Aristophanes And His Hiccups Speech Analysis

I analyzed “First Interlude: Aristophanes and His Hiccups” and “The Speech of Eryximachus”. In the first part, Aristophanes comes down with a case of hiccups and begs someone else to speak before him. Eryximachus, who is a physician, agrees to speak in his stead until his hiccups are gone. In his speech, Eryximachus states that there are two types of love, common love and vulgar love. He believes that people need both for love to be ‘healthy.’ As found in the field of medicine, he says love is found in agriculture, gymnastics, music, astronomy, and the seasons.

Eryximachus uses several metaphors to support his main points. Bringing in his field of medicine as a metaphor, as a physician he states on page 126 that there are two types of love

A balance of both types of love is needed to be healthy. Admittedly I liked his metaphor of the seasons, saying that common Eros is when the seasons are predominantly calm as in spring and summer. When vulgar Eros takes over, this is when plagues, hail, and rain start. This could be a metaphor for what someone’s emotions could be if they have an imbalance of common and vulgar love. If a person has enough common Eros, then that person is with prosperity. If one had more vulgar Eros, their emotions would be out of control and they could become ill like the plague, hurt someone else like hail, or cry like rain. A prominent statement from this speech was on page 128. “Music here, like medicine there, puts agreement into all these things, implanting Eros and unanimity with each other. And music in turn is knowledge of the things of love concerning attunement and rhythm.” Here he is saying that without rhythm and harmony, music cannot be pleasing to hear. In order for it to sound right, there needs to be both. Love goes beyond interactions between individuals. Just like with harmony and rhythm, spring and winter, or diseased and healthy, opposites can create a have lasting