On the Comedy of Plato's Aristophanes Author(s): Harry Neumann Reviewed work(s): Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol.

87, No. 4 (Oct., 1966), pp. 420-426 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/292754 . Accessed: 03/07/2012 20:13
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ON THE COMEDY OF PLATO'S ARISTOPHANES.* Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium has often been viewed as an ingenious, amusing example of the old comedy, unworthy of much serious philosophic attention.' Many interpreters, however, have discerned a serious or even a tragic note in it. For eros, according to Aristophanes, is the passion to return to a primeval unity with one's beloved. Thus, scholars have found in Aristophanes' tale traces of Kierkegaard (separation from God), Freud (separation from the womb), and Socrates (separation from the ideas).2 Indeed any attempt to bridge the gap between ideal and reality is imaged in the passion of Aristophanes' lovers. One could characterize Aristophanes' passion as tragic only if one regards the attempt to bridge this gap as a serious pursuit. Thus, only a dedicated idealist, a man prepared to sacrifice his life for some person or cause, would find tragedy in Aristophanes' story. The present paper attempts to show that Diotima would regard this somewhat Socratic element of Aristophanes' speech as essentially comic. For her, comic coarseness and promiscuity are in no way incompatible with the notion that eros is a desire for a unity transcending the limits of particular selfhood. In order
* AUTHOR'S NOTE: This interpretation of Plato's Aristophanes is meant to be a companion piece to my articles "Diotima's Concept of Love," A. J. P., LXXXVI (1965), pp. 33-59, and "On the Sophistry of Plato's Pausanias," T. A. P. A., XCV (1964), pp. 261-7. It is part of a series of articles on Plato's Symposium. B. Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, III3 (New York, 1914), p. 287; A. E. Taylor, Plato6 (Meridian Paperback, 1960), pp. 219 f. 2T. Gould, Platonic Love (New York, 1963), pp. 33-4; R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato2 (Cambridge, 1932), p. LIX, n. 2. Bury rightly observes that the unity taught by Socrates is spiritual and not physical as it is with Aristophanes. In both cases, however, a transcending of one's corporeal self is required in order to be what one really is. Cf. Jowett (above, note 1) ; G. M. A. Grube, Plato's Thought (Beacon Paperback, 1958), p. 99; G. Kriiger, Einsicht und Leidenschaft2 (Frankfurt am Main, 1948), pp. 129 f. P. Friedlander, Platon, 22 (Berlin, 1960), pp. 16 f.; W. Jaeger, Paideia, II (New York, 1943), p. 184; K. Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, I4 (Harper Paperback, 1963), pp. 218 ff., n. 3, section 4; Taylor (above, note 1).

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to substantiate this interpretation, we turn first to an examination of the Aristophanic myth (189 D 5-193 B 6). Originally human nature was not as it is now, for there were three "sexes ": double-male, double-female, and the combination of male and female.3 Each of them was round all over with one head, but two faces, four arms, four legs, and two sets of reproductive organs. They moved in a circular fashion, executing cartwheels by means of their eight limbs. Both their shape and motion were due to their parents. The double-men were offspring of the sun; the double-women, of the earth, and the combination, of the moon. At first, then, they did not have a human form, since their parents were not human (189 D 5-190 B 5). Although born of these natural bodies, the original humans were subject to the Olympian Gods. Entertaining very lofty ambitions which led to an attempt to overthrow the Olympians, they incurred divine retribution (190 B 5-C 6).
8 I have followed Taylor (above, note 1) in using the terms " doublemale " and " double-female," although this usage is somewhat misleading. The original wholes are not regarded by Aristophanes as "double" or two, but one; they become two as a consequence of divine retribution. Even then, they are two artificial halves, fractions, so to speak, and not two genuine unities. Aristophanes' eros is the drive to overcome this unnatural bifurcation through a return to primitive integrity. By maintaining that something which is by nature one can be split, Aristophanes rejects the Republic's notion of unity (525D-E4), although Aristotle (below, note 9), seems to imply that Aristophanes accepted this notion. On the Republic's contention that natural units cannot be turned into fractions, see J. Klein, "Die griechische Logistik und die Entstehung der Algebra," Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik, Astronomie, und Physik, III (1934), pp. 47 ff. and especially p. 105 on the Aristotelian basis of the acceptance of such fractions. Popper (above, note 2 and below, note 9) regards the desire of the Aristophanic "fractions" to become whole again as a yearning to lose oneself in a primitive tribal unity. According to J. E. Harrison, Themis2 (Meridian Paperback, 1962), p. 473, the primitive consciousness does indeed lack ". . . the sense of separatedness or consciousness of the severance of one self from other selves and of that self as subject and distinct from objects." Cf. ibid., p. 470: ". . . the individual man has but slight consciousness of himself as distinguished from his group." See also F. M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy (Harper Paperback, 1957), pp. 46ff.; B. Snell, The Discovery of the Mind2 (Harper Paperback, 1960), p. 31: "Primitive man feels that he is bound to the gods; he has not yet roused himself to an awareness of his own freedom."

