But of course, the whole POINT another
of love is person’s otherness. To be in lov e is to experience a person as so EXTRAORDIN ARILY OTHER—incompara ble— UNIQUE —without equal—on e of a kind. In Plato’s Symposium from Socrates and his good friend385 B.C., Plato describes a banquet where etc., decide they will each s Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Phaedrus, giving nice, normal speech give a speech to Love. It starts with everyone es:
Ph
Love is responsible for our great est bene-fits! aed
ru
Love is the of our desir name and pursuite for, of, wholeness!
Love is the quest to bear and nurture beauty!
oist Ar anes ph
So c te ras
s
I never thought about it that way!
Mm! Interesting!
THU D
THUD
TH
BUT AFTER EVERYONE HAS SPOKEN, THEY HEAR A LOUD BANGING ON THE DOOR AND THE VOICE OF SOMEONE SHOUTING IN THE COURTYARD.
UD
TH
UD
17
It turns out it’s Alcibiades, a hot, young boozehound on the outer fringe of their circle of friends.
*Plato, Symposium, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford University Press, 1994), 57.
Will you let someone who’s drunk—very drunk—join your party?!*
He comes in and sees Socrates, who he’s been having a thing with. But Socrates is there with his other fling, Agathon.
Alcibiades calls out:
Socrates says to Agathon:
I need your protection. My love for this man has become such a nuisance!
*Plato, 58.
Socrates!
Ever since our affair started, I can’t look at or talk to an attractive person without this guy getting so jealous he goes crazy, calls me names, and almost beats me up!*
As usual, you’ve found a way to share a couch with the handsomest man in the room!*
Alcibiades exclaims: Don’t you have a bigger glass?!
And he drinks straight from the cooler.
Let’s drink!
Socrates!! Want some?!*
*Plato, 59.
18
Eryximachus says:
Then Alcibiades stands up and says:
We’ve all been giving speeches to Love! Shouldn’t you do the same, Alcibiades?
Yes!
I SHALL GIVE A SPEECH TO SOCRATES.
Alcibiades says: …my heart pounds…
When I hear Socrates speak…
But this man has often changed my outlook and made me think the life I lead isn’t worth living.*
…and tears flood from my eyes.
*Plato, 61.
I’ve never experienced anything like it.
19
I’ve often wished him removed from the face of the earth!!
I just don’t know how to cope with the man!*
*Plato, 62.
But I k very well now that my reactio would be n sadness…
Then Alcibiades talks about how Socrates has acted like a cocktease:
“And at the end of the day, off he went!”
“I was alone with him, gentlemen, and I thought he’d launch into the kind of conversation a lover makes when he gets his boyfriend alone, and this made me happy. But nothing happened! He talked to me in the way he always had.
Bye!
Human nature Sensory shado ws Voice of consci ence
Alcibiades continues:
“And we exercised and wrestled together, often with no one else around… and do I have to spell it out? I got precisely nowhere.”*
“Next, I invited him to the gymnasium, and we exercised together—I thought that would get me somewhere!”
Bye!
*Plato, 63.
20
Alcibiades then invites Socrates over for dinner, which ends so late that Socrates has to sleep over in the same bed as Alcibiades. Alcibiades says: “I got up before he could say another word, lay down under his worn cloak,
PUT MY ARMS AROUND THIS REMARKABLE, MAN, and lay there with him all night long.”* *Plato,
66.
Alcibiades says despairingly:
HAPPENS!!
CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW I FELT AFTER THAT?!
As the gods and goddesses are my witness—I got up the next morning after spending the night with Socrates, and I might as well have slept with my father or an older brother!!!
I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO…
BUT STILL, NOTHING
ENSLAVED BY THIS MAN LIKE NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN ENSLAVED BY ANYONE!!* A you re su abou re that t ?! *Plato, 66.
21
Anyway! The point about Socrates refuof retelling this old story years ago is that A sing to put out 2,400 saying this about S lcibiades finished by ocrates:
NO HUMAN BEING CAN MATCH HIM— from times past or present.
Other pe ople can be
C O MPARE You
D:
ca Brasidas n compare Achil le an to Nesto d others, or Pers to find sim r, etc., and you icles can ilar corr e s p o nde for other people. nces ordinary—
But this m an is so out of the
YOU’LL NEV ER FIND ANYO NE FROM ANY PERIOD who remote resembles h ly im. ( Plato, 69.)