The Doctor Trades Turns with the Comic Poet
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Aristodemus — ἀλλʼ εἰπεῖν αὐτόν— ἐν τῇ κάτω γὰρ αὐτοῦ τὸν ἰατρὸν Ἐρυξίμαχον κατακεῖσθαι—
Aristophanes — ὦ Ἐρυξίμαχε, δίκαιος εἶ ἢ παῦσαί με τῆς λυγγὸς ἢ λέγειν ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ, ἕως ἂν ἐγὼ παύσωμαι.
Aristodemus — καὶ τὸν Ἐρυξίμαχον εἰπεῖν
Eryximachus — ἀλλὰ ποιήσω ἀμφότερα ταῦτα· ἐγὼ μὲν γὰρ ἐρῶ ἐν τῷ σῷ μέρει, σὺ δʼ ἐπειδὰν παύσῃ, ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ. ἐν ᾧ δʼ ἂν ἐγὼ λέγω, ἐὰν μέν σοι ἐθέλῃ ἀπνευστὶ ἔχοντι πολὺν χρόνον παύεσθαι ἡ λύγξ· εἰ δὲ μή, ὕδατι
But he said, since the doctor Eryximachus was reclining just below him — Eryximachus, it's only fair that you either stop me from my hiccup or speak in my place, until I stop. And Eryximachus said, Well, I will do both these things: I will speak in your turn, and you, once you stop, in mine. While I am speaking, if the hiccup is willing to stop for you by holding your breath a long time — but if not, with water...
Pausanias has finished his speech and it should be Aristophanes's turn, but he is seized by hiccups (185c) and the other guests try remedies while he sits out. Here Aristophanes appeals directly to the doctor reclining on the couch just below him, Eryximachus, either to cure him or to speak in his place; Eryximachus agrees to do both, in whichever order the hiccup allows, and begins prescribing a cure.
Eryximachus's cure is exactly the unglamorous prescription a doctor would give: hold the breath, then gargle with water, and if the fit is stubborn enough, force a sneeze to break it. The word for holding the breath, apneustí, comes from the same root as pneûma, the ordinary Greek word for breath that later philosophy and theology stretch into 'spirit.' Nothing in the scene calls attention to the word choice; it is simply the correct medical vocabulary, but it means the dialogue's most mundane interruption and its loftiest later word for the soul's motion share one root.
The swap in speaking order is also a small joke at Aristophanes's expense: a comic poet whose set speech will describe human bodies split in half and desperate to be whole again cannot, for the moment, govern his own body enough to speak at all. Eryximachus treats the interruption exactly as his profession requires, as a case to be managed before the philosophy resumes, and the seating Plato specifies (Eryximachus on the couch below Aristophanes) does double duty: realistic banquet staging, and the reason a doctor happens to be close enough to hear a guest start hiccuping.
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