Plato's "Symposium" - translated here, and with a commentary - is arguably one of the greatest works on the nature of love ever written. It recounts a drinking party following an evening meal, where the guests include Aristophanes, Alcibiades and Socrates. The revellers discuss a variety of topics.

本书作者伯纳德特把《奥德赛》放在整个古希腊文化背景中审视，用古典学知识来解读荷马史诗，他在这本篇幅不大的书里处理了很多主题，比如智慧在思想中扮演着什么样的角色，“地狱”具有什么样的特征和意义，生与死的关系如何，神人关系产生了怎样的变化，以智慧著称的雅典娜要建立什么样的新型的神人关系，等等。

In this section-by-section commentary, Benardete argues that Plato's Republic is a holistic analysis of the beautiful, the good, and the just. This book provides a fresh interpretation of the Republic and a new understanding of philosophy as practiced by Plato and Socrates. "Cryptic allusions, startling paradoxes, new questions . . . all work to give brilliant new insights into the Platonic text."--Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Political Theory