Symposium
when man was seeking for an expression of the world around him, the
conception of love greatly affected him. One of the first distinctions
of language and of mythology was that of gender; and at a later period
the ancient physicist, anticipating modern science, saw, or thought
that he saw, a sex in plants; there were elective affinities among the
elements, marriages of earth and heaven. (Aesch. Frag. Dan.) Love became
a mythic personage whom philosophy, borrowing from poetry, converted
into an efficient cause of creation. The traces of the existence of
love, as of number and figure, were everywhere discerned; and in the
Pythagorean list of opposites male and female were ranged side by side
with odd and even, finite and infinite.
But Plato seems also to be aware that there is a mystery of love in man
as well as in nature, extending beyond the mere immediate relation of
the sexes. He is conscious that the highest and noblest things in the
world are not easily severed from the sensual desires, or may even be
regarded as a spiritualized form of them. We may observe that Socrates
himself is not represented as originally unimpassioned, but as one who
has overcome his passions; the secret of his power over others partly
lies in his passionate but self-controlled nature. In the Phaedrus and
Symposium love is not merely the feeling usually so called, but the
mystical contemplation of the beautiful and the good. The same passion
which may wallow in the mire is capable of rising to the loftiest
heights--of penetrating the inmost secret of philosophy. The highest
love is the love not of a person, but of the highest and purest
abstraction. This abstraction is the far-off heaven on which the eye of
the mind is fixed in fond amazement. The unity of truth, the consistency
of the warring elements of the world, the enthusiasm for knowledge when
first beaming upon mankind, the relativity of ideas to the human
mind, and of the human mind to ideas, the faith in the invisible,
the adoration of the eternal nature, are all included, consciously or
unconsciously, in Plato's doctrine of love.
The successive speeches in praise of love are characteristic of the
speakers, and contribute in various degrees to the final result; they
are all designed to prepare the way for Socrates, who gathers up the
threads anew, and skims the highest points of each of them. But they are
not to be regarded as the stages of an idea, rising above one another
to a climax. They are fanciful, partly facetious performances, 'yet also
having a certain measure of seriousness,' which the successive speakers
dedicate to the god. All of them are rhetorical and poetical rather than
dialectical, but glimpses of truth appear in them. When Eryximachus says
that the principles of music are simple in themselves, but confused
in their application, he touches lightly upon a difficulty which has
troubled the moderns as well as the ancients in music, and may be
extended to the other applied sciences. That confusion begins in the
concrete, was the natural feeling of a mind dwelling in the world of
ideas. When Pausanias remarks that personal attachments are inimical
to despots. The experience of Greek history confirms the truth of his
remark. When Aristophanes declares that love is the desire of the whole,
he expresses a feeling not unlike that of the German philosopher, who
says that 'philosophy is home sickness.' When Agathon says that no man
'can be wronged of his own free will,' he is alluding playfully to a
serious problem of Greek philosophy (compare Arist. Nic. Ethics). So
naturally does Plato mingle jest and earnest, truth and opinion in the
same work.
The characters--of Phaedrus, who has been the cause of more
philosophical discussions than any other man, with the exception of
Simmias the Theban (Phaedrus); of Aristophanes, who disguises under
comic imagery a serious purpose; of Agathon, who in later life is
satirized by Aristophanes in the Thesmophoriazusae, for his effeminate
manners and the feeble rhythms of his verse; of Alcibiades, who is the
same strange contrast of great powers and great vices, which meets us
in history--are drawn to the life; and we may suppose the less-known
characters of Pausanias and Eryximachus to be also true to the
traditional recollection of them (compare Phaedr., Protag.; and compare
Sympos. with Phaedr.). We may also remark that Aristodemus is called
'the little' in Xenophon's Memorabilia (compare Symp.).
The speeches have been said to follow each other in pairs: Phaedrus and
Pausanias being the ethical, Eryximachus and Aristophanes the physical
speakers, while in Agathon and Socrates poetry and philosophy blend
together. The speech of Phaedrus is also described as the mythological,
that of Pausanias as the political, that of Eryximachus as the
scientific, that of Aristophanes as the artistic (!), that of Socrates
as the philosophical. But these and similar distinctions are not found
in Plato;--they are the points of view of his critics, and seem to
impede rather than to assist us in understanding him.
When the turn of Socrates comes round he cannot be allowed to disturb
the arrangement made at first. With the leave of Phaedrus he asks a few
questions, and then he throws his argument into the form of a speech
(compare Gorg., Protag.). But his speech is really the narrative of a
dialogue between himself and Diotima. And as at a banquet good manners
would not allow him to win a victory either over his host or any of
the guests, the superiority which he gains over Agathon is ingeniously
represented as having been already gained over himself by her. The
artifice has the further advantage of maintaining his accustomed
profession of ignorance (compare Menex.). Even his knowledge of the
mysteries of love, to which he lays claim here and elsewhere (Lys.), is
given by Diotima.
