Symposium - AIC

Gabriel Danzig
describes the original human creatures as round may suggest that he was too (but this may
alternatively merely reflect on his bald head: Peace, 762-773). The idea that he was a fat man would
give extra force to the fact that his hiccups are attributed to overeating (185c), and perhaps also fit his
reputation as a big drinker (176b-c). Alcibiades says of Aristophanes that he is geloios and wants to be
so (213c). This can be taken merely as a reference to his comic manner of speaking, but Alcibiades
says this to explain why Socrates did not sit next to Aristophanes, but rather next to the beautiful
Agathon. This comment therefore seems to imply that Aristophanes has an ungainly appearance.
5) The story of our original unity implies that the best matches are long-lasting and inviolable
(although he admits that people do sometimes mate with the wrong partners: 191a-b). This suggests
that he was a devoted partner, and not one who played the field.
In sum: Aristophanes’ speech suggests that its author cut a roundish, ungainly figure, and was
not popular as a lover. He was a confirmed homosexual who was deeply involved with a single
partner, or hoped to be, but who aspired to spending his time not in love-making but in productive
activities. The comic art is often cultivated by the outsider, and in Aristophanes’ description of love as
a pursuit of primal wholeness we may glimpse, together with a mockery of lovers, the deep longing of
an unpopular man for some taste of true love.
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