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About this text: Diotima's Speech

Συμπόσιον

Plato (c. 428–348 BCE) · Symposium 201d–212c

Symposium 201d–212c: Love as a daimōn between mortal and immortal, birth in beauty, and the ascent to the beautiful itself.

On the Platonic Current: Plato

55 sections · ~65 min · commentaries · published translation · 3,835 words

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Versions

42 layers, each with its licence

The original

Burnet's Oxford text (Platonis Opera II)John Burnet · 1901Public domain
By
John Burnet (editor) · 1901
Source:
J. Burnet, Platonis Opera II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford Classical Texts, 1901; 1910 printing)
In the reader:
In full, 201d–212c
Licence:
Text public domain
Notes
The Greek text is Burnet's, unchanged. Three places where editors differ are recorded in the text record (§4), not adopted: 208b ἀθάνατον (Bury: ἀδύνατον), 211c ἐπαναβασμοῖς (Bury: ἐπαναβαθμοῖς), 208a μνήμην (bracketed by Bury). Fully accented as printed; nothing supplied. Dover (Cambridge 1980) and the Nehamas–Woodruff translation (Hackett 1989) are in copyright and were not used.
Perseus Digital Library digitisation of BurnetPerseus Digital Library · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence
By
Perseus Digital Library (digitiser (canonical-greekLit)) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
Perseus Digital Library, canonical-greekLit tlg0059.tlg011.perseus-grc2 (EpiDoc; Stephanus milestones) · link ↗
In the reader:
The Greek as shown, with its paragraphing and speakers
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 (the digitisation; Burnet's text is public domain). Share-alike: this page and the derived data files carry the same licence
UNVERIFIED:
The date (release or commit) of the Perseus canonical-greekLit file used is not recorded in the repo.
Bury's edition (text, apparatus and commentary)R. G. Bury · 1909Public domain
By
R. G. Bury (editor) · 1909
Source:
R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1909): text, apparatus and commentary · link ↗
In the reader:
Not collated in full: three of its readings are noted (208b, 211c, 208a); its notes and Introduction appear among the readers through the ages
Licence:
Public domain
Notes
Bury's text differs from Burnet in a few places in this range; the two that affect the sense are noted in the text record §4, and Bury's apparatus lists the rest. Open question: show Bury's readings as a second text, or only in notes as now.

Our edition

Our Greek: GLAUx tokens on Perseus's textscripts/plato/build_symposium.py · 2026-09-28Open licence
By
scripts/plato/build_symposium.py (build) · 2026-09-28
Source:
scripts/plato/build_symposium.py; method in docs/texts/symposium-diotima.md §§2–3, 6–7
In the reader:
55 passages, one per Stephanus section (201d–212c), linkable as #s-201d; word ids <section>.<n>
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 (share-alike, as derived from Perseus and GLAUx)
Notes
The tokens are GLAUx's, in GLAUx's order, checked back against the Perseus text token by token to recover its 87 paragraph breaks (every token was found in order). Shown in Unicode NFC (GLAUx stores NFD), in GFS Didot. GLAUx's split compounds and crasis (οὔτε, κἀγώ) are shown as one word with both analyses.
Corrections to the automatic analysisClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (found by matching every lemma against LSJ and reading the misses) · 2026-09-28
Source:
app/src/data/symposium-diotima.json (`fixes`), listed on the About page with links to each word
In the reader:
7 corrections, each with its reason, on the About page; the corrected lemma in the word panel
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/symposium-diotima.json)
Notes
Made by AI in this edition and open to review; the Greek text itself is unchanged. GLAUx's reported accuracy is about 97% for morphology and 99% for lemmas, so more errors should be expected. Among them: 201d, 211d Μαντινικῆς/Μαντινικὴ (the adjective, not the place name); 202d a fused question mark split; 203b, 203c ὑὸς (son, not swine); 207c Διανοῇ (the verb).

Published translations

Jowett (1892)Benjamin Jowett · 1892Public domain
By
Benjamin Jowett (translator) · 1892
Source:
B. Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, 3rd ed. (Oxford 1892), vol. 1, pp. 572–582; text from Project Gutenberg #1600, collated with the 1892 scan · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, divided into sections automatically (a clause either way)
Licence:
Public domain
Notes
Two readings where Gutenberg departs from 1892 restored: 'I will rehearse a tale' (201d) and 'run risks of all kinds greater far' (208c). Jowett's cross-references, which Gutenberg prints inline, removed. Jowett has no Stephanus numbers: his text was divided into sections by the best monotonic match of each clause against Lamb's and the AI English (scripts/plato/align_jowett.py), so the boundaries are approximate; 210c has no clause of its own (its rendering falls in 210b and 210d). Data: app/src/data/symposium-diotima-jowett.json.
Lamb (Loeb 1925)W. R. M. Lamb · 1925PD-US
By
W. R. M. Lamb (translator) · 1925
Source:
W. R. M. Lamb, Plato in Twelve Volumes, vol. 3 (Loeb, 1925), via Perseus (tlg0059.tlg011.perseus-eng2) · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, by Perseus's own section divisions
Licence:
Public domain in the US (published 1925); digitisation CC BY-SA 4.0. Lamb died in 1961, so outside the US it may still be in copyright (death year UNVERIFIED: the repo also gives 1946)
Notes
Lamb's 201d milestone falls inside Socrates' reply to Agathon, so his 201d begins at 'And now I shall let you alone', where the Greek 201d begins. Data: app/src/data/symposium-diotima-lamb.json.
UNVERIFIED:
Lamb's death year: the Alcibiades translation file gives 1946, the Symposium About page gives 1961; the repo does not settle it, so whether Lamb is public domain outside the US is unverified.
Ficino (1484): Conuiuium, siue De amoreMarsilio Ficino · 1484Public domain
By
Marsilio Ficino (translator) · 1484
Source:
Divini Platonis Opera omnia quae exstant, Marsilio Ficino interprete (Lugduni [Lyon]: apud Franciscum le Preux, 1590), Conuiuium, pp. 327-331 (Latin column beside the Greek; 201d begins p. 327, 212c ends p. 331). Boston Public Library copy (John Adams's), digitised by archive.org, item diviniplatonisop00plat. · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, by Stephanus section, fetched when chosen (Translations or Compare in the reader)
Licence:
public domain (printed 1590; translation 1484)
Notes
Date: translated in the 1460s; first printed Florence 1484; text here from the Lyon 1590 printing. Text: Transcribed by AI from the archive.org page images of the Lyon 1590 print (pp. 327-331, leaves n358-n362), using the archive.org OCR of the same print only as a guide; the OCR was unusable in places (Greek column interleaved, full-width Latin lines at the page foot misplaced or dropped) and every sentence was read against the scan. Sections: aligned by AI reading the Latin against the Greek (Burnet) and Lamb's English; the print carries only its own page-section letters A-H beside the Greek column, not Stephanus numbers. Each section starts at the Latin clause answering to the first words of the Greek section; where the Greek boundary falls inside a Latin clause the break follows Lamb's section division. Approximate to a clause. Note: Normalisation: the print's u/v and i (no j except final -ij, e.g. dij, medij, officij) are kept as printed; long s, ligatures and the ae/oe ligatures (æ, ę, œ) resolved (ę read as ae, so 'caelo', 'haec'); abbreviations expanded silently (tildes for m/n, q; = que, q. = que, & = et, .n. = enim, p-with-stroke = pro, -b. = -bus, superscript 9 = -us, q-with-mark = quod/quam); the printer's grave and acute accents (verò, quàm, planè) and diaeresis (poëta) dropped; punctuation and capitals as printed, with spaces normalised. Ficino's Greek glosses (δαιμόνιος, βάναυσοι, μήτιδος, πόρος, πενία) kept in Greek as printed. Printed oddities kept: 'inquibat' (208d), 'Est, inquam hoc partus' and 'Reuera, inquam' where Diotima speaks (206b, 206e), 'se indignum' (204a, for indigum), 'facinatorque' (203d). Two worn letters read by conjecture: 'Qui ergo' (204a) and 'e quibus' (204b). Nothing is marked [?]: every word could be read from the scan. Range: begins 'Verum Agathonem iam dimittam' and stops at 'quinam homines aduentarint;' (end of 212c as in Lamb); the rest of Agathon's order ('et si quis familiaris noster intersit...') is 212d and omitted. Ficino's marginal notes (removed from the text): 'Diotima fatidica' (201d); 'Inter sapientiam & ignorantiam media est recta opinio'; 'Qualis sit opinio recta' (202a); 'Amor est medius inter turpe & pulchrum' (202b); 'Natura daemonum'; 'Munia & officia daemonum' (202e); 'Diuinatio & magica conceditur per daemones' (203a); 'Amor vnus ex daemonibus' (203a); 'Amor est immortalitatis desiderium' (207a); 'Assidua mutatio in corpore & anima' (207d-e); 'Iliad.' with a blotted book number (208c, beside 'immortalem gloriam'); 'Cicero lib. de offi. 2' (the numeral uncertain; 211e, beside 'Quam felix illud spectaculum').
Sydenham (1767): The BanquetFloyer Sydenham, Thomas Taylor · 1767; revised 1804Public domain
By
Floyer Sydenham (translator (1767)); Thomas Taylor (reviser and editor (1804)) · 1767; revised 1804
Source:
The Works of Plato, trans. Floyer Sydenham and Thomas Taylor (London: R. Wilks for T. Taylor, 1804), vol. 3, pp. 494-516 · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, by Stephanus section, fetched when chosen (Translations or Compare in the reader)
Licence:
public domain (published London 1767 and 1804; Sydenham d. 1787, Taylor d. 1835)
Notes
Date: translated 1767 (The Banquet, Part the Second); this text as revised and printed by Taylor, 1804. Text: archive.org OCR of the 1804 printing (vol3worksofplato00plat), long s modernised with the help of the OCR of Sydenham's own 1767 edition (archive.org bim_eighteenth-century_the-banquet-a-dialogue-_plato_1767), then corrected by AI against every page scan pp. 494-516. Sections: automatic (word-overlap DP against Lamb + AI English, scripts/plato/tr_common.py); every boundary then read against Lamb by AI and 34 of 54 moved by hand to the clause that answers the Stephanus break; approximate to a clause. Note: Sydenham's own 1767 text was revised by Taylor for the 1804 Works: besides modernising spelling and capitals, Taylor changed the wording in places, e.g. 1767 'Godship' > 'divinity' (202c), 'Jove' > 'Jupiter', 'a powerful Daemon' > 'a great daemon' (202e), 'the Business of Prophesy, and the Working of Miracles' > 'the whole of divination and magic' and 'These Genii or Daemons' > 'These daemons' (202e-203a), the launch into the 'wide Ocean of Beauty' at 210d rewritten ('surveying it with the eye of intellect ... dianoetic conceptions'), and 'from One to Many' > 'from one to two' at 211c (Taylor's footnote says Sydenham had changed Plato's 'two'). The translation turns the lover's first beloved into a woman ('fall in love with some one particular person, fair and beauteous; and on her beget', 210a; 'his mistress', 209c; 'one only female form', 210b). Sydenham did not publish a translation of the rest of the dialogue, so his text ends with Socrates' speech; the close of 212c (the applause, the knocking at the door) is not in it (Taylor supplied it in 1804 under the head 'The Speech of Alcibiades'). The heads 'The Speech of Socrates' and Taylor's and Sydenham's footnotes are omitted. OCR cleaned by AI and checked against every page scan; long s modernised; ae ligature resolved (daemon, Phaedrus, Lacedaemon).
Schleiermacher (1807): Das GastmahlFriedrich Schleiermacher · 1807Public domain
By
Friedrich Schleiermacher (translator) · 1807
Source:
Platons Werke von F. Schleiermacher, Zweiten Theiles zweiter Band (Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1807), pp. 417–434 · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, by Stephanus section, fetched when chosen (Translations or Compare in the reader)
Licence:
public domain (published 1807; translator d. 1834). The BSB scan and OCR are marked NoC-NC (no copyright, non-commercial use requested); this transcription is newly keyed from the page and carries no BSB text layer
Notes
Date: published 1807 (Platons Werke, Zweiten Theiles zweiter Band; revised 2nd ed. 1824). Text: Transcribed by AI from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek scan (MDZ bsb10237331) using the BSB OCR as a base, corrected line by line against the page images; every departure from the OCR checked by eye. Sections: The 1807 print has Stephanus page numbers (202–212) in the margin, placed at the line where each page begins, but no letters. Section starts were placed by AI reading Schleiermacher against the Greek section openings; they agree with the marginal page numbers to within 1–3 lines. Approximate to a clause where the German recasts the Greek sentence (e.g. 204c, 205c, 209d, 210a, 212c). Note: Original orthography kept (jezt, glükselig, besizen, erblikken, wol, giebt, nemlich). The Antiqua ſs of the print, the period's typographic form of ß, is rendered ß (daß, häßlich); line-end hyphens joined; page numbers, signatures, catchwords and marginal Stephanus numbers removed. One printer's slip corrected: 'ha-haben' (p. 429) → 'haben'. The section 212c ends at 'Da habe Agathon gesagt, Leute', as the Greek 212c ends at παῖδες, φάναι. This is the first edition; the 2nd (1824) and 3rd (1855) editions revise the wording in places and have not been collated.
Shelley (1818): The Banquet of PlatoPercy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley · 1818; published 1840Public domain
By
Percy Bysshe Shelley (translator); Mary Shelley (editor (1840)) · 1818; published 1840
Source:
Shelley, Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments, ed. Mrs. Shelley (London: Edward Moxon, 1840), vol. 1, pp. 126-148 · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, by Stephanus section, fetched when chosen (Translations or Compare in the reader)
Licence:
public domain (published London 1840; translator d. 1822, editor Mary Shelley d. 1851)
Notes
Date: translated July 1818; first published 1840 (ed. Mary Shelley). Text: two archive.org OCRs of the 1840 printing (University of California copy essayslettersfro01shelrich; Duke copy essayslettersfro01shel) merged word by word, then corrected by AI against the page scans pp. 126-148. Sections: automatic (word-overlap DP against Lamb + AI English, scripts/plato/tr_common.py); every boundary then read against Lamb by AI and 31 of 54 moved by hand to the clause that answers the Stephanus break; approximate to a clause. Note: Text of the first printing (1840), which Mary Shelley is known to have softened where Plato speaks of the love of boys; passages here such as 'He who aspires to love rightly, ought from his earliest youth to seek an intercourse with beautiful forms' (210a), 'the improvement of youth' (210c), 'ascending from a correct system of Love' (211b) and 'those lovely persons' (211d) are probably affected. Shelley's manuscript wording was printed later (Julian edition vol. 7, 1930; R. Ingpen, Plato's Banquet, 1931); those printings were not used (not found in an open library, and the 1931 book is not yet public domain in the US). Forman's edition (Prose Works vol. 3, 1880) reprints the 1840 text with small corrections, e.g. 'congruous with what is immortal and divine' for 1840's 'mortal and divine' (206d) and 'more excellent than that' for 1840's 'excellent that that' (210b); the 1840 readings are kept here. The dialogue has no Stephanus numbers. OCR cleaned by AI: two OCRs merged, then every page read against the scan; quotation marks follow the page (“ ” for Socrates' narration, ‘ ’ for the dialogue); ae ligature resolved (daemon, Phaedrus).
Cousin (1831): Le BanquetVictor Cousin · 1831Public domain
By
Victor Cousin (translator) · 1831
Source:
Œuvres de Platon, traduites par Victor Cousin, tome sixième (Paris: P.-J. Rey, 1849 [first published Paris: Bossange frères, 1831]), pp. 296–319 · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, by Stephanus section, fetched when chosen (Translations or Compare in the reader)
Licence:
public domain (first published 1831; translator d. 1867); Wikisource transcription under CC BY-SA 4.0 for any editorial additions (none kept here); scan public domain (archive.org NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT)
Notes
Date: published 1831 (Œuvres de Platon, tome VI); text here from the 1849 Rey issue. Text: French Wikisource, proofread and validated transcription (Le Banquet (trad. Cousin); Page:Platon - Œuvres, trad. Cousin, V et VI.djvu/750–773) of the University of Toronto scan archive.org/details/worksfrenc1846o5a6platuoft. Sections: Cousin's print has no Stephanus numbers. Section starts were placed by AI reading the French against the Greek section openings, starting from the Wikisource editors' reference anchors, of which ten were corrected (202b and 207d mislabelled; 203b, 205c, 212b missing; 201d, 204a, 206d, 207a, 211b misplaced). Approximate to a clause where Cousin recasts the sentence. Note: Cousin's footnotes (on Poros/Penia/Metis, poiesis, Codrus, the degrees of initiation, Moira/Eileithyia) are omitted. Page breaks joined; paragraphing follows the print. Cousin paraphrases freely in places (e.g. 'Bien, répondit-elle' at 205a has no Greek equivalent) and his 201d opens after Socrates' reply to Agathon, which belongs to 201c. Spelling as printed (enfans, amans, suivans); accents on capitals (Ô, À) and typographic apostrophes as normalised by Wikisource. The scan is the 1849 Rey issue; it was not collated against a copy dated 1831.
Burges (1850): The Banquet, or On LoveGeorge Burges · 1850Public domain
By
George Burges (translator) · 1850
Source:
The Works of Plato: A New and Literal Version, Chiefly from the Text of Stallbaum, vol. III, trans. George Burges (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1850; Bohn's Classical Library), pp. 531-556 · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, by Stephanus section, fetched when chosen (Translations or Compare in the reader)
Licence:
public domain (published London 1850; translator d. 1864)
Notes
Text: archive.org OCR of the 1850 printing (University of California copy theworksofplato03platiala), footnotes removed and OCR corrected by AI against every page scan pp. 531-556. Sections: automatic (word-overlap DP against Lamb + AI English, scripts/plato/tr_common.py); every boundary then read against Lamb by AI and 36 of 54 moved by hand to the clause that answers the Stephanus break; approximate to a clause. Note: Burges gives his own section numbers ([27.]-[37.], following Stallbaum's chapters), not Stephanus pages; they are omitted here, as are his long critical footnotes (many of them conjectural emendations of the Greek). Words in round brackets are Burges' own supplements; square brackets mark words he took to be interpolations (206c 'the yearning and generation', 206e 'and of begetting', 211c 'and he knows at last what is the beautiful itself'). The line 'And fame undying to lay up for ever' (208c) is set as verse because Burges heard a hexameter in the Greek. Unlike the 1840 Shelley and the Sydenham, Burges translates the love of boys literally ('through rightly loving the young', 211b; 'beautiful boys or youths', 211d). OCR cleaned by AI and checked against every page scan; ae ligature resolved (daemon, Phaedrus, Lacedaemon).
Chambry (1919): Le BanquetÉmile Chambry · 1919Public domain
By
Émile Chambry (translator) · 1919
Source:
Œuvres de Platon : Ion, Lysis, Protagoras, Phèdre, Le Banquet, traduction nouvelle, avec des notices et des notes, par E. Chambry (Paris : Garnier frères, 1919), pp. 385–402 · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, by Stephanus section, fetched when chosen (Translations or Compare in the reader)
Licence:
public domain: first published 1919 (public domain in the US); translator d. 1951, so public domain in France/EU since 1 January 2022. The Gallica scan is a BnF digitisation: free for non-commercial reuse with attribution ('Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF'); commercial reuse of Gallica files needs a BnF licence. This transcription is newly keyed from the page images.
Notes
Date: published 1919 (Garnier); revised in later Garnier and Garnier-Flammarion printings. Text: Transcribed by AI from the Gallica scan of the 1919 edition (BnF 8-R-29411), using the unproofread French Wikisource transcription of the 1991 Garnier-Flammarion reprint as a draft; every difference between the two was checked against the 1919 page images. Sections: Chambry prints chapter numbers (XXII–XXX) but no Stephanus references. Section starts were placed by AI reading the French against the Greek section openings; approximate to a clause where Chambry recasts the sentence (e.g. 204c, 207c, 207d, 208d, 210a, 212c). Note: Text of the 1919 first edition, which differs in about twenty places from the revised Garnier-Flammarion text now common (and on Wikisource): e.g. 1919 omits 'l'union de l'homme et de la femme est enfantement' at 206c (his footnote calls it a gloss), and reads 'Chez les animaux, comme chez l'homme' at 207d, 'un corps sans grâce' at 210b, 'la science du beau' at 210d. Chambry's chapter numbers, footnote markers and footnotes are omitted. Printed spellings kept (Etant, Etats, A l'égard, 'Pénia, poussé', 'nous sommes convenu'); one misprint corrected: 'survivanec' → 'survivance' (p. 397).
Allen (1991), private study layerR. E. Allen · 1991Copyrighted: cited only
By
R. E. Allen (translator) · 1991
Source:
R. E. Allen, The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 2: The Symposium (Yale University Press, 1991)
In the reader:
Not shown publicly: a private study layer, only when PRIVATE_LAYERS=1 (a public build was checked and contains none of it)
Licence:
© Yale University Press: cited only; never in a public build
Notes
Divided by Allen's own margin letters (43 of 55 sections), the rest by overlap with Lamb and the AI English; footnotes omitted. Also cited (as a translation) among the scholars.

