The Nature of Love

This paper discusses the discourse of various philosophers like Appolodorus, Socrates, Phaedrus, Aristodemus and many others. The main topic of the discussion is the nature of love and how it affects the lives of people indulged in it.

The conversation between Phaedrus and Socrates begins by appreciating the beauty of the nature. The dialogue prolongs beneath the plane tree. An abstract from the dialogue is as under:

Soc. By Here, a fair resting-place, full of summer sounds and scents. Here is this lofty and spreading plane tree, and the agnus cast us high and clustering, in the fullest blossom and the greatest fragrance; and the stream which flows beneath the plane-tree is deliciously cold to the feet. Judging from the ornaments and images, this must be a spot sacred to Achelous and the Nymphs. How delightful is the breeze: -- so very sweet; and there is a sound in the air shrill and summer like which makes answer to the chorus of the cicadae. But the greatest charm of all is the grass, like a pillow gently sloping to the head. My dear Phaedrus, you have been an admirable guide. (Plato)

Then the conversation differentiates between a lover and a friend. In friendship one cares for another not for his own selfish desires but for a mutual understanding and similarities of opinions. The following part of the conversation clearly defines the interest which a non-lover and a lover may be looking for in an individual:

“Many lovers too have loved the person of a youth before they knew his character or his belongings; so that when their passion has passed away, there is no knowing whether they will continue to be his friends; whereas, in the case of non-lovers who were always friends, the friendship is not lessened by the favors granted; but the recollection of these remains with them, and is an earnest of good things to come.“ (Plato)

A friend is never interested in one’s physical body or sexual love and this is the reason that a friend’s association can be everlasting. However, this is not the case with a lover. A lover might desert you anytime if he gets fed up of your sexual attractiveness and at any time when you do not seem to be sexually appealing to him. It happens that a lover might quarrel with you after fulfilling his desires. A friend on the other hand respect one’s moral values and will not indulge in any such act that would in any way harm his friend. The following quotation yields the difference between a lover and a non-lover:

"Every one sees that love is a desire, and we know also that non-lovers desire the beautiful and good. Now in what way is the lover to be distinguished from the non-lover? Let us note that in every one of us there are two guiding and ruling principles that lead us whither they will; one is the natural desire of pleasure, the other is an acquired opinion that aspires after the best; and these two are sometimes in harmony and then again at war, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other conquers. When opinion by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering principle is called temperance; but when desire, which is devoid of reason, rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule is called excess. Now excess has many names, and many members, and many forms, and any of these forms when very marked gives a name, neither honorable nor creditable, to the bearer of the name. The desire of eating, for example, which gets the better of the higher reason and the other desires, is called gluttony, and he who is possessed by it is called a glutton -- I the tyrannical desire of drink, which inclines the possessor of the desire to drink, has a name which is only too obvious, and there can be as little doubt by what name any other appetite of the same family would be called; -- it will be the name of that which happens to be eluminant. And now I think that you will perceive the drift of my discourse; but as every spoken word is in a manner plainer than the unspoken, I had better say further that the irrational desire which overcomes the tendency of opinion towards right, and is led away to the enjoyment of beauty, and especially of personal beauty, by the desires which are her own kindred -- that supreme desire, I say, which by leading conquers and by the force of passion is reinforced, from this very force, receiving a name, is called love." (Plato)

Now the point arises as to what the lover makes of his beloved that results in a hatred for the desire of sexual love. Well, in a nutshell the answer lies in the fact that the beloved becomes a submissive slave of the lover. The lover adopts such a strategy that would make the beloved ignorant, clumsy and inferior. He instills such a behavior inside the beloved that the beloved thinks that he is no longer able to live his life the way he feels i.e. the beloved lost his identity as a separate human being. This can be supported by the following dialogue of Socrates:

“He who is the victim of his passions and the slave of pleasure will of course desire to make his beloved as agreeable to himself as possible. Now to him who has a mind discased anything is agreeable which is not opposed to him, but that which is equal or superior is hateful to him, and therefore the lover Will not brook any superiority or equality on the part of his beloved; he is always employed in reducing him to inferiority. And the ignorant is the inferior of the wise, the coward of the brave, the slow of speech of the speaker, the dull of the clever. These, and not these only, are the mental defects of the beloved; -- defects which, when implanted by nature, are necessarily a delight to the lover, and when not implanted, he must contrive to implant them in him, if he would not be deprived of his fleeting joy. And therefore he cannot help being jealous, and will debar his beloved from the advantages of society which would make a man of him, and especially from that society which would have given him wisdom, and thereby he cannot fail to do him great harm. That is to say, in his excessive fear lest he should come to be despised in his eyes he will be compelled to banish from him divine philosophy; and there is no greater injury which he can inflict upon him than this. He will contrive that his beloved shall be wholly ignorant, and in everything shall look to him; he is to be the delight of the lover's heart, and a curse to himself. Verily, a lover is a profitable guardian and associate for him in all that relates to his mind. “(Plato)

The lover casts such a spell upon the beloved that he ceases to accept the importance of his parents, property, and jewels, kindred and even his wife and children. These are the things which are the most prior requirements of an individual. And such a person who fails to comprehend the significance of these is said to be insane and lifeless. In fact the beloved would start imagining that the above might pose hindrance in his love for his lover and this is the way he becomes a helpless prey of his lover. His conscious fails to recognize what is right and wrong for him. He is driven into the deep valleys of illusions produced by the lover.

Although the some part of the Symposium by Plato and the latter part of conversation of Socrates with Phaedrus show the power and bondage of love, yet the disgrace brought to the beloved overwhelms all of these. In almost all cases the lover plays the inhuman and fraud character.

 

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