chly affection shown towards a lover by the beloved, because a lover is possessed and thus comes nearer than the beloved to being divine" (44 5).
Aristophanes takes up the argument that, because of the overpowering nature of Love at work in the universe, the best of all happy fortune is for the lover to find "for himself the mate who properly belongs to him; . . . to find a sympathetic and congenial object for our affections" (65). In the background of that argument is a description of the erstwhile three sexes, man, woman, and hermaphrodite, and nature's splitting them apart in former periods. It remains for men, the highest type, to seek in love affairs the other halves of their true selves so as to make their selves whole. In this sense, Aristophanes seeks for reasons of psychological need to reconcile the elements of Love, beloved and lover, in a supreme physical experience. The lover or beloved can fill a void of experience, can compensate for an emptiness or a sense of incompletion, and both lover and beloved have this need.
This argument is given even fuller form by Alcibiades's later praise of Socrates. His account of his attempt to seduce Socrates illustrates that his efforts were aimed at casting himself as the cherished beloved, even as he pursued Socrates, the authentic beloved, and beloved by reason of his extraordinary qualities: "I felt a reverence for Socrates' character, his self control and courage; I had met a man whose like for wisdom and fortitude I could never have expected to encounter. The result was that I could neither bring myself to be angry with him and tear myself away rom his society, nor find a way of subduing him to my will" (107). Although like Phaedrus, Alcibiades sought the beloved for physical gratification, even in his frustration Alcibiades continued to pursue the company of Socrates, basically satisfied, as he says, with what he could get because of the extraordinary nature of Socr...