As it happens, the other day I was going to the city from my home in Phalerum, and someone I know spotted me from behind and called me from a distance.
He said with playful urgency :. Please give me your account. Socrates is your friend, and no one has a better right to report his conversations than you. After this, Aristodemus said, Socrates lay down and had dinner with the rest. They then poured libations, sang a hymn, and performed all the other customary rituals, and turned to drinking.
Phaedrus should start, because he is in the top position, and is also the originator of the topic. Because of his antiquity, [Love] is the source of our greatest benefits.
I would claim that there is no greater benefit for a young man than a good lover and none greater for a lover than a good boyfriend. Neither family bonds nor public status nor wealth nor anything else is as effective as love in implanting something which gives lifelong guidance to those who are to lead good lives.
What is this? A sense of shame at acting disgracefully and pride in acting well. Without these no individual or city can achieve anything great or fine. If even small numbers of such men fought side by side, they could defeat virtually the whole human race.
People like this are attracted to women as much as boys, and to bodies rather than minds. So the effect of love on them is that they act without discrimination: it is all the same to them whether they behave well or not. These two rules must be combined the one governing the love of boys and the one governing the love of wisdom and other kinds of virtue , to create the conditions in which it is right for a boy to gratify his lover.
These conditions are realized when lover and boyfriend come together, each observing the appropriate rule: that the lover is justified in any service he performs for the boyfriend who gratifies him, and that the boyfriend is justified in any favor he does for someone who is making him wise and good. When all these conditions are met, then and then alone it is right for a boyfriend to gratify his lover, but not otherwise.
So it seems to me, Phaedrus, that Love is himself supreme in beauty and excellence and is responsible for similar qualities in others. He includes mildness and excludes wildness. He is generous of goodwill and ungenerous of ill-will. He is gracious and kindly; gazed on by the wise, admired by the gods; craved by those denied him, treasured by those enjoying him; father of luxury, elegance, delicacy, grace, desire, longing […] For the whole company of gods and humans, most beautiful and best of leaders; every man should follow him singing beautiful hymns of praise, sharing the song he sings to charm the mind of every god and human.
But tell me this much: does Love desire what it is love of or not? I feel amazingly certain that it is necessary; what do you think? Now would anyone who was tall want to be tall or anyone who was strong want to be strong?
She was wise about this and many other things. On one occasion, she enabled the Athenians to delay the plague for ten years by telling them what sacrifices to make. She is also the one who taught me the ways of Love. Everything classed as a spirit falls between god and human. On the other hand, taking after his father, he schemes to get hold of beautiful and good things.
Wisdom is one of the most beautiful things, and Love is love of beauty. So Love must necessarily be a lover of wisdom; and as a lover of wisdom he falls between wisdom and ignorance. Again the reason for this is his origin: his father is wise and resourceful while his mother has neither quality. So this is the nature of the spirit of Love, my dear Socrates.
But in fact beauty, elegance, perfection and blessedness are characteristic of the object that deserves to be loved, while the lover has a quite different character, which I have described. But my view is that love is directed neither at their half nor their whole unless, my friend, that turns out to be good. After all, people are even prepared to have their own feet or hands amputated if they think that those parts of themselves are diseased.
The second-level narrator of the Symposium, and the first character we encounter in the dialogue. Apollodorus heard the story of the symposium from Aristodemus and recounts it once more to an unnamed companion.
Jekyll and Mr. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Summary Overall Summary Context Overall Analysis and Themes a - e a - b c - c c - b c - e e - e a - c d - c d - e a - c c - c c - d. Socrates The protagonist of the Symposium, as with most of Plato's dialogues. Diotima A woman from Mantinea whom Socrates claims once to have met, and who taught him everything he knows on the subject of Love.
Agathon Probably the most significant Greek tragedian after Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Agathon is presented here as celebrating after his first victory in the dramatic festival. Aristophanes The greatest comic poet of ancient times, Aristophanes - B. Alcibiades A familiar figure to any reader of Thucydides, Alcibiades c. Eryximachus A doctor and a guest at the symposium. Pausanias The life-long lover of Agathon, Pausanias is another guest at the Symposium.
Phaedrus The main interlocutor of the Platonic dialogue that bears his name, Phaedrus is a handsome young man and an admirer of Socrates. Aristodemus Another guest at the symposium, a great admirer of Socrates, and the first- level narrator of the events. His speech, the third of the night, extends the idea of love beyond the interpersonal to include almost all things on Earth, drawing on the idea of harmony in medicine as striving for love through acts of moderation.
His pedantic manner is a parody. He proposed the topic for the night and, along with Phaedrus, keeps guests on the conversation on the topic of praising Love. The first speaker at the party, Phaedrus praises Love and the behaviors it induces in humans. He aids his friend Eryximachus in continuing the flow of the conversation, and is one of the guests the speakers address when beginning and concluding their speeches.
The reader is hearing his point of view and memories from that night. Socrates ran into him immediately prior to the party and invited him to come along, and Aristodemus left right before dawn alongside Socrates.
Apollodorus is the narrator, recounting the speeches of the symposium to an unnamed friend. The recent telling of the story to Glaucon is what Apollodorus is recounting in telling the story to his friend. The Question and Answer section for Symposium by Plato is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
Which of these steps is crucial when doing a close reading of nonfiction? How does Plato, using integrative thinking, ultimately find a way to connect erotic love, beauty and the absolute into a unified whole? I'm familiar with the concept of integrative thinking but unsure on the details of it that would cover such a complex set of variables.
Symposium study guide contains a biography of Plato, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Symposium essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Symposium by Plato.
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