Platonic Love

After touching on the history of the concept of Platonic love, I present new translations of a selection of the lyrics traditionally attributed to Plato along with a few unsystematic comments.



     In popular usage we all know that Platonic love means love without sensual indulgence, love conceived as spiritual or intellectual rather than physical. Yet, without venturing on the seas of defining what Plato in fact thought about love, any reader of the Symposium or, indeed, most of Plato’s dialogues will surely notice that their scenes are lit with a warm erotic glow. His circles of Athenian men who congregate to enjoy each other’s mental play in conversation were doubtless at the same time enjoying each other’s bodies in and out of the local gymnasium. According to Diogenes Laertius the philosopher’s birth name was Aristocles, and he was given the sobriquet Plato (“broad”) by his trainer, Ariston the Argive wrestler, in tribute to his physique. [1] As the centuries passed, the notion of sexless, so-called Platonic love is repeatedly presented as an ideal, but also regularly ridiculed as absurd or impossible.
     In Lucian the residents of the Isles of the Blessed enjoy corporeal pleasures in spite of being deceased. They “see nothing indecent in sexual intercourse, whether heterosexual or homosexual, and indulge in it quite openly, in full view of everyone. The only exception was Socrates, who was always swearing that his relations with young men were purely Platonic, but nobody believed him for a moment, and Hyacinthus and Narcissus gave first-hand evidence to the contrary.” [2] Here Socrates sounds as though he is playfully coy, a gentleman offering a discreet if inaccurate disclaimer.
     The collocation “platonic love” (albeit in Latin) was first used by Marsilio Ficino in 1469 in his commentary on the Symposium to describe an ideal love of the type he enjoyed the poet Giovanni Cavalcanti whom he regularly addressed as “amico mio perfettisimo.” [3] For centuries scholars assumed that, due to Ficino’s Roman Catholicism, he could not have been a “sodomite,” though the tables have turned and more recent writers often treat his homosexuality as an established fact. In late fifteenth century Florence same sex relationships among men, though illegal, were exceedingly common. [4]
     In the first half of the seventeenth century, Plato was much à la mode in the court of Henrietta Maria, the consort of Charles I. An observer described the vogue: “The Court affords little News at present, but that there is a love call’d Platonick Love, which much sways there of late; it is a Love abstracted from all corporeal gross impressions and sensual Appetite, but consists in Contemplations and Ideas of Mind, not in any carnal Fruition. This love sets the Wits of the Town on work; and they say there will be a Mask shortly of it, whereof her Majesty and her Maids of Honour, will be part.”
     In this intellectual climate, phrase “platonic love” enters English usage in William Davenant’s The Platonick Lovers (1636). The play mercilessly satirizes Theander and Eurithea’s wholly spiritualized love as absurd, contrasting it to the natural love of their siblings, Phylomont and Ariola. A medicine eventually cures Theander who awakens then to the physical side of love, replacing his erstwhile courtliness with a conventional male chauvinist marriage, telling his beloved “Your charter's out of date, and mine/ Begins to rule.”
     At the end of the nineteenth century Oscar Wilde made a brave and spirited speech at his first trial defending “the Love that dare not speak its name" as “such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy.” (His admirers recall that later his pride caused him to give up, as Socrates had done, his chance for exile.) Wilde speaks of a “spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect,” but whether that spiritual purity precluded carnal relations the reader of the testimony at the writer’s trials may judge.
     If one is to believe Aelian’s Varia Historia [6] Plato had written epic and tragic poetry and was about to enter a tetralogy in the competition at the Dionysia when he happened to hear Socrates speak, whereupon he immediately abandoned literature for philosophy (though many would say he continued to write a sort of poetry during his entire career). None of his youthful works has been preserved for certain, but his name has been attached to a group of lyrics in Diogenes Laertius, Athenaeus, and in the Greek Anthology. The authorship of these poems was long treated with considerable suspicion by scholars but Plato the lyricist has, in the last fifty years, found more defenders, though most still date the lyrics considerably later than Plato’s time. [7] Whoever may have been the author, the fact that a group of love poems are attributed to Plato indicates that readers in later antiquity were quite willing to accept Plato as a romantic and sensualist, enjoying physical relations with both men and women.
     The simple existence of deep friendships among same-sex heterosexuals is enough to demonstrate the possibility of passionate attachments in which sexuality plays no clear part, and many would see a broadened sort of eroticism in virtually all affectionate relations. Some feel so faint a physical desire as to be almost asexual, while others may experience an actual aversion to physical love. The issue will not be here resolved. For my part it is sufficient to have a new look at these poems, so ardent, so selfish and generous, so direct and yet sophisticated, so very human. Whether Plato had anything whatever to do with them, in my fancy they enhance his reputation.



Poetry attributed to Plato

i.

᾿Αστέρας εἰσαθρεῖς, ᾿Αστὴρ ἐμός· εἴθε γενοίμην
οὐρανός, ὡς πολλοῖς ὄμμασιν εἰς σὲ βλέπω.

Greek Anthology VII.669, Diogenes Laertius (Plato)

You see the stars, my star. I wish I were
the sky that you might fill my many eyes.


     What grand sensual greediness! Heavenly bodies possess an extravagant but rather abstract beauty, and this compliment employs a well worked vein of convention, extending it in a novel and dramatic image. I think of the earthier Catullus 13 in which the poet confesses his lack of most resources for hospitality and asks Fabullus to bring supplies for a party, but assures him that it will be worth his while, because Catullus will contribute the scent lent his lover by “the Venuses and Cupids,” so intoxicating that his friend will wish to be “all nose.”


ii.

᾿Αστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνὶ ζωοῖσιν ῾Εῷος·
νῦν δὲ θανὼν λάμπεις ῞Εσπερος ἐν φθιμένοις.

Greek Anthology VII.670, Diogenes Laertius (Plato)

You shone then like the star of dawn, alive,
among the wasted dead you’re Hesperus.


     This bit is paradigmatic of the Greek lyric pairing of pleasure and pain, circling every joy with a sense of loss. Well before Plato, Sappho had called love sweet-bitter (γλυκύπικρον). The coming-into-being and the passing away of the beloved is here assimilated to the grand procession of the heavens, known to be cyclical and apparently eternal. The poet borrows a bit of that cosmological glow to compliment the deceased. The word I translate “wasted” is derived from φθίω, meaning not so much completely gone as “wasted away,” “decayed,” “dwindling,” “fading,” suggesting the specifically Greek horror at becoming in Hades a weak and spectral shade. Achilles in the most memorable anti-heroic moment of the Odyssey (XI.488) cannot be consoled.  There is, however, a redemptive enthusiasm in the couplet above as well as a reassuring structural dualism. If death is to life as the evening star to the morning (which are in fact identical), where then is its bite? Only in an individual's loss of a dearly beloved.


iii.

τὴν ψυχὴν Ἀγάθωνα φιλῶν ἐπὶ χείλεσιν εἶχον·
ἦλθε γὰρ ἡ τλήμων ὡς διαβησομένη.

Greek Anthology V.78, Diogenes Laertius (Plato)

Kissing Agathon, my heart (the wretch)
came to my lips to try to pass to him.


     This was a familiar topos, appearing, for instance, in Rufinus who says that his lover in a kiss “draws out his soul from his very fingernails” (V, 14) and Meleagar (V, 171) whose lover “drinks up his soul” with a draft of wine. The imagery resembles Donne's describes in “The Extasie” in which the lovers’ souls are said to have emerged and “hung twixt her and me,” though here used more strictly as a witty compliment, suggesting that the poet’s disloyal soul would prefer to be housed in the more attractive Agathon. The name of the beloved, of course, signifies simply “the good,” allowing the verse to remain conveniently open to a metaphysical reading. Though I use the word “heart” since the issue is love, the word ψυχή is often translated as spirit or soul.


iv.

νῦν ὅτε μηδέν, Ἄλεξις, ὅσον μόνον εἶφ᾽, ὅτι καλός,
ὦπται, καὶ πάντῃ πᾶσι περιβλέπεται.
θυμέ, τί μηνύεις κυσὶν ὀστέον, εἶτ᾽ ἀνιήσει
ὕστερον; οὐχ οὕτω Φαῖδρον ἀπωλέσαμεν;

Greek Anthology V, 100 and Diogenes Laertius (Plato)

I only just said that Alexis is fair;
now everyone everywhere ogles that youth.
O heart, you toss to the dogs a bone
and then regret. I lost my Phaedrus so.


     This verse provides a glimpse into the competitive homoerotic arena of ancient Greece. In a tradition familiar in the blues in, for instance, “Woman be Wise,” which advises “don’t advertise your man,” the lover finds that his praise for the beloved has only brought him rivals. The implication that the intruders are “dogs” is properly vituperative, perhaps, but it entails the unfortunate suggestion that the lovely Alexis is a “bone.” With the mention of Phaedrus it becomes a four line soap opera.


v.

δάκρυα μὲν Ἑκάβῃ τε καὶ Ἰλιάδεσσι γυναιξὶ
Μοῖραι ἐπέκλωσαν δή ποτε γεινομέναις:
σοὶ δέ, Δίων, ῥέξαντι καλῶν ἐπινίκον ἔργων
δαίμονες εὐρείας ἐλπίδας ἐξέχεαν: [p. 60]
κεῖσαι δ᾽ εὐρυχόρῳ ἐν πατρίδι τίμιος ἀστοῖς,
ὦ ἐμὸν ἐκμήνας θυμὸν ἔρωτι Δίων.

Greek Anthology VII. 99 and D. L. (Plato)

Queen Hecabe and Trojan women wept,
The fates had ruled at birth that they should weep.
And after you had done great works and won,
Dion, the gods spilt all your grandest hopes.
You lie now honored in your airy town,
you who drove my heart so mad with love.


