object:1.201 - Socrates
book class:Symposium
author class:Plato
subject class:Philosophy
class:chapter
Now I shall recount to you all a discourse about Love which I once 201d heard given by a woman from Mantinea, who was called Diotima.143
She was an expert144 on that subject and on many other subjects too.
There was one occasion in particular, before the plague,145 when she procured for the Athenians, after they had performed sacrifices, a tenyear postponement of that disease. She it was who taught me the whole subject of love, and it is the things she had to say about it that I shall try to recount to you, starting from the conclusions that Agathon and I reached together but speaking now on my own as best I can. As you demonstrated, Agathon, one should first define who Love is and what 201e he is like, before talking about his characteristic activity.
I think it will be easiest to proceed as did my visitor from Mantinea with me on that occasion, by question and answer. I said much the same sort of things to her as Agathon said to me just now, that Love was a great god and that he was love of what is beautiful. She set about refuting146 me with those arguments that I have just used against
Agathon, demonstrating that according to my own account Love was neither beautiful nor good.
And I protested. What do you mean, Diotima? Are you actually saying Love is ugly and bad?
Watch what you say! she exclaimed. Do you really think that if something is not beautiful it has to be ugly?
I certainly do.
And something that is not wise is ignorant, I suppose? Have you not noticed that there is something in between wisdom147 and ignorance?
And what is that?
Correct belief.148 I am talking about having a correct belief without being able to give a reason for it. Dont you realise that this state cannot be called knowing for how can it be knowledge149 if it lacks reason?
And it is not ignorance either for how can it be ignorance if it has hit upon the truth? Correct belief clearly occupies just such a middle state, between wisdom150 and ignorance.
Probably a fictional character; see Glossary of names. 144 sophos.
Athens was struck by a devastating plague in 430 BC. 146 See elenchein. 147 sophia. or the doxa; some translators and commentators translate as true belief or right opinion. All three translations mean the same thing.
See under epistasthai. 150 phronesis.
That is true, I said.
Dont then insist that what is not beautiful has to be ugly, and what is not good has to be bad. Similarly with Love. When you yourself admit that Love is not good and not beautiful that is no reason for thinking he has to be ugly and bad. He is something between the two.
At any rate surely everyone agrees that he is a great god.
By everyone, she went on, do you mean all who know, or do you include those who are ignorant?
I mean absolutely everyone.
Then she laughed.
202c
How could Love be acknowledged to be a great god by those who say he is not a god at all?
Who are they? I asked.
Why, you for one, and I for another.
How can you say that? I demanded.
Easily, she replied. Answer me this. Dont you say that all gods are happy and beautiful? Would you go so far as to say that any god was not?
No, by Zeus, I would not.
And dont you mean by the happy those who are in possession of what is good and beautiful?
Certainly.
202d
Yet in the case of Love you have agreed that it is through his lack of good and beautiful things that he desires those very things he lacks?
Yes, I have.
So how could one be a god who has no portion of what is beautiful or good?
Not possibly, as it now appears.
Do you see then, she said, that you also do not believe that Love is a god?
In that case, I said, what might Love be? Is he mortal?
No.
What then?
As in the previous instances, she said, something in between mortal and immortal.
What is he then, Diotima?
202b
He is a great spirit,151 Socrates. All spirits are intermediate between god and mortal.
What is the function of a spirit? I asked.
Interpreting and conveying all that passes between gods and humans: from humans, petitions and sacrificial offerings, and from gods, instructions and the favours they return. Spirits, being intermediary, fill the space between the other two, so that all are bound together into one entity. It is by means of spirits that all divination can take place, the whole craft of seers and priests, with their sacrifices, rites and spells, and all prophecy and magic. Deity and humanity are completely separate, but through the mediation of spirits all converse and communication from gods to humans, waking and sleeping, is made possible. The man who is wise in these matters is a man of the spirit,152 whereas the man who is wise in a skill153 or a manual craft,154 which is a different sort of expertise, is materialistic.155 These spirits are many and of many kinds, and one of them is Love.
