The Symposium's Speeches

Plato's Symposium stages seven speeches about love, each revealing a different facet. Agathon praises love's beauty; Eryximachus connects love to cosmic harmony.

But the crucial speech belongs to Socrates, who reports the teachings of the priestess Diotima. She describes love not as possessing beauty but as the desire to give birth in beauty — to create something lasting through inspiration. Love is generative, not acquisitive. It produces philosophy, art, and virtue rather than merely consuming the beloved.