Plato on Love by Plato

Author:Plato
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Published: 2010-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

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Translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff

1 See Symposium 176c2 note.

2 Lysias of Thurii and Athens (459-c. 380 BCE), a well-known orator and writer of legal speeches. His brother, Polemarchus, and father, Cephalus, appear in the Republic.

3 A relative of the doctor Eryximachus, who speaks in the Symposium, and a doctor himself (Protagoras 315c).

4 Epicrates of Cephisia (born in the 440s and active through 390 BCE), rhetorician and politician.

5 Mentioned several times by Aristophanes (see Symposium 176b2 note) for his luxurious way of life.

6 Pindar of Cynoscephalae (518-438 BCE) was a lyric poet from Boeotia, most famous for his poems celebrating the victors in the Olympian and other games. Plato is adapting his Isthmian 1.2.

7 A medical expert. Socrates criticizes him at Republic 406a-b.

8Platanos: A European sycamore or buttonwood tree. Perhaps a pun on “Plato” (Platôn).

9 According to the legend, Oreithuia, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, was abducted by Boreas (personification of the north wind) while she was playing along the banks of the Ilisis with her friend Pharmaceia.

10 One of the demes of classical Athens.

11 “The Hill of Ares (god of war),” located northwest of the Acropolis in Athens; it was, from very ancient times, the seat of a civic council, also called the Areopagus.

12 A Hippocentaur was half man, half horse; the Chimera had a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail; a Gorgon was a woman with snakes for hair; Pegasus was a winged horse.

13Gnôthi sauton: inscribed in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. See Alcibiades 124a8-9.

14 See Apology 38a.

15 A fabulous, multiform beast with a hundred heads resembling many different animal species. See Hesiod, Theogony 820ff; Plato, Republic 588c ff.

16 Wife of Zeus, queen of the Greek pantheon, guardian of marriage.

17Agnos: A tall tree rather like a willow. It is associated with chastity because hag-nos means “chaste.”

18 Achelous was a river god. Nymphs were benevolent, female deities particularly associated with streams, woods, and mountains.

19Pharmakon: A medicinal drug, a poison, or a magical potion. Cf. 274e6, 275a5.

20 Scholars are divided on the question of whether this a genuine speech by Lysias or a Platonic parody.

21 Sappho was a lyric poet, born on the island of Lesbos in the second half of the seventh century BCE and known for her poetry about love. Anacreon, also a lyric poet, flourished in Teos the middle of the sixth century BCE. Neither praises the nonlover directly. Socrates’ point may be that they do so indirectly by characterizing love in such a way that no sane person would have anything to do with someone suffering from it.

22 Cf. Apology 24b4-5.

23 The Archons were Athenian magistrates chosen by lot. On taking office, they swore an oath to set up a golden statue at the temple of Apollo at Delphi if they violated the laws. See Aristotle, Constitution of Athens 7.1.

24 The Cypselids were rulers of Corinth during a period of great prosperity in the seventh century BCE. We do not know what offering Phaedrus has in mind; but an ornate chest in which Cypselus was said to have hidden as an infant was on display at Olympus.

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