49 pages • 1-hour read
Symposium
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Sections 212d-223dChapter Summaries & Analyses
Sections 212d-223d: “Alcibiades’s Speech”
Sections 212d-216c Summary
Suddenly, the group hears a commotion, and Alcibiades appears wearing a chaplet (a victory crown), very drunk, supported by a flute girl, and demanding to see Agathon. He has come to make up for being unable to attend the previous day with the intention to put his crown onto “the most attractive man in the world” (57). After the group enthusiastically invites him in, Agathon calls him over. As Alcibiades begins to untie his crown to transfer it to Agathon, it falls over his eyes, and he fails to notice Socrates until he turns to see who is on the couch beside him. Startled, he banters with Socrates, then asks Agathon to share some of the ribbons from the crown so that he can make one for Socrates since Socrates won arguments every day, not only at tragic competitions.
Alcibiades declares the group too sober and orders undiluted wine to be brought over in large quantities, though he notes it makes no difference to Socrates, who is known for being able to drink profusely but not get drunk. Eryximachus asks what Alcibiades would like them to do, and Alcibiades invites Eryximachus to suggest something, quoting Homer on the value of healers. Eryximachus asks Alcibiades to make a eulogy in praise of Love. Claiming that Socrates would “beat me up” (59) if he praises someone else, even a god, Alcibiades agrees to give a speech in praise of Socrates. He and Socrates banter, and Alcibiades instructs Socrates to interrupt him if he says anything untrue.
First, Alcibiades compares Socrates’s speaking ability to the Satyrs’ ability to enchant people with their reed pipes, preparing them for initiation. Even “a second-rate report of one of [Socrates’s] arguments” could leave its audience “overwhelmed and spellbound” (61). Socrates alone makes Alcibiades feel ashamed and want to change himself, but “seduced by the adulation of the masses,” Alcibiades ran away from Socrates as if “escaping the Sirens” (61). At times, he wished Socrates dead but also knew that Socrates’s absence would make him sad. He claims not to “know how to cope with the man” (62).
Sections 216d-222a Summary
Socrates falls in love with attractive people, belying his tremendous self-control, but wealth and other possessions hold no value for him. Alcibiades confesses that he contrived to seduce Socrates, first by getting him alone in conversation, then by exercising with him, and finally by repeatedly inviting him to dinner. When none of these worked, he kept Socrates talking late into the night, invited him to stay over, and then offered to gratify him, since (as per Pausanias’s speech) partaking of Socrates’s beauty would make him a better person. Citing a proverb that appears in Homer, Socrates points out that he would be trading “gold for bronze”: While Alcibiades would “get truth,” he would only give Socrates “the semblance of beauty” (65).
Unable to seduce Socrates, Alcibiades is insulted but cannot help but admire Socrates’s character and notes that, when Alcibiades served with him in Potidaea, no one endured hardship more effectively—whether it was scarcity of provisions, harsh winter conditions, or resisting the effects of excessive drinking. Alcibiades also recounts Socrates saving his life when he was wounded in battle, saving himself and his friend during a chaotic and hasty retreat from Delium by remaining calm and alert. Thus, Socrates is so remarkable and singular that he cannot be compared to any other person, dead or alive, which is why Alcibiades compares him to the Sileni and Satyrs. To understand what makes Socrates so unique, it is necessary to look beneath the surface: “his arguments abound with divinity and effigies of goodness” (69).
Sections 222b-223d Summary
Alcibiades ends his speech by warning Agathon that Socrates pretends to be the lover but “swaps roles and becomes their beloved instead” (69). Socrates replies that Alcibiades must be sober since he has cleverly concealed his speech’s true intent to cause a rift between Agathon and Socrates. Inclined to agree with Socrates, Agathon moved to the other side of Socrates, and Alcibiades complains that Socrates should at least allow Agathon to lie between them. They banter until they are interrupted by a raucous street party barging in, signaling the end of the evening.
Eryximachus and Phaedrus depart, and Aristodemus “fell asleep and slept for a long time” (71). He wakes up to the cocks crowing to find Agathon, Aristophanes, and Socrates still awake, drinking and conversing. Socrates is on the verge of convincing them that the tragedian and comedian must be combined “in a single person,” but they are too sleepy to follow and eventually fall asleep. Socrates and Aristodemus leave, going about their usual affairs before returning home to sleep.
Sections 212d-223d Analysis
The sublime moment at the end of Socrates’s speech is interrupted by Alcibiades’s raucous, drunken entrance. His appearance at this moment creates tension between ideal and reality. Socrates, the personification of philosophy, has taken his initiates on a journey to the essence of Love as a powerful, courageous partner of immortality. One might expect the Symposium to end there, but Plato concludes with Alcibiades, the general and statesman, who is a legendary figure of controversy in Athens, both loved and hated by his city. Like Socrates, Alcibiades is a figure of duality, and his entrance suggests the double-sided nature of ritual. On one hand, ritual is orderly and predictable; rites must play out in precisely the same way every time. On the other hand, ecstasy and frenzy can be part of the ritual, introducing an element of unpredictability.
As a eulogy of praise, Alcibiades’s speech most closely reflects an ideal of the form. It is effusive in its praise but also makes true statements about Socrates. For each word of praise that he heaps onto Socrates, Alcibiades provides an example. Socrates saved Alcibiades’s life and reputation and the life of a general because he was able to remain calm and alert. Socrates resisted Alcibiades’s attempt to seduce him, not believing it would be a fair exchange.
Alcibiades implies that Socrates has one flaw: Though Socrates can compel the young statesman to feel shame, he does not inspire him to change. Alcibiades himself remains aware that, for as much as he respects and admires Socrates, the pull of adulation and power is stronger. He never does give up politics and devotes himself to self-improvement. Debates remain as to why Plato ends with Alcibiades’s speech rather than Socrates’s, which would have seemed the more logical, given the analogy of the Eleusinian Mysteries that is threaded through the Symposium. Scholars have cited Alcibiades’s interruption of the gathering as a plot twist, characterizing the Symposium more as a drama rather than a dialogue in the strict sense. Plato could also use Alcibiades as a symbolic character, the personification of Athens itself: aspiring to goodness, wisdom, and virtue, but ultimately unable to transcend itself.
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