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Thus Aristophanes' men are originally friendly to their parents, the heavenly bodies, but hostile to the Olympians. Although the civilized Greeks never denied the divinity of these cosmic phenomena, they never worshipped them with temples and sacrifices. Such worship was condemned as typical of primitive Greeks and barbarians.4 In the Peace (403ff.) of Aristophanes these deities are engaged in a plot to betray Greece to the barbarians, for the latter worship them, while the Greeks sacrifice to the despised Olympians (cf. above, note 4). According to the Cratylus (397 C 8-D 2), the earliest Greeks believed in the nature-divinities which, in Socrates' time, were worshipped by the barbarians: "Whatever may have been the view of the unthinking public, the educated man as well as the barbarous Persian knew that in past days, the Greeks had worshipped nature-powers."5 Worship of these deities was, then, equated with a primitive, barbarous state. Thus, when Plato's Aristophanes makes men the decendants of nature-Gods,he implicitly sides with barbarism against civilization. Man, for him, is by nature uncivilized; the civilizing Gods, the Olympians, force him to be unnatural in order to curb his overweening insolence. By his bifurcation of men, Zeus deprived them of their natural form and made them in the image of the Olympians, although he failed to teach them piety as he had intended. His lack of foresight resulted instead, in eros, the uncontrollable longing of the two halves to be whole again. To appease this passion, the halves clung to each other, oblivious of everything including the demands of self-preservation, not to speak of piety. The birth of eros frustrated Zeus' expectations, for he had hoped to reap a twofold benefit by halving the power of men and, at the
W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks and their Gods (Beacon Paperback, 1956), pp. 212 f. See also Ehrenberg, The People of Aristophanes2 (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), p. 269; Harrison (above, note 3), pp. 445 ff.; B. B. Rodgers, The Comedies of Aristophanes, III2 (London, 1913), pp. 51-2. 6 See references above, note 4, especially Harrison (p. 446) who also cites a scholiast to the Peace (413) and Herodotus (I, 31) on the Persian custom in this regard. See also E. Frank, "The Religious Origin of Greek Philosophy," Wissen, Wollen, Glauben (Zurich and Stuttgart, 1955), pp. 76 ff. Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, IX, 718-22: "The Gods are first and that advantage use / On our belief, that all from them proceeds: / I question it, for this fair Earth I see, / Warmed by the Sun, producing every kind, / Them nothing. .. ."

