Phaedrus

SocratesPhaedrus, my friend! Where are you off to, and where have you come from?

PhaedrusFrom Lysias, son of Cephalus, Socrates. I’m going for a walk outside the wall; I spent a long time there, sitting since early morning. And I take my walks along the roads on the advice of our friend Acumenus—yours and mine—since he says they’re more refreshing than walks on the 227b running tracks.note

SocratesHe’s right, my friend. So Lysias, it seems, was in town?

PhaedrusYes, staying with Epicrates, in that house near the Olympieion, the one that belonged to Morychus.note

SocratesSo how did you all spend the time? Obviously Lysias was treating you to a feast of speeches?

PhaedrusYou’ll hear about it, if you have the leisure to walk along and listen.

SocratesWhat? Don’t you think I’d make it, as Pindar says, “a thing above all business” to hear how you and Lysias spent your time?

PhaedrusLead on, then.

SocratesTell me, please.

PhaedrusWell, Socrates, it’s just the thing for you to hear, since the speech we were busy with was, in a way I can’t quite explain, about love. Lysias has written about a handsome boy being propositioned—but not by a lover; that’s exactly where the cleverness lies. He says one should grant favors to a man who isn’t in love rather than to one who is.note

SocratesWhat a noble fellow! If only he’d write that one should favor a poor man rather than a rich one, an older man rather than a younger, and all the other things 227d that apply to me and to most of us. Then his speeches really would be sophisticated and a public service. Anyway, I’m so eager to hear it that even if you make your walk all the way to Megara and, like Herodicus, go up to the wall and come straight back, I won’t fall behind you.note

PhaedrusWhat do you mean, my excellent Socrates? Do you suppose that what 228a Lysias, the most skilled writer of our day, composed at his leisure over a long time, I, an amateur, will recite from memory in a way worthy of him? Far from it—though I’d like that more than coming into a lot of gold.

SocratesPhaedrus, if I don’t know Phaedrus, I’ve forgotten myself too. But neither is the case. I know very well that when he was listening to Lysias’s speech, he didn’t hear it just once; he kept asking him to repeat it again and again, and Lysias gladly 228b obliged. Even that wasn’t enough for him. In the end he took the book and pored over the parts he wanted most, and after sitting at this since early morning, he got tired and went out for a walk—knowing the speech by heart, I’d swear, by the Dog, unless it was very long. He was heading outside the wall to practice it. Then he ran into a man sick with a passion for hearing speeches, and when he saw him—saw him!—he was delighted that he’d have a partner in his frenzy, 228c and told him to lead on.note

PhaedrusReally, the best thing for me is to recite it as well as I can, since it seems to me you’ll never let me go until I say it somehow or other.

SocratesYes, you’ve read me quite rightly.

PhaedrusThen here’s what I’ll do. The truth is, Socrates, I really didn’t learn the words by heart. But the gist of nearly all the points he made about how the lover’s case differs from the non-lover’s I’ll go through in summary, one after another, starting with the first.

SocratesYes, after you’ve shown me first, my dear, what you’ve got in your left hand under your cloak. I suspect it’s the speech itself. If so, here’s what you should think of me: 228e I’m very fond of you, but when Lysias himself is here, I’m not at all inclined to offer myself for you to practice on. Come on, show me.

PhaedrusStop it. You’ve dashed the hope I had, Socrates, of using you for practice. Well, where would you like us to sit and read it?

SocratesLet’s turn off here and go along the Ilissus; then we’ll sit down somewhere quiet, wherever seems best.note

PhaedrusIt’s lucky, it seems, that I happen to be barefoot—you, of course, always are. So the easiest thing is for us to walk along the stream with our feet in the water, and it won’t be unpleasant either, especially at this season of the year and this time of day.

SocratesLead on, then, and look out for a place to sit as we go.

PhaedrusDo you see that very tall plane tree over there?

SocratesOf course.

PhaedrusThere’s shade there, and a gentle breeze, and grass to sit on or, if we like, to lie down on.

SocratesLead on.

PhaedrusTell me, Socrates, isn’t it somewhere around here on the Ilissus that Boreas is supposed to have carried off Oreithyia?note

SocratesSo they say.

PhaedrusFrom right here, then? The water certainly looks lovely—pure and clear, just right for girls to play beside.

SocratesNo, it’s about two or three stades downstream, where we cross to the sanctuary at Agra; there’s an altar of Boreas somewhere there.note

PhaedrusI’ve never noticed it. But tell me, by Zeus, Socrates: do you believe this myth is true?

SocratesIf I disbelieved it, as the wise do, I wouldn’t be out of place. Then I could play the clever one and say that a gust of Boreas pushed her off the nearby rocks while she was playing with Pharmaceia, and that because she died that way she was said to have been snatched away by Boreas 229d —or from the Areopagus, since there’s this story too, that she was carried off from there and not from here.note

PhaedrusYes, this is the one.

SocratesBy Hera, it’s a lovely place to stop! This plane tree is wide-spreading and tall, and the chaste-tree’s height and deep shade are quite beautiful; and since it’s in full bloom, it would make the place as fragrant as can be. Then again, the loveliest of springs flows under the plane tree, with very cold water, to judge by my foot. It seems to be a shrine of some nymphs and of Achelous, to judge by the figurines and statues. 230c And again, if you like, how welcome and very sweet the breeze here is! It echoes with the shrill summer music of the cicadas’ chorus. But the most exquisite thing of all is the grass, growing on the gentle slope thick enough to rest your head on beautifully as you lie down. You’ve been an excellent guide to a stranger, my dear Phaedrus.note

PhaedrusAnd you, my remarkable friend, seem a very strange person. Just as you say, you really are like a stranger being shown around, not a local. 230d You don’t leave town to travel abroad, and I don’t think you even go outside the wall at all.

SocratesForgive me, my good friend. I’m a lover of learning, you see, and the countryside and the trees won’t teach me anything, while the people in the city will. But you seem to have found the remedy to get me out. Just as people lead hungry animals by dangling a green branch or some fruit in front of them, so you, by holding out speeches in books to me, will apparently lead me all around 230e Attica and anywhere else you like. Anyway, now that I’ve got here, I think I’ll lie down for the moment; and you choose whatever position you think is easiest for reading, and read.note

PhaedrusListen, then.

You know my situation, and you’ve heard how I think it would be to our advantage if this came about. I claim I shouldn’t fail to get what I ask for 231a just because I don’t happen to be in love with you. For lovers regret the good they’ve done once their desire has ended; but for the others there is no time when it’s fitting to change their minds. They do good not under compulsion but willingly, as far as their means allow, just as they would plan their own affairs best.

Now if you’re afraid of established custom—afraid that people will find out and you’ll be disgraced—it’s likely 232a that lovers, imagining that others envy them as much as they congratulate themselves, will get carried away and talk, and in their vanity show everyone that their efforts haven’t been wasted; while those not in love, being masters of themselves, will choose what’s best rather than a reputation among people. Besides, many people are bound to hear about lovers and see them following their beloveds around and making a business of it, so that whenever they’re seen talking 232b together, people think they’re together because their desire has been or soon will be satisfied. But no one even thinks of blaming those not in love for spending time together, since they know that everyone has to talk with someone, whether out of friendship or for some other pleasure.

And again, many lovers desire the body before they know the person’s character or are familiar with the rest of his circumstances, so it’s unclear to them whether they’ll still want to be friends once their desire has ended. 233a But with those not in love, who were friends with each other even before they did this, the pleasures they enjoy aren’t likely to make their friendship smaller; instead these will remain as reminders of what is still to come. Again, you’re likely to become a better person by listening to me than to a lover. Lovers praise what you say and do even when it’s not for the best, partly because they’re afraid of being disliked, and partly 233b because desire has impaired their own judgment.

Again, if one should grant favors most to those who need them most, then in other cases too one should do good not to the best people but to the most destitute, for once rid of the greatest ills they’ll be the most grateful. And for 233e private dinners one shouldn’t invite one’s friends, but beggars and those in need of a full meal; for they’ll be fond of you, and follow you around, and come to your door, and be most pleased, and be not a little grateful, and pray for many blessings on you.

Perhaps, then, you’ll ask me whether I’m urging you to grant favors to everyone who isn’t in love with you. I don’t think even a lover would urge you to have that 234c attitude toward all your lovers. For it wouldn’t earn equal gratitude from the one receiving it, and it wouldn’t be equally possible for you to keep it hidden from others if you wanted to; and no harm should come from it, only benefit to both. Well, I think what I’ve said is enough; but if you feel something is still missing and think it’s been left out, ask.