And who are his father and mother? I asked.
That is quite a long story, she said, but I will tell you all the same. When Aphrodite was born,156 all the gods held a feast. One of those present was Poros157 (Resource), whose mother was Metis158 (Cleverness). When the feast was over, Penia (Poverty) came begging, as happens on these occasions, and she stood by the door. Poros got drunk on the nectar in those days wine did not exist and having wandered into the garden of Zeus was overcome with drink and went to sleep. Then Penia, because she herself had no resource, thought of a scheme to have a child by Poros, and accordingly she lay down beside him and became pregnant with a son, Love. Because Love was conceived during Aphrodites birthday feast and also because he is by his daimon (the source of English demon), which can mean a god but often denotes a lesser or local deity. Here Diotima characterises Love as a lesser deity, something between a god and a human. The Greeks of Platos day would usually have thought of Love simply as a god, but not one of the most important, Olympian, deities. See Gods and Love in Glossary of names. daimonios, a man of the spirit, spiritual; see footnote 151 above. techne. 154 cheirourgia. 155 banausos (English banausic).
Diotima appears to follow the story that Aphrodite was the normally-born child of Zeus and
Dione; see 180d and footnote 53. The rest of the narrative seems to be Platos own invention.
The Greeks commonly personified natural phenomena and in so doing made them into deities (often unimportant, as here). They sometimes explained them by constructing relationships between them, as is the case here with Poros and Penia.
The first wife of Zeus and mother of Athena, the goddess of wisdom.
204b
nature a lover of159 the beautiful, and Aphrodite is beautiful, he has become her follower and attendant.
However, since he is the son not only of Poros but also of Penia, he is in this position: he is always poor and, far from being the tender and beautiful creature that most people imagine, he is in fact hard and rough, without shoes for his feet or a roof over his head. He is always sleeping on the bare ground without bedding, lying in the open in doorways and on the street, and because he is his mothers son, want is his constant companion. But on the other hand he also resembles his father, scheming to get what is beautiful and good, being bold and keen and ready for action, a cunning hunter, always contriving some trick or other, an eager searcher after knowledge,160 resourceful, a lifelong lover of wisdom,161 clever with magic and potions, and a sophist.162 His nature is neither that of an immortal nor that of a mortal, but in the course of a single day he will live and flourish for a while when he has the resources, then after a time he will start to fade away, only to come to life again through that part of his nature which he has inherited from his father. Yet his resources always slip through his fingers, so that although he is never destitute, neither is he rich. He is always midway between the two, just as he is between wisdom and ignorance.
The truth of the matter is this. No god pursues wisdom or desires to be wise because gods are wise already, and no one who is wise already pursues wisdom. But neither do ignorant people pursue wisdom or desire to be wise, for the problem of ignorance is this, that someone who is neither fine and good163 nor wise164 is still quite satisfied with himself. No one desires what he does not think he lacks.
But who then are those who pursue wisdom, Diotima, I asked, if they are neither the wise nor the ignorant?
Even a child would know the answer to that by now, she replied.
It is those who are in between, and Love is one of them. For wisdom is
Here and at 204b in the same phrase Diotima expresses love of beauty by, unusually, the preposition peri, which more properly means love in the matter of the beautiful. At 206e she is going to claim that Love is not simply of beauty or of the beautiful but of procreating and giving birth in the beautiful, thus refining what she had said at 203c and 204b. It would appear that in these two places Diotima uses peri rather than the simple of so as not to commit herself. phronesis. 161 Lover of wisdom from philosophein. 162 sophistes. 163 kalos kagathos. phronimos.
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a most beautiful thing, and Love is love of165 the beautiful, so Love must be a philosopher,166 and a philosopher is in a middle state between a wise man and an ignorant one. The reason for this too lies in his parentage: he has a father who is wise and resourceful, and a mother who is neither.
