PLATO Dialogues on Love & Friendship Trans. by Benjamin Jowett
aston Press 1979 First Edition; First Printing Leather-Hardback 22k g
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This is a book originally sold by The Easton Press, 47 Richards Avenue, Norwalk, CT 06857 as part of its "100 Greatest Books Ever Written Collector's Edition" collection which then evolved into "The Greatest Books Ever Written" collection. Many of the books carry a 1979 copyright but may have been printed in different years with different cover art. This is a leather-bound volume featuring 22kt gold accents, illustrations, moire fabric endsheets, gilded page ends, and a satin-ribbon page marker. Lysis is a dialogue of Plato which discusses the nature of friendship. The main characters are Socrates, the boys Lysis and Menexenus who are friends, as well as Hippothales, who is in unrequited love with Lysis and therefore, after the initial conversation, hides himself behind the surrounding listeners. The Symposium is a philosophical text by Plato dated c. 385–370 BC. It depicts a friendly contest of extemporaneous speeches given by a group of notable men attending a banquet. The men include the philosopher Socrates, the general and political figure Alcibiades, and the comic playwright Aristophanes. The speeches are to be given in praise of Eros, who is the god of love and desire, and the son of Aphrodite. In the Symposium, Eros is recognized both as erotic love, and as a phenomenon that is capable of inspiring courage, valor, great deeds and works, and vanquishing man’s natural fear of death. It is seen as transcending its earthly origins, and attaining spiritual heights.