Classical Quarterly 42 (i) 72-86 (1992) Printed in Great Britain 72

SPIRITUAL PREGNANCY IN PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM

Although Plato's notion of spiritual pregnancy has received a great deal of critical
attention in recent years, 1 the development of the metaphor in the Symposium has not
been fully analysed. Close attention to the details of the image reveals two important
points which have so far been overlooked:
(1) There are two quite different types of spiritual pregnancy in the Symposium: a
'male' type, which is analogous to the build-up to physical ejaculation, and a 'female'
type, which is analogous to the physical experience of pregnancy as normally
understood.
(2) It is the Form of Beauty, rather than the lover of beauty, that is pregnant at
212a, which means that in the course of Diotima's speech the role of'beauty' changes
from that of presiding deity in childbirth to that of sexual partner and mother.
I maintain that these points have escaped notice precisely because they have been
effectively obscured - for very good reasons - by Plato himself.2
In 1964 J. S. Morrison offered a new approach to the idea of spiritual pregnancy
in the Symposium when he connected spiritual with physical 'male pregnancy', as
outlined in the Timaeus (73bff., 86c and 91cf.), and concluded (pp. 5 3 ^ ) that:
it appears that Plato took the view that the divine seed derives from the brain and marrow of
the man and that both the male and female sexual organs have a similar function as receptacle
and in due course outlet for this seed.... If Plato subscribed to this view of the process of human
generation, it is not surprising that he could describe the bringing forth of the child by male and
female in similar terms. Both are births and both are accompanied (though in varying degrees)
by pangs.
On this analysis male 'pregnancy' is the condition whereby a man is ready to ejaculate
his seed, and the subsequent 'childbirth' is the ejaculation itself.
Plass (1978) rejects this thesis (p. 48), preferring to view 'male pregnancy' as a term
arising from 'the confusion of sexual roles in a homosexual relationship'. He suggests
that the term may have been part of a ' homosexual a r g o t ' : ' a distinctive vocabulary
which... would naturally consist in large measure of words ordinarily used of
heterosexual relationships transferred to pederasty' (p. 50). The main problem with
Plass' account is that he does not explain what the term may have been used to refer
to. He ignores the actual use and development of the idea in the Symposium and so
fails to grasp its basic message. Plass believes that the Symposium is ' a sophisticated
plea for pederasty' (p. 48); but a careful assessment of the spiritual childbirth
metaphor in Diotima's speech shows that the dialogue cannot be read in this way.
1
J. S. Morrison, 'Four Notes on Plato's Symposium', Classical Quarterly 14 (1964), 43-55,
pp. 51-5 on KV€IV; M. F. Burnyeat, 'Socratic Midwifery, Platonic Inspiration', Bulletin of the
Institute of Classical Studies 24 (1977), 7-16; K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (London, 1978),
pp. 153-65, Plato, Symposium (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 146-59; P. C. Plass, 'Plato's "Pregnant"
Lover', Symbolae Osloenses 53 (1978), 47-55; G. R. Lambert, 'Plato's Household Topos: A
Formative Influence on Ancient Educational and Social Theory', Prudentia 16 (1984), 17-32;
M. C. Stokes, Plato's Socratic Conversations (London, 1986), pp. 146-82; J. Tomin, 'Socratic
Midwifery', Classical Quarterly 37 (1987), 97-102; E. F. Kittay, Metaphor - Its Cognitive Force
and Linguistic Structure (Oxford, 1987), pp. 278-87; H. Tarrant, 'Midwifery and the Clouds',
Classical Quarterly 38 (1988), 116-22.
2
I am very grateful to Professors M. C. Stokes and A. J. Woodman, Dr J. L. Moles, the
Editors and the anonymous CQ referee for their careful scrutiny of earlier versions of this article.

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 SPIRITUAL PREGNANCY 73
Dover (1980, p. 147) and Stokes (1986, pp. 161-3) accept Morrison's thesis and, I
believe, are right to do so. But all three critics fail to see the significance of the fact
that a male pregnancy of the type outlined in the Timaeus would not, on its own,
result in the birth of a child. To use Plato's terms, childbirth requires both a male and
female type of pregnancy. Therefore, if the metaphor of spiritual childbirth is to be
consistent, a female type of spiritual pregnancy must follow the male type.
Commentators have not acknowledged the 'female' contribution to spiritual
childbirth, but it is as logically necessary in the creation of spiritual children as it is
physically necessary in the creation of human ones. A close examination reveals that,
although Plato does not mention it specifically, a female type of pregnancy is present
in the Symposium, that physical intercourse, ejaculation, pregnancy and childbirth are
mirrored at the spiritual level, and that, despite a certain awkwardness arising from
the desire to obscure the female role in childbirth, the metaphor of spiritual pregnancy
is developed in a logical way. My reading of Diotima's comments on spiritual
pregnancy will focus on the different types of pregnancy that are spoken of and will
attempt to establish exactly who or what is presented as being 'pregnant' at each
stage.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METAPHOR

(I) Seed-pregnancy (206b-e)
In the Symposium the metaphor of spiritual pregnancy is introduced by Diotima, the
woman from Mantinea who, Socrates claims, taught him all he knows about rd
ipwTiKa (201dl-5). The innuendo and humour here are obvious, as is the fact that
Diotima is used as a mouthpiece for Socrates.3 The metaphor first appears at 206b
when, after posing the question: 'What is the function of Love?', Diotima gives the
puzzling reply (206b7):
e<m yap TOVTO TOKOS i" KaXw Kal Kara TO acbfj.a Kal Kara, rijv t

It is a childbirth in something beautiful, both in respect of body and of soul.

When Socrates says he does not understand, Diotima replies that she will explain
more clearly and makes the rather startling announcement (206cl):
Kvovatv yap...J> ZwKpares, irdvTts avdpanroi Kal Kara TO a<j>p.a Kai Kara TIJV ijivxqv, Kal
iireiSav iv TIVI -qXiKia yevwvTai, TIKTCIV €Tn9vp.€t T)fi.wv r) <j>vais-

All humans, Socrates, are pregnant both in body and soul, and when they come to maturity, our
nature desires to give birth.
As Dover observes (ad loc), the verb TCKTCIV can be used both of the male
'begetting' of a child and the female 'bearing', whereas the verb Kvelv, which means
'to be pregnant', is normally used only of the female. Since irdvTes avOpamoi must
include men, we find the first reference to the type of male pregnancy identified by
Morrison, i.e. the condition whereby man is ready to ejaculate his seed. It is of course

3
See Dover (1980), pp. 137-8, and Stokes (1986), pp. 146-7. As well as the humour inherent
(for Plato) in the idea of a female teacher, a number of other reasons have been suggested as to
why Plato introduces Diotima at this point (see Dover, 1980, pp. 137-8); one that has not been
mentioned, so far as I know, is that by bringing in a woman he can raise the subject of pregnancy
in a more plausible way. At a gathering of Athenian men the matter of pregnancy was hardly
likely to crop up spontaneously, and the subject is even more out of place at Agathon's party
where most of the guests are involved in homosexual affairs.

