384. After that the third speaker arose and spoke as follows:
"Love alone is not the origin of beauty, neither is wisdom alone, but the origin is a union of love and wisdom - a union of love with the wisdom in a youth, and a union of wisdom with its love in a maiden. For a maiden does not love wisdom in herself but in a young man, and on that account sees him as beautiful; and when the young man see this in a young woman, he then sees her as beautiful. Therefore love through wisdom creates beauty, and wisdom from love receives it.
"The fact of this is clearly apparent in heaven. I saw maidens and wives there, and observed their beauty; and I beheld one kind of beauty in the maidens and another altogether in the wives, seeing in the maidens only its sparkle, but in the wives its effulgence. I saw the difference as being like that between a diamond sparkling with light and a ruby refulgent at the same time with fire.
"What is beauty but something that gives delight to the sight? What is the origin of this delight but the interplay of love and wisdom? This interplay causes the sight to glow, and the glow radiates from eye to eye and presents beauty.
"What makes the beauty of a face but its ruddy glow and pearly radiance, and a lovely blending of the two? Is the ruddy glow not owing to love, and the pearly radiance to wisdom? For love glows with a ruddy glow from its fire, and wisdom shines with a pearly radiance from its light. I saw both qualities plainly in the faces of a married couple in heaven - a ruddy glow blended with a pearly radiance in the wife, and a pearly radiance blended with a ruddy glow in the husband. And I noticed that their looking at each other caused each to become brighter."
When the third speaker said this, the crowd applauded and cried out, "He is the winner!" And suddenly a flaming light - which is the light of conjugial love also - filled the house with a radiant splendor, and at the same time their hearts with gladness.
