A drinking party in Athens, around 385 BCE. The guests take turns praising Eros, the god of love. Aristophanes tells the myth of the original doubled humans, split in two by Zeus, forever seeking their other halves. Socrates reports what a wise woman named Diotima taught him about the ascent from physical beauty to the Form of Beauty itself. Then Alcibiades bursts in drunk and delivers a speech about Socrates that is really a love confession. The dialogue moves from comedy to metaphysics to heartbreak. Western philosophy rarely achieves such literary grace.