Download Open dialog with Phaedrus of Plato and more Lecture notes Philosophy in PDF only on Docsity!
PHAEDRUS
Phaedrus is commonly paired on the one hand with Gorgias and on the other with Symposium-with the former in sharing its principal theme, the lIature and limitations of rhetoric, with the latter in containing speeches devoted to the nature and value of erotic love. Here the two interests combine in manifold ways. Socrates, a city dweller little experienced in tile pleasures of the cmmtry, walks alit from Athens along the river Ilisus, alone with his friel1d Phaedrus, an impassioned admirer of oratory, for a private conversatioll: ill Plato most of his conversations take place in a larger company, and no other ill the private beauty of a rural retreat. There he is inspired to employ his knowledge of philos ophy in crafting two speeches all the subject of erotic love, to show how paltry is the best effort on the same subject of the /Jest orator in Athens, Lysias, who knows no philosophy. III the second half of the dialogue he explains to Phae drus exactly how philosophical understanding of the truth about any matter discoursed upon, and about the varieties of human soul and their rhetorical sus ceptibilities, is an indispensable basis for a rhetorically accomplished speech such as he himself delivered in the first part of the dialoglle. By rights, Phae drus' passionate admiratioll for oratory ought therefore to be transformed into an even more passionate love of philosophical knowledge, fine oratory's essen tial prerequisite. Socrates' own speeches about erotic love and his dialectical pre sentation of rhetoric's su/Jservience to philosophy are both aimed at persuading Phaedrus to this transformation. In his great second speech Socrates draws upon the psychological theory of the Republic and the metaphysics of resplendent Forms common to that dia logue and several others (notably Phaedo and Symposium) to inspire in Phae drus a love for philosophy. By contrast, the philosophy drawn upon in the sec ond, dialectical, half of the dialogue is linked closely to the much more austere, logically oriented investigations via the 'method of divisions' tliat we find in Sophist, Statesman, and Philebus-where the grasp of allY important philo sophical idea (any Form) proceeds by patient, detailed mapping of its relations to other concepts and to its own subvarieties, not through an awe-inspiring vi sion of a self-confined, single brilliant entity. One of Socrates' central claims in the second part of the dialogue is that a rhetorical composition, of which his sec ond speech is a paragon, must construct in words mere resemblances of the r�al truth, ones selected to appeal to the specific type of 'sour that its hearers possess, so as to draw them on toward knowledge of the truth-or else to dis guise it! A rhetorical composition does not actually convey the truth; the truth
Pltaedrus 507
is known only through philosophical study-of the sort whose results are pre
sented in the second half of the dialogue. So Socrates himself warns us that the
'philosophical theories' embodied in his speech are resemblances only, motivated
in fact by his desire to win Phaedrus away from an indiscriminate love of rheto
ric to a controlled but elevated love of philosophical study.
Phaedrus is one of Plato's most admired literanj masterpieces. Yet toward
its end Socrates criticizes severely those who take their own writing seri
ously-any writing, not just orators' speeches. Writings cannot contain or con
stitute knowledge of any important matter. Knowledge call only be lodged in a
mind, and its essential feature there is an endless capacity to express, interpret,
and reinterpret itself suitably, in response to every challenge-something a
written text once let go by its author plainly lacks: it can only keep on repeat
ing the same words to whoever picks it up. But does not a Platonic dialogue,
in engaging its reader in a creative, multilayered intellectual encounter, have a
similar capacity for ever-deeper reading, for the discovery of underlying mean
ing beyond the simple presentation of its surface ideas? Knowledge is only in
souls, but, despite the Phaedrus' own critique of writing, reading such a dia
logue may be a good way of working to attain it.
J.M.C.
SocRATES: Phaedrus, my friend! Where have you been? And where are 227 you going? PHAEDRUS: I was with Lysias, the son of Cephalus,l Socrates, and I am going for a wal k outside the city walls because I was with him for a long time, sitting there the whole morning. You see, I'm keeping in mind the a d vice of our mutual friend Acumenus/ who says it's more refreshing to b walk along country roads than city streets. SocRATES: He is quite right, too, my friend. So Lysias, I take it, is in the city? PHAEDRUS: Yes, at the house of Epicrates, which used to belong to Mory chus,^3 near the temple of the Olympian Zeus. SocRATES: What were you doing there? Oh, I know: Lysias must have been entertaining you with a feast of eloquence. PHAEDRUS: You'll hear about it, if you are free to come along and listen.
