(Plato's Symposium, Tr. Christopher Gill, Penguin Classics, 1999)
(Plato's Symposium, Tr.Alexander Nehamas & Paul Woodruff, Hackett, 1989)
I read Plato’s Phaedrus
for our introductory text back in July. Phaedrus was an innocuously thin book
that I found surprisingly tough to read.
I started to read his Symposium
with some trepidation but found it much more accessible. The Symposium
contains a series of speeches about Eros or Love. A relaxed group of post-prandial Athenian
intellectuals are lying on their couches in the andrôn or male section of the
house, attended by slaves, drinking wine and making speeches. I tried to picture the scene. I wish I had had some familiarity with the
Athens of Plato and Socrates’ time when I was in my 20s and exploring Athens during a month travelling around Greece. I would have loved to have contemplated life
back in the 5th century as I wandered around the city. I enjoyed this book with its glimpse into the
male Athenian intellectual world of 400-500 BCE. I’ve decided to summarize what each speaker
had to say as an aid to keeping the various ideas straight.
The SPEAKERS
Phaedrus speaks about love as LOVE, Eros the ancient,
insufficiently-venerated God of love.
Created 3rd, after Chaos and Earth. This love is the love of an older lover for a
younger boy where “guidance” is imparted, leading to a good life. This love stops men from acting shamefully
for fear of appearing shameful in the loved one’s eyes; encouraging men to
behave well. He cites the story of Alcestis who took Admetus’ (her
husband’s) place in Hades to save his life (and so the gods gave Alcestis her
soul back). Alcestis is held up as an example of the ‘courage of love’. Her bravery and love are overshadowed however
by Achilles’ action in avenging his doomed lover Patroclus. Because Achilles was the beloved rather than
the lover, his sacrifice was considered nobler, and as reward, the gods sent him to the
Isles of the Blest.
Pausanias, lover of Agathon, spoke next. He discussed Aphrodite (companion of
Love/Eros) as being 2 goddesses: ‘Heavenly’ Aphrodite, motherless daughter of
Uranus who because of this purely male descent, “finds pleasure in what is by
nature stronger and more intelligent.”
This Aphrodite is an older goddess and “free from the lewdness of
youth”, preferring older boys who “have begun to form minds of their own.” The relationship of an older lover to such a
boy is not founded in deceit, but is about the imparting of knowledge, guidance
– and is more enduring. This speech
seems a bit self-serving in its idealizing of the actual relationship of Pausanias and
Agathon.
‘ 'Common’ Aphrodite’s love “is truly common”. It’s the love of an older man for young boys, or for women, “to the body more than the soul”. This younger Aphrodite “partakes of the nature both of the female and the male” – hence vulgar.
Pausanias groups philosophy, sport and Love together – as leading to ambition or bonds of friendship which is why he says Love is condemned by Rulers in their “lust for power”. To be honorable, Pausanias feels that love should be openly declared. He feels love is complex and that its character (honorable or shameful) “depends entirely on the behaviour it gave rise to.”
While Pausanias’ speech seems a bit
pompous, he does support love of character rather than physical beauty. Love of beauty “is bound to be inconstant,
since what [is] love[d] 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 to describe the only way in which these honorable love
affairs should be conducted, a narrow viewpoint that has not held up 2500 years
later.
Eryximachus spoke next. He was a medical doctor and his speech
addressed love from a corporal point of view.
He contended that our bodies “manifest the two species of Love.” “Good” love is like good health and “bad”
love is like disease in a body.
“The physician’s task is to effect a
reconciliation and establish mutual love between the most basic bodily
elements.”
He saw conflict within the body: between hot
and cold, bitter and sweet, wet to dry; and he refers back to Asclepius as
being the first to learn how to reconcile these opposing elements.
Eryximachus extends this theory of the reconciling
of opposites to music, with harmony being produced when high and low notes are
brought into agreement.
Fourth to speak was Aristophanes who wove a beguiling myth
about the original 3 kinds of human beings: male-male (offspring of the sun),
female-female (offspring of the earth) and male-female (offspring of the
moon). These original beings had 4 hands
and legs, 2 faces etc. The gods decided
to punish them after the humans attempt to “make an ascent to heaven” – an
event very reminiscent of God’s punishment for the hubris of the Tower of Babel in
Genesis. In this myth however, instead
of sowing linguistic confusion and scattering mankind to the 4 corners of the
earth, the gods cut each human being in two.
Most fascinating in this was the description of Apollo drawing all the
skin into a pouch with a drawstring, forming the navel.
Aristophanes’ myth proposes that
love is the attempt by each human being to find and reunite with their
separated half – a very appealing (though limiting) idea.
Agathon spoke next and his theory of love is
that Eros or Love is the happiest, most
beautiful and best of the gods. “Love
was born to hate old age.” Not a very
inspiring viewpoint for the Zoomer generation.
Agathon posits that Love “makes his home in the characters, in the
souls, of gods and men.” He goes on to
describe Love’s moral character which is comprised of justice, moderation,
wisdom and ‘manly bravery’.
In Agathon’s words, Love
Gives peace to men and stillness to
the sea,
Lays winds to rest, and careworn
men to sleep.
His view of Love also seemed constrained
and limiting but without the appeal of Aristophanes' myth.
Socrates spoke last of those present. He described how a speaker should construct
their speech, at 198d:
“In my foolishness, I thought you
should tell the truth about whatever you praise, that this should be your basis,
and that from this a speaker should select the most beautiful truths and
arrange them most suitably.”
He began by questioning Agathon
and showing him where he has erred in logic in his speech. He then recounted a discussion he had with a
foreign priestess, Diotima, who taught him about love. Socrates argues that Love is the desire for
“good things” or for happiness and to have them forever. Diotima described a myth about Love: a child
of Necessity and Poverty, conceived on the day of Aphrodite’s birth and
therefore her companion, lover of the beautiful since Aphrodite was beautiful, lover
of wisdom. Love is described as poor,
resourceful, a schemer and great hunter: “brave, impetuous and intense.”
Diotima/Socrates ends by saying
that what Love wants is reproduction in beauty and hence immortality.
A final speaker appears when Alcibiades arrives
late and very drunk. His speech focuses
on Socrates and he describes him as both a man, ugly and unappealing on the
outside, and a sage with many good qualities such as courage, endurance, wisdom
on the inside; comparing him to the statue of Silenus which though ugly and base on the
outside, opened to show beautiful idols inside.
Alcibiades’ speech goes on to describe Socrates as the beloved rather
than the lover and then shows that Socrates loved beauty and wisdom. He quotes Socrates as saying, at
218c, “You’re trying to get true beauty [Socrates’ wisdom or philosophical
ideas] in return for its appearance [beautiful young boy].”
What was appealing to me about Alcibiades' eulogy of Socrates
and of Love, was that though he started by ridiculing Socrates’ appearance and
his role as aged lover of beautiful young boys, he ended up praising his understanding and wisdom, his
integrity.
“If you’re prepared to listen to Socrates’ discussions, they
seem absolutely ridiculous at first. … But if you can open them up and see
inside, you’ll find they’re the only ones that make any sense. … They range
over most – or rather all – of the subjects that you must examine if you’re
going to become a good person.”
When I think about the topics for this course, Reason and Passion,
I find both present throughout the Symposium. The entire book is about Eros, love or desire, and discusses the passions that motivate and
torment men but also as a path to beauty or the divine. The book is a constructed as a series of speeches attempting to present a point
of view and persuade the listener, usually by reason and logic, of the truth of
the speaker’s viewpoint.
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