination, said I, whatever you mean, and I do not understand.
Since love is always of the good being one's own forever, Diotima asks: in what pursuit, in what activity, is the zeal and straining of lovers properly called love? What is the work of love? Socrates cannot say — that, he admits, is why he keeps coming to learn from her. And she tells him: it is a bringing-to-birth in the beautiful, both in body and in soul. Socrates says it needs a prophet to interpret; he does not understand.
The word tokos is deliberately fertile: it means childbirth and offspring, and also the 'interest' bred by money — the increase that comes of the good put to use. By defining love as birth rather than acquisition, Diotima answers the puzzle left by 'forever': a mortal cannot keep the good eternally, but he can perpetuate it by begetting — leaving a new thing where the old must pass away. This is the bridge to the immortality argument (206e–208b) and, beyond it, to the ascent, where the highest births are not bodily children but virtue, poems, and laws, and finally the vision of Beauty itself in which the soul brings forth true virtue. Socrates' bafflement — "it needs a diviner" — is the reader's, and it marks the moment the speech turns from analysis to mystery, the language of the Eleusinian initiations that will colour the climb to come.
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