From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe contrast between whole and half describes a damaged original nature and a desire to overcome division.
- In the SymposiumAristophanes first imagines three kinds of double-bodied humans.
- In this editionThe edition’s “whole”, “half”, “tally” and “section” preserve different aspects of the story.
- A place to readThree original kinds and Zeus’ decision to divide.
Meaning
The contrast between whole and half describes a damaged original nature and a desire to overcome division. In this story a “half” is a present human being, not simply an incomplete personality awaiting a romantic partner.
Use in the book
Aristophanes first imagines three kinds of double-bodied humans. Their assault on the gods leads Zeus to cut each in two. The first response is disastrous: the halves embrace, refuse to act separately, and die of hunger. Zeus’ second intervention relocates their genitals so sexual satisfaction can permit a return to work and ordinary life. Thus neither cutting nor reunion alone explains the condition of present humans.
The lovers’ deepest wish exceeds sexual intercourse. Hephaestus’ hypothetical offer of permanent fusion gives words to what their souls can only intimate. Aristophanes names love the desire and pursuit of the whole. Yet the story is less rigid than a popular doctrine of one predestined soulmate: a survivor can seek another half at 191b. Complete return to the ancient nature remains a hope conditional on piety, while the best available present relation is its nearest approximation.
Diotima’s correction is decisive. Neither half nor whole is loved unless it is good; people will even amputate their own hands and feet if these seem bad. The argument does not deny affection or the experience of belonging. It denies that restoration or ownership alone supplies love’s sufficient criterion. Aristophanes attempts to respond when Socrates finishes, but the entrance of the revellers interrupts him. The reader receives the correction, not a completed debate between the two accounts.
Places to read
- 189d–190d2Three original kinds and Zeus’ decision to divide.
- 190e–191c2Repair, starving embraces and the second intervention.
- 191d–192c2Different attractions and the meeting of halves.
- 192d–193d23Hephaestus, whole-seeking and the conditional hope of restoration.
- 205d–206a2Goodness qualifies every claim of half, whole or one’s own.
- 212cAristophanes’ attempted answer is interrupted.
Translation in this edition
The edition’s “whole”, “half”, “tally” and “section” preserve different aspects of the story. At 192e the formula crosses the boundary into 193a, so a range is useful. The cutting of bad limbs at 205e is Diotima’s counterexample, not another episode in Aristophanes’ prehistoric myth.
ἥμισυς (hēmisys)
hēmisys — Half; substantivized for a divided person and the counterpart sought, not a fractional arithmetic thesis.
- 191a — τὸ ἥμισυ τὸ αὑτοῦ. Each cut creature yearns for its own half.
- 205e — οὔτε ἡμίσεός. Diotima’s account refuses to make half-seeking sufficient by itself.
Read: Wholeness and the half.
ὅλος (holos)
holos — Whole or entire: the original condition sought in Aristophanes’ story, but not an adequate object of love unless good in Diotima’s correction.
- 192e — ἦμεν ὅλοι. Aristophanes says humans were originally whole.
- 192e–193a2 — τοῦ ὅλου. The whole is the object of desire and pursuit in his formula.
- 205e — οὔτε ὅλου. Diotima denies that love is of a whole without the further qualification of goodness.
Read: Wholeness and the half.
συμφύω (symphyō)
symphyō — To grow together; used of the bodily joining desired after the cut, before the proposed smith’s welding.
- 191a — συμφῦναι. The embracing halves desire to grow together.
Read: Wholeness and the half.