Symposium

Plato's Dialogues #1

by Plato

The dramatic nature of Plato’s dialogues is delightfully evident in the Symposium. The marriage between character and thought bursts forth as the guests gather at Agathon’s house to celebrate the success of his first tragedy. With wit and insight, they each present their ideas about love—from Erixymachus’s scientific naturalism to Aristophanes’ comic fantasy. The unexpected arrival of Alcibiades breaks the spell cast by Diotima’s ethereal climb up the staircase of love to beauty itself. Ecstasy and intoxication clash as Plato concludes with one of his most skillful displays of dialectic.

Genres: Philosophy, Classics, Nonfiction, History, Ancient, School, Greece

51 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 381

About the author

Plato (Greek: Πλάτων), born Aristocles (c. 427 – 348 BC), was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He raised problems for what became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism.
Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals. He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself.
Along with his teacher Socrates, and Aristotle, his student, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years—unlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism, he also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."

Reviews

[M.L. Rio · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the gayest thing I've ever read in my life and it's absolutely marvelous. A tragic poet throws a party and the attendant guests take turns waxing poetic about Love until Socrates ruins the mood with too much philosophy. Fortunately Alcibiades arrives just in time, already wasted and wearing a flower crown, to demand that everyone get on his level while he regales them with a long story about getting friendzoned by Socrates.

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plato’s Symposium is one of the most loved classics from the ancient world, a work of consummate beauty as both philosophy and as literature, most appropriate since the topic of this dialogue is the nature of love and includes much philosophizing on beauty. In the spirit of freshness, I will focus on one very important section, where Socrates relates the words of his teacher Diotima on the birth of Love explained in the context of myth:

“Following the birth of Aphrodite, the other gods were having a feast, including Resource, the son of Invention. When they’d had dinner, Poverty came to beg, as people do at feasts, and so she was by the gate. Resource was drunk with nectar (this was before wine was discovered), went into the garden of Zeus, and fell into drunken sleep. Poverty formed the plan of relieving her lack of resources by having a child by Resource; she slept with him and became pregnant with Love. So the reason Love became a follower and attendant of Aphrodite is because he was conceived on the day of her birth; also he is naturally a lover of beauty and Aphrodite is beautiful.”

Diotima continues but let’s pause here as according to many teachers within the Platonic tradition there are at least two critical points to be made about this passage.

The first is how love is conceived in the garden of Zeus, and that’s Zeus as mythical personification of Nous or true intellectual understanding. In other words, for one seeking philosophic wisdom, love is born and exists within the framework of truth and understanding, thus, in order to have a more complete appreciation of the nature of love, one must be committed to understanding the nature of truth.

The second point is how within the Platonic tradition, truth is linked with beauty. Two of my own Plato teachers were adamant on this point, citing how modern people who separate beauty from truth can never partake of the wisdom traditions. (Incidentally, these exact two points are made eloquently by Pierre Grimes in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1cbh... ).

Although I am not a strict Platonist, I tend to agree. When I encounter people who have sharp minds and are keenly analytical but communicate their ideas in snide or sarcastic unbeautiful language or are in any way disingenuous or degrading of others, I find such behavior very much in bad taste. In a very real sense, I feel these individuals have cut themselves off from the world’s wisdom traditions, particularly from the Platonic tradition.

I wanted to focus on this one paragraph to convey a sense of the richness of this magnificent Platonic dialogue. One could mine wisdom nuggets from each and every paragraph. And, yes, I get a kick every time I read the speech of Aristophanes featuring those cartwheeling prehumans with four arms and four legs. Also, two fun facts:

One: reflecting on Alcibiades, the history of philosophy records another incredibly handsome man with a similar great head of curly hair and full curly beard, a man (fortunately!) with a much stronger character – the Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius.

Two: Diogenes Laertius reports the Greek philosopher Epicurus also wrote a book with the title Symposium. Unfortunately, this piece of writing is lost to us. Darn!

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

OPRAH: Good evening and welcome to What's the Most Spiritual Book of All Time? For people who missed last week's exciting semi-final round, The Sermon on the Mount beat The Bhagavad Gita 4-1 while Jonathan Livingston Seagull unexpectedly lost 3-2 to outsider The Symposium. Let's all welcome our finalists!

[Applause. Enter JESUS CHRIST and SOCRATES, both wearing tuxedos. They shake hands. More applause.]

OPRAH: And now let me introduce our jury. I'm thrilled to have with us living legend Paul McCartney, world-famous novelist E.L. James, the beautiful and talented Lindsay Lohan, controversial scientist Richard Dawkins and ever-popular hockey mom Sarah Palin!

[The crowd goes wild, with some people clapping and others booing. It's impossible to make out a word anyone says.]

OPRAH: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm just going to remind you of the rules before we start. Each member of the jury gives us a short speech, and then we count up the votes to see who our lucky winner is. Over to you, Paul!

MCCARTNEY: Thank you, Oprah. Well, I look at our two finalists, and you know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking they won that special place they have in our hearts because they told us about Love. And I remember back in 1966 when John gave that interview where he said - no offense intended - "we're more popular than Jesus". [JESUS holds up a hand to show he's cool.] They gave John a hard time about that, but all he wanted to say was that even though Jesus had shown us the power of Love, maybe, at that exact moment in history, we could do a better job of bringing it to the people and telling them all how amazing Love is. Because it is amazing, isn't it? [He takes out a guitar.]Perhaps some of you remember this song we wrote.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy

Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy

All you need is love--

OPRAH: That's wonderful, Paul, but who are you voting for?

MCCARTNEY: Oh, er... well, if John were here, I think he'd want me to vote for The Symposium. He was always had a thing for Socrates. George too. Yes, Socrates it is.

[Applause. The scoreboard shows 1-0. SOCRATES looks a little embarrassed, while JESUS curiously examines MCCARTNEY's guitar.]

OPRAH: That's terrific, Paul, beautiful, beautiful song. Really takes me back. So Socrates is in the lead, but it's early days yet. Your turn, Erika!

JAMES: Good evening, and I'm thrilled to be here. Now, I'm sure some of you have read the Fifty Shades books, and I believe a lot of people misunderstand them. It's easy just to think about the sex and the glitz and the limos and the handcuffs and the blindfolds and the whips and the--

OPRAH: I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here, Erika.

JAMES: Just let me finish, Oprah. What most people don't realize is that these books aren't about sex, they're about Love. They're a spiritual journey, where Ana has to help Christian - have you ever wondered why he's called Christian? - find himself and discover the difference between empty eroticism and the redeeming power of--

OPRAH: I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you off there, Erika. You'll have to tell us now who you're voting for.

JAMES: Well, Jesus, of course. Really, Fifty Shades is an allegory, a modern version of Dante's--

OPRAH: That's incredibly interesting, Erika, and I wish we had more time to talk about it. But now the score's 1-1, and we're moving on to our third member of the jury. Your turn, Lindsay!

LOHAN: Thank you everyone, and I'd particularly like to thank my parole officer for allowing me to join you tonight. She said it'd be good for me. [Laughter, applause]. So, yeah, Love. To me, love's about trying to find my soulmate. I bet there's plenty of you people who feel the same way I do, there's someone out there who's, like, the other half of me and I have to find that person to be complete. You know? And it's really hard to guess who that person is, maybe it's a guy, like, you know, maybe Justin or Ashton or Zac or Ryan, and we were once this person who was half a man and half a woman and we got split apart, or maybe it's a woman, like maybe Sam or--

OPRAH: Lindsay, that's such a moving thought, but we've got to watch the clock. Who are you voting for?

LOHAN: Well, duh, Socrates of course. It's all there in the Symposium. The Aristophanes speech. I must have read it a million times.

OPRAH: Lindsay, thank you so much, and I really hope you find your soulmate one day. You just need to keep looking. So Socrates has taken a 2-1 lead and we're going over to our next speaker. Richard?

DAWKINS: Ah, yes. Now, I've been sitting here listening to all of you, and I've enjoyed your contributions, but I'm a scientist and I've got to think about things in a scientific way. When I think about love as a scientist, all I ultimately see is tropisms and feedback loops. An organism feels a lack of something - it could be as simple as an E. coli needing an essential nutrient - and it does what it can to get it. Love is just the concrete expression of that negative feedback loop. There's nothing--

OPRAH: This all sounds like Socrates's speech. I take it you're voting for him then?

DAWKINS: What? Oh, no, no, not at all. Jesus, every time. [He takes off his jacket, revealing a T-shirt that says ATHEISTS FOR JESUS.] I can't stand Platonic forms and all that mystical nonsense. Jesus, now there's a straightforward, plain-speaking person with solid humanist values. Just a shame he got mixed up with the religion business.

[Boos, catcalls, some scattered clapping. The scoreboard shows 2-2.]

OPRAH: Er - right. Always ready to surprise us, Richard! So it's up to Sarah to cast the deciding vote. Over to you, Sarah!

PALIN: Well Oprah, I'm afraid I'm not as imaginative as Richard. I'm just a regular small-town girl with regular small-town values, and I was brought up readin' the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, blessed are ye when men shall revile you, smaller government, lower taxes, support Israel, no to--

OPRAH: Is that all in the Sermon on the Mount, Sarah?

PALIN: Maybe not in those exact words. But it's there. And you can bet your boots I'm not votin' for a liberal type who hangs around with a bunch of guys what're openly tryin' to get into his-

[JESUS and SOCRATES exchange puzzled glances.]

PALIN: Anyways. I'm votin' for Jesus.

OPRAH: Ah - thank you Sarah. Forthright as ever! So that's 3-2 to The Sermon on the Mount, but well done The Symposium, you were so close. And thank you everyone, particularly Socrates and Mr. Christ, for an amazing and deeply spiritual experience, it's been incredible meeting you all, thank you again, and we'll be back next week.

[Credits, theme music]

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book Socrates argues that it is not always a good idea to have sex with boys and Aristophanes explains we were once co-joined creatures of three sexes - either male/female, male/male or female/female and were shaped like balls. How could anyone not find this a book worth reading?

[marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

plato really said “fuck socrates” and meant that literally

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It’s been less than three years that I’ve been Socrates’ companion and made it my job to know exactly what he says and does each day. Before that, I simply drifted aimlessly. Of course, I used to think that what I was doing was important, but in fact I was the most worthless man on earth—as bad as you are this very moment: I used to think philosophy was the last thing a man should do.”

In Praise of Love: An Encore

This is a dialogue about the human aspiration towards happiness, and how that desire is best satisfied. 

Plato’s overriding concern as a teacher is how to achieve eudamonia or how to live the good life. However, this is as difficult a topic to capture in teaching as it is to achieve in action. Hence he approaches the topic by defining many peripheral topics - by showing various aspects of the good life.

In The Symposium too the same ultimate question is approached, this time through the question of how to love perfectly. Many wonderful explanation of Love are given but in the end it boils down to how to live the good life  through the question of what should one love to do and hence what should one do in life. The answer that emerges is simple - love only things that are ends in themselves, do only them. Ends-in-themselves are not to done for any further end, to achieve something else. And most importantly, they should be eternal.

Symposium: The Setting

Plato’s dialogues are fictional and often richly dramatic snippets of philosophical imagination. The Symposium is a particularly dramatic work. It is set at the house of Agathon, a tragic poet celebrating his recent poetic victory. Those present are amongst the intellectual elite of the day, including an exponent of heroic poetry (Phaedrus), an expert in the laws of various Greek states (Pausanias), a representative of medical expertise (Eryximachus), a comic poet (Aristophanes) and a philosopher (Socrates). And the political maverick Alcibiades towards the end.

The Symposium

The Symposium consists mainly of a series of praise speeches (encomia), delivered in the order in which these speakers are seated:



They begin with the discourse of Phaedrus, and the series contains altogether eight parts divided into two principal sequences:



The Speeches

1. Phaedrus: Love makes us noble and gods honor it. Love is the greatest god. Love is nobility. This is the simplest of the speeches.

An unconditional praising of Love and this from the same Phaedrus who unconditionally condemns it in his own eponymous dialogue !

2. Pausanias (perhaps the most interesting of these speeches for this reviewer): Wants to define Love before praising it. Love is not in itself noble and worthy of praise; it depends on whether the sentiments it produces in us are themselves noble. Differentiates between “Common Love” & “Divine Love”: How hasty vulgar lovers are, and therefore how unfair to their loved ones?

"Love is, like everything else, complex: considered simply in itself, it is neither honorable nor a disgrace - its character depends entirely on the behavior it gives rise to. The common, vulgar lover loves the body rather than the soul, his love is bound to be inconstant, since what he loves is itself mutable and unstable. The moment the body is no longer in bloom, “he flies off and away,” his promises and vows in tatters behind him. How different from this is a man who loves the right sort of character, and who remains its lover for life, attached as he is to something that is permanent."

Pausanias goes on from this to provide a theory on the origins of Social Customs (of courtship, etc):

"We can now see the point of our customs: they are designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, the proper love from the vile. That’s why we do everything we can to make it as easy as possible for lovers to press their suits and as difficult as possible for young men to comply; it is like a competition, a kind of test to determine to which sort each belongs. This explains two further facts: First, why we consider it shameful to yield too quickly: the passage of time in itself provides a good test in these matters. Second, why we also consider it shameful for a man to be seduced by money or political power, either because he cringes at ill-treatment and will not endure it or because, once he has tasted the benefits of wealth and power, he will not rise above them. None of these benefits is stable or permanent, apart from the fact that no genuine affection can possibly be based upon them."

