noble and obedient and the other ornery, recalcitrant. The
noble horse strives upward, toward the region of the gods and
the heavens beyond them: a place immune to worldly damage
where ecstasy and calm prevail. But the bad, unruly horse leans
downward, toward the earth. The soul, poised between them,
steers.
The encounter between lover and beloved, erastes and
eromenos, is a struggle between a desire for sex and a subli-
mated desire to engage in philosophy. Socrates explains: “[The
beloved’s] desires are similar to his lover’s, but weaker: to see,
touch, kiss, and lie down with him; and indeed, as one might
expect, soon afterwards he does just that. So as they lie to-
gether, the lover’s licentious [akolastos] horse has something to
suggest to the charioteer, and claims a little enjoyment as rec-
ompense for such hardship; while its counterpart in the
beloved has nothing to say, but swelling with confused passion
it embraces the lover and kisses him, welcoming him as some-
one full of goodwill, and whenever they lie down together, it is
ready not to refuse to do its own part in granting favors to the
lover, should he beg to receive them” ( 255 d– 256 a). Plato’s lan-
guage is full of sexual energy. The soul, under the magnetic
influence of the form of the beautiful, begins to molt, melt,
and sprout eager wings. The wrestling match among our
conflicting impulses goes on. When the beloved is finally ready
to acquiesce in the lover’s passion, the charioteer, with the aid
of the good, noble horse, resists the impending sex act “with a
reasoned sense of shame.” If the lover and the beloved succeed
in staving offsexual fulfillment—if “the better-ordered ele-
ments of their minds get the upper hand”—then they will pur-
sue philosophical lives, lives of sublimated passion. This result
sounds like a victory for the higher self, the aspect of us de-
voted to knowledge rather than sensual enjoyment. But note
Plato, Austin, Nietzsche, Freud 145