A 'P' Makes All the Difference.

Conversations With a Wise Man
The Symposium by Plato, c. 385 - 370 BC

'Come in,' a voice said. A voice so warm, old, and wise. 
My heart was beating faster. Was it excitement? Anticipation? Was it fear? How long had I been waiting for this?

I walked into the room. It was big but very modestly furnished. A huge oak desk that had probably seen many years already sat in the middle of the room,. A wooden chair was waiting behind it and another one in front of it for the visitor. Me. 
In the background I saw shelves with uncountable books from the floor to the ceiling. Some of them were ordered alphabetically in the ancient Greek language I knew so well by now, some randomly piled on the shelves and even on the floor.

I could not see him first. My eyes needed a moment to get used to the cosy room only lit by some candles. He stood with his back to me, looking out of a huge window decorated with heavy curtains, gazing at a distant light in the darkness.
'Take a seat,' he said, turning and inviting me to the chair in front of his desk.
'Good evening Socrates,' I said and walked, my books and papers and pens in hands, to my armchair.

He was dressed in a woolen fabric, a kind of himation probably, and I was surprised to see him wear sandals instead of being barefoot. Majestically and very upright he walked over to his chair and seated himself. His eyes were intense, old, very knowing, and curiously examining my face. Then he smiled at me...

*****
Part I, the first speech.

Socrates: Shall we begin?

Me: Yes, I'm ready.

Socrates: What were your first thoughts about the work, the Symposium? Is it a book about love, then? I think that was your question?

Me: I hoped so, yes. It did not disappoint, it is a book about love. However, it is much more than that. During my readings of the Symposium it got clearer and an absolute proof that it is not about platonic love. Whoever invented that term and loosely throw it around without further thinking. In fact, it teaches us about Platonic love. The letter P, and I emphasise this with utmost meticulousness, makes all the difference here.

Socrates: Oh?

Me: I'll come backt to that later if I may? Can I perhaps start with some general things I noticed?

Socrates: I'm listening, so please go on.

Me: Well, first of all, I wondered why Plato started the dialogues by letting an outsider (Apollodorus) retell the happenings of the event? There was always the possibility of inaccuracy, of too much gossip or judgement, of the reader losing interest, of doubt, right?

Socrates: Of course. Why did he do it, what do you reckon? Had Plato failed in this regard?

Me: Oh no, not at all. By doing it like this, distancing us readers so thoughtfully from the spectacle and making us so far from it, Plato actually invited us to be a guest as well by challenging  us to use one of our greatest gifts, our imagination. In the end, the Symposium will appear differently to everyone, it depends more or less on how ready we are to listen, to open up, to try to understand and be with them. As for me, there is nothing shadowy or boring about the light of the dialogues. Plato has painted a very colourful and unique moment of his life. Nothing ever is mere black and white, it is an iridescent piece of history.

Socrates: You enjoyed the speeches?

Me: I did. But more so, I was stunned by what happened to you in the course of the evening. To you and your view of love, to love and you.

Socrates: To me? Please explain, would you?

Me: At the beginning, when you voted for the topic to do speeches in praise of Love you said the following, and I cite: 'I'm certainly not going to argue against it- I with my claim that the ways of love are all I understand.' Well, as the evening proceeds, it turns out that you, i.e. all of us more precisely, cannot know all the ways of love. We learn love when we have love, when we love someone, when we are loved back. Anything else is mere theory and guessing.

Socrates: Am I in love? And am I being loved back, then?

Me: Both, you are both Socrates. But let us find our way to that. Let us look at some points that were made in those speeches.

Socrates: Phaedrus' first?

Me: Yes, but I'd like to explain something else first, for a better understanding. The homoeroticism of ancient Greece is somewhat alien to us. Every speech along the way has homoerotic relations in the foreground or in the background which are perhaps not that easily to grasp. This is a feature of Plato's Athens that needs some description; one needs to abandon common thinking, leave possible prejudices and preconceptions behind even, if one wants to enjoy the dialogues in their full meanings. In fact and after some research, men and women in Plato's time were sexually attracted to both sexes. Both forms of love, especially among the wealthy Athenian aristocrats, were viewed as equally normal and desirable as long as they did not violate the boundaries of decency and etiquette. You however, Socrates, viewed this behaviour differently from your friends, didn't you?

Socrates: Yes, that is correct. Yes, I did disagree with them.

Me: Well, back to the first speech. I liked parts of Phaedrus' speech yet some passages or chosen words are arguably questionable. He said that 'Anyone who wants to live a good life needs to be guided throughout his life by something which love imparts more effectively than family ties can...' Phaedrus also explained what that 'something' was that he had just suggested. It was, and I cite, 'the ability to feel shame at disgraceful behaviour and pride in good behaviour...' I think there is a lot of truth in it, but it does only cover one part of so many things in love.

Socrates: You sound sad?

Me: A little sad, yes. Who teaches us what good or bad behaviour is? It's the parents and the family you were born in or lived with, first of all. We think we know about love when we begin a relationship; we want to have all the same we have learned in our childhood. We are forever thankful for what we were given from the family, and we see it as the perfect life to strive for.

Socrates: And this is wrong?

Me: No, it is never wrong. What we will certainly see, but this only works when we have found real love, is that our learning experience from childhood can only function as a help. We have learned, inevitably, the love language of our parents. We have our values, we stand for our opinions and views, we love the parents very much-  yet by finding love we are catapulted into a wonderland we have not laid eyes on before. To get the allowance for the entrance to that fantastic wonderland we need to sign that we, with the beloved person we have chosen, start entirely anew. Having that new beginning, like a beautiful and promising new morning if you will, we are entirely clueless about love. Why is that? Being in love with the person meant for you means to be taught love and to teach love to one another. It is was real love does. Only love between two people makes it possible for us who unknowingly teach love in a relationship to simultaneously become the learners. We are asked to learn a new language, It is the lovers' language and only the lovers' alone, spoken and understood only be the two people in love.

Socrates: Why the sadness then, after that statement?

Me: Phaedrus did not see the all-embracing idea of love. What drives good behaviour, other than love I mean? The deep need to not hurt the other one, under no circumstances and whatever it costs.

Socrates: And you did not follow your own rules?

Me: No, for some time in my life I abandoned my own rules. I caused so much hurt when I loved so deeply at the same time.

Socrates: And now you know better?

Me: Yes, I do know better now. I'm trying to do it right now for I remembered who and what woman I am.

*****
Part II, the next speeches.

Me: Let's move on with Eryximachus, shall we?

Socrates: What about the speaker before Eryximachus?

Me: Pausanias? Well, his speech did not knock my socks off, to be honest. Neither did Eryximachus', but some things he said made my own view on love respond greatly.

Socrates: Such as?

Me: Eryximachus suggested, and I cite, that 'unity coheres by divergence within itself'. This chimed with me and should be looked into for a moment. When we look for love we tend to look for similarities like the same background, same upbringing perhaps, the same culture. This is great, we are attracted by those,  they meet our needs for safety, understanding, values, aims. This, as perfect as it may seem, it is not always the best choice. Love kindly asks us to widen our world because it is also divergence that gives togetherness all it longs for. Love should be like a song written together, but the tunes and keys should never only be the things we do for this love. The keys to compose and alter the song are the hearts and souls of the two lovers, not their deeds first and foremost. It is their characters, their intrinsic properties, their imperfections, their peculiarities, their unbelievable beauty inside and out.

Socrates: But how can it work then if there are many opposites, when the divergence is a huge one?

Me: It will definitely work because Love purposely brings people together who are a little different from one another. Different perhaps that the chords of their song may sound slightly off-key at the beginning. There may be components like fast and slow pace all mixed up, loud and soft volumes, high and low tunes which chaotically make just a noise. We may even be convinced that it won't ever be possible to be structured to a song.  But if you listen with your heart and soul and love, patiently and careful and with all the time you have, you may discover a beautiful rhythm within all the tumultuous and apparently never corresponding tunes. It is, however, the people we are, our 'musical expertise' we were given with birth, and our ability to love and to see, that we can find the magical harmony and the most wonderful concord that will be played and worked on for an eternity. This exactly what will happen when we love.

Socrates: You seem very sure about the things you say.

