symposium of Plato

while u all are at the discussion of finding e perfect partner and everything... here's something realli interesting to share =) got this from a greek mythology website: http://www.classicalmythology.org/ enjoy!

Plato's dialogue presents a profound analysis of love, the topic of this famous dinner-party. Two of the speeches are particularly illuminating.
The Speech of Aristophanes. Since this speech is by the famous writer of Greek Old Comedy, not surprisingly, it is both amusing and wise. Aristophanes explains that originally there were not just two sexes but a third, an androgynous sex, both male and female. These creatures (all three sexes) were round in shape with four hands and feet, one head with two faces exactly alike but each looking in opposite directions, a double set of genitals, and so on. They were very strong and they dared to attack the gods.
Zeus, in order to weaken them, decided to cut them in two. So all those who were originally of the androgynous sex became heterosexual beings, men who love women, and women who love men. Those of the female sex who were cut in half became lesbians and pursued women; those bisected from the male became male homosexuals who pursue males. Thus, like our ancestors, according to our own nature, we pursue our other half in a longing to become whole once again. Eros is the yearning desire of lover and beloved to become one person not only in life but also in death.
Aristophanes by his creative humor has given a serious explanation through mythic truth of why some persons are heterosexual while others are homosexual; he also articulates a compelling definition of love, reiterated throughout the ages: Eros inspires that lonely and passionate search for the one person who alone can satisfy our longing for wholeness and completion.
The Speech of Socrates. The great philosopher Socrates elucidates Platonic revelation about Eros. Socrates claims that his wisdom in the nature of love came from a woman from Mantinea named DIOTIMA [deye-o-tee'ma]. A new myth is told about the birth of Eros to explain his character. He is squalid and poor, not beautiful himself, but a lover of beauty and very resourceful, forever scheming and plotting to obtain what he desires passionately but does not himself already possess - beauty, goodness, and wisdom. This is the Eros who must inspire each of us to move from our love of physical beauty in the individual to a love of beauty in general, and to realize that beauty of the soul is more precious than that of the body. When two people have fallen in love with the beautiful soul of each other, they should proceed upward to pursue together a love of wisdom.
Platonic Eros is a love inspired in the beginning by the sexual attraction of physical beauty, which must be transmuted into a love of the beautiful pursuits of the mind and the soul. Although Socrates' discourse dwells upon male homosexual attachments as his paradigm, his message transcends sexuality. Platonic lovers of both sexes, driven by Eros, must be capable of making the goal of their love not sexual satisfaction at all nor the procreation of children, but spiritual gratification from the procreation of ideas in their intellectual quest for beauty, goodness, and wisdom.