From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThese concrete details stage the contrast between divine abundance and Poverty’s need.
- In the SymposiumResource’s intoxication and sleep make Poverty’s opportunity, while her place at the doors displays the want that motivates her plan.
- Reading contextResource’s intoxication and sleep make Poverty’s opportunity, while her place at the doors displays the want that motivates her plan.
- A place to readFeast, intoxication, garden, begging and conception form the genealogy’s scene.
Meaning
These concrete details stage the contrast between divine abundance and Poverty’s need.
Use in the book
Resource’s intoxication and sleep make Poverty’s opportunity, while her place at the doors displays the want that motivates her plan. The text does not say that someone formally expelled or excluded her. Nectar rather than wine is explicit and matters in a dialogue whose human banquet is organized around wine; the myth should not be retold as though Resource had been drinking ordinary wine.
Places to read
- 203b–203cFeast, intoxication, garden, begging and conception form the genealogy’s scene.
κῆπος (kēpos)
kēpos — Garden, the place where Resource sleeps and Poverty conceives Love.
- 203b — τὸν τοῦ Διὸς κῆπον. The garden belongs to Zeus in Diotima’s story.
Read: Nectar and garden.
νέκταρ (nektar)
nektar — Nectar, the drink that intoxicates Resource at the divine feast.
- 203b — τοῦ νέκταρος. Resource is drunk on nectar, explicitly before wine exists.
Read: Nectar and garden.
προσαιτέω (prosaiteō)
prosaiteō — To beg or ask for alms.
- 203b — προσαιτήσουσα. Poverty arrives intending to beg at the feast.
Read: Nectar and garden.