***

"Only in this case, we should notice, is it never shameful to be deceived; in every other case it is shameful, both for the deceiver and the person he deceives. Suppose, for example, that someone thinks his lover is rich and accepts him for his money; his action won’t be any less shameful if it turns out that he was deceived and his lover was a poor man after all. For the young man has already shown himself to be the sort of person who will do anything for money—and that is far from honorable. By the same token, suppose that someone takes a lover in the mistaken belief that this lover is a good man and likely to make him better himself, while in reality the man is horrible, totally lacking in virtue; even so, it is noble for him to have been deceived. For he too has demonstrated something about himself: that he is the sort of person who will do anything for the sake of virtue—and what could be more honorable than that? It follows, therefore, that giving in to your lover for virtue’s sake is honorable, whatever the outcome. And this, of course, is the Heavenly Love of the heavenly goddess. Love’s value to the city as a whole and to the citizens is immeasurable, for he compels the lover and his loved one alike to make virtue their central concern. All other forms of love belong to the vulgar goddess."

Makes one wonder if we should really be proud of our modern methods, sans the niceties of elaborate courtship.

3. Eryximachus: Differentiates between “Healthy” & “Unhealthy” Love, doctor that he is.

Everything sound and healthy in the body must be encouraged and gratified. Conversely, whatever is unhealthy and unsound must be frustrated and rebuffed: that’s what it is to be an expert in medicine.

4. Aristophanes:  Bases Love on the conception of Longing & Completion - beautifully illustrated in his famous Myth of Soulmates: We used to be complete wholes in our original nature, and now “Love” is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.

Plato also uses this occasion to make fun of Aristophanes by painting whims lewd and bawdy man, given to sensual pleasures and fits of hiccups. There are even direct references to Aristophanes’s irreverent clouds:

“Aristophanes, do you really think you can take a shot at me, and then escape? Use your head! Remember, as you speak, that you will be called upon to give an account. Though perhaps, if I decide to, I’ll let you off.”

5. Agathon: Decides to stop the praising of Love and focus on the Qualities of Love -

"For every praise, no matter whose: you must explain what qualities in the subject of your speech enable it to give the benefits for which we praise it. So now, in the case of Love, it is right for us to praise him first for what it is and afterwards for its gifts."

He goes on toe elaborate on the perfection of Love’s qualities - about the god’s justice, moderation, bravery and wisdom - and how Love confers all these qualities to its devotees. Thus, Love is the source of all good, according to Agathon.

6. Socrates: Enough with the Eulogies!

Socrates sets out with a series of questions, in an attempt to pin down Love:

“You have beautifully and magnificently expounded his qualities in other ways, tell me this, too, about Love. Is Love such as to be a love of something or of nothing?"

He proceeds through the same arguments as in Phaedrus and arrives at:

“No one is in need of those things he already has.”

***

“Whenever you say, I desire what I already have, ask yourself whether you don’t mean this: I want the things I have now to be mine in the future as well."

Socrates’ Conclusion: Love is a lack and desire to fill that. It is a desire for something lacking or a desire for preservation of what has been acquired. What constitutes eudaimonia is not to be had in a moment in time.

“In a word, then, love is wanting to possess the good forever.”

If this is the objective of Love, The next question is how to pursue this objective.

Answer: Seek Love in Beauty; and Reproduction and Birth, in Beauty - The argument does not deviate much from that in Phaedrus; readers will want to compare this speech on Love with those of Socrates in Phaedrus.

Socrates’ account thus moves from an analysis of the nature of such desire to an account of knowledge and its acquisition; for if we all have a desire for our own good and happiness, the issue becomes how to identify correctly the nature of this good. He defines intellectual activity to be the best good, and more central to human happiness than any other activity.

7. Alcibiades: An almost pointless speech, does not contribute much to the dialogue directly, and yet it does, by adding to the context:

Plato’s Political Intent: Praise Socrates & Distance Socrates from the follies of this young man.

Alcibiades’ account reveals that although he desires the wisdom he perceives in Socrates, there is a competing value pulling him away: “Yet when I leave him I am equally aware that I am giving in to my desire for honor from the public, so I skulk out of his sight like a runaway slave.” 

This conflict between the attractions of wisdom and the sort of excellence that earns honour from the people is the very one argued out theoretically in Socrates’ speech. Alcibiades’ choice to organize his life around the pursuit of personal honor exonerates Socrates from any association with the terrible events that resulted from his choices. Socrates was not responsible for the corruption.

Plato’s Philosophical Intent: Also, show how even Socrates’ teachings are not flawless. Even Philosophy is dependent on good students to produce results.

Symposium: A Conclusion

The Symposium belongs with the dialogues concerned with Education, especially the moral education of the young. Its discussion of the nature and goals of loving relationships takes us to the heart of Plato’s concern with the good life and how it is achieved. That Education and Desires are seen to play such an important role in moral development draws on a theme elaborated in the Republic , and is concerned with the development of character and how that contributes to the good life.

Though Plato leads us to the lofty heights of the Forms as the true end of our desire for good things and happiness, his account is nonetheless one that resonates beyond such abstractions. The Symposium does not contain a fully developed theory of the self, although it outlines with considerable care the dimensions of concern which preoccupy human beings. Its achievement is a rich and unitary image of human striving.

Through this conception, even if narrow, of a flourishing life where certain things are advocated to the young as valuable, the dialogue explores the nature of eudaimonia, which may be translated as "happiness" or "flourishing". This is ultimately why a dialogue devoted, on the surface, to the nature of erotic relationships is an ethical work at its core, which culminates in the specification of ‘the life which a human being should live’. And it is this concern that relates the Symposium to a fundamental question that informs a variety of Platonic dialogues: How should one live?

Thus, Plato’s concern with desire and its role in the good life leads to his conclusion: One’s ability to act well and to lead a worthwhile and good life depends, in part, on desiring the right kinds of things and acting on that basis. What, or whom, one desires determines the choices one makes and thereby affects one’s chances of leading a worthwhile and happy life.

It is by prompting us to reflect more deeply on the relationship between our desires and their real end, and the role that our lovers might play in helping us to achieve it, that the Symposium really makes its mark.

[فؤاد · Rating 4 out of 5]

افلاطون، در رساله ی بسیار دلکش "ضیافت" ، بحث مفصلی راجع به حقیقت "عشق" می کند.
رساله به بازگویی ماجرای یک ضیافت می پردازد. آگاتون میهمانی ای گرفته و نخبگان را دعوت کرده، از آن جمله است: سقراط استاد افلاطون. بحث به چیستی عشق می رسد و هر کس از میهمانان سخنرانی ای زیبا و غزل گونه در ستایش عشق می کند.

از جمله، یکی می گوید: انسان ها در ابتداى آفرينش شان، جفت جفت به هم متصل بودند، و شكلى كروى مى ساختند. اين جفت هاى به هم پيوسته، چنان كامل و قدرتمند بودند، كه خواستند بر ضد خدايان آسمان بشورند، و خدايان كه ترسيدند از ايشان شكست بخورند، تدبيرى انديشيدند: اين جفت هاى كروى را از هم جدا كردند.
از آن پس جفت هاى از هم جدا افتاده، ديگر فكر نبرد با خدايان از سرشان افتاد؛ چرا كه حالا در به در به دنبال نيمه ى گمشده ى خود مى گشتند، و تمام دغدغه شان يافتن "او"يى است كه فقط به وسيله ى او كامل مى شوند.

نوبت که به سقراط می رسد، با دلخوری می گوید: «من گمان داشتم وقتی گفتید "از چیستی عشق بحث کنیم"، منظورتان بحث دقیق و موشکافانه بود، نه این که صرفاً به عبارت پردازی های شاعرانه بپردازیم.»
و خودش، بحثی فلسفی و زیبا در حقیقت عشق می کند. به طور خلاصه، می گوید: «به رغم آن چه که شما گفتید، عشق اصلاً زیبا نیست ، بلکه درست بر عکس: عشق در مقابل زیبایی است. عشق در حقیقت "طلب زیبایی" است ، و کسی در "طلب" زیبایی می رود که فاقد آن باشد.»

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

We may well oppose Plato’s philosophy, but no one will deny the exceptional power with which he exteriorized it. And right in the heart of this sublime work, the characters of the first alphabet with vowels shine like never before in the dialogue devoted to love that is “The Banquet.”
The festive atmosphere in which the discussion takes place gives the reader a feeling of freshness and lightness as he witnesses a debate on some of the most severe and profound subjects, such as love, the meaning of life, Beauty, and the Good. Moreover, as it has been so aptly said, “In vino veritas.” For each of the guests (except for Socrates, whose spirit is always the freest), the nature unbound by the wine will express itself there in all frankness and with more flexibility and ingenuity than it would usually do.
In the continuity of the Apology, Plato presents a perfectly chaste Socrates at his Banquet who in no way corrupts youth. On the contrary, the interruption of the discussion by Alcibiades makes it possible to show all the falsity of this accusation made against Socrates at his trial since the latter, disdaining even the body of the prettiest of young men in Athens, never pretends to seduce young people only to make them give birth to their best spiritual and moral possibilities.
On the level of the speech, Plato also realizes in his reader the same maieutic phenomenon that Socrates practiced in the streets of his city. He knows that no one can rise to morality if presented directly, but that by skillfully enticing the reader with aesthetic and light speeches, the love of Good will come to crown it all naturally. His apparent eulogy of the Dionysiac is thus transformed gradually and indeed into a complete triumph of Apollonian principles.
What an admirable success this Banquet!
Plato remains, moreover, the only author of Antiquity whose entire work has come down to us (to the extent that we put aside the hypotheses on an esoteric work that he would have distributed only among the walls of the Academy).
A true star in the sky of philosophy, but also of morality and art, Plato remains eternally present from the moment he dictated or wrote his dialogues himself, passing through the many hands of copyists and translators, then through printing presses to digital formats, from around 380 BC until today, almost 2500 years later, it continues to serve as magnificently as a landmark in the spiritual and human horizon.

[Piyangie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plato's Symposium consists of seven dialogues/speeches on the theme of "love". The seven who make the speeches are Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates, and Alcibiades. While the first five speakers eulogize love, Socrates gives a more analytical and deeper meaning to it.

From the speeches of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, and Aristophanes, we can conclude that love, according to them, was an ultimate state of happiness and goodness. Socrates, however, takes a different view. According to him, love is the "physical and mental procreation in an attractive medium". His explanation of physical and mental procreation sheds light on the way of life of Athenian upper-class society. And we see that both homoeroticism and heteroeroticism have been approved and accepted in "proper context" by the early Greeks. Physical procreation is the heterosexual part, where immortality is achieved through the medium of love by the birth of a child. Mental procreation is where homosexuality plays its role. Socrates describes this as a means of achieving virtue and becoming a philosopher (the ultimate human object according to Plato). Socrates doesn't mean sensual, physical pleasures, rather the cultivation of the mental faculties by directing the mind of the lover to achieve virtue which is true immortality. Alcibiades brings up the rear by providing an explicit explanation on homoeroticism (alluding to his relationship with Socrates) which conforms with Socrates's idea of mental procreation.

When taken out of the philosophical context, Symposium also has its importance as a work of literature. It is one of the early works of western literature on sensual erotic love. Although not explicit, sensuality and eroticism run like undercurrents throughout the text.

The text promised to be light and fun, but I had far from fun. I didn't feel it particularly light. The subject matter was too deep, and I had to work my brain to exhaustion to understand most of it. However, I was entertained by the dramatic effect of the symposium. It considerably entertained me.

More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/

[Roy Lotz · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been a long time since I first read The Symposium. That was back in university, in my freshman year course Sexuality in Literature. I admit I found it all a bit shocking: the open tolerance of sexual relationships between men and boys—wasn’t it pederasty? Even now, it is surprising to find that one of the most influential and foundational works on love in Western history is largely focused on relationships that have often been deemed illegal. Imagine what the medieval Europeans would have thought of this work, had it not been entirely inaccessible to them in Latin. Maybe they would have enjoyed the notion of spiritual, Platonic love, but I doubt they would have liked Alcibiades’ intrusion.

Well, after re-reading this little dialogue, I can only concur with the verdict of the crowd: that this is one of Plato’s most perfect works. Indeed, it is among the handful of Plato’s works that is arguably more valuable as literature than as philosophy. Plato was a writer in perfect control of his craft; and even little detail of this short dialogue bursts with life. The reader feels as if she is really there, eavesdropping on a bunch of drunken Athenians as they extemporize on love.

Further, organizing the dialogue as a sequence of speeches, and not as a dialogue between Socrates and an interlocutor, effectively reduces the sometimes unpleasant aspect of Plato’s works—of Socrates forcing his way through an awkward argument, as his admirers assent to his every fallacious deduction. Plato here shows us a genuine diversity of opinions and styles, proving himself a versatile writer. His portrayal of Aristophanes is particularly charming and memorable, a gentle counter to Aristophanes’ satirical portrayal of Socrates in The Clouds. And for anyone who has ever been in love, I suspect that Aristophanes’ little myth will be far more resonant than the ideal love described by Socrates.

