Pun and etymological reading

Many commentators have noted that in the palinode of the Phaedrus, at 252b8–9, Plato engages in wordplay on Erōs / Pterōs (e.g. Schleiermacher 1804, 380; Ast 1829, 460; Carson 1986, 208–9; Ferrari 1987, 168; Nehamas & Woodruff 1995, 41n.102; LSJ 1996, 1547; Calame 1999, 189n.14; Gordon 2012, 83; 209n.52; Ewegen 2013, 58; Baltzly & Share 2019, 218; 2023, 196–7; Paulsen & Rehn 2019, 92). Several modern commentators explicitly interpret this poetic pun as an instance of Platonic etymology (e.g. Allen 1907, 136; 1924, 39; 45; Beare 1913, 328; Méridier 1931, 18n.2; Impara 1992, 301n.10; Gil Fernández 2009, 270; Kluge 2010, 358; Yunis 2011, 20; Duvick 2014, 115–6; Belfiore 2016, 259; Hartmann 2017, 250; 267; 501). This reading is supported by Proclus, who explicitly states that Plato derives the name Erōs from Pterōs (in Crat. 9, 3.27–4.2 Pasquali; cf. in Parm. 19.9–13 Steel). By contrast, Hermias of Alexandria (in Phdr. 187.21–4 Couvreur = 196.5–8 Lucarini/Moreschini) offers a different construal: rather than deriving Erōs from Pterōs, he takes Plato to allow two etymologies, one of Erōs from eisô rhein (“to flow in”; cf. Plato, Cratylus 420a9–b4), and a second one of Pterōs from pteroun (“to make winged”).

Divine vs human language

Plato himself, however, implies that Pterōs functions as the etymon of Erōs, insofar as he suggests that Erōs belongs to human—i.e. conventional—language, whereas Pterōs belongs to divine—i.e. ‘natural’—language. The distinction between human and divine language is already present in Homer (Iliad I.403–404; II.813; XIV.290–91; XX.74 van Thiel; Odyssey X.305; XII.61 van Thiel) and Hesiod (Theogony 830–1 West), and Plato explicitly takes it up in the Cratylus (391d7–8 Burnet: δῆλον ὅτι οἱ γε θεοὶ αὐτὰ καλοῦσι πρὸς ὀρθότητα ἅπερ ἐστὶ φύσει ὀνόματα “it is clear that the gods call things by those names which are by nature correct”; see also 400d8–9). Against this background, Phaedrus 252b8–9 may be read as deriving the human-language name Erōs from the divine-language name Pterōs.

Morphological anomaly of Pterōs

Plato forms the name Pterōs by prefixing the consonant cluster pt-, drawn from pteron (“wing, feather”), to Erōs. The result is Pterōs (“Wing-eros”, Rhodes 2003, 501, or “Wingederos”, Yunis 2011, 155), a formally masculine noun that appears to derive from the stem pter-, although no such masculine noun formation is otherwise regular. Greek attests pteron (neuter) and related adjectives such as pterōtos (“winged, feathered”), but no inherited noun pterōs outside Plato’s coinage. Indeed, the name Pterōs is extremely rare, occurring only five times in extant Greek sources: besides Plato’s Phaedrus (252b9), it appears in two parallel passages (Stobaeus, Anth. I.9.11, 114.23 Wachsmuth; Hermias, in Phdr. 187.23 Couvreur = 196.8 Lucarini/Moreschini), and twice in an unrelated context in the Byzantine Etymologicum Magnum (226.38 Gaisford).

Provenance of the verses

Regarding the provenance of the two irregular hexameter verses cited at Phaedrus 252b8–9, scholarly opinion diverges. One line of interpretation holds that Plato adapts the verses from earlier apocryphal material circulating under Homeric or Homeridic attribution (e.g. Lobeck 1829, 860–63; Thompson 1868, 66–7; Allen 1924, 44–5; Huxley 1960, 29–30; Hamilton 1973, 59n.1). On this assumption, Allen (1948, 148) and Davies (1988, 109, fr. 17) treat them as fragments deriving from now-lost Homeric poetry. The currently prevailing view, however, is that Plato himself composed the verses and parodically attributed them to the Homerides as part of a playful or ironic engagement with Homeric authority (e.g. Schleiermacher 1804, 380; Ast 1829, 457–8; Wilamowitz-Möllendorff 1916, 366n.4; Robin 1933, 47n.2; Martini 1935, 52n.1; Wade-Gery 1952, 71–2; Nehamas & Woodruff 1995, 41n.102; Heitsch 1997, 247; Emlyn-Jones & Preddy 2022, 433n.75). Some scholars remain non-committal between these alternatives (e.g. Güntert 1921, 118; Hackforth 1952, 97n.2; Cobb 1993, 109n.72; Yunis 2011, 154–5). 

