6 The Symposium

The Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black, the Thracians that theirs have light blue eyes and red hair. (Xenophanes, Fr. 16)

But if cattle and horses and lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the works that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves.(Xenophanes, Fr. 15)

The Symposium is traditionally the locus classicus for Plato’s views on love.^[1] The dialogue’s loveliness, its accessibility, its consummate charm have made it the favorite of Plato’s admirers. Its influence through the generations has been immense, so immense in fact that some terms, like “Platonic love” or “heavenly ladder” have entered the general vocabulary. I would venture to say, however, that the dialogue, for all its beauty, has been misinterpreted and that even sensitive readings of it, while very productive of insights into particular parts, miss the point of the whole.^[2]

It will, perhaps, be useful for the analysis of the Symposium to try our method of standing at a distance from the whole dialogue and imagining it as a play performed on the stage. Since this dialogue contains as much drama or more than any other, it will serve as a good test case.

The dialogue begins as Apollodorus discusses with an anonymous friend a party that took place a long time before at the house of Agathon, who had just won the prize for the best tragedy at the annual festival of Dionysus. The friend is particularly interested to hear the speeches that were given that night, for they were about “love,” a topic always exciting to humankind.^[3] Moreover, Socrates and Alcibia­des were there.^[4] Apollodorus laboriously explains how he knows what took place: he heard the speeches from Aristodemus, who was there, and Apollodorus had in fact repeated them to Glaucon just two days before. These details assure us, the audience, as well as the anonymous friend, of the authenticity and accuracy of the speeches, which, we are reminded, took place a long time before. We are also informed of the sustained interest in Agathon’s party: to discuss it twice in so short a period of time indicates that its timeliness as a subject of conversation has not passed. We the audience will be more than a little curious to hear what transpired.

Apollodorus, an enthusiastic follower of Socrates, attempts to imi­tate Socratic badinage. Twice in the course of one Stephanus page he tells his anonymous friend how, before relating the story to Glaucon, he insulted him. First, in comparing his own useless way of life with his current way of life (173A), he attacks Glaucon for continuing to live a useless life. Then, a bit later, he says that he knows that Glaucon is unfortunate for not thinking about philosophy (173D). These insults lack Socratic subtlety; still they represent an attempt to imitate Socra­tes, and we can see here in the parody, perhaps, a criticism of those followers of Socrates who try to imitate even his less attractive quali­ties.^[5] Important for this dialogue, however, is the introduction of the theme of imitation.

We ought to be surprised at the distance that Plato places between the original story at Agathon’s house and us, his audience. According to the references in the dialogue, we are hearing Apollodorus’s repeti­tion to his unnamed friend of the account he had given to Glaucon two days earlier. This account Apollodorus had himself received from Aristodemus, who actually attended the party. Apollodorus tells us, additionally, that he checked some points with Socrates (173B), who confirmed Aristodemus’s account. Clearly Plato is going to great lengths to assure us of the accuracy of the report.^[6] In view of the fact that Plato most certainly made up the dialogue out of his own head, such claims of accuracy are false; still Plato wanted to assure his audience of the accuracy. Why? The reason must have to do with the importance of the transmission and memory of the encounter. The speeches, we must recall, were about eras, which was claimed to be a divinity. By insisting on the accurate reporting of the speeches (which is quite distinct from insisting on the truth of the speeches) perhaps Plato is making a statement about the transmission and propagation of views about the nature of the gods. Someone may make a speech about the gods; the speech is repeated time and again and remembered; the theological views therein contained become canonized and valued simply because of their repetition.

As the dialogue is divided into scenes, it may be well to examine it scene by scene. Aristodemus (he told Apollodorus) met Socrates, who was looking very elegant after a bath and was wearing shoes, and Aristodemus remarks on how unusual it was for Socrates to wear them. Now Aristodemus, we had been told just a bit earlier, also went barefoot and was an impassioned admirer of Socrates. So in the figure of Aristodemus, too, we see another imitator of Socrates. Socrates invites Aristodemus to accompany him to Agathon’s house, claiming, with impish delight on the pun of “good” in the poet’s name, that “the good go uninvited to the house of the good” (174B). The quotation, adopted by Socrates from Homer, is used by Socrates as an excuse to point out that Homer has revised the proverb (which by implication predated Homer) by adapting it to Menelaus’s going to the house of Agamemnon for dinner-a lesser man going to the house of a greater. Now, by my reading of it, there is no such implication in the text of Homer, for the proverb “the good go uninvited to the house of the good” does not necessarily imply an absolute equality of goodness on the part of guest and host, just a normal amount of shared goodness. In any case, what seems of real importance here is the claim by Socrates that Homer is a revisionist, one who takes old proverbs and explodes or revises them. This is really an extraordinary thing for Socrates to claim, for Homer is the great authority for the Greeks, his pronouncements resonating with the same majesty for them as the Bible does for us. Aristodemus, however, keeping up the banter, defends Homer, claiming with modesty that he, a fool, is going to dine with a man of letters. Let us keep in mind, then, the question about Homer’s authority.^[7]