[sAmAnE · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب ضیافت یکی از مهم‌ترین روایت‌ها درباره‌ی عشق است. سقراط و دوستانش به مناسبت چاپ کتاب شعری در یک مهمانی جمع می‌شوند. بعد از مراسم جشن سقراط از آن‌ها می‌خواهد نظرشان را در مورد عشق بگویند و هرکسی نظرش را میدهد. تا اینکه یکی از آن‌ها میگه که زمانی هر آدمی زوج بهم پیوسته بوده و از هر چیزی، دست، پا ... دو تا داشته و به صورت کره بوده است، خدایان از قدرت این‌ها نگران شده و زئوس فرمان میدهد که هر کدام از کره‌ها هدف قرار گیرند و خلاصه هر یک به دو نیمکره تبدیل می
شوند. از آن موقع می‌گویند که عشق همان جستجوی نیمکره یا نیمه‌ی گمشده است. یونگ هم از این داستان استفاده کرده و می‌گوید این دو نیمکره دو تا آدم مختلف نیستند بلکه هر دو یکی هستند، اگر مرد است نیمکره‌اش آنیمای اوست و اگر زن است نیمکره‌اش آنیموسشه. آنیما و آنیموس همان یار پنهان هر آدم.

[Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1993 a reincarnation of Plato in the form of Haddaway posed the question that had been asked two and a half thousand years ago by the original, namely, “What is love?”. I suspect that having wrestled for an answer over millennia without getting even close to a definitive answer Haddaway wisely avoided the mental gymnastics of his predecessor and chose to deflect the question by responding with a request, “Baby don’t hurt me…no more”.
If only love was as simple as the state of not being hurt we would all be happier but impoverished culturally. As it transpires, Haddaway was not as expert in these matters as the Ancient Greeks who had multiple names for the variations of love. Here we have a roll call of the great and the good (Socrates, Aristophanes, Alcibiades among them) who all take turns to shove in their two penn’orth on the subject. Is love the physical erotic love embodied by Aphrodite, is love the appreciation of that which is good or that which is beautiful? Does beauty derive from the possessor’s inherent goodness? Is love the spur to achieving greatness or spiritual fulfilment? Who is the more worthy in a love affair – the lover or the beloved (and interesting question because, whether we care to acknowledge it or not, in every romantic couple there is one who loves more)? There is even a display of the most painful of loves – the obsessive unrequited. Can those two adjectives be separated when it comes to love?
Everyone has felt, enjoyed or suffered love and this is a very human and humane series of declamations on the highs, lows and vagaries of a driving force in most people’s lives. If you are tired of modern love manuals telling you not to phone before waiting 3 days, how to enforce boundaries and quizzes to find out if you are co-dependent read this because you will realise that love is all things to all men, unchanging over millennia and yet still indefinable and incomprehensible and that is somehow more reassuring than imagining that love can be reduced to a series of rules.

[د.سيد (نصر برشومي) · Rating 4 out of 5]

في حب سقراط
أو المثل التي تحملها شخصية سقراط
أو الأمنيات التي يحلم أفلاطون بوجودها
أو الجمال الذي يسري في حوار الصحبة
أو الكلمات المتأنقة التي تتلاحق لتتعانق في حديث صادق
أو الحصة الراقية التي تعرض الدرس بعبقرية تعدد الأصوات
أفلاطون ليس فيلسوفا إنما روائي فذ
يجمع شخصياته ويحدد سماتها وعلاقاتها ومنطوق كل منها
ويتحدث تحت الأقنعة بفكر لا ينتهي
لأن حضور الأحبة في الخيال رائع
أفلاطون علامة ثقافية للحب الروحي
الحب الذي تتدفق فيه المشاعر في حوار
الحوار الأفلاطوني رمز لقيمة العاطفة
في صياغة الفكر الذي يقيم المدن الفاضلة
ولو كانت في الخيال
تصل بين شخصين فقط

[Valeriu Gherghel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ia să văd ce-mi mai amintesc. Nu foarte mult...

A. Mai mulți bărbați (no woman, no cry) se adună, în anul 416 î.e.n., pentru un festin (organizat de Agathon). Festinul va rămîne pînă la sfîrșit ascetic, participanții vor cultiva doar plăcerile spiritului. Așadar, e un banchet al înțelepților, al cetățenilor subțiri. În grecește, participanții la un astfel de banchet se numeau Sympotes.
B. Tradiția banchetului se va păstra pînă în vremea lui Aulus Gellius (120 - 180 e.n.). În Noctes Atticae, Gellius menționează mai multe întîlniri de acest fel.
C. Dialogul consemnează șase discursuri despre Eros, șase logoi erotikoi.

i) Doar erosul îi împinge pe un individ să se jertfească pentru altul. Jertfa de sine e „un ingredient al relației erotice” (Phaidros).
ii) Erosul e frumos pentru că îl face pe cel iubit mai înțelept și mai bun (Pausanias);
iii) El este o forță cosmică. Peste multe secole, așa îl va prezenta și Dante Alighieri (Paradisul, XXXIII, v. 145): „L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle” (Eriximach).
iv) La origine, au existat trei specii de creaturi foarte violente: barbat/barbat, femeie/femeie și androgin. Zeus și Apollo au hotărît să le înjumătățească și, din milă, le-au dăruit dorința reunirii. Cînd două jumătăți se întîlnesc, simt fericirea inexprimabilă a iubirii Aristophan).
v) Eros e cel mai norocos, frumos, tînăr și virtuos dintre zei (Agaton).
vi) Cel aflat sub puterea erosului dorește ceea ce nu are: nu poți iubi decît ceea ce nu posezi. Eros este, în realitate, un daimon. Părinții săi au fost Poros (Răzbătătorul) și Penia (Sărăcia, Lipsa). Erosul îi ajută sufletul omului să urce în lumea Formelor. Ascensiunea reprezintă o scară erotică - de la frumosul individual la Frumosul în sine (discursul preotesei Diotima din Mantineea, reprodus de Socrate).

D. Sosit mai tîrziu la banchet, Alkibiade ține și el un discurs. Socrate vrea să-i răspundă, dar colocviul este stricat de o ceată de cheflii. Obosiți de discuții, toți adorm, cu excepția lui Socrate și Aristodem:

„A adormit întîi Aristofan, apoi, cînd s-a făcut de tot lumină, și Agaton. Socrate, după ce i-a văzut cufundaţi în somn, s-a ridicat și a plecat, iar Aristodem, cum îi era obiceiul, s-a luat după el. Socrate s-a dus la Liceu și, după ce și-a făcut baia, și-a petrecut ziua ca pe oricare altă zi. Către seară a luat-o spre casă, să se odihnească” (223d, p.168-169).

[Miltos S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Από τη μία, οφείλω να υποκλιθώ στο βάθος της σκέψης του Πλάτωνα και των υπόλοιπων αρχαίων φιλοσόφων, ειδικά λαμβάνοντας υπόψιν την εποχή κατά την οποία γράφτηκαν τα κείμενα αυτά.

Από την άλλη, δεν μπορώ να μην σκεφτώ ότι τελικά, απλώς είχαν βρει έναν εκπληκτικό τρόπο για να δικαιολογήσουν την - τότε μη κοινωνικά αποδεκτή - ομοφυλοφιλία τους, αλλά και την παιδεραστία τους.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Symposium holds the key to ancient psychology. One has but to compare post-Freudian psychology's understanding of the drives with Plato's discourse on human longing here in order to measure the distance between the ancient and modern orientations to reality. It is strange for us to conceive this in the post-Darwinian, post-Freudian era, but Plato genuinely held that the longing to know is the fundamental human drive, with sexuality (the modern candidate foundational drive) being derived therefrom. What a different psychology this basic belief reveals! And with this alternate psychology Plato reveals an orientation to the world that opens up horizons entirely other to those we are accustomed to.

Plato has shown a concern for the way that our pre-rational orientation to the real feeds into and constrains our capacity to reason already in other dialogues, such as The Republic. One gets the feeling that the arch-rationalist becomes progressively haunted, in each dialogue, by the realization that what we love determines in advance the direction our rationality can take in its approach to the real. Nietzsche commented admiringly on Plato's psychological acumen evinced by his discovery that our strongest longing is the true, but hidden, master of our reason. Already with the Symposium we see that the structure of reasoning crystallizes itself around this primordial, pre-rational engagement with the real.

Early on in the dialogue, Socrates makes the rather cheeky claim that it is only the genuine philosopher who can understand the real meaning of desire. Socrates further proposes, to the incredulity of others present, that indeed, philosophy is somehow connected with the pursuit of the fulfillment of this deepest desire. And what better setting could Plato choose to prove the power of Socrates's insight into the human drives than a drinking party? Here, Socrates proves his superior capacity to harmonize and rein in his whole human capacity for feeling not merely by displaying his superior discursive prowess, but also by drinking every last one of his companions under the table by banquet's end. The banquet setting thus seems like a mock ordeal which allows Socrates to reveal his deeper mastery over his animal nature. It is the depth of his transformation of his pre-rational nature that makes him the better philosopher.

What Socrates shows us is that our longing is the hunger for completion awakened by our growing awareness of finitude. It is a drive to transcend the boundaries of our finitude through an effort to establish a relationship to a reality that is registered as being more complete than that possessed by the finite self. Socrates' famous speech on the real nature of love in this dialogue attests to the fact that our desire for sexual love is an offshoot of this primordial drive - which is part and parcel of the structure of consciousness itself - to find our fullest orientation to reality in an act of knowing that relates all that we are to a world which is for the first time experienced as a unity.

In the growth of our consciousness, we first learn to relate body to human body, immersing ourselves in the physical continuum of interchanges in a game of self-forgetful clinging to outward shadows. At this level of self-development, (according to Plato's account of the levels of understanding in the Republic) our relation is merely to the shifting outward images of being. Because we cannot conceive the unity of things at this level, we fall short of that supreme mark of reality, which is the knowledge of the unity of things. Our love at this level thus remains a game of hide-and-seek, played with ourselves as much as with one another.

But as the power of our minds grows, we cannot fail to realize deeper dimensions of our longing to relate. We now come to long for a relationship to the real established on the basis of our most characteristic capacity. We long to relate to the world on the level of mind, and we find that this relation to the world not only takes us deeper into the heart of the real. Our deepest desire is realized in the perception of the world on the level of form. This level of perception also takes us deeper into ourselves, as well as revealing the true basis for relating to one another. Our real community is a communion of minds.

Socrates proposition to us is that we are selves and lovers to the extent that we realize our true nature as knowers. And we attain realization as selves to the extent that we progress from being driven by our shadow-loving sexual love to that more comprehensive love in us that is wisdom itself. The rest of Plato's philosophy is arguably built on this psychology of self-realization.

Plato's identification (through Socrates) of Love, the Good, the Beautiful, and the True is really the best definition of the most consummate philosophic vision. In our highest reasonings, Plato's Socrates claims, these four things become one. Their union, in the actuality of an experience, is what we call wisdom, the end goal of the whole search that structures our lives from the first awakening of consciousness in infancy. Modern philosophy would be different if we operated under the same definition of reason. The greatest proof of its power, to me, is that even Nietzsche, who was its most serious critic, nonetheless pined for the loss of it. It seems that Plato's description of the goal of human development was accurate after all, even if it remains only an inescapable regulative ideal for philosophic inquiry without ever becoming a stable, humanly realizable reality.

This dialogue is worth reading if only for Alcibiades' drunkenly revealing speech expressing Socrates' effect on those poor souls, like himself, whom he manages to convert to his way of life. Surely there has been no greater portrait of the psychology of a great philosopher anywhere, nor of the effect that such a figure inevitably will have on natures less in tune with the original drive to know that structures human nature! But Alcibiades nonetheless proves himself to be Socrates' truest disciple, even as he expresses his frustration at his inability (read: unwillingness) to follow him to the end. Alcibiades poignantly shows what's in store for all of us as soon as we start to take this gig seriously: the way that Socrates represents will cleave us into two warring parts so that we become strangers to our old desires and attachments, and strangers in the world, awaiting a new birth.

[Shaghayegh.l3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

چند وقت پيش در جواب دوستم كه مى گفت دلم ميخواد عاشق بشم گفتم من اصلن نميدونم عشق چى هست ! نميدونستم كمتر از يه ماه بعد چشمم به يه همچين كتابى ميخوره و دو ساعته مى خونمش و حرفمو پس ميگيرم ..
چه كتابى ، چه توصيفاتى .. حَض كامل و ديگر هيچ .

[Matthew Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

89th book of 2021.

4.5. A 2000+ year old discussion on Love, a subject that can never tire. Though I started at 4-stars, I think I'll bump it to 5 purely on account of it lingering about in my mind since finishing, which to me is always the sign of something greater. I read for those books that possess you. Several dialogues within a "dialogue". When considering the wider context it's doubly interesting to ponder why Plato decided on the form of this text. Though the people are real there's no indication of any such evening happening or even any such speeches being given, Plato has fabricated a dinner party and dropped in Socrates, Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates and Alcibiades to drink, chat and talk. (Though Socrates is obviously a heavy-weight—why wouldn't he be?)

