Symposium

Thus in music and medicine and every other affair whether human or divine, we must be on the watch as far as may be for either sort of Love; for both are there. Note how even the system of the yearly seasons is full of these two forces; how the qualities I mentioned just now, heat and cold, drought and moisture, when brought together by the orderly Love, and taking on a temperate harmony as they mingle, become bearers of ripe fertility and health to men and animals and plants, and are guilty of no wrong. But when the wanton-spirited Love gains the ascendant in the seasons of the year, great destruction and wrong does he wreak. For at these junctures are wont to arise pestilences and many other varieties of disease in beasts and herbs; likewise hoar-frosts, hails, and mildews, which spring from mutual encroachments and disturbances in such love-connections as are studied in relation to the motions of the stars and the yearly seasons by what we term astronomy. So further, all sacrifices and ceremonies controlled by divination, namely, all means of communion between gods and men, are only concerned with either the preservation or the cure of Love. For impiety is usually in each case the result of refusing to gratify the orderly Love or to honor and prefer him in all our affairs, and of yielding to the other in questions of duty towards one’s parents whether alive or dead, and also towards the gods. To divination is appointed the task of supervising and treating the health of these Loves; wherefore that art, as knowing what human love-affairs will lead to seemliness and pious observance, is indeed a purveyor of friendship betwixt gods and men. Thus Love, conceived as a single whole, exerts a wide, a strong, nay, in short, a complete power: but that which is consummated for a good purpose, temperately and justly, both here on earth and in heaven above, wields the mightiest power of all and provides us with a perfect bliss; so that we are able to consort with one another and have friendship with the gods who are above us. It may well be that with the best will in the world I have omitted many points in the praise I owe to Love; but any gaps which I may have left it is your business, Aristophanes, to fill: or if you intend some different manner of glorifying the god, let us hear your eulogy, for you have stopped your hiccough now.

Then, as my friend related, Aristophanes took up the word and said: Yes, it has stopped, though not until it was treated with a course of sneezing, such as leaves me wondering that the orderly principle of the body should call for the noises and titillations involved in sneezing; you see, it stopped the very moment I applied the sneeze to it.My good Aristophanes, replied Eryximachus, take heed what you are about. Here are you buffooning before ever you begin, and compelling me to be on the watch for the first absurdity in your speech, when you might deliver it in peace. At this Aristophanes laughed, and Quite right, Eryximachus, he said; I unsay all that I have said. Do not keep a watch on me for as to what is going to be said, my fear is not so much of saying something absurd—since that would be all to the good and native to my Muse—as something utterly ridiculous. You think you can just let fly, Aristophanes, and get off unscathed! Have a good care to speak only what you can defend; though perhaps I may be pleased to let you off altogether. The Speech of Aristophanes It is indeed my intention, Eryximachus, said Aristophanes, to speak in somewhat different strain from you and Pausanias. For in my opinion humanity has entirely failed to perceive the power of Love: if men did perceive it, they would have provided him with splendid temples and altars, and would splendidly honor him with sacrifice; whereas we see none of these things done for him, though they are especially his due. He of all gods is most friendly to men; he succors mankind and heals those ills whose cure must be the highest happiness of the human race. Hence I shall try and introduce you to his power, that you may transmit this teaching to the world at large. You must begin your lesson with the nature of man and its development. For our original nature was by no means the same as it is now. In the first place, there were three kinds of human beings, not merely the two sexes, male and female, as at present: there was a third kind as well, which had equal shares of the other two, and whose name survives though, the thing itself has vanished. For man-woman [*](i.e. hermaphrodite; cf. Lucret. v. 837ff.) was then a unity in form no less than name, composed of both sexes and sharing equally in male and female; whereas now it has come to be merely a name of reproach.

