PLOTINUS

The Enneads

edited by

LLOYD P. GERSON
University of Toronto

translated by

GEORGE BOYS-STONES
Durham University

JOHN M. DILLON
Trinity College, Dublin

LLOYD P. GERSON
University of Toronto

R.A.H. KING
University of Berne, Switzerland

ANDREW SMITH
University College, Dublin

J A M E S WI L B E R D I N G
Ruhr Universität Bochum
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 1.6 (1)
On Beauty

§1.6.1. Beauty is found for the most part in what is seen, although it is
also found in sounds, when these are composed into words, and in all the
arts generally.1 For songs and rhythms are beautiful, too. And beauty is
also found by those who turn away from sense-perception towards the
5 higher region; that is, practices,2 actions, habits, and types of scientific
understanding are beautiful, to say nothing of the beauty of the virtues.3
If there is some beauty prior to these, this discussion will show it.
What, then indeed, is it that has actually made us imagine bodies to
be beautiful and our sense of hearing incline to sounds, finding them
beautiful? And as for the things that depend directly on the soul, how are
10 all of these beautiful? Is it because all of them are beautiful by one
identical beauty, or is it that there is one sort of beauty in the body
and another in other things? And what, then, are these sorts of beauty, or
what is this beauty?
For some things, such as bodies, are not beautiful due to their
substrates, but rather by participation, whereas some things are beauti-
ful in themselves, such as the nature of virtue.4 This is so because bodies
15 themselves sometimes appear beautiful and sometimes do not5 since
what it is to be a body is distinct from what it is to be beautiful. What is
it, then, that is present in bodies that makes them beautiful? It is this that
we must examine first. What is it, then, that moves the eyes of spectators
and turns them towards it6 and draws them on and makes them rejoice at

1
The word μουσική (‘art’) is, literally, all that is governed by the Muses, including poetry,
literature, music, and dance. Later these came to include philosophy, astronomy, and
intellectual practices generally.
2
The word ἐπιτηδεύματα (‘practices’) here refers to habitual activities that lead to the
acquisition of moral virtue. See Pl., Rep. 444E; Lg. 793D.
3
See Pl., Hip. Ma. 297E6 298B4; Symp. 210B6 C7.
4
See Pl., Hip. Ma. 288A8 289D5; Phd. 100C10 103C1; Symp. 211B21 25.
5
See Pl., Symp. 211A3.
6
The word ἐπιστρέφειν (‘reverting to’, here ‘turns’) is a central semi technical term in
Plotinus for the (re )orientation of the soul in the direction of the One. Cf. 1.2.4.16;
2.4.5.34; 5.2.1.10.

92
 Enneads 1.6.1

the sight? By finding this and using it as a stepping-stone,7 we might also 20

see the rest.
It is actually said by everyone that the symmetry of parts in relation to
each other and to the whole added to fine coloration makes something
beautiful to see.8 And, generally, in regard to the objects of sight and all
other things, their beauty consists in their symmetry or measure. For 25
those who hold this view, no simple thing will be beautiful; necessarily,
beauty will exist only in the composite. The whole will be beautiful for
them, while each of the parts will not have its own beauty but will be
a contributing factor in making the whole beautiful. But it should be the
case that if the whole is indeed beautiful, the parts are also beautiful. For
beauty is indeed not made up out of ugly things; all of its parts are
beautiful.
For these people, the beauty of colours, for example, and the light 30
of the sun, since they are simple, do not have proportion and so will be
excluded from being beautiful. Indeed, how [on this view] is gold
beautiful? And how about lightning in the night and the stars, which
are beautiful to see? And as for the beauty of sounds, the simple ones 35
will be eliminated for the same reason, although it is frequently the
case that in the beauty of a whole composition, each sound is itself
beautiful.
Further, when the identical face sometimes actually appears beau-
tiful and sometimes not, though the symmetry remains identical,
would we not have to say that beauty is other than the symmetry
and that the symmetry is beautiful because of something other than 40
itself?9
But if they actually pass on to beautiful practices and discourses
and attribute their beauty to symmetry, what does it mean to say that
there is proportion in beautiful practices or customs or studies or
types of scientific understanding?10 For how could theorems be pro-
portional to each other? If it is because they are in concord, it is also 45
the case that there is agreement or concord among bad theorems. For
example, to say ‘self-control is stupidity’ and ‘justice is laughable
nobility’ is to say two things that are in concord, or in tune, or
agree with each other.11
Further, then, the beauty of soul just is its virtues and a beauty that is 50
truer than the previous ones. But how are these proportioned? It is not
7
See Pl., Symp. 211C3.
8
This is in particular the Stoic view, although it was widely held by others as well.
See SVF 3.278 (= Stob., Ecl. 62.15); 279 (= Cicero, Tusc. 4.13.30); 472 (= Galen,
De plac. Hip. et Plat. 5.3). Also, Pl., Tim. 87C4 D8; Ar., Meta. 13.3.1078a36 b1.
9
Cf. 6.7.22.24 26. 10
See Pl., Symp. 210C3 7, 211C6.
11
See Pl., Rep. 348C11 12, 560D2 3; Gorg. 491E2.

