Chapter 31-34, Then Ends Where Now Begins, What a Difference a Wing Makes, What Is This Dialogue About?, Mythoplokos Summary and Analysis

Chapter 31, Then Ends Where Now Begins, first claims that Eros changes the person drastically so as to seem like a different person, and should be described as a kind of madness. For the Greeks, change of self is the loss of self and is thought to be a great evil. For Socrates, however, erotic mania is valuable, but only in private life. Socrates and Lysias differ greatly over Socrates's embrace of the erotic attitude and Lysias's rejection of it. Plato, in the form of Socrates, understands the "wings" of Eros not as a form of control, but as having a natural root in the soul...