This, then, is the nature of that particular spirit, my dear Socrates.
But there was nothing surprising in the view you held yourself about the nature of Love. Judging from what you say, I think you believed that Love was that which is loved, not that which loves. This is the reason, I suppose, why Love appeared to you to be supremely beautiful.
But in fact the one which is really beautiful and delicate, flawless and endowed with every blessing, is the beloved object, while the one which loves is by contrast of an entirely different character, such as I have just described.
All right, Diotima, I replied. You are very persuasive. If Love is as you say, what need does he supply in the lives of people?
That is the next thing I will try to teach you, Socrates, she said. I have just described Loves nature and parentage. Also, he is love of beautiful things, according to you. But what if someone asked us, What does it mean, Socrates and Diotima, to say that Love is love of beautiful things? Or to put it more clearly: what does the lover167 of beautiful things actually desire?168
To possess them, I replied.
But your answer raises yet another question: what will he gain by possessing beautiful things?
I said I certainly could not give a ready answer to that question.
Well, she said, suppose one changed the question and asked about the good instead of the beautiful: Come now, Socrates, what does the lover of good things actually desire?
To possess the good things, I replied.
And what will he gain if he possesses them?
Ah, that is an easier question to answer: he will be happy.
Yes, she replied. The happy are happy through the possession of good things, and there is no need to ask further why anyone wishes
peri; see footnote 159. 166 philosophos; see philosophein. ho eron, the one who loves; see eran.
desire, from eran, which means both to love and, as here, to feel desire for. Similarly in the case of the noun, love of can mean desire for.
to be happy. That answer seems to have brought the matter to a conclusion.169
True, I said.
About this wish, this desire do you think it is common to all? Do all humans wish always170 to possess good things, or what?
Yes, I replied, it is as you say a wish common to all.
Why is it, then, Socrates, that if in fact all people always love the
205b same things we do not describe all people as being in love, instead of saying that some are and that others are not?
I wonder about that myself, I replied.
There is no need to wonder, she said. The reason is that we are picking out one particular kind of love and giving it the name which applies to all, but for the other kinds of love we use different names.
Can you give me another example? I asked.
Yes, there is this one. You realise that the word poetry [originally meant creation and that creation]171 is a term of wide application.
When something comes into existence which has not existed before, the
205c whole cause of this is creation. The products of every craft are creations and the craftsmen who make them are all creators.172
That is so.
But you also know, she went on, that they are not all called creators. They have other names, and only that one part of creation which is separated off from the rest and is the part that is concerned with song and verse is called by the original name of the whole class, which is poetry, and only those to whom this part of creation belongs are called poets.
That is so.
205d
Well, the same is true of love. In general the truth is that for everyone, all desire for good things and for being happy173 is guileful and most mighty love.174 People who turn to love in one of its many other forms money-making or athletics or philosophy are not then
telos. See glossary.
Greek word order, sometimes ambiguous, suggests here that always goes with wishes rather than possess, but the proximity of always and possess prepares the reader for Diotima saying at the end of 206a that love is the desire to possess the good always.
The words in brackets are not in the Greek but are needed in the translation because modern
English has no word equivalent to Greek poiesis, which means both poetry and creation. poietai; see poiesis. 173 eudaimonein.
Apparently a poetic quotation, from a source unknown to us.
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You are very probably right, I said.
Yes, and you will hear it said that lovers are people who are looking 205e for their own other half. But what I say, my friend, is that love is not directed towards a half, or a whole either, unless that half or whole is actually something good, since people are quite prepared to have their own hands or feet amputated if they believe that these parts of themselves are diseased. So it is not, I think, part of themselves that people cling to, unless there is someone who calls what belongs to him and is his own the good and what does not belong to him the bad. The fact is that the only 206a thing people love is the good. Do you think there is anything else?
By Zeus, there is nothing else, I said.
Well then, she went on, can we say without qualification that people love the good?
Yes, I replied.
