from The Symposium

PLATO

Hunchbacked, bad-skinned, defaced, abject, and generally hideous, could you love him for his brain alone? I am not referring to my high school self (though the description is not far off), but to the great ugly duckling of intellectual history, Socrates. Although there is a long tradition of physically repugnant philosophers (Plotinus, for example, was leprous and nosable at some distance), Socrates’ physical monstrosity is the most legendary. No real surprise, then, that philosophy has always insisted on a distinction, if not a conflict, between mind and body, for the better part of the guys writing the stuff down would have loved to saw themselves off at the neck.

Yet no matter how hideous Socrates was, the boys continued to line up behind him (or in front, as the case may have been). So what was the draw of this guy who was not only twice their age but unbelievably self-satisfied, condescending, and always on the move? Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary: the brain. Big brain, historical brain, still-respected-after-two-millennia brain. You can imagine how comforting this idea was to a dateless high school pedant, believing that one day he too might woo with cognition alone. Ah, but then few are born with Socrates’ brain (even Nietzsche, who was no troglodyte, had a hard time getting lucky). But don’t despair, in most cases, brains do prove sexy in time. So for those of you out there who have prayed and hoped, waiting with a candle in the window, I give you this, a parable of the pull of the perspicacious: Alcibiades’ account of trying to seduce Socrates.

When I looked at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment whatever Socrates commanded . . . Now I thought that he was seriously enamored of my beauty, and this appeared to be a grand opportunity of hearing him tell what he knew, for I had a wonderful opinion of the attractions of my youth. In the prosecution of this design, when I next went to him, I sent away the attendant who usually accompanied me. Well, he and I were alone together, and I thought that when there was nobody with us, I should hear him speak the language of love as lovers do, and I was delighted. Not a word: he conversed as usual, and spent the day with me and then went away. Afterwards, I challenged him to the palestra; and he wrestled and closed with me several times; I fancied I might succeed in this way. Not a bit. Lastly, as I had failed hitherto, I thought that I must use stronger measures and attack him boldly and not give him up until I saw how the matter stood. So I invited him to supper, just as if he were a fair youth and I a designing lover. He was not easily persuaded to come; he did, however, after a while accept the invitation, and when he came the first time, he wanted to go away at once as soon as supper was over, and I had not the face to detain him. The second time, still in pursuance of my design, after we had supped, I went on conversing far into the night, and when he wanted to go away, I pretended that the hour was late and that he had better remain. So he lay down on the next couch to me, the same on which he had supped, and there was no one else in the apartment.

All this may be told without shame to any one. But what follows I could hardly tell you if I was sober . . . I have felt the pang, and he who has suffered, as they say, is willing to tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they alone will be likely to understand him . . . I have known in my soul or in my heart or in some other part, that worst of pangs, more violent in ingenuous youth than any serpent’s tooth, the pang of philosophy . . .

When the lamp was put out and the servants had gone away, I thought that I must be plain with him and have no more ambiguity. So I gave him a shake and said, “Socrates, are you asleep?”

“No,” he said . . . and so without waiting to hear more I got up, and throwing my coat about him, crept under his threadbare cloak, as the time of year was winter, and there I lay during the whole night having this wonderful monster in my arms . . . and yet, notwithstanding all this, he was so superior to my solicitations, so contemptuous and derisive and disdainful of my beauty—which really, as I believe, had some attractions—hear, O judges, for judges you shall be of the haughty virtue of Socrates, that in the morning when I awoke (let all the gods and goddesses be my witnesses), I arose from Socrates’ couch as from the couch of a father or an elder brother!

—translated by Benjamin Jewett,
modified by Jack Murnighan