Translated by A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff.
- Cephalus is prominent in the opening section of Plato's Repll/JIic, which is set in his home in P iraeus, the port of Athens. His sons Lysias, Polemarchus, and Euthydemus were known for their democratic sympathies.
- Acumenus was a doctor and a rela tive of the doctor Eryximachus who speaks in the Symposium.
- Morychus is mentioned for his luxurious ways in a number of Aristophanes' plays.
j'/ltlt'drus 509
PHAEDRUS:^ That's what I'll do, then. But, Socrates, it really is true that I d did not memorize the speech word for word; instead, I will give a careful summary of its general sense, listing all the ways he said the lover differs from the non-lover, i n the proper order. SOCRATES: Only if you first show me what you a re holding in your left hand under your cloak, my friend. I strongly suspect you have the speech itself. And if I'm right, you can be sure that, though I love you dearly, I'll never, as long as Lysias himself is present, allow you to practice your own e speechmaking on me. Come on, then, show me. PHAEDRUS: Enough, enough. You've dashed my hopes of using you as my training partner, Socrates. All right, where do you want to sit while we rea d? SOCRATES: Let's leave the path here a n d walk along the Ilisus; then we 229 can sit quietly wherever we find the right spot. PHAEDRUS: How lucky, then, that I am barefoot today-you, of course, are always so. The easiest thing to do is to walk right i n the stream; this way, we'll also get our feet wet, which is very pleasant, especially at this hour and season. SOCRATES: Lead the way, then, and find us a place to sit. PHAEDRUS: Do you see that very tall plane tree? SOCRATES: Of course. PHAEDRUS: It's shady, with a light breeze; we can sit or, i f we prefer, lie (^) b down on the grass there. SOCRATES: Lead on, then. PHAEDRUS: Tell me, Socrates, isn't it from somewhere near this stretch of the Ilisus that people say Boreas carried Orithuia away?" SocRATES: So they say. PHAEDRUS: Couldn't this be the very spot? The stream is lovely, pure a nd clear: just right for girls to be playing nearby. SOCRATES: No, it is two or three hundred yards farther downstream, c where one crosses to get to the d istrict of Agra. I think there is even a n altar to Boreas there. PHAEDRUS: I hadn't noticed it. But tell me, Socrates, in the name of Zeus, do you really believe that that legend is true? SoCRATES: Actually, it would not be out of place for me to reject it, as our intellectuals do. I could then tell a clever story: I could claim that a gust of the North Wind blew her over the rocks where she was playing with Pharmaceia; and once she was killed that v..:ay people said she had been carried off by Boreas-or was it, perhaps, from the Areopagus? The d story is also told that she was carried away from there instead. Now, Phaedrus, such explanations are amusing enough, but they are a job for a man I cannot envy at all. He'd have to be tar too ingenious and work
- According to legend, Orithuia, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, was ab ducted by Boreas while she was playing with Nymphs along the banks of the Ilisus River. Boreas personifies the north wind.
510 Plwerirus too hard-mainly because a fter that he will have to go on and give a rational account of the form of the Hippocentaurs, and then of the Chimera; e and a whole nood of Gorgons and Pegasuses a nd other monsters, in large numbers and absurd forms, will overwhelm him. Anyone who d oes not believe in them, who wants to explai n them away and make them plausible by means of some sort of rough ingenuity, will n eed a great deal of time. But r have no time for such things; and the reason, my friend, is this. I 230 a m still unable, as the Delphic inscription orders, to know myself; a n d it really seems to me ridiculous to look into other things before I have understood that. This is why I do not concern myself with them. [ accept what is generally believed, and, as I was just saying, I look not into them but into my own self: Am I a beast more complicated and savage than Typhon/ or am I a tamer, simpler animal with a share i n a divine and gentle nature? But look, my friend�while we were talking, haven't we reached the tree you were taking us to? b PHAEDRUS: That's the one. SoCRATES: By Hera, it really is a beautiful resting place. The plane tree is tall and very broad; the chaste-tree, high as i t is, is wonderfully shady, and since it is in full bloom, the whole place is filled with its fragrance. From under the plane tree the loveliest spring runs with very cool water our feet can testify to that. The place appears to be dedicated to Achelous and some of the Nymphs, i f we can judge from the statues and votive c offerings.s Feel the freshness of the a ir; how pretty and pleasant it is; how it echoes with the summery, sweet song of the cicadas' chorus! The most exquisite thing of a ll, of course, is the grassy slope: it rises so gently that you can rest your head perfectly when you lie down on it. You've really been the most marvelous guide, my dear Phaedrus. PHAEDRUS: And you, my remarkable friend, a ppear to be tota lly out of d place. Really, just as you say, you seem to need a guide, not to be one of the locals. Not only do you never travel abroad -as far as I can tell, you never even set foot beyond the city walls_ Scx::RATES: Forgive me, my friend. I am devoted to learning; landscapes and trees have nothing to teach me-only the people in the city can d o that. But you, I think, have found a potion to charm me i n to leaving. For e (^) just as people lead hungry a ni mals forward by shaking branches of fruit before them, you can lead me a l l over A ttica or a nywhere else you like simply by waving i n front of me the leaves of a book containing a speech. But now, having gotten as far as tkis place this time around, I intend to lie down; so choose whatever position you think will be most comfortable for you, a nd read on.
