rhodrymavelyne

Happy Birthday, Plato!

We don’t know for sure when Plato was born. That date remains shrouded in mystery.

Centuries later, Renaissance scholars began celebrating today as his birthday. Since I’m a fan, I thought I’d resurrect that tradition.

For I am a fan. Ever since I first read The Symposium back in 1990 at UC Santa Cruz, I’ve been a fan.

I’m slowly making my way through many of his works. (I have a Kindle. Many of them are available for free, so I could afford to read them without worrying about cost or limited shelf space.) I hope to read everything I can eventually.

Plato is a delightful mind expander. I found things to ponder and think about in everything he’s done.

Nothing quite comes close to The Symposium in my estimation. I still have my Penguin paperback classic, a used 1987 translation. This is the one I refer to when quoting from The Symposium.

There’s a lot to quote. From the opening words of Phaedrus, to the playful myth of Aristophanes, to the elevated speculation of a higher love which Diotima draws Socrates’s attention to; there’s a lot for a deep reader to sink her mental teeth into.

What I’m going to quote is one of my favorite parts of the book, where Alcibiades shares his personal love story…

‘“I think you are the only lover that I have ever had who is worthy of me, but that you are afraid to mention your passion to me. Now, what I feel about the many is this, that it would be foolish of me not to comply with your desires in this respect as well in any other claim you might make either on my property or on that of my friends. The cardinal object of my ambition is to come as near to perfection as possible and I believe that no one can give me such powerful assistance towards this end as you. So the disapproval of wise men, which I should incur if I refused to comply with your wishes, would cause me far more shame than the condemnation of the ignorant multitude if I yielded to you.”

He listened to what I had to say, and then made a thoroughly characteristic reply in his usual ironical style. “You must be a very sharp fellow, my dear Alcibiades, if what you say about me is true and I really have a power which might help you improve yourself. You must see in me a beauty which is incomparable and far superior to your own physical good looks, as if, having made this discovery, you are trying to get a share of it by exchanging your beauty for mine, you obviously meant to get much the better of the bargain; you are trying to get true beauty in return for sham; in fact what you are proposing is to exchange dross for gold. But look more closely, my good friend, and make quite sure that you are not mistaken in your estimate of my worth. A man’s mental vision does not begin to be keen until his physical vision is past its prime, and you are far from having reached that point.”

“Well,” I said, “I have done my part; what I have said represents my real sentiments and it is now for you to decide what you think best for me and for yourself.”

“Quite right,” he answered, “we will consider hereafter, and do whatever seems to be best in this as in other matters.”

I had now discharged my artillery, and from the answer which he made I judged that I had wounded him; so, without allowing him to say anything further, I got up and covered him with my own clothes-for it was winter-and then laid myself down under his own worn cloak, and threw my arms around this truly superhuman and wonderful man, and remained thus the whole night long. Here again, Socrates, you cannot deny that I am telling the truth. But in spite of all my efforts he proved completely superior to my charms and triumphed over them and put them to scorn, insulting me in the very point on which I piqued myself, gentlemen of the jury, I may as well call you that, since you have the case of Socrates’ disdainful behavior before you. I swear by all the gods in heaven that, for anything else that might have happened between us when I got up after sleeping with Socrates, I might have been sleeping with my father or elder brother.

What do you suppose to have been my state of mind after that? On the one hand, I realized I had been slighted, but on the other I felt a reverence for Socrates’ character, his self control and courage; I had met a man whose like for wisdom and fortitude I could never have expected to encounter. The insult was that I could neither bring myself to be angry with him and tear myself away from his society, nor find a way of subduing him to my will. It was clear to me he was more completely proof against bribes than Ajax against sword wounds, and in the one point in which I expected him to be vulnerable he had eluded me. I was utterly disconcerted, and wandered about in a state of enslavement to the man the like of which has never been known.”’

Alcibiades is telling his story here, whom was in disgrace at the time in Athens. Much of his shame fell upon Socrates as well. Plato uses this story as a clever device to depict how yes, Alcibiades and Socrates were close, yet all the vices Alcibiades indulged in, Socrates did not.

I didn’t know these things when I first read the story. The mad, obsessive love which Alcibiades described was one I could relate to completely. Being denied and rejected, only to chase after the one who inflicted these things upon you is a theme I’ve expolored in my own writing again and again. I even had a vision of specifically Alcibiades chasing after Socrates and his students through time and space like Pearl on Mystery Science Theatre, perhaps even sending him cheesy self help manuals. :) This crackfic vision eventually mutated into A Symposium in Space, where I reversed the polarity on the gender flow in every sense. :)

It’s Alcibiades talking about Socrates here, but I always had the impression Plato was talking about Socrates as well.

Very little of the actual Socrates survives in historical record. What endured what Plato’s Paragon, which Plato uses as his mouthpiece of wisdom in his works.

Socrates is an idealist who pokes fun of other ideals. He strives constantly to possess the perpetual good through wisdom. He seeks wisdom through questions. While questioning, he cracks the foundation of false wisdom which he finds far less firmly in place than his opponents imagined.

Socrates does this again and again. We see him at it in The Symposium when he takes apart Agathon’s pretty picture of love through questions. Agathon himself ends up taking apart his own speech with his answers.

As long as questions exist, Socrates will never die. Plato has created an avatar of the perpetual seeker of wisdom which will last forever.

I’m not certain if anyone has ever loved, lost, and ultimately triumped as Plato has over Socrates.

Socrates died at the hands of the state. Most of us don’t remember the men who condemned him. We do remember Socrates’ name. Not many facts about Socrates remain, but Plato’s Paragon endures. He continues to spin legends of the quests for wisdom. He touches on everything from Christian philosophy to the backstory of beautiful modern anime series.
Happy Birthday, Plato. Thank you for giving us your paragon. We will continue to breathe new life into him, just as he continues to inspire us to think, to question, and to grow in wisdom.