But shouldnt we add that what they love is that the good should be theirs?
We should.
And not only that, she said, but that the good should always be theirs?
Yes, we must add that too.
Then we can sum up, she said. Love is the desire to possess the good always.
That is very true.
Then since this is always what love is, she said, can you tell me 206b how those who pursue it go about it? What are they doing that the zeal and drive they show can be called love? What does this activity175 really consist of? Can you say?
If I knew the answer, Diotima, I replied, I wouldnt be so admiring of you for your wisdom, or coming to you to learn these very things.
Then I shall tell you, she said. It is giving birth in the beautiful, in respect of body and of soul.
I need an interpreter to tell me what you mean, I said. I dont understand.
ergon.
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206c
Then I shall speak more clearly, she replied. All human beings are pregnant,176 Socrates, in body and in soul, and when we reach maturity it is natural that we desire to give birth. It is not possible to give birth in what is ugly,177 only in the beautiful. I say that because the intercourse of a man and a woman178 is a kind of giving birth. It is something divine, this process of pregnancy and procreation. It is an aspect of immortality in the otherwise mortal creature, and it cannot
206d take place in what is discordant. Now, the ugly is not in accord with anything divine, whereas the beautiful accords well. So at this birth
Beauty takes on the roles of Fate and Eileithyia.179 For this reason, whenever the pregnant being approaches the beautiful, it is in favourable mood. It melts with joy, gives birth and procreates. In the face of ugliness, however, it frowns and contracts with pain, and shrivelling up it fails to procreate, and it holds back its offspring in great suffering.
This is the reason why, for a pregnant being now ready to give birth,
206e there is much excitement at the presence of the beautiful because its possessor will deliver the pregnant one from great pain. For the object of love, Socrates, she said, is not, as you think, simply the beautiful.
What, then?
It is procreating and giving birth in the beautiful.
All right, I said.
It certainly is, she replied. But why is the object of love procreation? Because procreation is a kind of everlastingness and
207a immortality for the mortal creature, as far as anything can be. If the object of love is indeed everlasting possession of the good, as we have already agreed, it is immortality together with the good that must necessarily be desired. Hence it must follow that the object of love is also immortality.
All these things Diotima taught me on the occasions when she spoke about love. On one occasion she asked me, What do you think,
Socrates, is the cause of this love and desire? Do you not notice what a
Diotima uses the language of sexual intercourse and birth to describe the feelings and sexual activity mainly of the male. On the images of pregnancy and procreation see F. Sheffield,
Psychic Pregnancy and Platonic Epistemology, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy XX
(summer 2001), 135. aischros.
Some Greeks believed that women too emitted a kind of seminal fluid at the moment of conception.
The goddess of childbirth.
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state all beasts are in, birds as well as four-footed animals, when they feel the desire to procreate? All sick and in the grip of love, they are concerned first for copulation and then for rearing the offspring, and they are ready to fight it out on their behalf, the weakest against the strongest, even to the death, worn out themselves by hunger in the attempt to feed them, yet ready to do whatever else is necessary. One might suppose that humans do these things because they reason about it. But animals what cause is there for them to be so affected by love?
Can you tell me why?
Again I replied that I did not know. She retorted, And do you suppose you will ever become expert on the subject of love if you are not going to think about this matter?
But Diotima, as I said just now, it is precisely because I recognise that I need teachers that I have come to you. Just tell me the reason for this and for everything else to do with love.
Well then, she said, if you believe that love is by its nature directed towards that thing which we have agreed upon many times, you should not be surprised. For in the animal world and among humans the same explanation applies, that mortal nature seeks as far as it can to exist for ever and to be immortal. But the only way it can achieve this is by continual generation,180 the process by which it always leaves behind another new thing to replace the old. Consider the time when any living thing is described as being alive and being the same individual as a man, for example, is said to be the same person from childhood until old age. Although he is referred to as the same person, he never keeps the same constituents; he is always being renewed, while things like hair, flesh, bones, blood in fact the entire body are constantly passing away. This happens not only in the body but also in the soul. A souls habits, characteristics, beliefs, desires, pleasures, pains, fears, none of these things ever remain constant in an individual, but some are always coming into being while others pass away. Stranger still is the situation with the various branches of our knowledge.181 Not only do they too come and go, so that we do not remain the same in the case of them either, but it is also true of each single thing we know.
