Aristophanes goes for a second attempt: in earlier days, he claims, there was a third sex, man-wives. He expands on the theme wishing first of all to be funny, refraining from any attempt to stimulate thought. And, in this company, the only thing you can do then is to hope for forgiveness. The fact that Aristophanes, indeed, if you come to think about it sometimes, not always, knew how to write plays, and of those hiccups confirm his story of him having gone on a spree the day before. He will have realized that he could not make this as "the" Aristophanes of, for instance Plutus. Plato's report on this party having been preserved for civilisation, Aristophanes must be glad indeed that his plays got preserved also, in order to set the record straight. But finally, it could be that Plato deals with Aristophanes here in Symposium in a particularly unflattering way because of a possible anger at the side of Plato for the unflattering satire of Socrates in Aristophanes' play Clouds.

Then Agathon is asked to take his turn.
Socrates starts to pester him and distract his attention by defying him with waggish understatements.
"Shut up!" Faidros shouts.
And Socrates...shuts up. We are left with the question who is this damned Faidros.
Agathon: Eros is tender and delicate but, since even Ares, the god of war, falls in love, he has even power over Ares.
When Agathon speaks, the men-soldiers around him have, just one moment, no attention for each other. There they sit all watching one way. One cannot  escape from the impression that they all think: we shall see.

Socrates is called to make his ode to Eros, but, is as usual, reluctant to stick to the rules. He starts praising Agathon for his ode, though of course like everybody except Agathon he did not think much of it.
Then he asks Faidros (he asks Faidros!) to allow him an interview  with Agathon.
The interview goes along lines everybody knows from Socrates: he quickly crosses a mine field of terrible mistakes of logic, asking for consent at every step, which he always gets, thus quickly reaching one of his hobbyhorses, this time that Eros hunts for what he does not have. The more you think of what Eros hunts for, the less you think of Eros himself. To make the most out of Eros as he is, you should let him hunt something worthless, or not letting him hunt at all, but this is obviously taking the shine off him too. So we should end up somewhere in between. Eros is a demigod, a kind of interface between man and the gods.
A women called Diotima, Socrates says, told him this.

Socrates listening to someone else? How did this Diotima lure Socrates into listening patiently without immediately interfering in what is being said and destroying it?

"Diotima" continues: the way to abstract and absolute beauty goes over, first, one body, then more bodies (promiscuity and group sex), then the behaviour of one person, then behaviours of more people, then knowledge, and the last straight part is far and difficult, so that will be for another time, Diotima had said, probably understanding this was already more than what Socrates strictly needed to pester the Athenians with, so as far as we know this was the last time he seriously listened to anybody.

Meanwhile, Agathon's party guests lapsed into yawning a little, everybody knows Socrates already for a long time. But fortunately something brings new life to the feast. A sound of breaking glass and stone becomes louder, in the end suggesting Agathon's house is about to collapse. Enter a delegation supporting physically its leader, the Athenian general Alkibiades. Dead drunk, and, as Plato writes: "...wearing a kind of dense crown of ivy and violets...". Plato's description, full of surprise as it is, has convinced historical authorities that this was, even at the time, no customary head-gear for generals.

Encyclopaedia Britannica depicts Alkibiades as an amoral, merciless, brilliant drunkard, balancing between Athens and Sparta. At the end of his life he was spitted out by everyone and murdered by his hosts in Asia Minor in the framework of a shady agreement. In the Socrates trial, resulting in the sentence that Socrates had either to go into exile or drink a cup of poison, Alkibiades was used as an illustration of how Socrates had spoiled the Athenian youth. [more about Alkibiades in Thucydides' History of the Poloponnesian War]

At the time when young Alkibiades, at the party's point in time the meanest, hence the best, Athenian general ever, started to look attractive as a young boy, Socrates had once put him against a pillar with his tunic lifted. Alkibiades  of course knew that one of the Athenian gentlemen would some time do something like that, but he did not expect it to happen so quickly and brutally. With his bruised little arsehole he stumbled home and told his parents nothing about it.  But not much later, the engagement was announced. That did not  happen really unexpectedly, because meanwhile Socrates had taken Alkibiades, as an army-freshmen into and subsequently out of an absolutely irresponsible situation on the battlefield, after which Alkibiades received, upon advocacy of the "philosopher", a medal for "saving Socrates".

Remember all this while reading Plato's story of this horny fighter Alkibiades, on the record for being a general in the top ten of the history of all mankind, model for a character in a Shakespeare play, with a sizeable entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, who headed for Agathon's party, "...wearing a kind of dense crown of ivy and violets...", in the middle of the night, dead drunk, at least acting as if he was dead drunk. Remember this and fancy the looks between him and his former lover Socrates...