Me: I am. I love. I am in love. Deeply. I'm listening to the song that is meant for me to be composed.

Socrates: Is it not perfect yet?

Me: It never is. It never should be, we are in writing-music-mood for a lifetime.  Aristophanes?

Socrates: Please do go on. I'm learning.

Me: His speech is, for me, one of the disappointing ones.

Socrates: What?? It is considered the most praised one of the book, given to the experts that analysed it.

Me: Maybe this is because I am not an expert? Could be. His speech is very put-on, effect- seeking. And it is hilariously thought- provoking as well; I'm constantly swaying between good or bad speech.

Socrates: How so?

Me: It needs to take a bit of a swing here. Aristophanes suggests that there were originally three genders, male, female, and the combination of those two. The males' parents was the sun, females came from earth, the combined genders' parents was moon because the moon united both sun and earth. So beautiful, right? They also did not look like the humans we are today. Aristophanes describes it as follows, I cite, 'Secondly, each person's shape was complete: they were round, with their backs forming a circle. They had four hands and the same number of legs, and two absolutely identical faces on a cylindrical neck. They had a single head for their two faces (which were on opposite sides), four ears, two sets of genitals...' I imagined them somewhat glued together, by his description. As it happened, ambitious and powerful as these creatures were, they became a threat to Zeus. He decided, with the aim to weaken their power, to cut them into halves. A word and a  blow, all of a sudden the humans from that time were slit in two. The outcome was that they, separated now, could not handle their parting. They were missing their other half so profoundly that they could not focus on life but searching despairingly for their partners. They died of starvation, of longing for the other one. Maybe the term 'our other half' stems from Plato? And we still deeply misinterpret the meaning of being one instead of two. I think Plato particularly questions our understanding of this.
 
Socrates: But wasn't it a rather sad story?

Me: Aristophanes illustrates it as a very sad one, right. As a disaster more like that should have been avoided at any cost.

Socrates: But you don't think so?

Me: No, I don't think so. Actually, if his story is one of the theses about how it had been with love between humans, I consider Zeus' splitting, in the light of our emotional development I'd like to add, as a most needed step that ever happened to the human kind. Aristophanes' outline is not covering this. As we witnessed in the event, it is never good to only live through the other one. In a relationship that is based on deep and true love, that is also based on trust,  the lovers will have a wonderful balance of a togetherness and alone time that is all-embracing without being a kind of prison for the heart. They share things with one another, experience new things together, still learn the most precious things about each other even after years, maintain reciprocal support for they know what they want from their partner. There is a lively coming and going of newness and intimacy at the same time...

Socrates: Is this not what Aristophanis meant in his speech?

Me: No, it was not what he meant. His people died when being on their own, this will never happen to real love. When split apart Aristophanes' people were lost, there was no support from any side, not even from those who shared the same fate. They were unable to seek help, let alone come up with a striking idea to fight for love and to exit their comfort zone. Aristophanes even issued a warning at the end of his speech. He visioned a scheme that, if people did not want to be fused into one for a while, they will be punished with dying in all loneliness like Hades. This is not what love should be for us. The person we love is so extraordinary in our eyes, and we should always remember why this is the case. What is uniqueness, after all? Uniqueness is what we see when we meet for the first time. We and the person we now love were completely ourselves at first encounter. We were in a very healthy relationship with only ourselves if you will, beautiful people with so much to give. That moment we were inevitably focused on what we were looking for, even if we didn't know what that was.  There was that beautiful rawness, an energy that poured from our souls like sweet honey. Keeping this alive and preserve the enchanting independence in a relationship is the true art of love and togetherness. People learned and understood this only after they had been split by Zeus.

Socrates: If you had been one of the speakers, oh dear!

Me: I'm pretty happy I wasn't there. But, you are right, now it is easy for me to analyse and critisise. The best part, thought, is the next one. With this all pieces will fall into place. It is the retelling about your meeting with Diotima, the priestess.

Socrates: I had to eat some humble pie.

Me: She grilled you, did she not?

*****

Part III, Diotima

Socrates: How do you know she was a woman? And why? Many questions have been raised on that matter, the analysts are at strife about her sex.