It's no doubt that Aristophanes' speech is perhaps the greatest of the text and has been stated by some as Plato's 'most brilliant literary achievement'. Having said that, it is within Socrates' speech that my favourite quote from the text occurs:

Later he will observe that physical beauty in any person is closely akin to physical beauty in any other, and that, if he is to make beauty of outward form the object of his quest, it is great folly not to acknowledge that the beauty exhibited in all bodies is one and the same; when he has reached this conclusion he will become a lover of all physical beauty, and will relax the intensity of his passion for one particular person, because he will realise that such a passion is beneath him and of small account. The next stage is for him to reckon beauty of soul more valuable than beauty of body...

And finally to add to the review, purely because I wish to keep it myself, this tender description of Socrates' character,

'The servant brought me water to wash before I sat down, and another servant came and said that Socrates had taken up position in a neighbour's front porch, and was standing there, deaf to all the servant's entreaties to come in. "What an odd thing," said Agathon. "Go and call him again and don't take no for an answer."
"No," I said, "let him alone. It's a way he has. He goes apart sometimes and stands still wherever he happens to be. He will come presently, I am sure; don't bother him, but let him be."

[Zaphirenia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Η επιρροή του Πλάτωνα στη διαμόρφωση της Δυτικής σκέψης είναι οπωσδήποτε καθοριστική. Ωστόσο, αυτό που θαυμάζω περισσότερο από τις ιδεαλιστικές του θεωρίες, είναι η λογοτεχνική του δεινότητα. Ο τρόπος με τον οποίο δομεί τους Διαλόγους του (σε μεγάλο βαθμό κοινός σε όλα τα έργα του) είναι αριστοτεχνικός, χωρίς να χρειάζεται να λάβουμε υπόψη ότι η λογοτεχνική παραγωγή τον 5ο αιώνα π.Χ. ήταν ακόμα μικρή (προφανώς δεν υπήρχαν ακόμα λογοτεχνικά ρεύματα, εκδότες, όγκος λογοτεχνικής παραγωγής, κλπ.). Σίγουρα ο Πλάτωνας ήταν σημαντικός φιλόσοφος, ήταν όμως και μεγάλος μαέστρος της τέχνης του λόγου.

Το Συμπόσιο θεωρείται ότι γράφτηκε περίπου το 385 π.Χ., ανήκει επομένως στα έργα της ωριμότητας του Πλάτωνα. Μετά τη νίκη του ποιητή Αγάθωνα στους τραγωδικούς αγώνες της Αθήνας, έχουν συγκεντρωθεί στο σπίτι του σημαντικές πνευματικές προσωπικότητες της εποχής, μεταξύ των οποίων και ο Σωκράτης. Δεκαπέντε περίπου χρόνια μετά, ο Απολλόδωρος ξεκινά να αφηγείται τι συζητήθηκε σε αυτό το συμπόσιο. Επειδή όμως ο Απολλόδωρος δεν ήταν παρών και έχουν περάσει πολλά χρόνια από το γεγονός, προειδοποιεί τον ανώνυμο ακροατή του (και μαζί μ' αυτόν και εμάς) ότι κάποια πράγματα μπορεί να μην έγιναν ακριβώς έτσι ή να έχει παραλείψει ορισμένα μέρη του διαλόγου, θα κάνει πάντως το καλύτερο που μπορεί.

Μετά από παραίνεση του Φαίδρου, επιλέγεται το κεντρικό θέμα του διαλόγου: ο έρωτας. Ένας-ένας οι παρευρισκόμενοι ξεκινούν να πλέκουν το εγκώμιο του θεού Έρωτα και να επαινούν τις αρετές του έρωτα και τις ευεργεσίες προς τους ανθρώπους. Βεβαίως δε μιλάμε για τον έρωτα γενικά, αλλά συγκεκριμένα τον έρωτα μεταξύ "εραστή" και "ερωμένου", τον έρωτα που γεννιέται και δημιουργείται μεταξύ ανδρών, συνηθέστατα μεταξύ ενός μεγαλύτερου άνδρα και ενός νεότερου αγοριού.

Κατά τα συνήθη στους πλατωνικούς διαλόγους, αφού οι συνομιλητές του Σωκράτη τοποθετηθούν και αναπτύξουν όλα τους τα επιχειρήματα, έρχεται ο ίδιος ο Σωκράτης στο προσκήνιο, ο οποίος μέσω της διαλεκτικής του μεθόδου καταρρίπτει όσα προηγήθηκαν και θεμελιώνει τη θεωρία του περί έρωτος, η βάση της οποίας ασφαλώς (γιατί δεν πρέπει να ξεχνάμε ποιος μιλάει μέσω του Σωκράτη) είναι ιδεαλιστική. Κάθε νέος ομιλητής προσθέτει κάτι στο λόγο του προηγούμενου, συμπληρώνει ή διορθώνει μία πτυχή της ανάλυσής του, ώστε όταν πλέον μιλά ο Αγάθωνας (τελευταίος πριν το Σωκράτη) έχει δημιουργηθεί μία πλήρης εικόνα του θέματος, την οποία θα κληθεί να αποδομήσει ο Σωκράτης.

Υπάρχουν πάντως και ορισμένες ιδιαιτερότητες του Συμποσίου σε σχέση με τους άλλους διαλόγους. Πρώτον, ο Σωκράτης δεν μιλάει για τον εαυτό του, αλλά μεταφέρει τα λόγια της μάντισσας Διοτίμας. Οι ερωτήσεις που υποβάλει ο Σωκράτης στους συνομιλητές του (και συγκεκριμένα στον Αγάθωνα, που είναι ο τελευταίος που μιλά πριν από αυτόν) είναι ελάχιστες. Αντίθετα, οι περισσότερες ερωτήσεις υποβάλλονται στον ίδιο το Σωκράτη διά στόματος Διοτίμας. Βλέπουμε δηλαδή ότι εδώ ο Σωκράτης δεν είναι το υποκείμενο της μαιευτικής και της διαλεκτικής αλλά το αντικείμενο της μεθόδου που ο ίδιος χρησιμοποιεί στους άλλους, μπαίνει στη θέση του συνομιλητή που πείθεται από τα επιχειρήματα της Διοτίμας και μετά απλώς μεταφέρει τη γνώση που του έχει μεταδώσει και στους υπόλοιπους. Μία δεύτερη διαφορά, είναι ότι ο διάλογος δε λήγει με την ανάλυση του Σωκράτη, αλλά συνεχίζεται όταν στο σπίτι του Αγάθωνα καταφτάνει μεθυσμένος ο Αλκιβιάδης. Ο Αλκιβιάδης, αφού ενημερώνεται για το θέμα της συζήτησης, αποφασίζει να πλέξει το εγκώμιο όχι του Έρωτα αλλά του ίδιου του Σωκράτη.

Πρώτος ξεκινά ο Φαίδρος, ως εισηγητής του θέματος: Ο Έρωτας, λέει ο Φαίδρος, είναι ο αρχαιότερος θεός, που οδηγεί τους ανθρώπους στις ευγενικότερες και πιο ανδρείες πράξεις γιατί όποιος είναι ερωτευμένος ντρέπεται να δείχνει άνανδρος ή να κάνει κακές πράξεις μπροστά στο αντικείμενο του πόθου του. Οι θεοί επιβραβεύουν τις μεγάλες πράξεις που κινούνται από την επιθυμία ενός άνδρα να τον θαυμάζει ο εραστής του.

Δεύτερο�� μιλά ο Παυσανίας, ο εραστής του Αγάθωνα: Επιχειρώντας να συμπληρώσει την ομιλία του Φαίδρου, προβαίνει σε μία διάκριση. Κατά τον Παυσανία, υπάρχουν δύο θεοί. Ο πρώτος είναι ο "πάνδημος" έρωτας, αυτός που πηγάζει από τη σωματική επιθυμία και ο δεύτερος είναι ο "ουράνιος", αυτός που πηγάζει από την ψυχή και οδηγεί στα ανώτερα συναισθήματα μεταξύ των ανδρών. Κατά τον Παυσανία, καμία πράξη δεν είναι εξ ορισμού κακή, αλλά ο χαρακτηρισμός της εξαρτάται από τον τρόπο με τον οποίο ασκείται. Ο έρωτας λοιπόν είναι καλός όταν είναι ουράνιος, όταν ασκείται με καλό τρόπο και με άξιο εραστή και οδηγεί στην αρετή. Ένα παιδί που γίνεται ερωμένος άξιου εραστή θα αποκτήσει γνώσεις από αυτόν και θα μορφωθεί, καθώς ο εραστής θα συμβάλει στη διαμόρφωση του χαρακτήρα του και την εκπαίδευσή του. Κατά τον Παυσανία, αυτός είναι ο καλός έρωτας, ο δικαιολογημένος και επιθυμητός.

Στη συνέχεια, ο Ερυξίμαχος, ως γιατρός, σωματικοποιεί τον έρωτα. Διαφοροποιώντας τη θέση του από εκείνη του Παυσανία, ότι δηλαδή ο έρωτας είναι μόνο ψυχικός, υποστηρίζει ότι ο έρωτας κυβερνά την ιατρική και τη μουσική και ότι ο πάνδημος έρωτας έχει την αξία του, καθώς οδηγεί στην κάρπωση της ηδονής. Η ηδονή για τον Ερυξίμαχο είναι καλός σκοπός, όταν δεν οδηγεί στην ακολασία. Επομένως, το ζητούμενο είναι να υφίσταται ισορροπία μεταξύ του πάνδημου και του ουράνιου έρωτα.

Ο Αριστοφάνης, παίρνοντας το λόγο, διηγείται ένα μύθο. Ο μύθος μας είναι γνωστός, στα παλιά τα χρόνια οι άνθρωποι είχαν στρογγυλό σχήμα και είχαν όλα τα μέλη τους διπλά (4 χέρια, 4 πόδια, 2 κεφάλια, διπλά γεννητικά όργανα, κοκ). Είχαν όμως μεγάλη έπαρση και ο Δίας τους χώρισε στη μέση, έκτοτε δε όλοι οι άνθρωποι αναζητούν το άλλο τους μισό, αυτό που τους στέρησε η οργή του θεού. Επειδή λοιπόν τότε τα γένη ήταν τρία (αρσενικό, θηλυκό και ανδρόγυνο), η ερωτική επιθυμία διαμορφώνεται ανάλογα με την προέλευση του κάθε ανθρώπου από ένα από τα τρία γένη. Όσοι άνδρες προέρχονται από το ανδρόγυνο γένος, έλκονται από τις γυναίκες. Αντίθετα, όσοι προέρχονται από το αρσενικό, επιθυμούν να πλαγιάζουν με άνδρες, είναι δε αυτοί που τελικά, όντας αρρενοπώτεροι (άλλα ήθη), όταν μεγαλώνουν γίνονται οι μεγάλοι πολιτικοί άνδρες. Εδώ λοιπόν ο Αριστοφάνης διατυπώνει την πιο διαδεδομένη άποψη για τον έρωτα: ότι οδηγεί στην ολοκλήρωση του ανθρώπου όταν βρίσκει το άλλο του μισό.

Ο Αγάθων, μετά τον Αριστοφάνη, επισημαίνει ότι όλοι μίλησαν για την επίδραση που έχει ο έρωτας στον άνθρωπο, κανείς όμως δεν τον όρισε, δεν είπε τι και ποιος είναι ο έρωτας. Επιχειρώντας λοιπόν να τον ορίσει ο ίδιος, μας λέει ότι ο Έρωτας δεν είναι ο αρχαιότερος θεός, όπως είπε ο Φαίδρος, αλλά ο νεότερος και ομορφότερος. Δεν αδικεί ούτε αδικείται, όλες οι ηδονές κυριαρχούνται από αυτόν. Ο έρωτας εμπνέει τη δημιουργία όχι μόνο στις καλές αλλά και στις πρακτικές τέχνες.

Εδώ τελειώνει το πρώτο μέρος του διαλόγου και ξεκινά το δεύτερο. Ο Σωκράτης, αφού κάνει μερικές ερωτήσεις στον Αγάθωνα, ξεκινά να διηγείται τι του δίδαξε η Διοτίμα. Ο έρωτας επιθυμεί τα καλά και τα ωραία, επομένως δεν είναι ούτε καλός ούτε ωραίος, όπως λέει ο Αγάθων, γιατί βέβαια κανείς δεν μπορεί να επιθυμεί ό,τι έχει ήδη. Επομένως, ούτε θεός μπορεί να είναι ο έρωτας, αφού οι θεοί σίγουρα είναι και καλοί και αγαθοί. Είναι επομένως ο έρωτας ένας δαίμων (γιος του Πόρου και της Πενίας), που μεσολαβεί μεταξύ θεών και ανθρώπων, βοηθώντας τους θνητούς να μετέχουν στο θεϊκό στοιχείο. Και πώς γίνεται αυτό; Μέσω της γέννησης μέσα στο ωραίο, γιατί μέσα στην ασχήμια τίποτα δεν μπορεί να γεννηθεί. Με τη γέννηση, που είναι αιώνια και αθάνατη για τους θνητούς, ο άνθρωπος αφήνει στη θέση του κάτι νέο. Αυτός είναι και ο λόγος, συνεχίζει η μάντισσα, που οι άνθρωποι κάνουν γενναίες πράξεις, προκειμένου να μένει η αιώνια ανάμνηση της αρετής τους.

