DIOTIMAS SPEECH In the Symposium, Plato presents several points of view on Love (Eros) laid out by the different

speakers in honor of Agathon. Although these men, most especially Socrates, were somewhat adept and excellent at logically defining Love, the best definiton made known actually came from a womans perspective a woman named Diotima. In the book, Plato describes Diotima as a woman from Mantinea1 and that she helped delay the emergence of the plague in Athens. Socrates brings her name up after Agathon, the host of the party, says his speech. He does this to strengthen his argument against Agathons view on Love and to convince him that he is right and that he cannot argue with or win against the truth. He, once upon a time, had shared the same belief that Love is not beautiful nor good. Diotima, as she described the true nature and art of Love, changed his perspective and gave him the desire to share this with others. In this dialogue, Agathon plays the role of the nave student (Socrates) while Socrates takes the place of Diotima, the teacher of Love. With this, it can be assumed that Diotima may or may not have transpired this speech and could be just a mere representation of the Platonic conception of women2 as strong ideas of Love has said to have come from Diotima, a woman. LESSONS OF LOVE BY DIOTIMA: EROS AS INTERMEDIATE For Socrates, Love is not beautiful nor is it good for Love desires to possess what it lacks Love desires the beautiful and the good. When interpreted literally, its as-if Socrates is implying that Love is ugly and bad. This very thought triggered the beginning of Diotimas speech on the intermediary nature of Love. Then dont compel what is not beautiful to be ugly, nor what is not good to be bad. So too for Eros, since you yourself agree that he is neither good nor beautiful, do not any the more for that reason suppose he must be ugly and bad, she said, but rather something between these two.3 Diotima In the passage above, Diotima establishes that Love is neither beautiful or good, but Love stands in between the beautiful and the ugly and the good and the bad. As an intermediate/daimon, it does not possess both opposites. Instead, Eros is treated as form of the bond, one of the most important forms of mediation assumed by the divine pinciple of mediaion between the lifeless Ideas and the mindles motion of matter or the spatio-temporal receptacle.4 In short, it stands between the realms of the mortals and immortals, allowing the metamorphosis-exchange and interaction between the two.
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201d http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/consortium/gormanteachingplatosymposium3.html 3 202b 4 Stanley Rosen, Platos Symposium (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987), 198.

For example, All gods are happy and beautiful, and those who are happy possess beautiful and good things; Eros does not possess beautiful and good things, because it is desire for them; therefore, Eros is not a god and, by implication, Eros is not happy. Eros is not, however, bad or ugly or mortal; rather, the lover qua lover, the lover just insofar as he loves, is intermediate between these attributes. Eros will turn out to be the wish for happiness.5 or Thirst, for example, the desire to drink, is neither good nor bad in itself; its value is determined by the effect of its gratification in particular circumstances.6 These examples emphasize that Eros takes its value from its objects of something it lacks and desires. Diotima goes on to strengthen this point by narrating the story of the birth of Love, which gives light to Eros as a philosopher, a lover of wisdom. Those who love wisdom, according to Plato, are intermediate between knowledge and ignorance, and Eros is of this nature.7 In the search for wisdom, the ultimate object of the Eros takes the form of happiness. This happiness is only satisfied or attained in possesion of good things. This being said, Eros the desire is driven by its desire for good things and happiness. The reason for love and desire according to Diotima will be discussed in the next subsection. IMMORTALITY AND THE MORTAL NATURE OF EROS Another important point is found in Diotimas cryptic statement of the concept of giving birth the begetting in beauty. She regards the intercourse of man and woman as begetting and pregnancy and procreation as immortal elements found in mortal creatures. Love, therefore, is a bridge between lovers, beings, or Ideas, no matter how different their desires may be. Intercourse, as a function of Love, serves its purpose as it connects and binds beings into one. In doing so, it creates a medium for them to release what they bear in a joyful begetting, and in turn, allow mortal nature to procure immortality. The process of re-engendering takes place for the reason that every aspect, including knowledges, habits, aspects of souls, within a creatures life changes and dies as time passes. This is needed because Immortality is given to those who lives and dies many times throughout their lives. Eros now becomes their saving grace as it constantly revives the death in everyone. It creates in the beautiful and by this device, the mortal nature has a share in immortality.8 This suggests when love gives birth, lovers become infants in
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R.E. Allen, The Symposium (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), 48. Ibid., 49. 7 Ibid., 61. 8 Ibid., 73.

search for the possibility of growth. They are not left with their own devices. Since Love binds them together, they now move as one towards endless possibilities of learning. ALCIBIADES THE ARRIVAL OF ALCIBIADES As Socrates was being congratulated and praised (by some) for delivering Diotimas speech, Alcibiades abruptly and dramatically enters, embodying every bit of the wine god Dionysus youthful, beautiful, wealthy, powerful, and drunk. This scene can be described in the sentence, He comes, supported by a flute girl, crowned with ivy and violets and fillets of ribbons, drunk.9 His only purpose for visiting is to wreath Agathon with garlands but he, instead, chooses to stay and join the feast. All gladly ask him to join, except for Socrates who wasnt quite happy with how Alcibiades was acting like a jealous boy and how he was accused of being someone who doesnt think much of gods. Eryximachus cuts in to suggest that Alcibiades praise Socrates instead. This triggers the beginning of Alcibiades speech of mockery, delivered as a speech disguised in praise, narrating the secret nature of Socrates to the guests of the banquet. ALCIBIADES SPEECH PLATONIC LOVE Alcibiades has it all: looks, brains, charm, wealth. He was young and for this reason, had the drive and enthusiasm to embark on a homosexual quest. Even if he possessed all these characterstics, Socrates, his object of his desire, disregarded his sexual advances. For Socrates, his love for Alcibiades can be likened to his love of philosophy in respect to the soul. Because his love for philosophy is genuine, his love for Alcibibiades is real. Real love cannot be sexual and sexual love cannot be real. Real love, therefore, seeks contemplation of Beuty, not sexual intercourse.10 Alcibiades speech emphasizes that Socrates, evident in his aim to create in a beautiful medium, the soul11, is the epitomy of an ideal lover according to Diotimas definition of Love. SOCRATES GREAT WISDOM Do you know that it doesnt matter to him in the slightest if someone is beautiful, that he despises it to a degree one could scarcely imagine or if someone is wealthy or has any other distinction counted fortunate by the multitude? He thinks all these possessions are worthless and that we are nothing, I assure you, but he is sly and dishonest and spends his whole life playing with people. Yet, I dont know whether anyone else has seen the images within when he is in earnest and
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Allen, The Symposium, 102. Ibid., 104. 11 Ibid.

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opened up, but I saw them once, and I thought they were so divine and golden, so marvelously beautiful, that whatever Socrates might bid must, in short, be done.12 The passage above shows that Socrates wisdom has an affect or a hold on Alcibiades whose physical attributes may be likened to that of a god, and as a result, may have an erotic pull on other men. The strength of his erotic pull, however, was overpowered by Socrates great wisdom. This implies that the pursuit of love for wisdom is more ideal than the pursuit of love based on the physical or material things. As human beings, it is in our nature to constantly seek for the truth, for wisdom, beauty in the world. THE END OF THE BANQUET Just as how Philosophy alone is left, neither to weep nor laugh, but soberly to rise up after a night of enthusiasm and continue its customary ways13, When Socrates had put them to sleep, he rose up and left, and [Aristodemus], as was his custom, followed him. On arriving at the Lyceum, Socrates washed himself, and then passed the balance of the day as usual. Having done so, at evening, he went home to rest.14

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216d-217a Rosen, Platos Symposium, 326. 14 223d8-12