Socrates\' last words

[Rumo]

http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2010/0 ... ast-words/

Perhaps Socrates died with an erection, but is the interpretation of his words correct?

In my opinion the answer must be negative for a variety of reasons.

The actual last words of Socrates are ???? ??????? ??? ?? ????????? (Phaedo 118a). If the 'cock to Asclepius' is supposed to be a blasphemous joke, it makes little sense to tell Crito not to forget about making the offering. Moreover Crito takes it seriously: ???? ????? ????? (in future tense)

Domestic animals and birds were sacrificed to Asclepius, as such the text makes sense without assuming a double meaning. However I have serious doubts ????????? has the same meanings as English 'cock'. It certainly denotes a male bird, but I couldn't find any reference (in LSJ and similar lexicons) for penis. I know in some languages the slang words for penis are related to birds, even cocks or chicken(e.g. Romance languages), yet these are not universal metaphors. So unless there's positive evidence indicating otherwise, we have no 'signal word' in 'cock'.

There is also the portrait of Socrates by Plato. The parallels with Silenus are not to portray an ugly and obscene drunkard. In Symposium, 215a-b, Socrates "is likest to the Silenus-figures (???? ????????) that sit in the statuaries' shops; those, I mean, which our craftsmen make with pipes or flutes in their hands: when their two halves are pulled open, they are found to contain images of gods"

And last but not at least, in Apology, 18b-c, we learn that one of the false accusations against Socrates is the disbelief in gods. If the story is true, would Plato promote this blasphemy? The alleged joke undermines the apology of Plato: by mocking Asclepius Socrates would be obviously guilty not only in the eyes of the Athenians, but for most ancient readers of Plato.

[Jona Lendering]

Perhaps you are reading something I've not claimed - although the headline is indeed a bit misleading. Of course, the words itself are primarily meant to refer to a sacrifice, but there are too many signal words to ignore them. Plato was clearly making a sexual pun. Also note that the Silenus association is in the sculpture. As to the remainder, see Keuls' book.

There is more to be said about those last words, BTW. Asclepius received a cock when somebody was cured. But Socrates was not ill, and "cured of the illness that is life" is just an interpretation - in fact, there is someone in the Phaedo who is explicitly mentioned as being ill, immediately at the beginning... look it up, you'll be surprised.

[Rumo]

I'm not sure how the case for obscenity can be supported based on all I've said above. It's not just the word 'cock' (which needs to be proven is a 'signal word'; Keuls also claims - alas, no footnote - the rooster is a "conventional homosexual love gift" which Socrates is offering to Asclepius, an interpretation which seems even more far-stretched), the man wasn't a clown. Socrates as a Silenus figure is not just an association in the sculpture, but a metaphor of form and content. In my opinion, a man of filthy thoughts and words is not what Plato portrays throughout his dialogues.

Keuls also fails to follow the text beyond the "cock to Asclepius". She doesn't explain why Socrates asks Crito to perform the sacrifice and why Crito accepts it. IMHO a book about phalli in arts and politics isn't the best authority to read and understand Plato.

There is more to be said about those last words, BTW. Asclepius received a cock when somebody was cured. But Socrates was not ill, and "cured of the illness that is life" is just an interpretation - in fact, there is someone in the Phaedo who is explicitly mentioned as being ill, immediately at the beginning... look it up, you'll be surprised.

I know it is Plato. Glenn Most suggested ('A Cock for Asclepius' in The Classical Quarterly, NS, Vol. 43.1/1993) this was Plato's subtle way to designate himself as a successor of Socrates, as a "custodian of his arguments". An interpretation which makes much more sense to me.

[Jona Lendering]

Keuls also claims - alas, no footnote - the rooster is a "conventional homosexual love gift" which Socrates is offering to Asclepius, an interpretation which seems even more far-stretched), the man wasn't a clown.

What's the objection? There is no debate that the rooster is a homosexual love gift indeed, just like the hare. This is dealt with by Hupperts, Eros Dikaios (2000), but was already known to Winckelmann. Or is there a different point?

In my opinion, a man of filthy thoughts and words is not what Plato portrays throughout his dialogues.

