“Whoever
shall be guided so far towards the mysteries of love, by
contemplating
beautiful things rightly in due order, is approaching the last
grade. Suddenly
he will behold a beauty marvelous in its nature, that very
Beauty,
Socrates, for the sake of which all the earlier hardships had been
borne: in
the first place, everlasting, and never being born or perishing,
neither
increasing nor diminishing; secondly not beautiful here and ugly
there, not
beautiful now and ugly then, not beautiful in one direction and
ugly in another
direction, not beautiful in one place and ugly in another
place.
Again, this beauty will not show itself like a face or hands or any
bodily thing
at all, nor as a discourse or a science, nor indeed as residing
in anything,
as in a living creature or in earth or heaven or anything else,
but being by
itself with itself always in simplicity; while all the beautiful
things
elsewhere partake of this beauty in such manner, that when they are
born and
perish it becomes neither less nor more and nothing at all
happens to
it.”
Next: Running for Your
Life: Two Days Short of 9/11
