For reasons which, in the last analysis, remain rather mysterious for us, Plato in his Symposium surrounded Socrates with a whole cluster of Dionysiac symbols. 137 In fact, the entire dialogue could have been entitled The Judgment of Dionysos, since Agathon tells Socrates that, when it comes to finding out who is wiser, he or Socrates, they will leave the question up to Dionysos. In other words, whoever drinks the most will win this contest of sophia - wisdom and knowledge - placed as it is under the sign of the god of wine. m When Alcibiades later bursts into the banquet room, he is crowned with violets and ivy leaves, just like Dionysos.139 As soon as he comes in, Alcibiades places a crown of headbands around Socrates' head, as it was the custom to do for the victor in poetry contests. 140 We recall that Dionysos was the god both of tragedy and of comedy. In the course of his speech in praise of Socrates, Alcibiades composes what Socrates later terms "a drama of satyrs and Sileni,'' 141 since these are the beings to which he compares Socrates. Again, we recall that satyrs and Sileni formed the accompanying entourage of Dionysos, and that the centre of satyric drama was, originally, the passion of Dionysos. In the final scene of the Symposium, we find Socrates alone with the tragic poet Agathon and the comic poet Aristophanes, gradually convincing them that one and the same man should be able to be both a tragic and a comic poet. 142 Agathon, in his praise of Eros, ·had said that love was the greatest of poets. 143 Thus, Socrates, who excels in the field of Eros, also excels in that of Dionysos. After all, he has no rival when it comes to holding his wine,144 and if, as a result of the "Judgment of Dionysos," he wins the wisdom contest, it is because he is the only one still awake at the end of the banquet. 145 Can we discern yet another Dionysiac characteristic in his prolonged ecstasies and transports, which are mentioned twice in the dialogue?141, Thus, we find in Plato's Symposium what seems to be a conscious and dclihcrntc ensemble of nllusions to the Dionysiac nature of the figure of SocnllcN. Thi11 l'l1Nl'lllhk culminates in the final scene of the dialogue, in
170
Figures
which Socrates emerges victorious from the judgment of Dionysos, as the best drinker and the best poet.
We should not be surprised if, paradoxically, secretly, and perhaps unconsciously, the figure of Socrates comes, for Nietzsche, to coincide with the figure of Dionysos.
At the end of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche dedicates to Dionysos an extraordinary panegyric of the "genius of the heart," which he repeats, as evidence of his skill in psychological mastery, in the Ecce Homo,'41 although this time he makes a point of refusing to say whom he is addressing. In this hymn, it is as though we hear an echo of the Veni Sancte Spiritus,H8 that old medieval encomium of the Holy Ghost (of which Hamann149 considered Socrates' daimon to be a prefiguration): "Flecte quod est rigidum, fove quod est frigidum, rege quod est devium." 15° For Nietzsche, the genius of the heart has the same marvelously delicate power of softening, warming, and straightening. In his portrait of the spiritual guide with demonic powers, Nietzsche intended to describe the action of Socrates. But as Bertram has suggested,151
wasn't he also thinking - consciously or unconsciously - of Socrates?
We will conclude with Nietzsche's encomium, since it sums up admirably all the themes of our discussion:
The genius of the heart, as that great concealed one possesses it, the tempter god and born pied piper of consciences, whose voice knows how to descend into the netherworld of every soul; who docs not say a word or cast a glance in which there lies no secret goal of seduction . . . the genius of the heart who silences all that is loud and self-satisfied, teaching it to listen; who smooths rough souls and lets them taste a new desire - to lie still as a mirror, that the deep sky may mirror itself in them . . . the genius of the heart from whose touch everyone walks away richer, not having received grace and surprised, not as blessed and oppressed by alien goods, but richer in himself, newer to himself than before, broken open and sounded out by a thawing wind; more uncertain, perhaps; tenderer, more fragile, more broken, but full of hopes that as yet have no name.152
NOTES
Aristotle, Prolrepticus, frg. 5, p. 33 Ross. Cf. the German translation in I. Dilring Aristoleles. Darsie/lung und lt11erpre1a1io11en seines Denkens, Heidelberg 1966, p. 414
and n. 87 = frg. B 39 in Dilring's 1969 German translation of the Protepticus, p. 47.
2 On the problem of the historical Socrates, sec 1hc collection of articles in Andreas Patzer ed., Der histnrisd1r Sncilltes (= Wege der Forschung
,
5115),
Dnrmstadt 1 987 .
.1 On Kicrkcl(nml nnd S11��rn1c11, l'f . .J . l lln1111rl,1 ru ri 1 S. A'irri•rx1um/1 S11i·ratr.1
The Figure of Socrates
171
Auffassung, Neumilnster 1927; J . Wild, "Kierkegaard and classical philology,''
Philosophfral Revie'fl) 49 ( 1 940), pp. 536-7; J. Wahl, Etudes 3rd
edn, Paris 1967; E. Pivcevic, lronie als Daseinsform bei Soren Kierkegaard, Gtitersloh 1 960; T. Bohlin 1 94 1 .
4 On Nietzsche and Socrates, see E . Bertram, Nietzsche. Versuch einer Mythologie, Berlin 1 9 1 8, repr. Bonn, 8th edn, 1 965; H. Hasse, Das Problem des Sokrates bei F. Nietzsche, Leipzig 1918; K. Hildebrandt, Nietzsches Wettkampf mil Sokrates und Plato11, Dresden 1 922; E. Sandvoss, Sokrates und Nietzsche, Leiden 1 966; H.J.
Schmidt, Nietzsche and Sokrates, Meisenheim 1 969; Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche.
Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 4th edn, Princeton NJ 1974. On the vast phenomenon of Socrates' influence in the West, the reader will find a handy collection of texts in H. Spiegelbcrg, The Socratic Enigma, New York 1 964. For the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see B. Bohm, Sokrates im achtzehnten Jahrhundert Studien zum Werdegang des modernen Pe'rsonlichkeitsbe'fl)Usstseins, Leipzig 1929; H.-G. Seebeck, Das Sokratesbild vom 19. Jahrhundert, Gottingen 1947.
5 Plato, Symposium, 2 1 5b-c; Xenophon, Symposium, 4, 19; 5, 7; Aristophanes, Clouds, 362 (Socrates as cross-eyed). Cf. Plato, Phaedo, I I 7b.
6 Friedrich Niet1.sche, "Socrates and Tragedy,'' Posthumous Writings 1870-1873, Second lecture, in Friedrich Nietzsche, Samtliche Werke, eds G. Colli and M. Montinari, 1 5 vols, Berlin 1 980 (hereafter Colli/Montinari), vol. l, p. 545.
7 Friedrich Nietzsche, T'fl)ilight of the Idols. The Problem of Socrates, 3-4, vol. 6, pp. 68-9, Colli/Montinari = The Portable Nietzsche, trans., intro., preface and notes Walter Kaufmann (= Viking Portable Library 62), New York 1 954, repr.
1 968 (hereafter PN ), pp. 474-5.