Aristophane's Views On Love

The Symposium by Plato revolves around the subject matter of love. Plato writes about seven different views on love. All of the different views come from the speakers that attended the symposium in honor of Agathon. Eryximachus suggests that each guest should make a speech in admiration of the g-d of Love. The most irrational view on love is provided by Aristophanes' speech. Aristophanes decides to explain love in the form of a legend.
Aristophanes spoke about a myth in order to explain his view on love. He claims that long ago there were three types of people: male, female, and androgynous. He explained that each body had twice of what they have now. Each person had two heads, two sets of hands, two sets of legs, two sets of genitals, etc. He also explained that males were descended from the sun, females were descended from the earth, and the androgynous were descended from the moon. Aristophanes explained that humans did not remain this way because they were very powerful and they made threatening attacks on the g-ds. The only way the g-ds could stop the humans without sacrificing their lives was to have Zeus split them in half in order to make them less powerful.
As each human was split in half, the male human would become two males. The female human would become two females. Finally the androgynous human would become a female and a
He explains that when people find their other half, they are overwhelmed with feelings of affection, concern, and love for that person. He claims that people begin to care so much without really ever understanding why. Aristophanes explains that Love is our leader. It is keeping the people from acting up against the g-ds. He states that if people work against Love, they will find themselves on the wrong side of the g-ds. He claims that if people continue to respect the g-ds, that Zeus one day will restore people to the original whole