From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordAndrogynos is the combined male-and-female kind; genos supplies the classification; the rare hetairistria identifies women directed erotically toward women.
- In the SymposiumAristophanes distinguishes a male original, a female original and a mixed original, linked respectively to sun, earth and moon.
- In this editionThe edition leaves “androgyne” and hetairistriai visible and explains the latter in a note.
- A place to readThree kinds, bodily form and cosmic parentage.
Meaning
Androgynos is the combined male-and-female kind; genos supplies the classification; the rare hetairistria identifies women directed erotically toward women. A modern label should not be imposed as though it were the Greek noun’s exact historical equivalent.
Use in the book
Aristophanes distinguishes a male original, a female original and a mixed original, linked respectively to sun, earth and moon. Present attractions are explained by the origin of the cut parts: mixed-kind halves seek the other sex; halves of the original female turn toward women; halves of the original male pursue males. The speech therefore does not begin with universal androgyny. Nor does it reduce every current relationship to one male and one female seeking reunion.
The explanation is evaluative as well as imaginative. Aristophanes attributes exceptional courage to the male-derived youths and rejects the charge of shamelessness against them; the surrounding jokes complicate a flatly solemn reading. His final formulation nevertheless explicitly includes both men and women in the possibility of happiness. The myth organizes diverse attractions through a shared account of deprivation, while its local hierarchy and assumptions remain those of the represented speaker.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The edition leaves “androgyne” and hetairistriai visible and explains the latter in a note. It also notes the abusive ordinary use of the first word, which Aristophanes explicitly mentions. The explanation remains specific to Aristophanes’ use of the words.
ἀνδρόγυνος (androgynos)
androgynos — Man-woman, the name of one original combined male-and-female kind in Aristophanes’ myth; not the name of every original human.
- 189e — ἀνδρόγυνον. One vanished kind survives as a name used in reproach.
ἄρρην (arrēn)
arrēn — Male; the neuter form names one of the original kinds and also one component of the mixed kind.
- 189d — ἄρρεν. One of the two kinds present now, distinguished from the original mixed third.
γένος (genos)
genos — Kind, race or stock: the classification varies between the three original kinds and humankind as a whole.
ἑταιρίστρια (hetairistria)
hetairistria — A woman whose erotic partners are women, in the local explanation of halves from the original female kind.
- 191e — ἑταιρίστριαι. The plural identifies a group traced to the original female.
θῆλυς (thēlys)
thēlys — Female; the neuter form names the other kind, whose original double-bodied members yield female-directed halves.
- 189d — θῆλυ. The female is distinguished from male and from the vanished mixed kind.