So great a passion for the hardships of that expedition and for participation in it took
possession not only of the Greeks and the barbarians, but also of the gods, that they did
not dissuade even their own children from joining in the struggles around
thinking it more honorable for them to die fighting for the daughter of Zeus than to live without having taken part in the perils undergone on her account. And why should we be astonished that the gods felt thus concerning their children? For they themselves engaged in a far greater and more terrible struggle than when they fought the Giants; for against those enemies they had fought a battle in concert, but for Helen they fought a war against one another.
With good reason in truth they came to this decision, and I, for my part, am justified in employing extravagant language in speaking of Helen; for beauty she possessed in the highest degree, and beauty is of all things the most venerated, the most precious, and the most divine. And it is easy to determine its power; for while many things which do not have any attributes of courage, wisdom, or justice will be seen to be more highly valued than any one of these attributes, yet of those things which lack beauty we shall find not one that is beloved; on the contrary, all are despised, except in so far as they possess in some degree this outward form, beauty, and it is for this reason that virtue is most highly esteemed, because it is the most beautiful of ways of living.
And we may learn how superior beauty is to all other things by observing how we ourselves are affected by each of them severally. For in regard to the other things which we need, we only wish to possess them and our heart's desire is set on nothing further than this; for beautiful things, however, we have an inborn passion whose strength of desire corresponds to the superiority of the thing sought.
And while we are jealous of those who excel us in intelligence or in anything else, unless they win us over by daily benefactions and compel us to be fond of them, yet at first sight we become well-disposed toward those who possess beauty, and to these alone as to the gods we do not fail in our homage;
on the contrary, we submit more willingly to be the slaves of such than to rule all others, and we are more grateful to them when they impose many tasks upon us than to those who demand nothing at all. We revile those who fall under the power of anything other than beauty and call them flatterers, but those who are subservient to beauty we regard as lovers of beauty and lovers of service.
So strong are our feelings of reverence and solicitude for such a quality, that we hold in greater dishonour those of its possessors who have trafficked in it and ill-used their own youth than those who do violence to the persons of others; whereas those who guard their youthful beauty as a holy shrine, inaccessible to the base, are honored by us for all time equally with those who have benefited the city as a whole.
But why need I waste time in citing the opinions of men? Nay, Zeus, lord of all, reveals his power in all else, but deigns to approach beauty in humble guise. For in the likeness of Amphitryon he came to Alcmena, and as a shower of gold he united with Danae, and in the guise of a swan he took refuge in the bosom of Nemesis, and again in this form he espoused Leda; ever with artifice manifestly, and not with violence, does he pursue beauty in women.
And so much greater honor is paid to beauty among the gods than among us that they pardon their own wives when they are vanquished by it; and one could cite many instances of goddesses who succumbed to mortal beauty, and no one of these sought to keep the fact concealed as if it involved disgrace; on the contrary, they desired their adventures to be celebrated in song as glorious deeds rather than to be hushed in silence. The greatest proof of my statements is this: we shall find that more mortals have been made immortal because of their beauty than for all other excellences.