Συνεχίζοντας, η Διοτίμα κάνει μια διάκριση. Οι άνθρωποι που εγκυμονούν τη γέννηση στο σώμα στρέφονται προς την παιδογονία και με τον τρόπο αυτό, αφήνοντας απογόνους, μετέχουν στην αθανασία. Αντίθετα, όσοι εγκυμονούν στην ψυχή ασχολούνται με τη δημιουργία, ανώτερη μορφή της οποίας είναι η σωφροσύνη και η δικαιοσύνη (η ενασχόληση δηλαδή με τα κοινά). Και επειδή η γέννηση μόνο μέσα στο ωραίο μπορεί να γίνει, οι άνδρες γεννούν μεγάλα έργα μέσω της επαφής με το ωραίο σώμα και την καθοδήγηση και την εκπαίδευση που λαμβάνουν από τον εραστή τους. Όταν κάποιος δε δει το ωραίο σώμα, θα πρέπει να αντιληφθεί ότι αυτό έχει μικρότερη σημασία όταν και η ψυχή είναι ωραία και ακόμα περισσότερο όταν οι συνήθειες του εραστή είναι καλές και οι γνώσεις του επίσης. Και καταλήγει η μάντισσα Διοτίμα ότι η ανώτερη γνώση που κατακτά κανείς μέσω του έρωτα είναι η γνώση της ιδέας της ομορφιάς. Μέσω του έρωτα δηλαδή ο άνθρωπος κατακτά το αγαθό της ομορφιάς.

Εδώ τελειώνει ο λόγος του Σωκράτη και εισέρχεται, μεθυσμένος και υποβασταζόμενος από μία αυλητρίδα, ο Αλκιβιάδης, για να στεφανώσει με κορδέλες τον Αγάθωνα για τη μεγάλη του επιτυχία στους αγώνες. Ο διάλογος κλείνει με το εγκώμιο του Αλκιβιάδη για το Σωκράτη. Τον παρομοιάζει τον με ένα Σειληνό, ο οποίος εξωτερικά είναι άσχημος αλλά μέσα του κρύβει την απόλυτη ομορφιά, η οποία γίνεται αντιληπτή μέσω του λόγου του. Εκφράζει την αναπόδραστη ερωτική έλξη που του ασκεί ο Σωκράτης και κλείνει με την προσωπική του μαρτυρία για την ανδρεία του (ο Πλάτωνας μας λέει ότι ο Σωκράτης έσωσε τον Αλκιβιάδη στη μάχη της Ποτίδαιας), την πνευματική του δύναμη και τη σωφροσύνη του.

Το Συμπόσιο, θεωρώ, είναι από τα πιο πολυδιάστατα έργα της αρχαιοελληνικής γραμματείας αλλά και ένα δείγμα αριστοτεχνικής δόμησης του έργου. Ο τρόπος με τον οποίο τοποθετούνται τα πρόσωπα του διαλόγου, οι λόγοι τους, οι εναλλαγές των επιχειρημάτων, είναι τέλειος στην απλότητά του. Η ροή κάθε λόγου είναι συνεχής, αλλά ο Πλάτωνας επεμβαίνει σε συγκεκριμένα σημεία προκειμένου να επαναφέρει το διάλογο και να συνυφάνει όλους τους λόγους των συνομιλητών πριν την κορύφωση του πλατωνικού ιδεαλισμού που ενσαρκώνει ο λόγος του Σωκράτη.

[Robert Khorsand · Rating 5 out of 5]

گفتار اندر ستایشِ محمدعلی فروغی
این کتاب با ۳۵صفحه دیباجه به قلمِ آقای «محمدعلی فروغی» آغاز می‌گردد.
اعتراف می‌کنم برای بار دوم است که شیفته‌ی یک دیباجه می‌شوم، نخستین بار پس از خواندنِ «افسانه‌های تبای» با ترجمه‌ی بی‌نظیر و شاهکارِ آقای «شاهرخِ مسکوب» بود که کتاب دارای یک دیباجه و موخره‌ای غیرقابل توصیف بود که از دیدِ من ارزشِ ادبیِ‌ آن کمتر از خود تراژدی نبود و دومین بار هنگام و پس از مطالعه‌ی این دیباجه.
در دیباجه‌ای که به قلمِ محمدعلی فروغی در این کتاب به چاپ رسیده است، از سرگذشت و زندگانیِ افلاطون، اصل و نسبِ او، تعبیرِ خوابِ سقراط و مرگِ او، سفرهای افلاطون، چگونگیِ تاسیسِ نخستین آکادمی توسطِ افلاطون و حضورِ ارسطو در آن، روش‌های تدریس افلاطون، آثار افلاطون، ویژگی‌های رسائلِ افلاطون و چگونگیِ آثارش، ویژگی‌های فلسه‌ی افلاطون و... برای خواننده اطلاعات بسیار با ارزشی به ارمغان آورده است.
از این جهت ضمنِ تشکرِ صمیمانه از ایشان برای روحشان آرزوی شادی و مغفرت می‌نمایم.

گفتار اندر معرفیِ کتاب
ضیافت، عنوانِ فارسی و ترجمه‌شده‌ی رساله‌ی «شب‌نشینی یا مهمانی» از افلاطون است که توسطِ آقای «محمدابراهیم امینی‌فرد» ترجمه و نهایتا توسطِ «انتشارات جامی» چاپ و منتشر گردیده است.
متنِ ترجمه‌ی کتاب روان و بدون مشکل یا هرگونه پیچیدگی‌ِ ادبی‌ست و از دیدِ‌ من خواننده هنگامِ خواندنِ این رساله دچار دلزدگی یا کسالت نمی‌گردد.
از معرفی نام و مترجمِ کتاب که بگذرم باید عرض کنم که این رساله یکی از سی و اندی رساله‌ی تاییدِ اصالت شده‌ی افلاطون است.
شیوه‌ی نگارشِ رساله‌های افلاطون بسیار جالب است، او معتقد بود خواندنِ کتاب به قلم‌های مرسوم نمی‌تواند باعثِ‌ آگاهی خواننده شود مگر آنکه به شکلِ یک گفتگو نگارش شود، به همین دلیل رساله‌های او به فیلم‌نامه‌های تئاتر شباهت بسیاری دارند و عمدتا از گفتگوی او با چند نفر نگارش شده است.

گفتار اندر معرفیِ شخصیت‌ها
فدروس
پوزانیاس
آروکسی ماخوس
آریستوفانس
آگاتون
سقراط
آلکیبیادس
گروهی شراب‌خوار

گفتار اندر داستانِ‌ کتاب
آگاتون به واسطه‌ی نوشتنِ یک تراژدی به شهرت و محبوبیت رسیده بود و به همین منظور ضیافتی ترتیب می‌دهد و دوستان و نزدیکانِ اهلِ حکمتِ خود را از جمله فدروس، پوزانیاس، آروکسی ماخوس، اریستوفانس، آگاتون، سقراط، آلکیبیادس و ... را به آن ضیافت دعوت می‌کند.
پس از صرف شام، آگاتون موضوعِ بحث و گفتگو را به پیشنهادِ «فدروس»(یکی از حاضرینِ جمع) «عشق» تعیین می‌کند چون از نظرِ فدروس شاعرانِ یونانی در آن دوران در وصف و ستایش هر چیزی شعر سروده بودند جز عشق و ستایشِ «اروس»(خدایِ عشق) و نهایتا حاضرین نیز موافقت می‌کنند که در موردِ آن به بحث و گفتگو بنشینند.
به ترتیبِ نام‌های ذکر شده در فوق، هر کدام در توصیفِ عشق سخن‌وری می‌کنند تا اینکه نوبت به سقراط می‌رسد و ... .
پس از اتمامِ صحبت‌های سقراط نیز ناگهان «آلکیبیادس» مست و خراب به شرحی که در کتاب می‌خوانیم وارد مجلس می‌شود و شروع به ستایش و نقدِ سقراط می‌پردازد... .

نقل‌قول نامه
"تا سرانجامِ کسی را ندانی، نمی‌توان حکم کرد که خوشبخت است یا نیست. (سولون)"

"چه خوب بود اگر حکمت همانندِ آب می‌بود که چون ��ز یک ظرف لبریز گردد بتواند به رفِ خالیِ‌دیگری ریخته شود. تا هر دو به اندازه‌ی یکدیگر از هم بهره‌مند شوند. (سقراط)"

"بدبختیِ آدم‌های نادان در این است که خود را دانا می‌شمارند."

"میان دانایی و نادانی فاصله وجود دارد. باورِ درستی که نتواند منطقِ خود را ثابت کند، دانایی نیست اما چون شناختِ به حقیقت است، نادانی هم نمی‌باشد و این فاصله‌ی میانِ دانایی و نادانی است. (سقراط)"

کارنامه
این کتاب به شدت خواندنی‌ست اما از آن دسته از کتاب‌هایی‌ست که باید در زمانِ‌ مناسب و با تمرکزِ کافی خوانده شود تا مفاهیمِ بنیادین و فلسفیِ آن‌را درک کرد، خواندنِ این کتابِ ارزشمند را به نمامِ‌ دوستانِ‌ اهلِ مطالعه‌ی خود پیشنهاد می‌کنم و ۵ستاره برای آن منظور می‌کنم.

بیست و یکم اردیبهشت‌ماه یک‌هزار و چهارصد

[Fatemeh sherafati · Rating 4 out of 5]

خیلی کتاب خوبی بود.. زیاد پیش اومده بود که بشنوم سقراط از شیوه ی پرسش و پاسخ استفااده می کنه برای بحث کردن.. تو این کتاب اولین بار این دیدم چطور و چقدر هوشمندانه این کار رو انجام میده..

داستان کتاب در مورد ضیافتیه که برگزار شده و بحث عشق میان حضار پیش میاد. که اول هر کدوم از حاضرین نظرشون رو می گن، و در نهایت سقراط، به طرز دلنشینی از عشق صحبت می کنه که واقعا دوست دارم یک بار دیگه سطرهای مربوط به سقراط رو بخونم.

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Never Met a Physician Who Wasn’t Descended from a Greek

This might just be the work that put the "meta-" (at least the "metafiction") in "metaphysics".

Plato’s name is attached to it, but its principal focus is Socrates. And guess what? Socrates doesn’t so much elaborate on his own views as (1) recount the views of others (especially those of the female philosopher Diotima) and (2) indirectly reveal his views by his conduct and his responses to the views of others (especially the taunts of Alcibiades).

Even the concept of "Platonic Love" could possibly be more accurately attributed to Socrates, but more likely to Diotima.

In fact, I wonder whether this work proves that the Greek understanding of Love (as we comprehend it) actually owes more to women than men.

The Epismetology of the Word "Symposium"

Despite being familiar with the word for decades, I had no idea that "symposium" more or less literally means a "drinking party" or "to drink together".

In Socrates’ time, it was like a toga party for philosophers.

It’s great that this learned tradition was reinvigorated by Pomona College in 1953. How appropriate that Pomona was the Roman goddess of fruitful abundance. Of course, many of us will remember our first experience of a toga party from the film "Animal House".

More recently, perhaps in tribute to the film, the concept has transformed into a "frat party" (notice the derivation from the masculine word "fraternity"), which Urban Dictionary defines in its own inimitable way:

"A sausage fest with douchebag frat boys who let a lot of girls in and hardly any guys so they can slip date rape drugs into the girls’ drinks and have sex with them because obviously they can't rely on their charm."

If you substitute philosophers for frat boys, young boys for young girls, and wine and mead for date rape drugs, then you have the recipe for "The Symposium".

Alcohol-Free Daze

I should mention one other aspect of the plot (sorry about the spoiler, but the work is 2,400 years old today, so you've had enough time to catch up), and that is that Socrates appears to have attended two symposia over the course of two consecutive days.

In those days, future philosophers were counselled to embrace alternating alcohol-free days.

In breach of this medical advice, Socrates and his confreres turn up to this Symposium hung-over from the previous night. As a result, there was more talking than drinking.

If this had just been your run-of-the-mill Saturday Night Live Symposium, it’s quite possible that the legacy of this particular night might never have eventuated. Instead, we have inherited a tradition of Greek Love, Platonic Love, Socratic Method and Alcohol-Free Tutorials.

An Artist in Comedy as Well as Tragedy

One last distraction before I get down to Love:

It has always puzzled readers that "The Symposium" ends with a distinct change of tone as the feathered cocks begin to crow and the sun rises on our slumber party:

"Aristodemus was only half awake, and he did not hear the beginning of the discourse; the chief thing which he remembered was Socrates compelling the other two to acknowledge that the genius of comedy was the same with that of tragedy, and that the true artist in tragedy was an artist in comedy also."

Researchers at the University of Adelaide now speculate that what Socrates was saying was, "When you’re pissed, nobody can tell whether you’re serious or joking."

There is still some contention as to whether Socrates was referring to the inebriation of the artist or the audience.

Anyway, it remains for us to determine how serious this Socratic Dialogue on Love should be taken.

Togas on? Hey, Ho! Let’s go!

The Mocking Socrates’ Easy Touch

OK, so the tale starts with Apollodorus telling a companion a story that he had heard from Aristodemus (who had once before narrated it to Glaucon, who had in turn mentioned it to the companion – are you with me?).

