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[222b] However, I am not the only person he has treated thus: there are Charmides, son of Glaucon, Euthydemus, son of Diocles, and any number of others who have found his way of loving so deceitful that he might rather be their favorite than their lover. I tell you this, Agathon, to save you from his deceit, that by laying our sad experiences to heart you may be on your guard and escape learning by your own pain, like the loon in the adage.”1


1 Hom. Il. 17.33 ῥεχθὲν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω, “fools get their lesson from the deed done.”

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.

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  • Commentary references to this page (4):
    • Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900), 17.32
    • R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato, 186B
    • R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato, 216E
    • R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato, 217C
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