They walk together a bit to Agathon’s house; Socrates becomes distracted, lags behind, and Aristodemus arrives alone at Agathon’s house. Agathon, with great politeness, welcomes him, claiming to have been unable to reach him to give a personal invitation; Agathon then asks where Socrates is. Let us consider what actually is happening. Socrates, who has made himself elegant (he has washed and put on shoes), met and invited his barefoot and unwashed follower Aristode­mus to join him as a guest at Agathon’s house. Then Socrates allows him to arrive alone. What audacity! What sheer audacity! Why, we may ask, is Plato portraying Socrates in such an ill-mannered light?

It is very difficult to resist the temptation to discuss every detail of the text, for its immense richness oozes opportunities for analysis. Let the reader study the many brilliant commentaries on the text. I shall attempt to deal with the parts relevant to my argument. But the reader ought to be warned about those commentaries that allegorize and magnify every detail into a statement of metaphysical significance. Such interpretation is like that engaged in by the Stoics when reading Homer or other poets: in order to fit the uncongenial poets into their philosophical scheme, the Stoics metamorphosed distasteful scenes into morality lessons by means of allegory. Many critics have, I think, done the same with Plato: rather than admit that Plato is joking or parodying or playing, they have fitted the actual text into a precon­ceived set of doctrines.^[8]

One of the guests at the dinner, Pausanias, suggests that they forgo heavy drinking, for many are still feeling the effects of the previous night’s indulgence. Aristophanes readily assents-he’s still drunk. Agathon too is eager to go along. Eryximachus, a physician, explains the medical benefits of sobriety and also agrees. Phaedrus exclaims that he always follows doctor’s orders. When it is agreed that the night will be sober, Eryximachus, passing on Phaedrus’s lament that Love (Eros) has never been praised in song by a poet, suggests that the evening be spent in eulogies to him. Everyone agrees, even Socrates, who—with a surprising assertion—claims knowledge about this one subject alone. How seriously Socrates wants us to believe this extraor­dinary (for him) claim we shall see.^[9]

We ought to pause at this point to reflect on the validity of Phae­drus’s complaint that no one has ever delivered a paean to Love. How, we need to ask, is this possible; has human nature changed so much from today, when every song deals with love? And what do we do about the great affection between Penelope and Odysseus, glorified by Homer? What of the lyrics of Sappho and Mimnermus? The statement seems manifestly false-—unless one reflects on the word that is always translated as Love—eros. Eros in Greek almost always refers to sexual desire and to sexual activity.^[10] The famous myth of Apollo and Daphne illustrates this point very well. When Eros (“Cupid” in the Latin version) is insulted over Apollo’s boasts about his arrows, Eros shoots him and Apollo is inflamed with passion for Daphne. When Apollo chases her through the woods, his purpose is not to recite lyrics to her, but to dally sexually. Eros means sexual desire, not “Jove” in any romantic or theological sense. Since animals engage in sex as joyfully as people, and as their pleasure in the act of copulation seems no less than that of humans, there is nothing special about the act of copulation to make it worthy of paeans and speeches. It is, after all, an animal function, like breathing or defecating.^[11] If Plato had wished to use the normal term for affection, he could easily have used philia. Prodicus has praised salt (177B)-an outlandish thing to write a speech about­ Eryximachus reminds his audience.^[12] The participants at the party should cap that discussion by orating about and praising sexual activ­ity. In short, the subject matter is suitable for a festive occasion of men, and it was perhaps for the sake of decorum that Eryximachus dismissed the flute girls: there is certainly something antiseptic about discussing sexual desire without the presence of women.