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 74 E. E. PENDER
true that women are here included in this experience, but after this initial
generalisation Diotima focuses on male arousal before intercourse. I therefore follow
Morrison 4 in defining the first type of pregnancy as the male desire for sexual
intercourse and procreation.
These are difficult ideas, and at 206c5 Diotima tries to clarify her statement about
male 'pregnancy' (206c5):
TJ y&p dv8p6s Kal yvvaiKos ovvovota TOKOS COTIV.

For intercourse of man and woman is a childbirth.

This sentence has been viewed as problematic by many critics. Bury5 comments:
'Most editors (except Hommel and Stallbaum) agree in excising this clause as a
meaningless intrusion.' The sentence is also omitted by Groden and Hamilton in their
respective translations. In contrast, Dover and Stokes recognise it as crucial to the
sense of the passage. Here Diotima explains that intercourse is a childbirth, i.e. that
during sex a child is born. What does she mean? Burnyeat6 has spoken of a 'strange
reversal' of pregnancy and birth in this section of the speech (206c-e) and has
concluded that: 'pregnancy precedes intercourse because birth and intercourse are
imaginatively equated. So striking a reversal could only be contrived in a realm of
imagination and metaphor
The judgement that 'birth and intercourse are imaginatively equated' must be
based on Diotima's statement avvovaia TOKOS ioTiv, but in my view Burnyeat has
misunderstood Plato's use of the ideas of 'pregnancy' and 'birth' at 206b-c. First,
'pregnancy' at 206cl (KVOVOIV) refers to a state of arousal which logically precedes
intercourse. Second, the term ' birth' (TOKOS) at 206c5 would seem to be a reference
to male ejaculation, since it is the ' birth' of the seed with which the male had been
pregnant. There is an obvious sense in which intercourse and ejaculation can be
equated, and so again there is no reversal. Even if TOKOS is regarded also as a reference
to female emission of semen at the moment of orgasm,7 then again there is a natural
progression from arousal to orgasm, and no reversal. Although the female experience
is not explicitly excluded, Plato is concerned here with male ejaculation. His idea of
intercourse as a childbirth follows a view widely attested in Greek literature, namely
that male ejaculation represents the actual birth of a child and the father is therefore
the true parent. Stokes (p. 162) points out that:

in some Greek thinking the female was merely the receptacle for the child, which grew from the
father's seed
and Willink,8 commenting on Euripides, Orestes 551-6, observes:
The genetic argument for the primacy of the father is offensive to present-day ideas, but it was
traditional... and in accordance with a widely-held view of procreation (e.g. Anaxagoras A107
ap. Arist. gen. anim. 4. 1. 763b. and the Egyptians according to Diod. I. 80;...)... in tragedy, cf.
A. Sept. 754..., S. OT1211, 1257, E. Ph. 18, but above all the direct precedent in A. Eum. 658-9,
where the same argument had been put forward by Apollo.
This view is also expressed elsewhere in Plato (see Morrison). A final point against
Burnyeat is that when Plato uses metaphors, he is at pains to keep them logical and
consistent, so far as his own use of them allows. Close attention to metaphorical
4
Morrison, pp. 52-5. See also Stokes, pp. 162-4.
5
R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge, 1909), p. 111.
6
Art. cit., p. 8. ' See Dover (1980), p. 147.
8
C. W. Willink, Euripides - Orestes (Oxford, 1986), pp. 174-5.

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 SPIRITUAL PREGNANCY 75
passages in the dialogues often reveals that the images employed are far more
consistent than a casual reading first suggests. While the image of spiritual
procreation in the Symposium can often seem obscure, it does follow the same
sequence as physical procreation, as I will attempt to show. I am not claiming that
spiritual pregnancy is a precise mirror-image of its physical counterpart; since the
soul has a very different nature from that of the body, point to point correspondence
is impossible. But I do maintain that spiritual procreation broadly corresponds to the
physical experience - as indeed it must if we are to make any sense of the metaphor.
At 206c5, then, Diotima, following a standard view of procreation, uses the term
TOKOS to speak of male ejaculation. This is a very important point, as it lays the
foundation for the subsequent account of spiritual pregnancy and procreation.
In the passages that follow Diotima argues that human beings achieve immortality
through procreation which produces children to continue the family line. The link
between childbirth and immortality is important for Plato's argument and will be
developed later in the speech.
The next section of Diotima's account deals with the role of beauty in this seed-
birth. At 206c4 it was stated plainly that' our nature'
TiKTdv Se kv \x.iv aloxpw ov Svvarai, ev Se TO) KOAOI.

cannot give birth in something ugly, only in something beautiful.

The use of iv in this sentence confirms that Diotima is focusing on the male sexual
experience, since the idea of'giving birth' or ejaculating in something can only apply
to men.9 This 'something' is usually the female, and so it is rather curious that Plato
uses the neuter forms of the adjectives 'ugly' and 'beautiful'. For Stokes, Plato's use
of the neuter results from (p. 163) 'a desire to appear to be talking about all sexual
love without actually talking about the female's love of the male'. However, it also
has another function, that is, by giving the discussion an abstract quality, to prepare
for the switch from human sexual relations to intercourse of a quite different order.10
The idea that male ejaculation is only possible in something beautiful is continued
at 206c8, where Diotima says that childbirth cannot take place' in the disharmonious'.
The role of beauty in the act of ejaculation is then summed up by Diotima at 206dl:
'Beauty is therefore Fate and Eileithyia at the birth.' The birth of the male seed
requires sexual stimulation which in turn requires attraction to something beautiful.
Diotima therefore personifies beauty as the goddess Kallone, who can be seen as the
deity presiding over the male seed-birth, just as Eileithyia and one of the Moirai
preside over female childbirth.11 We are witnessing a male pregnancy, and Diotima
is not here concerned with the female type of pregnancy which results from
intercourse.
In the next section of the speech Diotima, continuing her argument about the role
of beauty, describes what happens when the pregnant person approaches beauty and
ugliness. In the first case we are told (206d3-5):
OTai> fikv Ka\u> TTpoaireXd^r) TO KVOVV, IXewv r e ylyveTai Kal €vif>paiv6^i(vov Sio^etTai Kal
TlKT€l T€ Kal y€VVQ.

