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Updated: July 1, 2025
We are cobbling up a robe for the Emperor out of mere rags; we are upholsterers and not artists. If it were only for Hadrian, and not for Diotima and her children, not another finger would I stir in the place."
"As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between them." "What is he then, Diotima?" "He is a great spirit, and like all that is spiritual he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And what is the nature of this spiritual power?" I said.
Your heart I fear, replied Diotima, was broken by your sufferings but if you had struggled if when you found all hope of earthly happiness wither within you while desire of it scorched your soul if you had near you a friend to have raised you to the contemplation of beauty & the search of knowledge you would have found perhaps not new hopes spring within you but a new life distinct from that of passion by which you had before existed relate to me what this misery was that thus engroses you tell me what were the vicissitudes of feeling that you endured on earth after death our actions & worldly interest fade as nothing before us but the traces of our feelings exist & the memories of those are what furnish us here with eternal subject of meditation.
Diotima approached the fountain & seated herself on a mossy mound near it and her disciples placed themselves on the grass near her Without noticing me who sat close under her she continued her discourse addressing as it happened one or other of her listeners but before I attempt to repeat her words I will describe the chief of these whom she appeared to wish principally to impress One was a woman of about 23 years of age in the full enjoyment of the most exquisite beauty her golden hair floated in ringlets on her shoulders her hazle eyes were shaded by heavy lids and her mouth the lips apart seemed to breathe sensibility But she appeared thoughtful & unhappy her cheek was pale she seemed as if accustomed to suffer and as if the lessons she now heard were the only words of wisdom to which she had ever listened The youth beside her had a far different aspect his form was emaciated nearly to a shadow his features were handsome but thin & worn & his eyes glistened as if animating the visage of decay his forehead was expansive but there was a doubt & perplexity in his looks that seemed to say that although he had sought wisdom he had got entangled in some mysterious mazes from which he in vain endeavoured to extricate himself As Diotima spoke his colour went & came with quick changes & the flexible muscles of his countenance shewed every impression that his mind received he seemed one who in life had studied hard but whose feeble frame sunk beneath the weight of the mere exertion of life the spark of intelligence burned with uncommon strength within him but that of life seemed ever on the eve of fading At present I shall not describe any other of this groupe but with deep attention try to recall in my memory some of the words of Diotima they were words of fire but their path is faintly marked on my recollection
My Diotima hath willed I should be of the second sort, and I will not go against her good pleasure, and copy the mere brutes that breed and procreate." Messer Betto Brunelleschi by no means approved of this resolution.
In the town he went, unintelligently dreaming as he walked, from one street to another, but he was familiar with every stone of the way, and his feet found their way to his sister's house. How happy was Diotima, how her children rejoiced, how impatient was each one to conduct him to the old folks!
And in this way is realised, momentarily, but with ever-increasing power of repetition, that which, after the teaching of Diotima, Socrates prayed for "the harmony between the outer and the inner man." But this, I know, many will say, is but a delusion. Rapture is pleasant, but it is not necessarily, as the men of the Middle Ages thought, a union with God.
When I heard this, I was astonished and said, "Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?" And she answered with all the authority of a sophist: "Of that, Socrates, you may be assured; think only of the ambition of men, and you will marvel at their senselessness unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame.
His mother was the great sibyl Diotima, who lived here, and it is said that he is the son of a god," said Gorgius. "A deaf mute the son of a god?" murmured the emperor, surprised. "In times like ours if the son of a god and a sibyl were not a deaf mute he would die of grief," said Gorgius. "One thing more I want to ask you," said Julian.
But some one will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima? or rather let me put the question more clearly, and ask: When a man loves the beautiful, what does he desire? I answered her 'That the beautiful may be his. 'Still, she said, 'the answer suggests a further question: What is given by the possession of beauty? 'To what you have asked, I replied, 'I have no answer ready. 'Then, she said, 'let me put the word "good" in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question once more: If he who loves loves the good, what is it then that he loves? 'The possession of the good, I said.
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