Socrates, Aristophanes, and you may Agathon remain trailing discussing problem and you will comedy: “area of the area is actually one to Socrates are looking to persuade her or him the same kid knows (epistasthai) simple tips to write both comedy and you will problem, that someone who is by hobby (techne) a tragic poet was a comical poet too” (223d26).
An exact malfunction, certainly, of your own speeches created by all the symposiasts exactly who chat early in the day in order to Socrates
Typical poets never develop both funny and you may catastrophe, as they do not write out of real information and you may interest (techne) but away from divine desire (Ion 534c56). If they performed write out away from activity and you may knowledge, if they have been craftsmen poets, they might create each other funny and you may catastrophe, since the opposites will always studied by the exact same craft. Hence the fresh new comedic hobby and the tragic craft would need to become one additionally the exact same; just as one in addition to exact same interest, drug, works closely with one another illness and you can fitness.
At the conclusion of the new Symposium, Alcibiades moved away from, presumably to the throng out-of Bacchic revelers, whom bust towards their existence because the agencies out of his overtaking like with the recognition and you can flattery of audience
Socrates confides in us exactly what good craftsman poet can write, the guy does not write to us what however establish. Most other Platonic spokesmen try significantly more certain. “We our selves are poets,” the newest Athenian Stranger tells us about Regulations, “that towards better of the function composed a tragedy that is the most useful and also the best; anyway, our whole composition is developed because an imitation of the greatest and greatest life style-the very situation and this we claim is the truest catastrophe” (817b15). Prior to in identical dialogue, the new Complete stranger was equally explicit that this exact same composition, even in the event maybe not a comedy, does however embody comedic education:
Someone who is going to gain standard skills cannot discover severe things in place of studying absurd of those, otherwise anything, for example, without its opposite. In case we’re going to and get virtue, also into a little size, we cannot feel severe and you can comic also, referring to why we need to discover ways to admit what is absurd, to stop becoming trapped from the the lack of knowledge of it on creating otherwise claiming things absurd, once we never need. (816d5-e5)
The Symposium is actually a disaster to have a keen analogous reasoning: it contains a replica of just one element of such as for example a lifestyle, particularly, what the Protagoras terms and conditions a great “symposium away from breathtaking and you can good men” whom “attempt for every single other people mettle within the mutual dispute” because of the asking and reacting issues (347d3348a9). This is the way Socrates responds so you’re able to dine app prices Agathons speech. It’s just how Diotima converses that have Socrates. It is the particular symposium Socrates attempts to lso are-introduce whenever Alcibiades “satyr-play” is gone, therefore the throng from Bacchic revelers possess remaining.
In place of the fresh Guidelines, however, this new Symposium is a comedy as well, as it also incorporates a replica of second best kind away from symposium explained from the Protagoras-you to definitely in which there are poets present, and you will where the participants “dispute more than items that cannot getting created which have one confidence” (347e17).
In the long run, Alcibiades will come that have-significantly sufficient-a great flute-girl (212c5-e3; examine 176e6-7). And although she doesn’t play, her coming inaugurates this new subsequent decline of the symposium on some thing a lot more including the sort of symposium reviled from the Protagoras since the “an excellent symposium away from common, obscene fellows… just who, unable to entertain one another with their own discussion, create the cost of flute-ladies, and you may pay a large amount to listen to brand new voice of flute unlike her cam” (347c4-d2). This is the part of satyr-play on the Symposium-satyr pictures are frequent during the Alcibiades message.