Phaedrus (265-267)

Phaedrus. What do you mean?

Socrates. The two discourses were opposites; for one maintained that the lover, and the other that the non-lover, should be favored.

Phaedrus. And they did it right manfully.

Socrates. I thought you were going to speak the truth and say madly; however, that is just what I had in mind. We said that love was a kind of madness, did we not?

Phaedrus. Yes.

Socrates. And that there are two kinds of madness, one arising from human diseases, and the other from a divine release from the customary habits.

Phaedrus. Certainly.

Socrates. And we made four divisions of the divine madness, ascribing them to four gods, saying that prophecy was inspired by Apollo, the mystic madness by Dionysus, the poetic by the Muses, and the madness of love, inspired by Aphrodite and Eros, we said was the best. We described the passion of love in some sort of figurative manner, expressing some truth, perhaps, and perhaps being led away in another direction, and after composing a somewhat plausible discourse, we chanted a sportive and mythic hymn in meet and pious strain to the honor of your lord and mine, Phaedrus, Love, the guardian of beautiful boys.

Phaedrus. Yes, and I found it very pleasant to hear.

Socrates. Here let us take up this point and see how the discourse succeeded in passing from blame to praise.

Phaedrus. What do you mean?

Socrates. It seems to me that the discourse was, as a whole, really sportive jest; but in these chance utterances were involved two principles, the essence of which it would be gratifying to learn, if art could teach it.

Phaedrus. What principles?

Socrates. That of perceiving and bringing together in one idea the scattered particulars, that one may make clear by definition the particular thing which he wishes to explain; just as now, in speaking of Love, we said what he is and defined it, whether well or ill. Certainly by this means the discourse acquired clearness and consistency.

Phaedrus. And what is the other principle, Socrates?

Socrates. That of dividing things again by classes, where the natural joints are, and not trying to break any part, after the manner of a bad carver. As our two discourses just now assumed one common principle, unreason, and then, just as the body, which is one, is naturally divisible into two, right and left, with parts called by the same names, so our two discourses conceived of madness as naturally one principle within us, and one discourse, cutting off the left-hand part, continued to divide this until it found among its parts a sort of left-handed love, which it very justly reviled, but the other discourse, leading us to the right-hand part of madness, found a love having the same name as the first, but divine, which it held up to view and praised as the author of our greatest blessings.

Phaedrus. Very true.

Socrates. Now I myself, Phaedrus, am a lover of these processes of division and bringing together, as aids to speech and thought; and if I think any other man is able to see things that can naturally be collected into one and divided into many, him I follow after and

walk in his footsteps as if he were a god.

Home. Od. 5.193 ὃ δ’ ἔπειτα μετ’ ἴχνια βαῖνε θεοῖο, and he walked in the footsteps of the god. And whether the name I give to those who can do this is right or wrong, God knows, but I have called them hitherto dialecticians. But tell me now what name to give to those who are taught by you and Lysias, or is this that art of speech by means of which Thrasymachus and the rest have become able speakers themselves, and make others so, if they are willing to pay them royal tribute?

Phaedrus. They are royal men, but not trained in the matters about which you ask. I think you give this method the right name when you call it dialectic; but it seems to me that rhetoric still escapes us.

Socrates. What do you mean? Can there be anything of importance, which is not included in these processes and yet comes under the head of art? Certainly you and I must not neglect it, but must say what it is that remains of rhetoric.

Phaedrus. A great many things remain, Socrates, the things that are written in the books on rhetoric.

Socrates. Thank you for reminding me. You mean that there must be an introduction first, at the beginning of the discourse; these are the things you mean, are they not?—the niceties of the art.

Phaedrus. Yes.

Socrates. And the narrative must come second with the testimony after it, and third the proofs, and fourth the probabilities; and confirmation and further confirmation are mentioned, I believe, by the man from Byzantium, that most excellent artist in words.

Phaedrus. You mean the worthy Theodorus?

Socrates. Of course. And he tells how refutation and further refutation must be accomplished, both in accusation and in defence. Shall we not bring the illustrious Parian, Evenus, into our discussion, who invented covert allusion and indirect praises? And some say that he also wrote indirect censures, composing them in verse as an aid to memory; for he is a clever man. And shall we leave Gorgias and Tisias undisturbed, who saw that probabilities are more to be esteemed than truths, who make small things seem great and great things small by the power of their words, and new things old and old things the reverse, and who invented conciseness of speech and measureless length on all subjects? And once when Prodicus heard these inventions, he laughed, and said that he alone had discovered the art of proper speech, that discourses should be neither long nor short, but of reasonable length.

Phaedrus. O Prodicus! How clever!

Socrates. And shall we not mention Hippias, our friend from Elis? I think he would agree with him.

Phaedrus. Oh yes.

Socrates. And what shall we say of Polus and his shrines of learned speech, such as duplication and sententiousness and figurativeness, and what of the names with which Licymnius presented him to effect beautiful diction?

Phaedrus. Were there not some similar inventions of Protagoras, Socrates?

Socrates. Yes, my boy, correctness of diction, and many other fine things. For tearful speeches, to arouse pity for old age and poverty, I think the precepts of the mighty Chalcedonian hold the palm, and he is also a genius, as he said, at rousing large companies to wrath, and soothing them again by his charms when they are angry, and most powerful in devising and abolishing calumnies on any grounds whatsoever. But all seem to be in agreement concerning the conclusion of discourses, which some call recapitulation, while others give it some other name.

Phaedrus. You mean making a summary of the points of the speech at the end of it, so as to remind the hearers of what has been said?

Socrates. These are the things I mean, these and anything else you can mention concerned with the art of rhetoric.

Phaedrus. There are only little things, not worth mentioning.