93
 Ennead 1.6.1 1.6.2

as magnitudes or numbers that they are proportioned. And since there

are several parts of the soul, what is the formula for the combination or
the blending of the parts or of the theorems? And what would be the
beauty of Intellect taking it in isolation?
§1.6.2. Taking up the matter again, let us say what, then, is the primary
beauty in bodies. There is, of course, something that is perceived at first
glance, and the soul speaks about it as it does about that with which it is
familiar, and takes it in as something that it recognizes and, in a way, is in
5 concord with it. But when it encounters the ugly, it holds back and
rejects it and recoils from it as something with which it is not in
harmony and as something that is alien to it.12 We indeed say that the
soul, having the nature it does, and finding itself among Beings in the
presence of the greater Substantiality,13 when it sees something to
which it has a kinship14 or something that is a trace of that to which it
10 has a kinship, is both delighted and thrilled and returns to itself and
recollects itself and what belongs to itself.
What sameness is there, then, between the things here and the things
that are beautiful in the intelligible world? For if there is a sameness,
then we assume that the things are the same. How, then, are things here
and there both beautiful? We say that these are beautiful by participa-
tion in Form. For everything that is shapeless but is by nature capable of
15 receiving shape or form, having no share in a expressed principle or
form, is ugly, and stands outside divine reason.15 This is complete
ugliness.16
But something is also ugly if it has not been mastered by shape and
an expressed principle due to the fact that its matter has not allowed
itself to be shaped completely according to form.17 The form, then,
approaches the matter and organizes what is going to be a single
20 composite made from many parts, and guides it into being a completed
unity, and makes it one by the parts’ acceptance of this; and since the form
is one, that which is shaped had to be one, to the extent possible for that
which is composed of many parts.
Beauty is, then, situated over that which is shaped at the moment
when, the parts having been arranged into one whole, it gives itself to
the parts and to the wholes. Whenever beauty takes hold of something
25 that is one and uniform in its parts, it gives the identical thing to the

12
See Pl., Symp. 206D6.
13
Substance in the intelligible world is greater than substance in the sensible world.
When the soul finds itself among Forms and undescended intellects, it finds itself in the
presence of Substantiality.
14
See Pl., Phd. 79D3; Rep. 611E2; Tim. 90A5 7. 15
See Pl., Tim. 50D7.
16
Cf. 1.8.9.14 18; 3.6.11.15 27. 17
See Ar., GC 4.3.769b12, 4.770b16 17.

