Nonfiction · c. 385 BC
Symposium
Plato · translated by Benjamin Jowett
At a dinner party in Athens, the guests agree to make speeches in praise of Love; Aristophanes tells the story of the divided halves, and Socrates reports what he was taught by Diotima, before Alcibiades arrives drunk. Plato’s dialogue, written in the fourth century BC, is the most read of his works after the Republic.
The speeches are arranged as a rising argument, each correcting the one before, until Socrates reports what Diotima taught him and turns the subject from the beloved body to beauty itself. Then Alcibiades arrives from the street, drunk, and praises Socrates instead — which undoes the ascent and at the same time proves it, since the man he describes is the only one at the table living as the speech recommends.
This edition uses Benjamin Jowett’s translation of 1871, printed with the introduction he wrote for it.
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