     The poet begins with what one might call an aerial view, surveying the legendary era to stress the inexorable workings of fate. Then the perspective moves to his own time in which the inscrutable turning of the wheel of fortune is illustrated by the passing of Dion who had been so victorious in life.


vi.

Ἀρχεάνασσαν ἔχω τὴν ἐκ Κολοφῶνος ἑταίραν,
ἧς καὶ ἐπὶ ῥυτίδων ἕζετο δριμὺς ἔρως.
ἆ δειλοὶ νεότητος ἀπαντήσαντες ἐκείνης
πρωτοπλόου, δι᾿ ὅσης ἤλθετε πυρκαϊῆς.
    

Greek Anthology VII, 217; Diogenes Laertius (Plato 31); and Athenaeus 589e

My love is Kolophon’s Arkheanasse,
O love lurks even in her wrinkled skin!
O fools who sailed her boat when she was young,
what flaming blazes you passed through with her!


     Here Plato appreciates the skills of a mature courtesan. His connoisseurship may be more literary than experiential, though Diogenes Laertius calls Arkheanasse his mistress. The woman’s name had already erotic associations, having earlier appeared in Sappho as well as later being used by Asklepiades to whom is attributed a very similar quatrain. Metaphors for sex using the language of both sailing and fire were commonplace, suggesting passion, intensity, danger, and excitement. [9]


vii.

μῆλον ἐγώ: βάλλει με φιλῶν σέ τις. ἀλλ᾽ ἐπίνευσον,
Ξανθίππη: κἀγὼ καὶ σὺ μαραινόμεθα.
    

Greek Anthology V.80.

An apple me -- and thrown to you for love!
Say yes,
o Xanthippe, both you and I will die.

     As both these lyrics indicate, the Greeks formalized the apple’s erotic significance in social ritual as well as in poetry. As a flirtation, one might toss an apple in the direction of a prospective lover; to accept the apple meant acceptance of its donor.  The current expression “the apple of my eye” preserves the usage.  One knows that apples, while beautiful and tasty, will in the end decay, heightening the urgency of seeking love in youth.

     The coincidence of the name with Socrates’ wife is accidental. Xanthippe was a vaguely aristocratic-sounding name, not uncommon. The theme would fit anyone.

viii.

ἡ σοβαρὸν γελάσασα καθ᾽ Ἑλλάδος, ἥ ποτ᾽ ἐραστῶν
ἑσμὸν ἐπὶ προθύροις Λαῒς ἔχουσα νέων,
τῇ Παφίῃ τὸ κάτοπτρον: ἐπεὶ τοίη μὲν ὁρᾶσθαι
οὐκ ἐθέλω, οἵη δ᾽ ἦν πάρος οὐ δύναμαι.

Greek Anthology VI, 1

I’m Lais the proud who laughed at Greece, when crowds
of young men thronged about my door. I give
my mirror to Love’s goddess. I cannot use it
now nor can it show me yesterday.


     One of the host of Greek lyrics lamenting the passing of youth, of beauty, ultimately of life, a loss that is the greater for lovers. The reader is reminded of Villon’s “Ballade Des Dames Du Temps Jadis” or Whitman’s more brutal “A Hand-Mirror.” A good many of the dedicatory epigrams in the Anthology carry similarly elegiac themes.
     Lais, perhaps the most celebrated hetaera of the Classical era is memorialized in a number of Anthology epigrams. [10]







1. III, 1. ἐγυμνάσατο δὲ παρὰ Ἀρίστωνι τῷ Ἀργείῳ παλαιστῇ: ἀφ᾽ οὗ καὶ Πλάτων διὰ τὴν εὐεξίαν μετωνομάσθη, Socrates himself clearly cared about keeping his body fit and criticized those who did not.

2. Chapter 2, A True Story (Ἀληθῶν Διηγημάτων) in Paul Turner’s translation.

3. De Amore. Ficino’s words are “amor platonicus.” His lover is not to be confused with the Troubadour Guido Cavalcanti who lived two centuries earlier.

4. According to Michael Rocke in Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence during the late fifteenth century homosexual and bisexual behavior was the norm in Florence though technically forbidden. He claims that the Office of the Night, charged with prosecuting homosexuals, over a period of two generations punished 17,000 Florentines out of a population of 40,000. The Florentines renewed ancient attitudes, endorsing primarily an older/younger couple while frowning on the effeminate and the pathic.

5. James Howell, Familiar Letters or Epistolae Ho-Eliana, 255.

6. 2.30.

7. As my topic more nearly concerns Plato’s reputation than Plato himself, I need not trouble myself about this question.

8. XI.488.

9. Dozens of examples from comedy are catalogued in Jeffrey Henderson’s essential The Maculate Muse (161 for nautical images, 177 for fire).

10. See Antipater Sidonius 7.218, Pompeius 7.219, Agathias 7.220, Julian 6.18-20, Paul Silentiarius 6.71, and Secundus 9.260.