Phaedrus

​SOCRATES: You are dearest and truly golden, Phaedrus, if you think I am saying that Lysias has failed entirely, and that it is possible to say other things alongside all of these. But I think not even the worst writer would suffer this. For instance, on the very subject of the speech, who do you think, while saying that one should gratify a non-lover rather than a lover, could omit praising the rationality of the former and censuring the irrationality of the latter—which are indeed necessary points—and then have any other things to say? But I think such things must be allowed and forgiven in a speaker; and for such things, it is not the invention but the arrangement that should be praised, while for things that are not necessary and are difficult to find, both the invention and the arrangement should be praised. PHAEDRUS: I agree with what you say; for you seem to me to have spoken reasonably. I too, then, will act in this way: I will grant you to assume that the lover is more diseased than the non-lover; but as for the rest, if you speak other things more abundant and of more value than these, be set up in beaten gold at Olympia, alongside the offering of the Cypselids. SOCRATES: Have you become serious, Phaedrus, because I laid hold of your beloved in jest, and do you think that I will truly attempt to say something else more elaborate in opposition to his wisdom? PHAEDRUS: As for this, my friend, you have fallen into the same kind of grip. For you must speak by all means, as best you can, so that we may not be forced to do the vulgar thing that comic actors do, retorting upon one another. Do not make me forced to say that: “If I, Socrates, do not know Socrates, I have also forgotten myself,” and that: “He desired indeed to speak, but was coquetting.” Rather, consider that we shall not depart from here until you speak what you said you had in your chest. We are alone in a deserted place, and I am stronger and younger than you; from all these things, “Understand what I say to you,” and by no means wish to speak under compulsion rather than willingly. SOCRATES: But, blessed Phaedrus, I shall be ridiculous, an amateur improvising on the same themes in comparison with a good poet. PHAEDRUS: Do you know how it stands? Stop coquetting with me; for I have almost the very thing which, if said, will force you to speak. SOCRATES: Do not say it, then, by any means. PHAEDRUS: No, indeed, I am saying it right now; and my speech shall be an oath. For I swear to you—by which of the gods, though? Or do you want this plane tree here?—truly, unless you speak the speech to me in the presence of this very tree, I will never again either show or report to you any other speech of anyone else. SOCRATES: Oh, you rogue! How well you have found out the way to force a lover of speeches to do whatever you command. PHAEDRUS: Why then do you twist about, holding back? SOCRATES: I will do so no longer, since you have sworn these things. For how could I be able to abstain from such a feast?