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Spiritual Pregnancy in Plato's Symposium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. E. Pender
E. E. Pender
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

Although Plato's notion of spiritual pregnancy has received a great deal of critical attention in recent years, the development of the metaphor in the Symposium has not been fully analysed. Close attention to the details of the image reveals two important points which have so far been overlooked: (1) There are two quite different types of spiritual pregnancy in the Symposium: a ‘male’ type, which is analogous to the build-up to physical ejaculation, and a ‘female’ type, which is analogous to the physical experience of pregnancy as normally understood.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , May 1992 , pp. 72 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1992

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References

1 Morrison, J. S., ‘Four Notes on Plato's Symposium’, Classical Quarterly 14 (1964), 43–55, pp. 51–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar on κυεῖν; Burnyeat, M. F., ‘Socratic Midwifery, Platonic Inspiration’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 24 (1977), 7–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dover, K. J., Greek Homosexuality (London, 1978), pp. 153–65Google Scholar, Plato, , Symposium (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 146–59Google Scholar; Plass, P. C., ‘Plato's “Pregnant” Lover’, Symbolae Osloenses 53 (1978), 47–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lambert, G. R., ‘Plato's Household Topos: A Formative Influence on Ancient Educational and Social Theory’, Prudentia 16 (1984), 17–32Google Scholar; Stokes, M. C., Plato's Socratic Conversations (London, 1986), pp. 146–82Google Scholar; Tomin, J., ‘Socratic Midwifery’, Classical Quarterly 37 (1987), 97–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kittay, E. F., Metaphor – Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure (Oxford, 1987), pp. 278–87Google Scholar; Tarrant, H., ‘Midwifery and the Clouds’, Classical Quarterly 38 (1988), 116–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 I am very grateful to Professors M. C. Stokes and A. J. Woodman, Dr J. L. Moles, the Editors and the anonymous CQ referee for their careful scrutiny of earlier versions of this article.

3 See Dover, (1980), pp. 137–8Google Scholar, and Stokes, (1986), pp. 146–7Google Scholar. As well as the humour inherent (for Plato) in the idea of a female teacher, a number of other reasons have been suggested as to why Plato introduces Diotima at this point (see Dover, , 1980, pp. 137–8Google Scholar); one that has not been mentioned, so far as I know, is that by bringing in a woman he can raise the subject of pregnancy in a more plausible way. At a gathering of Athenian men the matter of pregnancy was hardly likely to crop up spontaneously, and the subject is even more out of place at Agathon's party where most of the guests are involved in homosexual affairs.

4 Morrison, pp. 52–5. See also Stokes, pp. 162–4.

5 Bury, R. G., The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge, 1909), p. 111.Google Scholar

6 Art. cit., p. 8.

7 See Dover, (1980), p. 147.Google Scholar

8 Willink, C. W., Euripides – Orestes (Oxford, 1986), pp. 174–5.Google Scholar

9 See Stokes, p. 163.

10 The neuter form is used on occasion by Plato for the soul (e.g. Crito 47d) and is used for the Form of Beauty later in the speech (21 1eff.).

11 See Dover, (1980), p. 148.Google Scholar

12 See Stokes, p. 162.

13 See Dover, (1980). p. 153Google Scholar. The use of ᾔθεος (unmarried youth) again underlines that Plato is interested in male rather than female arousal before intercourse.

14 Cf. Dover's comment on Phaedrus 250d (1978, p. 164): ‘beauty is the only one of those things which are erastos (“attracting eros”) which can be directly perceived by the senses, so that the sight of something beautiful affords by far the most powerful and immediate access we have to the world of Being.’

15 The verb παιδεύειν is presumably to be understood as having a double sense here: first referring to intellectual advancement and second to sexual initiation.

16 See Pausanias' speech 184d–e and Dover, (1978), pp. 212ff.Google Scholar

17 The use of άπτόμενος earlier in the dialogue at 175c8 foreshadows the use of the verb here.

18 Dover, (1986), p. 5.Google Scholar

19 Stokes, (1986), p. 172.Google Scholar

20 Dover, suggests (1980, p. 152)Google Scholar that ‘the beautiful medium’ ‘in’ which Homer and Solon created their offspring ‘can only be the virtuous character of the societies for which Homer sang and Solon legislated’, but nothing is said in the text of the virtuous (or otherwise) character of the societies in which these men hved and it is clear from 209b4–c7 that Diotima at this stage is speaking of the lover who is inspired by a beautiful human being (see also 209e5–210a6).

21 Lamb, W. R. M., Plato – Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias (London, 1925), pp. 203–5.Google Scholar

22 Hamilton, W., Plato, The Symposium (London, 1951), p. 93.Google Scholar

23 Groden, S. Q. (ed. Brentlinger, J. A.), The Symposium of Plato (Massachusetts, 1970), p. 92.Google Scholar

24 See Taylor, A. E., Plato (London, 1926), p. 231 n. 1.Google Scholar

25 The man who lives a φαλον βίον can be identified with the man who produces mere phantoms – the φαλα of Republic 496a.

26 This, as I have already suggested, goes some way to explain the use of the neuter forms at 206c and d. See p. 75 above.

27 Taylor, (1926), p. 231 n. 1.Google Scholar

28 See Burnyeat, p. 13. The comment ‘The Republic comes closer to what we are seeking when it describes an intercourse with the Forms which begets understanding and truth’ gives the impression that this image does not appear in the Symposium, which, I argue, is not the case.

29 Taylor comments on this passage (op. cit., p. 230 n. 1): ‘The allusion is to the tale of Ixion and the cloud which was imposed on him in the place of Hera, and from which the Centaurs sprang.’ (The idea was actually Zeller's (1857), see Bury, (1973), p. 132Google Scholarad loc.). But surely a more appropriate parallel is to be found in the story of the εἴδωλον of Helen, see Euripides, , Helen 27–36Google Scholar. Republic 586b7–c5, a passage in which Socrates is speaking of real and unreal pleasures, shows that the story of Helen's εἴδωλον provided Plato with a useful mythical parallel for the contrast between illusion and reality. In this passage we also find references to ‘desires’ and ‘begetting in souls’: Ἆρ' ｏὖν οὐκ νάγκη καί δοναῖς συνεῖναι μεμειγμέναιςλύπαις, είδώλοις τς ληθος δονς καί σκιαγραφημέναις, ὑπ τς παρ' λλλας θέσεως ποχραινομέναις, στε σφοδροὺς κατέρας φαίνεθαι, και ἔρωτας αυτν λυττντας τοῖς ἄφροσιν ντίκτειν κα και περιμαχήτους εἶναι, σπερ τ τς Ἑλένης εἴδωλον ὑπ τν ν Tροίᾳ Στησίχορός φησι γενέσθαι περιμάχητον γνοίᾳ το ληθος;

30 I support Stokes' suggestion (p. 179) that at 212a2–5 ‘the necessary argument is concealed in the metaphor’ and am convinced of a point he makes rather tentatively (p. 179): ‘Perhaps Diotima means, even if she does not say, that intercourse with a mere image cannot produce real progeny, and it needs a real union with a real partner to procreate real offspring.’

31 See Stokes, pp. 180–1: ‘By means of this offspring a man will enjoy a higher degree of immortality than by any other. No ordinary child, and no ordinary intellectual masterpiece, will confer such immortality as the production of true goodness.’

32 Stokes (p. 181) comments that ‘it is left vague in what sense one leaves behind one the true goodness to which one has given birth’. I would argue that the metaphor ends here and that the lover of Beauty cannot be regarded as leaving behind his ‘children’ in any sense. For these ‘children’ must be seen as aspects of his own soul.