Note 50 — Chapter VI · ANALYTICA PRIORA II.
Reading edition
Analyt. Prior. II. xxii. p. 68, a. 25-b. 17. Aristotle may be right in the conclusion which he here emphatically asserts; but I am surprised that he should consider it to be proved by the reasoning that precedes.
It is probable that Aristotle here understood the object of ἔρως (as it is conceived through most part of the Symposion of Plato) to be a beautiful youth: (see Plato, Sympos. pp. 218-222; also Xenophon, Sympos. c. viii., Hiero, c. xi. 11, Memorab. I. ii. 29, 30). Yet this we must say — what the two women said when they informed Simætha of the faithlessness of Delphis (Theokrit. Id. ii. 149) —
Κᾖπέ μοι ἄλλα τε πολλά, καὶ ὡς ἄρα Δέλφις ἔραται· Κᾔτε μιν αὖτε γυναικὸς ἔχει πόθος, εἴτε καὶ ἀνδρός, Οὐκ ἔφατ’ ἀτρεκὲς ἴδμεν.