Consider what we call revising or practising.182 We do this because knowledge leaves us. Forgetting is the loss of knowledge, and revising,
genesis.
see under epistasthai.
revising or practising translates melete; see glossary.
by implanting a fresh memory in place of the one that is departing, preserves our knowledge so that it seems to be the same. In this way everything mortal is preserved, not by remaining entirely the same for ever, which is the mark of the divine, but by leaving behind another new thing of the same kind in the place of what is growing old and passing away. By this means, Socrates, she said, what is mortal-body and every creature else-partakes of immortality; but what is immortal does so differently. So do not be surprised that everything naturally values its own offspring. This universal zeal and love is for the sake of immortality.
I was surprised to hear this speech. Well now, Diotima, I said. I know you are very wise, but is this really how things are? Like the perfect sophist183 she replied: Believe me, Socrates. You have only to look at humankinds love of honour and you will be surprised at your absurdity regarding the matters I have just mentioned, unless you think about it and reflect how strongly people are affected by the desire to become famous and to lay up immortal glory for all time.184 For the sake of this they are prepared to run risks even more than for their children spend their money, endure any kind of suffering, even die in the cause. Do you suppose, she went on, that Alcestis would have died to save Admetus, or Achilles would have sacrificed his life to avenge Patroclus, or your Athenian king Codrus would have perished before his time for the sake of his sons succession, if they had not thought that the memory of their virtue,185 which indeed we still have of them, would be immortal? Far from it, she said. I think that it is for the sake of immortal fame186 and this kind of glorious reputation187 that everyone strives to the utmost, and the better they are the more they strive: for they desire what is immortal.
Those whose pregnancy is of the body, she went on, are drawn more towards women, and they express their love through the procreation of children, ensuring for themselves, they think, for all time to come, immortality and remembrance and happiness in this way. But
[there are]188 those whose pregnancy is of the soul those who are pregnant in their souls even more than in their bodies, with the kind of
Perhaps the confidence of her answer was thought characteristic of sophists (see sophistes).
A line of poetry from an unknown source. 185 Or courage; see arete. arete. 187 doxa. 188 The verb supplied is missing in the Greek.
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offspring which it is fitting for the soul to conceive and bear. What offspring are these? Wisdom189 and the rest of virtue,190 of which the poets are all procreators, as well as those craftsmen who are regarded as innovators. But by far the most important and beautiful expression of this wisdom is the good ordering191 of cities and households; and the names for this kind of wisdom are moderation and justice.
When someone has been pregnant in soul with these things from youth and is of the right age but unmarried,192 he now feels the desire 209b to give birth and procreate. He too, I think, goes about looking for the beautiful in which to procreate; for he will never procreate in the ugly.
In his pregnant state he welcomes bodies that are beautiful rather than ugly, and if he comes across one who has a beautiful, noble and gifted soul as well, then he particularly welcomes the combination. In the presence of this person his words immediately flow in abundance about virtue and about the qualities and practices that make for a good man, 209c and he embarks on his education. For I think that by attaching himself to the beautiful and associating with it, which he will be keeping in mind even when absent, he gives birth to and procreates the offspring with which he has long been pregnant, and in company with that other share in nurturing what they have created together. The result is that such a couple have a much closer partnership with each other and a stronger tie of affection than is the case with the parents of mortal children, since the offspring they share in have more beauty and immortality. For anyone who looked at Homer and Hesiod and all the other great poets would envy them because of the kind of offspring they have left behind them, and would rather be the parent of children like these, who have conferred on their progenitors immortal glory and fame, 209d than of ordinary human children.