How does the speech strike you, Socrates? Isn’t it extraordinary, especially in its language?

SocratesDivinely so, my friend—I was astounded. And it was because of you that I felt this way, Phaedrus, as I watched you, because you seemed to me to be glowing with delight at the speech as you read. Thinking that you understand such things better than I do, I followed you, and following, I joined in the Bacchic frenzy with you, my inspired friend.

PhaedrusCome now! So you think this is a joke?

SocratesDo you think I’m joking and not serious?

PhaedrusNot at all, Socrates. But tell me truly, by Zeus, god of friendship: do you think any other Greek could say more or better things on the same subject?

SocratesWhat? Must you and I also praise the speech on the grounds that its author said what was needed, and not only on the grounds that its language is clear and compact and every word precisely turned? If we must, I’ll have to grant it for your sake, since it escaped me in my 235a incompetence. I was paying attention only to its rhetorical side, and I didn’t think even Lysias himself would regard that as enough. In fact it seemed to me, Phaedrus—unless you say otherwise—that he said the same things two or three times, as though he didn’t have much resource for saying a lot on one subject, or maybe didn’t care about such a thing. And he seemed to me to be showing off like a young man, displaying that he could say the same thing first one way and then another and put it superbly both ways.

PhaedrusThat’s nonsense, Socrates. That’s precisely the speech’s greatest strength: it hasn’t left out anything in the subject worth saying, so that beside what he’s said no one could ever say anything more complete or of greater worth.

SocratesThere I can no longer agree with you. Wise men and women of old, who have spoken and written on these matters, will refute me if I concede it just to please you.

PhaedrusWho are they? And where have you heard anything better than this?

SocratesI can’t say offhand just now. But clearly I’ve heard something—maybe from the lovely Sappho, or the wise Anacreon, or even some prose writers. What evidence makes me say so? My breast feels full, somehow, my wonderful friend, and I sense that I could say other things besides these, and no worse. I know very well that I haven’t thought up any of them on my own, conscious as I am of my own ignorance. So the only possibility left, I think, is that I’ve been filled like a jug, through my ears, from someone else’s 235d streams. But in my dullness I’ve forgotten even this—how I heard it and from whom.note

PhaedrusWhy, my noble friend, you’ve put it beautifully. Don’t tell me from whom or how you heard it, even if I ask you to; just do exactly what you say. You’ve promised to say other things, better than what’s in the book and no less in quantity, while keeping clear of what it says; and I, like the nine archons, promise to set up at Delphi a life-size golden statue, not 235e only of myself but of you too.note

SocratesYou’re a dear, Phaedrus, and truly golden, if you think I’m saying that Lysias missed the mark entirely and that it’s possible to say something different beyond everything he said. I don’t think that could happen even to the worst writer. Take the subject of the speech: who do you suppose, arguing that one should favor the non-lover rather than the lover, could leave out praise of the one’s good sense 236a and blame of the other’s folly—points that are unavoidable—and still have something else to say? No, I think such things must be allowed and forgiven the speaker; with them what deserves praise is not the invention but the arrangement, whereas with points that aren’t unavoidable and are hard to find, it’s the invention as well as the arrangement.

PhaedrusI grant what you say; you seem to me to have spoken reasonably. So here’s what I’ll do: I’ll allow you to take as your premise that the lover 236b is sicker than the non-lover; and if in the rest you say other things, more and of greater worth than what Lysias has here, you shall stand in hammered metal beside the offering of the Cypselids at Olympia.note

SocratesYou’ve taken it seriously, Phaedrus, because I teased you by attacking your darling; and do you really think I’ll try to say something more elaborate to rival his wisdom?

PhaedrusOn that score, my friend, you’ve given me the same 236c hold on you. You absolutely must speak as well as you can; and take care that we aren’t forced into that vulgar routine of the comic actors, throwing the same lines back at each other. Don’t make me say, “If I don’t know Socrates, Socrates, I’ve forgotten myself too,” and “He wanted to speak, but he played coy.” Just realize that we’re not leaving here until you’ve said what you claimed to have in your breast. We’re alone in a deserted place, 236d and I’m stronger and younger; from all this, “take my meaning,” and don’t choose to speak under compulsion rather than of your own free will.

SocratesBut, my blessed Phaedrus, I’ll make a fool of myself, an amateur improvising on the same subject beside a good author.

PhaedrusYou know how things stand? Stop playing coy with me. I’ve more or less got something I can say that will force you to speak.

SocratesThen please don’t say it.

PhaedrusNo, I’m saying it right now, and my words will be an oath. I swear to you—but by whom, by which of the gods? Or would you like 236e this plane tree here?—I swear that if you don’t deliver your speech in its very presence, I will never again show you or tell you about any speech by anyone at all.

SocratesOh, you scoundrel! How well you’ve found the way to force a lover of speeches to do whatever you tell him!

PhaedrusThen why are you still twisting and turning?

SocratesI’m not, any longer, since you’ve sworn this. How could I possibly keep away from such a feast?

PhaedrusSpeak, then.

SocratesDo you know how I’ll do it?

PhaedrusDo what?

SocratesI’ll speak with my head covered, so that I can race through the speech as fast as possible and not lose my way from shame by looking at you.

PhaedrusJust speak; do everything else however you like.

SocratesCome, Muses, clear-voiced ones—whether you get that name from the kind of song you sing or from the musical people of Liguria—“take part with me” in the tale this excellent fellow is forcing me to tell, so that his friend, whom 237b he already thought wise, may seem even wiser to him now.note

Once upon a time there was a boy—or rather a youth—who was very handsome, and he had a great many lovers. One of them was wily: he was as much in love as any of them, but had persuaded the boy that he wasn’t in love. And once, pressing his suit, he tried to persuade him of just this, that he ought to favor a non-lover over a lover, and he spoke as follows—

In every matter, my boy, there’s one place to begin for those who mean to deliberate 237c well: they must know what the deliberation is about, or they’re bound to go completely wrong. Most people don’t realize that they don’t know the essence of each thing. So, as though they knew it, they don’t come to an agreement at the start of the inquiry, and as they go on they pay the natural penalty: they agree neither with themselves nor with each other. So let’s not, you and I, suffer what we criticize in others. Since the question before us is whether one should enter into friendship with a lover or a non-lover, let’s agree on a definition of love—what it is and what power it has— 237d and then, keeping our eyes on it and referring to it, let’s inquire whether it brings benefit or harm. Now that love is some kind of desire is clear to everyone; and again, we know that even those who aren’t in love desire what is beautiful.

But, my dear Phaedrus, do you think, as I do, that something divine has come over me?

PhaedrusVery much so, Socrates. An unusual fluency has taken hold of you.

SocratesThen listen to me in silence. The place really does seem 238d to be divine, so if I become possessed by the nymphs as the speech goes on, don’t be surprised. What I’m uttering now is already not far from dithyramb.note

PhaedrusThat’s very true.

SocratesYou’re to blame for it, though. But listen to the rest; perhaps what’s coming on me can still be averted. That will be the god’s concern; we must go back to the boy with our speech.

Well then, my excellent boy: what it is we have to deliberate about has been stated and defined. Keeping our eyes on it, 238e let’s say what comes next: what benefit or harm is likely to come from a lover or a non-lover to the one who grants him favors. A man ruled by desire and enslaved to pleasure is bound, I suppose, to make his beloved as pleasing to himself as possible. To a sick man anything that doesn’t resist him is pleasant, while anything stronger or equal is hateful. 239a So a lover won’t willingly put up with a beloved who is his superior or his equal, but always makes him weaker and inferior. And the ignorant man is inferior to the wise, the coward to the brave, the poor speaker to the orator, the slow to the quick-witted. With so many faults of mind, and more besides, arising in the beloved or present in him by nature, the lover is bound to take pleasure in the latter and cultivate the former, or else be deprived of his immediate pleasure.

Next we must see what condition of the body, and what care of it, will be given by the man who has become its master, a man who is compelled to pursue the pleasant rather than the good. He’ll be seen pursuing someone soft rather than firm, raised not in the clear sun but in dappled shade, a stranger to manly toil and dry sweat, familiar with a delicate, unmanly 239d way of life, decked out with borrowed colors and ornaments for lack of his own, and following all the other habits that go with these. They are obvious and not worth dwelling on further; instead, let’s define one main point and move on. In war and in other serious emergencies, a body like that gives the enemy confidence, while his friends, and his lovers themselves, fear for him.