AI layers

English (AI), section by sectionClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (translation) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
In full
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/symposium-diotima.json; its generatedBy says 28 Sept 2026 (drafts in scripts/plato/ai/tr1–tr5.json))
Notes
Written for this reader from Burnet's Greek, without consulting any copyrighted translation; not reviewed by a scholar. Fixed renderings: ἔρως 'love' (the god: Love); καλόν 'beautiful'; δαίμων 'daimōn'; τόκος ἐν καλῷ 'giving birth in beauty'; ἀρετή 'excellence'; φρόνησις 'understanding'; ποίησις 'making' (and 'poetry'). Follows Burnet at 208b (ἀθάνατον).
Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
One gloss per lemma (682 lemmas)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/symposium-diotima.json (drafts scripts/plato/ai/glosses1–3.tsv))
Notes
Some glosses, shared by lemma with the other Greek texts, were widened on 2 October 2026 after the Alcibiades triangulation (docs/texts/alcibiades-1-mirror.md §7b). Review by a person pending, especially the particles.
Word familiesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (word-families) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Stems grouped from the etymologies (24 families)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/symposium-diotima.json)
Notes
AI groupings of the pilot's lemmas by stem (for example ἐρ-: ἔρως, ἐράω, ἐραστής, ἐραστός, ἐρωτικός), made from the etymologies.
Bridges to the Arabic libraryClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (bridges) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
6 bridges: a Bridges tab in the word panel, ◆ on the first such word in each section, and a list on the About page
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/plato/bridges.json; its generatedBy says 28 Sept 2026)
Notes
καλόν ↔ ḥusn/jamāl (high); ἔρως ↔ ʿishq/ḥubb (high); ἐπαναβασμοί ↔ miʿrāj/taraqqī (medium); δαίμων, μεταξύ ↔ barzakh (medium); τόκος ἐν καλῷ ↔ nikāḥ/wilāda (low); μανία ↔ jadhb/hayamān (low). Each with a confidence and its grounds (primary texts linked, studies cited only): Ibn Sīnā's Risāla fī māhiyyat al-ʿishq (OpenITI), the Ikhwān epistle 37 (OpenITI), Dieterici's Arabic Theology of Aristotle (1882), Futūḥāt chs. 63, 167, 178 (cited by chapter, not checked line by line). A bridge names shared vocabulary or structure, never borrowing unless a source shows it. Also shown in the Ennead VI.9 reader.
Synthesis of the interpretationsClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (synthesis) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Per section and for the whole text (scope: public)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn in app/src/content/synthesis/symposium-diotima.json)
Notes
AI synthesis of the interpretations, from public sources only (named in 'sources'): our AI translation, public-domain translations and commentaries (those not in English read with our AI English, as 'via' records), and our notes. No copyrighted translation was given to the model. Sources: the AI translation, the bridges, Burges, Bury, Castiglione, Chambry, Cousin, Ficino (Latin and De amore), Hermias, Jowett (translation and introduction), Lamb, Leone Ebreo, Pico, Plotinus I.6 and III.5, Proclus, Schleiermacher, Shelley, Sydenham, Sydenham–Taylor and Taylor's notes.
Resonances (themes and connections)Claude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (resonances) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Per passage in the reader and on the About page
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn in app/src/content/resonances/symposium-diotima.json; made headless, without web access, by docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md)
Notes
AI (Claude) map of themes and connections, made by the method in docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md. Every connection states its kind; parallels are resonances, not claims of influence. External references were proposed by the model without web access and are shown only after an agent verified them with a web search (see _refs.json). 8 themes, 15 connections.
The scholars (ring 6)Claude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (scholarship) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
85 claims, each with its source and page, in the reader and on the About page (#scholars)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/scholarship/symposium-diotima.json (its 'updated' is 2026-09-28))
Notes
Each summary was written by AI from the cited page and checked against it; quotations are verbatim and short; the full texts stay private. Sources (cited only): R. E. Allen, The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 2: The Symposium (translation), Yale University Press, 1991 [©]; William H. F. Altman, Ascent to the Beautiful: Plato the Teacher and the Pre-Republic Dialogues from Protagoras to Symposium, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020 [©]; E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, University of California Press, 1951 [©]; Pierre Grimes, “Plato, Symposium 206c–212c: Diotima's Speech 1”, Noetic Society lecture, 21 Sept 2009 (audio; machine transcript) [© (Grimes estate / Noetic Society)]; Pierre Grimes, “Plato's Symposium and Plotinus on Love”, Noetic Society lecture, 23 Dec 2016 (audio; machine transcript) [© (Grimes estate / Noetic Society)]; Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, tr. Michael Chase, Harvard University Press, 2002 [©]; Angela Hobbs, “The Erotic Magus: Ficino's De Amore as a Guide to Plato's Symposium”, in J. F. Finamore and T. Nejeschleba (eds), Platonism and its Legacy (Lydney: The Prometheus Trust), 2019 [CC BY 4.0]; Kazuyo Murata, “Beauty Stings: Plotinus and Rūzbihān Baqlī on Beauty”, accepted author manuscript of a chapter in Sperl and Dedes (eds), Faces of the Infinite, 2022 [© (green open-access author manuscript)]; Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, updated edition, 2001 [©]; Charles M. Stang, Our Divine Double, Harvard University Press, 2016 [©]; Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, The Theology of Plato (with Taylor's introduction and notes), London 1816; electronic edition 2010 [PD].
Readers through the ages: cleaned originals and EnglishClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (readers) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
Under the sections each reader discusses
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/plato/symposium-diotima-braid.json and -braid-more.json)
Notes
Latin, Greek and Italian excerpts were cleaned from the archive.org OCR by AI (long s, ligatures, misread letters such as ϑ, dropped initials shown in brackets) and should be checked against the linked page images; their English is AI and marked (enAi). English originals (Taylor, Sydenham, Bury, Jowett, Stanley's Pico, Hoby's Castiglione, Taylor's Proclus, MacKenna's Plotinus) are the translators' own words.

