7. Plato's account of the birth of Love[132] is that Abundance
intoxicated himself with nectar, this happening before the day of
wine, which implies that Love was born before the sense-world's
existence. Then Need, the mother of Love, must have participated in
the intelligible nature itself, and not in a simple image of the
intelligible nature; she, therefore, approached (the intelligible
nature) and found herself to be a mixture of form and indeterminateness
(or, intelligible matter).[139] The soul, in fact, containing a
certain indeterminateness before she had reached the Good, but
feeling a premonition of her existence, formed for herself a confused
and indeterminate image, which became the very hypostasis (or,
form of existence) of Love. Thus, as here, reason mingles with the
unreasonable, with an indeterminate desire, with an indistinct (faint
or obscure) hypostatic (form of existence). What was born was neither
perfect nor complete; it was something needy, because it was born from
an indeterminate desire, and a complete reason. As to (Love, which is)
the thus begotten reason, it is not pure, since it contains a desire
that is indeterminate, unreasonable, indefinite; nor will it ever be
satisfied so long as it contains the nature of indetermination. It
depends on the soul, which is its generating principle; it is a mixture
effected by a reason which, instead of remaining within itself, is
mingled with indetermination. Besides, it is not Reason itself, but its
emanation which mingles with indetermination.