Let’s leave that, then, as obvious, and say what comes next: 239e what benefit or harm the lover’s company and guardianship will bring us where property is concerned. This much is clear to everyone, and above all to the lover: he would pray above all for his beloved to be bereft of his dearest, most loyal and most sacred possessions. He’d be glad to see him deprived of father and mother, relatives and friends, 240a since he regards them as obstacles and critics of his sweetest intimacy with the boy. Moreover, if the boy has property in gold or any other form, he’ll think him neither so easy to catch nor, once caught, so easy to handle. From all this, a lover is bound to resent his beloved’s having property and to rejoice when he loses it.

There are other evils too, of course, but with most of them some divinity has mixed 240b a momentary pleasure. A flatterer, for instance, is a dreadful beast and does great harm, yet nature has mixed in with him a pleasure that is not without charm; one might censure a courtesan as harmful, and many other creatures and practices of that sort, which at least for a day are very pleasant indeed. But to his beloved a lover, besides being harmful, is also the most unpleasant of all to spend one’s days 240c with. As the old saying has it, “Age-mate delights age-mate”—for equality of age, I suppose, leads to similar pleasures and produces friendship through likeness. Yet even the company of age-mates brings its fill. And again, compulsion is said to weigh on everyone in everything, and that, on top of the difference between them, is what most marks a lover’s relation to his beloved.

While he’s in love he is harmful and unpleasant; once his love has ended he is faithless for the time to come—the time for which he made many promises, with many oaths and entreaties, and barely 241a managed, through the hope of good things, to make the boy put up with his company, burdensome as it was then. Then, when it’s time to pay up, he has changed the ruler and master within him—intelligence and self-control in place of love and madness—and has become someone else without his beloved noticing. The boy asks him to return the favor for what he gave then, reminding him of what was done and said, as if talking to the same man; while he, out of shame, neither dares to say that he’s become someone else, nor knows how to keep the oaths and promises of his former, mindless rule, 241b now that he has come to his senses and is self-controlled, for fear that by doing the same things as before he’d become like his former self and the same man again.

There you have it, Phaedrus. You won’t hear another word from me; let my speech end here.

PhaedrusBut I thought it was only halfway through, and that you’d say just as much about the non-lover—that one should favor him instead—and list all the good things he has to offer. Why are you stopping now, Socrates?

SocratesDidn’t you notice, my blessed friend, that I’m already uttering epic verse, no longer dithyramb, and that while finding fault? If I start praising the other, what do you think I’ll do? Don’t you know that I’ll plainly be possessed by the nymphs, to whom you’ve deliberately thrown me? So I’ll say in a word that for every fault we’ve found in the one, the other has the opposite good qualities. What need is there of a long speech? Enough has been said about both. And so the tale will suffer the fate it deserves to 242a suffer; and I’ll cross this river and go away before you force me into something worse.

PhaedrusNot yet, Socrates, not till the heat has passed. Don’t you see it’s nearly noon, “high standstill,” as they call it? Let’s stay and talk over what’s been said, and go as soon as it’s cooler.

SocratesYou’re superhuman when it comes to speeches, Phaedrus, simply amazing. I think that of all the speeches 242b made in your lifetime, no one has brought more into being than you, either by delivering them yourself or by compelling others to in one way or another—Simmias of Thebes I except, but you beat all the rest by far. And now again you seem to me to have caused a speech of mine to be spoken.note

PhaedrusThat’s hardly a declaration of war! But how so, and what speech is this?

SocratesJust as I was about to cross the river, my good friend, the divine sign, the sign that usually comes to me, came 242c —it always holds me back from something I’m about to do—and I thought I heard a voice from that very spot, forbidding me to leave until I had purified myself, as though I had committed some offense against the divine. Now I am a seer—not a very good one, but, like people who are poor at reading and writing, just good enough for my own purposes; so I now understand my offense clearly. For the soul too, my friend, has a kind of prophetic power. Something troubled me a while ago, even as I was giving the speech, and I had a certain misgiving, as Ibycus puts it, that “for offending against the gods 242d I might win honor among men.” But now I’ve realized my offense.note

PhaedrusWhat do you mean?

SocratesA terrible speech, Phaedrus, a terrible one—both the speech you brought and the one you forced me to give.

PhaedrusHow so?

SocratesIt was foolish, and somewhat impious. What could be more terrible than that?

PhaedrusNothing, if what you say is true.

SocratesWell then? Don’t you believe that Love is the son of Aphrodite, and a god?

PhaedrusSo it’s said, at any rate.

SocratesBut not by Lysias, nor by your speech, which 242e was spoken through my mouth after you’d put it under a spell. If Love is, as indeed he is, a god or something divine, he can’t be anything bad; but the two speeches just now spoke of him as if he were. So in this respect they offended against Love, and besides, their foolishness was really quite refined: though they said nothing sound 243a or true, they put on airs as if they amounted to something, in case they might fool a few little people and win a reputation among them. So I must purify myself, my friend. For those who offend in telling myths there is an ancient purification, which Homer didn’t know of, but Stesichorus did.note

PhaedrusNothing you could tell me, Socrates, would please me more than this.

SocratesYes, my good Phaedrus, for you realize how shamelessly the two speeches were delivered, this one and the one read out from the book. Suppose a man of noble and gentle character, in love with someone like himself or once in love before, happened to hear us saying that lovers take up great enmities over small things and are jealous and harmful toward their beloveds. Don’t you think he’d imagine he was listening to people brought up among sailors, who had never seen a love fit for free people? Wouldn’t he be very far 243d from agreeing with us in our criticisms of love?

PhaedrusVery likely, by Zeus, Socrates.

SocratesWell, I’m ashamed before this man, and afraid of Love himself, and I want to wash the salt taste out of my ears, as it were, with a fresh-water speech. And I advise Lysias too to write as soon as possible that, other things being equal, one should favor a lover rather than a non-lover.

PhaedrusRest assured it will be so. Once you’ve given your praise of the lover, there’s no way Lysias won’t be 243e compelled by me to write a speech on the same subject in turn.

SocratesThat I believe, as long as you remain who you are.

PhaedrusThen speak, and have no fear.

SocratesWhere’s that boy I was talking to? He should hear this too, so that he doesn’t, for lack of hearing it, rush to grant his favors to the non-lover.

PhaedrusHe’s right here beside you, very close, always, whenever you want him.

SocratesThen understand this, my fair boy: the 244a previous speech was by Phaedrus, son of Pythocles, of Myrrhinus; the one I’m about to give is by Stesichorus, son of Euphemus, of Himera. And this is how it must go: That story is not true which says that when a lover is at hand one should rather favor the non-lover, because the one is mad and the other sane. If it were simply true that madness is bad, that would be well said; but in fact the greatest of goods come to us through madness, when it is granted as a divine gift.note

These are the sorts of fine achievements—and I could tell you still more—of madness that comes from the gods. So let’s not be afraid of this point, at least, and let no argument throw us into a panic by frightening us into thinking that we should prefer the sensible friend to the one who is stirred up. Let it carry off the prize only when it has also shown, besides that, that love is not sent from the gods to the lover and the beloved for their benefit. We, for our part, have to prove the opposite: that madness of this kind is given by the gods for the greatest good fortune. 245c The proof will be unconvincing to the clever but convincing to the wise. First, then, we must see the truth about the nature of soul, divine and human, by observing what it undergoes and what it does. And the proof begins like this.

The wing’s natural power is to lift what is heavy upward, raising it aloft to where the race of gods dwells; and of the things that belong to the body, it has in a way the greatest share in the divine. The divine is 246e beautiful, wise, good, and everything of that kind. It is by these above all that the soul’s plumage is nourished and grows, while by the ugly and the bad and the other opposites it wastes away and perishes. Now Zeus, the great leader in heaven, driving a winged chariot, goes first, ordering all things and caring for them. After him follows an army of gods and divinities, 247a marshaled in eleven divisions. For Hestia stays alone in the gods’ house; of the rest, all those ranked among the number of the twelve lead as commanders, each in the place to which he has been assigned.note

The place beyond heaven no poet here has ever yet sung, nor will any ever sing of it as it deserves. But it is like this—for one must dare to speak the truth, especially when one’s subject is truth. The being that really is—colorless, shapeless, intangible, visible only to the soul’s pilot, intelligence, the being with which the whole class of true knowledge is concerned—occupies 247d this place. Now since a god’s mind is nourished by intelligence and pure knowledge, as is the mind of every soul that cares to take in what befits it, it delights in seeing what is, at last, and it is nourished and flourishes by contemplating what is true, until the revolution brings it round in a circle to the same place.

