Abstract

When in a prologue Socrates retreats into a porch he dedicates his time to a dialogue, with an interlocutor (in the prologue of Protagoras) or with himself (in the prologue of Symposium, an anticipation of the analogous incident of Potidea related by Alcibiades). In the case of Symposium, Socrates is at a loss and is searching a way of escape, a poros out of aporia (and Poros is notoriously the father of Eros - the subject later chosen by the diners - in the discourse of Diotima related by Socrates). On the basis of structural elements and linguistic signs, the aporia seems to be dwelling on the relationship between beauty and goodness, main point at 204e ("imagine that the object is changed, and the inquiry is made about the good instead of the beautiful"). Plato, the author who has planned the dialogue, and Socrates, the character who wouldn't know the argument and the development of the dialogue, in the prologue are perfectly melded together. Besides, it's proposed a platonic exegesis on Theognis (vv. 769-772).