Analyzing Pausanias Speech About Love In The Symposium

All of the speakers speeches about love in the Symposium are important because they each have a unique idea to contribute about what is love and the idea of love. One of the speakers, Pausanias goes after Phaedrus’ speech. When it is his turn to speak he present his speech about love as not a single thing and therefore we shouldn’t praise it since there is more than one. Pausanias states that there are two kinds of love, he claims that since “there are two kinds of Aphrodite, there must also be two loves” (Symposium 13). The first Aphrodite is called Uranian or Heavenly Aphrodite since she is the daughter of Uranus, she is the oldest and has no mother. This love is exclusively to male homosexuality and it can go on forever. Its attraction begins when they start to develop intelligence and it is more about the mind than the physical body. Heavenly love last forever because its main focus is not in the body rather the mind, it will always be constant no matter the circumstances. The Pandemic or Common Aphrodite is the younger one, daughter of Zeus and Dione. Rather than

He questions Agathon about love, “all love is love of something”. He also questions him about what he said in his speech of love and at one point Pausanias thought he was wrong. His main arguments in his speech is that love is not a possession. Although we desire it, it isn’t ours to control and that love can be of something or someone. He refers to Diotima, which is a woman he learned from about love and incorporates it into his speech. He said she was wise in love and in other things as well, Socrates also said she was able to delay the plague for another ten years. Like Socrates questions Pausanias, Diotima questions Socrates as well when she is teaching him. He learned many things from her that he was able to incorporate in his speech. For example, he learned about “love’s nature and birth; also, love is about beautiful things” (Symposium