That is the life of the gods. As for the other souls, the one that follows a god best and has become most like him raises its charioteer’s head into the region outside and is carried round with the revolution, harried by its horses and barely able to see the things that are. Another rises at one moment and sinks at the next, and because its horses are unruly it sees some things but not others. The rest all strain after the heights and follow, but they can’t make it; they are carried round beneath the surface, trampling and colliding with one another, each trying to get 248b ahead of the next. So there is uproar, rivalry, and the most extreme sweat, and there, through the charioteers’ incompetence, many are lamed and many have many of their feathers broken. And all of them, after great toil, go away without having achieved the sight of what is, and once they have gone they feed on the food of opinion.

Here, then, is where our whole account of the fourth kind of madness has been heading. This is the madness of someone who sees beauty here and recollects true beauty, and so grows wings and, newly winged, is eager to fly up but cannot; gazing upward like a bird and paying no attention to what is below, he is blamed for being in a state of madness. Our account has come to this: that 249e this is the best of all the forms of divine possession, and from the best sources, both for the one who has it and for the one who shares in it; and that it is by partaking of this madness that one who loves beautiful people is called a lover.

Let that be our tribute to memory, which has made me speak at such length now, out of longing for what was then. As for beauty, as we said, 250d it shone out among those other things as a being, and now that we have come here, we have grasped it through the clearest of our senses, gleaming with the greatest clarity. For sight is the sharpest of the senses that come to us through the body. Understanding is not seen by it—it would arouse terrible loves if it offered some such clear image of itself to our sight—nor are the other things worth loving. But as it is, beauty alone has been given this lot: to be the most manifest 250e and the most lovable.

Now among the followers of Zeus, the one who is seized by love can bear the burden of the winged one with more dignity. But those who were servants of Ares and ranged the heavens with him, when they are caught by Love and think they are being wronged in any way by their beloved, turn murderous and are ready to sacrifice both themselves and the one they love. 252d And so it goes with each god: everyone lives honoring and imitating, as far as he can, the god in whose chorus he danced, so long as he remains uncorrupted and is living his first life here; and that is how he associates with and behaves toward his beloveds and everyone else. So each one chooses his love from among the beautiful according to his own character, and, as though the beloved were himself a god, he fashions him for himself like a statue and adorns him, 252e to honor him and celebrate his rites.

At the beginning of this story we divided each soul in three: two parts in the form of horses, and a third 253d in the form of a charioteer. Let that still stand now. Of the horses, one, we say, is good and the other is not; but what the excellence of the good one is, or the badness of the bad one, we did not explain, and now we must. The one of the pair that stands in the more honorable position is upright in form and clean-limbed, with a high neck and a slightly hooked nose; he is white to look at, with dark eyes; a lover of honor, with self-control and a sense of shame; a companion of true opinion; he needs no whip, but is driven by command and 253e word alone. The other is crooked, bulky, thrown together any which way, with a thick, strong neck and a short throat, snub-nosed, black-coated, gray-eyed, and bloodshot; a companion of arrogance and boasting, shaggy around the ears, deaf, barely yielding to whip and goad together.

These are the gifts, my boy, so great and so divine, that a lover’s friendship will give you. But the intimacy of the non-lover, diluted with a mortal kind of self-control and dispensing mortal, stingy benefits, breeds a meanness that the many praise as excellence 257a in the soul of its friend, and will make that soul roll around the earth and under the earth, mindless, for nine thousand years.

There, dear Love, is our palinode, offered and paid to you as beautiful and as good as we could make it—forced as it was, among other things, to use somewhat poetic language on Phaedrus’s account. Forgive what came before, and accept this with favor; be kind and gracious, and do not in anger take away or maim the art of love you gave me, but grant that I be valued by the beautiful even more than I am now. 257b If earlier Phaedrus and I said anything harsh against you, blame Lysias, the father of that speech; stop him from making speeches like that, and turn him to philosophy, as his brother Polemarchus has been turned, so that his lover here may no longer waver as he does now, but may simply devote his life to Love with philosophical discussions.note

PhaedrusI join you in that prayer, Socrates: if this really is better 257c for us, may it come about. But I’ve been marveling at your speech all this while, at how much more beautiful you made it than the first. So I’m afraid Lysias will look feeble to me, if he’s even willing to set another speech against it. In fact, my remarkable friend, one of the politicians was attacking him for this very thing only recently, and all through his tirade he kept calling him a “speechwriter.” So perhaps his pride will make him hold back from writing.note

SocratesThat’s a ridiculous idea, young man, and you’re badly mistaken about your 257d friend if you think he’s so easily scared by noise. And perhaps you also think the man who abused him meant what he said as a reproach.

PhaedrusHe certainly seemed to, Socrates. And you know yourself, I’m sure, that the most powerful and respected men in the cities are ashamed to write speeches and leave writings of their own behind, for fear of what later generations will think of them—afraid of being called sophists.

Socrates“Sweet bend,” Phaedrus—you’ve forgotten that the phrase comes from 257e the long bend in the Nile. And besides the bend, you’re forgetting that the proudest of the politicians are the ones most in love with speechwriting and with leaving writings behind. Whenever they write a speech, they’re so fond of their admirers that they add, right at the top, the names of whoever admires them on each occasion.note

PhaedrusWhat do you mean? I don’t follow.

SocratesDon’t you see that at the start of a politician’s writing, the first thing written down is his admirer?

PhaedrusHow so?

Socrates“Resolved,” it says somewhere, “by the Council” or “by the People,” or both, and “So-and-so moved”—the author naming himself, of course, with great solemnity and praising himself—and after that he goes on, showing off his wisdom to his admirers, sometimes producing a very long piece of writing. Does a thing like that look to you like anything other than a written speech?note

PhaedrusNot to me.

SocratesSo if it stands, the poet leaves the theater delighted; but if it’s struck out and he is denied a share in speechwriting and the honor of being thought worth writing, he goes into mourning, and so do his friends.

PhaedrusVery much so.

SocratesClearly not because they look down on the practice, but because they admire it.

PhaedrusAbsolutely.

SocratesAnd what about this? When an orator or a king becomes capable enough 258c to acquire the power of a Lycurgus or a Solon or a Darius and become an immortal speechwriter in his city, doesn’t he think himself equal to a god while he is still alive, and don’t later generations believe the very same thing about him when they look at his writings?note

PhaedrusVery much so.

SocratesDo you think, then, that anyone like that, however ill-disposed toward Lysias, would reproach him for the very fact that he writes?

PhaedrusNot likely, given what you say. He’d be reproaching his own ambition, it seems.

SocratesThen this much is clear to everyone: writing speeches is not shameful in itself.

PhaedrusHow could it be?

SocratesBut what I think is shameful is not speaking and writing well, but shamefully and badly.

PhaedrusClearly.

SocratesSo what is the way to write well, and badly? Do we need, Phaedrus, to examine Lysias on this, and anyone else who has ever written or will write anything, whether a public document or a private one, in verse like a poet or without verse like a layman?

PhaedrusYou ask whether we need to? What else would anyone live for, so to speak, if not for pleasures like these? Surely not for the kind that you have to be pained before you can enjoy, or else enjoy not at all—which is true of nearly all the pleasures of the body. That’s why they are rightly called slavish.

SocratesWe have time, it seems. And besides, it looks to me as if the cicadas, singing over our heads in the heat as they do and 259a conversing with one another, are looking down on us too. So if they saw the two of us, like most people at midday, not conversing but nodding off, lulled to sleep by them through laziness of mind, they would be right to laugh at us, thinking some slaves had come to their retreat to take their midday nap by the spring like sheep. But if they see us conversing and sailing past them as if they were Sirens, 259b unbewitched, perhaps they would admire us and give us the gift they have from the gods to give to human beings.note

PhaedrusWhat is this gift they have? I don’t seem to have heard of it.

SocratesIt hardly suits a man who loves the Muses not to have heard of such things. The story goes that these creatures were once human beings, before the Muses were born; and when the Muses were born and song appeared, some of the people of that time were so overwhelmed with pleasure 259c that they kept singing and neglected food and drink, and died without noticing it. From them the race of cicadas springs, having received this gift from the Muses: once born, they need no nourishment, but sing from the start without food or drink until they die; and after that they go to the Muses and report which people here honor which of them.

PhaedrusYes, we should talk.

SocratesThen we should examine the question we set ourselves just now: what makes a speech well spoken and well written, and what does not.

PhaedrusClearly.

SocratesWell, if something is going to be said well and finely, mustn’t the speaker’s mind know the truth about whatever he is going to speak on?

PhaedrusWhat I’ve heard about this, my dear Socrates, is that there is no 260a need for someone who is going to be an orator to learn what is really just, but what would seem just to the crowd who are going to judge, and not what is really good or fine, but whatever will seem so; for persuasion comes from these, and not from the truth.

