Pausanias: The Two Loves

180c Such, Aristodemus said, was the speech of Phaedrus. After Phaedrus there were some others whom he did not remember very well; he passed over them and went on to relate the speech of Pausanias. Pausanias said:

"I do not think, Phaedrus, that the subject has been rightly set before us — that we should simply be told to praise Love. If Love were one, it would be well; but in fact he is not one, and since he is not one, it is more correct to declare first 180d which Love we are to praise. I shall try, then, to set this right: first to say which Love we must praise, and then to praise him in a manner worthy of the god. We all know that there is no Aphrodite without Love. If there were one Aphrodite, there would be one Love; but since there are two, there must also be two Loves. And how could there not be two goddesses? One, surely, is the elder and has no mother, the daughter of Uranus, whom we call Heavenly; the other is younger, the daughter of Zeus and Dione, 180e whom we call Common.¹ So the Love who works with the one must rightly be called Common, and the other Heavenly. Now all gods must be praised; but I must try to say what each of these two has for his share.

"For every action is like this: in itself, done by itself, it is neither noble nor shameful. 181a Take what we are doing now — drinking, singing, conversing: none of these is noble in itself, but it turns out to be such in the doing, according to how it is done. Done nobly and rightly, it becomes noble; done wrongly, shameful. So it is with loving, and with Love: not every Love is noble or worthy of praise, but only the one who moves us to love nobly.

"The Love of Common Aphrodite is truly common, 181b and does whatever comes his way; he is the love that the baser sort of men feel. Such men love, first, women no less than boys; second, in those they love they love bodies rather than souls; and third, they love the least intelligent they can find, looking only to getting what they want and not caring whether it is done nobly or not. So it happens that they do whatever comes their way, good and its opposite alike. For this Love comes from the goddess who is much younger 181c than the other, and who in her birth partakes of both female and male. But the Love of Heavenly Aphrodite comes from a goddess who partakes not of the female but of the male only — this is the love of boys — and who is the elder, and has no share in wantonness. Hence those inspired by this Love turn to the male, loving what is by nature stronger and has more intelligence. And even within the love of boys one can recognize those who are moved purely 181d by this Love; for they do not love boys, but youths who are already beginning to show intelligence, which happens about the time the beard begins to grow. Those who begin to love at that age are prepared, I think, to be with the beloved all their lives and to share their lives with him, not to deceive him, taking him while he is young and foolish, and then to laugh at him and run off to another. There ought to be a law against loving 181e young boys, so that much effort should not be spent on what is uncertain; for it is uncertain how a boy will turn out, in vice or virtue of soul and body. Good men impose this law on themselves willingly; but these common lovers ought also to be compelled to it, just as we compel them, as far 182a as we can, not to make love to freeborn women.

"For it is these who have brought reproach on the matter, so that some dare to say that it is shameful to gratify a lover. They say this looking at these men, seeing their impropriety and injustice; for surely no act that is done decently and lawfully could justly bring blame.

1. Aphrodite Urania ("Heavenly") and Aphrodite Pandemos ("of all the people") were two cults of the goddess at Athens; Pausanias turns them into two kinds of love. ↩