There was a tradition in the rhetorical schools of choosing some peculiar subject and making it sound as plausible as possible. Thus both Isocrates and Gorgias wrote defenses of Helen; later Lucian wrote his essay on the fly, and Virgil his youthful Culex-to name just a few illustrious examples. It is my view that the Symposium repre­sents an exercise in this very mold; it is the depiction of a rather intellectual fraternity party. And each speaker takes the topic of sex and etherealizes it until we get the quintessential transformation of sex into philosophy by Socrates. It is in this jolly spirit that the speeches take place.^[13]

Phaedrus, the first speaker, we recognize from the dialogue named after him. There he was shown to be particularly excited about a speech on love by Lysias. In view of the fact that he is reported in the Symposium as complaining that no one has ever spoken on love, the Symposium must dramatically precede the Phaedrus .^[14] That he would become so terribly excited about Lysias’s speech after having heard the speeches at Agathon’s house, including Socrates’ speech, shows that he must not have been terribly impressed by them. But all these details are outside of the current dialogue, and I would argue that though they may corroborate, they cannot substantiate our interpreta­tion of the Symposium, for it is not likely that readers of the Symposium would remember the details from the Phaedrus while listening to the current dialogue, just as it is highly unlikely that members of the audience for Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex would remember vividly Sopho­cles’ Antigone so as to be able to catch verbal echoes, since many years had passed between the productions. Surely some people would remember parts of the plays, especially the memorable lines, but we should not expect them to have a scholar’s recall. (In the case of Sophocles, as well, the plays that have survived have gained in impor­tance to us merely through the fact of their survival. Any individual play would have been less than 1% of the playwright’s output; but that single play for us is 14% of what we possess.)

Particularly noteworthy in Phaedrus’s Symposium speech are his references to mythology and the poetic tradition. He begins by praising love’s antiquity, quoting Hesiod and Parmenides, a poet and a philos­opher. Love, says, Phaedrus, inspires men and women to noble deeds. Examples are Alcestis, Orpheus, and Achilles. Phaedrus quibbles with the long-deceased Aeschylus on whether Achilles or Patroclus be the younger and the beloved. We may also note, with Bury,^[15] the arbitrary handling of the myths, where Phaedrus alters parts of the myths to suit his case. Thus, for example, he claims with originality that since Orpheus was a lukewarm lover-because he was unwilling to die for his beloved-the gods sent him away empty-handed (179D). In sum, his speech concludes that love is old and a benefactor of mankind.

From Eryximachus’s early remarks we know of Phaedrus’s contin­ual complaint that no one has ever praised so powerful a deity as Eros. So we are aware of Phaedrus’ s touted religious devotion. This religious devotion is shown by adherence to traditions, for the repository of religious traditions is the poetic record. In this respect, Phaedrus has appeared devout. His speech ·has made plenty of references to the mythological heritage. On the other hand, what has he done with the tradition? Where in fact is his piety? Has he not caused dissension between Homer and Aeschylus? Has he not quibbled over the orthodox versions of the myths? What are we the audience to think about the total effect of Phaedrus’s scene? Surely we are meant to wonder about the truth to be derived from the traditions and the liberty to deal with them as one wishes.

The next speaker is Pausanias, whom we know from the Protagoras as a follower of the sophist Prodicus. He is apparently a longtime lover of Agathon, a fact that may well have been known to Plato’s contem­poraries. That his love has endured is a testimony to his constancy. In his speech he praises at great length the sexual relationship between a man and a boy, pederasty, but he ennobles pederasty by the repeated claim that the relationship is good when it is for the sake of virtue and wisdom and not for the sake of mere sex. If in fact he has participated in the training and education of Agathon, he probably feels pride in his lover’s accomplishment of winning the great prize at the tragedy festival.

Pausanias asserts a distinction between Uranian and Pandemian love, heavenly and vulgar love, and his speech consists of a praise of the one and a condemnation of the other. He discusses the laws in various cities concerning pederasty, which he goes to lengths to praise when it is done for the sake of virtue. But his emphasis, as Bury rightly observes, is on the gratification to be gained from sex and not on the virtue to be derived from the relationship.^[16] His praise of the Athenian laws is based on personal preference rather than on any objective standard.

Pausanias’s theological innovation is quite striking.^[17] He posits two gods of love. Of course, in positing a good god and a bad god he raises the theological question of whether there can in fact be a bad god, a question that needs to be examined.^[18] Let it suffice to say, however, that Pausanias does not accept Phaedrus’ s pronouncements about the genesis and origin of Love, for he makes theological claims quite at variance with those he has heard a few minutes earlier. His remarks must be quite consciously meant as a corrective to Phaedrus.