Automatic analysis

Lemmas and morphology (GLAUx)Alek Keersmaekers (KU Leuven) · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence
By
Alek Keersmaekers (KU Leuven) (GLAUx corpus: automatic annotation) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
GLAUx corpus, document 0059-011 (A. Keersmaekers, KU Leuven): automatic lemma, morphology and syntax · link ↗
In the reader:
Per word, marked as automatic; corrections listed on the About page
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0
Notes
Built on the same Perseus text, so its tokens carry the Perseus section numbers (div_stephanus_section) and needed no alignment. Reported accuracy: morphology 97.2%, lemmas 98.8%; e.g. 210b δεῖ is tagged imperfect. GLAUx splits οὔτε into οὔ + -τε and κἀγώ into κα- + κἀγώ.
UNVERIFIED:
The GLAUx release or commit used is not recorded in the repo.
Liddell–Scott–Jones (dictionary)Liddell–Scott–Jones, Perseus Digital Library, H. Dik (Logeion) · 1940Open licence
By
Liddell–Scott–Jones (dictionary, 9th ed. (1940)); Perseus Digital Library (digitisation); H. Dik (Logeion) (edited digitisation) · 1940
Source:
Liddell–Scott–Jones, A Greek–English Lexicon, 9th ed. (1940), Perseus digitisation as edited for Logeion (H. Dik) · link ↗
In the reader:
The entry (first 1,500 characters) and its opening senses, linked to Perseus and Logeion; 669 of 682 lemmas matched (the 13 unmatched mostly proper names)
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 (the Perseus/Logeion digitisation)
Notes
Matched by headword; when LSJ has several homographs the entry that cites Plato most is taken (λέγω 'B', ἐράω 'A'). The 'opening senses' are the first English gloss of each sense, extracted automatically and marked as such.
LSJ's own derivationsscripts/plato/lsj_etym.py · 1940Open licence
By
scripts/plato/lsj_etym.py (automatic extraction from the LSJ entry) · 1940
Source:
Liddell–Scott–Jones, 9th ed. (1940): the derivation given after the headword and occasional cognate notes, extracted automatically (scripts/plato/lsj_etym.py) · link ↗
In the reader:
Where LSJ gives one (193 lemmas)
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0
Notes
LSJ's <etym> tags were checked and are too inconsistent to use, so the derivation is taken from the text of the entry.
Boisacq, Dictionnaire étymologique (the primary etymology)Émile Boisacq, Tesseract (tessdata_best grc+fra), scripts/plato/boisacq_index.py · 1916Public domain
By
Émile Boisacq (author); Tesseract (tessdata_best grc+fra) (OCR); scripts/plato/boisacq_index.py (automatic matching) · 1916
Source:
É. Boisacq, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Heidelberg/Paris 1916), archive.org dictionnairety00bois: OCR of the page scan (Tesseract, Ancient Greek + French models, 300 dpi), matched to the lemmas automatically · link ↗
In the reader:
The entry as machine-read, marked unchecked, with the page image one tap away (the image is authoritative); 355 lemmas found
Licence:
Public domain
Notes
Method in docs/texts/symposium-diotima.md §8: entries found by the dictionary's alphabetical order, then matched accents aside (the lemma's own entry, a line or paragraph it opens, the entry that treats it, or, when LSJ derives the lemma from a base word, Boisacq's entry for that base, labelled as such). Printed page = PDF page − 34. Known weaknesses: OCR noise in small Greek; occasionally the matched paragraph belongs to a neighbouring entry.
Wiktionary etymologies (via kaikki.org)Wiktionary contributors, kaikki.org (Wiktextract), scripts/plato/fetch_wiktionary.py · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence
By
Wiktionary contributors (etymologies); kaikki.org (Wiktextract) (extraction); scripts/plato/fetch_wiktionary.py (lookup) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
Wiktionary, Ancient Greek entries, via kaikki.org (Wiktextract) JSONL · link ↗
In the reader:
Secondary, labelled: the etymology and Proto-Indo-European forms, credited and linked (collapsed when Boisacq has the word); 597 of 682 lemmas have an entry
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 and GFDL (kaikki states no licence of its own; Wiktionary's is inferred)
UNVERIFIED:
The date on which the kaikki.org extracts were fetched is not recorded in the repo.
Beekes, Chantraine and Frisk (cited only)R. Beekes, P. Chantraine, H. Frisk · UNVERIFIEDCopyrighted: cited only
By
R. Beekes (Etymological Dictionary of Greek (2010)); P. Chantraine (Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (DELG)); H. Frisk (Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (GEW)) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (2010); Chantraine, DELG; Frisk, GEW
In the reader:
A citation s.v. in the word panel
Licence:
In copyright: cited only ("see Beekes s.v. …"), never quoted
UNVERIFIED:
Publication years of Chantraine's DELG and Frisk's GEW are not given in the repo (Beekes: 2010).
Phaedrus usageAlek Keersmaekers (KU Leuven) · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence
By
Alek Keersmaekers (KU Leuven) (GLAUx corpus) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
GLAUx corpus, document 0059-012 (Phaedrus), linked to Burnet's Greek on Scaife · link ↗
In the reader:
References and forms only: each lemma's occurrences in this passage and in the Phaedrus
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0
UNVERIFIED:
The GLAUx release or commit used is not recorded in the repo.

Commentaries

Plotinus, Enneads III.5 (On Love)Plotinus, R. Volkmann, Stephen MacKenna · c. 268–270; ed. 1883; tr. 1921Public domain
By
Plotinus (author); R. Volkmann (editor (1883)); Stephen MacKenna (translator of III.5.2 (1921)) · c. 268–270; ed. 1883; tr. 1921
Source:
Plotinus, ed. Volkmann (Teubner 1883), vol. 1, p. 280 (III.5.9); MacKenna, Plotinus: Psychic and Physical Treatises (Medici Society 1921), pp. 55–56 (III.5.2) · link ↗
In the reader:
III.5.9 at 203b–e (Greek with AI English); III.5.2 at 203b (MacKenna's English); 3 entries, 'exact'
Licence:
Public domain (Volkmann's Greek); MacKenna 1921: public domain in the US
Notes
Plotinus reads the myth: Poros as logos flowing from Intellect into Soul; the 'garden of Zeus' as the splendour of the Forms. MacKenna's 1921 volume: archive.org plotinustranslat00plot.
Hermias, Scholia on the PhaedrusHermias of Alexandria, P. Couvreur · 5th c.; ed. 1901Public domain
By
Hermias of Alexandria (author); P. Couvreur (editor) · 5th c.; ed. 1901
Source:
Hermias, In Platonis Phaedrum scholia, ed. P. Couvreur (Paris 1901), pp. 12, 66, 72 · link ↗
In the reader:
3 entries at 202d–203a and 203d: Eros as a great daimōn; the daimonic kind; Eros as philosopher, enchanter, sorcerer, sophist
Licence:
Public domain
Notes
Hermias wrote on the Phaedrus, not the Symposium, so he appears only where he discusses the Symposium directly. Greek cleaned from the OCR by AI; English AI.
Ficino, De amore (Commentary on the Symposium)Marsilio Ficino · 1469; printed 1484; text Lyon 1590Public domain
By
Marsilio Ficino (author) · 1469; printed 1484; text Lyon 1590
Source:
Ficino, Commentarium in Convivium, in Divini Platonis Opera (Lyon 1590), pp. 784–791 (VI.3, 7, 9, the chapter on love's use, 15, 18, 19) · link ↗
In the reader:
7 entries at 202e–203d, 206e–208b, 210a, 210e–212a
Licence:
Public domain
Notes
Latin cleaned from the OCR by AI; English AI. The same Lyon 1590 volume gives Ficino's Latin translation (tr-ficino).
Taylor's notes to the Banquet (1804)Thomas Taylor · 1804Public domain
By
Thomas Taylor (annotator) · 1804
Source:
Taylor, The Works of Plato (London 1804), vol. 3, pp. 499–501 · link ↗
In the reader:
2 entries at 202d–203c: notes signed 'T.' on the great daemon, and on Plenty, the nectar, the garden and sleep
Licence:
Public domain
Notes
English original, printed spelling kept.
Sydenham's note on the mysteriesFloyer Sydenham · 1760s; reprinted 1804Public domain
By
Floyer Sydenham (annotator) · 1760s; reprinted 1804
Source:
Taylor, The Works of Plato (London 1804), vol. 3, p. 511 · link ↗
In the reader:
1 entry at 209e–210a, on 'the final and epoptic mysteries'
Licence:
Public domain
Notes
In Taylor's edition.
Bury's commentary and Introduction (1909)R. G. Bury · 1909Public domain
By
R. G. Bury (editor and commentator) · 1909
Source:
R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge: W. Heffer 1909): notes ad loc. (206b, 206c, 208b), apparatus to 211c, and Introduction § iv (B), pp. xxxix–xliii · link ↗
In the reader:
9 entries: notes on τόκος ἐν καλῷ, κυοῦσι and the 208b crux; the apparatus on ἐπαναβασμοῖς; Diotima and Mantinea, Penia, the garden, the ebb and flow of Eros, the ladder as dialectic (201d–210c)
Licence:
Public domain
Notes
The same book is recorded as a compared edition (bury-1909).
Plotinus, Enneads I.6 (On Beauty)Plotinus, R. Volkmann, Stephen MacKenna · c. 253–254; ed. 1883; tr. 1917Public domain
By
Plotinus (author); R. Volkmann (editor (1883)); Stephen MacKenna (translator (1917)) · c. 253–254; ed. 1883; tr. 1917
Source:
Plotinus, ed. Volkmann (Teubner 1883), vol. 1, pp. 84–96; MacKenna (London: Medici Society 1917), pp. 77–89 · link ↗
In the reader:
4 entries (I.6.1, 7, 8, 9) at 210a–212a, Greek with MacKenna's English
Licence:
Public domain: Greek text ed. R. Volkmann (Leipzig: Teubner 1883); English: S. MacKenna (London: Medici Society 1917), translator d. 1934, public domain
Notes
MacKenna's volume: archive.org plotinustranslat01burkuoft. Ennead I.6 is also a text in the library (/read/plotinus-1-6).
Proclus, Theology of Plato I (tr. Taylor)Proclus, Thomas Taylor · 5th c.; tr. 1816Public domain
By
Proclus (author); Thomas Taylor (translator) · 5th c.; tr. 1816
Source:
Proclus, The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato, tr. T. Taylor (London 1816), vol. 1, pp. 75–87 (I.23, 24, 26, 27, Taylor's chapter numbers) · link ↗
In the reader:
4 entries at 202d–204c
Licence:
Public domain: Proclus (d. 485), tr. Thomas Taylor (London 1816; Taylor d. 1835)
Notes
From the 1816 scan, not the 2010 e-text.
Leone Ebreo, Dialoghi d'amore IIILeone Ebreo · written early 16th c.; printed 1535Public domain
By
Leone Ebreo (author) · written early 16th c.; printed 1535
Source:
Leone Ebreo, Dialogi d'amore (Rome: Blado 1535), Dialogue III, fols. 95r–96r (Wellcome Library copy) · link ↗
In the reader:
3 entries at 203b–204b, Italian with AI English
Licence:
Public domain: Rome, Antonio Blado, 1535 (author d. c. 1535); Wellcome Library scan, Public Domain Mark
Notes
Italian cleaned from the OCR by AI and checked against the page images.
Pico, Commento (A Platonick Discourse upon Love, tr. Stanley)Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Thomas Stanley, E. G. Gardner · 1486; tr. 1651; ed. 1914Public domain
By
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (author); Thomas Stanley (translator (1651)); E. G. Gardner (editor (1914)) · 1486; tr. 1651; ed. 1914
Source:
Pico della Mirandola, A Platonick Discourse upon Love, tr. T. Stanley, ed. E. G. Gardner (Boston: Merrymount Press / London: Grant Richards 1914), pp. 31–32, 73–74 · link ↗
In the reader:
2 entries: Book II ch. 10 (203b–c); Book III, the six degrees (210a–211c)
Licence:
Public domain: Pico (d. 1494); tr. Thomas Stanley (1651); text as reprinted, ed. E. G. Gardner (1914)
Notes
English original.
Castiglione, The Courtier IV (tr. Hoby)Baldassare Castiglione, Sir Thomas Hoby · 1528; tr. 1561; Tudor Translations 1900Public domain
By
Baldassare Castiglione (author); Sir Thomas Hoby (translator (1561)) · 1528; tr. 1561; Tudor Translations 1900
Source:
Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, tr. Hoby (1561), Tudor Translations ed. (London: D. Nutt 1900), pp. 358–363 · link ↗
In the reader:
3 entries: Bembo's stair of love; the heavenly beauty; Giuliano naming Diotima (201d, 210a–211b)
Licence:
Public domain: Castiglione, Il Cortegiano (Venice 1528); tr. Sir Thomas Hoby (1561; d. 1566); Tudor Translations reprint (London: D. Nutt 1900)
Notes
English original.
Jowett's Introduction to the Symposium (1892)Benjamin Jowett · 1892Public domain
By
Benjamin Jowett (author) · 1892
Source:
Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, 3rd ed. (Oxford 1892), vol. 1, Introduction to the Symposium, pp. 527–533 · link ↗
In the reader:
3 entries: on Socrates and Diotima; on her dialectic; on the ladder (201d–e, 204b, 211c)
Licence:
Public domain: Jowett d. 1893
Notes
English original.

✦ marks AI that no person has reviewed yet; ✧ marks AI reviewed by a named person. Copyrighted works are cited, never shown. All sources · How texts are established

Share-alike: the Perseus, GLAUx, LSJ and Wiktionary layers are CC BY-SA, so this page, and anything made from those layers, is shared under the same terms, with credit. Nothing in copyright is shown. Audio is off for this text (no ancient Greek voice is available). All sources · How texts are established

Further translations, for comparison

Public-domain translations, each divided into Stephanus sections so they can be read beside the Greek or compared in columns (Translations and Compare in the reader).

Ficino (1484) · Latin · Conuiuium, siue De amore

Marsilio Ficino, translated in the 1460s; first printed Florence 1484; text here from the Lyon 1590 printing. Divini Platonis Opera omnia quae exstant, Marsilio Ficino interprete (Lugduni [Lyon]: apud Franciscum le Preux, 1590), Conuiuium, pp. 327-331 (Latin column beside the Greek; 201d begins p. 327, 212c ends p. 331). Boston Public Library copy (John Adams's), digitised by archive.org, item diviniplatonisop00plat.

Text: Transcribed by AI from the archive.org page images of the Lyon 1590 print (pp. 327-331, leaves n358-n362), using the archive.org OCR of the same print only as a guide; the OCR was unusable in places (Greek column interleaved, full-width Latin lines at the page foot misplaced or dropped) and every sentence was read against the scan.

Sections: aligned by AI reading the Latin against the Greek (Burnet) and Lamb's English; the print carries only its own page-section letters A-H beside the Greek column, not Stephanus numbers. Each section starts at the Latin clause answering to the first words of the Greek section; where the Greek boundary falls inside a Latin clause the break follows Lamb's section division. Approximate to a clause.

Note: Normalisation: the print's u/v and i (no j except final -ij, e.g. dij, medij, officij) are kept as printed; long s, ligatures and the ae/oe ligatures (æ, ę, œ) resolved (ę read as ae, so 'caelo', 'haec'); abbreviations expanded silently (tildes for m/n, q; = que, q. = que, & = et, .n. = enim, p-with-stroke = pro, -b. = -bus, superscript 9 = -us, q-with-mark = quod/quam); the printer's grave and acute accents (verò, quàm, planè) and diaeresis (poëta) dropped; punctuation and capitals as printed, with spaces normalised. Ficino's Greek glosses (δαιμόνιος, βάναυσοι, μήτιδος, πόρος, πενία) kept in Greek as printed. Printed oddities kept: 'inquibat' (208d), 'Est, inquam hoc partus' and 'Reuera, inquam' where Diotima speaks (206b, 206e), 'se indignum' (204a, for indigum), 'facinatorque' (203d). Two worn letters read by conjecture: 'Qui ergo' (204a) and 'e quibus' (204b). Nothing is marked [?]: every word could be read from the scan. Range: begins 'Verum Agathonem iam dimittam' and stops at 'quinam homines aduentarint;' (end of 212c as in Lamb); the rest of Agathon's order ('et si quis familiaris noster intersit...') is 212d and omitted. Ficino's marginal notes (removed from the text): 'Diotima fatidica' (201d); 'Inter sapientiam & ignorantiam media est recta opinio'; 'Qualis sit opinio recta' (202a); 'Amor est medius inter turpe & pulchrum' (202b); 'Natura daemonum'; 'Munia & officia daemonum' (202e); 'Diuinatio & magica conceditur per daemones' (203a); 'Amor vnus ex daemonibus' (203a); 'Amor est immortalitatis desiderium' (207a); 'Assidua mutatio in corpore & anima' (207d-e); 'Iliad.' with a blotted book number (208c, beside 'immortalem gloriam'); 'Cicero lib. de offi. 2' (the numeral uncertain; 211e, beside 'Quam felix illud spectaculum').

