Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon remain trailing revealing tragedy and you may comedy: “the main part was you to definitely Socrates is actually trying to convince them your exact same man knows (epistasthai) how to build both comedy and you may tragedy, that a person that is by the hobby (techne) a heartbreaking poet was a comical poet as well” (223d26).
An exact breakdown, certainly, of the speeches from all the symposiasts exactly who cam earlier to help you Socrates
Ordinary poets try not to build each other comedy and you may catastrophe, as they do not find out of real information and you can craft (techne) however, of divine determination (Ion 534c56). Once they performed make-out out-of hobby and you may education, if they was basically craftsmen poets, they will be able to write both comedy and catastrophe, since opposites are always learned because of the exact same craft. Hence new comedic interest plus the tragic activity would have to getting one to additionally the same; just as one in addition to exact same pastime casualdates tips, medicine, deals with both diseases and you will health.
At the end of the brand new Symposium, Alcibiades has gone out-of, presumably into throng from Bacchic revelers, whom bust on the their lives given that agents out of his seizing love for the recognition and flattery of one’s crowd
Socrates tells us what a craftsman poet would be able to create, he doesn’t write to us exactly what he would build. Almost every other Platonic spokesmen are significantly more impending. “We our selves is poets,” the fresh Athenian Stranger informs us from the Guidelines, “who have into the best of our very own feature composed a tragedy that’s the better in addition to most readily useful; at the very least, our very own whole constitution is actually constructed due to the fact a reproduction of the best and greatest lifestyle-the issue and this i allege ‘s the truest problem” (817b15). Earlier in identical talk, brand new Stranger try just as direct that same composition, regardless of if maybe not a funny, does nonetheless embody comedic studies:
An individual who is going to obtain practical wisdom cannot know serious matters rather than learning absurd of these, otherwise other things, for that matter, versus their opposite. But if we intend to and acquire advantage, also to your a tiny measure, i cant feel significant and you can comical as well, referring to exactly why we need to discover ways to acknowledge just what are absurd, to prevent becoming swept up by the the ignorance from it into doing otherwise saying one thing absurd, as soon as we dont must. (816d5-e5)
The fresh new Symposium is actually a tragedy having an enthusiastic analogous cause: it has an imitation of one element of such an existence, namely, just what Protagoras conditions a great “symposium away from breathtaking and you will a men” whom “try for each someone else mettle into the shared argument” by the asking and answering questions (347d3348a9). This is one way Socrates reacts so you’re able to Agathons address. It’s how Diotima converses having Socrates. It will be the particular symposium Socrates attempts to lso are-introduce when Alcibiades “satyr-play” is finished, plus the throng away from Bacchic revelers keeps left.
As opposed to the fresh Laws, although not, the newest Symposium is a comedy too, whilst also contains a replica of second best type from symposium explained regarding the Protagoras-you to definitely in which you’ll find poets present, and you may the spot where the members “dispute more than items that cant feel dependent which have one certainty” (347e17).
Fundamentally, Alcibiades happens with-somewhat adequate-a great flute-girl (212c5-e3; compare 176e6-7). And though she doesn’t gamble, the woman coming inaugurates the further decline of one’s symposium for the something way more such as the sorts of symposium reviled from the Protagoras just like the “an excellent symposium regarding prominent, obscene fellows… whom, not able to amuse each other through its own conversation, put up the expense of flute-women, and pay huge amounts to learn the latest voice of your flute as opposed to her speak” (347c4-d2). This is actually the part of satyr-enjoy on the Symposium-satyr photos try frequent when you look at the Alcibiades address.