Symposium

Name: Symposium
Author: Plato

Ancient Greek with an independent English translation.

SymposiumSymposium · 214d–215b

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Symposium · 214d–215b

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Ancient Greek

p. 120

παρόντος ἢ θεὸν ἢ ἄνθρωπον ἄλλον ἢ τοῦτον, οὐκ ἀφέξεταί μου τὼ χεῖρε.

Οὐκ εὐφημήσεις; φάναι τὸν Σωκράτη.

Μὰ τὸν Ποσειδῶ, εἰπεῖν τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην, μηδὲν λέγε πρὸς ταῦτα, ὡς ἐγὼ οὐδ’ ἂν ἕνα ἄλλον ἐπαινέσαιμι σοῦ παρόντος.

Ἀλλ’ οὕτω ποίει, φάναι τὸν Ἐρυξίμαχον, εἰ βούλει· Σωκράτη ἐπαίνεσον.

214eΠῶς λέγεις; εἰπεῖν τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην· δοκεῖ χρῆναι, ὦ Ἐρυξίμαχε; ἐπιθῶμαι τῷ ἀνδρὶ καὶ τιμωρήσωμαι ὑμῶν ἐναντίον;

Οὗτος, φάναι τὸν Σωκράτη, τί ἐν νῷ ἔχεις; ἐπὶ τὰ γελοιότερά με ἐπαινέσαι; ἢ τί ποιήσεις;

Τἀληθῆ ἐρῶ. ἀλλ’ ὅρα εἰ παρίης.

Ἀλλὰ μέντοι, φάναι, τά γε ἀληθῆ παρίημι καὶ κελεύω λέγειν.

Οὐκ ἂν φθάνοιμι, εἰπεῖν τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην. καὶ μέντοι οὑτωσὶ ποίησον. ἐάν τι μὴ ἀληθὲς λέγω, μεταξὺ ἐπιλαβοῦ, ἂν βούλῃ, καὶ εἰπὲ ὅτι τοῦτο ψεύδομαι· ἑκὼν γὰρ εἶναι οὐδὲν 215a ψεύσομαι. ἐὰν μέντοι ἀναμιμνῃσκόμενος ἄλλο ἄλλοθεν λέγω, μηδὲν θαυμάσῃς· οὐ γάρ τι ῥᾴδιον τὴν σὴν ἀτοπίαν ὧδ’ ἔχοντι εὐπόρως καὶ ἐφεξῆς καταριθμῆσαι.

Σωκράτη δ’ ἐγὼ ἐπαινεῖν, ὦ ἄνδρες, οὕτως ἐπιχειρήσω, δι’ εἰκόνων. οὗτος μὲν οὖν ἴσως οἰήσεται ἐπὶ τὰ γελοιότερα, ἔσται δ’ ἡ εἰκὼν τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἕνεκα, οὐ τοῦ γελοίου. φημὶ γὰρ δὴ ὁμοιότατον αὐτὸν εἶναι τοῖς σιληνοῖς τούτοις τοῖς 215b ἐν τοῖς ἑρμογλυφείοις καθημένοις, οὕστινας ἐργάζονται οἱ δημιουργοὶ σύριγγας ἢ αὐλοὺς ἔχοντας, οἳ διχάδε διοιχθέντες φαίνονται ἔνδοθεν ἀγάλματα ἔχοντες θεῶν. καὶ φημὶ αὖ ἐοικέναι αὐτὸν τῷ σατύρῳ τῷ Μαρσύᾳ. ὅτι μὲν οὖν τό γε

Symposium

p. 121

present, either god or human being other than him, will not keep his two hands off me.”

“Hush!”¹ said Socrates.

“By Poseidon,” said Alcibiades, “say nothing against this, since I would not praise a single other person in your presence.”

“Well, do so, then,” said Eryximachus, “if you want: praise Socrates.”

214e“What do you mean?” said Alcibiades. “Do you think I should, Eryximachus? Am I to attack the man and take vengeance on him in front of you?”

“You there,” said Socrates, “what do you have in mind? To praise me² so as to make me more laughable? Or what will you do?”

“I shall tell the truth. But see whether you allow it.”

“Well, the truth at any rate,” he said, “I allow, and I tell you to tell it.”

“I’ll lose no time,” said Alcibiades. “And you, do this: if I say anything that is not true, interrupt me in the middle, if you want, and say that I am lying in this; for so far as it rests with me I 215a shall tell no lie. But if, as I recall things, I speak of one thing from here and another from there, do not marvel; for it is not at all easy for one in this state to count up your outlandishness with resource and in order.

“Socrates, gentlemen, I shall undertake to praise in this way: through likenesses. Now he will perhaps think it is to make him more laughable; but the likeness will be for the sake of the truth, not of the laughable. For I say that he is most like those sileni³ that 215b sit in the shops of the carvers of herms, which the craftsmen make holding panpipes or pipes, and which, when they are opened in two, are seen to have statues of gods inside. And I say, in turn, that he resembles the satyr Marsyas.⁴ Now that, at least in

1.Hush!: the words Diotima used to Socrates (201e10); see the note there.

2.To praise me: Burnet’s own epainesai; the manuscripts have epaineseis, “will you praise me”, as Bekker’s epainesei means too (apparatus, e5).

3.Sileni: the snub-nosed, horse-eared companions of Dionysus; in Xenophon’s Symposium, in a mock contest of beauty, Socrates claims that the Naiads bear sileni more like him than like the handsome Critobulus (5.7; compare 4.19).

4.Marsyas, the satyr who contended with Apollo in music and was flayed (Apollodorus, Library 1.4.2); Herodotus, who calls him “the silenus Marsyas”, says that his skin hung at Celaenae in Phrygia (7.26.3). In the Minos Socrates calls the pipe-tunes of Marsyas and of his darling Olympus “most divine”, the only ones that stir and reveal those in need of the gods (318b).

About This Reading Edition

The complete Symposium, 172a–223d: at Agathon’s banquet the guests praise Love, Socrates recounts Diotima’s teaching, and Alcibiades praises Socrates. Burnet’s Greek faces a new Diotimos Editions English translation, with an introduction, key words, outline, glossary, critical apparatus, and linked translator notes.

Historical Text and Translation

Greek: Plato, Symposium, in John Burnet, Platonis Opera, volume II (Oxford, 1901; second edition, 1910), in a later impression printed by John Johnson and issued by Humphrey Milford no earlier than January 1935, as described by the supplied edition. Its Greek was taken from the Perseus Digital Library transcription and checked against photographs of that impression; Burnet’s readings and critical apparatus are retained. The digital Greek transcription and its modifications are attributed to the Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, under CC BY-SA 4.0. English translation and editorial matter: Diotimos Editions, 2026.

About Diotimos Editions

This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.

Rights

The ancient Greek work and Burnet’s printed edition are in the public domain. The Perseus digital Greek transcription and its modifications are reused under CC BY-SA 4.0, as verified from the official Perseus repository license. The supplied edition reports checking its transcription against Burnet’s printed pages. The new English translation and editorial matter are credited to Diotimos Editions, 2026; no open license for those new contributions is stated in the supplied files.