Socrates“Not a word to be cast aside,” Phaedrus, should anything be that wise men say; we should look to see whether they have a point. And in particular what you’ve just said shouldn’t be dismissed.note

PhaedrusYou’re right.

SocratesLet’s examine it this way, then.

PhaedrusHow?

SocratesSuppose I tried to persuade you to get a horse and fight off the enemy, and neither of us knew what a horse was, but I happened to know this much about you: that Phaedrus thinks a horse is the tame animal with the longest ears—

PhaedrusThat would be ridiculous, Socrates.

SocratesNot yet. But suppose I seriously tried to persuade you, composing a speech in praise of the donkey, calling it a horse, and saying that the beast is worth everything to own, both at home and on campaign—handy to fight from, able to carry 260c your baggage besides, and useful for plenty of other things.

PhaedrusThen it would be utterly ridiculous.

SocratesWell, isn’t it better to be ridiculous and a friend than clever and an enemy?

PhaedrusApparently.

SocratesSo when an expert in rhetoric who doesn’t know good from bad takes on a city in the same condition and persuades it—not by praising a donkey’s shadow as if it were a horse, but by praising bad as if it were good—and, having studied the opinions of the crowd, persuades it to do bad things instead of good, what sort of crop do you think rhetoric 260d will harvest after that from the seed it has sown?note

PhaedrusNot a very good one.

SocratesWell then, my good friend, have we abused the art of speaking more crudely than we should? Perhaps she would say: “What nonsense are you talking, you remarkable people? I don’t force anyone who is ignorant of the truth to learn to speak. But if my advice counts for anything, he should first acquire the truth and then take me up. What I do proudly claim is this: without me, even someone who knows the things that are will be no better able to persuade by art.”

PhaedrusWon’t she be right to say so?

SocratesI agree—provided the arguments that come against her testify that she is an art. For I seem to hear some arguments approaching and protesting that she is lying, and is not an art but an artless knack. As the Spartan says, a genuine art of speaking without a grasp of the truth does not exist and never will.note

PhaedrusWe need these arguments, Socrates. Bring them here and examine what they say, and how.

SocratesCome forward, then, noble creatures, and persuade Phaedrus, father of beautiful offspring, that unless he pursues philosophy properly, he will never be able to speak properly about anything either. Let Phaedrus answer.note

PhaedrusAsk away.

SocratesTaken as a whole, then, wouldn’t rhetoric be an art of leading the soul by means of words, not only in the law courts and other public gatherings but in private ones too—the same art whether the matter is small 261b or great, and no more honored when it is correctly used on serious matters than on trivial ones? Or how have you heard it described?

PhaedrusNo, by Zeus, not quite like that. It’s mainly in lawsuits, I’d say, that people speak and write by art, and also in speeches to the Assembly; I haven’t heard of it going any further.

SocratesHave you only heard of the handbooks on speaking by Nestor and Odysseus, which they wrote in their spare time at Troy? Have you never heard of those by Palamedes?

PhaedrusBy Zeus, I haven’t even heard of Nestor’s—unless you’re making Gorgias out to be some sort of Nestor, or Thrasymachus and Theodorus some sort of Odysseus.note

SocratesPerhaps. But let’s leave them aside. Tell me: in the law courts, what do opposing parties do? Don’t they argue against each other? Or what shall we say?

PhaedrusExactly that.

SocratesAbout what is just and unjust?

PhaedrusYes.

SocratesThen won’t the one who does this by art make the same thing 261d appear just to the same people at one moment and, whenever he likes, unjust?

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesAnd in speaking to the Assembly, he’ll make the same things seem good to the city at one moment and the opposite at another?

PhaedrusJust so.

SocratesAnd don’t we know that the Eleatic Palamedes speaks with such art that the same things appear to his listeners both like and unlike, both one and many, both at rest and in motion?note

PhaedrusCertainly.

SocratesSo the art of arguing both sides isn’t confined to law courts 261e and public assemblies. It seems that for everything that is said there would be one single art—if it is an art at all—by which a person will be able to make anything resemble anything else, among things that can be made alike and for those to whom it can be done, and, when someone else does this and conceals it, to drag it into the light.

PhaedrusWhat exactly do you mean by that?

SocratesI think it will become clear if we look at it this way. Is deception more likely where things differ a great deal, or where they differ only a little?

PhaedrusWhere they differ a little.

SocratesAnd certainly, if you move over by small steps, you’re more likely to reach the opposite without being noticed than if you move in big ones.

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesSo someone who means to deceive another, without being deceived himself, has to know precisely how things resemble and differ from one another.

PhaedrusYes, he must.

SocratesNow if he doesn’t know the truth about each thing, will he be able to recognize the resemblance, great or small, between the thing he doesn’t know and other things?

PhaedrusImpossible.

SocratesSo when people hold opinions at odds with the way things are, and are deceived, this condition has clearly slipped in through certain resemblances.

PhaedrusThat’s certainly how it happens.

SocratesThen is there any way that someone who hasn’t come to know what each thing really is could be skilled at leading people over by small steps, through resemblances, away from what is in each case to its opposite—or at escaping this himself?

PhaedrusNever.

SocratesThen the art of speech, my friend, offered by someone who doesn’t know the truth but has gone hunting after opinions, will be a laughable sort of art, it seems—no art at all.

PhaedrusProbably so.

SocratesWould you like, then, to look in the speech of Lysias you’re carrying, and in the ones we gave, for some examples of what we’re calling artless and artful?

PhaedrusMore than anything—since as it is we’re talking rather abstractly, without adequate examples.

SocratesAnd, as luck would have it, the two speeches 262d that were given contain an example of how someone who knows the truth can play with words and lead his listeners astray. For my part, Phaedrus, I blame the local gods; and perhaps the Muses’ spokesmen too, the singers over our heads, may have breathed this gift into us—because I certainly have no share in any art of speaking.note

PhaedrusLet’s say so. Just explain what you mean.

SocratesCome on, then, read me the beginning of Lysias’s speech.

Phaedrus“You know my situation, and you’ve heard how I think it would be to our advantage if this came about. I claim I shouldn’t fail to get what I ask for just because I don’t happen to be in love with you. For lovers regret”—

SocratesStop. We have to say what he gets wrong and where his work lacks art, don’t we?

PhaedrusYes.

SocratesIsn’t this much obvious to everyone: that about some things of this kind we’re of one mind, and about others we’re at odds?

PhaedrusI think I follow you, but say it more clearly.

SocratesWhen someone says the word “iron” or “silver,” don’t we all have the same thing in mind?

PhaedrusCertainly.

SocratesAnd when he says “just” or “good”? Doesn’t each of us go off in a different direction, and don’t we disagree with one another and even with ourselves?

PhaedrusVery much so.

SocratesSo in some cases we agree, and in others we don’t.

PhaedrusRight.

SocratesThen where are we easier to deceive, and in which cases does rhetoric have more power?

PhaedrusObviously where we wander.

SocratesThen anyone who means to pursue an art of rhetoric must first have divided these things methodically, and grasped some distinguishing mark of each kind: the kind where the crowd is bound to wander, and the kind where it isn’t.

PhaedrusAnyone who grasped that, Socrates, would certainly have understood a fine distinction.

SocratesNext, I think, when he comes to each particular case, it mustn’t escape him; he must perceive keenly which of the two kinds the thing he’s about to speak of belongs to.

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesWell then, love: should we say it’s one of the disputed things or not?

PhaedrusOne of the disputed ones, surely. Or do you think you could have said what you just said about it—that it’s harmful to beloved and lover, and then again that it’s the greatest of goods?

SocratesExcellently put. But tell me this too—I was so possessed that I don’t quite remember—did I define love at the beginning of my speech?

PhaedrusBy Zeus, you did—remarkably thoroughly.

SocratesOh! How much more skilled at speeches you make the Nymphs, daughters of Achelous, and Pan, son of Hermes, than Lysias, son of Cephalus! Or am I wrong, and did Lysias too, at the start of his love speech, compel us to take love as some one thing that 263e he himself chose, and then arrange the whole rest of his speech with reference to that and carry it through to the end? Shall we read his beginning again?note

PhaedrusIf you like. But what you’re looking for isn’t there.

SocratesRead it, so I can hear it from the man himself.

Phaedrus“You know my situation, and you’ve heard how I think it would be to our advantage if this came about. I claim 264a I shouldn’t fail to get what I ask for just because I don’t happen to be in love with you. For lovers regret the good they’ve done once their desire has ended”—

SocratesHe’s a long way, it seems, from doing what we’re looking for. He doesn’t even start from the beginning; he starts from the end, trying to swim through his speech backwards, on his back. He begins with what a lover would say to his beloved once he was already finished. Or is there nothing in what I said, Phaedrus, dear heart?