When whatever is pregnant approaches beauty, it becomes gracious and, feeling happy, it melts,
gives birth and begets.

9
See Stokes, p. 163.
10
The neuter form is used on occasion by Plato for the soul (e.g. Crito 47d) and is used for
the Form of Beauty later in the speech (211eff.). " See Dover (1980), p. 148.

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 76 E. E. PENDER
At the level of male physical pregnancy, this passage tells how the male is aroused by
contact with beauty and as a result ejaculates. In contrast, when 'whatever is
pregnant' approaches ugliness, we find a quite different reaction (206d5-7):

OKvdpunrov re Kai Xvnovfievou ovoTTtipdrat Kai aTroTpfireTCu Kai aveiXXtrai Kai ov yfwq,
aXXa ia\ov TO Kvrjfia xaXeTr<os <j,4p^i.

... because it is sad and grieved, it contracts, turns away, shrinks up and does not give birth, but
holding back what it has conceived, it bears it with difficulty.

Ejaculation is now impossible. The male is no longer aroused, he shrinks up (literally)

and must bear inside himself the seed to which he wanted to give birth. From these
different reactions to beauty and ugliness Diotima concludes that beauty attracts the
pregnant man since this alone can 'release the man who has it from his great
birthpangs' (jx.tya.X-qs <h8tvos anoXveiv TOV i^ovra, 206el). The use of wbivos, while
maintaining the language of childbirth, graphically suggests the discomfort of sexual
tension as the male seeks to be delivered of his burden. 12 The participle exovra, as well
as meaning simply' having', also contributes to the sexual imagery through the senses
of 'have as wife, husband, lover' and 'be pregnant'.
In this first section pregnancy and childbirth refer to the male production and
ejaculation of seed in intercourse. At this stage Diotima is speaking in general terms
about all seed pregnancies, but in the next section she will distinguish between seed
pregnancies at the physical and at the spiritual level.

(II) Spiritual sex (208e-209e)

The distinction between physical and spiritual pregnancy is drawn at 208el. Linking
physical procreation with the desire for immortality, Diotima says (208el):

So those who are pregnant in their bodies [lyKvfioves... Kara ra acu^ara] turn rather to women
[yvvaiKas] and are lovers in this way, believing that by means of the begetting of children
[naiSoyovias] they can secure for themselves immortality and memory and happiness hereafter
for ever.

As in the previous section, 'those who are pregnant in their bodies' are the people
who have conceived seed inside themselves and are ready to give birth to it via
intercourse. With the reference to ywaiKas we see that Diotima is specifically
concerned with pregnant men. Similarly, naiSoyovia refers to the male experience of
begetting children rather than the female experience of bearing them. Diotima's
assumption of an exclusively male perspective is more evident here than at 206c-d.
We now turn to the analogous situation at the spiritual level (208e5):

ol$€ Kara TT)V*JJV\TJV — eiat yap ovv,... ol €v Taistjtv\ais KVOVOIV e n fxdAXov fj iv TOLS troj/xaatv,
a *l>v)(7j TTpoorjKti Kai Kvrjoat Kal re/cetv.

But other men are pregnant in their soul - for there are men who conceive in their souls even
more than in their bodies - with the things which it is fitting for soul both to conceive and to
give birth to.

These men are spiritually pregnant just as the men at 208el ff. were physically
pregnant: that is, pregnant with seed. We are still at the stage of production and
ejaculation of seed and have not yet approached the birth of soul-children, which, just [

12
See Stokes, p. 162.

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 SPIRITUAL PREGNANCY 77
as on the physical level, requires intercourse. Thus the 'things which it is fitting for
soul to conceive and give birth to' are to be understood as soul-seed. But what exactly
is this seed? Diotima spells it out (209a3-5): 'Intelligence and the rest of virtue.' She
goes on to say that all poets and inventors are ' begetters' - yewrJTopes - of these
(209a4-5).
As poets and inventors have produced and ejaculated seed, it seems we are to think
of them both as pregnant in their soul and as fathering their offspring by ejaculating.
Although the poets and inventors are not directly spoken of as 'pregnant', Diotima's
image of pregnancy and birth does apply to them, as we see from 209a2-3 and the use
of TOVTCOV at 209a8 (see below). There now follows a key passage in which Diotima
develops the images of pregnancy and intercourse in some detail. This begins with the
description of spiritual puberty (209a8-b2):
TOVTCOV S av OTO.V TIS €K V€OV €"/KV^lOJV T] TTjV lfjV)(rjv, TjOzOS COV KGLl TjKOVGTJS TTJS VjXlKLaS TlKT€tV
T€ Kal ytvvav 17877 tirSvixei.

Whenever one of these people is pregnant in his soul from his youth onwards, then, when he is
an eligible bachelor 13 and has come of age, he desires to give birth and procreate.

So we are presented with a picture of the young man experiencing a spiritual puberty
and reaching the age at which he is ready to procreate. At this point he desires to give
birth to the soul-seed he has long been pregnant with, i.e. he desires to ejaculate.
Following her earlier argument about the role of beauty in ejaculation (206dl-2),
Diotima now tells us (209b2^):
£i)T€i" 817 oiju.cn Kal OVTOS TTtpuiov TO KaXov tv w av yevvrjoeiev iv TU> yap alaxpco ovSeiroTt
yewrjoei.

This man too goes around, I suppose, in search of the beautiful in which to beget. For he will
never beget in what is ugly.

So we again find the man pregnant in soul mirroring the action of the man pregnant
in body. The latter on reaching maturity searches for a desirable or beautiful woman
in whom to ejaculate his physical seed. But what is 'the beautiful' in which the
spiritually pregnant man desires to ejaculate? We might expect it to be a beautiful
soul, but, as the passage continues, we find Diotima still talking about bodies
(209b4-c2):
Ta TC ovv owfxaTa ra KaXa [JL&XXOV rj TCL ala^pa do7rd^€Tai a.Te KVCOV, Kal av €VTV%rj ^jtv)(Tj KaXfj
Kal yfwaia Kal ev<f>v€t, irdvv ST) dcma£eTai TO avvapjf>OT€pov.

