POLITICS AND EROS IN ARISTOPHANES ’ SPEECH: SYMPOSIUM 191E–192A AND THE COMEDIES

For many of Plato’s modern readers, Aristophanes ’ encomium of eros is the most memorable and convincing speech in the Symposium. Yet a key passage in the speech is not well understood. About three– fifths of the way through the speech, Aristophanes asserts that boys who are unashamed to lie with men are the most manly boys by nature. A great proof of this, he says, is the fact that they alone end up in poli-tics, where they become “real men.”1 Since the same connection be-tween sex and politics is the object of derision in Aristophanes ’ come-dies,2 many commentators have seen irony in this assertion.3 More have implicitly favored a straight reading, however, relying on the strength of the speech taken at face value. The type of irony at issue, dramatic or verbal, is also open to competing interpretations. Nor have the implica-tions of either type of irony for the rest of the speech and for the dia-logue as a whole been adequately treated. Does Plato make his character Aristophanes speak more wisely than he is aware of, in playful revenge for the comedian’s own distorted portrait of Socrates?4 Or does Plato make use of the professional jester to clear the way for Socratic morality, on the assumption that Aristophanes ’ views about male homosexual eros were sufficiently well known to leave little doubt that his explicit praise of pederasty was tongue–in–cheek? 1For the political sense of îÜò compare Euripides frags. 787, 788 Nauck2. 2At Eq. 875–80, Cleon claims to have cleaned up public morals by stopping the âØîïøíÛîïø÷. The Sausage–seller retorts that the politician only stopped their practices out of rivalry with them: “lest they turn into politicians. ” See discussions of Eq. 423–28 and 1240–43, and Ach. 73–79, in section II below. Cf. also Nu. 961–1104 and Ec. 110–13. 3Robin, Le banquet lxi–lxii; Dover, Symposium ad loc., Greek Homosexuality (here