Yiffiverse:Ba(Soul)

• the Logistikon, associated with the head, is the Charioteer related to reason and regulates the other parts.
• the Thumoeides, associated with the chest region, is the Right horse is related to spirit.
• the Epithumetikon, associated with the stomach, is the left horse related to one's desires.

Epithumetikon

The Epithumetikon has been referred to as “the friend of insolence and pride, shaggy-eared and deaf, hardly obedient to whip and spurs.” While the Thumoeides is white and shining, the Epithumetikon is dark with grey, bloodshot eyes and walks crookedly. It is described as “heavy and ill put together,” with other unflattering characteristics, such as a flat nose and short neck. The Epithumetikon is not a horse that would sell well on the horse-trading market. This is not an easy to miss metaphor: the Epithumetikon is undesirable because of its disobedience and lustfulness, which never ceases.

It serves as a striking contrast to the well-behaved Thumoeides, who follows each tug of the reins immediately and does not stray. The Epithumetikon, on the other hand, is the stallion who cannot be broken under any duress or maltreatment. It seizes the moment when the erastes is at his weakest—specifically that moment when he has just laid eyes on his eromenos again—to thrust forward and corrupt the restraint of its companions, the obedient horse and its ever-rational chariot driver.

The Epithumetikon is the embodiment of that hungering part of the soul. Particularly, this left, black horse is the part of the soul that urges the erastes to sexually pursue his partner, to convince the eromenos to lay with him in bed without chastity. Socrates tells that when the erastes is near to his eromenos—contrary to the Thumoeides which obeys itself—the Epithumetikon “springs wildly forward” and tries to drag along its companion and charioteer closer towards the younger man. At every pull the Logistikon makes on the reins in attempts to bring the horse to heel, the Epithumetikon resists.

It is single-minded in its lust; lusting is all that the Epithumetikon exists to do. It is completely irrational and driven utterly by instinct. Like all instincts, by its very nature, it detests all attempts to civilize it. Anthropomorphically, one might think of this horse as a drunken man with his inhibitions long gone, ruled only by his whims and the desires of the flesh without concern for societal propriety or individual respect.

Thumoeides

The Thumoeides is the obedient horse. White and dark-eyed, he is “a friend of honor joined with temperance and modesty, and a follower of true glory; he needs no whip, but is guided only by the word of command and by reason.” When the left horse rebels, the right horse struggles to obey, though Socrates explains that it is possible to rouse the right, reasonable horse into a state of confusion and similar chaos. However, this state is calmed often by the Epithumetikon, as it is not natural for the horse to maintain such chaos.

Though occasionally incited to wildness, The Thumoeides does not lust in the way of the Epithumetikon. It helps the Logistikon overpower the battling and straining of the Thumoeides. At all other times, the right horse is “constrained by modesty” and fights to return to that state when led astray by its mate.

Logistikon

As the voice and spirit of true reason in the soul, Logistikon is the charioteer. He guides the chariot and restrains the wild Epithumetikon, though he does not always win and is sometimes, like the Thumoeides, pulled along with the fierce and lustful horse. It is often spoken that the charioteer and the man himself as the same, saying things like, “As the charioteer looks upon [the eromenos], his memory is borne back to the true nature of beauty…”

Some explain that the charioteer has access to that which the horses do not; the true nature of things. He is able to rationalize, which even the obedient right horse cannot, left only to follow the wisdom of the charioteer. He is a man familiar with the rights and wrongs of the world and is driven thus to act according to them. He knows that the pederastic relationship is epitomized by gallant attempts at chastity, unlike other sexual relationships in the ancient past, and so fills the role of the one who restrains sexual desire.