So since he is pregnant he embraces beautiful bodies rather than ugly ones and if he finds a
beautiful and noble soul of good disposition, he especially embraces the combination of both...

The pregnant man embraces beautiful bodies rather than ugly ones, because, as
Diotima has continually told us, without beauty there can be no birth, i.e. without
arousal there can be no ejaculation. Therefore since our pregnant male wants to 'give
birth', he is very pleased to find beauty which will help him to do so.
This may be Diotima's argument, but the real reasons for the emphasis on beauty
and the desire for beauty lie elsewhere. First, beauty is included at every stage of
Diotima's speech on love because Plato is paving the way for his final revelation of
the Form of Beauty. Beauty thus provides a much needed link between human
experience and emotion on the one hand and the distant realm of the Forms on the
13
See Dover (1980). p. 153. The use ofrjOeos (unmarried youth) again underlines that Plato
is interested in male rather than female arousal before intercourse.

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 78 E. E. PENDER
14
other. Second, at a more mundane level, Socrates/Diotima (and hence Plato) dwells t ii
on the attractions of beauty for rhetorical purposes. If all the conception, pregnancy 1 s
and desire for ejaculation are happening at a spiritual level, then there is no need at r
all for our pregnant man to go in search of a physically beautiful partner. If another
man or boy has a beautiful soul, then surely this will be all the beauty required for
a spiritual ejaculation and childbirth. But beautiful bodies are still present because
Socrates (through Diotima) is trying to speak to his audience in terms which they will
understand and which will appeal to them. Earlier in the dialogue we have heard the
speech of Pausanias, the lover of Agathon, and it is clear that although he praises the
beauty of a boy's soul, it is still the boy's physical beauty that holds the greatest
attraction for him. Socrates, it seems, is directing his argument towards men such as
Pausanias who pay lip-service to 'spiritual beauty', but in fact are far more attracted
by physical attributes. So then, using language of sexual desire and intercourse and
playing on fantasies of beautiful partners, Socrates seeks to draw Agathon's guests
(and Plato to draw his readers) more deeply into his discourse on the soul. This
section of the dialogue can be seen as an attempt to wean the lover from physical and
onto spiritual delights.
To return to the text: having found a partner, our friend, pregnant with virtue and
intelligence, engages in speeches about virtue (209b8 Xoywv nepl apeTrjs) and sets
about educating his partner (inixeipei TraiSevew).15 This is an interesting passage, as,
although it can be read as part of the soul-courtship which will lead to intercourse and
the birth of soul-children, it is also exactly what goes on at the literal level. For it is
by means of such conversations that homosexuals such as Pausanias and Eryximachus
set about wooing their beloveds. The role of the lover as educator of his watSt/co is
well known.16 Plato is thus skilfully presenting his soul-courtship in terms which
accord with the conventions of homosexual relations at Athens. After the courtship
we come, as is natural, to the spiritual intercourse (209c2^t):
yo-p ot/xat TOV KGLXOV /cat 6fxi\wv GLVTW a irdXai e/cuet TLKTEI /cat ytvva, /cat irapcov

touching/having sexual intercourse with the beautiful young man, I imagine, and being in
company with/talking with/having sexual intercourse with him, he gives birth and begets those
things which he has long been pregnant with, both in his presence and remembering him in
absence
The male has spiritual sex with his partner, that is, he has conversations with him, and
finally ejaculates the seed (intelligence and the rest of virtue) with which he has been
pregnant for so long. It is a nice touch that, in contrast to the physical level, the
spiritually pregnant man can have sex with his partner both in his presence (live
discussion) and in his absence (remembering discussions, mulling over ideas etc.). !
This passage works very neatly on different levels. The verb opiXwv suggests
physical intercourse (attractive to the audience) and can also simply refer to being in t
company and having conversations with another. The homosexuals among the .
audience (both Socrates' and Plato's) at this point may be pleasantly surprised to
learn that all the time they were courting their beloveds with a view to physical
14
Cf. Dover's comment on Phaedrus 250d (1978, p. 164): 'beauty is the only one of those
things which are erastos (" attracting eros ") which can be directly perceived by the senses, so that
the sight of something beautiful affords by far the most powerful and immediate access we have
to the world of Being.'
15
The verb iraibeveiv is presumably to be understood as having a double sense here: first
referring to intellectual advancement and second to sexual initiation.
16
See Pausanias' speech 184d-e and Dover (1978), pp. 212ff.

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 SPIRITUAL PREGNANCY 79
intercourse at a later stage, their souls during these conversations were already having
sexual intercourse !17 The giving birth here (TIVTEI KOLI yewa) is the ejaculation of seed,
not the birth of a child, which, as on the physical level, comes later.
But in this case not much later. In fact, almost at once. There is no break in the
sentence and Diotima continues (209c4-7):
KoX TO yeVVTjdev <JVV€KTp€<f>€t KOIVTJ ^t€T €K€LVOV, COOTC IToAv /L4€l'£u> KOlVOJVtav TTJS TGJV TTtXlhaiV
npos aXX-rjXovs oi TOIOOTOI Xaxovai Kal <f>i\(av fiefiaiOTtpav, are KaWidvcov xal adavarwrepujv
S K€K0lVWV7]K0T€S.

