Phaedrus

SOCRATES: Let us turn aside here and go along the Ilissus, and then we will sit down in a quiet place wherever it seems best. PHAEDRUS: It is opportune, as it seems, that I happen to be barefoot; for you, of course, always are. It will be easiest for us, then, to go along wetting our feet in the water, and not unpleasant, especially at this season of the year and time of day. SOCRATES: Lead on, then, and at the same time look out for a place where we may sit down. PHAEDRUS: Do you see that tallest plane tree over there? SOCRATES: Of course. PHAEDRUS: There is shade there, and a moderate breeze, and grass to sit on or, if we like, to lie down upon. SOCRATES: Go on, then. PHAEDRUS: Tell me, Socrates, isn’t it from somewhere hereabouts along the Ilissus that Boreas is said to have carried off Oreithyia? SOCRATES: Yes, so it is said. PHAEDRUS: Is it then from this very spot? The water, at any rate, appears lovely, pure, and transparent, and suitable for girls to play beside it. SOCRATES: No, but about two or three stades lower down, where we cross over to the temple in Agra; and there is, I believe, an altar of Boreas somewhere there. PHAEDRUS: I haven’t noticed it particularly; but tell me, by Zeus, Socrates, do you believe this myth to be true? SOCRATES: Why, if I were to disbelieve it, as the wise do, I should not be out of place; and then I might rationalize and say that as she was playing with Pharmacia on the neighboring rocks, a gust of the North Wind (Boreas) pushed her down, and having died in this manner, she was said to have been carried off by Boreas — or from the Areopagus; for there is also another story, that she was carried off from there and not from here. But for my part, Phaedrus, I think such explanations are amusing enough, but they are the work of a very clever, industrious, and not altogether fortunate man, for no other reason than because he must next explain the form of the Centaurs, and again that of the Chimaera, and a crowd of such Gorgons and Pegasuses flows in upon him, and a host of other impossible and strange monster-like natures. If anyone, disbelieving in these, tries to reduce each of them to a reasonable probability, employing a sort of rustic wisdom, he will need a great deal of leisure.

​SOCRATES: But I have no leisure at all for these things; and the cause of it, my friend, is this. I am not yet able, according to the Delphic inscription, to know myself; so it seems to me ridiculous to examine other things while I am still ignorant of this. Therefore, bidding farewell to these matters and accepting what is customary about them, as I just said, I examine not them but myself, to see whether I happen to be a beast more complex and more puffed up with passion than Typhon, or a gentler and simpler creature, sharing by nature in some divine and humble lot. But, my friend, in the midst of our talk, was not this the tree to which you were leading us? PHAEDRUS: Yes, this is the very one. SOCRATES: By Hera, it is a lovely resting-place. For this plane tree is very spreading and high, and the height and shadiness of the agnus-castus are extremely beautiful, and as it is in full bloom, it must make the place most fragrant. And the spring, too, is most delightful as it flows under the plane tree with very cold water, to judge by my foot. It seems to be a sanctuary of some Nymphs and of Achelous, to judge from the figurines and statues. And if you like, how welcome and exceedingly sweet is the breeziness of the place! It echoes with a summer-like and shrill song of the chorus of cicadas. But the most charming of all is the grass, because on a gentle slope it is naturally suited to support the head of one who lies down in perfect comfort. So you have been the best of guides, my dear Phaedrus. PHAEDRUS: And you, my admirable friend, appear to be a most strange person. For you are exactly like what you say, a stranger who is being guided and not a native of the place; so entirely do you never travel abroad from the city into foreign lands, nor even, as it seems to me, go outside the wall at all. SOCRATES: Forgive me, my excellent friend. For I am a lover of learning; and the country places and the trees will teach me nothing, but the people in the city do. Yet you seem to me to have found the medicine for my going out. For just as people lead hungry beasts by waving a green branch or some fruit before them, you, by holding out speeches in books in this way, will seem to lead me all over Attica, and wherever else you please. Now, therefore, having arrived here for the present, I think I shall lie down, and do you choose whatever posture you think will be easiest for you to read in, and read. PHAEDRUS: Listen, then.