From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe noun for fullness can mark a troublesome excess or a satiation that permits action to resume.
- In the SymposiumEryximachus defines medicine as knowledge of the body’s erotic relations concerning surfeit and emptying.
- In this editionThe edition keeps “surfeit” across these uses.
- A place to readThe narrator gives an uncertain possible cause of the hiccup.
Meaning
The noun for fullness can mark a troublesome excess or a satiation that permits action to resume. Its value is contextual.
Use in the book
Eryximachus defines medicine as knowledge of the body’s erotic relations concerning surfeit and emptying. The definition needs the expertise that judges, introduces, removes and changes the relevant loves; fullness by itself is not the complete good. In Aristophanes’ myth, satiation after Zeus’ second intervention serves a practical purpose: lovers can stop clinging and attend to the rest of life. It still does not express the deeper wish Hephaestus subsequently reveals.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The edition keeps “surfeit” across these uses. In the myth, English “satiation” may clarify the function, but it should not replace or conceal the printed translation’s lexical continuity.
κένωσις (kenōsis)
kenōsis — Emptying or evacuation, paired with fullness as an object of medical discrimination.
- 186c — κένωσιν. The second bodily process in the doctor’s definition.
Read: Surfeit and emptying.
πλησμονή (plēsmonē)
plēsmonē — Fullness, repletion or surfeit: a bodily condition, possible cause of hiccup, and later sexual satiation.
- 185c — πλησμονῆς. One possible explanation of Aristophanes’ hiccup.
- 186c — πλησμονὴν καὶ κένωσιν. The paired field of medicine in Eryximachus’ definition.
- 191c — πλησμονὴ. Satiation permits the halves to pause and return to work.
Read: Surfeit and emptying.