From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAkouein ranges from physically hearing a voice to listening to a report or discourse.
- In the SymposiumThe entire dialogue is offered to hearers who depend on other hearers.
- In this edition“Bare words” translates a phrase in which “bare” modifies the speeches; it does not translate “prose” or assert that Socrates speaks without rhetorical effects.
- A place to readThe report passes through hearers; philosophical hearing gives Apollodorus pleasure.
Meaning
Akouein ranges from physically hearing a voice to listening to a report or discourse. Kēlein and katechesthai describe a more intense response: being charmed or held by what one hears. “Bare” names the absence of instrumental accompaniment, not absence of power or meaning.
Use in the book
The entire dialogue is offered to hearers who depend on other hearers. Glaucon can listen on the road; Apollodorus takes extraordinary pleasure in philosophical talk whether speaking or listening. At the dinner the dismissal of the pipe-girl privileges speeches, but Alcibiades’ arrival brings musical sound back into the room. His subsequent comparison makes this opposition unstable: Socrates’ speech can accomplish what instrumental music does.
Marsyas’ tunes retain their force whether a good performer or a poor pipe-girl plays them. Alcibiades says Socratic words likewise work even when another, quite poor, speaker repeats them. Woman, man, and youth are all included among possible hearers. The comparison therefore locates the effect beyond the prestige or brilliance of the immediate performer. It also supplies a pertinent image for a dialogue transmitted through several narrators, though Alcibiades does not explicitly offer a theory of Plato’s narrative.
The effect is not simple pleasure. Alcibiades’ heart leaps, tears flow, and his own enslaved condition becomes intolerable to him. He could admire Pericles’ oratory without this disturbance. Stopping his ears like someone escaping the Sirens, he refuses the hearing that would expose his failure to care for himself. At 218b he reverses the gesture and excludes the supposedly uninitiated by telling them to gate their ears. Listening is thus an ethical exposure as well as a sensory event.
Places to read
- 172b–173c2The report passes through hearers; philosophical hearing gives Apollodorus pleasure.
- 176e; 212c–e2The pipe-girl is dismissed and musical sound later returns.
- 215b–216b23Socratic speech charms across performers and kinds of hearer, provoking self-recognition and resistance.
- 218a–bThe initiated may hear what the profane are told to exclude.
Translation in this edition
“Bare words” translates a phrase in which “bare” modifies the speeches; it does not translate “prose” or assert that Socrates speaks without rhetorical effects. “Possessed” preserves the religious analogy but remains Alcibiades’ description of the experience.
ἀκούω (akouō)
akouō — To hear or listen; here also to receive another person’s account or submit oneself to its force.
- 173b — ἀκούειν. Walking gives Glaucon an occasion for talking and listening.
- 215d — ἀκούῃ. Socrates’ own speech or another person’s repetition affects the hearer.
Read: Hearing and enchantment.
κατέχω (katechō)
katechō — To hold fast or possess; in the passive it describes the hearer’s overwhelming response.
- 215d — κατεχόμεθα. Alcibiades says the hearers are struck and possessed.
Read: Hearing and enchantment.
κηλέω (kēleō)
kēleō — To charm or enchant, used of the power of Marsyas’ music over listeners.
Read: Hearing and enchantment.
ψιλός (psilos)
psilos — Bare or unaccompanied; here speech without musical instruments.
- 215c — ψιλοῖς λόγοις. Socrates produces the comparable effect with bare words.
Read: Hearing and enchantment.