INTRODUCTION TO THE PHÆDRUS.

Phædrus, whom we have already^[105] met with among the followers of the sophist Hippias, happening to meet with Socrates, tells him that he has just left the orator Lysias, who had written and recited a speech on the subject of love, in which he argued that a youth ought rather to shew favour to one who is not in love than to one who is. Socrates, who pretends to be very anxious to hear the speech, begs Phædrus to repeat it from memory as well as he is able, for he cannot doubt but that he has learnt it by heart, so great is his admiration for its author. Phædrus affects shyness, though in reality desirous of practising himself on Socrates: at length, however, Socrates discovers that he has a copy of it under his cloak, so they proceed on their walk, talking by the way, till they reach a plane-tree on the banks of the Ilissus, outside the walls of Athens, under whose ample shade they lie down^[106].

Phædrus reads the speech, which in addition to the faults of obscurity, inconclusiveness, and tautology, takes a very low and sensual view of the passion of love^[107]. When it is ended, Phædrus asks Socrates what he thinks of it, and whether it is not a wonderful composition, especially as to the language. Socrates at first praises it ironically, but on being pressed by Phædrus points out some of its faults, and says that even Lysias himself could not be satisfied with it, and that many others have both spoken and written finer things on the same subject, with which at that very instant his breast is full. Phædrus catches at this, and insists on Socrates repeating these fine things, promising that if he says any thing that excels the speech of Lysias he will erect his statue in gold in Olympia^[108].

As it is the present design of Socrates to take the same low view of love that Lysias had done, he determines to speak with 296his face covered, that he may not falter through shame. He begins by a definition of love, which he represents to be desire hurried on to the pleasure derived from personal beauty; and then he goes on to shew, with great perspicuity, how a person under the influence of such a passion must needs be anxious that the beloved object should not excel himself or be admired by others. Then with regard to the body, he will wish to make it effeminate, and be anxious that his beloved should be as much as possible dependent on him; and at length he will become unfaithful, forget all his former vows and promises, and leave his favourite despised and destitute, who will suffer most of all in this, that he has been debarred from cultivating his soul, than which, he adds, there neither is nor ever will be any thing more precious in the sight of gods and men^[109].

Phædrus expects that Socrates will not only shew the disadvantages of granting favours to a lover, but also go on to point out the advantages of granting them to one who is not in love. This, however, he refuses to do; and then, conscience-stricken for that he has been guilty of an offence against the deity of Love in speaking of him in so impious a manner, he determines on making his recantation, by uttering a speech which shall describe that deity in his true character. He begins by condemning his former assertion that favour ought rather to be shewn to one who is not in love than to a lover, because the latter is mad and the former in his sober senses. For, he argues, it is not universally true that madness is an evil, so far from it, that the greatest blessings spring from madness, for even prophetic inspiration is a species of madness and derives its very name from it. And love is one of many kinds of madness, and as such the source of the greatest happiness to man. To prove this, he says, it is necessary to examine into the nature of the soul, both human and divine. The soul, then, is immortal, because it contains the principle of motion within itself (a subtle argument which it may be observed was 297not adduced in the Phædo, where the soul’s immortality was the immediate point under discussion.) Still, to explain what the soul is would require a divine and lengthened exposition; he must therefore content himself with saying what it is like. He therefore compares the soul to a pair of winged steeds and a charioteer. The horses and charioteers of the gods are all good, but all others are mixed. While the soul is perfect and winged it soars aloft, but when it loses its wings it is borne downward and becomes united with a body in which it takes up its abode, and the two united are called mortal. He then describes how Jupiter goes first, driving a winged chariot, and is followed by a host of gods and demons distributed into eleven divisions: in their flight they reach the external regions of heaven, and behold truth, justice, temperance, science, in their essences. Other inferior souls endeavour to follow and imitate them; few, however, can do so: those that get a glimpse of any of the true essences are free from harm till the next revolution, but those that are unable to do so are weighed down and lose their wings, and become implanted in earthly natures of various orders, and then, according to their conduct in this condition, are either restored to their former state or still further degraded. The mind of the philosopher, however, is alone furnished with wings, because his memory dwells on that which is divine^[110].

