Plato's Symposium - A Dialogue on Love

[angellous_evangellous]

Plato's Symposium is worth a read. In it, 4th century BCE Greeks discuss the nature of love. There's a lot of good stuff in it, particularly the idealization of male homosexuality.

The Internet Classics Archive | Symposium by Plato

"And is that which is not wise, ignorant? do you not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance?" "And what may that be?" I said. "Right opinion," she replied; "which, as you know, being incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how can knowledge be devoid of reason? nor again, ignorance, for neither can ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom."

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Reading it again today... it's quite delightful.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Socrates, the absent minded professor:

The servant then assisted him to wash, and he lay down, and presently another servant came in and reported that our friend Socrates had retired into the portico of the neighbouring house. "There he is fixed," said he, "and when I call to him he will not stir."

How strange, said Agathon; then you must call him again, and keep calling him.

Let him alone, said my informant; he has a way of stopping anywhere and losing himself without any reason. I believe that he will soon appear; do not therefore disturb him.

 

[Smoke]

Plato's Symposium is worth a read.

Haven't read that in years. Might have to give it another read sometime soon.

There's a lot of good stuff in it, particularly the idealization of male homosexuality.

That was why I read it in the first place.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

That was why I read it in the first place.

Unfortunately, it's at the expense of women. The POV is that love can only be experienced between two men.

I should have said male homoerotica rather than male homosexuality, although both are idealized.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I found more tonight. Lucian of Samosata has a dialogue on love, a satire.

Diotima

28. That is why, if a woman can satisfy the lover of boys, let him abstain from the latter, or else, if males can conjoin with males, then in the future allow women to love each other. Come, men of the new age, you legislators of strange thrills; after having blazed unfamiliar trails for men's pleasures, grant women the same licence: let them comingle as do the males; let a woman, girded with those obscene implements, monstrous toys of sterility, lie with another woman, just as a man with another man. Let those filthy lesbians – a word that only rarely reaches our ears since modesty forbids it – triumph freely. Let our schools for girls be nothing but the domain of Philenis, dishonored by androgynous loves. And yet would it not be better to see a woman play the man than to see men take on the role of women?"


29. Having uttered these words with fire and conviction, Charícles grew quiet, his gaze still terrible, almost ferocious. He seemed to have made a conjuration to atone for all love of boys. As for me, I glanced at the Athenian with a gentle smile and said, "I had thought, Callicratídas, that I would merely be judging some game, or lark, but here I find myself, due to Charícles' vehemence, referee over a more serious cause. He has grown heated beyond measure, as if on the Aeropagus, pleading for a murderer, or a criminal arsonist, or, by Zeus, for an affair of poison. It is time now to make recourse to Athena's help: may the eloquence of Pericles and the tongues of the ten orators marshaled against the Macedonians make your harangue worthy of those declaimed on the Areopagus!"

Lucian describes two types of love - one produces sophia and the other destroys the soul.

 

[Buttercup]

Funny you bring up Plato....I was reading snippets of The Republic just yesterday.

Thanks for the bookmark.

 

[eudaimonia]

I love this dialog. I read it again about a year ago. Great reading.


eudaimonia,

Mark