Symposium - AIC

Anne Gabriel Wersinger
It should be noticed here that the middle voice aorist infinitive of the verb poiô 13 , suddenly stresses
the active role of some unexpected person, for gender and context reasons: Penia, whose name means
Poverty, being resourceless with regard to resourceful Poros, and of course being a woman, shows her
capacity of devising and initiating an intercourse with a sleeping, unconscious, and for this reason,
passive male. There is an obvious hint here to the myth in which Zeus steals Métis or Semele of their
power to give birth 14 . But in Diotima’s version of the myth, it is as if there was annexation by a
woman of the male share of generation. At the same time, since Penia necessarily had to be
inseminated by Poros, we must assume that kuèsis implies the existence of a man’s sperm.
But one is left then with a question : why is Diotima so elliptical about ejaculation when
redefining the purpose of love as kuèsis? According to her, it is men’s business, even for those who
love and have intercourse with women (208e2-4), to "beget children" (paidogonia), but things seem to
happen without any reference to ejaculation, although Plato uses, in erotic contexts such as the
Phaedrus (250e5) the verbs paidosporeîn "to protrude" or bainein "to mount. Should we assume that it
is so obvious that pregnancy involves ejaculation, that it is not necessary to mention it?
A fortiori, some scholars 15 have pretended that, since men are at stake, it can’t be female
pregnancy but ejaculation that is evidently supposed in Symposium 206d4-206e1 (“to kuoûn is
released (…) from its great birth pangs (dia to megalès ôdînos apoluein”), this passage having a
parallel in the Phaedrus : as he looks at his pais’ beauty (251c6), the lover feels the discomfort of
sexual tension described by the metaphor of the production and growth of feathers 16 , and, when his
soul receives the himeros, he is released from his birth pangs (odunès, 251 d1). The word ôdis being
generally used for women 17 , one too easily believes that since Plato applies to men a word usually
used for women in the Phaedrus, there is no reason to admit that it would not be the case in the
Symposium, including the word kuèsis. But one may reverse the argument : why does the word kuèsis
appear in the Symposium and not in the Phaedrus ?
Anyway, it seems difficult to accept that the ellipsis of ejaculation is unimportant in Diotima’s
speech face to a tradition that emphasizes so strongly its importance, as it is the case in the Orphic
tradition (in Fr. 15, the word thornei 18 , a substantive presumably denoting ejaculation). The ellipsis
makes sense with regard to this emphasis.
Taking for granted these points, we may conclude that Diotima reverses the Olympian myths
of annexation of the female share of generation, by rendering to the mother the initiative of gestation.
Regarding the Orphic myth, she seems to conceal both ejaculation and phallus for the benefit
of pregnancy.
The orphic and musical background of the female genious
What is then the real scope of Diotima’metaphor of kuèsis? Answering this question requires setting
the background of the notion of creation in Plato’s Timaeus.
In the Derveni Papyrus, and unlike what happens in Homer and Hesiod, to produce (poeîn)
and to give birth to (tiktein) are no longer opposed 19 .
In an Orphic poem, which dates from the second century AD, (an older version being quoted
in the Derveni Papyrus), the first two lines show that the assimilation of the two concepts is indeed
realized:
“Zeus was born first, Zeus with the bright lightning, is the last
Zeus is the head, Zeus is the middle, from Zeus all things were made (Dios tetuktai panta ek),
v. 1-2
Zeus alone is the prime genitor (archigenethlos)”, v. 5 (fragment 168, Kern, quoted by
Apuleius, De Mundo, 37, and Porphyry, Peri Agalmatôn, 3, 7).
The Orphic Zeus is the demiurge that begets and makes the cosmos. This assimilation of ideas for
making and childbirth is completely Orphic. Thus the musician Timotheus of Miletus mentions
Orpheus, demi-god, son of the Muse Calliope in indicative terms for our purpose:
13 Wersinger, 2012, p. 9-10.
14 Wersinger, ibid., Leitao, 2012, p. 221.
15 Pender (1992), p. 72-75, as Morrisson (1964), p. 51-52.
16 Csapo, 1993, p. 12
17 Loraux (1990), p. 40, 63.
18 West, 1997, p. 91-92.
19 Wersinger, 2009, 2013. Leitao notices it (2012, p. 122) but without being able to tell the origin of the birth metaphor (p.
127).
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