absentem auditque videtque."

[40] Or, "bear the stamp of Aphrodite."

But the lover who depends upon the body,[41] what of him? First, why
should love-for-love be given to such a lover? because, forsooth, he
bestows upon himself what he desires, and upon his minion things of
dire reproach? or that what he hastens to exact, infallibly must
separate that other from his nearest friends?

[41] Or, "is wholly taken up with." Cf. Plat. "Laws," 831 C.

If it be pleaded that persuasion is his instrument, not violence; is
that no reason rather for a deeper loathing? since he who uses
violence[42] at any rate declares himself in his true colours as a
villain, while the tempter corrupts the soul of him who yields to his
persuasions.

[42] Cf. "Hiero," iii. 3; "Cyrop." III. i. 39.

Ay, and how should he who traffics with his beauty love the purchaser,
any more than he who keeps a stall in the market-place and vends to
the highest bidder? Love springs not up, I trow, because the one is in
his prime, and the other's bloom is withered, because fair is mated
with what is not fair, and hot lips are pressed to cold. Between man
and woman it is different. There the wife at any rate shares with her
husband in their nuptial joys; but here conversely, the one is sober
and with unimpassioned eye regards his fellow, who is drunken with the
wine of passion.[43]