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Aristophanes' Speech in Plato's Symposium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

K. J. Dover
K. J. Dover
Affiliation:
University of St. Andrews
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Extract

Aristophanes' encomium on Eros (Smp. 189c 2–193d 5) is a story with a moral. Once upon a time, all human beings were double creatures, each with two heads, two bodies and eight limbs. Then, by the command of Zeus, each double creature was cut in half, and so humans as we know them came into being. Every one of us ‘seeks his other half’, and this search is Eros. If we are pious, we may hope to be rewarded by success in the search; if we are impious, Zeus may cut us in two again, and each of us will be like a flat-fish or a figure in relief.

The story is amusingly told, and the comedies of the real Aristophanes are also amusing; but when Sykutris says that the story ‘reminds us of the plot of a comedy’ and when Robin constructs a hypothetical comedy out of it, they are confounding essence and accident. The affinities of Aristophanes' story do not lie with his own comedies or with those of his contemporaries, but elsewhere.

The extant plays of Aristophanes are firmly rooted in the present, and each of them explores the possibilities of a fantasy constructed out of the present. Mythology was exploited by the comic poets—rarely by Aristophanes himself, more extensively by some others—in order to present humorously distorted versions of the myths which were the traditional material of serious poetry. Some comic titles point to theogonic myths (e.g. Polyzelos, Birth of the Muses and Birth of Dionysos) or to myths about the era before the rule of Zeus (e.g. Phrynichos, Kronos, and the younger Kratinos, Giants and Titans).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 86 , November 1966 , pp. 41 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1966

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References

1 P. 119* of his edition (Athens, 1934); cf. Rettig's edition (Halle, 1875–6) ii 21 f.

2 Pp. lix f. of his sixth edition (Paris, 1958).

3 Cf. Pickard-Cambridge, , Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy, ed. 2 (Oxford, 1962) 265 ff.Google Scholar

4 Meineke, (FCG ii 310)Google Scholar considered but abandoned this explanation. It should be noted in passing that a play called Ants was attributed to Kantharos and to Plato Comicus, but there are no fragments and no reason to suppose that it (any more than Wasps) contained an anthropogonic myth. On Aesop 166 (Perry) cf. p. 43, n. 15.

5 Fr. 105A (Edmonds). Irenaeus's summary of the ‘doctrine’ of the play so closely resembles Ar. Av. 693 ff. that Meineke, (FCG i 318 ff.)Google Scholar thought ‘Antiphanes’ a slip for ‘Aristophanes’, and Theogony was excluded from CAF.

6 Meineke's tentative emendation (FCG i 304) of μετά to κατά was mistaken; cf. Anon. De Com. ii 16 and Ronde, E., RhM xlii (1887) 475 Google Scholar (= Kleine Schriften [Tübingen and Leipzig, 1901] i 185).

7 Phronesis x (1965) 2 ff.

8 Thomson, Stith, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, ed. 2 (Copenhagen, 1955)Google Scholar, motifs A 1225.1, 1281.1–2, 1301, 1310.1, 1313.0.2, 1313.3, 1313.4.1, 1316.0.1, 1352, 1352.3, and Nøjgaard, M., La Fable antique (Copenhagen, 1964–) i 102 f.Google Scholar, 402 ff. Vast though the Motif-Index is, it can be augmented annually from anthropological publications. On the other hand, some of the examples cited in it should possibly be discounted (for our present purpose) as the product of diffusion from the Platonic story; cf. Daube, D., The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (London, 1956) 72 f.Google Scholar, 79, on the bisexual Adam (I owe this reference to the Rev. R. A. S. Barbour).

9 Not all the Aesopic stories known in Classical times, perhaps not more than a minority, should be called ‘fables’; cf. Meuli, K., Herkunft und Wesen der Fabel (Basel, 1954)Google Scholar and especially Nøjgaard (passim), whose definitions are strict.

10 It is hard to refuse a Classical pedigree to some aetiological stories which are attributed to Aesop in much later times, e.g. Photius Ep. 16, Themistius p. 434 (Dindorf); cf. Perry, B. E., TAPA xciii (1962) 294 ff.Google Scholar

11 Cf. Tim. 20d 7–8 beginning a story received (d 1) Because of the formula, I do not take μῦθος … ὥσπερ γραός in Grg. 527a 5 as a mere synonym for ‘nonsense’, but equally I do not suggest that Tht. 176b 7, where ὁ λεγόμενος γραῶν ὕθλος is contrasted with ‘the truth’, gives us any information about Greek old wives' tales.

