ABSTRACT
In the speech that Plato has him deliver in the Symposium, Aristophanes explains how Zeus split all human beings down the middle. Consequently every man or woman is only half a complete creature, and goes through life with a passionate longing to find his or her complement in order to be reunited with it. He then reports how Hephaestus asks two lovers: ‘Is the object of your desire to be always together as much as possible, and never to be separated from one another night and day? If that is what you want, I am ready to melt and weld you together, so that, instead of two, you shall be one flesh.’ 1 Although Aristophanes is not expressing Plato’s own views, he is referring to a feature that in one form or another is characteristic for romantic love throughout all ages. This feature is especially prominent in romanticism 2 and in mysticism.
