Sunday, 18 July 2010

Searching for the one with Aristophanes...

Plato’s ‘Symposium’ is all about love, the scene set is a small get together where a group of friends each give their opinion on the complex matter of love. Aristophanes is the focus of today’s entry with his rather elaborate story about searching for the ‘one’ or our other half...

He claims that in ancient times we were all spherical creatures with two sets of everything, two heads, four legs, four arms and we rolled around feeling complete... however, we were also very powerful and a threat to the Gods. Zeus, wanted to destroy us but realised if we did not exist then we could not offer worship and sacrifices to him. So, he thought up a more cunning plan and decided to split us in half, seperating the two bodies, creating men and women (and also two times the amount of worshippers!)

However, once split the people wanted to return to their original state and they went searching for their other halves. In his story, Arispophanes is suggesting we are searching for partners who resemble ourselves and share similar qualities so that we can become whole again.

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