Secondly, the form of each person was round all over, with back and sides encompassing it every way; each had four arms, and legs to match these, and two faces perfectly alike on a cylindrical neck. There was one head to the two faces, which looked opposite ways; there were four ears, two privy members, and all the other parts, as may be imagined, in proportion. The creature walked upright as now, in either direction as it pleased and whenever it started running fast, it went like our acrobats, whirling over and over with legs stuck out straight; only then they had eight limbs to support and speed them swiftly round and round. The number and features of these three sexes were owing to the fact that the male was originally the offspring of the sun, and the female of the earth; while that which partook of both sexes was born of the moon, for the moon also partakes of both.[*](The double sex of the moon is mentioned in an Orphic hymn (ix. 4): cf. Macrob. iii. 8.) They were globular in their shape as in their progress, since they took after their parents. Now, they were of surprising strength and vigor, and so lofty in their notions that they even conspired against the gods; and the same story is told of them as Homer relates of Ephialtes and Otus, [*](Hom. Od. 11.305ff.; Hom. Il. 5.385ff.) that scheming to assault the gods in fight they essayed to mount high heaven. Thereat Zeus and the other gods debated what they should do, and were perplexed: for they felt they could not slay them like the Giants, whom they had abolished root and branch with strokes of thunder—it would be only abolishing the honors and observances they had from men; nor yet could they endure such sinful rioting. Then Zeus, putting all his wits together, spoke at length and said: Methinks I can contrive that men, without ceasing to exist, shall give over their iniquity through a lessening of their strength. I propose now to slice every one of them in two, so that while making them weaker we shall find them more useful by reason of their multiplication; and they shall walk erect upon two legs. If they continue turbulent and do not choose to keep quiet, I will do it again, said he; I will slice every person in two, and then they must go their ways on one leg, hopping. So saying, he sliced each human being in two, just as they slice sorb-apples to make a dry preserve, or eggs with hairs; and at the cleaving of each he bade Apollo turn its face and half-neck to the section side, in order that every one might be made more orderly by the sight of the knife’s work upon him; this done, the god was to heal them up.

Then Apollo turned their faces about, and pulled their skin together from the edges over what is now called the belly, just like purses which you draw close with a string; the little opening he tied up in the middle of the belly, so making what we know as the navel. For the rest, he smoothed away most of the puckers and figured out the breast with some such instrument as shoemakers use in smoothing the wrinkles of leather on the last; though he left there a few which we have just about the belly and navel, to remind us of our early fall. Now when our first form had been cut in two, each half in longing for its fellow would come to it again; and then would they fling their arms about each other and in mutual embraces yearn to be grafted together, till they began to perish of hunger and general indolence, through refusing to do anything apart. And whenever on the death of one half the other was left alone, it went searching and embracing to see if it might happen on that half of the whole woman which now we call a woman, or perchance the half of the whole man. In this plight they were perishing away, when Zeus in his pity provided a fresh device. He moved their privy parts to the front—for until then they had these, like all else, on the outside, and did their begetting and bringing forth not on each other but on the earth, like the crickets. These parts he now shifted to the front, to be used for propagating on each other—in the female member by means of the male; so that if in their embracements a man should happen on a woman there might be conception and continuation of their kind; and also, if male met with male they might have satiety of their union and a relief, and so might turn their hands to their labors and their interest to ordinary life. Thus anciently is mutual love ingrained in mankind, reassembling our early estate and endeavoring to combine two in one and heal the human sore. Each of us, then, is but a tally[*](A tally, or notched stick matching another, is the nearest English equivalent for σύμβολον, which was a half of a broken die given and kept as a token of friendship; see below, Plat. Sym. 193a (λίσται).) of a man, since every one shows like a flat-fish the traces of having been sliced in two; and each is ever searching for the tally that will fit him. All the men who are sections of that composite sex that at first was called man-woman are woman-courters; our adulterers are mostly descended from that sex, whence likewise are derived our man-courting women and adulteresses. All the women who are sections of the woman have no great fancy for men: they are inclined rather to women, and of this stock are the she-minions.

