The Speech of Phaedrus
178a–180b
First, then, as I say, Aristodemus said that Phaedrus began somewhere about here: that Love is a great god, and wonderful among men and gods, in many other ways and not least in his birth.
"To be among the oldest of the gods is an honour," he said, 178b "and here is the proof of it: Love has no parents, and none are spoken of by anyone, whether prose writer or poet. Hesiod says that first Chaos came into being, 'and then broad-breasted Earth, the ever-safe seat of all, and Love'.1 Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod that after Chaos these two came into being, Earth and Love. And Parmenides says of the power that brought things to birth: 'First of all the gods she devised Love.' 178c So from many sides it is agreed that Love is among the very oldest. And being the oldest, he is the cause of the greatest goods for us. For I cannot say what greater good there is for a young man from his earliest youth than a worthy lover, or for a lover than a worthy beloved. For what ought to guide men through the whole of life, if they mean to live well, cannot be implanted so well by kinship, or honours, or wealth, or anything else 178d as by love. What do I mean by this? Shame at what is shameful, and ambition for what is noble; for without these neither a city nor a private person can accomplish great and noble works. I say, then, that if a man in love were found out doing something shameful, or suffering it from someone and through cowardice not defending himself, he would not be so pained at being seen by his father, or by his friends, or by anyone else, 178e as by his beloved. And we see the same thing in the beloved: he is especially ashamed before his lovers when he is seen in some shameful situation. If, then, there were some way of making a city or an army out of lovers and their beloveds, they could not govern their own city better than by abstaining from everything shameful and vying with one another in honour; 179a and fighting side by side, such men, though few, would conquer, one might almost say, all mankind.
"For a man in love would surely rather be seen by anyone else than by his beloved leaving his post or throwing away his arms, and would choose to die many times over rather than that. And as for deserting the beloved, or not helping him in danger — no one is so base that Love himself would not inspire him with courage, so that he becomes like the bravest by nature; 179b and just what Homer said, that the god 'breathed might' into some of the heroes,2 Love supplies to lovers from himself.
"Moreover, lovers alone are willing to die for another — not only men, but women too. Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, gives the Greeks sufficient proof of this statement. She alone was willing to die for her husband, though he had a father 179c and mother; and through her love she so far surpassed them in affection that she showed them to be strangers to their son, related only in name. And when she had done this deed, it seemed so noble not only to men but to the gods that, while many have done many noble deeds, the gods have granted to only a very few this privilege — to send their souls up again from Hades — but hers they sent up, in admiration 179d of her deed. So greatly do the gods too honour zeal and virtue in love. But Orpheus, the son of Oeagrus, they sent away from Hades unsuccessful, showing him a phantom of the wife for whom he had come, but not giving him herself, because he seemed to them soft, being a singer to the lyre, and not daring to die for love like Alcestis, but contriving to enter Hades alive. For this they punished him, and made his death come 179e at the hands of women. Not so Achilles, the son of Thetis, whom they honoured and sent to the Isles of the Blessed. He had learned from his mother that he would die if he killed Hector, but if he did not, he would go home and end his life in old age; yet he dared to choose to help his lover Patroclus and 180a avenge him, not only dying for him but dying after him, when he was already dead. For this the gods admired him exceedingly and honoured him above all, because he valued his lover so highly.
"Aeschylus talks nonsense when he says that Achilles was the lover of Patroclus. Achilles was more beautiful not only than Patroclus but than all the heroes, and still beardless, and much younger, as Homer says. The truth is that the gods honour this virtue in love most highly; 180b but they admire and esteem and reward it still more when the beloved cherishes the lover than when the lover cherishes the beloved. For the lover is more divine than the beloved, since he is possessed by the god. That is why they honoured Achilles more than Alcestis, sending him to the Isles of the Blessed.
"So I say that Love is the oldest and most honoured of the gods, and the most powerful in helping men to gain virtue and happiness, both in life and after death."