Desire with Hope: Aristophanes and the Comic Catharsis

Like the previous speakers of Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes describes Eros in terms of his own profession, even endowing it with his personal image. His hiccups are programmatic, creating laughter; they are strategic too, enabling him to speak after Doctor Eryximachus, whose pretensions to scientific mastery of the various ‘erotic sciences’ he is bound to undercut. Indeed, just before he speaks, he states his purpose. It is to ‘make laughter’. He is not afraid of saying something comical, ‘for that would be clear gain, the native business of our Muse’, but of saying something ridiculous, of being laughed at, not with. The preliminary skirmish, so like a comic proagon, shows confidence and skill; a major competitor, and a dangerous one, has entered on the scene.