Myth Library · Theogonic And Philosophical

Origins and Natures of Eros

3 source witnesses · 3 source-scoped variants · reviewed 2026-08-30

Hesiod's parentless primordial Eros, Aristophanes' golden-winged child of Night's egg, and Plato's contradictory philosophical Erotes preserve irreconcilable origins.

Canonical narrative

Hesiod begins before houses, cities, and Olympian thrones. Chaos comes into being, followed by broad-breasted Gaia and dark Tartarus. Then Eros appears, fairest among the deathless gods. No mother bears him and no father claims him. His power is already complete: he loosens limbs and masters thought and counsel in gods and mortals. When Aphrodite rises much later from the sea, Eros accompanies her. In this sequence he is older than she is.

The chorus of Aristophanes' Birds tells another beginning on an Athenian stage. Black-winged Night lays a wind-born egg in the depths of Erebus. Ages turn. From the egg comes desirable Eros with golden wings, swift as a whirlwind. He mates with winged Chaos and sets the ancestry of birds in motion. The song borrows the scale of sacred cosmogony for comedy, so its egg-born Eros must keep the theatrical frame in which the birds claim antiquity over the Olympians.

Plato's Symposium makes contradiction part of the argument. Phaedrus praises Eros as ancient and summons Hesiod in support. Agathon insists that Eros is young and flees old age. Diotima then overturns the image of a beautiful god who already possesses beauty. Poros, drunk on nectar, goes into Zeus's garden and falls asleep. Penia, planning to have a child by him, lies beside the unconscious figure and conceives Eros. From Poverty he receives need; from Resource he receives pursuit, ingenuity, and restless renewal. He lives between mortal and immortal, wisdom and ignorance.

These tellings do not reveal one hidden family tree. Hesiod's primordial power, the comic golden-winged hatchling, and Diotima's philosophical mediator are different answers to what desire is and where it begins.

Episodes in this myth

Episode 1

Eros among the first beings

Hesiod names Eros after Chaos, Gaia, and Tartarus, gives him power over limb and counsel, and supplies no parents.

Episode 2

Night lays the cosmic egg

The chorus of Birds makes black-winged Night lay an egg in Erebus, from which golden-winged Eros eventually hatches.

Episode 3

Penia conceives Eros by the sleeping Poros

At Aphrodite's birthday feast, Poros becomes drunk on nectar and falls asleep in Zeus's garden; Penia plans to have a child by him, lies beside the sleeping figure, and conceives Eros.

Participants and roles

Eros

primordial power in Hesiod, golden-winged hatchling in Birds, and disputed god or daimon in Plato

Each witness gives him a different origin and nature.

Gaia

broad-breasted Earth who comes into being before Eros in Hesiod

She is not named as his mother in this passage.

Chaos

first being in Hesiod and winged partner of Eros in the comic cosmogony of Birds

The two sources give Chaos different narrative functions.

Tartarus

deep region or primordial presence named before Eros in Hesiod

No parent-child relation to Eros is stated.

Night

black-winged mother who lays the cosmic egg in Aristophanes' choral song

This maternity belongs to the comic egg cosmogony.

Erebus

dark depth in which Night lays the egg that will hatch Eros

Erebus is a setting in the cited lines, not explicitly named as Eros' father.

Poros

Resource, who becomes drunk on nectar, enters Zeus's garden, falls asleep, and is named by Diotima as Eros' father

His parentage belongs to Diotima's philosophical narrative.

Penia

Poverty, who plans to have a child by the intoxicated and sleeping Poros, lies beside him, and conceives Eros in Diotima's account

Her lack shapes the daimon's perpetual need. The source has Poros asleep during the conception; the retelling preserves that difficult detail without inventing a modern legal category.

Aphrodite

goddess whose birthday feast provides the setting for Diotima's conception of Eros

She is not named as his mother in Diotima's account.

Source-scoped variants

Hesiod's parentless primordial Eros

Eros appears among the first beings without stated parents and later accompanies Aphrodite after her sea birth.

What differs: No egg, mother, father, bow, arrow, or childhood is supplied. Eros exists before Aphrodite.

Greek Archaic · Ancient Greece

The golden-winged child of Night's egg

Night lays an egg in Erebus and a golden-winged Eros hatches to mingle with winged Chaos.

What differs: The egg and mother Night replace Hesiod's parentless emergence; the account is sung by a comic chorus claiming cosmic seniority for birds.

Greek Classical · Athens

The Symposium's incompatible Erotes

Speakers call Eros oldest, youngest, or a daimon born from Poros and Penia at Aphrodite's feast.

What differs: The dialogue stages contradiction for philosophical purposes and does not resolve the speeches into one genealogy.

Greek Classical · Athens

Source witnesses

EXPLICIT PRIMARY · Reviewed

Theogony

Hesiod; edited and translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White · 1914

Book Theogony · Line 116-122; 188-206

Eros is parentless in the sequence and already present before he accompanies Aphrodite.

Open reviewed source

EXPLICIT PRIMARY · Reviewed

The Birds of Aristophanes

Aristophanes; translated by Benjamin Bickley Rogers · 1920

Book Birds · Line 693-702

The exact Rogers 1920 English translation at Birds 693-702 preserves the Chorus of Birds' comic and self-serving cosmogony.

Open reviewed source

EXPLICIT PRIMARY · Reviewed

Symposium

Plato; translated by W. R. M. Lamb · 1925

Book Symposium · Section 178a-c; 195a-197e; 202d-204c

Successive speeches disagree about age, divinity, and parentage as part of the dialogue's argument.

Open reviewed source