Socrates 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. 259aNow 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, 259bperhaps they will be pleased and give us the gift which the gods bestowed on them to give to men.

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

Socrates 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 259cthat 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; 259dthey 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 Phaedrus. Yes, we ought to talk.

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

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Clearly.

Socrates 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 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 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 Phaedrus. You are right.

Socrates Socrates. Let us then examine it in this way.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. How?

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. It would be ridiculous, Socrates.

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 260cbaggage and was useful for many other purposes—

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Then it would be supremely ridiculous.

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

Phaedrus Phaedrus. To be sure.

Socrates 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 260dfrom the seed he has sown?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. No very good harvest.

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. And will she be right in saying this?

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

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. Ask your questions.

Socrates 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, 261bbut 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 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 Socrates. Then you have heard only of the treatises on rhetoric by Nestor and Odysseus, which they wrote 261cwhen they had nothing to do at Troy, and you have not heard of that by Palamedes?

Phaedrus 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 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 Phaedrus. Exactly that.

Socrates Socrates. About the just and the unjust?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Yes.

Socrates Socrates. Then he whose speaking is an art will make 261dthe same thing appear to the same persons at one time just and at another, if he wishes, unjust?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Certainly.

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. Just so.

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. Certainly.

Socrates Socrates. Then the art of contention in speech 261eis 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 Phaedrus. What do you mean by that?

Socrates 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?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. When there is little.

Socrates Socrates. And if you make a transition by small steps from anything to its opposite you will be more likely to escape detection than if you proceed by leaps and bounds.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Of course.

Socrates Socrates. Then he who is to deceive another, and is not to be deceived himself, must know accurately the similarity and dissimilarity of things.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Yes, he must.

Socrates Socrates. Now will he be able, not knowing the truth about a given thing, to recognize in other things the great or small 262bdegree of likeness to that which he does not know?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. It is impossible.

Socrates Socrates. In the case, then, of those whose opinions are at variance with facts and who are deceived, this error evidently slips in through some resemblances.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. It does happen in that way.

Socrates Socrates. Then he who does not understand the real nature of things will not possess the art of making his hearers pass from one thing to its opposite by leading them through the intervening resemblances, or of avoiding such deception himself?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Never in the world.

Socrates Socrates. Then, my friend, he who knows not the truth, but pursues opinions, will, it seems, attain an art of speech which is ridiculous, and not an art at all.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Probably.

Socrates Socrates. Shall we look in the speech of Lysias, which you have with you, and in what I said, for something which we think shows art and the lack of art?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. By all means, for now our talk is too abstract, since we lack sufficient examples.

Socrates Socrates. And by some special good fortune, as it seems, 262dthe two discourses contain an example of the way in which one who knows the truth may lead his hearers on with sportive words; and I, Phaedrus, think the divinities of the place are the cause thereof; and perhaps too, the prophets of the Muses, who are singing above our heads, may have granted this boon to us by inspiration; at any rate, I possess no art of speaking.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. So be it; only make your meaning clear.

Socrates Socrates. Read me the beginning of Lysias’ discourse.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. You know what my condition is, and you have heard how I think it is to our advantage to arrange these matters. And I claim that I ought not to be refused what I ask because I am not your lover. For lovers repent of—

Socrates Socrates. Stop. Now we must tell what there is in this that is faulty and lacks art, must we not?