94
 Ennead 1.6.2 1.6.3

whole. It is, in a way, like craftsmanship, that sometimes gives beauty to

a whole house along with its parts, but sometimes it is like the particular
nature that gives beauty to a single stone.18 Thus, a body actually comes
to be beautiful by its association with an expressed principle coming
from divine Forms.
§1.6.3. The power in the soul that has been made to correspond to
beauty recognizes it, and there is nothing more authoritative in judging
its own concerns, especially when the rest of the soul judges along with
it. Perhaps the rest of the soul also expresses itself by bringing into
concord the beautiful object with the form inside itself, using that for
judgement like a ruler used to judge the straightness of something. 5
But how does the beauty in the body harmonize with that which is
prior to body? How can the architect, bringing into concord the exter-
nal house with the form of the house internal to him, claim that the
former is beautiful?
In fact, it is because the external house is – if you consider it apart
from its stones – the inner form divided by the external mass of matter.
Being in fact undivided, it appears divided into many parts. Whenever, 10
then, sense-perception sees the form in the bodies binding together and
mastering the contrary nature, which is shapeless – that is, whenever it
sees an overarching shape on top of other shapes – it gathers together
that which was in many places and brings it back and collects it into the
soul’s interior as something without parts, and at that moment gives it to
that which is inside as something which has the harmony and concord 15
that is dear to it. This is just as when a good man sees in the fresh face of
a youth a trace of the virtue that is in harmony with the truth that is
inside himself.
The simple beauty of a colour resides in shape and in the mastery of
the darkness in matter by the presence of incorporeal light and of
an expressed principle or form. This is the reason why fire, above all
the other bodies, is beautiful; it has the role of form in relation to the 20
other elements, highest in position, finest of the other bodies, being as
close as possible to the incorporeal, and is alone not receptive of the
other elements, though the others receive it.19 For it heats them, but is
itself not cooled, and is primarily coloured, whereas the others get the 25
form of colour from it. So, it shines and glows as if it were form. That
which fades in a fire’s light, unable to dominate the matter, is no longer
beautiful, since the whole of it20 does not partake of the form of the
colour.

18
Presumably, the nature that is the ensouled earth. Cf. 6.7.11.17 36.
19
See Ar., GC 2.8.335a18 21. 20
Reading ὅλον with Kalligas.

95
 Ennead 1.6.3 1.6.4

As for the non-sensible harmonies in sounds that make the sensible

30 ones,21 they make the soul grasp them so as to have comprehension of
beauty in the same way, showing the identical thing in another way. It is
logical that sensible harmonies be measured by numbers, though not by
every formula but only by one that serves in the production of form for
the purpose of dominating the matter. And so regarding sensible beau-
ties, which are actually reflections and shadows that come to matter as if
35 they were making a dash there to beautify it and thrill us when they
appear, enough said.
§1.6.4. Regarding the more elevated beauties not given to sense-
perception to see, soul sees them and speaks about them without the
instruments of sense-perception, but it has to ascend to contemplate
them, leaving sense-perception down below.22 But just as in the case
5 of the beauties perceived by the senses it is not possible to speak about
them to those who have not seen them or to those who have never
grasped them for what they are, for example, those who have been
blind since birth; in the same way, it is not possible to speak about the
beauty of practices to those who have not accepted their beauty nor
about types of sciences and other such things. Nor can one speak
10 about the ‘splendour’23 of virtue to those who have not even imagined
for themselves the beauty of the visage of Justice and Self-Control,
‘not even the evening nor the morning star as so beautiful’.24
But such a sight must be reserved for those who see it with that in the
soul by which it sees such things, and seeing it are delighted and shocked
and overwhelmed much more than in the previous cases, inasmuch as we
15 are now speaking of those who have already got hold of true beauties.25
For these are the states one should be in regarding something which is
beautiful: astonishment, and sweet shock, and longing, and erotic thrill,
and pleasurable excitement. It is possible to have these emotions, and
practically all souls do have them in regard to all the unseen beauties, so
20 to say, but in particular those souls who are more enamoured of these.
It is the same with regard to the bodies that all can see, though not
everyone is ‘stung’26 equally by their beauty. Those who are stung
especially are those who are called ‘lovers’.

21
See Heraclitus, fr. 22 B 54 DK.
22
See Pl., Symp. 210B6 D1; Alcinous, Didask. 157.16 20, 165.27 30.
23
See Pl., Phdr. 250B3.
24
Cf 6.6.6.39. See Ar., EN 5.3.1129b28 29 quoting Euripides, Melanippe, fr. 486 Nauck2.
25
Cf. 6.7.36.4, 39.19; 6.9.4.27. See Pl., Symp. 206D8, 212A4 5; Phdr. 259B8; Rep. 572A8,
600C6, 608A7.
26
See Pl., Phdr. 251D5.

