Praise Be To Love: A Proper Tribute Mackenzie Jorgensen

Academic Integrity Pledge In keeping with Creighton Universitys ideals and with the Academic Integrity Code adopted by the College of Arts and Sciences, I pledge that this work is my own and that I have neither given nor received inappropriate assistance in preparing it. Signature: ___Mackenzie Ann Jorgensen ___September 23, 2010_

Between the speeches of Agathon and Pausanias in Platos Symposium, I chose to examine Agathons speech on Love, for it impacted me at a much deeper level than that of Pausanias. Apart from all the other speeches presented, I find it interesting how Agathon actually attempts to praise Love, instead of only highlighting Loves great affect. The outline and method that Agathon uses to give his speech is mainly to separate the qualities of Love into the initial image of Love (his beauty) and then the actual painted picture of Loves character. In organizing his speech as such, we are almost confronted with an actual person, not just the idea of Love that the other philosophers touch on. Love embodies beauty to a T for Agathon he makes it clear that Love is the most beautiful of the gods for many reasons, by describing Love through means that reflect utmost beauty. For example, his first reason that Love is most beautiful is that Love possesses youth, and that he is the most youthful of the gods. Because like is drawn to like (Plato 32), Love is a fresh, vibrant, mirror image of the youth he infects; therefore, if always drawn to young people, Love will be forever young. To further assure that Love is young, Agathon tells that love is of the new stories which are of peace and love, and separate from the old stories which are of violence, violence being castration and imprisonment done under Necessity a god in power. Thus, Love is truly young. Secondly, Agathon elicits more of Loves beauty by pointing out his delicacy. Love is most delicate, proved true by first discussing how Mischief is delicate in the way he walks atop the heads of people, which does not compare to how completely delicate Love is by comparison. According to Agathon, Love walks most delicately, and on the softest of things like the earth, the soul, the characters of people, and even other gods. He goes even further to say

that Love walks on the gentlest of people, people who are gentle in spirit, and not just on them, but fills them as well. Naturally discussing the delicacy that Love has leads into the description of his body, his so-called shape, which is fluid in motion and in being his looks also reflect this kind of fluidity. Furthermore, the color of Loves skin is described as exquisite, only adding to the reality that Love is too beautiful to settle into anything not up to par (Plato 33-34). Love is unimaginably beautiful. Although Love beholds a beauty beyond compare, Agathon doesnt make light who Love is morally, for Loves moral character is especially significant to Agathon. In explaining Loves morality, he uses the concepts of justice, moderation, and bravery as the basis. The quality that Agathon stresses when it comes to justice is the fact that Love is a pure and good god, that he is above partaking in violence. Love can be most just, and even powerful, in that his power is not gained by force but gained in a reversal of order instead of demanding it, people willingly grant him glory. Unification of peoples willingness to give glory to Love puts him at the center of agreement, deeming him right. When speaking of moderation, Agathon intends to speak of Loves consistency of character in that he can overcome passion and pleasure, for he is the greatest passion and pleasure. Thirdly, in speaking about bravery, Love is looked at as having an ability to win over the power of other gods, an example being how Love can affect Aries, but Aries cant amount to the same affect Love has on him (Plato 34-35). Like most philosophers, Plato cannot exclude the largest quality of Love, but instead saves it for last: wisdom. Leaving wisdom as the final note, Agathon mentions that he wishes to exclude no detail, indicating the significant role it plays in his speech. The first key aspect to Loves wisdom is his talent of poetry, for he enables anyone to have this 3

ability. In the text, the word and is repeated twice to emphasize the power of Loves wisdom in list form, his wisdom witnessed in the production of animals and in artisans and professionals ( who are all born to fame because of Loves influence) (Plato 35,36). Examples of artisans and professionals included are of the Muses, Hephaestus, Athena, and Zeus and each of the talents they harness affected by Love. Agathon then chooses to reflect back to the start of his speech where he spoke of the horrible rule under Necessity Love orchestrated order in Necessitys rule once Love joined the other gods, leading to peace. Here Agathon has put Love as most powerful by in a sense ruling over Necessity. Finally in concluding his speech, Agathon restates that Love is the most beautiful and the best, and that anyone or anything that stops short is due to Loves power in that he makes them lovely. Here Agathons speech takes a turn towards praising love, a grand finale to what he has had to say about Love, rebuilding Loves character yet again (Plato 3537). Agathons speech struck a chord in me he ultimately appealed to me out of the others, for this god of love most closely resembles the love I find in my relationship with God, in my belief that God embodies the most powerful and beautiful love in existence. Qualities that Agathon attributed to Love resonate soundly with many of the same that I attribute to God. One is that God is infinite and limitless, and through this gives gifts to others and empowers others as well, like the god of Love. What most convinced me is that Agathon says that Love is our guide, comrade, guard, and savior, which are roles that I directly associate with God. I enjoy how Agathon has a way of writing that can pull one to their greatest source of love, and in my case, one that is unlimited and most loving. As much as his speech is delight to read, I find it significant to assess his

command of supporting his main point that Love is the most beautiful god, not just describing love. In order to best support Love as the best god, a comparison of other gods is needed, in which I find a strength to Agathons speech. With every god he compared Love to, he was able to reason how Love gave them their power. In addition, the approach Agathon took was a creative one in that he introduced a bottom-up system of power Love doesnt demand his attention, but is simply a love out of choice. However, despite having introduced this bottom-up system, Agathon did not carry it to completion, which is something I consider a weakness in his speech. I believe that if Love was the most loving god, he would love the ugly despite its ugliness, ultimately leading to a greater glory making ugly things beautiful. More so, Agathon says that Love cares only for good men, cares not for bad ones. In this instance, Love is not complete in love if he cant care for everyone. Agathon suggests that all should be united with Love how could this be possible if Love doesnt care for everyone, but only those that are good? I find it also interesting and amusing that Love supposedly drains all of our divisiveness away, for to me it seems that Love is a bit selective (Plato 37). Despite the contradictions of his speech, I believe Agathon displays the best argument for love in that his approach is wide in concept of evaluating both character and image, and deep in analyzing each of these as well as Loves grasp of morality. His command of his speech truly created a picture of a person for me, other than just a list of descriptions. For this particular reason I chose to dissect Agathons speech, in conjunction with the belief that Agathon could sweep anyones heart up for Love with his passion, as well as skill for depth and vast incorporation of ideas.

Works cited: Plato. Symposium. Trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. Indianapolis; Hacket Publishing Company, 1989. Print.