#simposium

Every year UCL’s Classics Department put on a Classics play. Last year it was ‘Elektra’ and this year it was a retelling of Plato’s ‘Symposium’. I also sat my Classics paper on Plato on Thursday so my WHOLE week has just been Plato rammed down my throat, and therefore you must all suffer too :D So today I am going to try and explain the crux of Plato’s ‘Symposium’ in the simplest possible way, except there is no simple way to explain it so here goes literally nothing.

The premise of the Symposium is as follows. It depicts a Symposium (a dinner party and discussion) held between a group of notable Athenian men. When all the men have drunk their fill, one guest, Phaedras, suggests that they should all take it in turns to give speeches to define what ‘love’ is. The speeches are to be given in praise of Eros.

Before I get into detail there are a few key words to describe. There is a clear distinction between the ‘lover’ and the ‘loved one’. To ancient Greeks the ‘lover’ was the older partner (the Erastes) and the ‘loved one’ was the younger partner (the Eromenos). These terms only applied to male relationships as they were terms to define pederasty. Hope that makes sense!

The person to suggest the discussion, and therefore the first person to make his speech, is Phaedras. Phaedras suggests that for both Gods and humans Love is great for many reasons. Love is the oldest of the gods and has no parents. As Love is the oldest, Phaedras suggests, that he has the greatest benefits. For a young man there is no greater benefit than what can be gained from a good lover, and no lover could derive a greater benefit than from a young one. The relationship between a lover and loved one made men better members of society. Love also teaches shame in acting disgracefully and pride in acting well. The shame someone feels when caught doing wrong by a lover is worse than the shame he feels when caught by a father or a brother or a friend. Similarly, being seen to act virtuously by a lover is more gratifying than being seen by a father, brother, or friend. Phaedras puts forth the idea that an army consisting of just lovers and loved one would be the strongest army in the world as they encourage virtue in each other. He also says that Love encourages you to act with bravery and courage because if you love someone you will be brave for them. The examples of this he gives are Achilles and Patroclus, in that despite Achilles knowing that if he killed Hector he too would die, he still did so out of love and vengeance for Patroclus.

The next speech comes from Pausanias (a legal expert). Pausanias, in his speech, suggest that there are two types of love- Heavenly and Commonly. Commonly love is the attraction only for the body and not for the mind. Commonly love also covers heterosexual love as according to him, this love is not to be praised. Heavenly love (only MLM) only happened when maturity is reached and the love felt is based off personality and character. He suggests that if you are a follower of Common love you should be forced to adopt the same rule as those with Heavenly love, and that if you have censures on Heavenly love is it because the governments love for ruling and the cowardice of the subjects. He also suggests that a follower of Common love is just for money or influence or other superficial things and so when you act as a lover for these things you are criticised by friends and family. But when it is Heavenly love, if a true lover begs, it is allowed and he faced no criticism. Pausanias goes further to suggests that a lover of Common love loved the body and that this is inconsistent because the body ages and everything you have said to you partner is no longer true and the lover leaves, bringing disgrace.

The third speech comes from the Erastes of Phaedras, Erixymachus. His theory on love is that love is a two fold character, also putting forward the idea of Commonly and Heavenly love. Similarly he says that Heavenly love is love of the heavenly muse is love of well ordered people who exercise restraint and balance. Common love of the Muse Polymnia is love towards over indulgence, and is don’t by those who have erred and strayed towards temptation and desire. He also then suggests that love is not only between people but also between natural processes too, i.e. love is everywhere. For example, a doctor loves the body and it able to reconcile love between its antagonistic elements to heal illnesses. Activities such as athletics, agriculture, and music are also wholly governed by love. Music, for instance, is created by harmony between rhythm in music and creating agreement between divergent notes. In practicing Love you promote order and therefore improving people. Also side note, this man is so bloody arrogant and pompous, like he just stresses me out.

Aristophanes speech comes next. It’s actually a very famous one and when I explain it you’ll probably already know it. Also, it’s worth noting, Aristophanes speech (as the famous comedian) was not meant by Plato to be taken seriously, it is idealistic and ridiculous, but also very wholesome. His theory of love suggests that at the time of human creation there were three genders- male, female, and an androgynous gender that was created when two people were joint together as one body. These joint bodies could be two men, two women, or a man and woman. But either way, humans were two, so that they had four arms, four legs, two heads etc…. However, we became very powerful and the gods feared that we may overpower them. To extinguish the whole human race would be to forfeit the sacrifices we gave to the gods, so Zeus instead split us all in half down the middle, sewing the wound at the naval and leaving it visible so that we would always remember. Zeus also said that should we continue to misbehave he would split us down the middle once more so that we would hop around on one leg. Thus, a humans desire was to find the other half that had been taken from us and unite via our genitals so that we may became one whole again. Essentially, the pursuit of love was the pursuit of wholeness.