Page scan / sourcepublic domain (printed 1590; translation 1484)

Sydenham (1767) · English · The Banquet

Floyer Sydenham (revised by Thomas Taylor), translated 1767 (The Banquet, Part the Second); this text as revised and printed by Taylor, 1804. The Works of Plato, trans. Floyer Sydenham and Thomas Taylor (London: R. Wilks for T. Taylor, 1804), vol. 3, pp. 494-516

Text: archive.org OCR of the 1804 printing (vol3worksofplato00plat), long s modernised with the help of the OCR of Sydenham's own 1767 edition (archive.org bim_eighteenth-century_the-banquet-a-dialogue-_plato_1767), then corrected by AI against every page scan pp. 494-516

Sections: automatic (word-overlap DP against Lamb + AI English, scripts/plato/tr_common.py); every boundary then read against Lamb by AI and 34 of 54 moved by hand to the clause that answers the Stephanus break; approximate to a clause

Note: Sydenham's own 1767 text was revised by Taylor for the 1804 Works: besides modernising spelling and capitals, Taylor changed the wording in places, e.g. 1767 'Godship' > 'divinity' (202c), 'Jove' > 'Jupiter', 'a powerful Daemon' > 'a great daemon' (202e), 'the Business of Prophesy, and the Working of Miracles' > 'the whole of divination and magic' and 'These Genii or Daemons' > 'These daemons' (202e-203a), the launch into the 'wide Ocean of Beauty' at 210d rewritten ('surveying it with the eye of intellect ... dianoetic conceptions'), and 'from One to Many' > 'from one to two' at 211c (Taylor's footnote says Sydenham had changed Plato's 'two'). The translation turns the lover's first beloved into a woman ('fall in love with some one particular person, fair and beauteous; and on her beget', 210a; 'his mistress', 209c; 'one only female form', 210b). Sydenham did not publish a translation of the rest of the dialogue, so his text ends with Socrates' speech; the close of 212c (the applause, the knocking at the door) is not in it (Taylor supplied it in 1804 under the head 'The Speech of Alcibiades'). The heads 'The Speech of Socrates' and Taylor's and Sydenham's footnotes are omitted. OCR cleaned by AI and checked against every page scan; long s modernised; ae ligature resolved (daemon, Phaedrus, Lacedaemon).

Page scan / sourcepublic domain (published London 1767 and 1804; Sydenham d. 1787, Taylor d. 1835)

Schleiermacher (1807) · German · Das Gastmahl

Friedrich Schleiermacher, published 1807 (Platons Werke, Zweiten Theiles zweiter Band; revised 2nd ed. 1824). Platons Werke von F. Schleiermacher, Zweiten Theiles zweiter Band (Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1807), pp. 417–434

Text: Transcribed by AI from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek scan (MDZ bsb10237331) using the BSB OCR as a base, corrected line by line against the page images; every departure from the OCR checked by eye

Sections: The 1807 print has Stephanus page numbers (202–212) in the margin, placed at the line where each page begins, but no letters. Section starts were placed by AI reading Schleiermacher against the Greek section openings; they agree with the marginal page numbers to within 1–3 lines. Approximate to a clause where the German recasts the Greek sentence (e.g. 204c, 205c, 209d, 210a, 212c).

Note: Original orthography kept (jezt, glükselig, besizen, erblikken, wol, giebt, nemlich). The Antiqua ſs of the print, the period's typographic form of ß, is rendered ß (daß, häßlich); line-end hyphens joined; page numbers, signatures, catchwords and marginal Stephanus numbers removed. One printer's slip corrected: 'ha-haben' (p. 429) → 'haben'. The section 212c ends at 'Da habe Agathon gesagt, Leute', as the Greek 212c ends at παῖδες, φάναι. This is the first edition; the 2nd (1824) and 3rd (1855) editions revise the wording in places and have not been collated.

Page scan / sourcepublic domain (published 1807; translator d. 1834). The BSB scan and OCR are marked NoC-NC (no copyright, non-commercial use requested); this transcription is newly keyed from the page and carries no BSB text layer

Shelley (1818) · English · The Banquet of Plato

Percy Bysshe Shelley, translated July 1818; first published 1840 (ed. Mary Shelley). Shelley, Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments, ed. Mrs. Shelley (London: Edward Moxon, 1840), vol. 1, pp. 126-148

Text: two archive.org OCRs of the 1840 printing (University of California copy essayslettersfro01shelrich; Duke copy essayslettersfro01shel) merged word by word, then corrected by AI against the page scans pp. 126-148

Sections: automatic (word-overlap DP against Lamb + AI English, scripts/plato/tr_common.py); every boundary then read against Lamb by AI and 31 of 54 moved by hand to the clause that answers the Stephanus break; approximate to a clause

Note: Text of the first printing (1840), which Mary Shelley is known to have softened where Plato speaks of the love of boys; passages here such as 'He who aspires to love rightly, ought from his earliest youth to seek an intercourse with beautiful forms' (210a), 'the improvement of youth' (210c), 'ascending from a correct system of Love' (211b) and 'those lovely persons' (211d) are probably affected. Shelley's manuscript wording was printed later (Julian edition vol. 7, 1930; R. Ingpen, Plato's Banquet, 1931); those printings were not used (not found in an open library, and the 1931 book is not yet public domain in the US). Forman's edition (Prose Works vol. 3, 1880) reprints the 1840 text with small corrections, e.g. 'congruous with what is immortal and divine' for 1840's 'mortal and divine' (206d) and 'more excellent than that' for 1840's 'excellent that that' (210b); the 1840 readings are kept here. The dialogue has no Stephanus numbers. OCR cleaned by AI: two OCRs merged, then every page read against the scan; quotation marks follow the page (“ ” for Socrates' narration, ‘ ’ for the dialogue); ae ligature resolved (daemon, Phaedrus).

Page scan / sourcepublic domain (published London 1840; translator d. 1822, editor Mary Shelley d. 1851)

Cousin (1831) · French · Le Banquet

Victor Cousin, published 1831 (Œuvres de Platon, tome VI); text here from the 1849 Rey issue. Œuvres de Platon, traduites par Victor Cousin, tome sixième (Paris: P.-J. Rey, 1849 [first published Paris: Bossange frères, 1831]), pp. 296–319

Text: French Wikisource, proofread and validated transcription (Le Banquet (trad. Cousin); Page:Platon - Œuvres, trad. Cousin, V et VI.djvu/750–773) of the University of Toronto scan archive.org/details/worksfrenc1846o5a6platuoft

Sections: Cousin's print has no Stephanus numbers. Section starts were placed by AI reading the French against the Greek section openings, starting from the Wikisource editors' reference anchors, of which ten were corrected (202b and 207d mislabelled; 203b, 205c, 212b missing; 201d, 204a, 206d, 207a, 211b misplaced). Approximate to a clause where Cousin recasts the sentence.

Note: Cousin's footnotes (on Poros/Penia/Metis, poiesis, Codrus, the degrees of initiation, Moira/Eileithyia) are omitted. Page breaks joined; paragraphing follows the print. Cousin paraphrases freely in places (e.g. 'Bien, répondit-elle' at 205a has no Greek equivalent) and his 201d opens after Socrates' reply to Agathon, which belongs to 201c. Spelling as printed (enfans, amans, suivans); accents on capitals (Ô, À) and typographic apostrophes as normalised by Wikisource. The scan is the 1849 Rey issue; it was not collated against a copy dated 1831.

Page scan / sourcepublic domain (first published 1831; translator d. 1867); Wikisource transcription under CC BY-SA 4.0 for any editorial additions (none kept here); scan public domain (archive.org NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT)

Burges (1850) · English · The Banquet, or On Love

George Burges, 1850. The Works of Plato: A New and Literal Version, Chiefly from the Text of Stallbaum, vol. III, trans. George Burges (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1850; Bohn's Classical Library), pp. 531-556

Text: archive.org OCR of the 1850 printing (University of California copy theworksofplato03platiala), footnotes removed and OCR corrected by AI against every page scan pp. 531-556

Sections: automatic (word-overlap DP against Lamb + AI English, scripts/plato/tr_common.py); every boundary then read against Lamb by AI and 36 of 54 moved by hand to the clause that answers the Stephanus break; approximate to a clause

Note: Burges gives his own section numbers ([27.]-[37.], following Stallbaum's chapters), not Stephanus pages; they are omitted here, as are his long critical footnotes (many of them conjectural emendations of the Greek). Words in round brackets are Burges' own supplements; square brackets mark words he took to be interpolations (206c 'the yearning and generation', 206e 'and of begetting', 211c 'and he knows at last what is the beautiful itself'). The line 'And fame undying to lay up for ever' (208c) is set as verse because Burges heard a hexameter in the Greek. Unlike the 1840 Shelley and the Sydenham, Burges translates the love of boys literally ('through rightly loving the young', 211b; 'beautiful boys or youths', 211d). OCR cleaned by AI and checked against every page scan; ae ligature resolved (daemon, Phaedrus, Lacedaemon).

Page scan / sourcepublic domain (published London 1850; translator d. 1864)

Chambry (1919) · French · Le Banquet

Émile Chambry, published 1919 (Garnier); revised in later Garnier and Garnier-Flammarion printings. Œuvres de Platon : Ion, Lysis, Protagoras, Phèdre, Le Banquet, traduction nouvelle, avec des notices et des notes, par E. Chambry (Paris : Garnier frères, 1919), pp. 385–402

Text: Transcribed by AI from the Gallica scan of the 1919 edition (BnF 8-R-29411), using the unproofread French Wikisource transcription of the 1991 Garnier-Flammarion reprint as a draft; every difference between the two was checked against the 1919 page images

Sections: Chambry prints chapter numbers (XXII–XXX) but no Stephanus references. Section starts were placed by AI reading the French against the Greek section openings; approximate to a clause where Chambry recasts the sentence (e.g. 204c, 207c, 207d, 208d, 210a, 212c).

Note: Text of the 1919 first edition, which differs in about twenty places from the revised Garnier-Flammarion text now common (and on Wikisource): e.g. 1919 omits 'l'union de l'homme et de la femme est enfantement' at 206c (his footnote calls it a gloss), and reads 'Chez les animaux, comme chez l'homme' at 207d, 'un corps sans grâce' at 210b, 'la science du beau' at 210d. Chambry's chapter numbers, footnote markers and footnotes are omitted. Printed spellings kept (Etant, Etats, A l'égard, 'Pénia, poussé', 'nous sommes convenu'); one misprint corrected: 'survivanec' → 'survivance' (p. 397).

Page scan / sourcepublic domain: first published 1919 (public domain in the US); translator d. 1951, so public domain in France/EU since 1 January 2022. The Gallica scan is a BnF digitisation: free for non-commercial reuse with attribution ('Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF'); commercial reuse of Gallica files needs a BnF licence. This transcription is newly keyed from the page images.

Corrections to the automatic analysis

  • 201d Μαντινικῆς · the adjective 'of Mantinea'; GLAUx gave the place name
  • 202d ; · GLAUx fused the question mark to the next word; split
  • 202d τί · GLAUx fused the question mark to the next word; split
  • 203b ὑὸς · ὑός is the Attic genitive/nominative 'son' (υἱός), as in 'the son of Mētis'; GLAUx read ὗς, 'swine'
  • 203c ὑὸς · ὑός is the Attic genitive/nominative 'son' (υἱός), as in 'the son of Mētis'; GLAUx read ὗς, 'swine'
  • 207c Διανοῇ · a verb ('do you think?'), 2 sg. pres.; GLAUx read a noun
  • 211d Μαντινικὴ · the adjective 'of Mantinea'; GLAUx gave the place name

Made by AI in this edition and open to review; the Greek text itself is unchanged.

Diotima's ladder in later poetry, Greek, Arabic, Persian and more, with translations: Lyrics of Ascent: Poetry and the Platonic Tradition ↗ (ed. Stefan Sperl and Yorgos Dedes), with Ibn ʿArabī's Translator of Desires ↗.

Bridges to the Arabic library

Suggested by AI, each with its grounds; open a word in the reader for the full note.

  • καλόν حُسن beauty, the beautiful-and-good · جَمال beauty(well attested)
  • ἔρως عِشق passionate love · حُبّ / مَحَبّة love(well attested)
  • ἐπαναβασμοί (211c) مِعراج ladder, ascension · تَرَقٍّ rising by degrees(plausible)
  • δαίμων · μεταξύ بَرزَخ isthmus, the intermediate(plausible)
  • τόκος ἐν καλῷ نِكاح union, marriage · وِلادة birth(uncertain)
  • μανία (Phaedrus 244a–245c) جَذْب divine attraction, rapture · هَيَمان love-madness, distraction(uncertain)

Themes & resonances

What the text is about, and what it connects to across the history of thought. Every connection says what kind of claim it is: a documented lineage, a shared source, a resonance with no influence claimed, or a contrast. Mapped by AI; references are shown only once checked. Across the library

Themes

  • Love as desire for what one lacksعِشقʿishqroot عشقἔρωςerōs
  • Love as a great daimōn between god and mortalبَرزَخbarzakhδαίμωνdaimōn
  • The beautiful itself, of one formجَمالjamālroot جملκαλόνkalon
  • Giving birth in beauty, in body and in soulوِلادةwilādaroot ولدτόκοςtokos
  • The steps of the stair of loveمِعراجmiʿrājroot عرجἐπαναβασμοίepanabasmoi
  • Philosophy as the in-between of wisdom and ignoranceجَهلjahlroot جهلφιλοσοφεῖνphilosophein
  • The sudden sight at the end of the mysteriesكَشفkashfroot كشفἐξαίφνηςexaiphnēs
  • Diotima and the guide who leads rightlyمُرشِدmurshidroot رشدἡγούμενοςhēgoumenos
What each theme is here
  • Love as desire for what one lacks. Love desires the beautiful and good because it lacks them (202d), and in sum it is love of the good being one's own always (206a).
  • Love as a great daimōn between god and mortal. Love is neither god nor mortal; he carries prayers up and commands down and binds the whole together with itself (202e–203a).
  • The beautiful itself, of one form. All beautiful things share in a beauty that always is, never grows or wanes, and is itself by itself with itself (211a–b).
  • Giving birth in beauty, in body and in soul. Love's work is begetting in the beautiful, the way a mortal nature shares in immortality, through children, laws, poems and excellence (206b–209e).
  • The steps of the stair of love. The lover climbs from one body to all bodies, to souls, practices, knowledges, and at last to the beautiful itself (210a–211c).
  • Philosophy as the in-between of wisdom and ignorance. The gods do not philosophise and the ignorant think themselves enough, so only one who knows his lack, like Love, loves wisdom (203e–204b).
  • The sudden sight at the end of the mysteries. At the close of the initiation the lover suddenly catches sight of something wondrous, and seeing it is what makes life worth living (210e, 211d).
  • Diotima and the guide who leads rightly. Socrates learns love from a woman of Mantinea, and the ascent itself goes rightly only if the guide guides rightly (201d, 210a).

