KATABASIS AND SELF-SALVATION IN THE RECREATION OF THE ORPHISM IN PLATO’S SYMPOSIUM

Abstract

The topic of the soul’s salvation in Hades is very recurrent in the Orphic tradition. In the Symposium, Plato recreates this Orphic image in order to modify the Orphic idea of the soul’s salvation/rescue (which is given by a divinity, namely Orpheus) into an image that reinforces his theory of psychic responsibility, with the idea that any psyche is able of self-salvation. Therefore, the famous Orphic descent to Hades to rescue his beloved Eurydice from death is modified by Plato into an image of complete failure: the gods of Hades offer Orpheus only the ghost of Eurydice rather than her psyche, as if to pay illusion with deception. As he tried to deceive the divinities with superficial enchantments, Orpheus receives from the gods the biggest of all delusions: a phantasmagorical image of his beloved one. This paper aims to demonstrate how this platonic recreation of the orphic katabasis and the orphic salvation supports the idea that no entity would have the power to save another entity from obscurity, since every psyche is able of self-salvation.