Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato (Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.5.27)

so that they might bring forth reasons. For this reason they say he is the son of Phainarete, who was a midwife, just like Hermes. For just as the physician removes the films from the eyes alone, and the obstacles to the visual energy, and just as midwives bring the embryos to light but do not insert them into those giving birth, so also Socrates acted as a midwife to souls. He did not insert theories into the young as if into inanimate vessels. And he says this himself in the Theaetetus: "The god made me act as a midwife, but he prevents me from bringing forth." And at the end of the dialogue, he finally changes the character of their fortune. And he makes himself the beloved, having previously been the lover, and Alcibiades the lover, having previously been the beloved. For this is the end of the erotic, the anteros reciprocal love. And Socrates is erotic, as he says in the Phaedrus to Love: "The erotic gift you have provided me, master, do not take away, nor damage out of some anger or other cause." And Alexander is said to have seen an army fallen and to have said, "May he who treated such a multitude in this way perish most miserably." And at the end, having likened the soul to the storks...