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same time, doubling the number available to sacrifice. If they had persisted in their rebellion, he had intended to quarter them. In this way each successive impiety would diminish man's power, while increasing the benefits accruing to the Gods (190 C 6-191 B5). The eros, unintentionally generated by Zeus' punitive measures, has no connection with the activities usually associated with sexual love. On the contrary, sexual intercourse and reproduction are devised by Zeus expressly to take man's mind off the serious concern of eros, since that concern precludes piety.6 Inaugurated by the Gods of civilization, intercourse and reproduction are not the primary erotic phenomena. This is perhaps the most comic aspect of Aristophanes' eros, not only to most men, but also, as we shall see, to Diotima. And yet, it is the aspect which is most Socratic (above p. 420). For Diotima, reproduction, whether physical or psychical, is prompted by the erotic drive to make oneself immortal within the limits of the possible (206 B 1-209 E 4, cf. 212 A 2-7). Those creatures able to obtain immortality solely through reproduction are contrasted with beings who are divine or immortal and therefore have no need for reproduction to make them so (208 A 7B 4). Thus, according to Diotima, the heavenly bodies would not have become the parents of the first humans, if they were truly Gods. Being self-sufficient, Diotima's Gods do not experience eros, the desire to reproduce (cf. 202B 10-D 6). On the other hand, Aristophanes' first humans, like their parents, feel the need to beget (191 B 7-C 2). Thus, from Diotima's point of view these original men, as well as their parents, were not self-sufficient. If their attack on Olympus was based on their false sense of self-sufficiency, it was doomed to failure from the start. Always a desire to reproduce, Diotima's eros, in its highest and most spiritual form, is engendering in others an allegiance to the moral values which tie men together in a culture or
6191 B 5-C 8; cf. Kriiger (above, note 2), p. 128: ". . . sowohl die Fortpflanzung wie die Befriedigung des Geschlechtstriebesist eine Nebenwirkung. Das Sexuelle ist in der erotischen Leidenschaft gerade nicht die Hauptsache, und nicht das unstillbare Verlangen zum Einssein ist ihm zu verdanken, sondern gerade dies, dass man die Liebe zuweilen satt bekommt."

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civilization (208 E 1-209 E 4). In the Republic (598 D 7-608 B 8), Socrates ascribes a similar function to the tragedians and especially Homer, although he censures what he regards as their failures. Similarly the Athenian Stranger bans the tragedians, for he himself is attempting to bring about a truer and more genuine tragedy.7 He condemns them as dangerous competitors who are more concerned with gaining applause or fame than with the truth and the moral improvement of their audience. Although also ascribing a pedagogic role to the serious poets, particularly Homer and Hesiod, Diotima views the desire for immortal glory as the true goal of such tragedians. Her poet is not subject to the tragic spell which he casts upon his audience, for he does not subordinate himself to the ideals of human community taught by his work. For him, the dissemination of tragic values is a means to acquire fame, and not a basically altruistic act. In Diotima's eyes, wisdom itself is a form of beauty (204 B 2-3) and all beauty is merely a means to the glory made possible by her spiritual reproduction. Her concept of tragedy would therefore be condemned as sophistic by Socrates and the Athenian Stranger.8 Aristophanes too would be con7 Laws, 817A2-D8. Cf. 658 D 3-659 C 5; Gorgias, 502 B 1-C 4. Cf. W. Jaeger, Paideia, III (New York, 1944), p. 256; Kriiger (above, note 2), pp. 295 f.; P. Friedlander, Plato, I8 (Harper Paperback, 1964), pp. 122 f.; Grube (above, note 2), p. 193, n. 2. E. R. Dodds, Plato's Gorgias (Oxford, 1959), p. 321. According to Snell (above, note 3), pp. 115 ff., the historical Aristophanes was the first to regard the tragedians as moral teachers: "This moralization of poetry we owe to Aristophanes; its first exposition as a doctrine, as a deliberate programme, occurs in the Frogs." 8 Although not generally recognized, the sophistical character of her eros has been observed by Wilamowitz, Platon, II3 (Berlin, 1962), pp. 171-3. He maintains, however, that this sophistry is limited to her "lesser mysteries," while her "greater mysteries," culminating in a union with absolute beauty, far transcend the desire for glory. Cf. Against this view, R. Hackforth, Bury (above, note 2), pp. XLVIff. "Immortality in Plato's Symposium," Classical Review, LXIV (1950), pp. 43-5, has rightly noted that the end of her eros is never contemplation of, or union with, absolute beauty; its goal is always given by the desire to immortalize oneself through physical or psychical reproduction. Hackforth does not, however, perceive the sophistical character of such a goal, as Wilamowitz does. Cf. E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (University of California Paperback, 1963), p. 218, who suggests

