| "He [Aristodemus] woke up when it was nearly dawn and the cocks were
already crowing. Once he'd woken up, he saw that the others were asleep
or had left, and that Agathon, Aristophanes and Socrates were the only ones
still awake, drinking from a large cup they passed from left to right. Socrates
was engaged in dialogue with them. Aristodemus said he couldn't remember most
of the argument, because he'd missed the start and was half asleep anyway.
But the key point, he said, was that Socrates was pressing them to agree
that the same man should be capable of writing both comedy and tragedy,
and that anyone who is an expert in writing tragedy must also be an expert
in writing comedy. He was getting them to agree to this , though they were
sleepy and not following very well; Aristophanes fell asleep first, and
Agathon fell asleep when day was already breaking." (Plato, Symposium, Christopher Gill, tr., Penguin Classics, 1999) |
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Myth's innovations |