PhaedrusWell, Socrates, what he’s making his speech about is an ending.

SocratesAnd the rest? Don’t the parts of the speech look as if they’ve been thrown together in a heap? Is there any evident necessity why the second point had to be placed second, or any of the others where it is? It seemed to me—knowing nothing, of course—that the writer said whatever came to him, and not without some flair. But do you know some principle of speechwriting that made him set these points side by side in this order?

PhaedrusYou’re kind to think me capable of discerning his work 264c so precisely.

SocratesBut this much, I think, you would say: every speech must be put together like a living creature, with a body of its own, so that it isn’t missing its head or its feet but has a middle and extremities, written to fit one another and the whole.

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesThen look at your friend’s speech and see whether it’s like that or not. You’ll find it’s no different from the epitaph that some say is inscribed for Midas the Phrygian.note

PhaedrusWhat epitaph is that, and what’s wrong with it?

SocratesIt goes like this: “I am a maiden of bronze, and I lie on the tomb of Midas. As long as water flows and tall trees flourish, I shall stay right here on his much-lamented grave and tell those passing by that Midas is buried here.” 264e That it makes no difference which line is said first or last, you notice, I think.

PhaedrusYou’re making fun of our speech, Socrates.

SocratesWell then, let’s let it go, so you won’t be upset—though it seems to me to have plenty of examples that someone could profit from looking at, as long as he doesn’t try too hard to imitate them—and let’s move on to the other speeches. There was something in them, I think, that anyone who wants to study speeches ought to see.

PhaedrusWhat sort of thing do you mean?

SocratesThey were opposites, I suppose: one said the lover should be gratified, the other the non-lover.

PhaedrusAnd very manfully, too.

SocratesI thought you were going to say the truth—“madly.” Still, that’s exactly what I was looking for. We said love was a kind of madness, didn’t we?

PhaedrusYes.

SocratesAnd there are two kinds of madness: one arising from human illnesses, the other from a divine release from our accustomed ways.

PhaedrusCertainly.

SocratesAnd we divided the divine kind into four parts belonging to four gods: we assigned prophetic inspiration to Apollo, the inspiration of the mystic rites to Dionysus, poetic inspiration to the Muses, and the fourth to Aphrodite and Love—the madness of love, which we said was the best. And, picturing the experience of love in some fashion or other—perhaps touching on some truth, perhaps getting carried off in another direction—we mixed together a not altogether implausible speech 265c and playfully sang a sort of mythic hymn, in a measured and reverent way, to your master and mine, Phaedrus—Love, guardian of beautiful boys.

PhaedrusAnd it was a real pleasure for me to hear.

SocratesThen let’s take up this point from it: how the speech managed to pass from blame to praise.

PhaedrusWhat do you mean by that?

SocratesIt seems to me that everything else really was just play, done in fun. But among the things said by chance there were two procedures, 265d and if someone could grasp their power by art, it would be well worth it.

PhaedrusWhat are they?

SocratesThe first is to take a comprehensive view and bring things scattered in many places together into a single form, so that by defining each thing one makes clear what one wants to teach about at any given time. So it was with what we said just now about Love—what it is, once defined: whether it was well or badly said, at any rate that is what enabled the speech to say something clear and consistent with itself.

PhaedrusAnd what is the other procedure, Socrates?

PhaedrusVery true.

SocratesWell, I myself, Phaedrus, am a lover of these divisions and collections, so that I can speak and think. And if I believe anyone else is able to see what is by nature one and many, I follow “in his footsteps, as if he were a god.” And those who can do this—whether I’m right or wrong to call them so, god knows—I have up till now been calling 266c dialecticians. But tell me what we should call those who’ve learned from you and Lysias. Or is this that very art of speeches by which Thrasymachus and the others have become wise at speaking themselves, and make others so too—anyone willing to bring them gifts as if they were kings?note

PhaedrusKingly men they are, but certainly not experts in what you’re asking about. Still, I think you’re calling this kind by the right name when you call it dialectical. But rhetoric still seems to escape us.

SocratesWhat do you mean? Could there be something fine that is left out of these and is still grasped by art? In any case, you and I mustn’t disrespect it; we must say what exactly is left over for rhetoric.

PhaedrusQuite a lot, surely, Socrates—all the things in the books written on the art of speaking.

SocratesThank you for the reminder. First, I believe, a prologue has to be spoken at the beginning of the speech. These are what you mean—aren’t they?—the refinements of the art?

PhaedrusYes.

SocratesSecond comes a narrative, with testimony to support it; third, evidence; fourth, probabilities. And confirmation and further confirmation are mentioned, I think, by that superb master craftsman of speech from Byzantium.

PhaedrusYou mean the worthy Theodorus?

SocratesWho else? And how refutation and further refutation are to be done, in prosecution and in defense. And shan’t we bring forward the splendid Evenus of Paros, who first invented insinuation and indirect praise? Some say he even put indirect censure into verse, to help the memory—a wise man. And shall we let Tisias and Gorgias sleep, who saw that probabilities deserve more honor than truths, and who by the force of speech make small things appear great and great things small, 267b present new things in an old way and the opposite in a new way, and discovered both conciseness and boundless length on every subject? When Prodicus once heard me say this, he laughed and said that he alone had found the art that speeches need: they should be neither long nor short, but of the right length.note

PhaedrusVery wise, Prodicus!

SocratesAnd aren’t we mentioning Hippias? I think our visitor from Elis would vote with Prodicus too.note

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesAnd how shall we describe Polus’s showroom of speech— 267c his “double-speak,” “maxim-speak” and “image-speak”—and the vocabulary of Licymnius that was given to him as a present for producing elegant diction?note

PhaedrusBut weren’t there things of that sort from Protagoras, Socrates?

SocratesYes, my boy—a certain correctness of diction, and many other fine things. But when it comes to tearful speeches dragged out over old age and poverty, the art that has mastered them seems to me that of the mighty Chalcedonian. The man has also become formidable at making a crowd angry 267d and then, when they’re angry, charming them again with his spells, as he put it; and he’s the best there is at creating slanders and dispelling them, whatever their source. As for the ending of speeches, everyone seems to be in common agreement; some call it a recapitulation, others give it another name.

PhaedrusYou mean reminding the listeners at the end of each of the points made, in summary?

SocratesThat’s what I mean—and anything else you can mention about the art of speeches.

PhaedrusJust minor things, not worth mentioning.

SocratesLet’s leave the minor things aside, then. Let’s hold these up to the light instead and see what power of art they have, and when.

PhaedrusA very strong power, Socrates—at any rate in mass gatherings.

SocratesYes, it has that. But look, my good friend, and see whether their fabric seems as full of gaps to you as it does to me.

PhaedrusJust show me.

SocratesTell me, then: suppose someone went to your friend Eryximachus or to his father Acumenus and said, “I know how to apply things to bodies so as to warm 268b them if I want, or cool them, and, if I see fit, make them vomit, or make their bowels move, and a great many other things of that sort. And because I know this, I claim to be a doctor, and to make a doctor of anyone else I pass this knowledge on to.” What do you think they’d say when they heard that?note

PhaedrusWhat else but ask whether he also knows whom he should do each of these things to, and when, and to what extent?

SocratesAnd suppose he said, “Not at all. But I expect that whoever has learned these things 268c from me will be able to do what you ask on his own”?

PhaedrusThey’d say, I think, that the man is mad, and that because he’s heard something from a book somewhere, or come across some medicines, he thinks he has become a doctor, though he understands nothing of the art.

SocratesAnd what if someone went to Sophocles and Euripides and said he knew how to make very long speeches about a small matter and very short ones about a great matter, and pitiful ones when he wanted, and, on the other hand, frightening and threatening ones, and all 268d that sort of thing, and he believed that by teaching this he was passing on the art of composing tragedy?

PhaedrusThey too, Socrates, would laugh at him, I think, if he believed tragedy was anything other than the arrangement of these elements so that they fit one another and the whole.

SocratesBut they wouldn’t abuse him crudely, I think. They’d be like a musician who met a man who believed he was an expert in harmony because he happened to know how to make a string sound the highest and lowest 268e note possible. The musician wouldn’t say savagely, “You wretch, you’re out of your mind!” Being a musician, he’d say more gently, “My good man, anyone who’s going to be an expert in harmony must know these things too, but nothing prevents someone at your stage from understanding nothing at all about harmony. You know what has to be learned before harmony, but not harmony itself.”