The tale concerns a Symposium at the House of Agathon. On the way, Socrates drops "behind in a fit of abstraction" (this is before the days of Empiricism) and retires "into the portico of the neighbouring house", from which initially "he will not stir".

When he finally arrives, he is too hung-over to drink or talk, so he wonders whether "wisdom could be infused by touch, out of the fuller into the emptier man, as water runs through wool out of a fuller cup into an emptier one."

Addressing his host, he adds, "If that were so, how greatly should I value the privilege of reclining at your side!"

As often seems to be the fate of flirts, Agathon rebuffs him, "You are mocking, Socrates."

Instead, it is agreed that each of the attendees will regale the withered assembly with their views on Love.

Phaedrus (on Reciprocity)

Phaedrus speaks of the reciprocity of Love and how it creates a state of honour between Lover and Beloved. A state or army consisting of lovers whose wish was to emulate each other would abstain from dishonor, become inspired heroes, equal to the bravest, and overcome the world.

Phaedrus also asserts that the gods admire, honour and value the return of love by the Beloved to his Lover, at least in a human sense, more than the love shown by the Lover for the Beloved.

Paradoxically, this is because the love shown by the Lover is "more divine, because he is inspired by God".

I had to have an alcohol-free day before I understood this subtle distinction, so don’t worry if you’re having trouble keeping up.

Pausanius (on the Heavenly and the Common)

Pausanius argues that there are two types of Love that need to be analysed: the common and the heavenly (or the divine).

The "common" is wanton, has no discrimination, "is apt to be of women as well as youths, and is of the body rather than of the soul".

In contrast, heavenly love is of youths:

"...they love not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow…and in choosing young men to be their companions, they mean to be faithful to them, and pass their whole life in company with them."

This love is disinterested (it is not "done from any motive of interest, or wish for office or power") and involves both honourable attachment and virtuous service.

Eryximachus (on the Healthy and the Diseased)

Eryximachus, a physician, defines Love in terms of both the soul and the body.

He distinguishes two kinds of love: the desire of the healthy and the desire of the diseased. These two are opposites, and the role of the physician is to harmonise or "reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution", by analogy with music, which is an "art of communion".

Aristophanes (on "The Origin of Love")

Aristophanes explains the origin of the gender and sexuality of mankind in terms of three beings, one of which was a double-male (now separated into homosexual men), one a double female (now separated into homosexual women) and the third an androgynous double (now separated into heterosexual male and female) by Zeus:

"...the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover’s intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment ...human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love."

Agathon (on Beauty)

Agathon praises the god of love first and then his gift. Love in the form of Temperance is the master of pleasures and desires. It "empties men of disaffection and fills them with affection." Love is concerned with Beauty.

Socrates (on Good)

Socrates approaches the topic of Love by asking questions, for example, "whether Love is the Love of something or nothing?"

Socrates elicits the answer that Love wants Beauty and in doing so it wants what is Good.

He then quotes Diotima extensively.

The Pizmotality of Diotima

Diotima, by a process that we would now call the Socratic Method, leads Socrates to the conclusion that Love is the love of the "everlasting possession of the Good". We seek Good, so that we can maintain it eternally. "Love is of immortality."

Because Man is mortal, our way of achieving eternity or immortality of possession is the generation or birth of Beauty.

We achieve immortality by way of fame and offspring.

Diotima argues that Beauty applies to both the soul and the body. However, the "Beauty of the Mind is more honourable than the Beauty of the outward Form."

She advocates the contemplation of "Beauty Absolute":

"...a Beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible – you only want to look at them and to be with them…[you would not be] clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life..."

Socrates does not reveal how else Diotima tutored him in the art and science of Love or whether she herself was a Beauty Absolute whose appeal was greater than that of boys and youths.



Alciabades (on Indifference)

At this point, the younger Alciabades speaks. He is equal parts frat and prat, he is evidently "in love" with Socrates, and seems intent on complaining that Socrates has resisted his sexual advances. Even though Alciabades had slept a night with "this wonderful monster in my arms... he was so superior to my solicitations...I arose as from the couch of a father or an elder brother."

It is clear that Socrates has no affection for the mind of Alciabades, no matter what he might think of his body. He teases him by proposing that Socrates and Agathon share a couch for the night.

The Pompatus of Love

And that's how it ends, but for the discussion of Comedy and Tragedy.

If this had been a PowerPoint Presentation, Socrates, Plato and I would have told you what we were going to say, then say it, and end by telling you what we had just said.

But because this work is pre-Microsoft, I will end this disquisition here, largely because I want to read Plato’s complementary work on Love, "Phaedrus", and see what more he has to say about Socrates, this mentor of frat boys who was so much more than a picker, a grinner, a lover and a sinner.

Only then will I be able to speak more definitively of the Pompatus of Love.


VERSE:

The Object of Love
[According to Aristophanes]

I would love
To find One,
An Other,
So we could
Each love one
Another,
In divine
Unity.


SOUNDTRACK:

Steve Miller Band – "The Joker"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89QliW...

Hedwig and the Angry Inch - "The Origin of Love"

Scroll to 3:57 for video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29fiaL...

Hedwig and the Angry Inch - "The Origin of Love"

Spanish subtitles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTTNJZ...

John Cameron Mitchell on "The Origin of Love"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hu4UL...

Carol Zou - Animation of "The Origin of Love"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BgvD0...

StickdudeSeven - Animation of "The Origin of Love"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HgJ6x...

FoxmanProductions - Animation of "The Origin of Love"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvcX_m...

Jinkx Monsoon - "The Origin of Love" [Live with cocktail glass]

Starts at 2:50 (but the intro is fun):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFbC6k...

Jinkx Monsoon - "The Origin of Love" [Live at the 2013 Capital Pride Festival]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQBSB...

Rufus Wainwright - "The Origin of Love"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYQGgl...

Robyn Hitchcock - "Intricate Thing"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7Av0x...

The Velvet Undergound & Nico - "Femme Fatale"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjjDmX...

Lou Reed - Sweet Jane (Live with Steve Hunter)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrMLt9...

Cowboy Junkies - "Sweet Jane" (Official Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4XVJj...

Cowboy Junkies - "Sweet Jane" (Live on Japanese TV)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ3W9i...

[7jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I chose this translation (by Robin Waterfield), and this publisher (Oxford World's Classic) - the introduction is of great help, and the text flows easily and is very understandable, and doesn't feel stiff and such.

This book's subject is a series of speeches praising Love (both of sexual and of mind-kind; the former producing sometimes children, the latter creative works and learning - the latter is more immortal and superior in author's opinion). The book ends with useful notes and a name index that shines light on the party guests and names popping up in conversations. Plato wrote the book between 385-378 BC (most likely around 380 BC).

Plato sets this imagined high-society dinner-part in Athens, 416 BC, which is told about to others just after the death of one of the guests, Alcibades, in 404 BC. Other guests include the comic poet Aristophanes (who of course gets the funny hiccups that is cured with sneezing), and Plato's teacher, Socrates, who gets to be the giver of Plato's opinion on the subject (Socrates himself gets it from not-certain-if-existed person that is Diotima, a wise woman).

I liked this quote: "On the other hand, ignorant people don't love knowledge or desire wisdom either, because the trouble with ignorance is precisely that if a person lacks virtue and knowledge, he's perfectly satisfied with the way he is. If a person isn't aware of a lack, he can't desire the thing which he isn't aware of lacking."

Seven speeches are heard: Socrates' turn comes at the end, but when Alcibades bursts into the part, he gives one more speech, praising Socrates, and clearly showing that to him, the mind-part of Love is more of a stranger; he doesn't really get why Socrates rejects his advances. (Alcibades comes to a bad end in exile, murdered by the Persians; Socrates, as we know from history, gets a death sentence, having to drink poison).

But all ends well in this story: people leave the party, some sleep to the next morning, and Socrates goes back to the Lyceum (gymnasium and public baths) in the morning as usual (he has a good alcohol tolerance). We get a great dinner-party conversation about love, that hold surprisingly noble, interesting thoughts to carry with us to life.

[Harris Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I arrived at ‘The Symposium’, by Plato, through Milan Kundera’s ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’. Kundera’s mega-hit fell a bit flat for me, but writing a piece that included an appreciation of androgyny, I was taken by his mention of Plato’s reference to a myth about hermaphrodism.

The excellent introduction, in this edition by Christopher Gill, gives the historical context of symposiums in Ancient Greece. The symposiums were a male prerogative for high-ranking individuals. The attendees would be regaled with music, dance, and the opportunity for pederasty, as young men would accept and offer affection, as the participants reclined, were fanned, ate grapes, and got inebriated. Inebriation oiled the wheels that loosened inhibitions, so participants were more likely to postulate and expound on a chosen theme. The theme of Plato’s Symposium was love, and we’re presented with seven speeches on the theme of love by the gathering. 

Some of the speeches were a little frivolous or highly speculative, others labyrinthine, though the language of ‘The Symposium’ is always accessible. One of the most notable is Pausanias’, which presents the case for older men having relationships with younger men, but not boys as is commonly supposed, the determiner being that they had passed through pubescence. He postulated that these homoerotic relationships had greater value than the heterosexual ones. After, Socrates relates how Diotima told him that men of a young age start with an attraction to beautiful bodies (think of youngsters theiving Playboy from the top shelf when the shopkeeper's back is turned), and then … well, they're satisfied with any ship in a storm! Gradually, this becomes a nobler quest for beautiful minds (I suspect many never reach this stage), and then an unquenchable desire for knowledge, which ultimately leads to a negation of the sexual imperative through Platonic idealism. Not that in your dotage sex is irrelevant, but it is of secondary importance to developing the intellect. 

It appears that Hugh Hefner was not a fan of Socratic philosophy.

However, it was the charming exposition of androgyny and love in Aristophanes’s speech that interested me the most. He expounded, not entirely tongue in cheek, that human beings were of three types: male, female, and hermaphrodite, and composed of two halves each with their own complete set of body parts, like a Janus figurine. They tried to scale the bastions of Mount Olympus in order to challenge the Gods. Zeus, in his fury, threw thunderbolts that split each in two. From that point onwards, each half was always seeking its corresponding half; a valid definition of searching for one’s soulmate. Clearly, the original male combinations were compelled to have homosexual relationships, likewise the female combinations, lesbian relationships; only the hermaphroditic pairing would be satisfied in a heterosexual partnership.

There are some lighthearted moments. We learn that hiccups can be purged by not just by holding one’s breath or gargling with water (dropping a key down one’s back or having someone frighten you), but by the nose being tickled by a feather.

I didn’t know that.

If one is easily offended by the misogyny or sexual conduct of Athenians, then ‘The Symposium’ is best avoided. Nearly two and a half thousand years ago, sexual practices were quite different. Indeed, it was only a hundred years ago that the treatment of women was unacceptable. If changes happen so rapidly then millennia entirely upends mores, morals, and sexual offense laws! What will they think of us in the year 4525? How vulgar and perverse was it that we actually participated in physical contact when having sex? Isn’t it more gracious and intensely erotic, like a J'naii in Star Trek, to form intimate relations with telepathy and a connection of minds?

A fascinating read. Recommended. 

[امیر لطیفی · Rating 3 out of 5]

امتیاز واقعی: ۲/۵
اگر می‌خواهید برای لذت بخوانید. نخواندید هم چیزی از دست ندادید.

کتاب شیرینی است. ولی اگر دنبال نگاهی دقیق و فلسفی به عشق هستید، اشتباه آمدید.

جمعی در ضیافتی نشسته‌اند و هرکس از عشق چیزی می‌گوید. سقراط هم یکی از آن‌هاست. حرف‌ها قریب به اتفاق از شیرین‌گویی، آسمان‌ ریسمان بافتن، استعاره‌بازی و اسطوره‌گویی فراتر نمی‌رود. پخته‌ترین‌شان سقراط است. کمی دقیق‌تر سخن می‌راند ولی آن چنان هم حرف حسابی ندراد.

[blondie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Κάθε επιθυμία των καλών πραγμάτων και της ευτυχίας είναι ο μεγαλύτερος και απατηλός έρωτας κάθε ανθρώπου.

[Nikola Jankovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intelektualci antičke Atine (filozof, lekar, pisac tragedija, komediograf...) dođu na pijanku i pričaju o ljubavi, pričaju o poseti javnoj kući, a sve je postavljeno u literarno zanimljivu strukturu, nekakvu priču-u-priči-u-priči. Ne znam kako sam zamišljao Platonove dijaloge dok ih nisam čitao, ali ovako sigurno ne.

Svako od prisutnih priča o ljubavi iz svog ugla. Sjajna je priča komediografa Aristofana, a super je i uvod u nju - Aristofan mora da se reši štucanja da bi mogao da je ispriča. Govori o ljudima kakvi su nekad bili, sa 4 ruke, 4 noge, 1 glavom i 2 reproduktivna organa. Ti ljudi su postali suviše moćni i počeli su da smetaju bogovima, pa ih je Zevs jednostavno prepolovio - onako po visini. Svako od nas je dobio svega po pola, pa i polovinu glave. A pošto svaka polovina želi da bude potpuna, čezne za onom drugom polovinom. "Žudnji za celinom i lovu na nju ime je ljubav."

