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A Tale of Two Loves  by Dr Edward Spence Mortals call him fluttering love, But the immortals call him winged one, Because the growing of wings is a necessity to him.  Plato, Phaedrus 252b   Apollo dates Aphrodite? Tinafto pou to lene agape Socrate, (what is this thing called love Socrates) asks Diotima, the mystery woman from Mantinea ? I haven't got a clue, is Socrates' reply[1]. If the man declared by the oracle of Delphi as the wisest among mortals doesn't know, what chance do the rest of us have in answering that question?  One way to approach this difficult question is to look at it from two seemingly opposed and irreconcilable perspectives that we've inherited from Greek Mythology: that of Aphrodite and Apollo - the two extreme ends of the spectrum or should we say, kaleidoscope of love. If indeed irreconcilable, do we choose carnal love as inspired by the Cyprian Aphrodite, goddess of Eros, which grounds love in the hedonistic pleasures of the body, and which, as the chorus in Antigone warns us, drives men and women mad? Or, do we choose the spiritual love of the mind, as inspired by the Sun god, Apollo? Why can't we have both? In a manner of speaking we can, but we first need to learn not to be afraid of heights. For love according to Plato, is not about falling but about flying. But before one can learn to fly upwards towards Apollo one must first learn to swim deep in Aphrodite's secret caves of the sea. From Love of Reason to Love of the Good and the Beautiful It was Plato's love of reason that may have led him to examine the concept of love in itself. Love lies at the very heart of Plato's philosophy and his dialogue on love the Symposium is, together with the Republic, the most important of Plato's philosophical works. Because Love is the corner stone of Plato's philosophy it renders his philosophy both of universal interest and relevant for all times and all places. For if Love is of universal interest and relevant for everyone, so is Plato's philosophy.  When Love Goes Wrong Nothing Goes Right But not all kinds of love will do. For as Marilyn Monroe informs us in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 'when love goes wrong nothing goes right'.  Plato would have agreed. For according to Plato, things can only go right with the right kind of love. If love goes wrong it is because the love pursued is the wrong kind of love. Love will never go wrong if it is of the right kind. This is roughly what Plato, through Socrates and Diotima, the mysterious woman from Mantinaea, claims in his dialogue the Symposium, which comprises a series of speeches, seven in all, given in honour of Eros or Love by the guests at a dinner party (symposium) held in Athens around 416 BC. Aristophanes' Speech on the Origins of Romantic Love Apart from Diotima's speech on Platonic Love, Aristophanes' speech on the origins of Romantic Love is by far the most important speech in the Symposium. Aristophanes' speech marks a sharp point of departure from the speeches on love that precede it. Whereas those speeches present love as a god or a goddess, Aristophanes' speech presents love not as a god but as a longing for wholeness.  Aristophanes offers a story dealing with human nature and the human condition. Human beings were once spherical, with eight limbs like an octopus (think before you next throw that octopus on the barbie - you may be committing cannibalism), four arms and four legs, one head with two faces and four ears and two sets of genitals, male or female, or both, so that they were any one of three kinds:  _________________________________ [1] Plato, Symposium 201-202 __ male-male, male-female, and female-female. One day they offended the gods and to punish them Zeus cut them in half, scattering the two severed halves in opposite directions. Since that day, we are always searching for our other half. When a half meets its other half, each is overcome by Eros and each delights in being with the other. The reason for this is not, or at least not merely, a desire for sexual intercourse: on the contrary, the soul of each wishes for something it cannot put into words. Lovers desire to live a common life and die a common death, to become One again, in a complete and lasting union. The reason for this is our ancient nature: we were once a unified Whole. 'Eros' Aristophanes tells us, 'Is the desire and pursuit of Wholeness'. Aristophanes' Story is the Story of the Fall Aristophanes' story is the story of the Fall; not dissimilar to that of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Heaven. We need healing, precisely because, when whole, we were impious and arrogant, prepared in our wholeness to challenge the gods.  We find an analogous story of humanity's fall from grace in Plato's dialogue the Phaedrus. In that dialogue, Socrates relates to the character Phaedrus, (who also features in the Symposium) how our souls were once winged and circled the heavens with the gods until - getting too close to earth they became enamored with its sights and sounds and lost their wings, crash-landing to earth like Ikaros. But once in a while,upon encountering the face of the beloved, our souls become amorously and strangely agitated, and growing wings again long to take flight to the heavens from which they came (next time you get an incessant itch under your armpits make sure you hold onto to something heavy). The Paradox of Romantic Love Love as wholeness, however, is forever frustrated. For if the aim of love is wholeness it is an aim that cannot be achieved. Despite the impulse toward union and wholeness, lovers are inherently and essentially separate. It is through their bodies that they express their union and their love, the cause of their separation. That which expresses longing and desire for wholeness is what divides them and keeps them apart. The paradox of love is in fact a double-paradox. It was originally our wholeness that trough its arrogance led to our separation. Now it is our separation that forever frustrates our efforts to recover our original wholeness. That which expresses our wholeness, which our souls desire and seek, is what forever divides us and keeps us apart. Romantic love is essentially mediated by the body, the cause of our separation rather than of our union. We are creatures of a longing that in principle and in practice cannot be fulfilled. We crave for wholeness through union of our souls, which the physical separation of our bodies hinders us from ever achieving. Aristophanes' speech itself presents us with no resolution to the paradox of love. Aristophanes offers a myth on love that begins in comedy and ends in a vision of the human condition that is inherently tragic.  Plato Offers a Beacon of Light Just when things look bleak and beyond redemption, Plato offers us a beacon of light through his vision of Platonic Love. It is a vision expressed poignantly by Diotima, the mystery woman from Mantinea. Diotima tells Socrates, who wisely feigns and expresses ignorance on matters of love (he wasn't known as the wisest for nothing), that romantic love implies a longing for immortality which, in essence, cannot be fulfilled by love for another mortal body, no matter how beautiful that body is. Aristophanes's claim that lovers wish for something other than sexual gratification, a permanent union that they cannot fully describe but only something to which they can obscurely aspire, anticipates Diotima's account of Eros. Her account of love, as a longing for immortality, can ultimately lead one to the highest form of love, love of the Beautiful itself. According to Diotima, the most fundamental desire of our nature is not for another human being, but for that which never changes, immortal Beauty itself. Three Stages in Diotima's Vision of Love Diotima's account of Eros proceeds through three main stages. First, Diotima defines Eros..................... ________________________________     In order to read the rest of this interesting article you may subscribe to the Athena journal...