For another example, she said, look at the sort of children
Lycurgus193 left behind in Sparta to be the salvation of Sparta and, one might say, of Greece itself. And Solon194 too is honoured by you
phronesis. 190 See footnote 72. 191 diakosmesis; see under kosmos.
This word in Greek, eitheos, is an editors emendation of the manuscripts theios, divinely inspired; in the view of other editors the reading divinely inspired makes better sense.
Lycurgus was the legendary founder of the Spartan legal and military systems. The defeat of the invading Persians by the Spartan army in the Persian Wars could be said to have saved
Greece from conquest in the early fifth century BC. For Lycurgus see Glossary of names.
Solons constitutional reforms at Athens in the early sixth century BC paved the way for the development of democracy in that city state. See Glossary of names.
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209e Athenians as the procreator of your laws, and other men are similarly honoured in many other places in Greece and beyond, who by their many fine achievements have procreated virtue of every kind. Many sacred cults have been set up in their honour because of the nature of those children, but none has ever yet been set up because of mortal children.
These are aspects of the mystery of love195 that perhaps you too,
210a Socrates, might be initiated into. But for the final initiation and revelation, to which all this has been merely preliminary for someone on the right track, I am not sure if you have the capability. However I will do my utmost to explain to you, and you must try to follow if you can.
A person who would set out on this path in the right way must begin in youth by directing his attention to beautiful bodies, and first of all, if his guide is leading him aright, he should fall in love with the body of one individual only, and there procreate beautiful discourse.
Then he will realise for himself that the beauty of any one body is
210b closely akin to that of any other body, and that if what is beautiful in form196 is to be pursued it is folly not to regard the beauty in all bodies as one and the same. When he has understood this he should slacken his intense passion for one body, despising it and considering it a small thing, and become a lover of all beautiful bodies.
After this he will realise that the beauty in souls197 is more to be prized than that in the body. If therefore someones soul is good even if his physical attraction is slight, that will be enough for him, and he will love and care for that person, and seek out and give birth to the kind of
210c discourse that will make young men better people. As a consequence he will be compelled to contemplate the beautiful as it exists in human practices and laws, to see that the beauty of it all is of one kind, and to realise that what is beautiful in a body is trivial by comparison.
After this his guide must lead him to contemplate knowledge in its various branches, so that he can see beauty there too, and looking at
210d what is now a wide range of beauty he is no longer slavishly content with the beauty of any one particular thing, such as the beauty of a young boy or some other person, or of one particular practice, and will
erotica. Diotima is speaking as if Socrates was now reaching the final stages of initiation into a religious mystery-cult. See Mysteries in Glossary of names. eidos. See glossary. 197 psuche.
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not become petty and small-minded through this kind of servitude.
Instead he will turn towards the vast sea of the beautiful and while contemplating it he will give birth to many beautiful, indeed magnificent, discourses and thoughts in a boundless love of wisdom until there, streng thened and invigorated, he discerns a unique kind of knowledge, which is knowledge of a beauty whose nature I will now describe. And please try to pay attention as closely as you can, she went on.
Anyone who has been guided to this point in the study of love and has been contemplating beautiful things in the correct way and in the right sequence, will suddenly perceive, as he now approaches the end of his study, a beauty that is marvellous in its nature the very thing,
Socrates, for the sake of which all the earlier labours were undertaken.
What he sees is, in the first place, eternal; it does not come into being or perish, nor does it grow or waste away. Secondly, it is not beautiful in one respect and ugly in another, or beautiful at one time and not at another, or beautiful by one standard and ugly by another, or beautiful in one place and ugly in another because it is beautiful to some people but ugly to others. Nor, again, will the beautiful appear to him as a face is beautiful or hands or any other part of the body, nor like a discourse or a branch of knowledge or anything that exists in some other thing, whether in a living creature or in the earth or the sky or anything else. It exists on its own, single in substance198 and everlasting. All other beautiful things partake of it, but in such a way that when they come into being or die the beautiful itself does not become greater or less in any respect, or undergo any change.
