For love, Socrates, is
not, as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only.' 'What then?' 'The
love of generation and of birth in beauty.' 'Yes,' I said. 'Yes, indeed,'
she replied. 'But why of generation?' 'Because to the mortal creature,
generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,' she replied; 'and if, as
has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the
good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good:
Wherefore love is of immortality.'
All this she taught me at various times when she spoke of love. And I
remember her once saying to me, 'What is the cause, Socrates, of love, and
the attendant desire? See you not how all animals, birds, as well as
beasts, in their desire of procreation, are in agony when they take the
infection of love, which begins with the desire of union; whereto is added
the care of offspring, on whose behalf the weakest are ready to battle
against the strongest even to the uttermost, and to die for them, and will
let themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything in order to
maintain their young.
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