The speeches are attested to us by the very best authority. The madman
Apollodorus, who for three years past has made a daily study of the
actions of Socrates--to whom the world is summed up in the words 'Great
is Socrates'--he has heard them from another 'madman,' Aristodemus,
who was the 'shadow' of Socrates in days of old, like him going about
barefooted, and who had been present at the time. 'Would you desire
better witness?' The extraordinary narrative of Alcibiades is
ingeniously represented as admitted by Socrates, whose silence when he
is invited to contradict gives consent to the narrator. We may observe,
by the way, (1) how the very appearance of Aristodemus by himself is
a sufficient indication to Agathon that Socrates has been left behind;
also, (2) how the courtesy of Agathon anticipates the excuse which
Socrates was to have made on Aristodemus' behalf for coming uninvited;
(3) how the story of the fit or trance of Socrates is confirmed by the
mention which Alcibiades makes of a similar fit of abstraction occurring
when he was serving with the army at Potidaea; like (4) the drinking
powers of Socrates and his love of the fair, which receive a similar
attestation in the concluding scene; or the attachment of Aristodemus,
who is not forgotten when Socrates takes his departure. (5) We may
notice the manner in which Socrates himself regards the first five
speeches, not as true, but as fanciful and exaggerated encomiums of the
god Love; (6) the satirical character of them, shown especially in
the appeals to mythology, in the reasons which are given by Zeus for
reconstructing the frame of man, or by the Boeotians and Eleans
for encouraging male loves; (7) the ruling passion of Socrates for
dialectics, who will argue with Agathon instead of making a speech, and
will only speak at all upon the condition that he is allowed to speak
the truth. We may note also the touch of Socratic irony, (8) which
admits of a wide application and reveals a deep insight into the
world:--that in speaking of holy things and persons there is a general
understanding that you should praise them, not that you should speak the
truth about them--this is the sort of praise which Socrates is unable to
give. Lastly, (9) we may remark that the banquet is a real banquet after
all, at which love is the theme of discourse, and huge quantities of
wine are drunk.
The discourse of Phaedrus is half-mythical, half-ethical; and he
himself, true to the character which is given him in the Dialogue
bearing his name, is half-sophist, half-enthusiast. He is the critic
of poetry also, who compares Homer and Aeschylus in the insipid
and irrational manner of the schools of the day, characteristically
reasoning about the probability of matters which do not admit of
reasoning. He starts from a noble text: 'That without the sense of
honour and dishonour neither states nor individuals ever do any good
or great work.' But he soon passes on to more common-place topics. The
antiquity of love, the blessing of having a lover, the incentive which
love offers to daring deeds, the examples of Alcestis and Achilles, are
the chief themes of his discourse. The love of women is regarded by him
as almost on an equality with that of men; and he makes the singular
remark that the gods favour the return of love which is made by the
beloved more than the original sentiment, because the lover is of a
nobler and diviner nature.
There is something of a sophistical ring in the speech of Phaedrus,
which recalls the first speech in imitation of Lysias, occurring in the
Dialogue called the Phaedrus. This is still more marked in the speech of
Pausanias which follows; and which is at once hyperlogical in form and
also extremely confused and pedantic. Plato is attacking the logical
feebleness of the sophists and rhetoricians, through their pupils, not
forgetting by the way to satirize the monotonous and unmeaning rhythms
which Prodicus and others were introducing into Attic prose (compare
Protag.). Of course, he is 'playing both sides of the game,' as in the
Gorgias and Phaedrus; but it is not necessary in order to understand him
that we should discuss the fairness of his mode of proceeding. The
love of Pausanias for Agathon has already been touched upon in the
Protagoras, and is alluded to by Aristophanes. Hence he is naturally the
upholder of male loves, which, like all the other affections or
actions of men, he regards as varying according to the manner of their
performance. Like the sophists and like Plato himself, though in a
different sense, he begins his discussion by an appeal to mythology,
and distinguishes between the elder and younger love. The value which
he attributes to such loves as motives to virtue and philosophy is at
variance with modern and Christian notions, but is in accordance with
Hellenic sentiment. The opinion of Christendom has not altogether
condemned passionate friendships between persons of the same sex, but
has certainly not encouraged them, because though innocent in themselves
in a few temperaments they are liable to degenerate into fearful evil.
Pausanias is very earnest in the defence of such loves; and he speaks of
them as generally approved among Hellenes and disapproved by barbarians.
His speech is 'more words than matter,' and might have been composed by
a pupil of Lysias or of Prodicus, although there is no hint given that
Plato is specially referring to them. As Eryximachus says, 'he makes a
fair beginning, but a lame ending.'
Plato transposes the two next speeches, as in the Republic he would
transpose the virtues and the mathematical sciences. This is done partly
to avoid monotony, partly for the sake of making Aristophanes 'the cause
of wit in others,' and also in order to bring the comic and tragic
poet into juxtaposition, as if by accident. A suitable 'expectation' of
Aristophanes is raised by the ludicrous circumstance of his having the