Now, whenever someone starts to ascend from the things of this world through loving boys in the right way, and begins to discern that beauty, he is almost in reach of the goal. And the correct way for him to go, or be led by another, to the things of love,199 is to begin from the beautiful things in this world, and using these as steps, to climb ever upwards for the sake of that other beauty, going from one to two and from two to all beautiful bodies, and from beautiful bodies to beautiful practices, and from beautiful practices to beautiful kinds of knowledge,200 and from beautiful kinds of knowledge finally to that particular
monoeides; literally, in single form. erotica. See glossary. mathemata (plural) is used here rather than episteme. See glossary.
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knowledge which is knowledge solely of the beautiful itself, so that at
211d last he may know what the beautiful itself really is. That is the life, my dear Socrates, said the visitor from Mantinea, which most of all a human being should live, in the contemplation of beauty itself.
If ever you see that beauty, it will not seem to you to be comparable with gold or dress or those beautiful boys and young men who now drive you and many others to distraction when you see them. If only you could see your beloveds and be with them all the time you would be prepared if only it were possible to go without food and drink, and do nothing but gaze at them and be with them. What, then, do we
211e suppose it would be like, she said, for someone actually to see the beautiful itself, separate, clear and pure, unsullied by the flesh or by colour or by the rest of our mortal dross, but to perceive the beautiful itself, single in substance and divine? Do you think, she continued,
212a that a person who directs his gaze to that object and contemplates it with that faculty by which it has to be viewed,201 and stays close to it, has a poor life? Do you not reflect, she went on, that it is there alone, when he sees the beautiful with that by which it has to be viewed, that he will give birth to true virtue? He will give birth not to mere images of virtue but to true virtue, because it is not an image that he is grasping but the truth. When he has given birth to and nurtured true virtue it is possible for him to be loved by the gods and to become, if any human can, immortal himself.
212b
Well, Phaedrus and all of you, these are the things that Diotima said to me, and I believe her. And since I believe, I am trying to persuade everyone else that in the attainment of this goal human nature could not easily find a better helper than Love. For this reason I declare for my part that every man should honour Love, and I myself honour the study of love and practise it to an exceptional degree. I urge everyone else to do likewise, and now and ever I praise the power and bravery of
212c Love as best I can. So, Phaedrus, consider this speech, if you will, as my encomium to Love, or, if you prefer, call it whatever you please.
With these words Socrates concluded his speech. Aristodemus said that everyone was praising it, and Aristophanes was trying to say something about the reference Socrates had made to his own speech, when
Plato in Republic 533d calls this faculty the eye of the soul (psuche); it is elsewhere associated with nous, mind or intellect.
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suddenly there was a loud banging on the outside door. It sounded like a party of revellers, and they could hear a girl playing the aulos. Go and see who it is, said Agathon to the servants, and if it is one of my friends, ask him in, but if not say that the drinking is over and we are calling a halt.
Not long after, the voice of Alcibiades was heard in the courtyard; he was very drunk and shouting loudly, asking where Agathon was and demanding to be taken to Agathon. So Alcibiades was ushered in, supported by some of his attendants and the girl who played the aulos.
He stood by the door, crowned with a bushy garl and of ivy and violets and with an abundance of ribbons tied round his head. Good evening, gentlemen, he said. Will you welcome as a fellow drinker a man already very drunk, or must I merely crown Agathon, which is what I came for, and then go away again? For I have to tell you, he said, I couldnt come yesterday, but here I am now with ribbons on my head, to put this crown from my own head on to the head of the wisest and handsomest man, and proclaim him to be so. Will you laugh at me because I am drunk? You may laugh, but all the same I know my proclamation is true. But tell me straight away: do you agree to my terms? May I come in or not? Will you drink with me or not?