What is filthy? Obscenities -defined as sexual remarks- were more within every day speak in ancient society than in ours. Sexual pictures were almost omnipresent (and not just in Greece). What this means, I do not know, but that people could make jokes about a dying man's virility and could think of a terminal erection as something worthy of praise, seems to me by no means excluded.

We may think it is not good to discuss sexuality in public, and we think it's filthy when Joseph Biden says "fuck" in public, but our sentiments are irrelevant. The ancients thought differently. Deuteronomy 34.7 is a case in point. To our taste, it is just vulgar to say that "Moses' eye was not dim and he still had all his bodily fluids", and most translations try to cover it up, but this is what it says. Moses was still a good lover: the ultimate tribute to the deceased. I see no reason why Plato might not have said something similar about Socrates.

[Astiryu1]

I always thought Socrates was pretty funny as well as intelligent! The humor above is so much more innuendoish than some of our present day comedians. The moderns would say that was pretty lightweight! This is an American viewpoint so please forgive me/us if it doesn't represent your homeland. hock:

[Rumo]

What's the objection? There is no debate that the rooster is a homosexual love gift indeed, just like the hare. This is dealt with by Hupperts, Eros Dikaios (2000), but was already known to Winckelmann. Or is there a different point?

The rooster was a homosexual love gift indeed, but it was from erastes to eromenos (usually a teenage boy). It makes no sense to consider Asclepius, even jokingly, Socrates' passive partner. Moreover it makes the blasphemy even more outrageous. Would Keuls, you or anyone else actually hold that Plato would have dared to suggest Asclepius is performing felatio on Socrates or getting sodomized by him? I am afraid Keuls displays here little knowledge about Plato and the 4th century Athens, and rather judges the situation with her modern mindset. She cares less about Asclepius than Danish cartoonists cared about Muhammad and she doesn't note this "sexual joke" is not a casual conversation about erections, but a pious offering (proven by Socrates' request to Crito and the subsequent reply of the latter) to a Greek god. She perhaps creates some amusement for the modern audience, but she fails in proving this was also a joke for Plato and his contemporaries.

What is filthy? Obscenities -defined as sexual remarks- were more within every day speak in ancient society than in ours. Sexual pictures were almost omnipresent (and not just in Greece). What this means, I do not know, but that people could make jokes about a dying man's virility and could think of a terminal erection as something worthy of praise, seems to me by no means excluded.

We may think it is not good to discuss sexuality in public, and we think it's filthy when Joseph Biden says "fuck" in public, but our sentiments are irrelevant. The ancients thought differently. Deuteronomy 34.7 is a case in point. To our taste, it is just vulgar to say that "Moses' eye was not dim and he still had all his bodily fluids", and most translations try to cover it up, but this is what it says. Moses was still a good lover: the ultimate tribute to the deceased. I see no reason why Plato might not have said something similar about Socrates.

Blasphemy is filthy in a religious society.

However I'm not sure by what criteria one can assess sexual remarks were "more within every day speak speak in ancient society than in ours". There's no single society of ours, not even all modern languages and cultures have the same predisposition for explicit sexual remarks, not even all the social contexts are similar. Probably the same is true for ancient societies and I don't know how one can set a meaningful measurement. Not only sexual pictures but sexual messages are omnipresent today. And I certainly don't think it's filthy to say 'fuck' in public (as we both have just done).

I doubt the ancients had a single common mindset, as such I don't see any reason to judge Plato's work based on graffiti from Pompeii, Athenian vases or whatever other random sample. Yet I agree many ancients thought differently. For Plato, defending Socrates to be a pious man, such a 'joke' would undermine his entire apology.

[Epictetus]

In all honesty, I’ve never heard of this before.

