And suppose we grant that these loves are accounted by law to the honourable, or at least not disgraceful, in what degree will they contribute to virtue?
Will such passions implant in the soul of him who is seduced the habit of courage, or in the soul of the seducer the principle of temperance?
Who will ever believe this?
or rather, who will not blame the effeminacy of him who yields to pleasures and is unable to hold out against them?
Will not all men censure as womanly him who imitates the woman?
And who would ever think of establishing such a practice by law?
certainly no one who had in his mind the image of true law.

How can we prove that what I am saying is true?
He who would rightly consider these matters must see the nature of friendship and desire, and of these so-called loves, for they are of two kinds, and out of the two arises a third kind, having the same name; and this similarity of name causes all the difficulty and obscurity.
CLEINIAS: How is that?
ATHENIAN: Dear is the like in virtue to the like, and the equal to the equal; dear also, though unlike, is he who has abundance to him who is in want.

And when either of these friendships becomes excessive, we term the excess love.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: The friendship which arises from contraries is horrible and coarse, and has often no tie of communion; but that which arises from likeness is gentle, and has a tie of communion which lasts through life.
As to the mixed sort which is made up of them both, there is, first of all, a difficulty in determining what he who is possessed by this third love desires; moreover, he is drawn different ways, and is in doubt between the two principles; the one exhorting him to enjoy the beauty of youth, and the other forbidding him.

For the one is a lover of the body, and hungers after beauty, like ripe fruit, and would fain satisfy himself without any regard to the character of the beloved; the other holds the desire of the body to be a secondary matter, and looking rather than loving and with his soul desiring the soul of the other in a becoming manner, regards the satisfaction of the bodily love as wantonness; he reverences and respects temperance and courage and magnanimity and wisdom, and wishes to live chastely with the chaste object of his affection.

Now the sort of love which is made up of the other two is that which we have described as the third.