Men who are sections of the male pursue the masculine, and so long as their boyhood lasts they show themselves to be slices of the male by making friends with men and delighting to lie with them and to be clasped in men’s embraces; these are the finest boys and striplings, for they have the most manly nature. Some say they are shameless creatures, but falsely: for their behavior is due not to shamelessness but to daring, manliness, and virility, since they are quick to welcome their like. Sure evidence of this is the fact that on reaching maturity these alone prove in a public career to be men. So when they come to man’s estate they are boy-lovers, and have no natural interest in wiving and getting children, but only do these things under stress of custom; they are quite contented to live together unwedded all their days. A man of this sort is at any rate born to be a lover of boys or the willing mate of a man, eagerly greeting his own kind. Well, when one of them—whether he be a boy-lover or a lover of any other sort—happens on his own particular half, the two of them are wondrously thrilled with affection and intimacy and love, and are hardly to be induced to leave each other’s side for a single moment. These are they who continue together throughout life, though they could not even say what they would have of one another. No one could imagine this to be the mere amorous connection, or that such alone could be the reason why each rejoices in the other’s company with so eager a zest: obviously the soul of each is wishing for something else that it cannot express, only divining and darkly hinting what it wishes. Suppose that, as they lay together, Hephaestus should come and stand over them, and showing his implements[*](i.e. his anvil (Hom. Od. 8.274), bellows, tongs, and hammer (Hom. Il. 18.372ff., Hom. Il. 18.474ff.).) should ask: What is it, good mortals, that you would have of one another?—and suppose that in their perplexity he asked them again: Do you desire to be joined in the closest possible union, so that you shall not be divided by night or by day? If that is your craving, I am ready to fuse and weld you together in a single piece, that from being two you may be made one; that so long as you live, the pair of you, being as one, may share a single life; and that when you die you may also in Hades yonder be one instead of two, having shared a single death. Bethink yourselves if this is your heart’s desire, and if you will be quite contented with this lot. No one on hearing this, we are sure, would demur to it or would be found wishing for anything else: each would unreservedly deem that he had been offered just what he was yearning for all the time, namely, to be so joined and fused with his beloved that the two might be made one.

The cause of it all is this, that our original form was as I have described, and we were entire; and the craving and pursuit of that entirety is called Love. Formerly, as I have said, we were one; but now for our sins we are all dispersed by God, as the Arcadians were by the Lacedaemonians[*](Probably referring to the dispersal of Mantinea into villages in 385 B.C. (Xen. Hell. 5.2.1ff.).); and we may well be afraid that if we are disorderly towards Heaven we may once more be cloven asunder and may go about in the shape of those outline-carvings on the tombs, with our noses sawn down the middle, and may thus become like tokens of split dice. Wherefore we ought all to exhort our neighbors to a pious observance of the gods, in order that we may escape harm and attain to bliss under the gallant leadership of Love. Let none in act oppose him—and it is opposing him to incur the hate of Heaven: if we make friends with the god and are reconciled, we shall have the fortune that falls to few in our day, of discovering our proper favorites. And let not Eryximachus interrupt my speech with a comic mock, and say I refer to Pausanias and Agathon; it may be they do belong to the fortunate few, and are both of them males by nature; what I mean is—and this applies to the whole world of men and women—that the way to bring happiness to our race is to give our love its true fulfillment: let every one find his own favorite, and so revert to his primal estate. If this be the best thing of all, the nearest approach to it among all acts open to us now must accordingly be the best to choose; and that is, to find a favorite whose nature is exactly to our mind. Love is the god who brings this about; he fully deserves our hymns. For not only in the present does he bestow the priceless boon of bringing us to our very own, but he also supplies this excellent hope for the future, that if we will supply the gods with reverent duty he will restore us to our ancient life and heal and help us into the happiness of the blest. There, Eryximachus, is my discourse on Love, of a different sort from yours. As I besought you, make no comic sport of it, for we want to hear what the others will say in their turn—I rather mean the other two, since only Agathon and Socrates are left.Well, I will obey you, said Eryximachus, for in fact I enjoyed your speech. Had I not reason to know the prowess of Socrates and Agathon in love-matters, I should have great fears of their being at a loss for eloquence after we have heard it in such copious variety: but you see, my confidence is unshaken.

Whereon Socrates remarked: Your own performance, Eryximachus, made a fine hit: but if you could be where I am now—or rather, I should say, where I shall be when Agathon has spoken—you would be fitly and sorely afraid, and would be as hard put to it as I am.You want to throw a spell over me, Socrates, said Agathon, so that I may be flustered with the consciousness of the high expectations the audience has formed of my discourse. Nay, Agathon, how forgetful I should be, replied Socrates, if after noticing your high and manly spirit as you stepped upon the platform with your troupe—how you sent a straight glance at that vast assembly to show that you meant to do yourself credit with your production, and how you were not dismayed in the slightest—if I should now suppose you could be flustered on account of a few fellows like us. Why, Socrates, said Agathon, I hope you do not always fancy me so puffed up with the playhouse as to forget that an intelligent speaker is more alarmed at a few men of wit than at a host of fools. No, Agathon, it would be wrong of me indeed, said Socrates, to associate you with any such clownish notion: I am quite sure that on finding yourself with a few persons whom you considered clever you would make more account of them than of the multitude. Yet we, perhaps, are the latter; for we were there, and among the crowd: but suppose you found yourself with other folk who were clever, you would probably feel ashamed that they should witness any shameful act you might feel yourself to be doing. Will you agree to that? Quite true, he said. Whereas before the multitude you would not be ashamed if you felt you were doing anything shameful? Here Phaedrus interposed: My dear Agathon, if you go on answering Socrates he will be utterly indifferent to the fate of our present business, so long as he has some one to argue with, especially some one handsome. For my part, I enjoy listening to Socrates’ arguments; but I am responsible for our eulogy of Love, and must levy a speech from every one of you in turn. Let each of you two, then, give the god his meed before you have your argument. You are quite right, Phaedrus, said Agathon, and there is nothing to hinder my speaking; for I shall find many other occasions for arguing with Socrates.