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 Enneads 1.6.5

§1.6.5. We should next ask those who are indeed enamoured of the
beauties not available to the senses: ‘What state are you in regarding the
practices said to be beautiful and in regard to beautiful ways of being in
the world and to self-controlled characters and, generally, to products of
virtue or dispositions, I mean the beauty of souls?’27 And ‘When you see 5
your own “interior beauty”,28 what do you feel?’ And ‘Can you describe
the frenzied29 and excited state you are in and your longing to be united
with yourselves,30 when extricating yourselves from your bodies?’ For
this is how those who are truly enamoured feel.
But what is it that makes them feel this way? It is not shapes or
colours or some magnitude, but rather they feel this way about soul, it 10
being itself ‘without colour’31 and having self-control that is also with-
out colour and the rest of the ‘splendour’32 of virtues. You feel this way
whenever you see in yourselves or someone else greatness of soul or
a just character or sheer self-control or the awe-inspiring visage of
courage33 or dignity and reserve circling around a calm and unaffected 15
disposition with divine intellect shining on them all.
We then love and are attracted to these qualities, but what do we
mean when we say that they are beautiful? For they are real and appear
to us so, and no one who has ever seen them says anything other than
that they are real Beings. What does ‘real Beings’ mean? In fact, it means 20
that they are beautiful Beings. But the argument still needs to show why
Beings have made the soul an object of love. What is it that shines on all
the virtues like a light?
Would you like to consider the opposites, the ugly things
that come to be in the soul, and contrast them with the beauties? For
perhaps a consideration of what ugliness is and why it appears as such 25
would contribute to our achieving what we are seeking. Let there be
a soul that is actually ugly,34 one that is licentious and unjust, filled with
all manner of appetites and every type of dread, mired in fear due to its
cowardice and in envy due to its pettiness, thinking that everything it
can actually think of is mortal and base, deformed in every way, a lover
of impure pleasures, that is, one who lives a life in which corporeal 30
pleasures are measured by their vileness. Shall we not say that, just as in
the case of something beautiful added to the soul, this very vileness
supervenes on the soul, and both harms it and makes it impure and
‘mixed with much evil’,35 no longer having a life or sense-perceptions
that are pure, but rather living a murky life by an evil adulteration that 35

27
See Pl., Symp. 210B6 C4. 28
See Pl., Phdr. 279B9; Phd. 83A7.
29
See Pl., Phd. 69D1.
30
Cf. 6.7.30.36 38. Presumably, a reference to our undescended intellects.
31
See Pl., Phdr. 247C6. 32
See Pl., Phdr. 250B3. 33
See Homer Il. 7.212.
34
See Pl., Gorg. 524E7 525A6. 35
See Pl., Phd. 66B5.

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 Ennead 1.6.5 1.6.6

includes much death in it, no longer seeing what a soul should see, no
longer even being allowed to remain in itself due to its always being
dragged to the exterior and downward into darkness?36
40 This is indeed what I regard as an impure soul, dragged in every
direction by its chains towards whatever it happens to perceive with its
senses, with much of what belongs to the body adulterating it, deeply
implicating itself with the material element and, taking that element
into itself due to that adulteration that only makes it worse, it exchanges
the form it has for another. It is as if someone fell into mud or slime and
45 the beauty he had is no longer evident, whereas what is seen is what he
smeared on himself from the mud or slime. The ugliness that has
actually been added to him has come from an alien source, and his
job, if indeed he is again to be beautiful, is to wash it off and to be
clean as he was before.
We would be speaking correctly in saying that the soul indeed
becomes ugly by a mixture or adulteration and by an inclination in the
50 direction of the body and matter. And this is ugliness for a soul; not
being pure or uncorrupted like gold, but filled up with the earthly.
If someone removes that, only the gold is left, and it is beautiful, isolated
from other things and being just what it is itself. Indeed, in the identical
55 manner, the soul – being isolated from appetites which it acquires
because of that body with which it associates too much – when it is
separated from other affections and is purified of what it has that is
corporeal, remains just what it is when it has put aside all the ugliness
that comes from that other nature.
§1.6.6. For it is indeed the case, as the ancient doctrine37 has it, that
self-control and courage and every virtue is a purification and is wisdom
itself. For this reason, the mysteries correctly offer the enigmatic saying
5 that one who has not been purified will lie in Hades in slime, because
one who is not pure likes slime due to his wickedness. They are actually
like pigs that, with unclean bodies, delight in such a thing.38
What would true self-control be, besides not having anything to do
with the pleasures of the body and fleeing them as impure and as not
belonging to one who is pure? And what is courage but the absence of
10 fear of death? But death is the separation of the soul from the body.39
And this is not feared by one who longs to be alone. And greatness of
soul40 is actually contempt for the things here below. And wisdom is the
intellection that consists in a turning away from the things below,
leading the soul to the things above.
36
See Pl., Phd. 79C2 8. 37
See Pl., Phd. 69C1 6.
38
See Heraclitus, fr. 22 B. 13 DK; Sext. Emp. PH I 56.
39
See Pl., Phd. 64C2 65A3. 40
See Ar., EN 2.7.1107b22, 4.7.1123a34 b4.