Everyone shouted assent, telling him to come in and take a place, and
Agathon invited him to join them. So in he came, escorted by his companions. Because he was simultaneously untying the ribbons in order to crown Agathon with them and had them in front of his eyes, he did not notice Socrates, who, catching sight of him, had moved over.
Alcibiades sat down beside Agathon, between him and Socrates, and as he did so he embraced Agathon and crowned him.
Take off Alcibiades shoes, said Agathon to the servants, so that he can have the third place on the couch.
Thank you, said Alcibiades, but who is this on my other side? As he spoke, he turned round and saw Socrates. At once he leaped up.
Heracles! he exclaimed, What is this! You, Socrates? You were lying there to ambush me again, just as you used to do, making a sudden appearance in a place where I least expected you. Now what are you up to? And another thing, why are you on this particular couch? I notice you are not beside someone like Aristophanes who enjoys mockery too.
No, you have schemed to take a place beside the best-looking man in the room.
51
Agathon, keep him off, please, cried Socrates. I must say my passion for him has become quite a burden. From the moment I fell in love with him I have not been allowed to look at or talk to a single goodlooking man, or if I do so this man here gets jealous and resentful and his behaviour is quite extraordinary he hurls insults at me and all but hits me. Take care he doesnt do something like this now. Do keep the peace between us, or if he tries to use force, protect me, because I am completely terrified by his mad obsession with being loved.
No peace is possible, said Alcibiades, between the two of us, and I will take my revenge for these allegations later on. But as for now,
Agathon, please give me back some of the ribbons to crown this mans head too, this wonderful head of his, so that he cannot blame me for crowning you and not him. When it is a contest of words he beats every one else, not just once, like you the day before yesterday, but every time. So saying he took some of the ribbons and crowned Socrates, and then took his place on the couch.
When he had settled himself he spoke again. Well now, gentlemen, you seem to me to be quite sober. This must not be allowed; you have to drink. We have made an agreement. So for our master of ceremonies, until you have all drunk adequately, I elect myself. Agathon, get someone to bring a really big cup, if you have one. No, there is no need.
Boy, bring me that wine-cooler there, he ordered, seeing that it held more than eight cotylae.202 Having had this filled Alcibiades first drained it himself, then told them to fill it again for Socrates, saying as they did so, In the case of Socrates, gentlemen, my trick is useless.
However much you provide, he will drink it all and never be drunk.
So the servant filled the wine-cooler again and Socrates was drinking from it when Eryximachus spoke. How are we arranging things, then,
Alcibiades? he asked. Are we not going to have conversation or singing as the wine goes round? Are we simply going to drink like thirsty men?
O Eryximachus, said Alcibiades, best son of the best and most sober203 father, my greetings to you.
And the same to you. But what should we do?
Whatever you say, and we must obey you. For one learned leech is worth an army of laymen.204 Therefore prescribe as you please.
A cotyle measures nearly half a pint (or quarter of a litre). 203 sophron.
Homer, Iliad 11. 514; the translation is adapted from that of R.G. Bury.
52
All right, then, said Eryximachus. Listen and I will tell you. Before you arrived we had decided that each of us should make as fine a speech as possible in praise of Love, going from left to right in turn. Since all the rest of us have spoken while you, on the other hand, have drunk all your wine but not yet spoken, you are entitled to speak, and afterwards you can give Socrates any instruction you like. He can do the same to the man on his right, and so on.
That is all very well, Eryximachus, said Alcibiades, but for a drunken man to be in competition with the speeches of the sober is scarcely fair. And another thing, my dear friend: do you really believe what Socrates said just now? Do you realise that the truth is entirely the opposite of what he was saying? He is the one who starts hitting me if I try to praise anyone else, god or man, in his presence.
Watch what you say! said Socrates.
By Poseidon! exclaimed Alcibiades, You cannot deny that! I would never praise anyone else in your presence.
In that case, said Eryximachus, go ahead if you want to, and praise
Socrates.
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