Symposium (Hackett Classics) by Plato

Author:Plato [Plato]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Published: 1989-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

This, Phaedrus, is the speech I have to offer. Let it be dedicated to the god, part of it in fun, part of it moderately serious, as best I could manage. [198A]

When Agathon finished, Aristodemus said, everyone there burst into applause, so becoming to himself47 and to the god did they think the young man’s speech.

Then Socrates glanced at Eryximachus and said, “Now do you think I was foolish to feel the fear I felt before?48 Didn’t I speak like a prophet a while ago when I said that Agathon would give an amazing speech and I would be tongue-tied?”

“You were prophetic about one thing, I think,” said Eryximachus, “that Agathon would speak well. But you, tongue-tied? No, I don’t believe that.” [198B]

“Bless you,” said Socrates. “How am I not going to be tongue-tied, I or anyone else, after a speech delivered with such beauty and variety? The other parts may not have been so wonderful, but that at the end! Who would not be struck dumb on {38} hearing the beauty of the words and phrases? Anyway, I was worried that I’d not be able to say anything that came close to [198C] them in beauty, and so I would almost have run away and escaped, if there had been a place to go. And, you see, the speech reminded me of Gorgias, so that I actually experienced what Homer describes: I was afraid that Agathon would end by sending the Gorgian head,49 awesome at speaking in a speech, against my speech, and this would turn me to stone by striking me dumb. Then I realized how ridiculous I’d been to agree to [198D] join with you in praising Love and to say that I was a master of the art of love, when I knew nothing whatever of this business, of how anything whatever ought to be praised.50 In my foolishness, I thought you should tell the truth about whatever you praise, that this should be your basis, and that from this a speaker should select the most beautiful truths and arrange them most suitably. I was quite vain, thinking that I would talk well51 and that I knew the truth about praising anything whatever. But now it appears that this is not what it is to praise [198E] anything whatever; rather, it is to apply to the object the grandest and the most beautiful qualities, whether he actually has them or not. And if they are false, that is no objection; for the proposal, apparently, was that everyone here make the rest of us think he is praising Love—and not that he actually praise him. I think that is why you stir up every word and apply it to Love; [199A] your description of him and his gifts is designed to make him look better and more beautiful than anything else—to ignorant listeners, plainly, for of course he wouldn’t look that way to those who knew. And your praise did seem beautiful and respectful. {39} But I

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