At the moment Alkibiades entered, Socrates had already conquered a place next to Agathon. Alkibiades, supported by servants, approaches Agathon to kiss him tenderly and give him his beautiful head-gear. Out of politeness, Socrates moves up a little, upon which Alkibiades immediately drops himself on what barely could be considered as an open place between Agathon and Socrates. Now his first attention is to Socrates. Would-be surprised he turns to him and and says: "Is that Socrates? Are you again lurking at me, as you always appear where I do not expect you? Now why did you come this time and why did you lay down here and not next to Aristophanes or someone else who is or tries to be funny? How did you succeed in getting so close to the most beautiful in the company?"
Socrates calls for the help of Agathon, but Alkibiades knows how to deal with that too: he takes -left- some tendrils from the crown he put on Agathon's head, and hangs them -right- over Socrates' bold head.
Then Alkibiades starts: "You can clearly see that Socrates has a passion for young boys and is always in their vicinity, nervous, understanding nothing, knowing nothing, as he pretends...that is what he covers himself with...but inside, if he opens, with how much self-control do you, sitting and drinking here with me, think he is endowed? You should know: he is not interested at all whether someone is beautiful or not, he looks down on such considerations more than you could ever hold possible"...[Socrates hides his face, for a moment, behind his two litre drinking cup]..."nor is he interested whether someone is in possession of wealth or the kind status that the masses look up to. His opinion is that such possessions have no value and that we are nothing, I tell you. All his life he acts like a fool and plays with people. But when he is serious and he opens - I do not know whether someone here has ever seen what is inside, but I saw the images once and I found them so divine and precious, so magnificent and miraculous that I find simply everything Socrates tells us should be done". [The guests burst in laughter, Aristophanes lapses back into his hiccups].

Now, Alkibiades deems it time for some stories about his first engagement with Socrates as a young adolescent: "I seriously thought he was interested in my youthful beauty and considered it to be a godsend and unbelievable luck, because it gave me the idea that by satisfying his wishes, I could learn everything he knew. At that time I had a high opinion about my own attractiveness. Until the moment I got that idea I was not accustomed to be with him unaccompanied, but then I decided to send my company off to be alone with him. Yes, I should tell you the complete truth. Just listen carefully, and if I lie, Socrates, then correct me." [laughter, Socrates starts looking uneasy].

By means of this introduction Alkibiades has passed Socrates decisively  in the circle of guests, lying between Socrates and Agathon. He now faces the choice to raise his own star, or make Socrates fade. He opts for the latter. How does a general in the all history top ten do that? Agathon listens in excitement and keeps, over Alkibiades, a sharp eye on Socrates' reactions.

"So" Alkibiades continues, "I was with him, gentlemen, and we were alone. I thought he would at once start to say the things to me a lover is used to say to his loved one when nobody is there, and I looked forward to it. But nothing happened. He talked with me just as always and after having spent the day with me he went off. Later, I proposed him to train together in the gymnasium, and we did. I thought to make advances that way. He trained and wrestled often with me without others attending. What can I say? I did not make any progress.
After I failed in these ways I decided for a firm approach and not to give up what I had started. I had to know what was the matter. So I proposed him to have dinner with me, like a lover who wants to reach his goal. This he also did not quickly accept, but after some time he let himself be won over. After having visited me for the first time, he wanted to leave after dinner and out of shame I let him go. But in another attack I kept the conversation going after the meal was finished, deeper and deeper in the night, and when he wanted to go, I forced him to stay under the pretext of the late hour. So he lay down on the bed next to me, the same on which he had eaten."

Now Alkibiades raises the tension by announcing that he is on the verge of making a very heavy confession, meant only for this intimate group of friends (as if he, not Agathon, had chosen them for the party...).   The slaves can stay (they eagerly do) but should "bolt their ears" (as if he even believed there were servants in Athens who did that).