We should observe finally that Pausanias’s speech is a justification of his own way of life. He is a lover of boys. Using the kind of line that he displays in his speech, he undoubtedly has seduced boys in the past; perhaps he used some such line on Agathon. As observers of the play, we note that Pausanias’ s comments are self-serving. If the “good” love is as he has described it, he should be allowed-nay, encouraged-to engage in pederasty with complete liberty.

Because Aristophanes suffers from the world’s most annotated case of hiccups, the order of the speeches is altered.^[19] To the abundant annotations I shall add merely the thought that the incident must be seen more for its comic than for its cosmic implications. After all, here we have the enthusiastic physician Eryximachus ministering to the needs of his patient and the whole order of the dinner speakers altered. Surely hiccups were as trivial in antiquity as they are now. They may also be a sign of what Aristophanes thinks of Pausanias’s speech or they may be a sign that he has violated the agreement not to drink too much. The hiccups give Eryximachus the opportunity to show that he is indeed a physician, and the audience must be vividly aware of his profession in order to see the purpose of his speech.^[20]

In his speech, Eryximachus too accepts the notion that there are two gods of love, but Eryximachus’s gods are raised to the level of cosmic principles. His good love seeks harmony (187D) among oppos­ites, his bad love makes opposites seek union in destructive excess. As Pausanias rejected Phaedrus’s theological statements about love, so Eryximachus rejects Pausanias’s. Pausanias has said that the Uran­ian Aphrodite is the elder and is sprung directly from the heavens and that the Pandemian Aphrodite is younger and is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. According to Eryximachus, the good love is the son of Urania, the Muse of heaven; the bad one, the son of Polyhymnia, the Muse of many songs.

Love, according to the physician, is present in Asclepius’s invention of medicine, for it is love that makes the jarring elements of the body fall in love with one another. Love is not only the basic principle of anatomy and health, but exists also in the cosmos: it is what makes things come together in a creative, generative way. The bad love brings plagues and even frost and hail!

What emerges most vividly from the speech of Eryximachus is the blatant transparent way in which he makes Love, the deity he is supposed to praise, resemble no one or nothing more than himself.^[21] Eryximachus is an Empedoclean, Heraclitean Hippocratean physician. And his Love, it turns out, embodies all the elements of this  eclecti­cism!

Surely the viewer of Plato’s comedy will have noticed already the self-serving qualities of all the speeches: the speech of Phaedrus shows, after a fashion, his piety;^[22] the speech of Pausanias shows why it is right and honorable to be a pederast like Pausanias; the speech of Eryximachus shows why the true lover is a physician like Eryxima­chus. In short, each speaker has made the god of love after his own image or as a promoter of his own interests.

Aristophanes, now cured of hiccups, delivers a comic history of humankind. The speech recounts how man was originally spherical, with sets of genitals on opposite sides, either two sets of male or female or one set of each, and how Zeus, to punish men for scaling the heavens and attacking the gods, split them in half, thus doubling the number of worshippers while halving their power. Love, says Aristoph­anes, is the desire for wholeness and union with one’s primordial half.^[23] The speech is marvelously comic and even moving, as we see lovers trying to achieve the wholeness which they once had.

Like the speakers before him, Aristophanes tells a myth. In his case, the myth deals with man and the actions of the gods that cause love to come into being. The source of the myth is of course Aristophanes’ own imagination; the speech with its myth is received with acclamation.

Eryximachus praises the speech with the following statement (193D):

…I enjoyed your speech immensely. Indeed, if I were not aware that Socrates and Agathon were both authorities on Love, I should be wondering what they could find to say after being treated to such a wealth of variety and eloquence. But, knowing what they are, I’ve no doubt we’ll find them equal to the occasion.

As readers of many dialogues, we are aware of course that this praise could not possibly warm Socrates’ heart. How could so many with so many different views all be authorities on Love? Yet, in a sense they are. The various speeches are all delivered with certitude and with critical reference to established authorities. Isn’t this how authorities speak?

