플라톤 - 향연 [Plato - Symposium]

<Symposium>

**It is agreed that the Symposium is one of Plato's two greatest dialogues, either greater than the Republic or next to it. Of all of them it tells the most vivid story and it gives the most arresting and the most detailed portrait of Socrates. Also it contains the loftiest ｅxpression of Plato's inmost conviction that it is the things not seen which are eternal and eternally important.

 

*Love is the oldest and most glorious of the gods, the greater giver of all goodness and happiness to men, alike to the living and to the dead. (534) (Phaedrus)

*And if, my dear Socrates, Diotima went on, man's life is ever worth the living, it is when he has attained this vision of the very soul of beauty. And once you have seen it, you will never be seduced again by the charm of gold, of dress, of comely boys, or lads just ripening to manhood; you will care nothing for the beauties that used take your breath away and kindle such a longing in you, and many others like you, Socrates, to be always at the side of the beloved and feasting your eyes upon him, so that you would be content, if it were possible, to deny yourself the grosser necessities of meat and drink, so long as you were with him (563)