PhaedrusQuite right.

SocratesSo Sophocles, too, would say that the man showing off to them knew the preliminaries of tragedy, not tragedy; and Acumenus that he knew the preliminaries of medicine, not medicine.

PhaedrusAbsolutely.

SocratesAnd what do we think honey-voiced Adrastus, or Pericles, would say if they heard about the wonderful techniques we went through just now—the brief speech-making and image-speak and all the rest we said must be examined in the light? Would 269b they, like you and me, be harsh and, out of boorishness, say something rude to those who’ve written and teach these things as the art of rhetoric? Or, being wiser than we are, would they rebuke us as well and say: “Phaedrus and Socrates, you shouldn’t be harsh but forgiving, if some people who don’t know how to practice dialectic were unable to define what rhetoric is, and as a result of this condition believed that, since they had the studies necessary before the art, they had discovered 269c rhetoric. They teach these things to others and believe they’ve taught them rhetoric completely; but saying each of these things persuasively and putting the whole together is no great task, they think, and their students must supply it for themselves in their own speeches”?note

PhaedrusWell, Socrates, it does look as if that’s what the art amounts to that these men teach and write about as rhetoric, and I think what you’ve said is true. But the art of the truly rhetorical and persuasive speaker— 269d how and where could someone acquire it?

SocratesBeing able to become a finished competitor, Phaedrus, is probably—perhaps even necessarily—like everything else. If you have a natural gift for rhetoric, you’ll become a renowned orator, once you add knowledge and practice; wherever you fall short of these, there you’ll be incomplete. But as for the part of it that is an art, I don’t think the method is to be found in the direction Lysias and Thrasymachus are going.

PhaedrusThen where?

SocratesIt may well be, my excellent friend, that Pericles, with good reason, became the most accomplished of all in rhetoric.

PhaedrusHow so?

SocratesAll the great arts need, in addition, 270a idle chatter and lofty speculation about nature, since that loftiness of mind and all-round effectiveness seem to come in from there somehow. Pericles acquired this on top of his natural gifts. He came across Anaxagoras, I think, who was just that sort of man, took his fill of lofty speculation, and arrived at the nature of mind and thought—the very subjects Anaxagoras discoursed on at such length—and from there he drew into the art of speeches whatever was useful to it.note

PhaedrusWhat do you mean by that?

SocratesThe method of the art of medicine is surely the same as that of rhetoric.

PhaedrusHow so?

SocratesIn both you have to analyze a nature—of the body in the one, of the soul in the other—if you’re going, not by mere knack and experience but by art, to produce health and strength in the one by applying medicines and food, and to instill in the other whatever conviction you want, and excellence, by applying speeches and lawful practices.

PhaedrusThat’s likely, Socrates, at any rate.

SocratesThen do you think it’s possible to understand the nature of the soul in any way worth mentioning without the nature of the whole?

PhaedrusIf we’re to believe Hippocrates the Asclepiad at all, you can’t even understand the body without this method.note

SocratesAnd he’s right, my friend. Still, besides Hippocrates, we have to examine the argument and see whether it agrees.

PhaedrusI agree.

SocratesThen consider what Hippocrates and the true argument say about nature. Isn’t this how one should think 270d about the nature of anything? First, whether the thing we want to be experts in ourselves, and to be able to make others expert in, is simple or has many forms. Then, if it’s simple, examine its power: what power it naturally has to act on what, or to be acted on by what. And if it has more forms, count them and see for each what one saw in the case of the single one: what it naturally does to what, or has done to it by what.

PhaedrusIt looks that way, Socrates.

SocratesAt any rate, a method without these would be like 270e a blind man’s walk. But surely someone who pursues anything by art mustn’t be compared to a blind man or a deaf one. Clearly, if someone teaches speeches by art, he’ll show precisely the essential nature of the thing to which he’ll apply his speeches; and that, surely, will be the soul.

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesSo his whole effort is aimed at this, since it’s in the soul that he’s trying to produce conviction. Isn’t that so?

PhaedrusYes.

SocratesClearly, then, Thrasymachus, and anyone else who seriously teaches an art of rhetoric, will first describe the soul with complete precision and make us see whether it is by nature one and uniform or, like the shape of the body, has many forms. That’s what we call showing its nature.

PhaedrusAbsolutely.

SocratesAnd second, what it naturally does to what, or has done to it by what.

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesThird, having classified the kinds of speeches and of soul, and the ways they’re affected, he’ll go through all the causes, fitting each to each, and teaching what kind of soul is necessarily persuaded by what kind of speeches, and for what reason, and why another is not.

PhaedrusThat would certainly be the finest way, it seems.

SocratesIn fact, my friend, nothing presented or spoken in any other way will ever be spoken or written with art—neither this subject nor anything 271c else. But those who write arts of speech nowadays, whom you’ve heard, are crafty: they hide it, though they know all about the soul. So until they speak and write in this way, let’s not believe that they write with art.

PhaedrusWhat way is that?

SocratesIt isn’t easy to give the actual words; but I’m willing to say how one ought to write if it’s to be as artful as possible.

PhaedrusGo on, then.

SocratesSince the power of speech is in fact that of leading the soul, 271d anyone who means to be a rhetorician must know how many forms the soul has. There are so many, of such and such kinds, which is why some people are like this and others like that. With these distinctions made, there are in turn so many forms of speech, each of such a kind. So people of this sort are easily persuaded by speeches of that sort, for this reason, to do such things, while people of that sort are hard to persuade, for these reasons. Having understood all this adequately, he must then watch it actually happening and being done in real life, 271e and be able to follow it keenly with his perception; otherwise he’ll be no better off than he was with the lessons he heard back when he was a student.

PhaedrusIt can’t be otherwise, Socrates, I suppose. And yet it looks like no small task.

SocratesTrue. That’s why we must turn all the arguments upside down and examine them to see whether some 272c easier, shorter road to it appears anywhere, so that no one sets off on a long, rough one for nothing when a short, smooth one is available. If you’ve heard anything helpful from Lysias or anyone else, try to remember it and tell me.

PhaedrusI could if it were just a matter of trying, but right now I have nothing.

SocratesThen would you like me to tell you something I’ve heard from people concerned with these matters?

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesThey do say, Phaedrus, that it’s only fair to give even the wolf’s side.

PhaedrusThen you do just that.

SocratesWell, they say there’s no need to make so solemn a matter of these things, or take such a long way round to raise them so high. For, as we said at the start of this discussion, someone who means to be an adequate rhetorician needs no share at all of the truth about just or good actions, or about people who are just or good by nature or upbringing. In the law courts, they say, nobody cares in the least about the truth of these things, only about what’s persuasive; 272e and that is the probable, which anyone who means to speak with art must attend to. Sometimes you shouldn’t even state what was actually done, if it wasn’t done in a probable way, but what’s probable, whether in prosecution or defense. Whatever you say, you must pursue the probable and say a long goodbye to the truth. When this runs through 273a the whole speech, it provides the entire art.

PhaedrusThat’s exactly what they say, Socrates, the people who claim to be experts in speeches. I remember that earlier we touched on this sort of thing briefly, and people involved in these matters think it’s tremendously important.

SocratesWell, you’ve certainly pored over Tisias himself with care. So let Tisias tell us this too: does he mean by 273b the probable anything other than what the crowd believes?

PhaedrusWhat else?

SocratesIt seems it was this clever and artful discovery that led him to write that if a weak but brave man beats up a strong coward and steals his cloak or something else, and is taken to court, neither of them should tell the truth. The coward should say he wasn’t beaten up by the brave man alone, while the other should prove that the two of them were alone, and make use of that 273c famous line: “How could someone like me have attacked someone like him?” The coward won’t admit his own cowardice, but by trying to tell some other lie he might hand his opponent a way to refute him. And in other cases too, what’s said with art is something like this. Isn’t it, Phaedrus?

PhaedrusCertainly.

SocratesOh! It’s a marvelously well-hidden art, it seems, that Tisias discovered—or whoever else it was, and whatever name he’s pleased to be called by. But, my friend, should we say to him or not—note

PhaedrusSay what?

SocratesThat, Tisias, we’ve been saying for some time now, since before you came along, that this probability arises in the minds of the many through its resemblance to the truth; and we’ve just explained that in every case the person who knows the truth knows best how to find resemblances. So if you have anything else to say about the art of speeches, we’d like to hear it. If not, we’ll trust what we’ve just explained: that unless someone counts up the natures of his future listeners, 273e and is able to divide things according to their forms and to encompass each individual thing under a single form, he will never be an expert in speeches to the degree possible for a human being.