Redom ljubav opisuju kao dobru (nebeska, ljubav prema duši) ili lošu (telesna), kao platonsku ljubav između muškaraca, ali i kao direktnu homoseksualnu ljubav, koja je bila dosta uobičajena. Zapravo je možda nemoralna samo ljubav odraslih muškaraca sa dečacima, ali ne zato što su ti dečaci još deca, već zato što ne znamo kakvi će biti kad odrastu, pa tako ne znamo da li volimo dobru osobu.

Kao i obično kod Platona, ima ovde dobrih i loših argumenata, sve dok ne nastupi super-zvezda večeri. Sokrat prepričava razgovor iz javne kuće sa Diotimom, dok je još bio mlad. Šta ljubav želi? Najpre lepotu, potom posed, na kraju dobro, ali i da joj to dobro uvek pripada. A to dobro je za svakog od nas sreća, uvek tražimo stvari koje će nas zauvek osrećiti. Romantična ljubav je jedan način, ali Sokrat govori i o drugačijoj žudnji - da rađamo i kreiramo. Kreiranje može biti zidanje kuće ili košnja trave, ali srećnima nas prave pre svega stvari koje nam daju besmrtnost. Deca koju ostavljamo kao deo sebe nakon što odemo, na primer, ali ako možemo ostaviti slavu, umetnost ili nekakav veliki izum, tek to je zadužbina.
"I svaki bi voleo da su mu se takva deca rodila nego ljudska, kad pogleda i na Homera i na Hesioda i na ostale dobre pesnike, zavideći im što iza sebe ostavljaju takvo potomstvo, koje im daje besmrtnu slavu i uspomenu. Njima su već i mnogi hramovi podignuti zbog takve dece, a zbog ljudske još nikome."

Sokrata je predmet požude, iako već u godinama u kakvima ga uvek i zamišljamo. Plejboj tadašnje Atine Alkibijad, koji je mogao da ima svaku ženu i muškarca, prepričava pokušaj da ga zavede. Jednom je čak i uspeo da ga odvede u krevet, ali nije tu bilo ničega osim sna. "Bio sam odista u neprilici, i lutao sam naokolo, zarobljen od toga čoveka kao niko ni od koga drugoga."

Sokrat je super-čovek. "Prevazilazio je u vojničkim naporima ne samo mene, nego i sve ostale. Ništa nisu bili ostali prema njemu u otpornoj snazi; činio je čuda - jedared kad je bio izvanredno jak mraz, te svi ili nisu uopšte izlazili ili, ako bi ko izašao, obukao bi čudo haljina, i obuo se, i umotao noge u pustinu i u ovčije kože, a ovaj je među njima izlazio u onakvoj odeći kakvu je i ranije obično nosio, a bos je išao po ledu lakše nego drugi obuveni."

A Sokrat je i neko koga niko nikada nije video pijanog. Nakon što je većina prisutnih odustala i pozaspala, samo su Agaton, Aristofan i Sokrat ostali budni i pili iz velike čaše. Ali "oni nisu više mogli da ga prate, jer su bili pospani; prvi je zaspao Aristofan, a kad je već bio dan, i Agaton. Pošto ih je tako uspavao, Sokrat je ustao i otišao. Došao je u Likejon, okupao se, pa je zatim ostali deo dana provodio kao i inače, i pošto ga je tako proveo, tek uveče kod kuće legao je da spava."

[Old Dog Diogenes · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite works of philosophy that I have read up to now. The Symposium is both a great literary work and a great philosophical work at once. It combines into one work through the excellent use of contrast both low-brow comedy, and beautiful prose; high philosophy alongside drunken debauchery, and it is in these well executed contrasts that Plato so magnificently articulates the Socratic view of love. Contrasting the purely material view of love held by Aristophanes and others to the transcendent view of love held by Socrates. Reflecting and building upon the platonic idea of the world of forms explained in the cave allegory in The Republic.

There is a poem by Rumi that articulates this same idea very eloquently,

There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives,
the touch of spirit on the body.

Seawater begs the pearl
to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling!

At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come
and press its face against mine.

Breathe into me.
Close the language - door and
open the love window.

The moon won't use the door,
only the window.

There is some Kiss that we want with our whole lives, the touch of the spirit on the body.

Socrates like Rumi makes the argument that this is the driving force behind man's love, a yearning of our souls for eternity.

[Carlos De Eguiluz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lectura #6 de la materia de Teoría del Conocimiento, "El Banquete".

Citas y pequeños comentarios de uso personal:

Sabios reunidos: Fedro, Agaton, Eriximaco, Pausanias, Aristodemo, Aristófanes

*Tributo al amor.

"El Amor es un gran dios, muy digno de ser honrado por los dioses y por los hombres por mil razones, sobre todo, por su ancianidad; porque es el más anciano de los dioses."

*Palabra clave: virtud.

"No conozco mayor ventaja para un joven, que tener un amante virtuoso; ni para un amante. que el amar un objeto virtuoso."

"No hay hombre tan cobarde a quien el Amor no inspire el mayor valor y no le haga semejante a un héroe."

*Los dioses miraban el amor como una virtud.

"El que ama tiene un no sé qué de más divino que el que es amado, porque en su alma existe un dios."

"Toda acción en sí misma no es bella ni fea; lo que hacemos aquí, beber, comer, discurrir, nada de esto es bello en sí, pero puede convertirse en tal, mediante la manera como se hace. Es bello, si se hace conforme a las reglas de la honestidad; y feo, si se hace contra estas reglas. Lo mismo sucede con el amor. Todo amor, en general, no es bello ni laudable, si no es honesto."

*La comparación de las dos venus.

"Es bello amar cuando la causa es la virtud."

*Amor virtuoso que pertenece a la Venus celeste. Todos los demás a la venus popular (EROS).

"El amor no reside sólo en el alma de los hombres, donde tiene por objeto la belleza, sino que hay otros objetos y otras mil cosas en que se encuentra ; en los cuerpos de todos los animales, en las producciones de la tierra; en una palabra, en todos los seres; y que la grandeza y las maravillas del dios brillan por entero, lo mismo en las cosas divinas que en las cosas humanas."

"Es bello y necesario ceder a lo que hay de bueno y de sano en cada temperamento, y en esto consiste la medicina; por el contrario, es vergonzoso complacer a lo que hay de depravado y de enfermo"

*Amor en la ciencia.

"La armonía es una consonancia; la consonancia un acuerdo, y no puede haber acuerdo entre cosas opuestas, mientras permanecen opuestas; y así las cosas opuestas, que no concuerdan, no producen armonía."

"En otro tiempo la naturaleza humana era muy diferente de lo que es hoy. Primero había tres clases de hombres: los dos sexos que hoy existen, y uno tercero compuesto de estos dos, el cual ha desaparecido conservándose sólo el nombre. Este animal formaba una especie particular, y se llamaba andrógino, porque reunía el sexo masculino y el femenino; pero ya no existe y su nombre está en descrédito. En segundo lugar, todos los hombres tenían formas redondas, la espalda y los costados colocados en círculo, cuatro brazos, cuatro piernas, dos fisonomías, unidas a un cuello circular y perfectamente semejantes, una sola cabeza, que reunía estos dos semblantes opuestos entre sí, dos orejas, dos órganos de la generación, y todo lo demás en esta misma proporción. Marchaban rectos como nosotros, y sin tener necesidad de volverse para tomar el camino que querían. Cuando deseaban caminar ligeros, se apoyaban sucesivamente sobre sus ocho miembros, y avanzaban con rapidez mediante un movimiento circular, como los que hacen la rueda con los pies al aire. La diferencia, que se encuentra entre estas tres especies de hombres, nace de la que hay entre sus principios. El sol produce el sexo masculino, la tierra el femenino, y la luna el compuesto de ambos, que participa de la tierra y del sol. De estos principios recibieron su forma y su manera de moverse, que es esférica. Los cuerpos eran robustos y vigorosos y de corazón animoso, y por esto concibieron la atrevida idea de escalar el cielo, y combatir con los dioses, como dice Homero de Efialtes y de Oto. Júpiter examinó con los dioses el partido que debía tomarse. El negocio no carecía de dificultad; los dioses no querían anonadar á los hombres. como en otro tiempo á los gigantes, fulminando contra ellos sus rayos, porque entonces desaparecerían el culto y los sacrificios que los hombres les ofrecían; pero, por otra parte, no podían sufrir semejante insolencia. En fin, después de largas reflexiones, Júpiter se expresó en estos términos: Creo haber encontrado un medio de conservar los hombres y hacerlos más circunspectos, y consiste en disminuir sus fuerzas. Los separaré en dos; así se harán débiles y tendremos otra ventaja, que será la de aumentar el número de los que nos sirvan; marcharán rectos sosteniéndose en dos piernas sólo, y si después de este castigo conservan su impía audacia y no quieren permanecer en reposo, los dividiré de nuevo, y se verán precisados a marchar sobre un solo pié, como los que bailan sobre odres en la fiesta de Caco. Después de esta declaración, el dios hizo la separación que acababa de resolver, y le hizo lo mismo que cuando se cortan huevos para salarlos, o como cuando con un cabello se los divide en dos partes iguales. En seguida mandó a Apolo que curase las heridas y colocase el semblante y la mitad del cuello del lado donde se había hecho la separación, a fin de que la vista de este castigo los hiciese más modestos. Apolo puso el semblante del lado indicado, y reuniendo los cortes de la piel sobre lo que hoy se llama vientre, los cosió a manera de una bolsa que se cierra, no dejando más que una abertura en el centro, que se llama ombligo. En cuanto a los otros pliegues, que eran numerosos, los pulió, y arregló el pecho con un instrumento semejante á aquel de que se sirven los zapateros para suavizar la piel de los zapatos sobre la horma, y sólo dejó algunos pliegues sobre el vientre y el ombligo, como en recuerdo del antiguo castigo. Hecha esta división, cada mitad hacia esfuerzos para encontrar la otra mitad de que había sido separada; y cuando se encontraban ambas, se abrazaban y se unían, llevadas del deseo de entrar en su antigua unidad , con un ardor tal, que abrazadas perecían de hambre e inacción,no queriendo hacer nada la una sin la otra. Cuando la una de las dos mitades pereda, la que sobrevivía buscaba otra, a la que se unía de nuevo, ya fuese la mitad de una mujer entera, lo que ahora llamamos una mujer, ya fuese una mitad de hombre; y de esta manera la raza iba extinguiéndose. Júpiter, movido a compasión, imagina otro expediente: pone delante los órganos de la generación, por que antes estaban detrás, y se concebía y se derramaba el semen, no el uno en el otro, sino en tierra como las cigarras. Júpiter puso los órganos en la parte anterior y de esta manera la concepción se hace mediante la unión del varón y la hembra. Entonces, si se verificaba la unión del hombre y la mujer, el fruto de la misma eran los hijos; y si el varón se unía al varón, la saciedad los separaba bien pronto y los restituía á sus trabajos y demás cuidados de la vida. De aquí procede el amor que tenemos naturalmente los
unos a los otros; él nos recuerda nuestra naturaleza primitiva y hace esfuerzos para reunir las dos mitades y para restablecernos en nuestra antigua perfección. Cada uno de nosotros no es más que una mitad de hombre, que ha sido separada de su todo, como se divide una hoja en dos. Estas mitades buscan siempre sus mitades. Los hombres que provienen de la separación de estos seres compuestos, que se llaman andróginos, aman las mujeres; y la mayor parte de los adúlteros pertenecen a esta especie, así como también las mujeres que aman a los hombres y violan las
leyes del himeneo. Pero a las mujeres, que provienen de la separación de las mujeres primitivas, no llaman la atención los hombres y se inclinan más á las mujeres; a esta especie pertenecen las trihades. Del mismo modo los hombres, que provienen de la separación de los hombres primitivos, buscan el sexo masculino. Mientras son jóvenes aman a los hombres; se complacen en dormir con ellos y estar en sus brazos; son los primeros entre los adolescentes y los adultos, como que son de una naturaleza mucho más varonil. Sin razón se les echaba en cara que viven sin pudor, porque no es la falta de éste lo que les hace obrar así, sino que dotados de alma fuerte, valor varonil y carácter viril, buscan sus semejantes; y lo prueba que con el tiempo son más aptos que los demás para servir al Estado. Hechos hombres á su vez aman los jóvenes, y si se casan y tienen familia, no es porque la naturaleza los incline a ello, sino porque la ley los obliga. Lo que prefieren es pasar la vida los unos con los otros en el celibato. El único objeto de los hombres de este carácter, amen o sean amados, es reunirse a quienes se les asemeja. Cuando el que ama a los jóvenes o a cualquier otro llega a encontrar su mitad, la simpatía, la amistad, el amor los une de una manera tan maravillosa, que no quieren en ningún concepto separarse ni por un momento. Estos mismos hombres, que pasan toda la vida juntos, no pueden decir lo que quieren el uno del otro, porque si encuentran tanto gusto en vivir de esta suerte, no es de creer que sea la causa de esto el placer de los sentidos. Evidentemente su alma desea otra cosa, que ella no puede expresar, pero que adivina y da á entender. Y si cuando están el uno en brazos del otro, Vulcano se apareciese con los instrumentos de su arte, y les dijese: ¡Oh hombres!, ¿qué es lo que os exigís recíprocamente?» y si viéndoles perplejos, continuase interpelándoles de esta manera: lo que queréis, ¿no es estar de tal manera unidos, que ni de día ni de noche estéis el uno sin el otro? Si es esto lo que deseáis, voy a fundiros y mezclaros de tal manera, que no seréis ya dos personas, sino una sola; y que mientras viváis, viváis una vida común como una sola persona, y que cuando hayáis muerto, en la muerte misma os reunáis de manera que no seáis dos personas sino una sola. Ved ahora si es esto lo que deseáis, y si esto DOS puede hacer completamente felices. Es bien seguro, que si Vulcano les dirigiera este discurso, ninguno de ellos negarla, ni responderla, que deseaba otra cosa, persuadido de que el dios acababa de expresar lo que en todos los momentos estaba en el fondo de su alma; esto es, el deseo de estar unido y confundido con el objeto amado, hasta no formar más que un solo ser con él. La causa de esto es que nuestra naturaleza primitiva era una, y que éramos un todo completo, y se da el nombre de amor al deseo y prosecución de este antiguo estado. Primitivamente, como he dicho, nosotros éramos uno; pero después en castigo de nuestra iniquidad nos separó Júpiter, como los arcadios lo fueron por los lacedemonios. Debemos procurar no cometer ninguna falta contra los dioses, por temor de exponernos a una segunda división, y no ser como las figuras presentadas de perfil en los bajorrelieves, que no tienen más que medio semblante, o como los dados cortados en dos. Es preciso que todos nos exhortemos mutuamente a honrar a los dioses, para evitar un nuevo castigo, y volver á nuestra unidad primitiva bajo los auspicios y la dirección del Amor. Que nadie se ponga en guerra con el Amor, porque ponerse en guerra con él es atraerse el odio de los dioses. Tratemos, pues, de merecer la benevolencia y el favor de este dios, y nos proporcionará la otra mitad de nosotros mismos, felicidad que alcanzan muy pocos."

