Whereon Socrates remarked: Your own performance, 
 Eryximachus, made a fine hit: but if you could be where I am now—or rather, I should say, where I shall be when Agathon has spoken—you would be fitly and sorely afraid, and would be as hard put to it as I am. You want to throw a spell over me, Socrates, said Agathon, so that I may be flustered with the consciousness of the high expectations the audience has formed of my discourse. 
 Nay, Agathon, how forgetful I should be, replied Socrates, if after noticing your high and manly spirit as you stepped upon the platform with your troupe—how you sent a straight glance at that vast assembly to show that you meant to do yourself credit with your production, and how you were not dismayed in the slightest—if I should now suppose you could be flustered on account of a few fellows like us. 
 Why, Socrates, said Agathon, I hope you do not always fancy me so puffed up with the playhouse as to forget that an intelligent speaker is more alarmed at a few men of wit than at a host of fools. 
 No, Agathon, it would be wrong of me indeed, said Socrates, to associate you with any such clownish notion: I am quite sure that on finding yourself with a few persons whom you considered clever you would make more account of them than of the multitude. Yet we, perhaps, are the latter; for we were there, and among the crowd: but suppose you found yourself with other folk who were clever, you would probably feel ashamed that they should witness any shameful act you might feel yourself to be doing. Will you agree to that? 
 Quite true, he said.
 Whereas before the multitude you would not be ashamed if you felt you were doing anything shameful? 
 Here Phaedrus interposed: My dear Agathon, if you go on answering Socrates he will be utterly indifferent to the fate of our present business, so long as he has some one to argue with, especially some one handsome. For my part, I enjoy listening to Socrates’ arguments; but I am responsible for our eulogy of Love, and must levy a speech from every one of you in turn. Let each of you two, then, give the god his meed before you have your argument. 
 You are quite right, Phaedrus, said Agathon, and there is nothing to hinder my speaking; for I shall find many other occasions for arguing with Socrates. The Speech of Agathon I propose first to speak of the plan most proper for my speaking, and after that to speak. Every one of the previous speakers, instead of eulogizing the god, has merely, as it seems to me, felicitated humanity on the benefits he bestows: not one of them has told us what is the nature 
 of the benefactor himself. There is but one correct method of giving anyone any kind of praise, namely to make the words unfold the character of him, and of the blessings brought by him, who is to be our theme. Hence it is meet that we praise him first for what he is and then for what he gives.
 So I say that, while all gods are blissful, Love—with no irreverence or offence be it spoken—is the most blissful, as being the most beautiful and the best. How most beautiful, I will explain. First of all, Phaedrus, he is youngest of the gods. He himself supplies clear evidence of this; for he flies and flees from old age—a swift thing obviously, since it gains on us too quickly for our liking. Love hates it by nature, and refuses to come within any distance of it. He is ever consorting with the young, and such also is he: well says the old saw, Like and like together strike. So Hom. Od. 17.218 Heaven ever bringeth like and like together. And though in much else I agree with Phaedrus, in this I agree not, that Love by his account is more ancient than Cronos and Iapetus These two Titans, the sons of Heaven and Earth, were proverbially the original inhabitants of the world : I say he is youngest of the gods and ever young, while those early dealings with the gods which Hesiod Hes. Th. 176ff ., Hes. Th. 746ff . There are no such stories in the remaining fragments of Parmenides. and Parmenides relate, I take to have been the work of Necessity, not of Love, if there is any truth in those stories. For there would have been no gelding or fettering of each other, nor any of those various violences, if Love had been amongst them; rather only amity and peace, such as now subsist ever since Love has reigned over the gods. So then he is young, and delicate withal: he requires a poet such as Homer to set forth his delicacy divine. Homer it is who tells of Ate as both divine and delicate; you recollect those delicate feet of hers, where he says— Yet delicate are her feet, for on the ground She speeds not, only on the heads of men. Hom. Il. 19.92-93 So I hold it convincing proof of her delicacy that she goes not on hard things but on soft. The same method will serve us to prove the delicacy of Love. Not upon earth goes he, nor on our crowns, which are not very soft; Perhaps here he smiles at or touches the bald head of Socrates. but takes his way and abode in the softest things that exist. The tempers and souls of gods and men are his chosen habitation: not indeed any soul as much as another; when he comes upon one whose temper is hard, away he goes, but if it be soft, he makes his dwelling there.