The next theory of love came from Agathon, a famed tragedian. He was famously beautiful and the Eromenos of Pausanias. Agathon points out that all the other speakers have discusses the only what humans have gained from love, but not what the actually nature of the god is. He says that Love is the youngest of all the gods and that he only appears to those ‘soft’ in nature. He makes a home in the characters of minds and gods, but whenever he finds a tough character he moves on. As Love is sensitive, he does not settle in the hardest parts of humans and gods. Agathon also goes on to speak about the virtues of love. Love is never forced between people, and therefore never us any force (i.e. everyone consents to his authority). Love is wise as it is the inspiration of all other acts of wisdom. No poet can be wise without love, and the gods and the muses are unable to master their respective arts without love for those arts. He essentially concludes that love is to be praised as it is response for excellence, mildness, wisdom, goodness, and beauty.

The next speech is a long one I can’t lie, it is the speech of Socrates. Socrates starts by defeating Agathon argument saying one does not want for something it already has, and so if Love looks for the beautiful, it cannot already be beautiful. Similarly, if Love wants the soft, then love cannot be soft. Socrates then beings to repeat the view of his mentor, Diotima, in his attempt to describe Love. According to Diotima, Love is neither mortal nor immortal, beautiful nor ugly. Love is the middling of the two extremes. As the child of resource and poverty, Love is forever poor, but resourceful enough to look for what he needs. Diotima also says that goodness and beauty seek to secure immortality for themselves, via legacy as an artist, philosopher, or statesman and via physical procreation. (Side note, in school when we tried to define ‘pregnancy of the mind’ versus ‘pregnancy of the womb’ we started calling them ‘brain babies’ and I accidentally wrote that in my exam). Socrates also lays out Diotima’s ‘Ladder of Love’. At the lowest level is love/ lust for physical beauty, then we realise beauty is similar in all bodies and love all beautiful bodies, then we see that the beauty of the souls outweighs the beauty of the body. After that, we begin to see beauty in activities, institutes, and sciences, before we begin to love knowledge. Once all of these steps are achieved, we arrive at the highest form of Love, in which beauty is revealed to us and we see the ‘Form’ of beauty. (The forms are a whole Platonic theory, it’s AWFUL). Basically the highest form of love is love of Love.

The next speech is literally the BEST part of the Symposium. It is of course, the entry of Alcibiades. For those of you who don’t know, Alcibiades is the love of my life, I have some weird attachment to him. I want him and I want to be him (I have a post about him here). Anyways so, Socrates makes his speech and then there is a banging at the front door. When they open the door, a very late and a very drunk Alcibiades storms in to crown Agathon with garlands and then leave again. The guests, however, urge him to stay, and when he sees Socrates he throws a little hissy fit. (Context, Socrates and Alcibiades are Eromenos and Erastes). He says that Socrates has no business being cuddled up to Agathon, the most handsome man in the room. Socrates then rebukes Alcibiades and says that since he became his Erastes, Alcibiades is entirely too jealous of everything. When Erixymachus asks Alcibiades if he want sot give a speech on Love, he says instead that he wants to give a speech eulogising Socrates. The speech in favour of Socrates turns more into a ‘Socrates doesn’t love me’ eulogy. He says that Socrates will act as an Erastes but will not treat him as an Eromenos (basically that he will not sleep with Alcibiades). To which Socrates says the most evil (I wanna slap him) thing ever. He says that if he gives Alcibiades knowledge and in return Alcibiades gives him sex it is like Socrates has traded gold for bronze. You can’t say that to Athens famed pretty boy. Alcibiades says that one night he said to Socrates, “I think you are the only Lover I’ve had who’s good enough for me, but you seem too shy to talk about it to me”. He says that sleeping in a bed with Socrates, despite being his Eromenos, is no different to sharing a bed with his father or brother. Socrates, even after watching Alcibiades poor his bloody heart out, just cuddles up to Agathon on the couch. Most modern scholars argue that the actions and effects of love on Alcibiades are meant to act as a cautionary tale on the effects of unchecked desire.

There you have it! A summary to the Symposium. Honestly, it’s definitely worth a read if you get the chance, and so is Plato’s ‘Republic’. I hope you all have a lovely rest of your weekend, and see you next week xx

Culpepper House, 18 - City Living

My latest renovation: a cute little apartment made by an open-space kitchen-living room, a pantry, two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Wanna play with it? Wanna download it?

-Matur nuwun Prof, atas materinya hari ini. Dari cara Prof menjelaskan, membuat saya menyimpulkan Prof begitu menjiwai bahkan mencintai apa yang Prof lakukan.

-Matur nuwun simposium hari ini, betapa mempelajari-dan mengajarkan apa yang kita pelajari yang akhirnya menjadi keahlian kita, begitu mempesona.

Dari dek koas, yang ngga ngerti juga sedang menuliskan apa.

Yeah, it's poor quality and it's not related to the Legacy I've started or the buildings I share... BUT:

Hey there, guys! I know, I've been away for a lot, but I'm getting back slowly.

Lately I've been inspired to try and recreate Edna Mode's house. It has been a harder than I thought it would actually be, but I managed to finish it somehow.

My Moroccan Mansion is available to download on the Gallery and on SFS.eaking love its colors! I usually do not use so many colors in a building since I follow a certain palette with just 1/2 popping out colors. This has been a lot of fun, even though I was a little bit scared since I thought I wouldn't be able to fill in all of this space 🙈

My Moroccan Mansion is available to download on the Gallery and on SFS.