"Sea lo que quiera, estoy seguro de que todos seremos dichosos, hombres y mujeres, si, gracias al Amor, encontramos cada uno nuestra mitad, y si volvemos a la unidad de nuestra naturaleza primitiva. Ahora bien, si este antiguo estado era el mejor, necesariamente tiene que ser también mejor el que más se le aproxime en este mundo, que es el de poseer á la persona que se ama según se desea. Si debemos alabar al dios que nos procura esta felicidad, alabemos al Amor, que no sólo nos sirve mucho en esta vida, procurándonos lo que nos conviene, sino también porque nos da poderosos motivos para esperar, que si cumplimos fielmente con los deberes para con los dioses,
nos restituirá él á nuestra primera naturaleza después de esta vida, curará nuestras debilidades y nos dará la felicidad en toda su pureza."

"Para alabar al Amor, es preciso decir lo que es el Amor"

"La mayor ventaja del Amor es que no puede recibir ninguna ofensa de parte de los
hombres ó de los dioses, y que ni dioses ni hombres pueden ser ofendidos por él, porque si sufre ó hace sufrir es sin coacción, siendo la violencia incompatible con el amor. Solo de libre voluntad se somete uno al Amor, y a todo acuerdo, concluido voluntariamente, las leyes, reinas."

*JUSTICIA, TEMPLANZA, FUERZA -CARACTERÍSTICAS DEL DIOS DEL AMOR.

"El Amor es un poeta tan entendido, que convierte en poeta al que quiere; y esto sucede aun cuando sea uno extraño A las Musas, y en el momento que uno se siente inspirado por el Amor; lo cual prueba que el Amor es notable en esto de llevar á cabo las obras que son de la competencia de las Musas, porque no se enseña lo que se ignora, como no se da lo que no se tiene."

"El Amor es el que da paz a los hombres, calma a los mares, silencio a los vientos, lecho y sueño a la inquietud. Él es el que aproxima a los hombres, y los impide ser extraños los unos a los otros; principio y lazo de toda sociedad, de toda reunión amistosa, preside a las fiestas, a los coros y a los sacrificios. Llena de dulzura y aleja la rudeza; excita la benevolencia e impide el odio. Propicio a los buenos, admirado por los sabios, agradable a los dioses, objeto de emulación para los que no lo conocen aún, tesoro precioso para los que le poseen, padre del lujo, de las delicias, del placer, de los dulces encantos, de los deseos tiernos, de las pasiones; vigila a los buenos y desprecia a los malos. En nuestras penas, en nuestros temores, en nuestros disgustos, en nuestras palabras es nuestro consejero, nuestro sostén, y nuestro salvador. En fin, es la gloria de los dioses y de los hombres, el mejor y más precioso maestro, y todo mortal debe seguirle y repetir en su honor los himnos de que él mismo se sirve, para derramar la dulzura entre los dioses y entre los hombres."

*Es una mujer quien tiene la respuesta a lo que es verdaderamente el amor, Diotima.

"El que desea, desea lo que no está seguro de poseer, lo que no existe al presente, lo que no posee, lo que no tiene, lo que le falta. Esto es, pues, desear y amar."

"El Amor carece de belleza, y si lo bello es inseparable de lo bueno, el Amor carece también de bondad."

"La verdadera opinión ocupa un lugar intermedio entre la ciencia y la ignorancia."

"—¿No llamas dichosos a aquellos que poseen cosas bellas y buenas?
—Seguramente.
—Pero estás conforme en que el Amor desea las cosas bellas y buenas, y que el deseo a una señal de privación.
—En efecto, estoy conforme en eso.
—¿Cómo entonces, repuso Diotima, es posible que el Amor sea un dios, estando privado de lo que es bello y bueno?
—Eso, a lo que parece, no puede ser en manera alguna.
—¿No ves, por consiguiente, que también tú piensas que el Amor no es un dios?
—¡Pero qué!, la respondí, ¿es que el Amor es mortal?
— De ninguna manera.
—Pero, en fin, Diotima, dime que es.
—Es, como dije antes, una cosa intermedia entre lo mortal y lo inmortal.
—¿Pero qué es por último?
—Un gran demonio, Sócrates; porque todo demonio ocupa un lugar intermedio entre los dioses y los hombres."

"Los demonios llenan el intervalo que separa el cielo de la tierra; son el lazo que une al gran
todo. De ellos procede toda la esencia adivinatoria y el arte de los sacerdotes con relación a los sacrificios, a los misterios, a los encantamientos, a las profecías y a la magia. La naturaleza divina como no entra nunca en comunicación directa con el hombre, se vale de los demonios para relacionarse y conversar con los hombres, ya durante la vigilia, ya durante el sueño. El que es sabio
en todas estas cosas es demoníaco; y el que es hábil en todo lo demás, en las artes y oficios, es un simple operario. Los demonios son muchos y de muchas clases, y el Amor es uno de ellos."

"El Amor es lo que es amado y no lo que ama."

"—¿Pues cuál es el objeto del amor?
—Es la generación y la producción de la belleza.
—Pero, ¿por qué el objeto del amor es la generación?
—Porque es la generación la que perpetúa la familia de los seres animados, y le da la inmortalidad, que consiente la naturaleza mortal. Pues conforme a lo que ya hemos convenido, es necesario unir al deseo de lo bueno el deseo de la inmortalidad, puesto que el amor consiste en aspirar a que lo bueno nos pertenezca siempre. De aquí se sigue que la inmortalidad es igualmente el objeto del amor."

"En efecto, lo que se llama reflexionar se refiere a un conocimiento que se borra, porque el olvido es la extinción de un conocimiento; porque la reflexión, formando un nuevo recuerdo en lugar del que se marcha, conserva en nosotros este conocimiento, si bien creemos que es el mismo. Así se conservan todos los seres mortales; no subsisten absolutamente y siempre los mismos, como sucede a lo que es divino, sino que el que marcha y el que envejece deja en su lugar un individuo joven, semejante a lo que él mismo había sido.

"Si es preciso buscar la belleza en general, sería una gran locura no creer que la belleza, que reside en todos los cuerpos, es una e idéntica. Una vez penetrado de este pensamiento, nuestro hombre debe mostrarse amante de todos los cuerpos bellos, y despojarse, como de una despreciable pequeñez, de toda pasión que se reconcentre sobre uno sólo. Después debe considerar la belleza del alma como más preciosa que la del cuerpo ; de suerte, que una alma bella, aunque esté en un cuerpo desprovisto de perfecciones, baste para atraer su amor y sus cuidados, y para ingerir en ella los discursos más propios para hacer mejor la juventud."

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

HEADLINE: This is priceless!

When I was a young man, I and my friends certainly had some strange conversations, possibly aided by some substances of questionable legality in certain countries, but we never quite managed to attain the heights of strangeness reached at this banquet/drinking party(*) held in 416 BCE when Socrates was approximately 53 years old, once again the principal figure in this "dialogue" written by Plato between 12 and 15 years after Socrates' death by poisoning in 399 BCE. Plato was 11 years old when the banquet took place, so, as in Crito and Phaedo , all the speeches are Plato's invention, though he may well have listened to stories about the banquet from participants. The general topic of the speeches: love in all of its forms.

Each of the participants in the banquet is, in turn, to deliver a speech about Love. And deliver they do...

Eryximachus, first up to bat, laments that so little poetry has been dedicated to the topic of Love. Phaedrus, in honorable Greek tradition, reaches into the past and recalls what Hesiod and Parmenides, among others, had to say. Love is the eldest and most beneficent of the gods. Then he launches into an explanation why the love between men fosters and supports honor and virtuous behavior. (A common theme at this banquet, which makes me wonder why the Christians permitted this text to survive. Thank goodness the Christian crusade against "sodomy" is ebbing into impotence.) Phaedrus unfavorably contrasts Orpheus' love for his wife with Achilles' love for Patroclus (and can't resist asserting that Achilles was the bottom, not Patroclus, because he was the fairer, beardless and younger; he doesn't use "bottom", but in the Greco-Roman world, those are the attributes of the "passive" partner in a homosexual relationship - I've heard some conversations like this at drunken parties, but Achilles usually wasn't the subject of the gossip).

Pausanias then holds forth on the distinction between noble Love, expressed for youths who are "beginning to grow their beards", and common Love, whose object is women and boys. (At this point I'd be wondering if somebody had slipped something into the wine. But I'd be listening closely.) He gives a lengthy and closely reasoned moral argument in favor of this. I wonder how it would go over in the House of Representatives?

Eryximachus, in a return engagement, is a physician and reinterprets Pausanias' moral distinctions in terms of the concepts of "healthy" and "diseased". In a process of what appears to be free association (was Plato smirking while he was writing this?), the good doctor throws in music, agriculture, astronomy, divination (OK, pass the blunt over here again), ... .

Finally, he turns the floor over to the playwright Aristophanes, who clearly had brought his private stash to the party. For he commences to explain that originally mankind had three sexes. Moreover, primeval man was round, had four hands and feet, two faces on one head, etc. etc. In his LSD dream, this primeval man was so powerful that Zeus was envious and smote primeval man in twain. With some cosmetic work by Apollo, which is described in fascinating detail, and after a few false starts, voilà , mankind as we know it. Which explains, of course, why we are always looking for our other half. Instead of being helped away to a sanatorium, Aristophanes goes on to explain how the original three sexes of primeval man fit into the picture. Enjoy! I know I did.

After this gobsmackingly strange speech (which would have had me trying to figure out where he hid his stash), the boys engage in some good natured banter, and then Agathon takes the floor. He makes a bad start, and then it goes downhill from there. Let's just say that Love had better not drop the soap in the shower when Agathon is around. (I know Plato was laughing up his sleeve on this one.)

Now it is The Man's turn - Socrates steps to the plate. He goes into his usual "Ah, shucks" routine and then starts asking Agathon questions. Please see my review of Plato's Phaedo to see how that goes. After Agathon agrees with everything Socrates says, Socrates launches into a long story, the upshot of which is: the only true love is Love of the Absolute! (This sounds more like Plato than Socrates, but no surprise there.)

Upon which Alcibiades comes staggering into the room. After a brief argument with Socrates about which of the two has the greater hots for the other, Alcibiades stumbles up to the plate. He sings the praises of Socrates' virtue, nobility, fortitude and pedagogy. This speech, if authentic, is one of the most detailed glimpses into Socrates' life we have and is fascinating.

As literature, Plato really surpassed himself in this dialogue - even the weakest speeches (from the point of view of content and wit) were most savorously eloquent. And all were entertaining, each in a very distinct way. While I personally find Plato's physics, metaphysics and epistemology to be absurd and his politics to be frightening, the man could turn a phrase and draw a convincing characterization through speech. While I am completely unconvinced by claims that the Symposium can be viewed as a novel, one can, nonetheless, read it with great pleasure as a purely literary product.

By the way, is any of that wine left?


(Re-read in Benjamin Jowett's translation.)


(*) A possibly amusing sidenote: The participants take a vote and decide "that drinking is to be voluntary, and that there is to be no compulsion" (they decided this only because so many of them were hung over from the previous evening!). One pauses at the idea that some of the brightest lights of Western culture comported themselves in their middle age like frat boys on a Saturday night... One of Socrates' many reported virtues was he could drink everybody else under the table and walk away into the dawn perfectly sober.