He rears the child/that which has been produced in common with him, so that such men enjoy
a much greater shared intimacy than that which comes from (human) children and maintain a
stronger friendship, since the children they share are more beautiful and more immortal (than
human ones).
This is the first occurrence in Diotima's speech of a 'female' type of spiritual
pregnancy. But female pregnancy is an 'absent presence' here - absent, as there is no
direct mention of it but a presence, nevertheless, as it must be understood for the
phrase TO yew-qOev oweKTpe<j>ei to make sense. In the previous clause the lovers were
enjoying intercourse and now they are rearing the child that has been born. There is
an obvious ellipsis here, as the whole of the ' female' experience of pregnancy and
giving birth to a child has been suppressed. After spending a great deal of time on the
so-called ' pregnancy' of the lover, Diotima has nothing to say about the pregnancy
of the beloved, his partner. It is this second spiritual pregnancy that is analogous to
female pregnancy at the physical level. For this results in the birth of a child rather
than the birth of seed, which, as we have seen, is simply a metaphor for ejaculation.
This second type of soul pregnancy - the female type - is presented at great length
in the Theaetetus. When we meet the young Theaetetus he is already pregnant with
soul-child and we are told in some detail of his labour pains and of the whole process
of birth. The metaphor is even extended to include a notorious 'midwife' and a
ceremony of parading the newly-born child around a hearth. But in the Symposium
Plato makes no explicit reference to the female experience of childbirth, even though
this process is of crucial importance in bringing the soul-child into the light and
although it is clearly implicit in the imagery itself. Why?
I believe that the answer lies in the interests of the audience for whom he is writing.
Plato's audience was composed of well-educated, upper-class men, who were likely to
have only a limited interest in the subject of female childbearing. But further, the
Symposium addresses a very particular aspect of this male audience's experience, their
experience of love and erotic desire. As Dover has pointed out, 18 'there can be little
doubt that homosexual response was the most powerful emotional experience known
to most of the people for whom [Plato] was writing' and so it is natural that in his
dialogue on love Plato concentrates largely on homosexual relations; apart from
Aristophanes all the speakers at the Symposium are involved (to differing extents) in
homosexual affairs and in the speeches far more is said of homosexual than of
heterosexual eros. Female pregnancy is out of place in the homosexual ambience of
the dialogue, and it is therefore not surprising that when Diotima speaks of the male
lovers procreating spiritual children, all reference to the female role is avoided. Plato
is seeking to impress on his readers the pleasures of spiritual procreation and so
concentrates on those aspects most familiar and most appealing to them, i.e. desire,
sexual arousal and union with a beautiful partner. What happens after intercourse
17
The use of airrofievos earlier in the dialogue at 175c8 foreshadows the use of the verb here.
18
Dover (1986), p. 5.

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 80 E. E. PENDER
- pregnancy and labour - is suppressed, and thus at 209c we move from ejaculation
to childbirth in the space of one line. In terms of the spiritual procreation metaphor
it is the beloved who assumes the female role, and the suppression of his experience
suggests that this part of Diotima's speech is addressed to those men who are or have
been the older, active partners in homosexual affairs. So Plato manipulates the female
image of pregnancy to fit the requirements of his male audience. His success is shown
by the fact that, centuries later, critics continue to overlook the presence of the female
type of pregnancy in Diotima's speech.
The soul-child, then, has been born and the proud fathers now 'share its
upbringing' (oweKTpefai). We are not told that the actual nature of the soul-child,
but we learn that it is more beautiful and more immortal than a human child. The
reference to immortality picks up Diotima's earlier argument that human desire to
procreate stems from the desire for immortality. The reason why soul-children are
more immortal than human ones is presumably that ideas, poetry etc. can outlive
people. The reason why soul-children are more beautiful, however, is less clear. But
this is an appropriate idea, given that these praises of soul-children are undoubtedly
addressed to Agathon, the unmarried poet, and are intended to flatter him by
extolling the offspring of his art.19
In the next section (209c7-e4) we hear that poets, such as Homer and Hesiod, and
lawgivers, such as Lycurgus and Solon, have all fathered spiritual children. The logic
of the metaphor would suggest that these men father their soul-children (poems and
laws) in the way that men usually father children, i.e. by ejaculating in another person
(cf. 209a8-209c7). Here, however, Diotima does not talk of spiritual intercourse and
says nothing explicit about the spiritual partners of the poets and lawgivers.20 There
can be no doubt that Plato is playing down the idea of spiritual intercourse at this
stage. For this idea would lead to very awkward questions about creativity, e.g. 'who
was Homer's partner when he fathered the IliadV or 'could a change of partner
account for the differences between the Iliad and Odyssey ?'
Instead of confronting the problem, Plato prefers to fudge a little here and uses
terms which are normally used of male ' begetting' and ' fathering' - yewrjropes
(209a4), exyova... KaraXeiTrovaiv (209d2-3), TralSas KaTeXlnero (209d5), yewqaiv
(209d7) and yewijaavres (209e2). When speaking of particular poets and lawgivers,
then, Plato avoids the images of spiritual pregnancy and ejaculation and instead
focuses attention on a much more straightforward idea: namely that a man, as well
as fathering real children, can also beget children of the spirit or intellect. The idea
of poetry and discourse as children is also used in a number of passages in the
Phaedrus (242b, 257b, 261a, 275e, 276a, 278a-b), and appears earlier in the
Symposium itself at 177d5, where Phaedrus is referred to as nar-qp TOV Xoyov.
In the account of spiritual sex between lovers and the subsequent birth of their soul-
child Plato emphasises the father's contribution of ejaculating seed and ignores the
mother's role of receiving the seed and bringing the child to birth. Turning now to the
third and final section of the metaphor's development in the Symposium, we shall see
that Plato continues to obscure the female contribution to childbirth - this time for
even better reasons.
19
Stokes (1986), p. 172.
20
Dover suggests (1980, p. 152) that 'the beautiful medium' 'in' which Homer and Solon
created their offspring 'can only be the virtuous character of the societies for which Homer sang
and Solon legislated', but nothing is said in the text of the virtuous (or otherwise) character of
the societies in which these men hved and it is clear from 209b4-c7 that Diotima at this stage
is speaking of the lover who is inspired by a beautiful human being (see also 209e5-210a6).