Socrates expresses anxiety at the expectations of him and begins a brief dialectical exchange with Agathon. The exchange is quite provoc­ative, for Socrates questions Agathon about the wisdom of the mob, and Agathon begins to agree that the opinions of the wise are the only ones that really matter when it comes to praise. But the exchange is interrupted by Phaedrus, who insists that they get back to giving speeches. With words that resonate with the dialogue’s audience, he says, “We can argue with Socrates any day.” In view of our knowledge of Socrates’ death, the image of death hovers over Agathon’s party, as at a Roman banquet.

Agathon’s speech begins with a critique of all the previous speakers, who he says have extolled Love but have never really described his nature. Agathon praises Love as the most blessed of all the gods and­ correcting Phaedrus-as the youngest. He criticizes and corrects He­siod and Parmenides as well. He also criticizes Homer even after praising him as the only poet who could adequately describe Love’s daintiness. Homer says that delicate Ate walks on the heads of men. But, Agathon corrects, the heads of men are not really soft enough for her delicate feet.

Agathon continues to praise love as tender and supple and for living in flowers and for being nonviolent and temperate and stronger than Ares. He feels constrained, like Eryximachus, to mention his own profession-poet-and calls attention to his doing so (196E): Love is a tragic poet! His peroration in the Greek is a remarkable example of the style of Gorgias, with wordplays, rhyming end phrases, abundant assonance. In short, he prettifies his speech as much as possible. Agathon concludes amidst applause, and Aristodemus admits that it was the opinion of all, himself included, that Agathon did the god justice.

We, the members of the audience, are wondering how Socrates will speak. In the back of our minds we also wonder where Alcibiades, the notorious Alcibiades, is, for Apollodorus’s anonymous friend had asked about the party that Socrates and Agathon and Alcibiades attended, and as yet Alcibiades has not shown up or been otherwise mentioned.

Socrates at this point behaves in the abrasive way for which he is well known. He jokes about the Gorgias-like style Agathon employed and attacks the audience for not being interested in the truth. He says (198D), “But the truth, it seems, is the last thing the successful eulogist cares about; on the contrary, what he does is simply to run through all the attributes of power and virtue, however irrelevant they may be, and the whole thing may be a pack of lies, for all it seems to matter.”

So much for Socrates’ opinion about the rest of the speeches, and so much too for his opinion of all the critics who see beauty and pieces of the truth in the speeches leading up to Socrates’. Apparently, he continues, the intent was to flatter love and that is why everyone was happy to say the first thing that came into his head. The uninitiated are taken in, but not those who really know, a set that seems to include only Socrates. He then quotes Euripides’ Hippolytus: “My lips prom­ ised, not my soul.” What a remarkable quotation! Already notorious in antiquity, it is the quintessential sophistic statement. It would posit an independent will to the mouth and attribute responsibility to it rather than to the liar. It is an absurdly immoral defense of violating an oath, and it cannot but bring disgrace on anyone who says it. Like Hippolytus, Socrates makes the statement in extreme anger, and the statement itself is a manifestation of the anger. But if the others will hear the truth, says Socrates relenting, he will be glad to speak. They assent and he begins.

Socrates first engages in a short but powerful dialectical exchange, and what distinguishes it most from what has preceded is the fact that it actually makes sense. Love is treated not as a god, but as a verb; that is, love is treated as a form of desire and longing. It is not a desire for all things, but a desire for the good, and since one can desire only what one does not have, love turns out to be a desire for what one lacks. If one is healthy and desires health, what he means is that he desires to have health in the future, and the having of health in the future is something that he lacks. Thus if love includes a desire for the beautiful and the good, it cannot itself be beautiful and good, for it is the desire of what is lacking. Agathon admits that he did not know what he was talking about (201C).

Now we the audience believe that we have learned something about the nature of love, something quite startling yet sound. By making love a desire for the good and the beautiful rather than a thing in itself, we have come to a conclusion that accords with experience, and (!)makes sense. If the claims seem extravagant for sexual desire, we can accept them in the context of the festivity. We note too that the dialectical exchange involves no imaginative theological pronouncements about Love’s divinity.

