for having blasphemed the majesty of love. His palinode takes the form of
a myth.

Socrates begins his tale with a glorification of madness, which he divides
into four kinds: first, there is the art of divination or prophecy--this,
in a vein similar to that pervading the Cratylus and Io, he connects with
madness by an etymological explanation (mantike, manike--compare
oionoistike, oionistike, ''tis all one reckoning, save the phrase is a
little variations'); secondly, there is the art of purification by
mysteries; thirdly, poetry or the inspiration of the Muses (compare Ion),
without which no man can enter their temple. All this shows that madness
is one of heaven's blessings, and may sometimes be a great deal better than
sense. There is also a fourth kind of madness--that of love--which cannot
be explained without enquiring into the nature of the soul.

All soul is immortal, for she is the source of all motion both in herself
and in others. Her form may be described in a figure as a composite nature
made up of a charioteer and a pair of winged steeds. The steeds of the
gods are immortal, but ours are one mortal and the other immortal. The
immortal soul soars upwards into the heavens, but the mortal drops her
plumes and settles upon the earth.

Now the use of the wing is to rise and carry the downward element into the
upper world--there to behold beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the other things
of God by which the soul is nourished. On a certain day Zeus the lord of
heaven goes forth in a winged chariot; and an array of gods and demi-gods
and of human souls in their train, follows him. There are glorious and
blessed sights in the interior of heaven, and he who will may freely behold
them. The great vision of all is seen at the feast of the gods, when they
ascend the heights of the empyrean--all but Hestia, who is left at home to