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 SPIRITUAL PREGNANCY 81

(III) From phantoms to the Form (210a, d, 211e-212a)

Before we examine the main passage (at 212a) we must set out briefly what our
pregnant lover has been experiencing since 209e.
In this section of her speech Diotima explains to Socrates what a spiritually
pregnant man must do, if he is to attain the final revelation in the love mysteries: that
is, to achieve a vision of the Form of Beauty. First our man should fall in love with
one body and should there 'beget' fine speeches or arguments (yewdv Xoyovs tcaXovs,
210a7-8). Next he should recognise that the physical beauty of different bodies is 'one
and the same' (ev re KCLI TOLVTOV, 210b3) and should become a lover not of individuals
but of all beautiful bodies. The next stage is to value spiritual beauty more highly than
physical. Moving then through the beauty of activities, institutions, morals and
sciences, he should ultimately become a lover of beauty in the widest or most abstract
sense.
At 210d we come to a significant and rather surprising development of the
metaphor. As the lover gazes on the 'vast sea of beauty' we are told that he
(210d4-6):
TTOXXOVS Kal KaXovs Xoyovs Kal faeyaXoirpfntis TIVTJJ Kal SiavoTJfiara ev (f>i\ooo<f>ia d(f>d6vw.

gives birth to/begets many beautiful and magnificent speeches and thoughts in bounteous
philosophy.
The phrase ev 4>iXooo<f>iq has been understood by translators as referring to the man's
own love of wisdom or philosophical theories:
Lamb :21 ' [he] may... bring forth in all their splendour many fair fruits of discourse
and meditation in a plenteous crop of philosophy';
Hamilton :22 ' [he] may bring forth in the abundance of his love of wisdom many
beautiful and magnificent sentiments and ideas';
Groden:23 'one brings forth many beautiful and magnificent theories and thoughts in
a fruitful philosophy.'
However, if we consider the phrase TI'KT?; ... ev <f>iXoao<f>ia in the light of the
preceding passages, it must be taken to mean, I believe, that the lover is giving birth
to his soul-seed in philosophy, which takes the place of the beloved in intercourse and
assumes the female role. The image of a person having intercourse with philosophy
may seem strange, but it is similar both to an idea in the Gorgias (481d-482a) where
Socrates speaks of philosophy as his nai.8i.Kd and to a very vivid metaphorical passage
in the Republic (495e-496b),24 where philosophy is likened to a woman forced by hard
times to marry an inferior suitor. Once the marriage has taken place, the matter of
children arises and we find the following exchange between Socrates and Adeimantus
(496a2):
What kind of children, then, are such parents likely to produce [yevvavY! Will they not be
bastards [voda] and of inferior nature [$auAa]?-Quite unavoidably.
So when those unfit for education approach [-nX-qaid^ovTes] philosophy and consort
with her unworthily, what kind of thoughts and opinions are we to say they produce
Will they not be such as truly to deserve to be called sophistry, that is, nothing legitimate
[yrqaiov] or partaking in wisdom? - That is altogether certain.
This is very similar to our passage at Symposium 210d, although the offspring of the
union with philosophy is quite different. In contrast to the Republic, the intercourse
11
W. R. M. Lamb, Plato-Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias (London, 1925), pp. 203-5.
22
W. Hamilton, Plato, The Symposium (London, 1951), p. 93.
23
S. Q. Groden (ed. J. A. Brentlinger), The Symposium of Plato (Massachusetts, 1970), p. 92.
24
See A. E. Taylor, Plato (London, 1926), p. 231 n. 1.

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 82 E. E. PENDER
between the lover and philosophy in the Symposium produces 'fine speech and
thought' (which in the terms of the Republic must mean that our lover is a man 'fit
for education'). In both passages the nature of the parents determines the nature of
the children, an idea with obvious parallels in physical union and a consideration of
the utmost importance for a philosopher concerned with the principles of eugenics
(see e.g. Republic 459a ff.). This idea will appear again at 212aff.
Now that the lover has discovered the pleasures of philosophy, he is ready to
experience the greatest delight of all. As he philosophises and contemplates beauty in
its most abstract sense, he suddenly achieves a vision of the Form of Beauty. After
describing this Form and praising its perfection, Diotima says at 211e4-212a2:
Do you think... that the life of a man who could look in that direction, who could contemplate
that entity with the appropriate faculty and be in union with it [awovros avrw], would be of an
inferior nature [^aOAov]?25
The lover here is contemplating the Form of Beauty (which is spoken of as neuter
throughout). 26 He is, it seems, somehow 'in union' (OVVOVTOS) with it as a result of
his contemplation. What kind of union is this? On a literal level, Plato has no answer
for us in this passage. However, we are given a metaphor which offers a vivid picture
of what kind of contact this is. For, as the passage progresses, the union of the lover
and the Form is presented as sexual union leading to procreation. In the preceding
sections of the speech (210e-21 le) the themes of love and sex are ever-present and the
metaphor of spiritual sex is still at work (see 21 Ib5 and 21 Id6). Now the metaphor
is given its final development as the lover has spiritual intercourse with the Form. The
participle OVVOVTOS means simply 'be with', 'be in contact with' but it also sustains
the sexual imagery through its sense of'having intercourse with' (compare the use of
avvovaia at 206c6).
Are we really to understand that the lover of beauty is having sex (albeit
metaphorically) with the Form of Beauty? Stokes (p. 178) comments on the idea of
'contact' in this passage: 'one is tempted to suppose this a sexual metaphor for
spiritual intercourse' and observes in a footnote (p. 471 n. 98):
Diotima's i<f>dirTeo8ai is not, so far as I can discover, used elsewhere for the sexual act; but (1)
the simple verb a-nTeoOai is so used, and (2) so are other words for 'touch' such as 8iyydvu>,
and (3) the closely related compound lira^dw is connected by Aeschylus (?), Prometheus,
849-51, with Zeus' begetting of "E-na<j>os on Io...
Yet e(f>aTTT€o0ai is used elsewhere in Plato in a sexual context and moreover it appears
in a passage which provides an important parallel with Symposium 212a2-7, as Taylor
observes.27 This is Republic 490b, where the lover of knowledge is presented as having
intercourse with reality or true being:
As he goes his way, his passion [TOV epwros] will not be blunted nor will he cease from it before
he touches [aipaaOai] the nature of true reality in each case with that part of his soul which is
fitted to touch it [i<f>aTTTeadai] because of its kinship with it; approaching [wAijatacras] it with
this and having intercourse [fuyds] with true reality, he begets [yevvrfoas] intelligence and truth.
He would then, but not before, have knowledge, truly live, be nourished and so delivered from
his birthpangs [Xijyot (bSivos].

This passage clearly presents an image of the lover of knowledge having sexual
intercourse with true reality - a point observed by Taylor (see above) and Burnyeat
25
T h e m a n w h o lives a </>avXov fliov c a n b e identified with t h e m a n w h o p r o d u c e s m e r e
p h a n t o m s — the <f>av\a o f Republic 496a.
26
This, as I have already suggested, goes some way to explain the use of the neuter forms at
206c and d. See p. 75 above. " Taylor (1926), p. 231 n. 1.

