Phaedrus Phaedrus. Yes.

Socrates Socrates. It is clear to everyone that we are in accord about some matters of this kind and at variance about others, is it not?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. I think I understand your meaning, but express it still more clearly.

Socrates Socrates. When one says “iron” or “silver,” we all understand the same thing, do we not?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Surely.

Socrates Socrates. What if he says “justice” or “goodness”? Do we not part company, and disagree with each other and with ourselves?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Certainly.

Socrates Socrates. Then in some things we agree and in others we do not.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. True.

Socrates Socrates. Then in which of the two are we more easy to deceive, and in which has rhetoric the greater power?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Evidently in the class of doubtful things.

Socrates Socrates. Then he who is to develop an art of rhetoric must first make a methodical division and acquire a clear impression of each class, that in which people must be in doubt and that in which they are not.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. He who has acquired that would have conceived an excellent principle.

Socrates Socrates. Then I think when he has to do with a particular case, he will not be ignorant, but will know clearly to which of the two classes the thing belongs about which he is to speak.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Of course.

Socrates Socrates. Well then, to which does Love belong? To the doubtful things or the others?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. To the doubtful, surely; if he did not, do you think he would have let you say what you said just now about him, that he is an injury to the beloved and to the lover, 263dand again that he is the greatest of blessings?

Socrates Socrates. Excellent. But tell me this—for I was in such an ecstasy that I have quite forgotten—whether I defined love in the beginning of my discourse.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Yes, by Zeus, and wonderfully well.

Socrates Socrates. Oh, how much more versed the nymphs, daughters of Achelous, and Pan, son of Hermes, are in the art of speech than Lysias, son of Cephalus! Or am I wrong, and did Lysias also, in the beginning of his discourse on Love, compel us to suppose Love to be some one thing 263ewhich he chose to consider it, and did he then compose and finish his discourse with that in view? Shall we read the beginning of it again?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. If you like; but what you seek is not in it.

Socrates Socrates. Read, that I may hear Lysias himself.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. You know what my condition is, and you have heard how I think it is to our advantage to arrange 264athese matters. And I claim that I ought not to be refused what I ask because I am not your lover. For lovers repent of the kindnesses they have done when their passion ceases.

Socrates Socrates. He certainly does not at all seem to do what we demand, for he does not even begin at the beginning, but undertakes to swim on his back up the current of his discourse from its end, and begins with what the lover would say at the end to his beloved. Am I not right, Phaedrus my dear?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Certainly that of which he speaks is an ending.

Socrates Socrates. And how about the rest? Don’t you think the parts of the discourse are thrown out helter-skelter? Or does it seem to you that the second topic had to be put second for any cogent reason, or that any of the other things he says are so placed? It seemed to me, who am wholly ignorant, that the writer uttered boldly whatever occurred to him. Do you know any rhetorical reason why he arranged his topics in this order?

Phaedrus Phaedrus. You flatter me in thinking that I can discern his motives so accurately.

Socrates Socrates. But I do think you will agree to this, that every discourse must be organized, like a living being, with a body of its own, as it were, so as not to be headless or footless, but to have a middle and members, composed in fitting relation to each other and to the whole.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Certainly.

Socrates Socrates. See then whether this is the case with your friend’s discourse, or not. You will find 264dthat it is very like the inscription that some say is inscribed on the tomb of Midas the Phrygian.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. What sort of inscription is that, and what is the matter with it?

Socrates Socrates. This is it: A bronze maiden am I; and I am placed upon the tomb of Midas. So long as water runs and tall trees put forth leaves, Remaining in this very spot upon a much lamented tomb, I shall declare to passers by that Midas is buried here; 264e and you perceive, I fancy, that it makes no difference whether any line of it is put first or last.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. You are making fun of our discourse, Socrates.

Socrates Socrates. Then, to spare your feelings, let us say no more of this discourse—and yet I think there were many things in it which would be useful examples to consider, though not exactly to imitate—and let us turn to the other discourses; for there was in them, I think, 265asomething which those who wish to investigate rhetoric might well examine.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. What do you mean?

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

Phaedrus Phaedrus. And they did it right manfully.

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. Yes.

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. Certainly.

Socrates 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 265cplausible 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 Phaedrus. Yes, and I found it very pleasant to hear.

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

Phaedrus Phaedrus. What do you mean?

Socrates Socrates. It seems to me that the discourse was, as a whole, 265dreally 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 Phaedrus. What principles?

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. And what is the other principle, Socrates?

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, 266ajust 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, 266bbut divine, which it held up to view and praised as the author of our greatest blessings.

Phaedrus Phaedrus. Very true.

Socrates 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.¹ὃ 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, 266cbut 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 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; 266dbut it seems to me that rhetoric still escapes us.

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

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. Yes.

Socrates 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 Phaedrus. You mean the worthy Theodorus?