In this translation I have tried to write in modern standard English a version of Plato’s Symposium that is faithful to the Greek, is not too tendentious, and is in tune with the current academic reception of the text. It is not a word-for-word translation (if such a thing were possible). There can be no close equivalence in readable English of the original words in the original order of clauses. Sentences in Plato can be very long, with complicated syntax. I have simplified the sentence structure and in a few cases rearranged the clauses for the sake of clarity and to make them follow a familiar English pattern.
Each speech in the Symposium has its individual style – grandiloquent, self-consciously exquisite, ironic, and so on, and each reflects on its speaker. Meaning itself can be inherent in style as well as in argument, and can change when individuality disappears in translation. Readers should be aware that a speech which seems vapid and repetitious to some readers of Plato’s Greek may sound snappier in this translation. Conversely, much that is spare and witty in the original has, I regret to say, become ponderous. Compromises have to be made and there is a loss.
There is also difficulty in that the semantic range of a given Greek word does not necessarily correspond closely with that of its nearest English equivalent. For that reason any one Greek word may be translated variously in English, according to context. A glossary is included to give some help in fixing the meaning more exactly in particular instances.
Plato’s text has not come down to us entirely as he wrote it; there are obvious, and some not so obvious, corruptions. In a few places where the Greek has long baffled many scholars the translation aims to give what appears to me to be the general sense, although not all Platonists will agree.
The text used is that of Kenneth Dover (Plato: Symposium, Cambridge University Press, 1980). The numbers and letters in the margin represent a system of reference now universally employed for the works of Plato. It dates back to the edition published by Stephanus in Geneva in the mid-sixteenth century.
I am very grateful indeed for the help and advice of several readers and in particular to Desmond Clarke, Roger Crisp, Frisbee Sheffield and Hilary Gaskin.