12 This is a more appropriate translation than ‘boys’ (‘like a boy’, Taylor), if Hp. Ma. 286a 1–2 is any guide. Nøjgaard i 548 ff. rightly emphasizes that fables (as he defines them) are designed for an adult audience, but this does not alter the fact that they (with other stories of a fable-like character) are digestible by children and much adult fare is not.

13 Cf. Wilamowitz, , Platon ii (ed. 3, Berlin, 1962) 175 Google Scholar; Ziegler, K., NJA xxxi (1913) 550 ff.Google Scholar; Taylor, A. E., Plato: the Sophist and the Statesman (Edinburgh, 1961) 211 ff.Google Scholar

14 On the εἰκών in general cf. Fraenkel on A. Ag. 1629 ff. and Monaco, G., Paragoni burleschi degli antichi (Palumbo, 1964).Google Scholar On the story of the cicadas, cf. Frutiger, P., Les Mythes de Platon (Paris, 1930) 237 n. 5.Google Scholar Motifs of the type ‘cicadas were once men’ may have existed in folklore in Plato's time; cf. Aesop 166 (Perry)

15 Cf. Norden, E., Agnostos Theos, ed. 2 (Leipzig, 1923) 368 ff.Google Scholar, and Nøjgaard 459 f.

16 Cf. Frutiger 238.

17 Cf. Gow, A. S. F. in Essays and Studies Presented to Sir William Ridgeway (Cambridge, 1913) 99 ff.Google Scholar, and Fink, G., Pandora und Epimetheus (Diss. Erlangen, 1958) 65 ff.Google Scholar My own view is that Hesiod meant to say what Hermokrates says more sophistically in Th. vi 78.2: Man is ταμίας of his own hopes and fears, because he can choose to hope and fear, but he cannot choose when to be sick or well.

18 There is an amusing French example in de Montaiglon, A. and Raynaud, G., Recueil de Fabliaux (Paris, 1877–) ii no. 32Google Scholar; cf. Johnston, R. C. and Owen, D. D. R., Fabliaux (Oxford, 1957) xiii f., xvii f.Google Scholar

19 E.g. (ed.) Lee, F. H., Folk Tales of All Nations (London, 1931) 679 Google Scholar, ‘Had I not been so wilful and malicious, I had now been empress!’ (Italy) and 909, ‘O why was I not a better bird when I was young?’ (Spain); cf. Nøjgaard i 395 ff.

20 Note πρὸς τ ὸ ν πορθμέα; Aristotle assumes that we know the story (cf. Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt ix [1963] 107).

21 In Aesop 8 (Perry) a similar prediction is made not as a threat in anger but as a response to some shipwrights who had challenged Aesop to make a joke against them.

22 Cf. Bolte, J. and Polivka, G., Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm (Leipzig, 1913–) iv 24 f., 34 ff.Google Scholar; Dawkins, R. M., Modern Greek in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 1916) 561, 571.Google Scholar A wish for the happiness of the hearer sometimes implies that the teller deserves material reward for his efforts, just as a beggar seasons his importunities with blessings.

23 Professor N. M. Kontoleon drew my attention to this.

24 The expression is not coined for the occasion, but occurs in serious contexts, e.g. X. HG vii 1.24

25 κωμῳδῶν τὸν λόγον, which, out of context, we should take to mean ‘ridiculing my speech’, i.e. ‘criticising my speech by making jokes against it’. But passages immediately before and after Aristophanes' speech suggest that Aristophanes here means by κωμῳδεῖν something like ‘answer mockery with mockery’ (cf. Meno 80b 8—C 6): … b 4–5 193d 7–8

26 Cf. n. 7.

27 Cf. Kirk and Raven, p. 338.

28 Ziegler 533ff.; Robin lx f.; Sykutris 119*; Frutiger 239; Taylor, A. E., Plato (ed. 6) 220.Google Scholar

29 Cf. the implications of Arist. Meteor. 365b 9 f.

30 On the possible utilisation of this myth in archaic vase-painting, cf. Hampe, R., Frühe griechische Sagenbilder (Athens, 1936) 45–49, 87 f.Google Scholar (While I must defer to Professor J. M. Cook on a question of Greek iconographie technique, I cannot feel completely convinced that his interpretation [ABSA xxxv (1934/5) 206] disposes of Hampe's.) See above p. 3.