- Typhon is a fabulous multiform beast with a^ hundred heads resembling many different animal species.
- Achelous is a river god. The Nymphs are benevolent female deities associated with natural phenomena such as streams, woods, and mountains.
512 Phaedrus
b whenever people see you talking with him they'll think you are spending time together just before or just after giving way to d esire. But they won't even begin to find fault with people for spending time together if they are not lovers; they know one has to talk to someone, either out of friendship or to obtain some other pleasure. U Another point: have you been alarmed by the thought that it is hard for friendships to last? Or tha t when people break up, it's ordinarily just c as awful for one side a s it is for the other, but when you've given up what is most important to you a l ready, then your loss is greater than his? If so, it would make more sense for you to be afraid of lovers. For a lover is easily a nnoyed, and whatever happens, he'll think it was designed to hurt him. That is why a lover prevents the boy he loves from spending time with other people. He's a fraid that wealthy men will outshine him with their money, while men of education will turn out to have the advantage of greater intelligence. And he wa tches like a hawk everyone who may d have any other advantage over him! Once he's persuaded you to turn those people away, he'll have you completely isolated from friends; and if you show more sense than he does in looking a fter your own interests, you'll come to quarrel with him. "But if a man really does not love you, if it is only because of his excellence that he got what he asked for, then he won't be jealous of the people who spend time with you. Quite the contraryl He'll hate anyone who does not want to be with you; he'll think they look down on him e while those who spend time with you do him good; so you should expect friendship, rather than enmity, to result from this "ff"ir. "Another point: lovers generally start to d esire your body before they know your character or have any experience of your other tra its, with the result that even they can't tell whether they'll still want to be friends with 233 you a fter their desire has passed. Non-lovers, on the other hand, are friends with you even before they achieve their goal, a nd you've no reason to expect that benefits received will ever detract fwm their friendship for you. No, those things will stand as reminders of more to come. "Another point: you can expect to become a better person if you are won over by me, rather than by a lover. A lover will praise what you say and what you do far beyond what is best, partly because he is afraid of b (^) being disliked, and partly because desire has impaired his judgment. Here is how love draws conclusions: When a lover suffers a reverse that would cause no pain to anyone else, love makes him think he's accursed! And when he has a stroke of luck that's not worth a moment's pleasure, love compels him to sing i ts praises. The result is, you should feel sorry for lovers, not admire them. "If my a rgument wins you over, (^) I will, first of alL give you my time with no thought of immediate pleasure; I will plan instead for the benefits c that are to come, since I a m master of myself and have not been over whelmed by love. Small problems w i ll not make m e very hostile, and big ones will make me only grad u ally, and only a l ittle, a ngry. I will forgive
Pizaedrlls (^513)
you for unintentional errors and do my best to keep you from going wrong intentionally. All this, you see, is the proof of a friendship that will last a long time. "Have you been thinking that there can be no strong friendship in the absence of erotic love? Then you ought to remember that we would not d care so much about our children if that were so, or about our fathers and mothers. And we wouldn't have had any trustworthy friends, since those relationships did not come from such a desire but from doing quite differ- ent things. "Besides, if it were true that we ought to give the biggest favor to those who need it most, then we should all be helping out the very poorest people, not the best ones, because people we've saved from the worst troubles will give us the most thanks. For instance, the right people to e invite to a dinner party would be beggars and people who need to sate their hunger, because they're the ones who'll be fond of us, follow us, knock on our doors/ take the most pleasure with the deepest gratitude, and pray for our success. No, it's proper, I suppose, to grant your favors to those who are best able to return them, not to those i n the direst need- that is, not to those who merely desire the