I Am Persuaded
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Socrates — ταῦτα δή, ὦ Φαῖδρέ τε καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι, ἔφη μὲν Διοτίμα, πέπεισμαι δʼ ἐγώ· πεπεισμένος δὲ πειρῶμαι καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους πείθειν ὅτι τούτου τοῦ κτήματος τῇ ἀνθρωπείᾳ φύσει συνεργὸν ἀμείνω Ἔρωτος οὐκ ἄν τις ῥᾳδίως λάβοι. διὸ δὴ ἔγωγέ φημι χρῆναι πάντα ἄνδρα τὸν ἔρωτα τιμᾶν, καὶ αὐτὸς τιμῶ τὰ ἐρωτικὰ καὶ διαφερόντως ἀσκῶ, καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις παρακελεύομαι, καὶ νῦν τε καὶ ἀεὶ ἐγκωμιάζω τὴν δύναμιν καὶ ἀνδρείαν τοῦ Ἔρωτος καθʼ ὅσον οἷός τʼ εἰμί. τοῦτον
These things, Phaedrus and the rest, Diotima said, and I am persuaded; and being persuaded, I try to persuade others too that for this possession for human nature one could not easily get a better helper than Eros. Wherefore I say every man must honour Eros, and I myself honour love's matters and practise them above all, and exhort the others, and now and always I praise the power and courage of Eros as far as I am able.
Socrates ends his report and speaks for himself. These things, Phaedrus and the rest, Diotima said — and I am persuaded. And being persuaded, I try to persuade others too: that for gaining this possession, human nature could not easily find a better helper than Eros. So I say every man must honour Eros; and I myself honour love's matters and practise them above all, and urge others to, and now and always I praise the power and courage of Eros as far as I am able. The sentence closes his speech in 212c.
The close is also a quiet rebuke to the evening's earlier speeches. Where they praised Eros as a god, Socrates 'praises the power and courage of Eros' — its dynamis and andreia, the force and boldness by which it drives the ascent — and does so 'as far as I am able,' the encomiast's humility. He has given not a flattering myth but an account he believes true, and he honours love by practising it (the philosophical eros of question and pursuit), not by fine words alone. With 'this speech,' beginning in 212c, Socrates formally ends; and at that very moment the door will crash open and a drunken Alcibiades will burst in, turning the dialogue from the vision of Beauty itself to the flesh-and-blood beauty Socrates resisted — the living test of everything Diotima has said.
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