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 Ennead 1.6.6 1.6.7

The soul, then, when it is purified, becomes form,41 and an

expressed principle, and entirely incorporeal and intellectual and
wholly divine, which is the source of beauty and of all things that 15
have a kinship with it. Soul, then, being borne up to Intellect, becomes
even more beautiful. And Intellect and the things that come from
Intellect are soul’s beauty, since they belong to it, that is, they are not
alien to it, because it is then really soul alone. For this reason, it is
correctly said that goodness and being beautiful for the soul consist in 20
‘being assimilated to god’,42 because it is in the intelligible world that
Beauty is found as well as the fate of the rest of Beings. Or rather,
Beings are what Beauty is and ugliness is the other nature, primary evil
itself, so that for god ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ are identical, or rather the
Good and Beauty are identical.43
In a similar way, then, we should seek to discover that which is
beautiful and good and the ugly and evil. And first we should posit 25
Beauty,44 which is the Good from which Intellect comes, which is
itself identical with Beauty. And Soul is beautiful by Intellect. Other
things are beautiful as soon as they are shaped by Soul, including
examples of beauty in actions and in practices. Moreover, bodies that
are said to be beautiful are so as soon as Soul makes them so. For 30
inasmuch as it is divine and, in a way, a part of Beauty, it makes all that
it grasps and masters beautiful insofar as it is possible for them to
partake of Beauty.
§1.6.7. We must, then, ascend to the Good, which every soul desires.45
If someone, then, has seen it, he knows what I mean when I say how
beautiful it is. For it is desired as good, and the desire is directed to it as
this, though the attainment of it is for those who ascend upward and 5
revert to it and who divest themselves of the garments they put on when
they descended. It is just like those who ascend to partake of the sacred
religious rites where there are acts of purification and the stripping off of
the cloaks they had worn before they go inside naked.46 One proceeds in
the ascent, passing by all that is alien to the god until one sees by oneself
alone that which is itself alone uncorrupted, simple, and pure,47 that 10

41
Or ‘Form’. Cf. 5.7 on Forms of individuals.
42
See Pl., Rep. 613B1; Tht. 176B1; Lg. 716C6 D4.
43
The Good is both beyond Beauty because it is beyond Substantiality (cf. 6.2.18.1 3;
67.32.22) and identical with Beauty because it is the cause of all that is beautiful, that is,
the Forms.
44
The unusual term here is ἡ καλλονή who appears as a goddess in Plato’s Symp. 206D. Cf.
6.2.18.1 3; 6.7.33.22.
45
See Pl., Rep. 517B4 5. 46
See Pl., Gorg. 523C E.
47
Cf. 5.1.6.11 12; 6.7.34.7 8; 6.9.11.51. See Pl., Symp. 211E1.