thing, but to those who really 234 deserve it-not to people who will take pleasure in the bloom of your youth, but to those who will share their goods with you when you are older; not to people who achieve their goal and then boast about it in public, but to those who will keep a modest silence with everyone; not to people whose devotion is short-lived, but to those who will be steady friends their whole lives; not to the people who look for an excuse to quarrel as soon as their desire has passed, but to those who will prove b their worth when the bloom of your youth has faded. Now, remember what I said and keep this in mind: friends often criticize a lover for bad behavior; but no one close to a non-lover ever thinks that desire has led him into bad judgment about his interests. "And now I suppose you'll ask me whether I'm urging you to give your favors to everyone who is not in love with you. No. As I see it, a lover would not ask you to give in to all your lovers either. You would not, in c that case, earn as much gratitude from each recipient, and you would not be able to keep one affair secret from the others in the same way. But this sort of thing is not supposed to cause any harm, and really should work to the benefi t of both sides. "Well, I think this speech is loRg enough. If you are still longing for more, if you think 1 have passed over something, just ask." How does the speech strike you, Socrates? Don't you think it's simply superb, especially in its choice of words? SocRATES: It's a miracle, my friend; I'm in ecstasy. And it's all your d doing, Phaedrus: I was looking a t you while you were reading and it seemed to me the speech had made you radiant with delight; and since I
- This is classic behavior in ancient Greek literature of a lovesick man pursuing his prey.
Plillcdrus (^515)
SOCRATES: You're a real friend, Phaedrus, good as gold, to think I'm claiming that Lysias failed in absolutely every respect and tha t I can make a speech that is d ifferent on every point from his. I am sure that that couldn't happen even to the worst possible author. In our own case, for example, do you think that anyone could argue that one should favor the non-lover rather than the lover without praising the former for keeping (^236) his wits about him or condemning the latter for losing his-points that are essential to make-and still have something left to say? I believe we must allow these points, and concede them to the speaker. In their case, we cannot praise their novelty but only their skillful arrangement; but we can praise both the arrangement and the novelty of the nonessential points that are harder to think up. PHAEDRUS: I agree with you; I think that's reasonable. This, then, is what I shall do. I will a l low you to presuppose that the lover is less sane than (^) b the non-lover-and if you are able to add anything of value to complete what we a lready have in hand, you will stand in hammered gold beside the offering of the CypseJids in Olympia.1I SOCRATES: Oh, Phaedrus, I was only criticizing your beloved in order to tease you-did you take me seriously? Do you think I'd really try to match the product of his wisdom with a fancier speech? PHAEDRUS: Well, as far as that goes, my friend, you've fallen into your own trap. You have no choice but to give your speech as best you can: (^) c otherwise you will force us into trading vulgar jibes the way they do in comedy. Don't make me say what you said: "Socra tes, if I don't know my Socrates, I must be forgetting who I am myself," or "He wanted to speak, but he was being coy." Get it into your head that we shall not leave here until you recite what you claimed to have "in your breast." We are alone, d in a deserted place, and I am younger and stronger. From all this, "take my meaning"12 and don't make me force you to speak when you can do so willingly. SOCRATES: But, my dear Phaedrus, I'll be ridiculous-a mere dilettante, improvising on the same topics as a seasoned professional! PHAEDRUS: Do you understand the situa tion? Stop playing hard to get! I know what I can say to make you give your speech. Scx:RATES: Then please don't say it! PHAEDRUS: Oh, yes, I will. And what I say will be an oath. I swear to you-by which god, I wonder? How about this very plane tree?-I swear e i n all truth that, if you don't make your speech right next to this tree here, I shall never, never again recite another speech for you-I shall never utter another word about speeches to you!
- The Cypselids were rulers of Corinth in the seventh century B.C.; an ornate chest in which Cypselus was said to have been hidden as an infant was on display at Olympia, perhaps along with other offerings of theirs.
- A line of Pindar's (Snell 105).