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 SPIRITUAL PREGNANCY 83
(p. 13). However, Burnyeat overlooks the fact that Republic 490b offers the same
image as Symposium 212a.28 Stokes is surely right, then, to detect a sexual metaphor
here, for how else are we to understand the lover's progression from loving his
iraiSiKa to loving souls and finally to loving the Form of Beauty itself?
In the Republic childbirth results from intercourse with Being and this is also the
case in the Symposium, as we discover at 212a2-5:
ij OVK ivdvfj.rj... on ivravda avrw ixova^ov yewjoeTai, opibvTi w oparov TO KIXXOV, TIKTCIV OVK
eiSwXa ap€Trjs, are OVK (I&COXOV i^aTTTOfievco, aXXa aXi]8rj, are TOV dXrjdovs e<t>a.TTTO(if'vco.

Don't you realise... that only there, seeing in the way that the Beautiful can be seen, can one stop
begetting images of virtue, since one no longer touches an image, but truth, because one now
touches the truth?29
Here we learn that, as a result of being in contact with the Form, the lover is able to
riKTtiv true virtue rather than an image of it. What precisely does TIKTCIV refer to
here? Up to this point of Diotima's speech this verb has denoted male ejaculation -
the 'bringing forth' or 'giving birth' to seed during intercourse. However, it cannot
mean this here. For it makes no sense to say that a man, by having intercourse with
an image, ejaculates images, whereas a man, by having intercourse with the truth,
ejaculates truth. There is no logical connection between the kind of partner a man has
and the kind of seed he produces.
But there is a connection between the kind of partner a man has and the kind of
child their union produces, a point I noted above in my discussion on Republic 496a
(p. 11). The nature of the parents determines the nature of the child that is created,
and thus, when our lover has intercourse with images, he produces images of virtue,
whereas when he has intercourse with truth, he produces true virtue.30 Images and
true virtue, then, are sou\-children, not merely soul-seed, and so the verb TIKT€IV is
used here in the sense of 'begetting children'. We must remember Dover's point
above (p. 2) that TIKTHV, as well as being used to refer to ejaculation, can be used in
Greek both of the female 'bearing' and the male 'begetting' of a child.
Plato presents, then, the male lover as having intercourse with the Form of Beauty
and fathering true virtue. As at 209c a child has been procreated by means of
intercourse between two partners and so, following the analogy of physical
procreation, we expect both a male and female type of pregnancy to have taken place.

28
See Burnyeat, p. 13. The comment 'The Republic comes closer to what we are seeking when
it describes an intercourse with the Forms which begets understanding and truth' gives the
impression that this image does not appear in the Symposium, which, I argue, is not the case.
29
Taylor comments on this passage (op. cit., p. 230 n. 1): "The allusion is to the tale of
Ixion and the cloud which was imposed on him in the place of Hera, and from which the
Centaurs sprang.' (The idea was actually Zeller's (1857), see Bury (1973), p. 132 ad he). But
surely a more appropriate parallel is to be found in the story of the elSwXov of Helen, see
Euripides, Helen 27-36. Republic 586b7-c5, a passage in which Socrates is speaking of real and
unreal pleasures, shows that the story of Helen's el8wXov provided Plato with a useful mythical
parallel for the contrast between illusion and reality. In this passage we also find references to
'desires' and 'begetting in souls': Ap ovv OVK drayioy KO.1 iJSorais awtivai /xe/ieiyfteVaiy
Au7rais, ei&a>Xois rrjs O\XT]8OVS r)8ovrjs Kal €OKiaypa<j>Tlii€vats, VTTO TTJS Trap aAA^Aas deoeios
airoxpaivo[jL€vais, ware o<f>o8povs €KaT€pas <f>a{v€o8ai, Kal epwras €auTa>y XVTTWVTOLS rots
aifipooiv ivTiKTeiv Kal Treptfji.ax'>JTovs elvau, oiairep TO TTJS 'EXevijs clSwXov imo TWV iv Tpoia
Erqai^opos 4>r)oi yeveadai irepifMax'tTov ayvoia TOV aXrjdovs;
30
I support Stokes' suggestion (p. 179) that at 212a2-5 'the necessary argument is concealed
in the metaphor' and am convinced of a point he makes rather tentatively (p. 179): 'Perhaps
Diotima means, even if she does not say, that intercourse with a mere image cannot produce real
progeny, and it needs a real union with a real partner to procreate real offspring.'

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 r
»*•.

r*
84 E. E. PENDER _
The lover experiences a' male' pregnancy leading to ejaculation as he ' has intercourse i.
with the truth' (TOV dXrjOovs kj>wmoptvw) and so 'fathers' (TIKT€IV) the spiritual ;
children. After intercourse a mother must nurture and bring to birth the male seed *»
and in this passage the Form of Beauty, the lover's sexual partner, clearly must &
perform the mother's role. Thus it is the Form that experiences the pregnancy, labour L
and birth of the soul-child, with the lover taking the role of proud father. However, p
as at 209c there is an ellipsis as Plato carefully avoids mentioning this 'female' type &,
of pregnancy. Why? Apart from catering to the interests of his male audience, Plato ^*
now has even more pressing reasons for not wanting to dwell on the female b.
contribution to the birth. For the idea of a pregnant Form leads to all sorts of very ,r
uncomfortable questions, e.g. ' How can a Form be pregnant at one time, but not at f*
another?' - a Form which is supposed to befixedin its nature, free from change and, L
as Diotima herself has just told us (at 211b), 'does not experience anything' (fir;8e i
•nda\€iv /xr/Sev). f*
Even within the realm of spiritual pregnancy, it is logically impossible for a Form £*
to be pregnant and so the metaphor completely breaks down at this point. A further %
awkward problem arises in that, whereas earlier in the speech Beauty was cast as a fcr
goddess presiding over male-childbirth, now perfect Beauty has become involved in \
the act of procreation itself and so can no longer be a third party. For these very good ;
reasons Plato avoids all mention of the Form as pregnant and focuses attention &•
instead on the experience of the lover and his triumph offinallyfathering real instead g
of phantom children.
The mention of these phantoms, elSwXa, obviously introduces a new element into
the metaphor, and it is an element which is used to make an important philosophical
point. In the earlier passages, when the lover and his beloved had spiritual intercourse
they gave birth to virtue (see 209a and e) as their spiritual children. Now we learn
from Diotima that in fact these children are not real, but phantoms, mere images of
virtue. The only true spiritual children are those procreated by contact with the Form
of Beauty. Thus, although they are 'more beautiful' and 'more immortal' than p.
human ones, these earlier spiritual children (poems and laws) cannot match the ^
products of union with the Form of Beauty.
We see here a progression from the physical to the spiritual and a further
progression from spiritual contact between two souls in the realm of Becoming to
spiritual contact between a human soul and true reality in the realm of Being. On the
physical level the result of union is human children. On the first spiritual level
phantom soul-children are produced and it is only on the second spiritual level that
the lover begets true or real soul-children. This is a subtle way of saying that all poetry
is inferior to the products of the philosopher's contemplation, a point which Plato
makes in different ways on a number of occasions, but has to make very tactfully in
an account of Agathon's party.
The idea of phantoms of virtue is introduced, then, to raise us to a higher plane
where we learn that all the things of this world, even spiritual children, are in fact
phantoms when compared to what is truly real, i.e. the Forms.
Now that our lover has enjoyed union with the Form of Beauty, what happens to
him next? The happy ending of this love affair comes at 212a5-7:
T€KOVTI Si dptTTjv dXrjdrj Kal 6peifiafi.evw iirdpxei OeotfuXei yeveodai, Kal eiirep rta aXXw
dvdpwmuv ddavdrto Kal eKeivw.