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temptuous of those incapable of perceiving anything deeper in eros than a craving for fame. In his turn, Diotima's tragedian feels no desire for the comic poet's lost paradise. Indeed, she knows no passion for an ultimate union even with the absolute beauty which she acknowledges to be perfect in every way. All beauty, including absolute beauty, is merely a means to her (206 E 2 f.). Aristophanes' rejection of this sophistical eros makes it impossible for him to write her kind of tragedy. While Diotima's sophistic eros strives to civilize men, Aristophanes' master passion leads to a rejection of "civilization and its discontents" in favor of a barbaric, primeval integrity.9
that her concept of eros would subordinate reason to instinct. See also I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, I (New York, 1962), pp. 362 f. and II (New York, 1963), pp. 23, 323. In "Diotima's Concept of Love" (see above, Author's Note), I have attempted to substantiate the view that Diotima's eros is basically sophistical and unSocratic. 9 According to Popper (above, notes 2 and 3), Aristophanes' eros is connected with " The idealization of one's childhood-one's home, one's parents, and with the nostalgic wish to return ... to one's origin." For Popper (p. 200) this desire leads ultimately to bestiality and nihilism: " Beginning with the suppression of reason and truth, we must end with the most brutal and violent destruction of all that is human. There is no return to a harmonious state of nature. If we turn back, then we must go the whole way-we must return to the beasts" (cf. p. 71). Cf. Nietzsche, Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen (Kroners Taschenausgabe, 1955), p. 265: "Der Weg zu den AnfLngen fiihrt uberall zu der Barbarei. .. ." Popper's view seems in harmony with Aristotle's Politics (1262 a 25-b 35) which condemns the Aristophanic eros implicit in Socrates' desire for political unity, Aristophanes' love would, according to Aristotle, destroy one or both of the lovers, while Socrates' passion for unity would lead to immoral, bestial behavior. However, Popper (p. 314, n. 59, section 2) finds the eros giving rise to these excesses also in Aristotle's psychology and epistemology which assert a "mystical union" of subject and object. This theory of sensation and knowledge is said to be connected with the Socratic doctrines of "recollection" and assimilation to God (above, note 2 and 3). Cf. Friedlander (above, note 7), pp. 56-8, 80-4, on Plotinus in this regard. Whether Plato subscribed to such doctrines, as Popper believes he did, is not so easily determined, since Plato nowhere in the dialogues endorses anything in his own name. On the problem of Plato's silence, cf. P. Merlan, "Form and Content in Plato's Philosophy," J.H.I., VIII (1947), pp. 406-30; L. Edelstein, "Platonic Anonymity," A.J.P., LXXXIII (1962), pp. 1-22. My views on this question are presented in

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From her standpoint, he is unaware that even the original men and their parents were essentially mortal and could, therefore, enjoy happiness or self-sufficiency only through reproduction. Understood in this way, his yearning to return to the origins arises from his ignorance of human nature. Somehow he has come to believe that men were originally perfect wholes. For Diotima, this means that he has confused the Ideal with the Real. Now it is, as we noted, the job of her tragedian to instill into others an allegiance to the ideals which bind men together in a union transcending their individual selves. From her point of view, then, Aristophanes' rebellion against civilized values in the name of primordial unity is an outgrowth of his passionate adherenceto these very values. His noble attachment to an ideal union or community has blinded him to what she regards as his actual self and its true needs; he has succumbed to the spell of tragedy. Thus, in her eyes, the comic poet does what he most wants to avoid; he makes himself ridiculous (189 B 4-7). Any desire for immortality is, in her terms, ridiculous, if it does not comprehend itself as a passion to "reproduce." Aristophanes' longing for his lost Eden is, for her, basically comic; it does not, as has often been suggested, provide a tragic backdrop for the comic externals of his speech. Although not tragic by her standards, his eros is, indeed, capable of responding to the nobler tragedy advocated by Socrates and the Athenian Stranger.10
HARRY NEUMANN.
SCRIPPSCOLLEGE.

"Diotima's Concept of Love" (pp. 34-7). On Aristotle's criticism of the Socratic concept of political unity, see Klein (above, note 3), p. 101, n. 1, and C. J. Friedrich, Man and his Government (New York, 1963), pp. 139f.; E. Barker, Greek Political Theory (University Paperback, 1960), p. 201. 10 Cf. Jaeger (above, note 2), pp. 189 f. Hackforth (above, note 8) has rightly suggested that Diotima's view of eros precludes the Socratic doctrine of recollection and that it is, in fact, opposed to the notion of immortality championed by Socrates in such dialogues as the Phaedo.