Ever Becoming New
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Diotima — τὸν αὐτὸν ἐκείνῳ λόγον ἡ θνητὴ φύσις ζητεῖ κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ἀεί τε εἶναι καὶ ἀθάνατος. δύναται δὲ ταύτῃ μόνον, τῇ γενέσει, ὅτι ἀεὶ καταλείπει ἕτερον νέον ἀντὶ τοῦ παλαιοῦ, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἐν ᾧ ἓν ἕκαστον τῶν ζῴων ζῆν καλεῖται καὶ εἶναι τὸ αὐτό— οἷον ἐκ παιδαρίου ὁ αὐτὸς λέγεται ἕως ἂν πρεσβύτης γένηται· οὗτος μέντοι οὐδέποτε τὰ αὐτὰ ἔχων ἐν αὑτῷ ὅμως ὁ αὐτὸς καλεῖται, ἀλλὰ νέος ἀεὶ γιγνόμενος, τὰ δὲ ἀπολλύς, καὶ κατὰ τὰς τρίχας καὶ σάρκα καὶ ὀστᾶ καὶ
the mortal nature seeks, as far as possible, to be forever and immortal. And it can only in this way, by generation, because it always leaves another, a new one in place of the old. Since even in the span in which each living thing is called alive and the same — as from childhood one is called the same until he becomes an old man; yet this one never has the same things in himself, though called the same, but ever becoming new, and losing the old, in hair and flesh and bones
Diotima explains how a mortal partakes of immortality: mortal nature seeks to be forever and deathless, and can do so only by generation — always leaving behind a new thing in place of the old. Even within one life this holds. A living thing is called 'alive' and 'the same' from childhood to old age, yet it never has the same things in it: it is always becoming new and losing the old — in hair, flesh, bones, blood, the whole body. The sentence runs on into 207e.
The point serves the argument about immortality. If even a single life is a river of replacement — the old dying, the new taking its place, under one persisting name — then generation between the generations (children, and the soul's offspring) is only the same process writ large. A mortal 'is forever' not by enduring but by being continually renewed and succeeded. Diotima extends the analysis in 207e–208a to the soul (characters, opinions, desires, fears) and, most strikingly, to knowledge itself, where 'studying' (meletē) is needed precisely because knowledge slips away and must be replaced by fresh memory. The reach for the eternal, then, is written into the very structure of mortal being, which survives only by perpetual rebirth — the deepest ground for calling love a love of immortality.
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