Phaedrus

SOCRATES: My dear Phaedrus, where are you going, and where have you come from? PHAEDRUS: From Lysias, Socrates, the son of Cephalus; and I am going for a walk outside the wall. For I spent a long time there, sitting since early morning. And following the advice of Acumenus, your friend and mine, I am taking my walk along the roads; for he says they are less tiring than those in the race-courses. SOCRATES: He is right, my friend. But Lysias, it seems, was in town. PHAEDRUS: Yes, at Epicrates’ house, the one which used to belong to Morychus, near the temple of Olympian Zeus. SOCRATES: What was your pastime, then? Or is it clear that Lysias feasted you with speeches? PHAEDRUS: You shall hear, if you have leisure to go along and listen. SOCRATES: What? Do you not think that, in Pindar’s words, I should make it “a matter superior even to lack of leisure” to hear how you and Lysias passed your time? PHAEDRUS: Lead on, then. SOCRATES: Speak on. PHAEDRUS: And indeed, Socrates, the story is well suited for your ears. For the speech we discussed was, in some fashion, about love. Lysias has written about a beautiful boy being courted, but not by a lover; and this is the very cleverness of it: he claims that one should yield to a non-lover rather than to a lover. SOCRATES: Oh, noble indeed! I wish he would write that one should yield to a poor man rather than to a rich one, and to an older man rather than to a younger one, and to all the other qualities that belong to me and to most of us; for then his speeches would be witty and of public benefit. At any rate, I am so eager to hear it that even if you walk all the way to Megara, and, as Herodicus recommends, go up to the wall and turn back again, I will certainly not be left behind by you.

​PHAEDRUS: What do you mean, my excellent Socrates? Do you think that I, an amateur, can memorize, in a manner worthy of Lysias, what he, the cleverest writer of our day, composed at his leisure over a long period? I am far from capable of it; though I would rather have that ability than possess a great sum of gold. SOCRATES: O Phaedrus, if I do not know Phaedrus, I have forgotten myself. But neither is the case; I know well that when he was listening to Lysias’ speech, he did not hear it only once, but repeatedly asked him to repeat it, and Lysias readily complied. And even this was not enough for him, but finally he took the book and examined the passages he especially desired; and doing this, sitting since early morning, he grew tired and went for a walk, having, as I believe, by the dog, learned the speech by heart, unless it was extremely long. And he was going outside the wall in order to practice it. And meeting the man who is diseased with the passion for hearing speeches, when he saw him, yes, saw him, he was delighted that he would have a fellow-reveler, and urged him to lead on. But when the lover of speeches begged him to speak, he put on airs as if he did not care to speak, though in the end he was going to speak even if one would not listen voluntarily, forcing himself upon him. So, Phaedrus, entreat him to do now what he will soon do in any case. PHAEDRUS: For me, in truth, it is by far the best to speak as well as I can, since it seems to me that you will by no means let me go until I speak in one way or another. SOCRATES: Indeed, you have my true intention. PHAEDRUS: Then I will do so. For indeed, Socrates, I have by no means learned the exact words by heart; however, the general meaning of nearly all the points in which he said the case of the lover differed from that of the non-lover, I will go through in summary, each in order, beginning from the first. SOCRATES: Yes, after you have first shown me, my dear friend, what you have there in your left hand under your cloak; for I suspect you have the speech itself. And if this is so, understand this about me: that though I love you very much, when Lysias is present, I have by no means decided to offer myself to you for you to practice on. Come now, show it. PHAEDRUS: Stop. You have dashed the hope I had, Socrates, of practicing on you. But where do you wish us to sit down and read?