"After, then, gentlemen", Alkibiades continues, "the lights had gone out and the slaves were gone, I judged I should not anymore beat about the bush, but straightforwardly say what I thought. I touched him and said
'Socrates, are you asleep?'
'Not at all', he said.
'Do you know what I thought?'
'What?' he asked.
'I believe', I said, 'that you have been the only lover worth me, and it is my impression that you hesitate to start about it to me. My position is this: I think it would be very unwise not to please you in this also, as with everything you may need from my possessions or that of my friends. For nothing is more important for me than to develop myself as well as possible and in that certainly nobody is more able to help me than you. If I would not be willing to please somebody like that, this would make me feel ashamed facing prudent people than facing the stupid mass if I did.'
When he heard that he said, very ironical and completely as he always is: 'My dear Alkibiades, it seems that you are really not stupid, if it is really true what you think of me and there is a certain capacity in me by means of which even you could improve yourself. You must see an unimaginable beauty in me that surpasses your own by far. If you see this and try to share it with me and exchange beauty for beauty, than it is not a small advantage you try to make on me. In exchange for the appearance you try to obtain the real beauty. In fact, you want to exchange copper for gold. No, dear friend, may be I am nothing and may be you fail to recognise that. Be sure, reason starts to see sharply only when the eyes are on the verge of loosing their power. And you are far from that.'

Mmmm, things are starting, the reader might have thought in Alkibiades' place. But not so Alkibiades, albeit in this fake story he is amusing Agathon's party goers with. Note also that Socrates, urged to intervene if falsities might creep in the story, realising that everybody now understands this is a complete mockery, has no defence against this in his repertoire and is silent.

Alkibiades continues: "I said:
'Anyway, as far as I am concerned, this is my position. I have now said what I think about it.'
'Well', Socrates answered, 'You were right. In the time to come we shall think about it and do what to us both, in this and other cases, seems best.'
When I heard this after what I had said, and had shot, so to say, my arrows, I thought he was wounded. I stood up, and without giving him another chance to say something, I put my cloak over him, it was winter, lay down under his worn out coat, put my arms around that truly demonic and miraculous man and thus I lay the whole night.
And also this, Socrates, you cannot claim to be a lie. After I had acted like that, this man showed himself so superior: he looked down on my beauty, laughed about it and insulted me exactly at the point where I thought to be something, honourable gentlemen, yes, because you are the judges of Socrates arrogance. You should know, I swear by the gods and goddesses, I slept and woke up with Socrates as if I had slept with my father or an older brother....' ".  

This, the reader may think, must have sufficed to burn Socrates to the ground, and at least to put him definitively out of Agathon's grace. But for Alkibiades this was only part one of his small battle. Part two consisted, surprisingly, of praising Socrates, praising him, to be precise, about the way in which he withdrew in flight for the Thebans after the battle at Delion (Boiotia, 424 BC): "I was horseman that time and he was among the heavily armed. He withdrew when the ranks of the army were already broken, together with Laches [who later became a general, famous in Greece but despised by Alkibiades]. By accident, I came in their vicinity and incited them not to loose courage. I told them I would not let them alone. There I saw how far Socrates is superior to Laches in cool-headedness. And moreover, he made the impression on me, as you have expressed it, Aristophanes, to run around there just as he does here, with his nose in the wind and looking from the edges of his eyes [Aristophanes, Clouds], calmly observing friend and foe, in such a way that everyone can see from far he would defend himself forcefully if attacked. That is why he could escape safely, because usually people who behave like that are not even attacked, one attacks those who fly head over heels.

This devastating image of Socrates as a master in flying finishes him off.

Appendix: Was Xenophon fucked by Socrates?

Xenophon writes that Socrates, albeit with some reservations, agreed to his decision to join Proxenos in the Greek mercenary army paid by Cyros to participate in the debacle at Babylon against his brother, the Persian king Artaxerxes. John Dillery, in the last Loeb Classical library translation of Xenophon's Anabasis, contemplates about the nature of this friendship (Loeb Anabasis, p. 5-6). The report by Xenophon about the consultation and the advice of Socrates testifies, according to Dillery of a : "close relationship between Xenophon and Socrates. Xenophon has no reservation about taking his problems to the philosopher; Socrates, for his part, is concerned that the young man will excite hostility at home. Socrates' scolding of Xenophon for not asking the primary question -should I go on the expedition- suggests almost a father/son relationship. Although Xenophon implies here and elsewhere a close bond between himself and Socrates, it is widely believed that while he was more than just an acquaintance of Socrates, they were not intimate".

One could easily hear the all destroying laughter arising from the mighty drunken throat of Alkibiades, wearing his botanical head-gear, a pounding blow on Dilleries small shoulders and a spontaneous invitation to join him to Agathon's party to tell this amazing story, because it would fit in well. "John, lizzen!!, it is widely believed, do not forget that when we come to it: it is widely believed, do not forget it!"

And the phrase "do not forget it" is, that is widely believed, accompanied with a quick gesture of Alkibiades with a flat hand along his throat, between the tendrils of his beautiful crown. A scary night for Dilleries, it is widely believed.