cessive, 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. Seeing then
that there are these three sorts of love, ought the law to prohibit and
forbid them all to exist among us? Is it not rather clear that we should
wish to have in the state the love which is of virtue and which desires
the beloved youth to be the best possible; and the other two, if
possible, we should hinder? What do you say, friend Megillus?

MEGILLUS: I think, Stranger, that you are perfectly right in what you
have been now saying.

Athenian: I knew well, my friend, that I should obtain your assent,
which I accept, and therefore have no need to analyze your custom any
further. Cleinias shall be prevailed upon to give me his assent at some
other time. Enough of this; and now let us proceed to the laws.

MEGILLUS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: Upon reflection I see a way of imposing the law, which, in one
respect, is easy, but, in another, is of the utmost difficulty.

MEGILLUS: What do you mean?

ATHENIAN: We are all aware that most men, in spite of their lawless
natures, are very strictly and precisely restrained from intercourse
with the fair, and this is not at all against their will, but entirely
with their will.

MEGILLUS: When do you mean?

ATHENIAN: When any one has a brother or sister who is