Hiya-
I ran a google.com search for you: plato "twin souls"
and got some good hits:
"Symposium - Dialogues of Plato":
Starting from section [189] in the Symposium (a discourse on "love") Aristophanes is describing the nature of Man.
"... for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word 'Androgynous' is only preserved as a term of reproach. In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle, and he had four hands and four feet, one head and two faces, looking opposite ways ..."
These early ancestors of human being were evidently very powerful, and the Gods feared them.
"... the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At least, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg'. He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for picking, or as you might divide an egg with a hair."
Such is our current predicament. Each of the man, women or androgynous types were split in two and took their place on earth as individual souls.
"And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell ..."
http://www.inthelight.co.nz/spirit/gurus/pg-division.htm#Symposium
I got 148 hits from that google.com search, so make the search if you want more.
The book by Plato, "Symposium - Dialogues of Plato", is probably also available at any library. :)
-michael in philly
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andrew_mckie
11 years ago
Thanks for that bit of research trellis, it never ocurred to me to check it out but Im pleasantly surprised that it wasnt an invention by the scriptwriters. The 'split souls' idea is similar to my own beliefs so I find this movie quite fascinating as well as extremely enjoyable. A perfect little 'date movie' but also nice to just watch after a good home cooked dinner, lounging on the couch with a significant other, sharing a bottle of sweet muscat wine.
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