PhaedrusThat seems to me very finely said, Socrates—if only someone could do it.

SocratesBut for someone who attempts fine things, it’s fine 274b even to suffer whatever he happens to suffer.

PhaedrusVery much so.

SocratesSo let that be enough about art and artlessness in speeches.

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesWhat remains is the propriety and impropriety of writing: under what conditions it is well done, and under what conditions unfitting. Isn’t that right?

PhaedrusYes.

SocratesDo you know, then, how you would best please god in matters of speech, in what you do or in what you say?

PhaedrusNot at all. Do you?

SocratesI can tell you something I’ve heard from those who came before us; the truth only they know. But if we could find that out for ourselves, would we still care at all about human opinions?

PhaedrusWhat a ridiculous question! But tell me what you say you’ve heard.

PhaedrusSocrates, you easily make up stories from Egypt or anywhere else you like.

SocratesWell, my friend, the people at the sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona said that the first prophetic words came from an oak. People in those days, not being as wise as you young people, were content in their simplicity to listen to an oak or a rock, as long as 275c it told the truth. But for you, perhaps, it makes a difference who the speaker is and where he’s from. You don’t just consider whether it’s so or not.note

PhaedrusYou’re right to rebuke me, and I think it is with writing just as the Theban says.

SocratesThen anyone who thinks he has left an art behind in writing, and anyone who takes it over thinking that something clear and reliable will come from writing, must be full of simplicity, and truly ignorant of Ammon’s prophecy, if he thinks written words are anything more 275d than a way to remind someone who knows about what the writing concerns.

PhaedrusQuite right.

PhaedrusThat’s quite right too.

SocratesWell then, do we see another kind of speech, the legitimate brother of this one? How does it come about, and how much better and more powerful than this one is it by nature?

PhaedrusWhat speech is that, and how do you say it comes about?

SocratesThe one that’s written with knowledge in the soul of the learner: it can defend itself, and it knows to whom it should speak and before whom it should keep silent.

PhaedrusYou mean the living speech of the one who knows, which has a soul, and of which the written speech could fairly be called an image.

SocratesExactly. Now tell me this. Would a sensible farmer, who cared about his seeds and wanted them to bear fruit, seriously plant them in summer in gardens of Adonis and enjoy watching them grow fine in eight days? Or would he do that for amusement and for the festival, if he did it at all, while for the seeds he was serious about he would use the art of farming, sow them in suitable ground, and be content if what he sowed reached maturity in the eighth month?note

PhaedrusThat’s how it would be, I think, Socrates: some things he’d do seriously, and others in the other way, as you say.

SocratesAnd shall we say that someone who has knowledge of what is just and fine and good has less sense than the farmer about his own seeds?

PhaedrusNot in the least.

SocratesThen he won’t seriously write them in water—black water, that is, ink—sowing them with a pen, along with words that can’t come to their own aid by speaking and can’t adequately teach the truth.

PhaedrusNo, probably not.

SocratesNo. Rather, it seems, he’ll sow gardens of letters and write for the sake of amusement. When he does write, he’ll be storing up reminders for himself, in case he reaches the forgetfulness of old age, and for anyone who follows the same track, and he’ll enjoy watching them grow up tender. When others turn to other amusements, soaking themselves in drinking parties and everything akin to them, he, it seems, will pass his time amusing himself with what I’m describing instead.

PhaedrusIt’s a very fine amusement you describe, Socrates, compared with a worthless one: the amusement of someone who can play with words, telling stories about justice and the other things you mention.

SocratesSo it is, Phaedrus my friend. But much finer, I think, is serious work on these things, when someone uses the art of dialectic, takes a suitable soul, and plants and sows in it, with knowledge, words that can come to their own aid and to the aid of the one who planted 277a them, and that are not fruitless but contain seed, from which other words grow up in other characters, able to make that seed forever immortal, and to make the one who has it as happy as a human being can be.

PhaedrusYes, that’s finer still, what you’re describing.

SocratesNow, Phaedrus, with these points agreed, we can decide those other questions.

PhaedrusWhich ones?

SocratesThe ones we wanted to look into, which brought us to this point: to examine the reproach against Lysias for writing 277b speeches, and speeches themselves, which are written with art and which without. Now I think what’s artful and what isn’t has been made reasonably clear.

PhaedrusIt seemed so, yes; but remind me again how.

SocratesUntil someone knows the truth about each of the things he speaks or writes about, and becomes able to define everything in itself, and, having defined it, knows how to cut it up again by forms until it can’t be cut any further; and until he has understood the nature of the soul in the same way, discovered 277c the kind of speech that fits each nature, and composes and arranges his speech accordingly, offering intricate, all-harmonious speeches to an intricate soul and simple ones to a simple soul—until then he won’t be able to handle speech with art, to the extent that its nature allows, either for teaching or for persuading, as our whole previous discussion has shown us.

PhaedrusYes, that’s more or less exactly how it appeared.

SocratesAnd what about whether it’s fine or shameful to speak and write speeches, and under what conditions it could rightly be called a reproach or not? Didn’t what we said a little earlier make it clear—

PhaedrusWhat did we say?

SocratesThat if Lysias or anyone else has ever written or ever will write, whether privately or publicly as a lawmaker, composing a political treatise and believing that it contains great reliability and clarity, then that is a reproach to the writer, whether anyone says so or not. For to be ignorant, waking or dreaming, of what is just 277e and unjust, bad and good, truly cannot escape being reproachable, even if the whole crowd praises it.

PhaedrusNo, it can’t.

SocratesBut take the man who believes that in a written speech on any subject there’s bound to be a great deal of play, and that no speech in verse or prose has ever been written that deserves much serious attention—or spoken, either, the way rhapsodes recite, without questioning or teaching, just to persuade; that in 278a fact the best of them have served as reminders for those who know; who believes that only in speeches that are taught and spoken for the sake of learning, and truly written in the soul, about what is just and fine and good, is there clarity and completeness and something worth serious attention; that such speeches should be called his own legitimate sons—first the one within himself, if it has been discovered and is present there, and then any offspring 278b and brothers of it that have grown up, as they deserve, in other souls of other people; and who says goodbye to the rest—that man, Phaedrus, may well be the sort that you and I would pray for us both to become.note

PhaedrusYes, that’s absolutely what I want and pray for.

SocratesThen let’s consider our play with the subject of speech to have gone on long enough. You, go and tell Lysias that the two of us went down to the spring of the Nymphs and sanctuary of the Muses, and heard words that told us 278c to tell Lysias, and anyone else who composes speeches, and Homer, and anyone else who has composed poetry, whether bare or set to song, and third, Solon, and anyone who has written treatises in the form of political speeches, calling them laws: if he composed these knowing how the truth stands, and can come to their aid when he’s put to the test about what he wrote, and is himself able, by speaking, to show that the written things are slight, then such a man shouldn’t be 278d called by a name taken from these, but from the things he’s serious about.

PhaedrusThen what names do you give him?

SocratesTo call him wise, Phaedrus, seems to me too grand, and fitting only for a god. But “philosopher”—lover of wisdom—or something like that would suit him better and be more in tune.

PhaedrusThat’s not at all out of place.

SocratesOn the other hand, someone who has nothing more valuable than what he’s composed or written, turning it upside down over time, gluing pieces 278e together and taking them apart—won’t you rightly call him a poet or a speechwriter or a writer of laws?

PhaedrusOf course.

SocratesThen tell your friend this.

PhaedrusAnd what about you? What will you do? We mustn’t pass over your friend either.

SocratesWho’s that?

PhaedrusHandsome Isocrates. What message will you give him, Socrates? What shall we say he is?note

SocratesIsocrates is still young, Phaedrus. But I’m willing to tell you what I prophesy 279a for him.

PhaedrusWhat’s that?

SocratesI think his natural gifts are too good to be compared with the speeches of Lysias and his circle, and besides, he’s blended with a nobler character. So it wouldn’t be at all surprising if, as he grows older, even in the very speeches he’s now attempting he were to leave everyone who has ever taken up speeches further behind than men leave boys; and still more if these didn’t satisfy him, and some more divine impulse led him on to greater things. For by nature, my friend, there is some philosophy in the man’s 279b mind. So this is the message I’m bringing from the gods here to Isocrates, as my beloved, and you take that other one to Lysias, as yours.

PhaedrusIt shall be done. But let’s go, since the heat has become gentler.

SocratesShouldn’t we pray to the gods here before we go?

PhaedrusOf course.

PhaedrusPray for this for me too; for friends have everything in common.

SocratesLet’s go.