We know that in some cases Greek philosophers used “obscenity” (for lack of a better term) to shake up the establishment. Look at Diogenes of Sinope, a rival of Plato:

That for which men gave themselves the most trouble and spent the most money, which caused the razing of many cities and the pitiful destruction of many nations — this he found the least laborious and most inexpensive of all things to procure. For he did not have to go anywhere for his sexual gratification but, as he humorously put it, he found Aphrodite everywhere, without expense; and the poets libelled the goddess, he maintained, on account of their own want of self-control, when they called her "the all-golden." And since many doubted this boast, he gave a public demonstration before the eyes of all, saying that if men were like himself, Troy would never have been taken, nor Priam, king of the Phrygians and a descendant of Zeus, been slain at the altar of Zeus. But the Achaeans had been such fools as to believe that even dead men found women indispensable and so slew Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles. Fish showed themselves more sensible than men almost; for whenever they needed to eject their sperm, they went out of doors and rubbed themselves against something rough. He marvelled that while men were unwilling to pay out money to have a leg or arm or any other part of their body rubbed, that while not even the very rich would spend a single drachma for this purpose, yet on that one member they spent many talents time and again and some had even risked their lives in the bargain. In a joking way he would say that this sort of intercourse was a discovery made by Pan when he was in love with Echo and could not get hold of her, but roamed over the mountains night and day till Hermes in pity at his distress, since he was his son, taught him the trick. So Pan, when he had learned his lesson, was relieved of his great misery; and the shepherds learned the habit from him.

In such language he at times used to ridicule the victims of conceit and folly…

Dio Chrysostom, Discourses, 6.16+

The death of Socrates is a very common topic among later writers, so I glanced through some later philosophical writers to see if they noticed anything like this in Socrates’ last words. I didn’t see anything of the sort, even though it is mentioned dozens of times in the sources I checked. However, I did find one thing:

Do you consider that Socrates was ill- used because he drank down that drought which the state had brewed as if it were an elixir of immortal life, and up to the point of death discoursed on death? Was he ill-treated because his blood grew cold, and, as the chill spread, gradually the beating of his pulses stopped? How much more should we envy him than those who are served in cups of precious stone, whose wine a catamite - a tool for anything, an unsexed or sexless creature - dilutes with snow held above in a golden vessel!

Seneca, Essays, I.

It is interesting that here in this context Seneca compares Socrates favourably to an “unsexed or sexless creature” who uses wine as a “catamite.” Is this terminology a coincidence, or is he thinking about a “double meaning” of Socrates’ last words?

[Jona Lendering]

It is interesting that here in this context Seneca compares Socrates favourably to an “unsexed or sexless creature” who uses wine as a “catamite.” Is this terminology a coincidence, or is he thinking about a “double meaning” of Socrates’ last words?

To be accurate, there is not a double meaning in Socrates' last words, although we don't know what he meant. The double meaning is created by Plato, who places them in a context that leads us to assume that there is a double meaning. Seneca may have appreciated the language game.

[Rumo]

How much more should we envy him than those who are served in cups of precious stone, whose wine a catamite - a tool for anything, an unsexed or sexless creature - dilutes with snow held above in a golden vessel!

It is interesting that here in this context Seneca compares Socrates favourably to an “unsexed or sexless creature” who uses wine as a “catamite.” Is this terminology a coincidence, or is he thinking about a “double meaning” of Socrates’ last words?

Seneca compares Socrates with those drinking wine poured by a catamite. In ancient society the cup-bearers were often such young and effeminate boys (see also the myth of Ganymedes).

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I should perhaps read this more carefully, but did Socrates ask a cock(rooster?) be presented to someone after his death?
Surely this could only be interpreted as a possible insult, as is calling someone a 'faggot', but from the grave?

I may have picked up this whole thing wrong though...

[Epictetus]

Seneca compares Socrates with those drinking wine poured by a catamite. In ancient society the cup-bearers were often such young and effeminate boys (see also the myth of Ganymedes).

Ah, yes. Sorry. Too many subjects in that sentence, and I misinterpreted what he was saying.

[Rumo]

I've read few book reviews to see if my objections to Keuls' readings of Plato resonate in any way with what some other scholars think of this book.

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1994/94.05.05.html

• Her reading of images is consistently singleminded: the ubiquitous column becomes in her parlance a phallic pillar, the money pouch connotes an "economic phallus", heroes carrying unsheathed swords or spears are in "phallic pursuit".

http://www.jstor.org/stable/505707

• After initially dismissing the Freudian who sees a phallus in every banana, stick and cigar, she finds phallic symbolism in everything from snakes, spears, and money purses to alabastra and Doric columns.

• All too often, however, a tone of strident feminism, even petulance ("Alexander, whom the world insists on calling 'the Great'") threatens to turn the book into a polemic rather than a scholarly investigation. [...] Keuls has unfortunately let passionate conviction and wishful thinking get the better of objectivity and common sense.

