Aristophanes On The Power Of Love

At the beginning, man was round, and he had two faces, and four hands and feet, four ears and eyes.
Now the sexes were three, just as the moon, sun and earth are three. Man was originally the child of
the sun, woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon which is itself made up of both the sun
and the earth.

Now these children were terribly strong, and they attempted to scale the Heavens to reach the gods
and topple them from their lofty thrones. Scared, the gods searched a way to put an end to this without
killing the children of the sun, moon and earth, for that would mean the end of all the sacrifices and
offerings the latter gave them.

Zeus, the mightiest of the gods and father to many, came up with a plan to “enfeeble their strength and
so extinguish their turbulence”: he would cut the children in half. No sooner said than it was done. But
after the division was forced upon them, the two parts of man threw their arms about their missing
halves, wishing to grow back together.

Zeus, in pity, rearranged their organs so that they could procreate through such embraces and thereby
find some solace. “So ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our
original nature, seeking to make one of two, and to heal the state of man.”

And when one meets its true other half, the intense yearning each feels for the other transcends the
carnal because the soul has now found its missing piece. And this pursuit of becoming whole is love.

Note: those who seek members of the other sex are actually descendants of the children of the

androgynous moon.



Source:
http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/sym.htm (Aristophanes's Speech from Plato's Symposium)