After the exchange with Agathon, Socrates begins his speech proper, which he puts into the form of a series of conversations he had had with a priestess named Diotima, a woman of no apparent historical reality.^[24] Thus Socrates, who claims to be interested only in the truth, engages in a prevarication. To be sure, he does so with poetic license­ yet prevarications and fictions are the province of the poet; no such license is granted the philosopher, especially one who makes such a point of speaking the truth. Doesn’t it seem likely that the contrivance of Diotima exists so that we take Socrates’ speech in the same light as the speeches of the others? There are, perhaps, other dramatic reasons for Socrates’ introduction of Diotima, a woman: first, there is some­ thing mischievously subversive in introducing a woman into the discus­sion, even second-hand, after Eryximachus and the others had agreed to ban them; second, the notion of eras that is to be advanced is so divorced from actual sex as to permit the presence of a woman.^[25]

Thus Socrates puts his theological statements into the mouth of a priestess, a Mantinean priestess, one who presumably is mantic, prophetic, in communication with the gods. Mantinea was, of course, the site of a major Spartan victory against Argos and Mantinea in 418-associations that would surely be in the minds of Plato’s audi­ence.^[26] Perhaps, too, punster Plato chose Mantinea because of its verbal similarity with mantis, ”prophet.”^[27] We have seen the parentage of the god Love invented by the other speakers; now we see Socrates invent a priestess as well. When Socrates had argued with Agathon in propria persona they persuasively reached certain conclusions about the nature of the god. Perhaps they went as far as argument could go. Now Socrates wishes to engage in the same sort of mythmaking he had attacked in the earlier speakers.

Diotima is described as one who had postponed the plague of Athens for ten years (201D). This is the second medical incident of the dialogue. The first, we recall, was Eryximachus’s curing of Aristopha­nes’ hiccups. Are we to compare the worth of Eryximachus and Diotima by the proportion between a cure for hiccups and a postpone­ment of the plague? Or are we to consider this mere collaborative detail to lend artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and uncon­vincing narrative?

Even before we hear Diotima’s speech, Socrates tells us of the dialectical exchange she had with him, an exchange that covered the same ground as that just covered by Socrates and Agathon. The repetition reinforces for us the importance of the conclusions. Of course, we cannot but wonder that this priestess engaged in the Socratic method of discourse! Is dialectic a feature of Greek religion or of any religion? Isn’t the very fact of this exchange Plato’s way of telling us that Socrates is kidding us, leading us on, playing with us?

After reaching the same conclusions as earlier, Diotima begins her story. Love, she says, the child of Need and Resource, was born on Aphrodite’s birthday and shares in the qualities of her parents. In a direct reference, she corrects Agathon, another hint that Socrates is inventing, and says that Love is not delicate and lovely, but harsh and arid and barefoot and sleeping on the earth. Though poor, he has designs on the beautiful. He is “desirous and full of wisdom, a lifelong seeker after truth, an adept in sorcery, enchantment and seduction.” In short, he resembles no one so much as Socrates himself! (When later we see Alcibiades, we shall see the more extraordinary qualities of enchantment and seduction.)

Diotima explains how eros is a lover of wisdom, how it is an attempt to gain happiness, and how it seeks immortality by bringing forth upon the beautiful and the good. Propagation, either of works of the soul, like poetry and philosophy, or of actions, like heroic deeds, or of the flesh, or of laws, is the end of love. In a correction aimed at Phaedrus, Diotima asserts that Alcestis and Achilles and Patroclus were aiming at immortal glory when they performed their heroic deeds. (Thus they engaged in the propagation of heroic deeds.) In the final vision of love, Diotima describes the famous heavenly ladder of love, at the zenith of which the philosophical mind has a fleeting vision of the idea of beauty itself. This vision is what makes one a friend of god, and, if anything at all can make a man immortal, it is this.

Socrates’ wonderfully lovely speech is received enthusiastically by all except Aristophanes, who, Aristodemus observes, intends to object to a sarcastic reference to his speech. Through the millennia since Plato wrote, readers have commented on how in one way or another the other speeches all ascend to Socrates’ speech, as in a ladder, or on how all the other speeches have an anticipatory gleam of the final Socratic revelation and how this gleam redeems them. And, to be sure, on the strength of the evidence of the sublime eloquence of Socrates’ speech, love is taken by many to be a central Platonic doctrine.

