Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The word is blotted and virtually illegible. With Diotima's conclusion here cf. her words in the Symposium: "When any one ascending from a correct system of Love, begins to contemplate this supreme beauty, he already touches the consummation of his labour.
Diotima's might have been as disappointing as George Eliot's: but by no means must necessarily have been so. Aspasia's, sometimes counterfeited, ought to have been good. The continuity of literary history is a thing which deserves to be attended to, especially when there is an ever-growing tendency to confine attention to things modern albeit so soon to be antiquated!
The whole of Diotima's theory of the ascent to ideal beauty is here implicit in three lines. It is obvious that, from the standpoint of the beloved at least, there is danger in this identification of all beauties as manifestations of the ideal. It is unpropitious to lifelong affection for one person.
This is analogous to the description of the beautiful in the latter part of Diotima's Speech in the Banquet; a speech which is surely unequalled, both for elegance of composition and sublimity of sentiment.
Word Of The Day