31 Ziegler 561 ff., Frutiger 240. I do not suggest that we should treat the evidence for Orphic doctrines more grudgingly and pedantically than the evidence for the history of any other myths and religious beliefs; only that we should not treat them less so.

32 So, explicitly, Rettig ad loc.; but the translations of Robin, Sykutris, Calogero (Bari, 1928) and Ritter (Tübingen, 1931) take pains to avoid the importation of ‘also’.

33 I take καταλύεσθαι as passive (cf. Th. iii 115.4), not as middle. Since one of the two parties to any such agreement is likely to want to make peace before the other (even if only by a small margin), the provision which needs to be made is ‘if either party wishes to make peace, let him not make it except on terms to which the other party agrees’, and this is said in the form ‘and if they wish to make peace, let it be made on the same terms’. Thucydides is quoting a document, so that the question of stylistic variation hardly arises—as it does in [Lys.] 20.32

34 Cf. Frutiger 181 n. 2, and Tate, J., CQ xxiii (1929) 142 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, xxiv (1930) 1 ff.

35 Aelian NA vi 51 tells an aetiological story (anchored to a quarrel between Zeus and Prometheus) about the ass, the snake and old age, and ends: ‘Aristeas’ (not otherwise known as the name of a comic poet) ‘and Apollophanes, poets of comedy, sing this story’ (cf. Meuli 24 f.). But that a comic poet made the story the plot of a comedy is hardly conceivable; we should think rather of something like Ar. Lys. 781 ff. Cf. Nøjgaard i 225, 459.

36 Cf. Cataudella, Q., Dioniso ix (1942) 6 ff.Google Scholar

37 Cf. Frutiger 196 f. (I do not know why Frutiger says ‘le véritable but de cette fable … ce n'est pas d'éclairer le lecteur sur la cause ou l'origine de l'amour, mais sur sa nature et ses modalités’); Sykutris 121*; Robin lx; Gilbert, W., Ph lxviii (1909) 69 f.Google Scholar; Stenzel, J., Platon der Erzieher (Leipzig, 1928) 203 f.Google Scholar; Markus, R. A., The Downside Review lxxiii (1956) 220.Google Scholar

38 Cf. Rep. 611d 1–2.

39 This is not the only occasion on which Diotima's views are re-stated by the Athenian; cf. Lg. 721b 6—c8 ∼ Smp. 207c 9—209e 4 (Phronesis x [1965] 16 ff.).

40 Cf. Sykutris 123*; Stenzel 203 f.; Koller, H., Die Komposition des platonischen Symposion (Diss. Zürich, 1948) 47.Google Scholar

41 Cf. Sykutris 108*, 121*. I am concerned here not with what the words meant to the writer, but with their influence (whether acknowledged or not) on attitudes to Plato in the twentieth century. Markus 222 emphasises that Aristophanes draws our attention, as none of the preceding speeches has done, to the relational aspect of love; but, of course, to Aristophanes the purpose of a given individual is not to acquire and express a certain disposition towards potential objects in general, nor to promote the well-being of a particular object without creating an erotic relationship to it, but to create that relationship to a particular object.

42 Cf. Gould, T. F., Platonic Love (London, 1963) 33, 170 ff.Google Scholar

43 The distinction drawn here between three different experiences is not intended to carry any implication for their causation or biological inter relation.

44 Edelstein, L., TAPA lxxvi (1945) 95 f.Google Scholar; seems to me to overrate both the significance of Eryximachos's speech and Plato's respect for doctors; I find it hard not to see an element of unkind parody in 188d 9—e 2. Markus's appraisal (221) is, in my view, closer to Plato's, and cf. De Vries, G. J., Spel bij Plato (Amsterdam, 1949) 266.Google Scholar

45 Singular because the evidence required for the explanation of an individual case is vast and largely inaccessible, not because the principles involved in such an explanation conflict in any way with our ordinary experience.

46 Cf. especially Daux, G., REG lv (1942) 236 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar