Part 109

“It,” memory.

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These so great and divine things, my boy, will the affection of a lover confer on you. But the familiarity of one who is not in love, being mingled with mortal prudence, and dispensing mortal and niggardly gifts, generating in the beloved soul an illiberality which is praised by the multitude as virtue, will cause it to be tossed about the earth and beneath the earth for nine thousand years, devoid of intelligence. 84. To thee, beloved Love, this recantation, the most beautiful and the best, according to my ability, is presented and duly paid, both in other respects and by certain poetical phrases, of necessity, adorned for the sake of Phædrus. But do thou, pardoning my former speech, and graciously accepting this, propitiously and benignly, neither take from me the art of love which thou hast given me, nor maim it in thy wrath, but grant that even more than now I may be honoured by the beautiful. And if, in our former speech, Phædrus and I have said any thing offensive to thee, blaming Lysias as the author of the speech, make him desist from such speeches in future, and convert him to philosophy, as his brother Polemarchus has been converted, so that this lover of his may no longer remain neutral as now, but may wholly devote his life to love, in conjunction with philosophic discourses.

Phæ. I join with you in praying, Socrates, that if this is better for us, so it may be. 85. But I have been long wondering at your speech, how much more beautiful you have made it than the former one; so that I am afraid that Lysias will appear to me but poor, even if he should be willing to produce another in opposition to it. For only the other day, my admirable friend, one of our public men, as he was attacking him, upbraided him with this very thing, and throughout the whole of his attack called him a writer of speeches. Perhaps, therefore, for ambition’s sake he will refrain from writing any more.

Socr. The opinion you express, my youth, is ridiculous; and you very much mistake your friend, if you imagine him to be so easily frightened. Perhaps, too, you think that his assailant really meant what he said.

86. Phæ. He seemed to do so, Socrates; and you are doubtless yourself aware, that the most powerful and considerable men in a city are ashamed to write speeches, and to leave their own compositions behind them, through fear of the opinion of posterity, lest they should be called sophists.

Socr. It has escaped your notice, Phædrus, that the proverb “a sweet bend” is derived from that long bend in the Nile: and as well as the bend, it escapes your notice, that these public men who think most highly of themselves are most fond of writing speeches, and of leaving their compositions behind them; and moreover, whenever they write a speech, they so love its supporters, that they prefix their names who on each occasion commend them.

87. Phæ. How do you mean? for I don’t understand you.

Socr. Don’t you understand, that at the beginning of a statesman’s writing, the name of its supporter is written first.

Phæ. How?

Socr. “Approved,” I think the writing itself says, “by the council, or the people, or both,” and he who proposed it, speaking very pompously of and extolling himself, namely the composer, after this makes a speech so as to display his own wisdom to his supporters, sometimes making a very long composition. Does this appear to you to be any thing else than a written speech?

Phæ. It does not to me.

88. Socr. If, then, it happens to be approved, the composer goes home from the theatre delighted. But if it should be rubbed out, and he debarred from writing speeches, and from the dignity of an author, both he and his friends take it greatly to heart.

Phæ. Just so.

Socr. It is clear, then, that they do not despise this practice, but admire it exceedingly.

Phæ. Certainly.

Socr. What then, when an orator or a king has proved himself competent to assume the power of a Lycurgus, or a Solon, or a Darius, and to become immortal as a speech-writer in a state, does he not deem himself godlike, while he is yet alive, and do not posterity think the very same of his writings?

Phæ. Just so.

89. Socr. Do you think then that any person of this sort, however ill-disposed he may be towards Lysias, would upbraid him merely because he is a writer?

Phæ. It does not seem probable from what you say; for in that case, as it appears, he would upbraid his own passion.

Socr. This, then, must be clear to every one, that the mere writing of speeches is not disgraceful.

Phæ. Why should it be?

Socr. But this I think now is disgraceful, not to express and write them well, but shamefully and ill.

Phæ. Clearly so.

Socr. What then is the method of writing well or ill? Have we not occasion, Phædrus, to enquire about this from Lysias or some one else, who has at some time or other written or means to write, either a political or private composition, in metre as a poet, or without metre as a prose-writer?

Phæ. Do you ask, if we have occasion? For what purpose in the world should any one live, but for the sake of pleasures of this kind? Not, surely, for those which cannot even be enjoyed unless they are preceded by pain, which is the case with nearly all the pleasures connected with the body; on which account they are justly called servile.

90. Socr. We have leisure, however, as it seems: and moreover the grasshoppers, while, as is their wont in the heat of the day, they are singing over our heads and talking with one another, appear to me to be looking down upon us. If, then, they should see us too, like most men, not conversing at mid-day, but falling asleep and lulled by them, through indolence of mind, they would justly laugh us to scorn, thinking that some slaves or other had come to them in this retreat, in order like sheep to take a mid-day sleep by the side of the fountain. But if they see us conversing, and sailing by them, as if they were Syrens unenchanted, the boon which they have from the gods to confer upon men, they will perhaps out of admiration bestow upon us.

Phæ. But what is this that they have? For I happen not to have heard of it, as it seems.