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 Enneads 1.6.7

upon which everything depends,48 and in relation to which one looks

and exists and lives and thinks. For it is the cause of life and intellect.
And, then, if someone sees this, what pangs of love will he feel, what
longings and, wanting to be united with it, how would he not be over-
come with pleasure?49
15 For though it is possible for one who has not yet seen it to desire it as
good, for one who has seen it, there is amazement and delight in beauty,
and he is filled with pleasure and he undergoes a painless shock, loving
with true love and piercing longing. And he laughs at other loves and is
disdainful of the things he previously regarded as beautiful. It is like the
20 states of those who have happened upon apparitions of gods or daemons
after which they can no longer look at the beauty of other bodies in the
same way.
What, then, should we think if someone sees pure Beauty itself by
itself, not contaminated by flesh or bodies, not on the earth or in heaven,
in order that it may remain pure?50 For all these things are added on and
25 have been mixed in and are not primary; rather, they come from the
Good. If, then, one sees that which orchestrates everything, remaining
by itself while it gives everything, though it does not receive anything
into itself, if he remains in sight of this and enjoys it by assimilating
himself to it, what other beauty would he need? For this, since it is itself
30 supremely beautiful and the primary Beauty, makes its lovers beautiful
and lovable.
And with the Good as the prize the greatest and ‘ultimate battle is
indeed set before souls’,51 a battle in which our entire effort is directed
towards not being deprived of the most worthy vision. And the one
who attains this is ‘blessed’,52 since he is seeing a blessed sight,
whereas the one who does not is luckless.53 For it is not someone
35 who fails to attain beautiful colours or bodies, or power or ruling
positions or kingship who is without luck, but the one who does not
attain this and this alone. For the sake of this, he ought to cede the
attainment of kingship and ruling positions over the whole earth, sea,
and heaven, if by abandoning these things and ignoring them he could
revert to the Good and see it.

48
Cf. 3.8.10.1 4; 5.3.16.35 38; 6.7.18.16 31. See Ar., DC 1.9.279a28 30; Meta.
12.7.1072b14.
49
Reading ἆν <οὐκ> ἐκπλαγείη with HS4. Cf. 6.7.27.24 28.
50
See Pl., Symp. 211A8, 211D8 E2. 51
See Pl., Phdr. 247B5 6.
52
See Pl., Phdr. 250B6.
53
Or: ἀτυχὴς δὲ <ὄντως> ‘truly’ luckless, according to the emendation of Vitringa,
endorsed by Kalligas.

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 Ennead 1.6.8 1.6.9

§1.6.8. How, then, can we do this? What technique should we

employ? How can one see the ‘inconceivable beauty’54 which remains
in a way within the sacred temple, not venturing outside, lest the
uninitiated should see it? Indeed, let him who is able go and follow it
inside, leaving outside the sight of his eyes, not allowing himself to 5
turn back to the splendour of the bodies he previously saw. For when
he does see beauty in bodies, he should not run after them, but realize
that they are images and traces and shadows, and flee towards that of
which they are images.55 For if someone runs towards the image,
wanting to grasp it as something true, like someone wanting to grasp 10
a beautiful reflection in water – as a certain story has it, hinting at
something else, in an enigmatic way, I think, who then falls into the
water and disappears56 – in the identical manner, someone who holds
on to beautiful bodies and does not let them go plunges down, not with
his body but with his soul, into the depths, where there is no joy for an
intellect, and where he stays, blind in Hades, accompanied by shadows 15
everywhere he turns.
Someone would be better advised to say: ‘let us flee to our beloved
fatherland’.57 But what is this flight, and how is it accomplished? Let
us set sail in the way Homer, in an allegorical58 way, I think, tells us
that Odysseus fled from the sorceress Circe or from Calypso.
Odysseus was not satisfied to remain there, even though he had visual 20
pleasures and passed his time with sensual beauty. Our fatherland,
from where we have actually come, and our father are both in the
intelligible world.59
What is our course and what is our means of flight? We should not
rely on our feet to get us there, for our feet just take us everywhere on
earth, one place after another. Nor should you saddle up a horse or
prepare some sea-going vessel. You should put aside all such things and 25
stop looking; just shut your eyes, and change your way of looking, and
wake up. Everyone has this ability, but few use it.60
§1.6.9. What, then, is that inner way of looking? Having just awakened,
the soul is not yet able to look at the bright objects before it.61 The soul
must first be accustomed to look at beautiful practices, next beautiful
works – not those works that the crafts produce, but those that men who 5

