Grecian Love In Plato's Symposium

The Truth of Grecian Love According to its most simple definition, love is described as a strong attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion to someone or something. Since the ancient Grecian times, the meaning of love has testified to these words. Ancient text such as Plato’s Symposium explain these ideas about love and prove these to humans that have been questioning love since the beginning of time. Plato’s Symposium is a compilation of speeches made at a party at the Greek poet, Agathon’s house (Raneiri 43). Although each speech brings something different to the conversation, each is centered on the ideals and human conceptions of love. Particularly, the speeches of Aristophanes and Diotima focus on the origins of love. In his speech, Aristophanes …show more content…
Most accurately is the statue of Cupid – the god of love himself – and Psyche (PowerPoint 3). As the statue shows, it appears that Cupid is leaving and Psyche is holding onto him – reluctant to let him go. This is similar to their myth, which describes Cupid’s mother Venus (also known as Aphrodite) being overwhelmingly jealous of Psyche’s beauty. Her jealousy was so astrong that she ordered her son to make Psyche fall in love with a beast. Instead, Cupid falls in love with the princess, but won’t let Psyche know that she is the lover of a god. Towards the end of the myth, Psyche can’t contain her curiosity and looks at Cupid while he is asleep. Outraged by his mortal lover’s betrayal, he tells Psyche that since she is not a god – they can no longer be lovers unless Cupid became a mortal himself. Cupid, not wanting to be rid of his immortality, went through many trials and tribulations to convince the other gods to allow Psyche to be immortal. This story shows the lengths that true lovers will go to in order to be together forever. Plato’s ideals of love are directly intertwined with this statue in that both entities in this artform are now spiritually whole and are content with staying as one for the rest of eternity. These same ideas can also apply to the story of Narcissus in the painting Narcissus by Caravaggio (PowerPoint 9). Narcissus, in Greek mythology, was the handsome son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. As his myth goes, he found himself on the bad side of the revenge goddess, Nemesis. To get her vengeance against him, Nemesis deceitfully led Narcissus to a pond where his eyes fell in love with his reflection, having never seen his own face before. After realizing that it was indeed his own reflection and not an actual person to love, Narcissus fell into the reflection and drowned, not