In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates details what Eros truly is. People desire what they do not have, or in other words, they want permanent possession of it. Furthermore, he goes on to say that it is human nature to reproduce because it leads to immortality (Plato, Symposium 199). From this, Socrates explains that people desire to be immortal, however, reaching immortality could be done in different ways whether it was in a pederastic relationship or a heterosexual one.
Both relationships, most of the time, produce an offspring; however, one produces real goodness and beauty. Reproductive heterosexual relationships desire immortality through bearing an offspring, since reproduction is “gentle and happy when it comes near beauty” (199). In other relationships, both pederastic and heterosexual, immortality is gained through noble acts. Socrates mentions Alcestis and Achilles, who both gave up their life for someone they loved, but he states that they didn’t simply do it out of love for the other, but rather a desire for immortality (201). The noble act of giving up one’s life created a good reputation which gave these people a sense of immortality. Additionally, Socrates explains that some people’s offsprings aren’t necessarily human. Like Homer and Hesiod, who were great poets, left behind their poems that brought them everlasting fame, making them immortal (202). The last way someone can reach immortality that Socrates explains is through knowledge. In pederastic relationships, the eraste is in charge of passing on his knowledge onto the eromenos to make him a better person, but also himself. Out of all the ways someone becomes immortal, the pederastic relationship leads to a better “goodness” in a relationship. The eraste teaches his eromenos his knowledge and moves up Diotima’s ladder of love, where they understand the love of mental beauty over physical beauty. This leads them to understand the different types of beauty, or wisdom, there is and creates a real understanding of what beauty is which “earns him the friendship of the gods and makes him, if anyone, immortal” (204).
Overall, the different relationships lead to different types of immortality, but the most wholesome one that truly defines what Eros is, is a pederastic relationship where eromenoi and erastai go beyond the individual and mind and pass on knowledge to better one another.