516 Phaedrus
SocRATES: My oh my, what a horrible man you are! You've really found the way to force a lover of speeches to do just as you say! PHAEDRUS: So why are you still twisting and turning like that? SocRATES: I'll stop-now that you've taken this oath. How could I possi bly give up such treats? 237 PHAEDRUS: Speak, then. SocRATES: Do you know what I'll do? PHAEDRUS: What? SOCRATES: I'll cover my head while I'm speaking. In that way, as I'm going through the speech as fast as I can, I won't get embarrassed by having to look at you and lose the thread of my argument. PHAEDRUS: Just give your speech! You can do anything else you like. SOCRATES: Come to^ me,^0 you clear-voiced^ Muses, whether you are called so because of the qua l ity of your song or from the musical people of Liguria,13 "come, take up my burden" in telling the tale that this fine fellow forces upon me so that his companion may now seem to him even b more clever than he did before: There once was a boy, a youth rather, and he was very beautiful, and had very many lovers. One of them was wily and had persuaded him that he was not in love, though he loved the lad no less than the others. And once in pressing his suit to him, he tried to persuade him that he ought to give his favors to a man who did not love him rather than to one who did. And this is what he said: "If you wish to reach a good decision on any topic, my boy, there is c only one way to begin: You must know wha t the decision is about, or else you are bound to miss your target altogether. Ordinary people cannot see that they do not know the true nature of a particular subject, so they proceed as if they did; and because they do not work out a n agreement at the start of the inquiry, they wind up as you would expect-in conflict with themselves and each other. Now you and I had better not let this happen to us, since we criticize it in others. Because you and I are about to d iscuss whether a boy should make friends with a man who loves him d (^) rather than with one who does not, we should agree on defining what love is and what effects it has. Then we can lank back and refer to that as we try to find out whether to expect benefit or harm from love. Now, as everyone plainly knows, love is some kind of desire; but we also know that even men who are not in love have a desire for what is beautiful. So how shall we distinguish between a man who is in love and one who is not? We must realize that each of us is ruled by two principles which we follow wherever they lead: one is our inborn desire for pleasures, the other is our acquired judgment that pursues what is best. Sometimes these two e are i n agreement; but there are times when they quarrel inside us, and
- Socrates here suggests a farfetched etymology for a common epithet of the Muses, as the "clear-voiced" ones, on the basis of its resemblance to the Greek name for the Ligurians, who lived in what is now known as the French Riviera.
518 Phaedrus
239 anyone who is equal or superior to him as an enemy. Tha t is why a l over will not willingly put up with a boyfriend who is his equal or superior, but is always working to make the boy he loves weaker and inferior to himself. Now, the ignorant man is inferior to the wise one, the coward to the brave, the ineffective speaker to the trained orator, the slow-witted to the quick. By necessity, a lover will be delighted to find a ll these mental defects and more, whether acquired or innate in his boy; and if he does not, he will have to supply them or else lose the pleasure of the moment. b The necessary consequence is that he will be jealous and keep the boy away from the good company of anyone who would make a better man of him; and that will cause him a great deal of harm, especially if he keeps him away from what would most improve his mind-and that is, in fact, divine philosophy, from which it is necessary for a lover to keep his boy a great d istance away, out of fear the boy will eventually come to look down on him. He will have to invent other ways, too, of keeping the boy in total ignorance a nd so in total dependence on himself. That way the c boy will give his lover the most pleasure, though the harm to himself will be severe. So it will not be of any use to your intellectual development to have as your mentor and companion a man who is in love. "Now let's turn to your physical development. If a man is bound by necessity to chase pleasure at the expense of the good, what sort of shape will he want you to be in? How will he train you, if he is in charge? You will see that what he wants is someone who is soft, not muscular, and not trained in full sunlight but in dappled shade-someone who has never worked out like a man, never touched hard, sweaty exercise. Instead, he d goes for a boy who has known only a soft unmanly style of life, who makes himself pretty with cosmetics because he has no natural color at all. There is no point in going on with t h is description: it is perfectly obvious what other sorts of behavior follow from this. We can take u p our next topic after drawing a l l this to a head: the sort o f body a lover wants in his boy is one that will give confidence to the enemy in a war or other great crisis while causing alarm to friends and even to his lovers. Enough of that; the point is obvious. e "Our next topic is the benefit or harm to your possessions that will come from a lover's care and company. Everyone knows the answer, especially a lover: His first wish will be for a boy who has lost his dearest, kindliest and godliest possessions-his mother and father and other close relatives. He would be happy to see the boy deprived of them, since he would (^240) expect them either to block him from the sweet pleasure of the boy's company or to criticize him severely for taking i t. What is more, a lover would think any money or other wealth the boy owns would only make him harder to snare and, once snared, harder to handle. It follows by absolute necessity that wealth in a boyfriend will cause his lover to envy him, while his poverty will be a delight. Furthermore, he will wish for the boy to stay wifeless, childless, and homeless for as long as possible, since that's how long he desires to go on plucking his sweet fruit.