Connections

Lineage 6

Documented transmission: a chain of reading, teaching, translation or citation, grounded in a verified reference or in the later text itself.

  • Plotinus, Enneads I.6, On BeautyNeoplatonism · firm

    Plotinus reworks Diotima's ladder in his treatise on beauty, moving from bodily beauty to beautiful pursuits, virtues and souls, and on to a Beauty that is no accumulation of flesh, which the soul must become beautiful to see. The later treatise on the One in the library continues this route inward.

    Carried byκαλόνkalon“the beautiful itself”

    In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 9Path: Love: the soul's longing back

    Grounded in the later text itself: see “Readers through the ages” in the reader.

  • Plotinus, Enneads III.5, On Love: Poros and PeniaNeoplatonism · firm

    Plotinus reads the birth myth of 203b–e as an allegory: Poros is the reason-principle from Intellect, Penia is matter and need, and Love is the soul's activity toward the good born of lack and memory.

    Carried byΠόρος · ΠενίαPoros · Penia“resource and poverty”

    In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 9

    Grounded in the later text itself: see “Readers through the ages” in the reader.

  • Hermias of Alexandria, Scholia on the Phaedrus, and Proclus, Platonic Theology INeoplatonism · firm

    The later Athenian and Alexandrian commentators quote Diotima's account of the daimonic as binding the second things to the first, and add a personal daimōn set immediately above each human being as guide.

    Carried byμεταξύmetaxu“the between”

    Grounded in the later text itself: see “Readers through the ages” in the reader.

  • Marsilio Ficino, De amore (Commentary on the Symposium)Renaissance Platonism · firm

    Ficino's commentary retells Diotima's speech at a Florentine banquet, turns the ladder into steps from body to soul to angel to God, and reads bodily beauty as light whose source is truth.

    Carried byἐπαναβασμοίepanabasmoi“the steps of love”

    Grounded in the later text itself: see “Readers through the ages” in the reader.

  • Baldassare Castiglione, The Courtier, Book IV: Bembo's stair of loveRenaissance Platonism · firm

    Through Ficino, Diotima's ladder passes into courtly conversation: Bembo leads the courtier from one lady's beauty to universal beauty and then to heavenly beauty.

    Carried by“the stair of love”

    Grounded in the later text itself: see “Readers through the ages” in the reader.

  • Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, preface to the fourth edition (1920)Psychoanalysis and depth psychology · firm

    Freud writes that the widened idea of sexuality in psychoanalysis coincides with 'the Eros of the divine Plato'. Later psychoanalytic talk of sublimation reads Diotima's ladder as the redirecting of one desire toward higher objects.

    Carried byἔρωςerōs“Eros”

Shared source 1

Both draw on a common ancestor by different routes; grounded like a lineage.

  • Ibn Sīnā, Treatise on Love (Risāla fī al-ʿishq)Falsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable

    Ibn Sīnā holds that every being loves its own perfection and that love is the finding of the beautiful and fitting, close to Diotima's love of the good being one's own always. No complete Arabic Symposium is known, and the Platonic doctrine reached him mainly through Plotinian material in the Arabic Plotinus and related Neoplatonic texts.

    Common ancestor: Plotinus's reading of Platonic erōs, carried into Arabic in the Theology of Aristotle and related paraphrases

    Carried byعِشقʿishqroot عشقἔρωςerōs“love of one's own perfection”

    In the library:Path: Love: the soul's longing backal-ʿAyniyya ¶8

    Grounded in the later text itself: see “Readers through the ages” in the reader.

Resonance, not influence 5

Resonance, not influence: a structural or thematic likeness. No influence is claimed.

  • Ibn ʿArabī: the barzakh and the Reality of the realitiesAkbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · probable

    Ibn ʿArabī's third thing is neither existent nor non-existent, both the world and not the world, much as Diotima's daimōn is neither mortal nor immortal and joins the two sides it stands between. No path of influence is claimed.

    Carried byبَرزَخbarzakhμεταξύmetaxu“the isthmus, the between”

    In the library:Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir ¶39Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir ¶38

  • Ibn al-Fāriḍ, The Wine OdeArabic poetry · probable

    Poros is drunk on nectar at Aphrodite's birth feast 'for there was no wine yet' (203b), and Ibn al-Fāriḍ's lovers drink a wine before the vine was created. In both an intoxication older than wine stands at the origin of love, a resemblance with no influence behind it.

    Carried byخَمرkhamrroot خمرνέκταρnektar“a drink before wine”

    In the library:al-Khamriyya ¶1al-Khamriyya ¶26

  • Ibn Sīnā, The Recital of the Bird: the King's beautyFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable

    After crossing eight mountains the birds see the King in His beauty when the veil is lifted, as Diotima's lover reaches, at the end of a graded ascent, the sudden sight of the beautiful itself. The shape of the ascent is shared, and no reading of the Symposium is documented.

    Carried byجَمالjamālroot جملἐξαίφνηςexaiphnēs“sight of beauty at the summit”

    In the library:Risālat al-Ṭayr ¶13Risālat al-Ṭayr ¶12Path: The fall and the return of the soul

  • Persian Sufi contemplation of human beauty (shāhid-bāzī) and the saying 'the metaphorical is the bridge to the real'Sufism · probable

    Some Sufis held that love of a beautiful human face (ʿishq majāzī) can lead to love of God (ʿishq ḥaqīqī), much as Diotima's ladder begins with one beautiful body. Ibn ʿArabī's lover who sees himself in another's eye stands near this idea, with no influence claimed.

    Carried byمَجازmajāzroot جوز“metaphorical love as a bridge”

    In the library:Tarjumān al-ashwāq ¶64Tarjumān al-ashwāq ¶33

  • Ibn ʿArabī, The Spirit of Holiness: Fāṭima of SevilleSufism · probable

    Socrates learns the things of love from a wise woman, and Ibn ʿArabī served an aged woman of Seville, one of the lovers and knowers of God, whom he counted among his teachers. Both texts place a woman at the origin of the teaching on love, with no connection between them.

    Carried byمُحِبّmuḥibbroot حبب“the woman who teaches love”

    In the library:Rūḥ al-quds ¶88Rūḥ al-quds ¶93

Contrast 3

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

  • The Quran and Ibn ʿArabī's litanies: God as al-Wadūd, the LovingQuran and hadith · firm

    In Diotima's account the gods lack nothing, so they do not love, and the beautiful itself only receives love. The Quran's God loves and is loved (5:54), and the litany calls on Him as the Loving to cast His love upon the servant.

    Carried byوَدودwadūdroot ودد“the Loving”

    In the library:al-Dawr al-aʿlā ¶6Path: Love: the soul's longing back

  • Anders Nygren: agapē against erōsModern scholarship · firm

    Nygren set Diotima's erōs, an acquisitive love that climbs out of need toward its object, against Christian agapē, a love that descends and gives without lack. His distinction keeps the Symposium at the centre of debates on Christian love.

    Carried byἀγάπη · ἔρωςagapē · erōs“giving love and desiring love”

    In the library:al-Dawr al-aʿlā ¶6

    • Anders Nygren, Den kristna kärmakstanken genom tiderna: Eros och Agape (Swedish original, part I 1930; English trans. Agape and Eros, 1932/1953) (1930): the sharp contrast between Platonic erōs and New Testament agapē

  • Early Buddhism: craving (taṇhā) as the origin of sufferingBuddhism · probable

    For the Buddha's second noble truth, craving drives rebirth and suffering and is to be extinguished, while for Diotima desire born of lack is the power that carries the soul upward and is to be trained and redirected. Both begin from lack and draw opposite conclusions from it.

    Carried byἔνδειαendeia“lack and craving”

Claude (opus) via Claude Code, headless, no web access, 2026-09-28. A reference with a check was found and checked with a web search.

Scholars

85 findings from 11 works

What modern and older scholars have found in this text, in our words, with the page. Each summary was written by AI from the cited page, then checked against it; quotations are the scholars' own and short. Parallels claim a likeness only, never an influence. In the reader, switch on Scholars (under Layers, or in the toolbar) to see them beside each passage.

Readings (62)

  • Hobbs argues that Diotima's speech builds on Agathon's speech as well as on the elenchus. Agathon's emphasis on attraction to the kalon as the chief motivating desire anticipates Diotima's main thrust, so a wholesale repudiation reading goes too far.

    “his strong emphasis on attraction to the beautiful and fine, the kalon, as the key motivational desire and propulsion to action”

    On 201d

    Angela Hobbs, p. 250 summary by AI

  • Nussbaum reads Diotima's name, meaning Zeus-honor, as a pointed counterpart to Timandra, man-honor, the courtesan who was Alcibiades' mistress. She also takes the plague postponement to mean that salvation may require leaving behind human-centered attachments.

    “Here, then, Socrates too, takes a mistress: a priestess instead of a courtesan”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 201d

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 177 summary by AI

  • Nussbaum treats Diotima as Plato's invention. She reads Diotima's role in delaying the plague as a hint that personal, unreformed erōs is itself the plague the teaching is meant to cure.

    “He has invented a priestess whose job it is to save people from plagues; he has suggested that personal erés, unregenerate, is this plague.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 201d

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 195 summary by AI

  • Allen notes that Socrates loosely repeats Agathon's plan of first saying what Eros is and then his works, while shifting the weight to the question of who Eros is.

    “Socrates loosely repeats Agathon's formula at 195a, but with significant emphasis on who Eros is”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 201e

    R. E. Allen, p. 144 summary by AI

  • Grimes holds that the whole account of love begins by setting love against cognitive states such as knowledge, opinion and ignorance. Socrates reasons in opposites, and Diotima corrects him by positing an intermediate between the extremes.

    “The whole symposium of Plato starts out from this point, a contrast between love and cognitive functions.”

    Quoted from a machine transcript of the recording.

    On 202a, 202b

    Pierre Grimes, transcript (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Grimes argues that the Poros and Penia myth is structurally bracketed by the discussion of intermediate cognitive states. Diotima introduces the mean terms, tells the myth, and only afterward returns to explain them within the span from ignorance to wisdom.

    “As he explores the idea of love, we can say he brackets it between, right?”

    Quoted from a machine transcript of the recording.

    On 202a, 203b, 204a

    Pierre Grimes, transcript (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Hadot finds a strict logical division beneath the sage/philosopher/senseless scheme. As non-sages, philosophers can never reach wisdom. Seen as intermediates between contraries, however, they admit degrees and can progress toward it, so philosophy becomes a way of life oriented by the idea of wisdom.

    “philosophy is not wisdom, but a way of life and discourse determined by the idea of wisdom.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 204a, 204b, 202a, 202b

    Pierre Hadot, p. 46 summary by AI

  • Love lacks what it desires and so cannot be a god. It is a daimon standing between gods and mortals, and it also acts as a mediator linking them through initiations, healing incantations and divine communications.

    “Not only does Love occupy a position between two opposing orders of reality, but it is in the situation of a mediator.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 202d, 202e, 203a

    Pierre Hadot, p. 42 summary by AI

  • Hadot reads the Symposium as lowering Eros from the rank of a god to that of a daimon, a demystification that parallels the philosopher's own shift away from being a passive recipient of Sophistic knowledge.

    On 202d, 202e, 203a

    Pierre Hadot, p. 48 summary by AI

  • Proclus, in Taylor's translation, reads Diotima as reserving the highest kind of immortality for the gods. Daemons do not share it, so divine immortality is separate from and exempt from everything else.

    “in the Banquet Diotima does not attribute an immortality of this kind even to daemons, but defines it to subsist in the Gods alone”

    On 202d, 202e

    Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, p. 100 of the 2010 electronic edition (1816 page not determined) summary by AI

  • Proclus, in Taylor's translation, argues that Diotima calls Love a great daemon, not merely a daemon. The epithet 'great' shows Love transcends all daemons and is in fact a god, standing outside the daemonic genus.

    “Love being not simply called a daemon by Diotima, but a great daemon, is demonstrated to be expanded above all daemons, and is a god”

    On 202d, 202e

    Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, p. 430 of the 2010 electronic edition (1816 page not determined) summary by AI

  • Dodds takes Eros, as a daimon, to have the general task of binding the human and the divine together, citing the intermediary account at 202E.

    On 202e, 203a

    E. R. Dodds, PDF p. 237 (printed page not determined) summary by AI

  • Hobbs holds that Diotima's portrayal of Eros as a magician in 202-3 is a key feature that nearly all modern commentators ignore or overlook, perhaps because it resists assimilation to analytic approaches.

    “almost all modern commentators either deliberately ignore or unconsciously overlook this key feature of Diotima’s description in 202-3”

    On 202e, 203a, 203d

    Angela Hobbs, p. 249 summary by AI

  • Proclus explains why Socrates joins the account of Love to the account of daemons. Love mediates between lover and beloved just as a daemon mediates between humans and the divine, so the two discussions belong together.

    “Love is a medium between the object of Love and the lover; and a daemon is a medium between man and divinity.”

    On 202e, 203a

    Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, p. 563 of the 2010 electronic edition (1816 page not determined) summary by AI

  • Proclus reads Diotima as giving daemons a cosmic intermediate rank. They bind divine and mortal natures together, draw down streams from above, raise lower natures to the gods, and complete the whole by forming a connecting medium.

    “Diotima also assigns them this order, viz. that of binding together divine and mortal natures, of deducing supernal”

    On 202e, 203a

    Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, p. 565 of the 2010 electronic edition (1816 page not determined) summary by AI

  • Diotima places daemons as a distinct kind between gods and humans. The page takes this as grounds for rejecting the view that the human rational soul is itself a daemon.

    “For a daemon is different from man, as Diotima says, who places daemons between Gods and men”

    On 202e, 203a

    Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, p. 567 of the 2010 electronic edition (1816 page not determined) summary by AI

  • Diotima's remark that daemons are numerous and of many kinds is read within a hierarchy. On this reading the highest daemons link descending souls to the leading gods they belong to, and lower daemons govern the ascent and descent of souls.

    “Daemons, therefore, as Diotima also says, being many and allvarious, the highest of them conjoin souls proceeding from their father to their leading Gods.”

