Love and Procreation in Plato’s Symposium 206b–207a

There are two types of interpretation of Plato’s Symposium 206b–207a, one of which takes the procreation explained there to be the male ejaculation, which occurs in sexual intercourse, and the other takes it to be the mother’s bearing a baby. I argue for the latter interpretation, understanding διὰ τὸ μεγάλης ὠδῖνος ἀπολύειν τὸν ἔχοντα (206e1) as meaning ‘because what is beautiful releases from great agony the one who is pregnant with a baby’, while interpreters who maintain the former interpretation translate it as, for example, ‘the reason … is that the bearer of beauty releases us from our agony’ (Waterfield). What is beautiful, in which procreation occurs, is not the beautiful body of a beautiful person, but whatever is beautiful, including beautiful circumstances, beautiful activities and such a beautiful midwife as Socrates as well as the beautiful partner, in whose presence the lovers want to spend time together and give birth to their child.