The book was first published in 1985. Who else promoted this interpretation of Socrates' last words in the past 25 years and why it didn't get a wider support?

[Epictetus]

Evidently there are quite a few different interpretations out there. A Philosophy Professor at the University of Minnesota has listed twenty-one different interpretations of his last words.

[Jona Lendering]

The book was first published in 1985. Who else promoted this interpretation of Socrates' last words in the past 25 years and why it didn't get a wider support?

Why should it? It is trivial. Just a curious theory. Plato made a sexual pun - does it really matter? Does this open new insights in Plato's thought? I would not have written about it if it had not been requested.

And even if it were important - some great theories are ignored pretty long. Max Weber is, in the Anglo-Saxon world, better remembered for his works on the Protestant Ethic than for his devastating criticism of Ed. Meyer. As a consequence, people like Paul Cartledge and Tom Holland can repeat outdated nineteenth-century theories. So, great theories can be ignored. The fact that something becomes mainstream, does not mean that it is true, and the fact that it is not picked up, does not mean it is untrue.

[Rumo]

Why should it? It is trivial. Just a curious theory. Plato made a sexual pun - does it really matter? Does this open new insights in Plato's thought? I would not have written about it if it had not been requested.

In David's article I found this inspiring apophthegm (with an extension suggested by the author):"Never consider any one expression of Socrates' views in isolation from other expressions of Socrates' views".

There are dozens of interpretations of those words, from Late Antiquity to modern times. In such a vivid debate if Keuls' theory would be worth any attention, at least some scholars would continue her ideas or even engage with them critically if there's any point in doing so. For example that study of Glenn W. Most mentioned earlier prompted a reply from J. Crooks five years later.

Perhaps this is also because Keuls' interpretation is flawed from several vital points of view: no bibliography, the analysis is narrow-sighted (the author fails to discuss the portrait of Socrates in Plato's work, she doesn't even follow the text properly, does not discuss why Socrates uses first person plural, etc) and the wishful thinking is rampant (the text in question does not really mention an erection, nor a sexual pun; Keuls, however, assumes them both in what it seems to be at best a chain of speculations and at worst circular reasoning). As pointed out also by other reviewers, she is rather convinced of the truth of her sayings. In this case she knows "it was, in fact, a joke". How she reached such knowledge is a mystery to me.

On erections, I can concede on the possibility for the sake of discussion, but I am really also wondering if "men tend to have erections at the moment of death" (expectedly Keuls quotes no medical studies). The cause of the death makes no difference? The position of the body makes no difference? Do these erections occur before death or after death? Was Plato aware of this fact? Stupid and irrelevant questions, I guess, the author knows the Truth.

I guess it's only more gas poured on fire, as my previous objections remained unanswered.

And even if it were important - some great theories are ignored pretty long. Max Weber is, in the Anglo-Saxon world, better remembered for his works on the Protestant Ethic than for his devastating criticism of Ed. Meyer. As a consequence, people like Paul Cartledge and Tom Holland can repeat outdated nineteenth-century theories. So, great theories can be ignored. The fact that something becomes mainstream, does not mean that it is true, and the fact that it is not picked up, does not mean it is untrue.

Weber's criticism had some well-deserved echoes, however the debates about cultures and civilizations, history, anthropology, religion, mean much, much more than Weber vs Meyer. And I guess today Weber's rather a historiographic chapter.

But is a two pages rant without any shred of evidence and method a "great theory"? Keuls writes about Plato ignoring most of what was written on his dialogues for centuries, promoting outdated Freudian obsessions, yet that doesn't seem to be as bothersome. Any random collection of facts (or "facts") aggregated by dubious assertions should be considered a possible great theory?

This should not be about truths coming from epiphanies, but about truths which can either be proven, or at least argued as most plausible out of all competing alternatives. If someone would claim Socrates' cock refers to a dodo bird, I need not to prove him wrong. If Keuls claims Plato is thinking of Socrates penetrating Asclepius, I need not to prove her wrong. Her theory is implausible until the proper evidence and arguments are adduced. The most dangerous thing about some demythifiers is when they replace myths with other myths.