    On 203a

    Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, p. 567 of the 2010 electronic edition (1816 page not determined) summary by AI

  • Grimes reads the father, Poros (Plenty), as standing for a special kind of knowledge, and ultimately for the Logos.

    On 203b, 203c

    Pierre Grimes, transcript (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Grimes stresses that the key point of the myth is that Eros combines the traits of both parents, and that the text lists what he inherits from each.

    “love is a combination of all of the qualities of poverty and plenty”

    Quoted from a machine transcript of the recording.

    On 203c, 203d, 203e

    Pierre Grimes, transcript (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Hadot reads the myth of Eros's birth from Poros and Penia as a portrait that applies at once, with skill and humour, to Eros, to Socrates and to the philosopher. The barefoot, homeless, resourceful hunter matches Socrates as Alcibiades and the comic poets describe him.

    “Diotima's mythical description applies simultaneously to Eros, Socrates, and the philosopher.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 203c, 203d

    Pierre Hadot, p. 43 summary by AI

  • Hadot reads the portrait of Eros, child of Poros and Penia, as simultaneously a portrait of Socrates and of the philosopher. Eros is needy and poor yet offsets that lack through cleverness.

    “This portrait of Eros-Socrates is at the same time the portrait of the philosopher”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 203c, 203d, 203e

    Pierre Hadot, p. 44 summary by AI

  • Allen connects Eros's description as a sophist to Diotima herself, who is called most wise and whose way of answering is likened to an accomplished sophist at 208b–c.

    On 203d

    R. E. Allen, p. 147 (page inferred from neighbouring pages) summary by AI

  • Plato leaves wisdom undefined here. He only suggests it is a transcendent condition, since strictly only the gods are wise. Hadot adds that Greek sophia means know-how for living, visible in Socrates' way of life.

    “He merely hints that it is a transcendent state, since, in his view, only the gods are "wise" in the proper sense”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 204a

    Pierre Hadot, p. 44 summary by AI

  • Socrates stands behind the figure of Eros. Like the senseless he appeared to know nothing, but his awareness of that lack made him desire knowledge. That desire is energetic, the drive of a dangerous hunter, and in no way passive or nostalgic.

    “Socrates, or the philosopher, is thus Eros: although deprived of wisdom, beauty, and the good, he desires and loves wisdom”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 204a, 204b

    Pierre Hadot, p. 45 summary by AI

  • Altman defends a two-stage reading of the ascent. He holds that Diotima's first question that Socrates cannot answer (204d) is answered at the climax of the ascent (211d–212a); the climax itself is that answer.

    “in order to show that it receives an answer at its climax (211d8–212a7), or rather that the climax of the Ascent is its answer”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 204d, 211d, 212a

    William H. F. Altman, p. 456 summary by AI

  • Altman reads the interrogative in Diotima's unanswered question as 'why' rather than 'what'. He leaves 'of beautiful things' deliberately indeterminate and argues that the climax of the ascent answers this question by repeating its vocabulary and grammar.

    “the proof that the climax of the Ascent is the answer to this question depends on the replication of its peculiar vocabulary and grammatical structure”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 204d

    William H. F. Altman, p. 465 summary by AI

  • Diotima's move from Eros to 'the one loving' is made for clarity. Altman nonetheless keeps the question open, because Eros parallels both Socrates and philosophy, so it may ask what makes these useful to humans.

    On 204d

    William H. F. Altman, p. 465 summary by AI

  • Altman criticises Wedgwood for treating the beautiful as a subordinate goal serving happiness. He holds that the Beautiful itself, like the transcendent Good, is complete rather than relative to an agent.

    On 204e, 205a

    William H. F. Altman, p. 453 summary by AI

  • Altman splits Diotima's question at 206b into three parts: manner, activity, and product. She answers the second, then the third, and returns to the second, in a ring composition that ends near 209e before the Higher Mysteries.

    “Diotima has returned to answering the second question after she has answered the third, thus proving the presence of ringcomposition”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 206b, 206c, 206e, 207e, 208a, 208b, 209e

    William H. F. Altman, p. 461 summary by AI

  • Dodds holds that Plato treats the sexual and non-sexual forms of Eros as one underlying drive toward begetting in beauty. For Plato this formula states a deep organic law.

    “statement of a deep-seated organic law”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 206b, 206c, 206d, 206e

    E. R. Dodds, PDF p. 237 (printed page not determined) summary by AI

  • Hadot holds that in Diotima's account love desires more than the wise and beautiful. It also seeks fecundity, the wish to immortalize oneself by producing, in either of two forms: bodily or of the soul.

    On 206b, 206c, 206e, 207a, 208e, 209a

    Pierre Hadot, p. 55 (page inferred from neighbouring pages) summary by AI

  • Hobbs reads Diotima's account of identity as almost Heraclitean: any bodily or psychic thing stays the same only through continual replacement of old by new.

    “a view of personal identity that seems positively Heraclitean”

    On 207d, 207e, 208a

    Angela Hobbs, p. 253 summary by AI

  • Diotima's claim that humans partake of immortality through offspring sends readers back to Phaedrus' Alcestis story. That story stresses both Alcestis' readiness to die for her husband and his parents' refusal to do so.

    “Plato is therefore once again encouraging us to return to Phaedrus”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 208b, 208d

    William H. F. Altman, p. 428 summary by AI

  • Altman argues that attributing Diotima's account of Alcestis, Codrus and Achilles to Plato himself pushes readers toward a eudaemonist, self-serving reading of the ascent.

    “If we take Diotima’s account of Alcestis, Codrus, and Achilles to be Plato’s, we will naturally be inclined to endorse a eudaemonist and self-serving reading”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 208d

    William H. F. Altman, p. 456 summary by AI

  • The last use of eudaimonia is at 208e, applied to those who seek happiness through children only 'as they suppose'. The shift to spiritual begetting brings a marked rise in kalon-vocabulary relative to agathon.

    “the last appearance of εὐδαιμονία at 208e5 is applied to those who seek immortality, remembrance, and happiness (“as they suppose”) through their children”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 208e, 209a

    William H. F. Altman, p. 462 summary by AI

  • Allen holds that the sentence about touching the beautiful and begetting with it is deliberately ambiguous. It points to the beloved person and also foreshadows the later account of Beauty itself in the higher mysteries.

    On 209c

    R. E. Allen, p. 154 summary by AI

  • Grimes endorses a student's (Jeff's) observation. Diotima's examples of Homer, Hesiod, Lycurgus and Solon contrast with the lover-beloved offspring because they do not arise from a relationship, so they fall outside the transmission pattern.

    “in all the examples, they don't proceed from a relationship.”

    Quoted from a machine transcript of the recording.

    On 209d, 209e

    Pierre Grimes, transcript (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Altman holds that Diotima answers her first unanswered question within the Higher Mysteries. He regards the Substitution, resting on the equation of good and beautiful, as what makes eudaemonist readings a tempting but deficient option.

    “it is the Substitution—based on the Equation of the Good and the Beautiful—that makes the eudaemonist reading plausible”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 209e, 210a

    William H. F. Altman, p. 461 summary by AI

  • Altman argues against the eudaemonist reading of the ascent. No happiness vocabulary occurs in the final stages, and words for the beautiful outnumber words for the good there by thirty-three to none.

    “καλόν-words outnumber ἀγαθόν in the Final Ascent by thirty-three to none.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 210a, 210b, 210c, 210d, 210e, 211a, 211b, 211c, 211d, 211e, 212a

    William H. F. Altman, p. 462 summary by AI

  • Nussbaum argues that the ascent turns on a decision to treat the beauties of different bodies, first seen as merely akin, as qualitatively identical. That treatment runs against ordinary intuitions about what is loved.

    “the crucial step is, oddly, a step of decision, involving considerations of ‘senselessness’ and good sense”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 210b

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 179 summary by AI

  • The language of relaxing an excessively intense passion suggests to Nussbaum that the ascent is partly a therapy. It is adopted to escape a painful tension, and it makes the irreplaceable beloved replaceable.

    “A kind of therapy alters the look of the world, making the related the same, the irreplaceable replaceable.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 210b

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 179 summary by AI

  • The ascent depends on judging one beautiful body to be like the others. Alcibiades cannot make these judgments of similarity because he insists on caring for Socrates as a unique individual, so he is hurt where he might have turned to philosophy.

    “This might have led Alcibiades to philosophy if he had been able to make Diotima’s prudent judgments of similarity.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 210b

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 195 summary by AI

  • Nussbaum holds that the Symposium ascent treats the beauty of a person and the beauty of wisdom as comparable on one quantitative scale, a feature it shares with the Protagoras science of measurement.

    “a crucial feature both of the Profagoras science of measurement and of the Symposium ascent”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 210b, 210c, 210d, 211c

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 92 summary by AI

  • Altman reads the 'unstinting philosophy' of 210d as other-directed generosity that needs an audience. He takes the passage as self-referential, pointing to Plato's own teaching dialogues and the reader's toils in reading them in order.

    “such is the fruit of reading the passage as self-referential”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 210d, 210e

    William H. F. Altman, p. 463 summary by AI

  • Diotima links loving particular individuals with tension and servitude. She links contemplating a uniform sea of beauty with health, freedom and creativity. Nussbaum finds that truth is muted here: the move from 'family-related' to 'one and the same' is suspect.

    “the gap between ‘family-related’ and ‘one and the same’ indicates that the ascent may be playing fast and loose with the truth”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 210d

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 180 summary by AI

  • In Diotima's teaching, everyday erotic attachment to one bodily individual appears only as a slavish way of life that philosophy frees us from; Socrates says he was persuaded to take up the ascent.

    “promised freedom from the slavish love of unpredictable individuals”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 210d, 212b

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 92 summary by AI

  • Nussbaum argues that the sudden (exaiphnēs) revelation at the summit of Diotima's ascent is deliberately echoed by the equally sudden arrival of Alcibiades. His entrance offers a rival revelation and a different kind of beauty.

    “we see another sort of revelation, and another beauty.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 210e, 212c

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 184 summary by AI

  • Altman holds that eudaemonist interpreters must strain to read Diotima's mentions of the resulting life as 'happy'. Treating theophilēs at 212a as equivalent to happiness is even less plausible.

    “Even less plausibly must θεοφιλῆς at 212a6 be equated with “happiness””

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211d, 211e, 212a

    William H. F. Altman, p. 462 summary by AI

  • Altman holds that the phrase εἴ τῳ γένοιτο αὐτὸ τὸ καλόν ἰδεῖν picks up the γενέσθαι-plus-dative and τί of the earlier unanswered question. It therefore answers that question: what comes to be for the lover of beautiful things is seeing the Beautiful itself.

    “it is really an answer in the form of a question”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211d, 211e

    William H. F. Altman, p. 468 summary by AI

  • The many vision words in the passage on gazing at beloveds matter to Altman, especially the closing θεᾶσθαι, which has no object 'at them' in the Greek. He notes that the same verb was already used to go beyond ordinary seeing in a Platonist sense.

    “note that there is no “at them” in the Greek—being particularly significant”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211d

    William H. F. Altman, p. 468 summary by AI

  • Hadot suggests Plato may be hinting that Socrates, absorbed in meditation, has been initiated by Diotima and has seen true beauty. Such a vision yields the only life worth living and true virtue.

    On 211d, 212a

    Pierre Hadot, p. 48 summary by AI

  • Nussbaum reads the final vision as the ideal remedy for erotic need. Its object is stable, pure and immortal and always available for 'being with', which bodily intercourse can never be. Throughout, the appeal to truth is interwoven with appeals to need.

    “We have, at the end, an object of love that is always available, that will to the highest degree satisfy our longing to ‘be with’”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211d, 211e, 212a

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 182 summary by AI

  • Altman analyses Diotima's penultimate rhetorical question about glimpsing the divine Beautiful itself as a stylistic high point. Its three pairs of doubles (seeing verbs, the Beautiful itself, near-synonymous purity terms) form one of three triples in the sentence.

    “a triad of doubles is only one of three triples in this amazing sentence.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211e

    William H. F. Altman, p. 384 summary by AI

  • The word for single-formed, carried over from 211b, acts as a unifying replacement for the three near-synonyms of purity. Adding 'divine' to 'the Beautiful itself' calls for a pause and stress when read aloud.

    “the replacement of “” by the appropriately unifying μονοειδὲς (which now returns from 211b1)”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211e · the word μονοειδές

    William H. F. Altman, p. 384 summary by AI

  • Correcting Sheffield, Altman notes that at 211e it is the beautiful itself that is called divine, not the one who contemplates it; he treats sliding from 'dear to the gods' to 'godlike' as a mistake.

    “it is αὐτὸ τὸ καλόν that earns the adjective θεῖον at 211e3, not the ‘contemplator’”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211e, 212a

    William H. F. Altman, p. 454 summary by AI

  • Grimes holds that the vision of beauty itself is an ultimate experience of reality and truth. It is still not the final goal, because the one who sees it must give birth to true excellence and then raise it.

    “It's an ultimate experience, but it's not sufficient.”

    Quoted from a machine transcript of the recording.

    On 212a

    Pierre Grimes, transcript (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • The lecture treats the vision of beauty itself as an experience, and holds that the dialogue does not describe it as transcending experience. What follows the vision is a further begetting of true excellence, which must then be nurtured.

    “Is there something one has to nurture from this experience? Absolutely. Real excellence.”

    Quoted from a machine transcript of the recording.

    On 212a

    Pierre Grimes, transcript (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Socrates' speech is the most varied in the dialogue. It combines questioning of Agathon, the invention of Diotima, mimetic dialogue with her, myth, jabs at rival speakers, and a sustained eloquent close, followed by a coda.

    “Socrates’ speech is the dialogue’s most variegated”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    William H. F. Altman, p. 384 summary by AI

  • Grimes reads the speech through a 'transmission analogy'. Diotima teaches Socrates, who then teaches Agathon, as a skilled student becomes a teacher. Socrates gets Agathon less far because Agathon cannot pose questions and so stalls.

    “is not able to take Agathon as far as Diotima took Socrates for good reasons.”

    Quoted from a machine transcript of the recording.

    Pierre Grimes, transcript (no page numbers) summary by AI

  • Hadot holds that in Diotima's speech the traits of Eros merge with those of Socrates, because both embody the philosopher, Eros in myth and Socrates in history. He calls this the deep meaning of the dialogue.

    “Eros and Socrates personify-one mythically, the other historically-the figure of the philosopher. This is the profound meaning of the dialogue.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    Pierre Hadot, p. 41 summary by AI

  • Nussbaum argues that Diotima's speech should not be read as Plato's whole view. Alcibiades' later speech about loving a unique individual works as a counterexample showing what the theory leaves out.