rllllcd rus (^519)
"There are other troubles in life, of course, but some divinity has mixed most of them with a dash of immediate pleasure. A flatterer, for example, (^) b may be an awful beast and a dreadful nuisance, but nature makes flattery rather pleasant by mixing in a little culture with its words. So it is with a mistress-for all the harm we accuse her of causing-and with many other creatures of that character, and their callings: at least they are delightful company for a day. But besides being harmful to his boyfriend , a lover is (^) c simply disgusting to spend the day with. 'Youth delights youth,' as the old proverb runs-because, I suppose, friendship grows from similarity, as boys of the same age go after the same pleasures. But you can even have too much of people your own age. Besides, as they say, it is miserable for anyone to be forced into anything by necessity-and this (to say nothing of the age difference) is most true for a boy with his lover. The older man clings to the younger day and night, never willing to leave him, driven d by necessity and goaded on by the sting that gives him pleasure every time he sees, hears, touches, or perceives his boy in any way at all, so that he follows him around like a servant, with pleasure.. "As for the boy, however, what comfort or pleasure will the lover give to him during all the time they spend together? Won't it be disgusting in the extreme to see the face of that older man who's lost his looks? And everything that goes with that face-why, it is a misery even to hear them mentioned, let alone actually handle them, as you would constantly be e forced to do! To be watched and guarded suspiciously all the time, with everyone! To hear praise of yourself that is out of place and excessive! And then to be falsely accused-which is unbearable when the man is sober and not only unbearable but positively shameful when he is drunk and lays into you with a pack of wild barefaced insults! "While he is still in love he is harmful and disgusting, but after his love fades he breaks his trust with you for the future, in spite of all the promises he has made with all those oaths and entrea ties which just barely kept 241 you in a rela tionship that was troublesome a t the time, in hope of future benefits. So, then, by the time he should pay up, he has made a change and installed a new ruling government in himself: right-minded reason in place of the madness of love. The boy does not even realize that his lover is a different man. He insists on his reward for past favors and reminds him of what they had done and said before-as if he were still talking to the same man! The lover, however, is so ashamed that he does not dare .tell the boy how much he has changed or that there is no way, now that he is in his right mind and under control again, that he can stand by the promises he had sworn to uphold when he was under that old b mindless regime. He is afraid that if he acted as he had before he would turn out the same and revert to his old self. So now he is a refugee, fleeing from those old promises on which he must default by necessity; he, the former lover, has to switch roles and flee, since the coin has fallen the other way, while the boy must chase after him, angry and cursing. All along he has been completely unaware that he should never have given
Pllacdrus 521
against the gods. In effect, you see, I a m a seer, and though I am not particularly good at it, still-like people who are just barely able to read and write-I am good enough for m y own purposes. I recognize m y offense dearly now. In fact, the soul too, my friend, is itself a sort of seer; that's why, almost from the beginning of my speech, I was disturbed by a very^ d uneasy feeling, as Ibycus puts it, that "for offending the gods I a m honored by men."19 But now I understand exactly what my offense has been. PHAEDRUS: Tell me, what is it? SocRATES: Phaedrus, that speech you carried with you here-it was horrible, as horrible as the speech you made m e give. PHAEDRUS: How could that be? SOCRATES: It was foolish, and close to being impious. What could be more horrible than that? PHAEDRUS: Nothing-if, of course, what you say is right. SoCRATES: Well, then? Don't you believe that Love is the son of Aphro d ite? Isn't he one of the gods? PHAEDRUS: This is certainly wha t people say. SocRATES: Well, Lysias certainly doesn't and neither does your speech, which you charmed me through your potion into delivering myself. But i f Love is a god or something divine-which he is-he can't be bad in e any way; and yet our speeches just now spoke of him as i f he were. That is their offense against Love. And they've compounded it with their utter foolishness in parading their dangerous falsehoods and preening them- 243 selves over perhaps deceiving a few silly people a nd coming to be a d mired by them. And so, my friend, I must purify myself. Now for those whose offense lies in telling false stories about matters divine, there is a n ancient rite of p urification-Homer did not know it, but Stesichorus did. When he lost his sight for speaking ill of Helen, he did not, like Homer, remain in the dark about the reason why. On the contrary, true follower of the Muses that he was, he understood it and immediately composed these lines:
There's no truth to that story:
You never sailed that lovely ship,
You never reached the tower of Troy.20 b
And as soon as he completed the poem we call the Palinode, he immediately -regained his sight. Now I will prove to be wiser than Homer and Stesichorus to this small extent: I will try to offer my Palinode to Love before I a m punished for speaking ill o f him-with m y head bare, no longer covered in shame. PHAEDRUS: No words could be sweeter to my ears, Socrates.
