Phaedrus (257-258)

Socrates. There, dear Love, thou hast my recantation, which I have offered and paid as beautifully and as well as I could, especially in the poetical expressions which I was forced to employ on account of Phaedrus. Pardon, I pray, my former words and accept these words with favor; be kind and gracious to me; do not in anger take from me the art of love which thou didst give me, and deprive me not of sight, but grant unto me to be even more than now esteemed by the beautiful. And if in our former discourse Phaedrus and I said anything harsh against thee, blame Lysias, the father of that discourse, make him to cease from such speeches, and turn him, as his brother Polemarchus is turned, toward philosophy, that his lover Phaedrus may no longer hesitate, as he does now, between two ways, but may direct his life with all singleness of purpose toward love and philosophical discourses.

Phaedrus. I join in your prayer, Socrates, and pray that this may come to pass, if this is best for us. But all along I have been wondering at your discourse, you made it so much more beautiful than the first; so that I am afraid Lysias will make a poor showing, if he consents to compete with it. Indeed, lately one of the politicians was abusing him for this very thing, and through all his abusive speech kept calling him a speech-writer; so perhaps out of pride he may refrain from writing.

Socrates. That is an absurd idea, young man, and you are greatly mistaken in your friend if you think he is so much afraid of noise. Perhaps, too, you think the man who abused him believed what he was saying.

Phaedrus. He seemed to believe, Socrates; and you know yourself that the most influential and important men in our cities are ashamed to write speeches and leave writings behind them, through fear of being called sophists by posterity.

Socrates. You seem to be unacquainted with the

sweet elbow,

[*] Phaedrus, and besides the elbow, you seem not to know that the proudest of the statesmen are most fond of writing and of leaving writings behind them, since they care so much for praise that when they write a speech they add at the beginning the names of those who praise them in each instance.

Phaedrus. What do you mean? I don’t understand.

Socrates. You don’t understand that the name of the approver is written first in the writings of statesmen.

Phaedrus. How so?

Socrates. The writer says, It was voted by the senate (or the people, or both), and so-and-so moved, mentioning his own name with great dignity and praise, then after that he goes on, displaying his own wisdom to his approvers, and sometimes making a very long document. Does it seem to you that a thing of that sort is anything else than a written speech?

Phaedrus. No, certainly not.

Socrates. Then if this speech is approved, the writer leaves the theater in great delight; but if it is not recorded and he is not granted the privilege of speech-writing and is not considered worthy to be an author, he is grieved, and his friends with him.

Phaedrus. Decidedly.

Socrates. Evidently not because they despise the profession, but because they admire it.

Phaedrus. To be sure.

Socrates. Well then, when an orator or a king is able to rival the greatness of Lycurgus or Solon or Darius and attain immortality as a writer in the state, does he not while living think himself equal to the gods, and has not posterity the same opinion of him, when they see his writings?

Phaedrus. Very true.

Socrates. Do you think, then, that any of the statesmen, no matter how ill-disposed toward Lysias, reproaches him for being a writer?

Phaedrus. It is not likely, according to what you say; for he would be casting reproach upon that which he himself desires to be.

Socrates. Then that is clear to all, that writing speeches is not in itself a disgrace.

Phaedrus. How can it be?

Socrates. But the disgrace, I fancy, consists in speaking or writing not well, but disgracefully and badly.

Phaedrus. Evidently.

Socrates. What, then, is the method of writing well or badly? Do we want to question Lysias about this, and anyone else who ever has written or will write anything, whether a public or private document, in verse or in prose, be he poet or ordinary man?

Phaedrus. You ask if we want to question them? What else should one live for, so to speak, but for such pleasures? Certainly not for those which cannot be enjoyed without previous pain, which is the case with nearly all bodily pleasures and causes them to be justly called slavish.