    “follows that description with a counterexample to the theory, a story of passion for a unique individual”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 167 summary by AI

  • Socrates' odd behaviour, such as his trances and his deafness to others, shows concretely what Diotima describes only in the abstract. It depicts a person partway up the ascent who is becoming self-sufficient and strange.

    “They show us what Diotima could only abstractly tell: what a human life starts to look like as one makes the ascent.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 184 summary by AI

Context and history (6)

  • Allen dates the plague that Diotima's sacrifices postponed to 430 B.C. and points to Thucydides' account of it.

    “In 430 B.C. See Thucydides II 47.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 201d

    R. E. Allen, p. 144 summary by AI

  • Following Bury, Altman reads 'impossible' in place of 'immortal' at 208b, citing the preceding lines stating that mortal nature can reach immortality only in this way.

    “by reading ἀδύνατον for ἀθάνατον on the basis of 207c9-d6”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 208b

    William H. F. Altman, p. 428 summary by AI

  • Allen explains that Diotima praises Lycurgus as a Mantinean whose city was allied with Sparta. The Spartan and Athenian laws of Lycurgus and Solon count as their offspring, and Plato himself descended from Solon.

    “Diotima speaks as a native of Mantinea, located in the Peloponnesus and allied with Sparta.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 209d, 209e

    R. E. Allen, p. 154 summary by AI

  • Nussbaum notes that the verb for being with the beloved or the form is also the ordinary Greek word for sexual intercourse. Diotima's use of it presents contemplation as an intellectual intercourse that lacks the defects of the physical kind.

    “the word used at 211D6, ‘suneinai’, is also the ordinary word for intercourse”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211d, 212a · the word συνεῖναι

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 182 summary by AI

  • Altman argues that the correct rendering is 'if it were to come into being for someone to see the Beautiful itself.' He faults Rowe's translation here, while noting that Rowe avoids repeating his earlier rendering of the construction as possession.

    “is the proper translation of εἴ τῳ γένοιτο αὐτὸ τὸ καλόν ἰδεῖν”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211e

    William H. F. Altman, p. 468 summary by AI

  • Stang describes Socrates' speech at Agathon's party as a ventriloquism of the seer Diotima of Mantinea. He calls it the most famous of the Symposium's speeches in praise of eros, and it comes after Aristophanes' absurd tale.

    “Socratess speech, or rather his ventriloquism of the seer Diotima of Mantinea, is the most famous.”

    Charles M. Stang, unpaginated text (page not determined) summary by AI

Lineage (documented) (7)

  • Hobbs holds that Diotima's account of Eros as a daimon linking mortals and gods and carrying messages between them is among the things Ficino finds most fascinating, and that it prompts his treatment of daemons in De amore 6.2-5 and 6.8-10.

    On 202e, 203a · Plato, Symposium → Ficino, De amore

    Angela Hobbs, p. 247 summary by AI

  • Hobbs notes that Porphyry, in De abstinentia 2.38, attends to the same passage on daimonic transmitters, and suggests this may have reinforced Ficino's interest, although Ficino works mainly from Plato's own text.

    “his interest may well have been strengthened by the attention given to the very same passage by Porphyry in Abst. 2.38”

    On 202e · Plato, Symposium → Porphyry, De abstinentia 2.38

    Angela Hobbs, p. 247 summary by AI

  • Taylor reports Proclus's use of Diotima's account: heroes take their name from Love because Love is a great daemon. Love's birth from Plenty, the better cause, and Poverty, the receiving cause, is the model for heroes arising from different genera.

    “Love originated from Plenty as the more excellent cause, and from Poverty as the recipient and the worse cause”

    On 202e, 203b, 203c · Plato, Symposium → Proclus

    Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, p. 580 of the 2010 electronic edition (1816 page not determined) summary by AI

  • Altman reports that, beginning with Hermann in 1839, the split between Lesser and Higher Mysteries was used to separate the historical Socrates from Plato's Socrates, or from Plato himself.

    “Starting with Hermann (1839), this distinction has been used to divide (the historical) Socrates”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    Hermann → Symposium

    William H. F. Altman, p. 456 summary by AI

  • Reporting Daniel Babut, Hadot says the five earlier speeches build toward Diotima's praise of Love through a dialectical progression.

    “prepare the way, by a dialectical progression, for the praise of Love by Diotima, the Mantinean priestess”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    Babut → Plato, Symposium

    Pierre Hadot, p. 41 summary by AI

  • Hobbs claims the Neoplatonic idea of a cosmos linked by likeness and sympathy, as in Proclus' De sacrificio, only elaborates ideas already present in Plato, especially in the Symposium.

    “on this point the Neoplatonists are only elaborating on ideas that exist within Plato, and particularly in the Symposium”

    Angela Hobbs, p. 250 summary by AI

  • Proclus holds that Plato found Orpheus naming intelligible intellect both Love and a great daemon, and chose to praise Love in the same way. This is why Diotima calls Love a great daemon.

    “Plato finding that intelligible intellect was called by Orpheus both Love and a great daemon, was himself pleased to celebrate Love in a similar manner.”

    Orpheus → Plato, Symposium

    Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, p. 563 of the 2010 electronic edition (1816 page not determined) summary by AI

Parallels (no influence claimed) (4)

  • Hobbs argues that Diotima's placing of seers, priests, sacrifice and magic in the daimonic realm is partly anticipated by Eryximachus' speech (188b-d), which makes the seer's art a means of friendship between gods and humans through eros.

    “The reference to the intermediary powers of priests and seers has been partly anticipated in the doctor Eryximachus' speech”

    On 202e, 203a

    Angela Hobbs, p. 248 summary by AI

  • The mythic pairing of Poros and Penia is to be compared with the myth in Plato's Protagoras at 321b–d.

    “With the pairing of Poros and Penia, cf. Prt. 321b6–d3.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 203b, 203c

    William H. F. Altman, p. 384 summary by AI

  • Allen notes that Diotima's picture of lovers wanting to gaze on and stay with their beloveds forever, without food or drink, directly echoes Aristophanes' speech.

    On 211d · Diotima (Symposium 211d) → Aristophanes' speech (Symposium 191a, 192b-d)

    R. E. Allen, p. 156 summary by AI

  • Nussbaum argues that the lover's final contemplative activity fully satisfies the Republic's criteria for true value. It is pure, unmixed with pain, stable, and directed at an unchanging object.

    “The lover’s final contemplative activity meets the Republic’s standards of true value in every way.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    Plato, Symposium → Plato, Republic

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 182 summary by AI

Contrasts (6)

  • Diotima's claim that Eros is a magician stands out against Plato's usual condemnation of magic and magicians elsewhere (Gorgias, Meno, Republic, Laws). If Socrates represents Eros, he too becomes a magician.

    “Diotima’s claim that Erôs is a magician is all the more startling given Plato’s usual condemnation of magic and magicians”

    On 202e, 203a

    Angela Hobbs, p. 249 summary by AI

  • Relying on Diotima's placement of the daemonic between all divine and mortal natures, Proclus rejects two views. One holds that daemons are the souls of dead humans. The other, from Amelius, counts some gods, such as the planets, as daemons.

    “we shall everywhere preserve the doctrine of Diotima, who assigns the middle order, between all divine and mortal natures, to a daemoniacal essence.”

    On 202e

    Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, p. 566 of the 2010 electronic edition (1816 page not determined) summary by AI

  • Unlike the Gorgias, Phaedo, Republic, Phaedrus and Timaeus, Diotima says nothing of an immortal rational soul. Mortals achieve only a substitute immortality through offspring, deeds or works, though this may not strictly contradict those dialogues.

    “all they can hope to achieve is a grade of ‘substitute’ immortality through the creation of biological offspring, glorious deeds or great works”

    On 207d, 207e, 208a, 208b

    Angela Hobbs, p. 253 summary by AI

  • Altman claims that the description of the Beautiful as uniform and unaffected (211a–b) rules out in advance the distortions of the Idea later attributed to Timaeus, the Athenian Stranger, and the Eleatic Stranger (cf. Sophist 248e). He adds that the word θεῖον links the passage back to the close of Alcibiades Major.

    “are preemptively rejected”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211a, 211b, 211e

    William H. F. Altman, p. 468 summary by AI

  • The form of beauty is described as pure and free of flesh and colour, seen by the mind alone. Alcibiades is the opposite: a sensuous, mixed, bodily beauty grasped by vulnerable senses and feelings. The mind's faculty for the form is stable and within our control.

    “The faculty that apprehends the form is preeminently stable, unwavering, and in our power to exercise regardless of the world’s happenings.”

    Quoted as machine-read from the scan; slips of the reading are kept.

    On 211a, 211e

    Martha C. Nussbaum, p. 184 summary by AI

  • Murata notes that Plotinus treats intelligible beauty differently from Plato. Citing Corrigan, she reports that the Symposium makes the Form of the Beautiful the highest form, whereas Plotinus identifies beauty with the whole of Intellect and has no single Form of Beauty.

    “It is also worth noting that Plotinus’s presentation of intelligible beauty differs from Plato’s.”

    Kazuyo Murata, p. 19 (manuscript page) summary by AI

Works cited (11)
  • R. E. Allen, The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 2: The Symposium (translation), Yale University Press, 1991 · © · Only the TRANSLATION chapter is on disk; its notes, if any, are the scholarship.
  • William H. F. Altman, Ascent to the Beautiful: Plato the Teacher and the Pre-Republic Dialogues from Protagoras to Symposium, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020 · © · Year of publication to be confirmed from the imprint page.
  • E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, University of California Press, 1951 · ©
  • Pierre Grimes, “Plato, Symposium 206c–212c: Diotima's Speech 1”, Noetic Society lecture, 21 Sept 2009 (audio; machine transcript) · © (Grimes estate / Noetic Society)
  • Pierre Grimes, “Plato's Symposium and Plotinus on Love”, Noetic Society lecture, 23 Dec 2016 (audio; machine transcript) · © (Grimes estate / Noetic Society)
  • Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, tr. Michael Chase, Harvard University Press, 2002 · ©
  • Angela Hobbs, “The Erotic Magus: Ficino's De Amore as a Guide to Plato's Symposium”, in J. F. Finamore and T. Nejeschleba (eds), Platonism and its Legacy (Lydney: The Prometheus Trust), 2019 · CC BY 4.0
  • Kazuyo Murata, “Beauty Stings: Plotinus and Rūzbihān Baqlī on Beauty”, accepted author manuscript of a chapter in Sperl and Dedes (eds), Faces of the Infinite, 2022 · © (green open-access author manuscript)
  • Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, updated edition, 2001 · © · Page numbers come from the OCR's own page-number lines; check against a print copy.
  • Charles M. Stang, Our Divine Double, Harvard University Press, 2016 · © · No page numbers in this text; locators are segments.
  • Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus, The Theology of Plato (with Taylor's introduction and notes), London 1816; electronic edition 2010 · PD

Updated 2026-09-28. Works in copyright are summarised only; their full text is not published.

The text record

Our working notes on this edition: sources, decisions and what AI supplied. Show the notes

The Plato pilot: the first Greek text in the library, read word by word the way the Arabic texts are, with its readers through the ages. Method: docs/EDITORIAL-METHOD.md.

Work / author / datesPlato, Symposium (Συμπόσιον), c. 385–370 BCE; Plato c. 428–348 BCE
Part added201d–212c: Socrates reports Diotima's teaching, from "καὶ σὲ μέν γε ἤδη ἐάσω" to the knocking at the door (the start of 212d is not included)
Reader route/read/symposium-diotima · about /read/symposium-diotima/about
Statusworking edition, pilot · reviewed by: —

1. Witnesses

SiglumWitnessKindLicenceLocation
BurnetJ. Burnet, Platonis Opera II (Oxford Classical Texts, 1901; 1910 printing)standard editionpublic domainas digitised by Perseus
PPerseus Digital Library, canonical-greekLit tlg0059.tlg011.perseus-grc2 (EpiDoc; Stephanus milestones)digitalCC BY-SA 4.0github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit
GGLAUx corpus, document 0059-011 (A. Keersmaekers): the Perseus text with automatic lemma, morphology and syntaxdigital, analysedCC BY-SA 4.0github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
BuryR. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge 1909): text, apparatus and commentaryedition with commentarypublic domainarchive.org cu31924073426151

Consulted, not used for the text: Dover (Cambridge 1980) and the Nehamas–Woodruff translation (Hackett 1989) are in copyright and were not used.

2. Base and why

Burnet via Perseus: the standard text, openly licensed, already divided by Stephanus section. GLAUx is built on the same Perseus text, so its tokens carry the Perseus section numbers (div_stephanus_section) and needed no alignment.

3. Collation

  • The tokens are GLAUx's, in GLAUx's order. They were checked back against P, token by token, to recover P's paragraph breaks (87 breaks: the turns of the dialogue); every GLAUx token was found in P in order.
  • No full collation with Bury was made. Bury's text differs from Burnet in a few places in this range. Two are noted in §4 because they affect the sense; Bury's apparatus lists the rest.
  • Script: scripts/plato/build_symposium.py.

4. Decisions

The Greek text is Burnet's, unchanged. Two places where editors differ are recorded, not adopted:

WhereBurnet (shown)Other readingNoteBy
208bἀθάνατον δὲ ἄλλῃ ("the immortal [partakes] in another way")ἀδύνατον δὲ ἄλλῃ ("otherwise it is impossible"), printed by Bury (1909, note ad loc.)The manuscripts have ἀθάνατον. Bury adopts ἀδύνατον and argues against Stallbaum's defence of the transmitted reading. The AI translation follows Burnet.AI (noted from Bury)
211cἐπαναβασμοῖς (T and the Oxyrhynchus papyrus)ἐπαναβαθμοῖς (W), printed by BuryBoth are built on ἀναβαίνω; -βασμός is the stepping, -βαθμός the step.AI (noted from Bury's apparatus)
208aμνήμην[μνήμην], bracketed by Bury as interpolated or corruptBury argues that ἀπιούσης must refer to τῆς ἐπιστήμης.AI (noted from Bury)

Corrections to the automatic analysis (GLAUx). These are listed on the About page, with links to each word:

  • 201d, 211d: Μαντινικῆς / Μαντινικὴ. GLAUx lemmatised these as the place name Μαντινέη; they are the adjective Μαντινικός.
  • 202d: GLAUx fused a question mark to the next word (";τί"). It has been split.
  • 203b, 203c: ὑὸς. GLAUx gave ὗς, "swine"; the word is the Attic ὑός, "son" (υἱός), as in "the son of Mētis".
  • 207c: Διανοῇ. GLAUx took it as a noun; it is the verb διανοέομαι, 2nd singular present ("do you think…?").

GLAUx's other analyses are shown as automatic. It reports 97.2% accuracy on morphology and 98.8% on lemmas, so a few further errors should be expected. For example, 210b δεῖ is tagged imperfect.

