Socrates So the lover will not, if he can help it, endure a beloved who is better than himself or his equal, but always makes him weaker and inferior; but the ignorant is inferior to the wise, the coward to the brave, the poor speaker to the eloquent, the slow of wit to the clever. Such mental defects, and still greater than these, in the beloved will necessarily please the lover, if they are implanted by Nature, and if they are not, he must implant them or be deprived of his immediate enjoyment.

Socrates And he is of necessity jealous and will do him great harm by keeping him from many advantageous associations, which would most tend to make a man of him, especially from that which would do most to make him wise. This is divine philosophy, and from it the lover will certainly keep his beloved away, through fear of being despised; and he will contrive to keep him ignorant of everything else and make him look to his lover for everything, so that he will be most agreeable to him

Socrates and most harmful to himself. In respect to the intellect, then, a man in love is by no means a profitable guardian or associate. We must next consider how he who is forced to follow pleasure and not good will keep the body of him whose master he is, and what care he will give to it. He will plainly court a beloved who is effeminate, not virile, not brought up in the pure sunshine, but in mingled shade, unused to manly toils and the sweat of exertion, but accustomed to a delicate and

Socrates unmanly mode of life, adorned with a bright complexion of artificial origin, since he has none by nature, and in general living a life such as all this indicates, which it is certainly not worth while to describe further. We can sum it all up briefly and pass on. A person with such a body, in war and in all important crises, gives courage to his enemies, and fills his friends, and even his lovers themselves, with fear. This may be passed over as self-evident, but the next question,

Socrates what advantage or harm the intercourse and guardianship of the lover will bring to his beloved in the matter of his property, must be discussed.

Socrates.Now it is clear to everyone, and especially to the lover, that he would desire above all things to have his beloved bereft of the dearest and kindest and holiest possessions; for he would wish him to be deprived of father, mother, relatives and friends,

Socrates thinking that they would hinder and censure his most sweet intercourse with him. But he will also think that one who has property in money or other possessions will be less easy to catch and when caught will be less manageable; wherefore the lover must necessarily begrudge his beloved the possession of property and rejoice at its loss. Moreover the lover would wish his beloved to be as long as possible unmarried, childless, and homeless, since he wishes to enjoy as long as possible what is pleasant to himself. Now there are also other evils, but God

Socrates has mingled with most of them some temporary pleasure; so, for instance, a flatterer is a horrid creature and does great harm, yet Nature has combined with him a kind of pleasure that is not without charm, and one might find fault with a courtesan as an injurious thing, and there are many other such creatures and practices which are yet for the time being very pleasant; but a lover is not only harmful to his beloved

Socrates but extremely disagreeable to live with as well. The old proverb says, birds of a feather flock together; that is, I suppose, equality of age leads them to similar pleasures and through similarity begets friendship; and yet even they grow tired of each other’s society. Now compulsion of every kind is said to be oppressive to every one, and the lover not only is unlike his beloved, but he exercises the strongest compulsion. For he is old while his love is young, and he does not leave him day or night,

Socrates if he can help it, but is driven by the sting of necessity, which urges him on, always giving him pleasure in seeing, hearing, touching, and by all his senses perceiving his beloved, so that he is glad to serve him constantly. But what consolation or what pleasure can he give the beloved? Must not this protracted intercourse bring him to the uttermost disgust, as he looks at the old, unlovely face, and other things to match, which

Socrates it is not pleasant even to hear about, to say nothing of being constantly compelled to come into contact with them? And he is suspiciously guarded in all ways against everybody, and has to listen to untimely and exaggerated praises and to reproaches which are unendurable when the man is sober, and when he is in his cups and indulges in wearisome and unrestrained freedom of speech become not only unendurable but disgusting.

Socrates.And while he is in love he is harmful and disagreeable, but when his love has ceased he is thereafter false to him whom he formerly hardly induced

Socrates to endure his wearisome companionship through the hope of future benefits by making promises with many prayers and oaths. But now that the time of payment has come he has a new ruler and governor within him, sense and reason in place of love and madness, and has become a different person; but of this his beloved knows nothing. He asks of him a return for former favors, reminding him of past sayings and doings, as if he were speaking to the same man; but the lover is ashamed to say that he has changed, and yet he cannot keep the oaths and promises he made

Socrates when he was ruled by his former folly: now that he has regained his reason and come to his senses, lest by doing what he formerly did he become again what he was. He runs away from these things, and the former lover is compelled to become a defaulter. The shell has fallen with the other side up; and he changes his part and runs away; and the other is forced to run after him in anger and with imprecations, he who did not know at the start that he ought never to have accepted a lover

Socrates who was necessarily without reason, but rather a reasonable non-lover; for otherwise he would have to surrender himself to one who was faithless, irritable, jealous, and disagreeable, harmful to his property, harmful to his physical condition, and most harmful by far to the cultivation of his soul, than which there neither is nor ever will be anything of higher importance in truth either in heaven or on earth. These things, dear boy, you must bear in mind, and you must know that the fondness of the lover is not a matter of goodwill, but of appetite which he wishes to satisfy:

Socrates “Just as the wolf loves the lamb, so the lover adores his beloved.” There it is, Phaedrus! Do not listen to me any longer; let my speech end here.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. But I thought you were in the middle of it, and would say as much about the non-lover as you have said about the lover, to set forth all his good points and show that he ought to be favored. So now, Socrates, why do you stop?

Socrates Socrates. Did you not notice, my friend, that I am already speaking in hexameters, not mere dithyrambics, even though I am finding fault with the lover? But if I begin to praise the non-lover, what kind of hymn do you suppose I shall raise? I shall surely be possessed of the nymphs to whom you purposely exposed me. So, in a word, I say that the non-lover possesses all the advantages that are opposed to the disadvantages we found in the lover. Why make a long speech? I have said enough about both of them.

Socrates.And so my tale shall fare

Socrates as it may; I shall cross this stream and go away before you put some further compulsion upon me.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Not yet, Socrates, till the heat is past. Don’t you see that it is already almost noon? Let us stay and talk over what has been said, and then, when it is cooler, we will go away.

Socrates Socrates. Phaedrus, you are simply a superhuman wonder as regards discourses! I believe

Socrates no one of all those who have been born in your lifetime has produced more discourses than you, either by speaking them yourself or compelling others to do so. I except Simmias the Theban; but you are far ahead of all the rest. And now I think you have become the cause of another, spoken by me.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. That is not exactly a declaration of war! But how is this, and what is the discourse?

Socrates Socrates. My good friend, when I was about to cross the stream, the spirit and the sign

Socrates that usually comes to me came—it always holds me back from something I am about to do—and I thought I heard a voice from it which forbade my going away before clearing my conscience, as if I had committed some sin against deity. Now I am a seer, not a very good one, but, as the bad writers say, good enough for my own purposes; so now I understand my error. How prophetic the soul is, my friend! For all along, while I was speaking my discourse, something troubled me, and as Ibycus says,

Socrates I was distressed lest I be buying honor among men by sinning against the gods.But now I have seen my error.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. What do you mean?

Socrates Socrates. Phaedrus, a dreadful speech it was, a dreadful speech, the one you brought with you, and the one you made me speak.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. How so?

Socrates Socrates. It was foolish, and somewhat impious. What could be more dreadful than that?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Nothing, if you are right about it.

Socrates Socrates. Well, do you not believe that Love is the son of Aphrodite and is a god?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. So it is said.

Socrates Socrates. Yes, but not by Lysias, nor by your speech

Socrates which was spoken by you through my mouth that you bewitched.