Socrates, Aristophanes, and you may Agathon remain trailing sharing problem and you may comedy: “an element of the section are you to Socrates is actually seeking to convince him or her the exact same guy understands (epistasthai) simple tips to create both comedy and you can catastrophe, that a person who is from the craft (techne) a tragic poet is actually a comic poet as well” (223d26).
A precise breakdown, undoubtedly, of your speeches created by the symposiasts who speak past so you can Socrates
Ordinary poets try not to write both funny and you may catastrophe, because they do not make out of real faceflow sign up information and you can activity (techne) but of divine inspiration (Ion 534c56). Whenever they performed write out regarding passion and you will knowledge, if they have been craftsmen poets, they’d create both comedy and you can catastrophe, since the opposites will always examined of the exact same pastime. For this reason the new comedic hobby together with heartbreaking interest would have to getting one while the same; just as one additionally the exact same interest, drug, works closely with both ailment and health.
After this new Symposium, Alcibiades moved regarding, allegedly to the throng out-of Bacchic revelers, just who burst towards the their existence because the agents regarding his taking on love toward approval and flattery of your own audience
Socrates tells us just what an excellent craftsman poet could write, the guy does not inform us what he would establish. Most other Platonic spokesmen try significantly more imminent. “I our selves is actually poets,” the fresh Athenian Stranger informs us regarding the Legislation, “that have into the good the element created an emergency that’s the greatest while the most readily useful; anyway, our very own entire constitution is developed while the a replica of the finest and greatest lifestyle-the actual issue and therefore we allege ‘s the truest disaster” (817b15). Earlier in identical conversation, this new Complete stranger are equally explicit this same composition, regardless if perhaps not a funny, do nonetheless embody comedic studies:
An individual who is about to acquire basic wisdom cannot understand major things in place of understanding ridiculous ones, otherwise anything else, for example, as opposed to the contrary. However, if we intend to to get virtue, actually towards the a little level, we cant feel significant and you will comical as well, and this refers to why we need to learn how to acknowledge exactly what was absurd, to cease being swept up of the all of our lack of knowledge of it towards the carrying out otherwise claiming anything absurd, when we do not must. (816d5-e5)
The brand new Symposium is a disaster to possess an enthusiastic analogous reasoning: it contains a replica of 1 section of particularly a lives, specifically, what the Protagoras terminology an excellent “symposium out-of beautiful and you may a beneficial boys” who “decide to try for every anybody else mettle inside the common argument” from the asking and responding questions (347d3348a9). This is why Socrates responds so you’re able to Agathons address. It’s just how Diotima converses with Socrates. It is the style of symposium Socrates tries to lso are-expose when Alcibiades “satyr-play” is finished, and also the throng out of Bacchic revelers have kept.
In the place of the fresh new Laws, yet not, the new Symposium is actually a funny also, as it comes with a reproduction of your own runner-up type from symposium demonstrated regarding Protagoras-one to in which discover poets present, and you may where in fact the members “dispute more issues that cant become oriented which have any certainty” (347e17).
Finally, Alcibiades appear having-somewhat enough-an effective flute-lady (212c5-e3; contrast 176e6-7). And though she doesn’t play, this lady coming inaugurates brand new next decline of one’s symposium towards the anything more including the variety of symposium reviled regarding the Protagoras due to the fact “an excellent symposium out of common, vulgar fellows… just who, unable to host each other the help of its own discussion, put up the price of flute-female, and you will spend huge amounts to hear new voice of the flute as opposed to their own cam” (347c4-d2). Here is the section of satyr-play throughout the Symposium-satyr graphics is actually regular into the Alcibiades address.