He is able to beget true virtue and to nourish it, and hence to be a divine favourite, so that if ;.
any man can be immortal, it will be him.

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 SPIRITUAL PREGNANCY 85
As I said earlier, Plato in this passage focuses attention on the experience of the lover
and avoids describing the Form as pregnant. Thus he speaks only of the lover
* 'begetting' (TCKOVTI) true virtue, using the verb (as at 212a3) to refer to the masculine
act of fathering, and tells us nothing of the female role in this birth.
As the lover nourishes (dpei/janeva)) the child, we find the same progression of
union, childbirth and rearing as at 209c. But whereas earlier the verb for rearing was
<wvcKTpe<f>ei, as the two lovers shared the task, now, of course, Plato wants the role
of the Form to drop out of sight, so he removes the prefix aw- and presents the lover
.- as bringing up the child on his own.
My final point on this passage concerns the matter of immortality. After begetting
a true soul-child, the lover will become a divine favourite (6eo</>i\ei) and, if any man
, will become immortal, he will. Why is this? The answer, it seems, works on two levels.
First, within the metaphor, he has consorted with a Form and with it has fathered
' a child, which he now takes care of. Since the Form is divine (21 le), the lover is now
, the father of a semi-divine child. Through this special relationship with the Form,
which, I argue, has to be regarded as the soul-child's mother, the lover has a closer
.? link with the realm of divine beings. Also, as Diotima has suggested earlier (206c),
, there is a sense in which the production of any child immortalises and so, according
to Platonic thought, the production of a true soul-child must surely immortalise most
* of all!31
Second, outside of the metaphor, the lover of beauty becomes immortal because he
achieves a vision of true reality which leads him to an understanding of true virtue.
!• This understanding will help him (in the language of the Phaedo) to free his soul and
(in the Republic's terms) to achieve his escape from the realm of becoming to the
eternal realm of Being.
•t The way that the lover achieves immortality through spiritual children is clearly
different from the way in which parents achieve immortality through their human
offspring. In the latter case the parents 'live on' through the children they leave
» behind. But in the case of the lover of Beauty, the ' children' he begets - intelligence
and the rest of virtue - cannot exist independently of him, for they are new virtues
?
present in his soul. Thus he cannot be said to 'leave behind' these children after
32
? death. Both the physically and spiritually pregnant men achieve immortality by
means of procreation, but the relationship between parent and child and the type of
* immortality in each case are quite different. Here the metaphor has reached another
, of its limits.
CONCLUSIONS
To understand Diotima's speech the reader must grasp that Plato employs four
I different types of pregnancy, two physical and two spiritual. First, although it is never
"^ spoken of directly, the whole image is obviously based on the literal, physical state of
> '• pregnancy experienced by the female after intercourse. Second, as Morrison, Dover
f;and Stokes have shown, Plato uses the idea of a male type of 'pregnancy and
, childbirth' to refer to the act of ejaculation during physical intercourse. Next we find
;; these male and female types of physical pregnancy mirrored at the spiritual level.
31
See Stokes, pp. 180-1: 'By means of this offspring a man will enjoy a higher degree of
t immortality than by any other. No ordinary child, and no ordinary intellectual masterpiece, will
, confer such immortality as the production of true goodness.'
82
Stokes (p. 181) comments that 'it is left vague in what sense one leaves behind one the true
goodness to which one has given birth'. I would argue that the metaphor ends here and that the
. lover of Beauty cannot be regarded as leaving behind his 'children' in any sense. For these
'children' must be seen as aspects of his own soul.

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 86 E. E. PENDER
Thus the third type of pregnancy and birth is the male pregnancy with seed, which the
male lover ejaculates during spiritual sexual intercourse; and finally the fourth type
- which has eluded critics - is that experienced by his partner who, taking the female
role, becomes pregnant and gives birth to the soul-child. Although the image is often
difficult to follow, I think that it does have a logical progression. I reject Burnyeat's
view (see above) that there is a strange reversal in the sequence of intercourse and
birth, since at each level the different births are the result of the corresponding type
of pregnancy.
My first conclusion, therefore, is that there are two types of spiritual pregnancy in
the Symposium, a ' male' type, as has been observed by Morrison, Dover and Stokes,
and a 'female' type, which has been overlooked.
My second conclusion develops from the first, as I argue that at the end of the
section on spiritual pregnancy the lover of beauty has a pregnancy of the ' male' type
and that this requires a ' female' type if children are to be produced. As spiritual
children are procreated in this passage, then someone or something must have given
birth to them. If we follow the analogy of physical pregnancy and birth, as I feel we
must, then this someone or something must be their father's sexual partner, which at
this stage is nothing other than the Form of Beauty. As a Form cannot be 'pregnant',
Plato has steered himself into an awkward corner. He manages, however, to
manoeuvre himself out of this difficulty by directing all attention to the experience of
the lover. This ploy has remained undetected, as critics have allowed their attention
to be diverted from the female contribution to childbirth. That Plato has used the
overtly female image of pregnancy and at the same time has obscured the female role
in procreation is no small achievement.

University of Durham E. E. PENDER

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