Without in any way questioning the sublimity of Socrates’ speech, I would suggest that we need to stand back from it and see the speech in the context of the dialogue as a whole. The other speakers have all discoursed on the nature of love. They have made widely disparate theological pronouncements on the genesis and nature of Love. A wide variety of differing authorities have been cited as proof-texts. The authorities themselves, Homer, Parmenides, and Hesiod, have been subjected to various interpretations. The speakers have referred to one another’s remarks with sarcasm and corrections. Most importantly, I think, we have seen all the speakers describe love as a reflection of their own image or as a deity that operates in their interests. Finally we came to Socrates’ speech. Exactly as the others, he cited an authority-Diotima. Exactly as the others, he corrected his predeces­sors’ opinions and references. And exactly as the others, he described love in his own image. To be sure, his speech is finer than the others, but on what grounds can we say that it is theologically sounder than the others? If there is anything Plato would want us to remember, it is that eloquence is no substitute for truth. Why is the idea that Love has calloused feet a la Socrates more valid than that he has soft feet a la Agathon?

I began this chapter with a few quotations from Xenophanes because it is possible to read the Symposium as a gloss on these lines. Xenoph­anes provides a stinging criticism of those who make gods in their own image. With an insight worthy of Abraham, he sees that the Ethiopians’ gods look just like Ethiopians and that the gods of cows would look like cows. So, in the Symposium, the god of a dandified tragic poet is a dandified tragic poet, the god of an Empedoclean-trained physician is an Empedoclean physician, and, too, the god of a barefooted, impoverished philosopher is a barefooted, impoverished philosopher.

As we observe the entire drama of the dialogue, it is evident that Plato’s comedy has a very serious point to make. The point is not, however, about the nature of love; it is, rather, about the process of making pronouncements about the gods. The Symposium is a comedy about people creating and perpetuating nonsense about things that are in truth beyond their mortal grasp. It is a criticism of the poets and philosophers who, as Socrates put it, simply say whatever pops into their heads and expect it to believed as gospel, as divine revelation. Aristodemus and Apollodorus are part of this tradition that Plato is satirizing. In the Sophist, Plato presents the following exchange (242C):

STRANGER: It strikes me that Parmenides and everyone else who has set out to determine how many real things there are and what they are like have discoursed to us in rather an offhand fashion.

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: They each and all seem to treat us as children to whom they are telling a story. According to one there are three things, some of which now carry on a sort of warfare with one another and then make friends and set about marrying and begetting and bringing up their children. Another tells us that there are tw0-moist and dry, or hot and cold-whom he marries off, and makes them set up house together. In our part of the world the Eleatic set, who hark back to Xenophanes or even earlier, unfold their tale on the assump­tion that “all things” are only one thing In all this, whether any one of them has told the truth or not is a hard question, and it is in bad taste to find fault so grossly with men of long established fame. But one observation may be made without offense.

THEAETETUS: And that is?

STRANGER: That they have shown too little consideration for ordi­nary people like ourselves in talking over our heads.

(Tr. F. M. Cornford)

In short, this is what the Symposium is about: offhand claims about reality that have no basis in argument or good sense.

Let us return to the conclusion of the play and Alcibiades’ entrance. As the delayed entrance of Socrates was dramatically effective to highlight his intellectual intensity, so the entrance of Alcibiades high­ lights his disorderly and drunken nature. All of Plato’s contemporar­ies—and indeed all readers of Plato outside of the sterile environment of philosophy courses, where the dialogues are quarried for philosoph­ical propositions without regard for their contexts, chronological or dramatic—know about the defects of Alcibiades’ character. Alcibia­des, blackened by historical associations, enters.

The drunken Alcibiades goes up to Agathon and puts a wreath on his head. When he discovers that Socrates too is present at the table, he exclaims in surprise and insists on putting a crown of ribbons on Socrates’ head too. He urges all to drink, but remarks on Socrates’ eternal sobriety. Eryximachus explains the rules of the evening and invites Alcibiades to speak on love too. But, complaining that Socrates won’t hear praise of anyone except himself, he agrees to give a eulogy of him. Most of the rest of the dialogue consists of this eulogy.

The speech, as has been observed by many commentators, shows Socrates to be the embodiment of his own conception of eros.^[28] Of course, in this he did not differ from the other characters. Perhaps, though, because his conception of eros is nobler and grander than the others’ we need an outside witness to his virtue. We learn first (a) that Alcibiades, who as a young man ought to be Socrates’ beloved or at least the object of Socrates’ passion, is actually Socrates’ pursuer; (b) that Socrates’ words affect him most marvelously (215E), making him feel ashamed for his naughtiness but effecting no lasting change in his behavior (216B); and finally (c) that Socrates does not care about looks or money (216E). Alcibiades then discusses at length his failed attempt at seducing Socrates. In view of Alcibiades’ reputation as a love/sex object, Socrates’ continence is extraordinary and remarkable. Alcibi­ades concludes his series of anecdotes with a description of Socrates’ conduct in battle, his hardiness, his standing all night in the cold to work out some problem. Ending with a discussion of Socrates’ argu­ments, he explains how, though apparently simple-minded, they be­ come splendid after reflection. His remark about the arguments echoes his likeness of Socrates to a Silenus figure, externally ugly, internally beautiful.