- Ibycus was a sixth-century poet, most famous for his passionate love poetry.
- Frg. 18 (Edmonds).
522 Phaedrus
c Scx:RATES: You see, my dear Phaedrus, you understand how shameless the speeches were, my own as well as the one in your book. Suppose a noble and gentle man, who was (or had once been) in love with a boy of similar character, were to hear us say that lovers start serious quarrels for trivial reasons and that, jealous of their beloved, they do him harm-don't you think that man would think we had been brought up among the most d vulgar of sailors, totally ignorant of love among the freeborn? Wouldn't he most certainly refuse to acknowledge the flaws we attributed to Love? PHAEDRUS: Most probably, Socrates. SocRATES: Well, that man makes me feel ashamed, and as I'm also a fraid of Love himself, I want to wash out the bitterness of what we've heard with a more tasteful speech. And my advice to Lysias, too, is to write as soon as possible a speech urging one to give similar favors to a lover rather than to a non-lover. PHAEDRUS: You can be sure he will. For once you have spoken i n praise e of the lover,^ I^ will most definitely make Lysias write a speech on^ the same topic. SocRATES: I do believe you will, so long as you are who you are. PHAEDRUS: Speak on, then, in full confidence. SocRATES: Where, then, is the boy to whom I was speaking? Let him hear this speech, too. Otherwise he may be too quick to give his favors to the non-lover. PHAEDRUS: He is here, always right by your side, whenever you want him. 244 SOCRATES: You'll have to understand, beautiful boy, that the previous speech was by Phaedrus, Pythocles' son, from Myrrhinus, while the one I am about to deliver is by Stesichorus, Euphemus' son, from Himera.2! And here is how the speech should go: "There's no truth to that story' -that when a lover is available you should give your favors to a man who doesn't love you instead, because he is in control of himself while the lover has lost his head. That would have been fine to say if madness were bad, pure and simple; but in fact the best things we have come from madness, when it is given as a gift of the god. b 'The prophetess of Delphi and the priestesses a t Dodona are ou t of their minds when they perform that fine work of theirs for all of Greece, either for an individual person or for a whole city, but they accomplish little or nothing when they are in control of themselves. We will not mention the Sybil or the others who foretell many things by means of god-inspired prophetic trances and give sound guidance to many people-that would take too much time for a point that's obvious to everyone. But here's some evidence worth adding to our case: The people who designed our language in the old days never thought of madness as something to be ashamed o f or worthy of blame; otherwise they would not have used the word 'manic'
- Etymologically: "Stesichorus son of Good Speaker, from the Land of Desire." Myrrhinus was one of the demes of ancient Athens.
