The Battle for the Couch
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Alcibiades — ἀληθῆ λέγειν. τεκμαίρομαι δὲ καὶ ὡς κατεκλίνη ἐν μέσῳ ἐμοῦ τε καὶ σοῦ, ἵνα χωρὶς ἡμᾶς διαλάβῃ. οὐδὲν οὖν πλέον αὐτῷ ἔσται, ἀλλʼ ἐγὼ παρὰ σὲ ἐλθὼν κατακλινήσομαι.
Socrates — πάνυ γε, φάναι τὸν Σωκράτη, δεῦρο ὑποκάτω ἐμοῦ κατακλίνου.
Alcibiades — ὦ Ζεῦ, εἰπεῖν τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην, οἷα αὖ πάσχω ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. οἴεταί μου δεῖν πανταχῇ περιεῖναι. ἀλλʼ εἰ μή τι ἄλλο, ὦ θαυμάσιε, ἐν μέσῳ ἡμῶν ἔα Ἀγάθωνα κατακεῖσθαι.
Socrates — ἀλλʼ ἀδύνατον, φάναι τὸν Σωκράτη. σὺ μὲν γὰρ ἐμὲ ἐπῄνεσας, δεῖ δὲ ἐμὲ αὖ τὸν ἐπὶ δεξίʼ ἐπαινεῖν. ἐὰν οὖν ὑπὸ σοὶ κατακλινῇ Ἀγάθων, οὐ δήπου ἐμὲ πάλιν ἐπαινέσεται, πρὶν ὑπʼ ἐμοῦ μᾶλλον ἐπαινεθῆναι; ἀλλʼ ἔασον,
…I am telling the truth. I infer this too, from how he reclined between me and you, so as to split the two of us apart. So there'll be nothing more in it for him — but I'll come over beside you and lie down myself. ‘Quite so,’ said Socrates, ‘come lie down here, below me.’ ‘Zeus!’ said Alcibiades, the things I suffer yet again from this man! He thinks he must get the better of me at every turn. But if nothing else, you extraordinary man, let Agathon lie down between the two of us.’ ‘Impossible,’ said Socrates. You praised me, so it's my turn to praise the one on my right. So if Agathon reclines below you, he surely won't praise me again, before he's praised by me instead.’ No, let—
Continuing directly from 222d (Alcibiades' warning to Agathon about Socrates' tactics, not preserved in this unit), Aristodemus's narration turns to fresh evidence: Socrates deliberately reclined between Alcibiades and Agathon to keep the two of them apart. Alcibiades announces he'll simply move to the couch beside Agathon himself, which draws Socrates into a mock-serious dispute over the seating and the customary order of praise around the table, with Agathon caught in the middle. The exchange breaks off mid-sentence and resolves in 223a.
The rule that governs this whole evening was set by Phaedrus back at 177d: each man praises Eros in turn, epi dexia, going around ‘to the right.’ Socrates reaches for that same rule now and turns it to a much smaller purpose. Whoever ends up on his right, he tells Alcibiades, is the one he owes a speech of praise to next — so Agathon cannot be allowed to take that seat, since Alcibiades already praised Agathon’s host and it would be absurd for Agathon to collect a second round of praise from Socrates before Alcibiades gets his own. It sounds like etiquette. It works like a way to keep Agathon out of Alcibiades’ reach while never once conceding the couch beside himself either.
Alcibiades has spent the last several Stephanus pages comparing Socrates to a man no one can outmaneuver, a fortress no lover has ever taken. This is that same trick run small and played for laughs: kataklinō, the ordinary verb for taking a couch at dinner, becomes the verb for a miniature war, three grown men bargaining over three feet of dining room as if it settled something. The joke doesn’t erase the point underneath it. Alcibiades tries to place his own body next to the man who is supposed to need no one, and Socrates, citing nothing but the house rules Phaedrus wrote for a drinking party, wins the seating chart anyway.
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