This passage starts out with Aristodemus wondering where Socrates is going since he is all dressed up. Socrates says that he is going to dinner at Agathon’s house. Socrates then invites Aristodemus to come along. When they arrive, Aristodemus is the only one to enter the house while Socrates stops and goes into deep thought. Agathon invites him over to the couch and Aristodemus insists that Socrates will come in soon and not to bother him. They follow his advice and Socrates comes in a short time later. When he does, Agathon brings up wisdom that he can learn from Socrates after his pondering. Socrates fires back and mocks him. Then, everyone decides that they will only drink what they want and not get drunk. They decide to talk about something
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He starts off by saying that in order to understand love, we need to understand the true nature of mankind and the struggles that we have been through. First, he says that there were three genders: males, females, and androgyne (male and female). These all had duplicate everything. The males were the son of Father Helios, the females were daughters of Mother Earth and the androgynes were children of the Moon. The once tried to attack Zeus and Zeus knew he had to punish them, but did not know how because he did not want to let them off or kill off the entire population. He decided that he must split them in two. When he did this, they were sewed back up and their navel was created. The two would then want each other and try to seek each other out. When one of them died, they would try to find another person. Zeus then decided to change where the genitalia was and placed it on the front of the body so that men and women could reproduce and men could find satisfaction with each other. Our desire is to love our original state. The original women were there to love women, the original men were there to love men, and the androgynes were there to love the opposite sex. If the customs did not force people to mate, men would not go after the women. When the couple finally gets together, they are completely intimate. There is a bond that cannot be broken. The two would wish to be together forever. Love is there to inspire the people to return to their original state. The goal is to create a perfect union with each other and win the person who is the best match for
He starts off by saying that in order to understand love, we need to understand the true nature of mankind and the struggles that we have been through. First, he says that there were three genders: males, females, and androgyne (male and female). These all had duplicate everything. The males were the son of Father Helios, the females were daughters of Mother Earth and the androgynes were children of the Moon. The once tried to attack Zeus and Zeus knew he had to punish them, but did not know how because he did not want to let them off or kill off the entire population. He decided that he must split them in two. When he did this, they were sewed back up and their navel was created. The two would then want each other and try to seek each other out. When one of them died, they would try to find another person. Zeus then decided to change where the genitalia was and placed it on the front of the body so that men and women could reproduce and men could find satisfaction with each other. Our desire is to love our original state. The original women were there to love women, the original men were there to love men, and the androgynes were there to love the opposite sex. If the customs did not force people to mate, men would not go after the women. When the couple finally gets together, they are completely intimate. There is a bond that cannot be broken. The two would wish to be together forever. Love is there to inspire the people to return to their original state. The goal is to create a perfect union with each other and win the person who is the best match for