I propose first to speak of the plan most proper for my speaking, and after that to speak. Every one of the previous speakers, instead of eulogizing the god, has merely, as it seems to me, felicitated humanity on the benefits he bestows: not one of them has told us what is the nature of the benefactor himself. There is but one correct method of giving anyone any kind of praise, namely to make the words unfold the character of him, and of the blessings brought by him, who is to be our theme. Hence it is meet that we praise him first for what he is and then for what he gives. So I say that, while all gods are blissful, Love—with no irreverence or offence be it spoken—is the most blissful, as being the most beautiful and the best. How most beautiful, I will explain. First of all, Phaedrus, he is youngest of the gods. He himself supplies clear evidence of this; for he flies and flees from old age—a swift thing obviously, since it gains on us too quickly for our liking. Love hates it by nature, and refuses to come within any distance of it. He is ever consorting with the young, and such also is he: well says the old saw, Like and like together strike.[*](So Hom. Od. 17.218 Heaven ever bringeth like and like together.) And though in much else I agree with Phaedrus, in this I agree not, that Love by his account is more ancient than Cronos and Iapetus[*](These two Titans, the sons of Heaven and Earth, were proverbially the original inhabitants of the world): I say he is youngest of the gods and ever young, while those early dealings with the gods which Hesiod [*](Hes. Th. 176ff., Hes. Th. 746ff. There are no such stories in the remaining fragments of Parmenides.) and Parmenides relate, I take to have been the work of Necessity, not of Love, if there is any truth in those stories. For there would have been no gelding or fettering of each other, nor any of those various violences, if Love had been amongst them; rather only amity and peace, such as now subsist ever since Love has reigned over the gods. So then he is young, and delicate withal: he requires a poet such as Homer to set forth his delicacy divine. Homer it is who tells of Ate as both divine and delicate; you recollect those delicate feet of hers, where he says—

1. Yet delicate are her feet, for on the ground
2. She speeds not, only on the heads of men.

So if with feet and every way he is wont ever to get hold of the softest parts of the softest creatures, he needs must be most delicate. Youngest, then, and most delicate is he, and withal pliant of form: for he would never contrive to fold himself about us every way, nor begin by stealing in and out of every soul so secretly, if he were hard. Clear evidence of his fit proportion and pliancy of form is found in his shapely grace, a quality wherein Love is in every quarter allowed to excel: unshapeliness and Love are ever at war with one another. Beauty of hue in this god is evinced by his seeking his food among flowers: for Love will not settle on body or soul or aught else that is flowerless or whose flower has faded away; while he has only to light on a plot of sweet blossoms and scents to settle there and stay. Enough has now been said, though much remains unsaid, of the beauty of our god; next shall Love’s goodness be my theme. The strongest plea for this is that neither to a god he gives nor from a god receives any injury, nor from men receives it nor to men gives it. For neither is the usage he himself gets a violent usage, since violence takes not hold of Love; nor is there violence in his dealings, since Love wins all men’s willing service; and agreements on both sides willingly made are held to be just by

our city’s sovereign, the law.

not even the God of War withstands

though alien to the Muse before,

And who, let me ask, will gainsay that the composing [*](Agathon here strains the meaning of ποιήτης back to the original and wider one of maker, creator. Cf. below, Plat. Sym. 205 B.C.) of all forms of life is Love’s own craft, whereby all creatures are begotten and produced? Again, in artificial manufacture, do we not know that a man who has this god for teacher turns out a brilliant success, whereas he on whom Love has laid no hold is obscure? If Apollo invented archery and medicine and divination, [*](Hom. Il. 2.827, Hom. Il. 1.72; above, Plat. Sym. 190f.) it was under the guidance of Desire and Love; so that he too may be deemed a disciple of Love as likewise may the Muses in music, Hephaestus in metal-work, Athene in weaving and Zeus

in pilotage of gods and men.

1. Peace among men, and a windless waveless main;
2. Repose for winds, and slumber in our pain.

At the end of Agathon’s speech, as Aristodemus told me, there was tumultuous applause from all present, at hearing the youngster speak in terms so appropriate to himself and to the god. Then Socrates, with a glance at Eryximachus, said: Son of Acumenus, do you really call it an unfearful fear that has all this while affrighted me, and myself no prophet in saying just now that Agathon would make a marvellous speech, and I be hard put to it? In one part of your statement, that he would speak finely, replied Eryximachus, I think you were a true prophet; but as to your being hard put to it, I do not agree. But surely, my good sir, said Socrates, I am bound to be hard put, I or anyone else in the world who should have to speak after such a fine assortment of eloquence. The greater part of it was not so very astounding; but when we drew towards the close, the beauty of the words and phrases could not but take one’s breath away. For myself, indeed, I was so conscious that I should fail to say anything half as fine, that for very shame I was on the point of slinking away, had I had any chance. For his speech so reminded me of Gorgias that I was exactly in the plight described by Homer: [*](Hom. Od. 11.632, where Odysseus is sore afraid that Persephone will send up the Gorgon’s head among the crowd of ghosts from Hades. Agathon has just displayed his addiction to the elegant rhetoric of Gorgias.) I feared that Agathon in his final phrases would confront me with the eloquent Gorgias’ head, and by opposing his speech to mine would turn me thus dumbfounded into stone. And so in that moment I realized what a ridiculous fool I was to fall in with your proposal that I should take my turn in your eulogies of Love, and to call myself an expert in love-matters, when really I was ignorant of the method in which eulogies ought to be made at all. For I was such a silly wretch as to think that one ought in each case to speak the truth about the person eulogized; on this assumption I hoped we might pick out the fairest of the facts and set these forth in their comeliest guise. I was quite elated with the notion of what a fine speech I should make, for I felt that I knew the truth. But now, it appears that this is not what is meant by a good speech of praise; which is rather an ascription of all the highest and fairest qualities, whether the case be so or not; it is really no matter if they are untrue. Our arrangement, it seems, was that each should appear to eulogize Love, not that he should make a real eulogy.

Hence it is, sirs, I suppose, that you muster every kind of phrase for your tribute to Love, declaring such and such to be his character and influence, in order to present him in the best and fairest light; successfully, of course, before those who do not know him, though it must be otherwise before those who do; your praise has such a fine impressive air! No, I find I was quite mistaken as to the method required; it was in ignorance that I agreed to take my turn in the round of praising. The tongue, you see, undertook, the mind did not; [*](Eur. Hipp. 612The tongue hath sworn; the mind is yet unsworn.) so good-bye to my bond. I am not to be called upon now as an eulogist in your sense; for such I cannot be. Nevertheless I am ready, if you like, to speak the mere truth in my own way; not to rival your discourses, and so be your laughing-stock. Decide then, Phaedrus, whether you have any need of such a speech besides, and would like to hear the truth told about Love in whatsoever style of terms and phrases may chance to occur by the way.So Phaedrus and the others bade him speak, just in any manner he himself should think fit. Then allow me further, Phaedrus, to put some little questions to Agathon, so as to secure his agreement before I begin my speech.You have my leave, said Phaedrus; so ask him. After that, my friend told me, Socrates started off in this sort of way: I must say, my dear Agathon, you gave your speech an excellent introduction, by stating that your duty was first to display the character of Love, and then to treat of his acts. Those opening words I thoroughly admire. So come now, complete your beautiful and magnificent description of Love, and tell me this: Are we so to view his character as to take Love to be love of some object, or of none? My question is not whether he is love of a mother or a father—how absurd it would be to ask whether Love is love of mother or father —but as though I were asking about our notion of father, whether one’s father is a father of somebody or not. Surely you would say, if you cared to give the proper answer, that the father is father of son or of daughter, would you not? Yes, of course, said Agathon. And you would say the same of the mother? He agreed to this too. Then will you give me just a few more answers, said Socrates, so that you may the better grasp my meaning? Suppose I were to ask you, Well now, a brother, viewed in the abstract, is he brother of somebody or not? He is, said Agathon. That is, of brother or of sister? He agreed. Now try and tell me about Love: is he a love of nothing or of something? Of something, to be sure.