Plato Aristophanes
on Love “You
are right,” said Aristophanes, laughing. “I will unsay my words; but
do you please not to watch me, as I fear that in the speech which I am
about to make, instead of others laughing with me, which is to the manner
born of our muse and would be all the better, I shall only be laughed at
by them.” “Do
you expect to shoot your bolt and escape, Aristophanes? Well, perhaps if
you are very careful and bear in mind that you will be called to account,
I may be induced to let you off.” Aristophanes
professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love
in another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or Eryximachus.
“Mankind,” he said, “judging by their neglect of him, have never, as
I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood
him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered
solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly
ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the
helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the
happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and you
shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you. In the first
place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for
the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The
sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there
was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to
this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and
the word ‘Androgynous’ is only preserved as a term of reproach. In the
second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a
circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces,
looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four
ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk
upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could
also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and
four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs
in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast. Now the sexes were three,
and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are
three;-and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the
earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth,
and they were all round and moved round and round: like their parents.
Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts
were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the
tale of Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and
would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial
councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts,
as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices
and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods
could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained.” “At
last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said:
‘Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their
manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then
they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will
have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk
upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet,
I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.’ He
spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling,
or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after
another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in
order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus
learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds
and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin
from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly,
like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre, which
he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also
moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker
might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in the region of
the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state. After the
division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came
together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual
embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of dying from
hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart;
and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor
sought another mate, man or woman as we call them, being the sections of
entire men or women, and clung to that. They were being destroyed, when
Zeus in pity of them invented a new plan: he turned the parts of
generation round to the front, for this had not been always their position
and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the
ground, but in one another; and after the transposition the male generated
in the female in order that by the mutual embraces of man and woman they
might breed, and the race might continue; or if man came to man they might
be satisfied, and rest, and go their ways to the business of life: so
ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting
our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.” “Each
of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the
indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. Men who
are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous are
lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also
adulterous women who lust after men: the women who are a section of the
woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female
companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow
the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they
hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys
and youths, because they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert
that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus
from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a
manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these
when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great
proof of the truth of what I am saving. When they reach manhood they are
loves of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children
– if at all, they do so only in obedience to the law; but they are
satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and
such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing
that which is akin to him. And when one of them meets with his other half,
the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of
another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and
intimacy, and would not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even
for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together;
yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the
intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear
to be the desire of lover’s intercourse, but of something else which the
soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has
only a dark and doubtful presentiment. Suppose Hephaestus, with his
instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side, by side and to say to
them, “What do you people want of one another?” they would be unable
to explain. And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he
said: “Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one
another’s company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt
you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become
one, and while you live a common life as if you were a single man, and
after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of
two – I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you
are satisfied to attain this?” – there is not a man of them who when
he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this
meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two,
was the very expression of his ancient need. And the reason is that human
nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit
of the whole is called love. There was a time, I say, when we were one,
but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed us, as the
Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians. And if we
are not obedient to the gods, there is a danger that we shall be split up
again and go about in basso-relievo, like the profile figures having only
half a nose which are sculptured on monuments, and that we shall be like
tallies.” “Wherefore
let us exhort all men to piety, that we may avoid evil, and obtain the
good, of which Love is to us the lord and minister; and let no one oppose
him-he is the enemy of the gods who oppose him. For if we are friends of
the God and at peace with him we shall find our own true loves, which
rarely happens in this world at present. I am serious, and therefore I
must beg Eryximachus not to make fun or to find any allusion in what I am
saying to Pausanias and Agathon, who, as I suspect, are both of the manly
nature, and belong to the class which I have been describing. But my words
have a wider application – they include men and women everywhere; and I
believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one
returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then our race
would be happy. And if this would be best of all, the best in the next
degree and under present circumstances must be the nearest approach to
such an union; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love.
Wherefore, if we would praise him who has given to us the benefit, we must
praise the god Love, who is our greatest benefactor, both leading us in
this life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future,
for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original
state, and heal us and make us happy and blessed. This, Eryximachus, is my
discourse of love, which, although different to yours, I must beg you to
leave unassailed by the shafts of your ridicule, in order that each may
have his turn; each, or rather either, for Agathon and Socrates are the
only ones left. ”
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