The Core Blog

I didn't know what to make of Pausanias' speech. It was obviously a defense of homosexuality, with both sides arguing in a way similar to the current debate. But beyond that, all I read was that virtue and sincerity are good, while prostitution and the like are bad.

Any thoughts?

But Phaedrus' explanation, by showing what love is about instead of telling, strikes me as ingenious.

" ... if a man in love is found doing something shameful, or accepting shameful treatment because he is a coward and makes no defense, then nothing would give him more pain than being seen by the boy he loves." (178D-E)

With a few brief lines of dialogue and short anecdotes, Plato, in the Introductory Dialogue, creates Socrates as a lovable, funny eccentric. I am already drawn to the magnetism of this man who doesn't bathe or dress nicely. He's aware of his greatness, yet humble about it. He can make jokes about his friends, but not in a malicious way. What's not to like?

For a book consisting of a series of monologues about love, Symposium drops the reader into the middle of the action like any good work of fiction. All of a sudden, we are right there with Apollodorus and his friend, eager to hear about this incredible conversation with the Philosophy All Stars.

The introduction to Plato's Syposium foreshadows a rousing conversation that, while not nearly as morbid as what happened to Oedipus, does show another wild side of the Greek imagination.

What follows will be a debate about love by a bunch of drunk artists and proud pedophiles. That they include rape, as well as traditional relationships, in their love makes the subject even more bizarre. Hold on tight.

With near perfect timing, we have finished Oedipus the King right before I leave for vacation. I'll be back on June 2, when I plan to jump right into the challenging Symposium for a good old love fest.

Now is the chance to get a head start on the book, if you'd like.

Oedipus discovers that the prophecy is true. As if killing your father and having children with your mother wasn't enough torture, he then loses his wife/mother to suicide and blinds himself with the pins that held together her clothes.

His moral blindness is replaced by physical blindness, and in the final lines, he prepares to leave Thebes for good.

How ironic that this master of riddles (he solved the riddle of the Phoenix before the play started) is ruined by another riddle he forces himself to solve instead of living in ignorance.

Oedipus has become so desperate to learn the truth and destroy his family that his behavior is sickening. He tortures and threatens to kill the old herdsman for trying to protect him from the truth.

As we saw in The Odyssey, it seems that the Greek authors try to make those who get punished less sympathetic. Remember Odysseus' gloating when he escaped the Cyclops? He was the hero, but he did deserve some punishment for that behavior.

I don't wish Oedipus' blinding and expulsion from society, but he does have a reprimand coming.

As with so much else we are exposed to, the question of paternity is a vital theme in Oedipus the King.

"What, was Polybus not my father?" (1017) an appalled Oedipus asks the messenger who is helping to seal his doom.

Despite Jocasta's warnings, Oedipus must get to the bottom of this riddle that is painfully revealing itself. The drought plaguing his kingdom and the cure for that plague were forgotten hundreds of lines ago, and now, the true focus of this play is the need to discover one's lineage.

The plot of Oedipus the King is so familiar that new twists as I read come across as redundancies. It's difficult to imagine the shock of hearing for the first time that the prophecy might be true.

I imagine it's like hearing for the first time (sorry for this redundancy) that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. I was 3 when I went to see that movie, and my father took me several times because I kept crying at the beginning of the ultimate fight scene, moments before that climactic "Luke, I am your father." So I guess I ruined that one, too.