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Readings |
Plato's
Symposium Excerpt
Read & compiled by Jenn
| In Plato's
Symposium, Aristophanes tells a story of how people came to love each
other. He says that instead of being creatures as we are now, the shape
of each human being was completely round; they had four hands each, as
many legs as hands, and two faces, exactly alike, upon a rounded neck.
They were spherical, and so was their motion - which was cartwheels and
flips. In strength and power they were terrible, and they had great ambitions. So the gods decided they must do something to curb the power. Zeus decided to cut each one of them in two. Now, since their natural form had been cut in two, each one longed for its own other half. This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other. Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature. Each of us then, is a "matching half" of a human whole. And so, nowadays, when a person meets the half that is his or her very own, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they do not want to be separated from one another. Love is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete. Love does the best that can be done for the time being: it draws us towards what belongs to us. For the future, love promises the greatest hope of all - we may find our other half, be restored to our original nature, and through this healing, become blessed and happy. |
| If I
speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only
a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy
and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have a faith that
can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess
to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I
gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love |
| Almitra spoke again and
said, "And what of Marriage, master?" And he answered saying: You were
born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together
when white wings of death scatter your days. Aye, you shall be together
even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but
make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores
of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give
one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance
together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow |