Plat. Symp. 182d

[vir litterarum]

ἐνθάδε δὲ πολὺ τούτων κάλλιον νενομοθέτηται, καὶ ὅπερ εἶπον, οὐ ῥᾴδιον κατανοῆσαι. ἐνθυμηθέντι γὰρ ὅτι λέγεται κάλλιον τὸ φανερῶς ἐρᾶν τοῦ λάθρᾳ, καὶ μάλιστα τῶν γενναιοτάτων καὶ ἀρίστων, κἂν αἰσχίους ἄλλων ὦσι, καὶ ὅτι αὖ ἡ παρακέλευσις τῷ ἐρῶντι παρὰ πάντων θαυμαστή, οὐχ ὥς τι αἰσχρὸν ποιοῦντι, καὶ ἑλόντι τε καλὸν δοκεῖ εἶναι καὶ μὴ ἑλόντι αἰσχρόν, καὶ πρὸς τὸ ἐπιχειρεῖν ἑλεῖν ἐξουσίαν ὁ νόμος δέδωκε τῷ ἐραστῇ θαυμαστὰ ἔργα ἐργαζομένῳ ἐπαινεῖσθαι, ἃ εἴ τις τολμῴη ποιεῖν ἄλλ᾽ ὁτιοῦν διώκων καὶ βουλόμενος διαπράξασθαι πλὴν τοῦτο, †φιλοσοφίας τὰ μέγιστα καρποῖτ᾽ ἂν ὀνείδη—εἰ γὰρ ἢ χρήματα βουλόμενος παρά του λαβεῖν ἢ ἀρχὴν ἄρξαι ἤ τινα ἄλλην δύναμιν ἐθέλοι ποιεῖν οἷάπερ οἱ ἐρασταὶ πρὸς τὰ παιδικά, ἱκετείας τε καὶ ἀντιβολήσεις ἐν ταῖς δεήσεσιν ποιούμενοι, καὶ ὅρκους ὀμνύντες, καὶ κοιμήσεις ἐπὶ θύραις, καὶ ἐθέλοντες δουλείας δουλεύειν οἵας οὐδ᾽ ἂν δοῦλος οὐδείς, ἐμποδίζοιτο ἂν μὴ πράττειν οὕτω τὴν πρᾶξιν καὶ ὑπὸ φίλων καὶ ὑπὸ ἐχθρῶν,τῶν μὲν ὀνειδιζόντων κολακείας καὶ ἀνελευθερίας, τῶν δὲ νουθετούντων καὶ αἰσχυνομένων ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν—τῷ δ᾽ ἐρῶντι πάντα ταῦτα ποιοῦντι χάρις ἔπεστι, καὶ δέδοται ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου ἄνευ ὀνείδους πράττειν, ὡς πάγκαλόν τι πρᾶγμα διαπραττομένου:

I apologize for the length of this citation, but this is quite possibly the longest sentence I've encountered in a Greek text, and I wanted to provide the full context for my question.

It seems to me that in the bolded section the word order should be ὥς οὐ τι αἰσχρὸν ποιοῦντι, not οὐχ ὥς τι αἰσχρὸν ποιοῦντι, i.e. "on the belief that he is not doing anything base" and not "not on the belief that he is doing something base." Why does the negative precede ὥς here when it seems like it should follow it?

[modus.irrealis]

Taking the word-order as it stands, I would understand it as qualifying θαυμαστή in the sense that he's saying it's θαυμαστός but not as if he were doing something shameful. Basically to rule out the possibility of it being something to marvel at the way we marvel at things that are shameful. The thing is, though, that I'm not quite sure that θαυμαστός would have had this interpretation that needed to be blocked so to speak.

I do agree that it would make good sense if it wasn't οὐχ ὡς.

[vir litterarum]

I think you're right that θαυμαστή would have been ambiguous since, as Dover points out in his commentary, it is used of shameful acts a couple of lines below in the phrase τῷ ἐραστῇ θαυμαστὰ ἔργα ἐργαζομένῳ. It just seems to me like a very strange turn of phrase: why is it the παρακέλευσις that is θαυμαστή and not instead simply the erastes?

[modus.irrealis]

I totally missed the implication of the other θαυμαστός.

About παρακέλευσις, it seems to me that this here has to do with how other people in the community react to the ἐραστής, so they think it better if it's done openly, they give θαυμαστή encouragement, they value success, and so on. So here it's the encouragement that θαυμαστή as compared to the situation in other cities.