54
See Pl., Rep. 509A6; Symp. 218E2. 55
See Pl., Tht. 176B1.
56
Cf. 5.8.2.34 35. 57
See Homer, Il. 2.140.
58
The word αἰνίττεσθαι (often rendered ‘to riddle’, ‘to speak enigmatically’) seems to be
rendered best in the above manner.
59
Πατήρ (‘father’) sometimes refers to the One and sometimes to Intellect. Cf. 5.1.1.1;
5.8.1.3.
60
Cf. 4.3.24. 61
Cf. 5.8.10.4 8. See Pl., Rep. 515E1 516A8.

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are called ‘good’ produce – next, to look at the soul of those who
produce these beautiful works.62
How, then, can you see the kind of beauty that a good soul has?
Go back into yourself and look. If you do not yet see yourself as
beautiful, then be like a sculptor who, making a statue that is supposed
to be beautiful, removes a part here and polishes a part there so that he
10 makes the latter smooth and the former just right until he has given the
statue a beautiful face. In the same way, you should remove superfluities
and straighten things that are crooked, work on the things that are dark,
making them bright, and not stop ‘working on your statue’63 until the
15 divine splendour of virtue shines in you, until you see ‘Self-Control
enthroned on the holy seat’.64
If you have become this and have seen it and find yourself in a purified
state, you have no impediment to becoming one in this way65 nor do you
have something else mixed in with yourself, but you are entirely your-
self, true light alone, neither measured by magnitude nor reduced by
20 a circumscribing shape nor expanded indefinitely in magnitude but
being unmeasured everywhere, as something greater than every mea-
sure and better than every quantity. If you see that you have become this,
at that moment you have become sight, and you can be confident about
yourself, and you have at this moment ascended here, no longer in need
25 of someone to show you. Just open your eyes and see, for this alone is the
eye that sees the great beauty.
But if the eye approaches that sight bleary with vices and not having
been purified, or weak and, due to cowardice, is not able to see all the
bright objects, it does not see them even if someone else shows that they
are present and able to be seen. For the one who sees has a kinship with
30 that which is seen, and he must make himself the same as it if he is
to attain the sight. For no eye has ever seen the sun without becoming
sun-like,66 nor could a soul ever see Beauty without becoming beautiful.
You must first actually become wholly god-like and wholly beautiful if
you intend to see god and Beauty.
35 For first, the soul in its ascent will reach Intellect, and in the intelli-
gible world it will see all the beautiful Forms and will declare that these
Ideas are what Beauty is.67 For all things are beautiful due to these; they
are the offsprings of Intellect and Substantiality. But we say that that
which transcends68 Intellect is the Idea of the Good, a nature that holds
62
See Pl., Symp. 210B C. 63
See Pl., Phdr. 252D7. 64
See Pl., Phdr. 254B7.
65
Cf. 1.3.4.18. See Pl., Rep. 443E1.
66
Cf. 2.4.5.10; 5.3.8.19 25. See Pl., Rep. 508B3, 509A1.
67
Plotinus uses εἴδη (‘Forms’) and ἰδέαι (‘Ideas’) synonymously as, apparently, does Plato.
Cf. 5.8.10.
68
See Pl., Rep. 509B9; Simplicius, In Cat. 485.22 (= fr. 49 Rose3, p. 57 Ross).

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Beauty in front of itself. So, roughly speaking, the Good is the primary 40
Beauty. But if one distinguishes the intelligibles apart, one will say that
the ‘place’ of the Forms69 is intelligible Beauty, whereas the Good
transcends that and is the ‘source and principle’70 of Beauty.
Otherwise, one will place the Good and the primary Beauty in the
identical thing.71 In any case, Beauty is in the intelligible world.

69
See Pl., Rep. 517B5; Ar., DA 3.4.429a27 28. 70
See Pl., Phdr. 245C9.
71
See Pl. [?], Alc. I 116C1 2.

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