From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe domestic and culinary objects give comic precision to the myth’s extraordinary surgery.
- In the SymposiumZeus’ division is compared first with cutting fruit for preserving and then with cutting eggs with hairs.
- In this editionThe sorb-apple reading is Ruhnken’s correction, printed by Burnet; the reported witnesses have forms meaning eggs.
- A place to readThe fruit and egg comparisons.
Meaning
The domestic and culinary objects give comic precision to the myth’s extraordinary surgery.
Use in the book
Zeus’ division is compared first with cutting fruit for preserving and then with cutting eggs with hairs. When present humans are described as tallies, the flatfish provides another image of the divided body. These comparisons keep physical separateness visible underneath the later account of romantic longing. They are neither decorative synonyms for “half” nor demonstrations that human beings literally derive from these objects.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The sorb-apple reading is Ruhnken’s correction, printed by Burnet; the reported witnesses have forms meaning eggs. The edition thus prints two distinct comparisons where the alternatives would repeat the egg. This entry follows that printed text explicitly.
ὄα (oa)
oa — Sorb-apples, preserved fruits that supply one comparison for Zeus’ cutting; the printed plural is used as the headword.
ψῆττα (psētta)
psētta — A flatfish, used for the present half-human’s divided shape.
- 191d — αἱ ψῆτται. Each person is cut like a flatfish, two from one.
ᾠόν (ōion)
ōion — An egg; cutting eggs with hairs supplies the second comparison.
- 190e — τὰ ᾠὰ. A familiar delicate division illustrates the god’s cut.