Context within the Phaedrus

The etymology of Erōs from Pterōs in the palinode revises Socrates’ earlier account of erōs in the dialogue’s first speech. At Phaedrus 238b7–c4, erōs is treated reductively as a species of appetitive desire (epithumia) directed toward bodily pleasure, and its name is playfully derived from rhōmē (“strength”) in accordance with its compulsive and overpowering character. Socrates later explicitly withdraws this pleasure-based conception, presenting it as a deliberately limited and ultimately inadequate account of erōs (cf. Irani 2017, 133–4). The palinode corrects it by reinterpreting erōs as a divine form of madness (mania) rather than a merely appetitive drive. Read against this background, the transformation of Erōs into the divine name Pterōs marks not only a new etymological play but a conceptual reconfiguration of desire itself.

Phallic innuendoes

Some commentators suggest that Plato’s etymology of Erōs from Pterōs, by revealing the god of worldly desire (Erōs) as the god of heavenly desire (Pterōs), is intended to desexualize Eros. On this reading, Erōs signifies sexual desire from a human perspective, whereas from a divine perspective it is called Pterōs, designating spiritual or rational desire (e.g., Hermias of Alexandria, in Phdr. 53.27–9 Couvreur = 57.22–3 Lucarini/Moreschini; Ponce 2019, 657–8). This interpretation, however, is undermined by the overtly sexual and phallic connotations that the name Pterōs itself carries. As several scholars have observed (e.g., Schleiermacher 1804, 379; Ast 1829, 459; Stallbaum 1857, 115; Ritter 1914, 129; Martini 1935, 52n.1; De Vries 1969, 159; Waterfield 2002, 94; Scully 2003, 33n.79; Kluge 2010, 358; Ewegen 2013, 58; Belfiore 2016, 259; Calame 2016, 304), the cluster of expressions at Phaedrus 252b8–9—potēnos (“winged, flying”), Pterōs (“Wing-Eros”), and pterophutor (“wing-growing”)—echoes a widespread Greek representation of the erect penis as winged, and (ana)pteroûn (“to make winged”) is frequently used as a slang expression for male sexual arousal or erection (cf. also Phaedrus 251c1–d1). Further—and hitherto unnoticed—support for the sexual reading of Pterōs may be drawn from the term anagkē (“necessity”) at 252b9, which is qualified by the epithet pterophutor. The expression to anagkaion (“what is necessary”) functioned as a Greek euphemism for the penis. Notably, Artemidorus (Oneirocritica I.79, 95.21–3 Pack) remarks: τοῦ ἀνδρὸς τὸ ἀναγκαῖον (τοῦτο γὰρ τὸ αἰδοῖον καλεῖται) τοῦτ’ ἔστι τὴν ἀνάγκην (“the man’s necessary things—for this is what the genitalia are called—that is, his necessity.” The word anagkē also denotes the male genitalia in Aristophanes (Clouds 1075 Wilson; cf. Henderson 1991, 5; 77; 218). Thus, when Plato states that the gods call Erōs by the name Pterōs because of pterophutor anagkēn (“a wing-growing necessity”, 252b9), he underscores the phallic character of Erōs, precisely, and emphatically, in its divine manifestation. Plato’s etymology of Erōs from Pterōs should, therefore, not be understood as a sublimation of a sexually charged name into a desexualized one, but rather as an emphatically phallic elevation.

Broader context:

Plato’s various etymological accounts of erōs differ both linguistically and conceptually. In the first speech of the Phaedrus, at 238b7–c4, erōs is explained paronomastically from rhōmē (“strength”), reinforced by the figura etymologica errōmenōs rhōstheisa, and framed as an irresistible appetite oriented toward bodily pleasure. In the palinode, at 252b8–9, erōs is reimagined through poetic wordplay as Pterōs, a divine name formed by consonantal grafting and embedded in the mythic opposition of mortal and immortal language. Yet another etymology is found in the Cratylus, at 420a9–b4, where erōs is derived quasi-philologically from eisrhein (“to flow in”), supported by an archaic form (esros) and a putative sound change. Conceptually, these three derivations foreground erōs respectively as an overpowering appetitive force, a winged divine power, and an external influx into the lover’s soul.