Me: She is a woman simply because you are a man, Socrates. Diotima gives us a fantastic lesson of how Love's power conciliates the opposites. Opposites not only concerning views and opinions of lovers, most especially the  appealing opposites between a man and a woman. The very difference between both sexes amplyfies the way the situation enfolds, erotically and physically as well as intellectually. The switching of positions that only love can perform, meaning that both people are strong in a relationship and are also allowed to be vulnerable to the core some time, is what Diotima wants us to see.

Socrates: I'm listening. Go on. You seem to know a lot about love.

Me: I believe in love. Always have and always will. But then, true belief is not knowledge, is it? It is, however, my foundation to learn and seek proof of what I believe.

Socrates: And have you found what you were seeking?

Me: I did. Personally, I found it in my life through finding love. Justification that my true belief is the substance of everything I found in some of Diotima's explanations.

Socrates: Intriguing. What did you find that goes conform with your own thinking?

Me: When we come of certain age we are ready for love to another person, this lies in our nature. As I said earlier, our upbringing, our parents, play a big part of how ready we are for love.  Ready means we have reached a point, physically and mentally, that wants us to have more to give more regarding the opposite sex or whatever sex we may be inclined to. We want to burst even, with goodness, with being ourselves, with wanting to show who we are and what we have to give to that other person. Diotima calls it 'being pregnant' with that new chapter in our lives. What I managed to understand is fascinating I think, she was not talking of having children in the relationship when referring to being pregnant and wanting to give birth. Diotima also talks about that later, but she compares 'giving birth' with building The Third Thing with a beloved partner. Together they tie a bond to one another that, when it is love, is much stronger and more loving than anything else in life. Having a child together is without a doubt the cream topping, but the bond to a child is a different kind of love altogether. A bond that will never affect or lessen the special love between the couple meant for each other?

Socrates: And how can we go about this? How or where do we find such a love?

Me: It just happens and we cannot do anything about it. The beauty of it and the rightness will win in the end. The point is, I think, we should not search for love. If we search for love we sometimes meet a person that is not perfect for us. Real love happens without a warning, as a total surprise when it is meant to be,often even unwished-for sometimes. It is real love, however, when you know that the other one is the treasure  you never knew you had been seeking.

Socrates: It makes much sense to me, yes. How can we keep such a love? How do we nurture it?

Me: Diotima has an answer to that too, Diotima's Ladder Of Love. . There she describes all the values of love with taking steps on a ladder. With every rung we grow further together, as a couple and also as being our own individual person. What I would like to strech here, and I don't think it gets that clear in the book and also is widely misunderstood, is that the steps should be viewed as the overall approach to love. As we ascent Plato's ladder, we never leave the previous rung forever. It is true that we cannot go back once we have climbed the next state, but we will never forget how we grew, we will never forget what we have learned standing on the previous steps. She loves you.

Socrates: Who? Who loves me?

Me: Diotima loves you. It is of absolute importance to her for you to understand love. She is very persistent and clear in her lesson. She begins her teaching with the story of Love's birth, remember? Love's mother was Poverty, his father was Plenty. Like his mother, you have no possessions. Like her you have no shoes, you have no home, you are poor when we talk about material things. You even refused my payment for this wonderful lesson. Love's father is very similar to you too, he is bold and inventive, a lover of wisdom just like you. The fourth step on her ladder is 'Love for knowledge', the sixth one is 'Love for love itself'. For Diotima, love is a philosopher, i.e. love is you.

Socrates: Well, thanks for explaining! I do not think this is possible! I have a last question for you, though.

Me: Please ask.

Socrates: Is Love a god or a godess?

Me: Love is neither. Gods or Goddesses are unable to change behaviour or the way they think. People will. They will not change because we ask them to, they will change when they are in love, without being asked. When we grow we change, when we grow with love we change to something of unbelievable greatness. Gods or Goddesses are free of any mistake. Humans are not, not even when they love. We can try to make up, to do better after we were wrong. Deities cannot, the advantage is always ours.

Sources: Oxford World's Classic, Plato Symposium
Edition 1994
Photos: My own, Altes Museum Berlin (Old Museum Berlin, February 2020)