Frederick the Great discussion post 11

[cahn]

In our last installment, our heroes found that Henri de Catt's memoirs, a major source for current biographers of Frederick the Great, are not to be trusted!!

rheinsberg

Comments

Re: The Very Secret Divorce Lawyer Text Messages

[mildred_of_midgard]

I had actually mentioned the Aristotle quote a while back, and I did have the Symposium in mind as well, though I don't believe I mentioned it.

Let me dig up what I wrote...ah, there we go. About one month ago, I wrote:

his one-soul-separate-bodies* sister...

* Possibly a reference to the following quote attributed to Aristotle by Diogenes Laertius (though Diogenes was writing some 500 years later and not always good about his sources, that's never stopped anyone from using this quote or bypassing Diogenes and attributing it straight to Aristotle):

To the query "What is a friend?" his [Aristotle's] reply was, "A single soul dwelling in two bodies."

Plato's talking about sexual desire and romantic soul mates, but φίλος is the word used by Diogenes. Which I think could include siblings to Aristotle and/or Diogenes, though I wouldn't want to swear by it.

I do strongly suspect that's what our classically-educated Fritz had in mind, indeed. And if not, it's certainly what always comes to mind for me!