When Alcibiades finishes, the company laughs, because he still seems in love with Socrates. Socrates says he is sober, or he would not have hidden his purpose so carefully. The long praise was a roundabout story whose point arrives at the end. Alcibiades wants a quarrel between Socrates and Agathon. He wants Socrates to love him and nobody else, and he wants to be the only one who loves Agathon. Socrates calls it the plot of a satyr play, now detected, and tells Agathon not to let Alcibiades set them at variance.
Agathon agrees. He thinks the seat between them was meant to divide them, and he will go and lie on the couch next to Socrates. Socrates welcomes that. Alcibiades begs that Agathon stay between them, and says he is fooled at every turn. Socrates refuses. The order of the speeches was to praise the neighbour on the right. If Agathon praises Socrates again, that order breaks. Socrates wants to praise the youth, and he asks Alcibiades not to be jealous. Agathon rises at once so that he can be praised. Alcibiades calls it the usual way: where Socrates is, no one else has a chance with the fair.
Agathon has risen to take that place when a band of revellers comes in through a door someone left open. They make themselves at home, spoil the order of the banquet, and force everyone to drink. Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and others leave. Aristodemus falls asleep and wakes near daybreak at the crowing of cocks. The others are asleep or gone. Only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon remain, passing a large goblet, with Socrates talking. Aristodemus, half awake, misses the start. What he remembers is Socrates compelling the other two to admit that the genius of comedy is the same as that of tragedy, and that the true artist in tragedy is an artist in comedy also. They agree because they are drowsy and not quite following. Aristophanes drops off first. Then, with the day already dawning, Agathon sleeps. Socrates lays them to rest, leaves, and Aristodemus follows, as he usually does. Socrates bathes at the Lyceum, spends the day as usual, and in the evening goes home to sleep.