524 P}wedrus
living when it stops moving. So it is only what moves itself that never desists from motion, since it does not leave off being itself. In fact, this self-mover is also the source and spring of motion in everything else that d moves; and a source has no beginning. That is because anything that has a beginning comes from some source, but there is no source for this, since a source that got its start from something else would no longer be the source. And since it cannot have a beginning, then necessarily it cannot be destroyed. That is because if a source were destroyed it could never get started again from anything else and nothing else could get started from it-that is, if everything gets started from a source. This then is why a self-mover is a source of motion. And that is incapable of being destroyed e or starting up; otherwise a l l heaven and everything that has been started Up24 would collapse, come to a stop, and never have cause to start moving again. But since we have found that d self-mover is immortal , we should have no qualms about declaring that this is the very essence and principle of a soul, for every bodily object thilt is moved from outside has no soul, while a body whose motion comes from within, from itself, does have a soul, that being the nature of a soul; and if this is so-that whatever moves itself is essentially a soul-then it follows necessarily that soul should have neither birth nor death. 246 "That, then, is enough about the soul's immortality. Now here is what we must say a bout its structure. To describe what the soul actually is would require a very long account, altogether a task for a god in every way; but to say what it is like is humanly possible and takes less time. So let us do the second in our speech. Let us then liken the soul to the natural union of a team of winged horses and their charioteer. The gods have horses and charioteers that are themselves a l l good and come from good b stock besides, while everyone else has a mixture. To begin with, our driver is in charge of a pair of horses; second, one of his horses is beautiful and good and from stock of the same sort, while the other is the opposite and has the opposite sort of bloodline. This means that chariot-driving in our case is inevitably a painfully d ifficult business. U And now I should try to tell you why living things are said to include both mortal and immortal beings. All soul looks a fter all that lacks a soul, c (^) a nd patrols a l l of heaven, taking different shapes at d ifferent times. So long a s its wings are in perfect condition it flies high, and the entire universe is its dominion; but a soul that sheds its wings wanders until it lights on something solid, where it settles and takes on an earthly body, which then, owing to the power of this soul, seems to move itself. The whole combination of soul and body is called il living thing, or animal, and has the designation 'mortal' as well. Such a combiniltion cannot be immortal, not on any reasonable account. In fact it is pure fiction, based neither on d (^) observation nor on adequate reasoning, that a god is an immortal living thing which has a body and a soul, and that these are bound together by
- Reading pasan Ie genesin at e 1 ,
Phacdrus (^525)
nature for all time-but of course we must let this be as it may please the gods, and speak accordingly. "Let us turn to what causes the shedding of t he wings, what makes them fall away from a soul. It is something of this sort: By their nature wings have the power to lift up heavy things and raise them aloft where the gods all dwell, and so, more than anything that pertains to the body, they are akin to the divine, which has beauty, wisdom, goodness, and e everything of that sort. These nourish the soul's wings, which grow best in their presence; but foulness and ugliness make the wings shrink and dis appear. "Now Zeus, the great commander in heaven, drives his w inged chariot first in the procession, looking after everything and putting all things in order. Following him is an army of gods and spirits arranged in eleven 247 sections. Hestia is the only one who remains at the home of the gods; all the rest of the twelve are lined up in formation, each god in command of the unit to which he is assigned. Inside heaven are many wonderful places from which to look and many aisles which the blessed gods take up and back, each seeing to his own work, while anyone who is able and wishes to do so follows along, since jealousy has no place in the gods' chorus. When tOOy go to feast at the banquet they have a steep climb to the high b tier at the rim of heaven; on this slope the gods' chariots move easily, since they are balanced and well under control, but the other chariots barely make it. The heaviness of the bad horse drags its charioteer toward the earth and weighs him down if he has failed to train it well, and this causes the most extreme toil and struggle that a soul will face. But when the souls we call immortals reach the top, they move outward and take their stand on the high ridge of heaven, where its circular motion carries c them around as they stand while they gaze upon what is outside heaven. "The place beyond heaven-none of ortr earthly poets has ever sung or ever will sing its praises enough! Still, this is the way i t is-risky as it may be, you see, I must attempt to speak the truth, especially since the truth is my subject. What is i n this place is without color and without shape a nd without solidity, a being that really is what it is, the subject of all true knowledge, visible only to intelligence, the soul's steersman. Now a god ' s d mind is nourished by intelligence and pure knowledge, as is the mind of any soul that is concerned to take in what is appropriate to it, and so i t i s delighted at last to be seeing w h a t i s real and watching w h a t is true, feeding on all this and feel ing wonderful, until the circular motion brings it around to where it started. On the way around it has a view of Justice as it is; it has a view of Self-control; it has a view of Knowledge-not the knowledge that is close to change, that becomes d ifferent as it knows the different things which we consider real down here. No, it is the knowledge e of what really is what it is. And when the soul has seen all the things that are as they are and feasted on them, it sinks back inside heaven and goes home. On its arrival, the charioteer s tables the horses by the manger, throws in ambrosia, and gives them nectar to drink besides.
