From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordHōra names a season in this passage; krasis its constituent blend; astronomia the expertise concerned with stellar movement and seasonal relations.
- In the SymposiumEryximachus’ expansion from bodies and music reaches the year.
- In this editionThe edition renders krasis “blend”, sōphrōn “temperate”, and pleonexia “greed”.
- A place to readBodily opposites provide the earlier model.
Meaning
Hōra names a season in this passage; krasis its constituent blend; astronomia the expertise concerned with stellar movement and seasonal relations. The terminology is both cosmological and evaluative.
Use in the book
Eryximachus’ expansion from bodies and music reaches the year. When hot, cold, dry and wet encounter one another in orderly love and receive a temperate blend, they bring good seasons and health to humans, animals and plants. When the other Love gains dominance, destruction and disease follow. His explanation describes the same opposites as capable of beneficial or harmful relations; it does not assign one constituent permanently to the good side.
The vocabulary of greed, insolence and injustice personifies natural disruption. Astronomy is then named as knowledge of these relations concerning the stars and seasons. The passage is evidence for how this speaker extends an expert’s model, not a modern account of weather or disease. Its scope also matters: plants and other animals are explicitly included, so the proposed order is not only a human ethical ideal projected onto an otherwise unmentioned world.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The edition renders krasis “blend”, sōphrōn “temperate”, and pleonexia “greed”. These preserve the passage’s ethical coloring. Hōra elsewhere can denote youthful bloom, as at 219c, so the local seasonal meaning should not be generalized to every occurrence.
ἀστρονομία (astronomia)
astronomia — Astronomy, named here as knowledge concerning stellar movements and the seasons in their erotic relations.
- 188b — ἀστρονομία. Eryximachus names the relevant expertise.
κρᾶσις (krasis)
krasis — A blend or mixture, qualified as temperate when seasonal constituents cooperate well.
- 188a — κρᾶσιν λάβῃ σώφρονα. The healthy mixture accompanies harmony.
πλεονεξία (pleonexia)
pleonexia — Overreaching or greed: a social-moral description extended here to excessive relations among natural constituents.
- 188b — πλεονεξίας καὶ ἀκοσμίας. Excess and disorder explain frost, hail and blight in the speech.
ὥρα (hōra)
hōra — A season or appointed portion of time; in Eryximachus’ cosmic example the seasons of the year, not an hour of clock time.
- 188a — τῶν ὡρῶν τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ. The composition of the yearly seasons is full of both Loves.