Phaedrus (259-261)

Socrates. We have plenty of time, apparently; and besides, the locusts seem to be looking down upon us as they sing and talk with each other in the heat. Now if they should see us not conversing at mid-day, but, like most people, dozing, lulled to sleep by their song because of our mental indolence, they would quite justly laugh at us, thinking that some slaves had come to their resort and were slumbering about the fountain at noon like sheep. But if they see us conversing and sailing past them unmoved by the charm of their Siren voices, perhaps they will be pleased and give us the gift which the gods bestowed on them to give to men.

Phaedrus. What is this gift? I don’t seem to have heard of it.

Socrates. It is quite improper for a lover of the Muses never to have heard of such things. The story goes that these locusts were once men, before the birth of the Muses, and when the Muses were born and song appeared, some of the men were so overcome with delight that they sang and sang, forgetting food and drink, until at last unconsciously they died. From them the locust tribe afterwards arose, and they have this gift from the Muses, that from the time of their birth they need no sustenance, but sing continually, without food or drink, until they die, when they go to the Muses and report who honors each of them on earth. They tell Terpsichore of those who have honored her in dances, and make them dearer to her; they gain the favor of Erato for the poets of love, and that of the other Muses for their votaries, according to their various ways of honoring them; and to Calliope, the eldest of the Muses, and to Urania who is next to her, they make report of those who pass their lives in philosophy and who worship these Muses who are most concerned with heaven and with thought divine and human and whose music is the sweetest. So for many reasons we ought to talk and not sleep in the noontime.

Phaedrus. Yes, we ought to talk.

Socrates. We should, then, as we were proposing just now, discuss the theory of good (or bad) speaking and writing.

Phaedrus. Clearly.

Socrates. If a speech is to be good, must not the mind of the speaker know the truth about the matters of which he is to speak?

Phaedrus. On that point, Socrates, I have heard that one who is to be an orator does not need to know what is really just, but what would seem just to the multitude who are to pass judgment, and not what is really good or noble, but what will seem to be so; for they say that persuasion comes from what seems to be true, not from the truth.

Socrates. Phaedrus,

The word,which the wise speak must not be rejected,

but we must see if they are right; so we must not pass by this which you just said.

Phaedrus. You are right.

Socrates. Let us then examine it in this way.

Phaedrus. How?

Socrates. If I should urge you to buy a horse and fight against the invaders, and neither of us knew what a horse was, but I merely knew this about you, that Phaedrus thinks a horse is the one of the tame animals which has the longest ears—

Phaedrus. It would be ridiculous, Socrates.

Socrates. No, not yet; but if I tried to persuade you in all seriousness, composing a speech in praise of the ass, which I called a horse, and saying that the beast was a most valuable possession at home and in war, that you could use him as a mount in battle, and that he was able to carry baggage and was useful for many other purposes—

Phaedrus. Then it would be supremely ridiculous.

Socrates. But is it not better to be ridiculous than to be clever and an enemy?

Phaedrus. To be sure.

Socrates. Then when the orator who does not know what good and evil are undertakes to persuade a state which is equally ignorant, not by praising the

shadow of an ass

under the name of a horse, but by praising evil under the name of good, and having studied the opinions of the multitude persuades them to do evil instead of good, what harvest do you suppose his oratory will reap thereafter from the seed he has sown?

Phaedrus. No very good harvest.

Socrates. Well, do you think we have reproached the art of speaking too harshly? Perhaps she might say: Why do you talk such nonsense, you strange men? I do not compel anyone to learn to speak without knowing the truth, but if my advice is of any value, he learns that first and then acquires me. So what I claim is this, that without my help the knowledge of the truth does not give the art of persuasion.

Phaedrus. And will she be right in saying this?

Socrates. Yes, if the arguments that are coming against her testify that she is an art. For I seem, as it were, to hear some arguments approaching and protesting that she is lying and is not an art, but a craft devoid of art. A real art of speaking, says the Laconian, which does not seize hold of truth, does not exist and never will.

Phaedrus. We have need of these arguments, Socrates. Bring them here and examine their words and their meaning.

Socrates. Come here, then, noble creatures, and persuade the fair young Phaedrus that unless he pay proper attention to philosophy he will never be able to speak properly about anything. And let Phaedrus answer.

Phaedrus. Ask your questions.

Socrates. Is not rhetoric in its entire nature an art which leads the soul by means of words, not only in law courts and the various other public assemblages, but in private companies as well? And is it not the same when concerned with small things as with great, and, properly speaking, no more to be esteemed in important than in trifling matters? Is this what you have heard?

Phaedrus. No, by Zeus, not that exactly; but the art of speaking and writing is exercised chiefly in lawsuits, and that of speaking also in public assemblies; and I never heard of any further uses.

Socrates. Then you have heard only of the treatises on rhetoric by Nestor and Odysseus, which they wrote when they had nothing to do at Troy, and you have not heard of that by Palamedes?

Phaedrus. Nor of Nestor’s either, unless you are disguising Gorgias under the name of Nestor and Thrasymachus or Theodorus under that of Odysseus.

Socrates. Perhaps I am. However, never mind them; but tell me, what do the parties in a lawsuit do in court? Do they not contend in speech, or what shall we say they do?

Phaedrus. Exactly that.

Socrates. About the just and the unjust?

Phaedrus. Yes.

Socrates. Then he whose speaking is an art will make the same thing appear to the same persons at one time just and at another, if he wishes, unjust?

Phaedrus. Certainly.

Socrates. And in political speaking he will make the same things seem to the State at one time good and at another the opposite?

Phaedrus. Just so.

Socrates. Do we not know that the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno) has such an art of speaking that the same things appear to his hearers to be alike and unlike, one and many, stationary and in motion?

Phaedrus. Certainly.

Socrates. Then the art of contention in speech is not confined to courts and political gatherings, but apparently, if it is an art at all, it would be one and the same in all kinds of speaking, the art by which a man will be able to produce a resemblance between all things between which it can be produced, and to bring to the light the resemblances produced and disguised by anyone else.

Phaedrus. What do you mean by that?

Socrates. I think it will be plain if we examine the matter in this way. Is deception easier when there is much difference between things or when there is little?