Free eBook, AI Voice, AudioBook: Symposium by Plato

Listen to the AudioBook: Symposium by Plato

SYMPOSIUM

By Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

The narrative which he had heard was as follows:--

Aristodemus meeting Socrates in holiday attire, is invited by him to a banquet at the house of Agathon, who had been sacrificing in thanksgiving for his tragic victory on the day previous. But no sooner has he entered the house than he finds that he is alone; Socrates has stayed behind in a fit of abstraction, and does not appear until the banquet is half over. On his appearing he and the host jest a little; the question is then asked by Pausanias, one of the guests, 'What shall they do about drinking? as they had been all well drunk on the day before, and drinking on two successive days is such a bad thing.' This is confirmed by the authority of Eryximachus the physician, who further proposes that instead of listening to the flute-girl and her 'noise' they shall make speeches in honour of love, one after another, going from left to right in the order in which they are reclining at the table. All of them agree to this proposal, and Phaedrus, who is the 'father' of the idea, which he has previously communicated to Eryximachus, begins as follows:--

He descants first of all upon the antiquity of love, which is proved by the authority of the poets; secondly upon the benefits which love gives to man. The greatest of these is the sense of honour and dishonour. The lover is ashamed to be seen by the beloved doing or suffering any cowardly or mean act. And a state or army which was made up only of lovers and their loves would be invincible. For love will convert the veriest coward into an inspired hero.

And there have been true loves not only of men but of women also. Such was the love of Alcestis, who dared to die for her husband, and in recompense of her virtue was allowed to come again from the dead. But Orpheus, the miserable harper, who went down to Hades alive, that he might bring back his wife, was mocked with an apparition only, and the gods afterwards contrived his death as the punishment of his cowardliness. The love of Achilles, like that of Alcestis, was courageous and true; for he was willing to avenge his lover Patroclus, although he knew that his own death would follow.

Next speaks Pausanias, who remarks that Love is not only ancient, but has two forms, a heavenly and a common. The heavenly Love is of the elder gods, and of this Love the son is indeed not a god, but a spirit, the son of Cecrops and Agraulos, or of Aphrodite Urania. The beloved of this Love is not only the female sex, but also that of boys, in whom the mind is beginning to show itself. The lover, as he grows older, will be wise and virtuous, and will seek to improve the beloved. The common Love is of Aphrodite Pandemos, and is of the younger god, and his worship is of both sexes, and he inspires a desire of the body only, without any regard to the mind. The common Love is of all, but the heavenly Love is of the few.

Then Eryximachus, the physician, speaks. He praises Love as a god, and as a minister of health. Love is the great physician, and the chief minister of health, who preserves the harmony of the body by regulating the mixture of the elements, especially the hot and the cold, the dry and the moist. And the physician's art is nothing else than the study of this love. And he applies the same principle to music and to the seasons, and to the whole course of nature.

Aristophanes follows next, and tells a comical myth about the origin of Love. In the beginning, he says, there were three sexes of men, a male, a female, and a third, the androgynous, which was a mixture of the two. These beings were spherical, with four hands, four feet, and two faces on a round head. They were very strong, and their ambition grew so high that they attacked the gods. Zeus, in counsel with the other gods, resolved to destroy them; but he devised a new punishment. He divided them in half, and ever since, each half has been longing for the other, and trying to make itself whole again. This is the origin of love. The lover is one half, and the beloved is the other. And when they meet, they embrace and cling to one another, for they desire to be one again. And sometimes they are so happy that they die of their joy, for they cannot bear to be separated. And Zeus, in his pity, ordained that in time the two halves should be joined together in marriage.

Then spoke the tragic poet Agathon, who praised Love as the youngest of the gods, and the fairest, and the cause of all good things. He ascribed to him all the virtues, and related the glorious deeds which Love has done in the world, making men gentle, liberal, and brave, and putting an end to strife.

You can download, read online, find more details of this full eBook Symposium by Plato from

And convert it to the AudioBook with any voice you like in our AI Voice AudioBook app.