This then is the madness above spoken of, when one, beholding beauty in this lower world, is reminded of the true, and looking upwards to it despises things below and is deemed to be affected with madness. But he who has become corrupted is not easily carried hence to beauty itself, nor does he reverence it when he beholds it, but looks upon it with carnal sensuality; whereas he, who has not been so far corrupted, when he beholds the imitation of beauty here, reverences it as a god, and, but for the imputation of madness, would sacrifice to it. Then his wings begin to swell again and endeavour 298to burst forth anew; but when separated from the beautiful object the soul becomes parched and the passages through which the wings shoot forth become closed. Thus alternately tormented with agony and joy, it becomes frantic and runs about trying to see the possessor of the beauty. This affection men call love. Now when a follower of Jupiter is thus seized, he is better able to bear the burden of the winged god: for such a one seeks one who resembles Jupiter to be the object of his love; and when he has found him, he endeavours to make him like his own god^[111].

As each soul was before divided into three parts, two having the form of horses, and the third that of a charioteer, so that division must still be maintained. When therefore the charioteer beholds the love-inspiring sight, the obedient horse is easily restrained, but the other compels them to hurry to the favourite, and longs to indulge in the delights of love. But the charioteer, on approaching him, is carried back to absolute beauty, and being awe-struck falls backward and throws the horses on their haunches. When by being repeatedly checked in this way the vicious horse has laid aside his insolence, he becomes humbled and the soul of the lover follows his favourite with reverence and awe. And the beloved being worshipped by one who does not feign the passion but who really feels it, requites the affection of his worshipper, and in turn longs for the lover in the same manner that he is longed for, possessing love’s image, love returned. If then the better parts of their mind prevail so as to lead to a well-regulated life and philosophy, they pass their life in bliss and concord, and when they depart this life, they become winged and win one of the three truly Olympic contests, a greater good than which neither human prudence nor divine madness can bestow on man. If however, they have adopted a coarser and less philosophic mode of life, but still honourable, in the end they find the body without wings indeed, yet making an effort to become 299winged and so carry off no trifling prize of impassioned madness^[112].

When Socrates had ended his recantation to Love, Phædrus expresses great admiration of his speech; and adds that he doubts whether Lysias will ever venture to write speeches again. But Socrates shews him that such an expectation is altogether groundless; and after a charming little episode on the origin of grasshoppers, proposes to consider in what a correct mode of speaking and writing consists^[113].

The first essential is that the speaker should know the truth of the subject on which he is about to speak. And though it is commonly said that an orator need not know what is really just, but only what will appear so to the multitude, yet Socrates with great force destroys this fallacy, and shews that such rhetoric is not an art but an inartistic trick; for a genuine art of speaking neither does nor can exist without laying hold of truth. Rhetoric must be an art that leads the soul by means of argument. Now in courts of justice and popular assemblies men succeed by making things appear similar to each other so far as they are capable of being made appear so; and deception will more frequently occur in things that nearly resemble each other, so that a person who means to persuade or deceive another must be able to distinguish accurately the similarity and dissimilarity of things, and so lead his hearer by means of resemblances. Taking this as his principle, Socrates proceeds to shew that the speech of Lysias is altogether inartistic, for that he ought first of all to have defined Love and divided it into its different species and shewn of which class he was going to speak, whereas he begins where he should have ended, and throughout speaks at random without any definite design. He then proceeds to comment on his own two speeches. In one he argued that favour ought to be shewn to one that is in love, in the other to a person that is not in love. In one he said that love was a kind of divine 300madness, and then dividing this madness into four parts he shewed that the madness of Love is the best. In these speeches, then, are seen the two methods of arguing correctly, definition and division, the former of which contemplates many things under one aspect and brings them together under one general idea, the latter separates that general idea into species^[114].

Socrates then ridicules the rules of rhetoric laid down by many of the sophists, and having passed a high eulogium on Pericles, shews that a perfect orator must know the real nature of the things to which he will have to apply his speeches, and that is the soul; for as the power of speech consists in leading the soul, he must know how many kinds of soul there are, and by what arguments each kind is most easily persuaded^[115].

From speaking he proceeds to writing, and tells a pleasant story of the invention of letters, and remarks that the evil of writing is, that, like painting, if you ask it a question it cannot answer; and when once written it is tossed from hand to hand, as well among those who understand it as those who do not. But there is another kind of discourse far more excellent, which is written in the learner’s mind, and knows when to speak and when to be silent. The conclusion of the whole is that a speaker should be acquainted with the true nature of each subject on which he speaks or writes, be able to define, and divide things into their species until he reaches the indivisible, and to investigate the nature of the soul and apply his discourses to each soul according to its capacity.

Then, with a message, in accordance with these principles, to Lysias, and a high encomium on Isocrates, who promised to be led by a diviner impulse to holier and higher things, he concludes by praying that Pan would grant him to be beautiful in the inner man, and that all outward things might be at peace with those within. That he may deem the wise man rich: and may have such a portion of gold as none but a prudent man can bear or employ.

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