One night, a bunch of
Greeks decided to get
drunk. This is not an odd occurrence, but this time it got rather well known. Most noticeable in this group where Eryximachus, Pausanias, Aristophanes, Agathon, and
Socrates. After a bit of hard
drinking, they sent the flute girl away and started talking about love. Aristophanes started off with concerns of the affairs of Dionysus (getting
drunk) and Aphrodite (getting
laid) rather than listening too much to the discourse on
Eros.
First, Eryximachus told of the standard mythological creation of Love, the eldest of the gods. He told of Love being also the noblest and mightiest of the gods. It is Love that moves people to lay down their lives for others. This comes from Eryximachus' background as a soldier and medic. Eryximachus did a good job of reciting the stories, but didn't add any background to what Love is.
Next, Phaedrus tells of the two different types of Love. There is the elder goddess of Love, Aphrodite, and the common, daughter of Zeus and Dione. Phaedrus goes on to distinguish between the two. Heavenly Love, having no mother is genderless and causes youths (but not boys: "For they love not boys, but intelligent, beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow.") to become companions to the elder male. There is also the common love that exists between a man and a woman.
Eryximachus spoke as follows: Seeing that Pausanias made a fair beginning, and but a lame ending, I must endeavour to supply his deficiency.
Eryximachus then explains that the common love is not only found in men and women but in all animals and all things:
...as I was saying, the elements of hot and cold, moist and dry, attain the harmonious love of one another and blend in temperance and harmony, they bring to men, animals, and plants health and plenty, and do them no harm; whereas the wanton love, getting the upper hand and affecting the seasons of the year, is very destructive and injurious, being the source of pestilence, and bringing many other kinds of diseases on animals and plants; for hoarfrost and hail and blight spring from the excesses and disorders of these elements of love...
Aristophanes, being slightly drunk then tells a story about how Love comes to be. Initially, humans aren't as we know them now. There were originally three sexes: man, woman, and the union of two. Humans also were wheels with four hands, four feet, and two faces looking opposite ways. These humans had great hubris, and Zeus looked upon them and decided to cut them in two, thus diminishing their strength and increasing the numbers, making them more useful. Each of us then, having only one side, is looking for his other half. Men of the third gender are the lovers of women and adulterers, and women of the third gender lust after men. The pure women care not for men but have female attachments and companions. But those who were were all male follow the male.
For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.
Agathon then went on about the youthfulness of Love in poetry that tells of its great folly.
Socrates' belief on love is that Love is the desire of all that is good and creates happiness. Men love the good. It is not only the possession of good that is love, but the everlasting possession. "There is nothing which men love but the good."