Comedy and tragedy · Lexicon

From the book

Symposium

Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordThe compound names of poets are literally names of makers.
In the SymposiumAgathon’s victory in tragedy provides the dinner’s occasion, while Aristophanes brings comedy into its company.
In this editionBurnet prints an added “also” in the second formulation, supplied from Vindobonensis 21; the principal manuscripts and papyrus lack it.
A place to readAgathon’s tragic victory establishes the occasion.

Meaning

The compound names of poets are literally names of makers. The important qualification at the close is “by craft”: the report concerns what knowledgeable making entails, not merely which popular poets happen to compose both genres.

Use in the book

Agathon’s victory in tragedy provides the dinner’s occasion, while Aristophanes brings comedy into its company. The two kinds of poet remain present after the other guests leave or fall asleep. Socrates converses with them as they drink from a common bowl, making them agree that knowledge of making comedy and tragedy belongs to the same person, and that the tragic poet by craft is also a comic poet.

The report immediately limits what can be inferred. Aristodemus did not hear the start and was nodding off; he remembers the main point, not the remainder of the argument. Agathon and Aristophanes are likewise drowsy and not following closely. Their agreement is reported as compelled by Socrates, but the reader does not receive the premises by which the conclusion was reached. A complete theory of the unity of the genres cannot honestly be reconstructed from this sentence alone.

The dramatic arrangement is nevertheless forceful. A work filled with laughter, elevated praise, painful confession, and myth ends with the relation between the comic and tragic crafts. Socrates then “puts them to sleep” and leaves for an ordinary day. The phrase makes a playful ending to his intellectual persistence, without claiming that he deliberately employed a sleeping technique or gave the poets a sedative.

Places to read

173aAgathon’s tragic victory establishes the occasion.
177eSocrates associates Aristophanes’ occupation with Dionysus and Aphrodite.
222c–dAlcibiades’ speech is called a satyr-and-silenus play.
223c–dThe two poets hear the final claim, fall asleep, and are left behind by Socrates.

Translation in this edition

Burnet prints an added “also” in the second formulation, supplied from Vindobonensis 21; the principal manuscripts and papyrus lack it. The edition translates the printed supplement. Its note points to a comparison in the Republic, but that is not itself the missing argument of this dialogue.

κωμῳδία (kōmōidia)

kōmōidia — Comedy, named at the close as a poetic practice that Socrates connects with tragedy through knowledge.

223d — κωμῳδίαν. Socrates makes the two poets agree that the same man knows how to make comedy and tragedy.

Read: Comedy and tragedy.

κωμῳδοποιός (kōmōidopoios)

kōmōidopoios — A maker of comedy, linked to the knowledgeable tragic maker in the closing claim.

223d — κωμῳδοποιὸν. The second predicate in the conclusion reported by Aristodemus.

Read: Comedy and tragedy.

τραγῳδία (tragōidia)

tragōidia — Tragedy, both the occasion of Agathon’s victory and the craft discussed at the close.

173a — τραγῳδίᾳ. Agathon’s first tragic victory dates the dinner.
223d — τραγῳδίαν. Tragedy is paired with comedy in the final reported conclusion.

Read: Comedy and tragedy.

τραγῳδοποιός (tragōidopoios)

tragōidopoios — A maker of tragedy; the final claim specifically qualifies the maker as working by craft.

223d — τραγῳδοποιὸν. The person who is a tragic poet by craft is said also to be a comic poet.

Read: Comedy and tragedy.