symposium   

what I am teaching you. In the first place, let me treat of the nature

of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature

was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as

they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman,

and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double

nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word

"Androgynous" is only preserved as a term of reproach. In the second

place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a

circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two

faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike;

also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He

could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased,

and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his

four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and

over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run

fast. Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them;

because the sun, moon, and earth are three;-and the man was originally

the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the

moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and

moved round and round: like their parents. Terrible was their might

and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they

made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and

Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have

laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils.

Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as

they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices

and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the

gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained.

At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way.

He said: "Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and

improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut

them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased