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Knowledge

Resource and Poverty

Πόρος (Poros); Πενία (Penia); Μῆτις (Mētis); πόριμος (porimos); ἀπορία (aporia); εὐπορέω (euporeō); εὔπορος (euporos)

Resource and Poverty are personified names whose common lexical families continue outside the myth.

From the book

Symposium

Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordResource and Poverty are personified names whose common lexical families continue outside the myth.
  • In the SymposiumWhen the gods celebrate Aphrodite’s birth, Resource becomes drunk on nectar and falls asleep in Zeus’ garden.
  • In this editionThe translation keeps Resource, Poverty and resourceful distinct from being at a loss while explaining their family connection in its note.
  • A place to readSocrates’ anticipated inability to find a speech uses the at-a-loss family.

Meaning

Resource and Poverty are personified names whose common lexical families continue outside the myth. Lack of a way, devising means, and having an answer are not decorative echoes: they describe the pursuit the genealogy explains.

Use in the book

When the gods celebrate Aphrodite’s birth, Resource becomes drunk on nectar and falls asleep in Zeus’ garden. Poverty, at the doors and wanting a resource, lies beside him and conceives Love. Diotima’s tale makes Love Aphrodite’s follower both by the occasion of his conception and by his natural concern with beauty. It does not make Aphrodite his mother. Metis is his paternal grandmother within this account, not an alternative parent.

Love’s maternal inheritance is conspicuous: he is poor, rough, squalid, barefoot and homeless, sleeping without bedding in doorways and roads. His paternal inheritance is pursuit, courage, intensity and inventiveness. He hunts the beautiful and good, weaves devices and loves wisdom throughout life. The combined portrait directly counters Agathon’s tender, beautiful and secure god. Its resemblance to Socrates is a well-supported dramatic comparison, but Diotima does not say that every physical feature is a coded biographical statement.

The inheritance also prevents a simple equation of love with destitution. What Love acquires slips away, yet he revives through his father’s nature: never completely at a loss and never rich. Socrates’ earlier anxiety about being at a loss after Agathon and his later more resourceful answer about happiness bring the word family back into conversation. At 209b the pregnant soul finds resources in speeches when it meets a suitable person. Productive discourse thus exemplifies the search for a way through, rather than merely repeating the names of the parents.

Places to read

  1. 198a–198bSocrates’ anticipated inability to find a speech uses the at-a-loss family.
  2. 203b–204b2The genealogy and its consequences for Love’s body, activity and philosophy.
  3. 204d–204e2Changing the question enables a resourceful answer.
  4. 209bA suitable companion enables abundant speech about virtue.
  5. 219d–219eAlcibiades describes being unable to find a way of winning Socrates.

Translation in this edition

The translation keeps Resource, Poverty and resourceful distinct from being at a loss while explaining their family connection in its note. Love’s never at a loss at 203e must not be mistranslated never poor: the preceding narrative explicitly says he is always poor.

ἀπορία (aporia)

aporia — Want of resource or a way forward.

  • 203b — τὴν αὑτῆς ἀπορίαν. Poverty’s deficiency motivates her plot.

Read: Resource and Poverty.

εὐπορέω (euporeō)

euporeō — To have resources or find an answer readily.

  • 203e — εὐπορήσῃ. Love flourishes when he gains resource.

Read: Resource and Poverty.

εὔπορος (euporos)

euporos — Well resourced; its comparative adverb describes finding an answer more readily.

  • 204e — εὐπορώτερον. Socrates can answer with more resource when good replaces beautiful.

Read: Resource and Poverty.

Μῆτις (Mētis)

Mētis — Metis, the mother of Resource; the edition explains the name as Cunning Intelligence.

  • 203b — τῆς Μήτιδος. The genealogy gives Resource a mother but does not narrate her own myth.

Read: Resource and Poverty.

Πενία (Penia)

Penia — Poverty, Love’s mother, who seeks a child because of her own want of resource.

  • 203b — ἡ Πενία. She comes to the doors to beg.

Read: Resource and Poverty.

πόριμος (porimos)

porimos — Resourceful, able to devise ways of gaining the desired object.

  • 203d — πόριμος. Love’s paternal inheritance is coordinated with his desire for intelligence.

Read: Resource and Poverty.

Πόρος (Poros)

Poros — Resource, Love’s father in Diotima’s genealogy; his name evokes means and a way through.

  • 203b — Πόρος. Son of Metis, present at Aphrodite’s birth-feast.

Read: Resource and Poverty.