[18]
Moreover, must not those who enjoy a mutual affection unavoidably take pleasure in looking into each other's faces, converse in amity, and trust and be trusted, and not only take thought each for the other but also take a common joy in prosperity and feel a common distress if some ill fortune befall, and live in happiness when their society is attended by sound health, but be much more constantly together if one or the other become ill, and be even more solicitous, each for the other, when absent than when present? Are not all these things marked by Aphrodite's grace? It is by conducting themselves thus that men continue mutually to love friendship and enjoy it clear down to old age.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.