I Knew Nothing of What I Said
Read the full text in our reader
Socrates — οὐκοῦν ὡμολόγηται, οὗ ἐνδεής ἐστι καὶ μὴ ἔχει, τούτου ἐρᾶν;
Agathon — ναί, εἰπεῖν.
Socrates — ἐνδεὴς ἄρʼ ἐστὶ καὶ οὐκ ἔχει ὁ Ἔρως κάλλος.
Agathon — ἀνάγκη, φάναι.
Socrates — τί δέ; τὸ ἐνδεὲς κάλλους καὶ μηδαμῇ κεκτημένον κάλλος ἆρα λέγεις σὺ καλὸν εἶναι;
Agathon — οὐ δῆτα.
Socrates — ἔτι οὖν ὁμολογεῖς ἔρωτα καλὸν εἶναι, εἰ ταῦτα οὕτως ἔχει;
Agathon — καὶ τὸν Ἀγάθωνα εἰπεῖν κινδυνεύω, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὐδὲν εἰδέναι ὧν τότε εἶπον.
Then it has been agreed that one loves that of which one is in want and does not have? Yes, he said. Then Eros is in want and does not have beauty. Necessarily, he said. What then? The thing in want of beauty, and in no way possessing beauty, do you call beautiful? Assuredly not. Do you still agree, then, that Eros is beautiful, if these things are so? And Agathon said: I am in danger, Socrates, of knowing nothing of what I then said.
The refutation reaches its point. It has been agreed: one loves what one lacks and does not have. So Eros is in want of beauty and does not have it. And a thing that lacks beauty and in no way possesses it cannot itself be called beautiful. So Agathon can no longer maintain that Eros is beautiful — and he concedes, with grace, that he seems to have known nothing of what he was saying.
The line also completes the reversal. Agathon had crowned Eros kallistos, the most beautiful of gods; now the god of beauty stands revealed as the one being who does not have it. But notice the gentleness — Socrates does not crow. He will, in the next breath, say Agathon spoke finely anyway, and then insist it is the truth, not Socrates, that has defeated him. The Symposium makes its argument without humiliating its loser, and that restraint is part of Plato's portrait of what philosophy, done well, feels like: a shared discovery rather than a victory.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Plato, Symposium 201b in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Plato, Symposium — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Plato, Symposium 201b — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/symposium/201b/