In the last major scene of the dialogue, the long-awaited Alcibiades is center stage talking about Socrates. What must be the effect on the audience of the scene? Here is someone who has kept company extensively with Socrates, who seems to understand Socrates with penetrating insight, who, as Aristodemus observes, seems still in love with Socrates (222C). Yet we cannot stop seeing before us the same Alcibiades who was monumentally opportunistic, whose Odyssean resourcefulness was devoted to a life of pleasure and self-aggrandize­ment at the expense of his native city.^[29] As modern readers of the Symposium, we must recall the effect of Alcibiades on the psyches of Plato’s audience. Implicated in the profanation of the Herms on the eve of the Sicilian Expedition and reputed to have mocked the myster­ies at private parties (Thucydides 6.27-29), Alcibiades fled to Sparta rather than stand trial in Athens. There he gave Sparta the advice that enabled it to defeat Athens in Sicily and by the fortification of Decelea, to ravage Attica, a maneuver that-as Thucydides says (7.27)-was the ruin of Athens. Later estranged from Sparta, he was able to get Persian help for Athens, which welcomed him back. Defeated at the Battle of Notium, he fled to the Propontis and was later executed by the Persians. His wildly exciting vicissitudinous life was understandably a fascination to Athenians.^[30]

In Alcibiades we see—alas—the failure of Socrates’ scheme of love.^[31] If love is bringing forth in the beautiful, what was more beautiful than Alcibiades to bring forth in?^[32] Must we not see in the portrayal of Alcibiades Socrates’ greatest failure? Is not the appearance and speech of Alcibiades a sign really of how empty are even Socrates’ comments about love? In a broader sense, perhaps Plato is suggesting that the kind of relationship Socrates had with Alcibiades is insufficient to render such a one a decent citizen, much less a philosopher. Perhaps he is hinting that a much more systematic relationship, such as might be found in his new Academy, will be more effective.^[33]

When Alcibiades ends his speech, there is a fuss about the seating and more bantering about Socrates’ wanting to sit next to beautiful men. Just then a crowd of revelers enters, the order breaks down, and most of the guests drink enormous quantities of wine. When Aristode­mus wakes up the next morning, all the party-goers are asleep except for Socrates, who is arguing with Agathon and Aristophanes, getting them to agree that the same man could write both tragedy and com­edy.^[34] When Socrates has clinched this argument, the others fall off to sleep. Socrates goes to bathe; he spends the day as usual and goes home to rest.

In view of our interpretation, might we not see this very dialogue, the Symposium, as both a comedy and tragedy? Is not the speech of Alcibiades both comedic and tragic at the same time? Are not the dialogues, in a sense, comedies and tragedies at the same time? Through the old-comedic farce, don’t we repeatedly see the partici­pants choosing the worse over the better, rejecting reason, making mistakes? Don’t we see them farcically following up ridiculous equiv­ocations or expressing theories based on puns? But again, what is more tragic than the denial of our human quality of reason?

Finally, as we stand back from the play, we must always remember Socrates’ death and the charges against him. He was accused of creating new gods and of corrupting youth. The Symposium is a defense against both charges. Socrates is less guilty than any of the others present of creating new gods. He is the only speaker on Love, except perhaps for Aristophanes, who does not call love a god. And even if we allow that a daimon is almost a god, is Socrates any guiltier than the others, who seem to make up gods and reject the traditions of the poets as they go along? Again, can Socrates be blamed for corrupting Alcibiades? It would seem from the play that Socrates failed with Alcibiades because Alcibiades was so miserably pathetic in his own corruption that even the model of Socrates could do him no good. If the play makes an additional point, it is this. Only in the dialectical exchanges between Socrates and Agathon is any really solid progress made in understanding the nature of desire. Is Plato suggesting that if one wishes to know the truth about love, or anything else, he had better engage in dialect? In the Symposium, perhaps, as elsewhere, Plato is willing to give hints, but for the whole story it is necessary to enroll in the Academy.