Compounds and crasis. GLAUx splits οὔτε into οὔ + -τε, and κἀγώ into κα- + κἀγώ. The reader shows each such pair as one word and gives both analyses in the word panel.

5. Quotations

  • 205d "μέγιστός τε καὶ δολερὸς ἔρως" and 208c "καὶ κλέος ἐς τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον ἀθάνατον καταθέσθαι" are printed in quotation marks by Perseus/Burnet as verse tags; their sources are not identified here.
  • 209d: Lycurgus and Solon.
  • 208d: Alcestis, Achilles, Codrus.

6. Accents and breathings

The Greek is Burnet's, fully accented (polytonic). Nothing was supplied. GLAUx stores the text in Unicode NFD; the reader shows it in NFC, in GFS Didot.

7. Segmentation and word IDs

  • There are 55 passages, one per Stephanus section from 201d to 212c. Stephanus numbers appear in the margin, and each passage is linkable as #s-201d.
  • Word IDs are <section>.<n>, where n is the GLAUx token's position within the section, punctuation included (for example 201e.72). IDs stay stable while the GLAUx release stays the same.

8. Analysis layer

  • Lemma and morphology come from GLAUx. The tags follow the AGDT scheme and are decoded in the reader by src/lib/greek.ts.
  • The dictionary is LSJ (Logeion's edited Perseus LSJ, CC BY-SA 4.0), matched by headword. 669 of 682 lemmas were matched. The 13 unmatched are mostly proper names.
    • When LSJ has several homographs, the entry that cites Plato most is taken: λέγω "B", ἐράω "A".
    • The "opening senses" are the first English gloss of each sense, extracted automatically, and they are marked as such.
  • Etymology comes from Wiktionary, via kaikki.org's Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0).
    • 597 of 682 lemmas have an entry. 252 of them give Proto-Indo-European forms, which the reader shows as reconstructions.
    • Beekes (2010), Chantraine (DELG) and Frisk (GEW) are the standard etymological dictionaries. All are in copyright, so the panel only cites them ("see Beekes s.v. …").
  • Boisacq (1916) is the primary etymology (since round 2). É. Boisacq, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Heidelberg/Paris 1916), public domain, archive.org dictionnairety00bois.
    • OCR: macOS Vision has no Greek or Latin model (tested on macOS 26.6 with (private copy): it reads the French well and turns the Greek into Latin-letter noise). So all 1,162 pages were OCR'd with Tesseract, tessdata_best grc+fra (Apache-2.0), at 300 dpi: scripts/plato/boisacq_ocr.sh → data/raw/plato/boisacq/ocr/.
    • Matching: scripts/plato/boisacq_index.py finds entries by the dictionary's alphabetical order (headword candidates that break the order are dropped), then matches lemmas accents aside. Tiers: the lemma's own entry (286 lemmas); a line or paragraph the lemma opens; the entry that treats it (36); or, when LSJ derives the lemma from a base word, Boisacq's entry for that base, labelled as such (33). A short entry that only says "Voy. s. v. X" also shows X's entry. 355 of 682 lemmas are found; the rest are mostly proper names, compounds with prepositions and particles.
    • Printed page = PDF page − 34 (681 running heads read, the offset constant through the book); archive.org leaf n = PDF page − 1. The panel shows the machine-read entry marked "OCR, unchecked", links the page, and can show the page image inline.
    • Known weaknesses: OCR noise in small Greek; occasionally the matched paragraph belongs to a neighbouring entry. The page image is authoritative.
  • LSJ's own etymological remarks: the derivation LSJ gives after the headword ("τόκος (τίκτω)", "ἔρως (ἔραμαι, ἐράω A)") and its occasional cognate notes ("Cf. Skt. …"), extracted automatically for 193 lemmas (scripts/plato/lsj_etym.py). LSJ's <etym> tags were checked and are too inconsistent to use.
  • Wiktionary is kept as a secondary, labelled source (collapsed when Boisacq has the word).
  • Word families are AI groupings of the pilot's lemmas by stem (for example ἐρ-: ἔρως, ἐράω, ἐραστής, ἐραστός, ἐρωτικός), made from the etymologies and marked AI.
  • Usage lists each lemma's occurrences in this passage and in the Phaedrus (GLAUx 0059-012, linked to Scaife).

9. Commentaries aligned: "Readers through the ages"

  • Data: app/src/content/plato/symposium-diotima-braid.json, 20 entries.
  • Alignment: each entry is keyed to the Stephanus sections it discusses. It is marked exact when the reader quotes or paraphrases those lines, and approximate when the discussion ranges more widely. The reader shows an entry under the first section it covers and points to it from the others.
  • Originals: all public domain. Latin and Greek excerpts were cleaned from the archive.org OCR by AI (long s, ligatures, misread letters such as ϑ, and dropped initials, which are shown in brackets). They still need checking against the linked page images. Their English is AI and marked.
ReaderWhereSectionsSource
Plotinus, Enn. III.5.2 and III.5.9Greek of III.5.9 (Volkmann 1883); MacKenna's English (1921) for III.5.2203b–earchive.org volkmann-enneades-gr-v.-1-1883, plotinustranslat00plot
Hermias, In PhaedrumCouvreur pp. 12, 66, 72: Eros as a great daimōn; the daimonic kind; Eros as philosopher, enchanter, sorcerer, sophist202d–203a, 203darchive.org hermiaealexandr00couvgoog
Ficino, De amore VI.3, 7, 9, the chapter on love's use, 15, 18, 19Latin, Lyon 1590, pp. 784–791202e–203d, 206e–208b, 210a, 210e–212aarchive.org diviniplatonisop00plat
Taylor (1804)notes signed "T." on the great daemon, and on Plenty, the nectar, the garden and sleep202d–203carchive.org vol3worksofplato00plat
Sydenhamnote on the mysteries (in Taylor's edition)209e–210aas above
Bury (1909)notes on τόκος ἐν καλῷ, κυοῦσι and the 208b crux; apparatus on ἐπαναβασμοῖς206b, 206c, 208b, 211carchive.org cu31924073426151
  • Hermias: he wrote on the Phaedrus, not the Symposium, so he appears only where he discusses the Symposium directly.
  • Round 2: 24 more readers (app/src/content/plato/symposium-diotima-braid-more.json, built by scripts/plato/build_braid_more.py), all public domain and each linked to its page scan:
ReaderWhereSectionsSource
Plotinus, Enn. I.6 "On Beauty"I.6.1, 7, 8, 9: Greek (Volkmann 1883) with MacKenna's English (1917)210a–212aarchive.org volkmann-enneades-gr-v.-1-1883, plotinustranslat01burkuoft
Proclus, Theology of Plato I.23, 24, 26, 27Taylor's English (1816), from the 1816 scan, not the 2010 e-text202d–204carchive.org sixbooksproclus00unkngoog
Leone Ebreo, Dialoghi d'amore IIIRome: Blado 1535, fols. 95r–96r; Italian with AI English203b–204barchive.org b33349149 (Wellcome)
Pico, Commento (tr. Stanley 1651, ed. Gardner 1914)Book II ch. 10; Book III, the six degrees203b–c, 210a–211carchive.org platonickdiscour00picouoft
Castiglione, Courtier IV (tr. Hoby 1561)Bembo's stair of love; the heavenly beauty; Giuliano naming Diotima201d, 210a–211barchive.org bookofcourtierfr00castuoft (Tudor Translations 1900)
Jowett's Introduction (1892)on Socrates and Diotima; on her dialectic; on the ladder201d–e, 204b, 211carchive.org dialoguesofplat01plat
Bury's Introduction (1909)Diotima and Mantinea; Penia; the garden; the ebb and flow of Eros; the ladder as dialectic201d–210carchive.org cu31924073426151
  • Checked and left out: Shelley's "Discourse on the Manners of the Ancient Greeks Relative to the Subject of Love". The 1840 fragment breaks off before the Symposium itself, and the fuller 1931 Ingpen printing is not public domain in the US until 2027. Proclus's In Timaeum and In Alcibiadem were not needed.

9a. Bridges to the Arabic library

  • Data: app/src/content/plato/bridges.json, 6 bridges, each AI-labelled with a confidence and its grounds (primary texts linked, studies cited only):
    • καλόν ↔ ḥusn / jamāl (high)
    • ἔρως ↔ ʿishq / ḥubb (high)
    • ἐπαναβασμοί ↔ miʿrāj / taraqqī (medium)
    • δαίμων, μεταξύ ↔ barzakh (medium)
    • τόκος ἐν καλῷ ↔ nikāḥ / wilāda (low)
    • μανία ↔ jadhb / hayamān (low; for the Phaedrus)
  • In the reader: the word panel shows a Bridges tab on words of those lemmas, and ◆ marks the first such word in each section. The About page lists all six.
  • Grounding:
    • Ibn Sīnā, Risāla fī māhiyyat al-ʿishq: OpenITI lines 115 and 120–128.
    • The Ikhwān epistle 37: OpenITI lines 8924–9069; "the divine sickness" at line 8930.
    • Dieterici's 1882 Arabic Theology of Aristotle.
    • Futūḥāt chs. 63, 167 and 178 (cited by chapter; not checked line by line in this session).
  • Caution: a bridge names shared vocabulary or structure, never borrowing, unless a source shows it.

10. Translation

  • Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, 3rd ed. (Oxford 1892), vol. 1, pp. 572–582. Public domain.
    • The text is Project Gutenberg #1600, collated automatically against the 1892 scan (archive.org dialoguesofplat01plat).
    • Two readings where Gutenberg departs from the 1892 edition were restored to 1892: "I will rehearse" (201d), and "run risks of all kinds greater far" (208c).
    • Jowett's cross-references, which Gutenberg prints inline, were removed.
    • Jowett has no Stephanus numbers. His text was divided into sections automatically, by the best monotonic match of each clause against Lamb's and the AI English for each section, so the boundaries are approximate. 210c received no clause of its own; Jowett's rendering of it falls in 210b and 210d. Script: scripts/plato/align_jowett.py.
  • Lamb, Loeb vol. 3 (1925), from Perseus tlg0059.tlg011.perseus-eng2, divided by Perseus's own section milestones.
    • Public domain in the US.
    • Lamb died in 1961, so outside the US the translation may still be in copyright. The Perseus digitisation is CC BY-SA 4.0.
    • Lamb's 201d milestone falls inside Socrates' reply to Agathon, so his 201d begins at "And now I shall let you alone", where the Greek 201d begins.
  • AI English (Claude), written for this reader from Burnet's Greek, without consulting any copyrighted translation, and marked AI.
    • Fixed renderings: ἔρως "love" (the god: Love); καλόν "beautiful"; δαίμων "daimōn"; τόκος ἐν καλῷ "giving birth in beauty"; ἀρετή "excellence"; φρόνησις "understanding"; ποίησις "making" (and "poetry").

10a. Further translations, for comparison (round 2)

Each is a file in app/public/data/plato/tr/, fetched only when chosen (Translations or Compare in the reader); each file records its source, licence, how its text was made and how it was divided. scripts/plato/publish_translations.py checks every file has all 55 sections.

TranslationPrinting usedTextSectionsLicence
Ficino, Latin (1484)Lyon 1590 Opera, pp. 327–331transcribed by AI from the page images (the OCR interleaves the Greek column)by AI reading against the GreekPD
Sydenham (1767) as revised by Taylor (1804)Taylor, Works of Plato III, pp. 494–516OCR, long s restored against Sydenham's 1767 edition, ~200 errors fixed on the scansautomatic, then 34 of 54 breaks moved by handPD. Taylor revised Sydenham (listed in the file); the knocking at the end of 212c is not in Sydenham, who stopped at Socrates' speech
Schleiermacher (1807)Platons Werke II.2, pp. 417–434 (BSB scan)transcribed by AI from the scan, checked against the library OCRby AI reading, checked against the print's marginal Stephanus pagesPD
Shelley (1818; publ. 1840)Mary Shelley's 1840 Essays, vol. 1, pp. 126–148two OCRs merged and corrected against every pageautomatic, then 31 breaks movedPD. The 1840 text is softened in places (noted); the unexpurgated text (1930/31) is not used
Cousin (1831)Œuvres de Platon VI (1849 reissue scan)French Wikisource's proofread textWikisource's anchors corrected (10 wrong), by AI readingPD; transcription CC BY-SA
Burges (1850)Bohn, Works of Plato III, pp. 531–556OCR cleaned; his footnotes and section numbers removedautomatic, then 36 breaks movedPD
Chambry (1919)Garnier 1919, pp. 385–402 (Gallica)transcribed by AI from the scan (the Wikisource text is the revised 1964 reprint)by AI readingPD in the US; in the EU since 2022 (Chambry d. 1951)
Allen (1991), privateYale UP, via JSTOR (USD library)(private copy) only (gitignored), footnotes omitted; shown only when PRIVATE_LAYERS=1by Allen's own margin letters (43 of 55), the rest by overlap with Lamb and the AI English© Yale. A public build was checked: it contains none of it

11. Rights and private layers

  • Everything shown is public domain or openly licensed (see the About page).
  • Share-alike layers: Perseus, GLAUx, LSJ and Wiktionary are CC BY-SA 4.0, so derived data files, such as symposium-diotima.json and the lexicon, carry the same licence.
  • Private or unused: Nussbaum (Fragility of Goodness), Carson (Eros the Bittersweet) and the Pierre Grimes transcripts are in copyright or unclear, and are not used. The same goes for Steadman's Symposium (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0): it is non-commercial and its glosses were not used, so as to keep the public layer free of NC terms.
  • Audio: none, but the Arabic readers' background music is available. Azure's Modern Greek voices would cost about $0.33–0.36 for the whole passage; no spend was made. See docs/research/greek-audio-options.md.

12. Open questions / to review

  1. Audio. Choose between a Modern Greek neural voice with the Erasmian/Modern pronunciation question stated, a human reading, or no audio.
  2. Review. A person should check the AI translation and the AI glosses, especially the particles.
  3. Bury. Should Bury's readings be shown as a second text, with a word-by-word collation, or only in notes as now?
  4. Jowett's section breaks. The automatic division could be checked by hand in about an hour.
  5. The Phaedrus. The palinode (243e–257b) can follow the same pipeline: the GLAUx and Perseus files are already acquired.

13. Change log

  • 2026-09-28: pilot built. Greek, lemmas, LSJ, Wiktionary, Jowett, Lamb and AI English.
  • 2026-09-28: the readers through the ages (20 entries) and the bridges (6) added.
  • 2026-09-28 (round 2): seven further public-domain translations with a picker and a compare mode; Allen as a private layer; 24 more readers; Boisacq as the primary etymology; background music; audio options researched (docs/research/greek-audio-options.md).