For example, there is the type of the "great general, noble and courageous,"
represented in Homeric antiquity by Achilles, and among contemporary figures by the Spartan leader Brasidas. Then there is the type of the "clever and eloquent statesman," represented in antiquity by Nestor the Greek and Antenor the Trojan, and by Pericles among contemporaries. Socrates, however, docs not fit into any category. He cannot be compared to any man, concludes Alcibiades; only to Sileni or satyrs.78
Socrates was indeed an individuaclass="underline" that individual so dear to Kierkegaard that he would have liked to have as an epitaph: "He was That Individual. " 79
And yet, although Socrates was unlike anyone else, we shall now see him take on the mythic characteristics of Eros;80 an Eros, that is, conceived as a projection of the figure of Socrates.
In Socrates, erotic irony is intimately connected to dialectical irony, and it leads to reversals of situation quite analogous to those caused by the latter.
Let us be quite clear: the love in question here is homosexual love, precisely because it is educative love. In the Greece of Socrates' day, masculine love was a vestige and remainder of archaic warrior edU<."lltion, in which the young nobleman was trained in the aristocratic virtues, within the framework of virile friendship, and under the direction of an older man . The master-disciple relationship was conceived during the period of the Sophists, on the model of this archaic relationship, and ii waN frequently spoken of in erotic terms. We must not, of course, for1tct tlw rolt• t'l11ycd hy rhetoric nnd lilcrnry fiction in thiK wny of' 11pcnkin1<."1
The Figure of Socrates
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Socrates' erotic irony consisted in pretending to be in love until, thanks to the reversal brought about by irony, the object of his amoreus attentions fell in love himself. Such is the story Alcibiades tells in his speech in praise of Socrates. Alcibiades, believing in the sincerity of the numerous declarations of love Socrates had made to him, invited Socrates home one night in order to seduce him. He slipped into bed with him, and wrapped his arms around nim. Much to Alcibiades' surprise, however, Socrates remained in complete control of himself, and did not let himself be seduced at all. "Since that time,''
declares Alcibiades,
I am the one who has been reduced to slavery, and I'm in the state of a man bitten by a viper.82
I've been bitten in the heart, or the mind, or whatever you like to call it, by Socrates' philosophy . . . the moment I hear him speak I am ·
smitten with a kind of sacred rage, worse than any Corybant, and my heart jumps into my mouth and the tears start into my eyes . . . I'm not the only one, either; there's Charmides, and Euthydemus, and ever so many more. He's made fools of them all, just as if he were the beloved, not the lover.83
It is hard to imagine a better commentary on this passage than the following one, by Kierkegaard:
one might possibly call him a seducer, for he deceived the youth and awakened longings which he never satisfied . . . He deceived them all in the same way as he deceived Alcibiades who . . . observes that instead of the lover, Socrates became the beloved . . . he attracted the youth to him, hut when they looked up to him, when they sought repose in him, when forgetting all else they sought a safe abode in his lov�, when they themselves ceased to exist and lived only in being loved by him - then he was gone, then the enchantment was over, then they felt the deep pangs of unrequited love, felt that they had been deceived and that it was not Socrates who loved them but they who loved Socrates.8•
Socrates' erotic irony consisted in pretending to be in love. In dialectic irony, Socrates pretended, as he asked his questions, that his real desire was that his interlocutor communicate to him his knowledge or wisdom. In fact, however, this game of questions and answers resulted in the interlocutor realizing that he was incapable of curing Socrates' ignorance, for he in fact had neither wisdom nor knowledge to give to Socrates. What the interlocutor renlly desired, 1 hen, wns to enrol in Socrates' schooclass="underline" the school of the conHcim111m·NN 111' 11111 -know inl(.
1 60
Figures
In erotic irony, Socrates used amorous declarations to pretend that he wanted his ostensible lover to hand over to him not his knowledge, but his physical beauty. This situation is understandable: Socrates was not attractive, whereas the young man was. In this case, however, the beloved - or supposedly beloved - discovered through Socrates' attitude that he was incapable of satisfying Socrates' love, because there was no true beauty within him. Upon discovering his shortcomings, the beloved would then fall in love with Socrates. It was not beauty with which the beloved fell in love - Socrates did not have any - rather, he fell in love with the love which, according to Socrates' definition in the Symposium,85 is desire for the beauty which all of us lack. To be in love with Socrates, then, was to be in love with love.
This is precisely the meaning of the Symposium.86 The whole dialogue is constructed so as to make the reader guess the identity between the figures of Socrates and Eros. Plato depicts the guests taking turns, going from left to right, giving speeches in praise of Eros. In succession, we hear Phaedrus and Pausanias, then Eryximachus the doctor, Aristophanes the comic poet, and finally the tragic poet Ariston. When Socrates' turn comes, he does not give a straightforward speech in praise of love, for that would be contrary to his method. Instead, he reports the conversation he had once had with Diotima, a priestess from Mantinea, who told him the myth of the birth of Eros.
Theoretically, the dialogue would have ended here, were it not for Alcibiades'
sudden intrusion into the banquet room. Crowned with violets and ivy leaves and rather drunk, Alcibiades submits to the rules of the banquet, but instead of praising Eros, he gives a speech in praise of Socrates.
The identity between Socrates and Eros is underlined in several ways: not only does the speech in praise of Socrates take its place in the series of speeches already given in praise of Eros, but, in addition, there are many significant features in common between the portrait of Eros, as sketched by Diotima, and the portrait of Socrates given by Alcibiades.
On the day of Aphrodite's birth, recounts Diotima, the gods had a banquet.
Penia - that is, "Poverty" or "Privation" - came begging at the end of the meal. There she espied Poros - "Means," "Expedient," or "Wealth" - drunk on nectar and asleep in Zeus' garden. As a way out of her destitution, Penia decided to have a child by Poros, so she lay with him while he slept, and conceived Eros.
This account of the genealogy of Eros allows Diotima to give a description of him so subtle that it can be interpreted on a variety of levels. In the first place, following the exact words of the myth, we can recognize in Eros the features of both his mother and his father. From his father's side, he gets his clever, inventive mind (in Greek euporit1). From his mother, he inherits the condition of a poverty-stricken beggar: t1p11rit1. Behind this dest.Tiption, we can distinguish a quite pnrticulnr conccp1ion of love. Where111; 1he other guests had described Eros in an idt.'l1li:1.ctl wily, Sm·1·11tl'll l'l'l'ounlN hiN l'nnverHllt inn with