INTRODUCTION.

THE Phaedrus is closely connected with the Symposium, and may be regarded either as introducing or following it. The two Dialogues together contain the whole philosophy of Plato on the nature of love, which in the Republic and in the later writings of Plato is only introduced playfully or as a figure of speech. But in the Phaedrus and Symposium love and philosophy join hands, and one is an aspect of the other. The spiritual and emotional part is elevated into the ideal, to which in the Symposium mankind are described as looking forward, and which in the Phaedrus, as well as in the Phaedo, they are seeking to recover from a former state of existence. Whether the subject of the Dialogue is love or rhetoric, or the union of the two, or the relation of philosophy to love and to art in general, will be hereafter considered.

Phaedrus has been passing the day with Lysías, the celebrated rhetorician, and is going to refresh himself by taking a walk outside the wall, when he is met by Socrates, who professes that he will not leave him until he has delivered up the speech with which Lysias has regaled him, and which he is carrying about in his mind, or more probably in a book hidden under his cloak, and is intending to study as he walks. The imputation is not denied, and the two agree to direct their steps out of the public way along the stream of the Ilissus towards a plane-tree which is seen in the distance. There, lying down amidst pleasant sounds and scents, they will read the speech of Lysias. The country is a novelty to Socrates, who never goes out of the town; and hence he is full of admiration for the beauties of nature, of which he seems for the first time to be conscious.

In the course of their walk Phaedrus asks the opinion of Socrates respecting the local tradition of Boreas and Oreithyia. Socrates, after a satirical allusion to the "rationalizers" of his day, replies that he has no time for these "nice" interpretations of mythology; "the proper study of mankind is man," who is a far more complex and wonderful being than the serpent Typhon. When they have reached the plane-tree, Phaedrus pulls out the speech and reads.

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The speech consists of a foolish paradox, which is to the effect that the non-lover ought to be accepted rather than the lover-because he is more rational, more agreeable, more enduring, less suspicious, less hurtful, less boastful, Jess engrossing, and because there are more of them, and for a 1 many other reasons which are equally unmeaning. Phaedrus is captivated with the beauty of the periods, and wants to make Socrates say that nothing was or ever could be better written. Socrates does not think much of the mat ter, but then he has only attended to the form, and in the form he thinks that he has detected repetitions and other marks of haste. He cannot agree with Phaedrus in the extreme value which he sets upon this performance, because he is afraid of doing injustice to Anacreon, and Sappho, and other great writers, and is almost in clined to think that he himself, or rather some power residing within him, could make a speech better than that of Lysias on the same theme, and also different from his, if he may be allowed to have a few commonplaces which all speakers must equally employ.

But

Phaedrus is delighted at the prospect of having another speech, and promises that he will set up a golden statue of Socrates at Delphi, if he keeps his word. Some raillery ensues, and at length Socrates, conquered by the threat that he shall never hear a speech of Lysias again unless he fulfills his promise, veils his face and begins. The first part of his speech is a somewhat prosaic discussion of the opposition between desire and opinion guided by reason. he has not proceeded far when he fancies that he detects in himself an unusual flow of eloquence —this he can only attribute to the inspiration of the place, which appears to be dedicated to the Nymphs. Starting from the philosophical basis which has been already laid down, he proceeds to show how many advantages the non-lover has over the lover. The one leads to softness and poverty and exclusiveness, and is full of all sorts of unpleasantness; "crabbed age and youth" have to "live together," and the sight and the ways of the old are mighty disagreeable to the young. Or if they part company, then the spectacle may be seen of the lover running away from the beloved, who pursues him with vain reproaches, and demands his reward which the other refuses to pay. The lover turns virtuous when the hour of payment arrives, and the beloved learns too late, after all his pains and disagreeables, that as wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves. (Cp. Char. 155 D.) Here is the end; the "other" or "non-lover" part of the speech had better be understood, for if in the censure of the lover Socrates has broken out in verse, what will he do in his praise of the non-lover? He has said his say and is preparing to go away. Phaedrus begs him to remain, at any rate naassed; he thinks th

heat of nooU

until the hea

versation ney go. Socrates, who has risen to go, recognizes

ance.

the oracular sign which forbids him to depart until he has done penHis conscience has been awakened, and like Stesichorus over Helen he will sing a palinode for having blasphemed the majesty of love. His palinode takes the form of a myth.

Socrates begins his tale with agrification of madness, which he divides into four kinds: first, there is the art of divination or prophecy this, in a vein similar to that of the Cratylus, he connects with madness by an etymological explanation (μαντική, μανικὴ compare οἰονοιστικὴ, οἰωνιστική, “tis all one reckoning, save the phrase is a little variations "); secondly, there is the art of purification by mysteries; thirdly, poetry or the inspiration of the Muses (cp. Ion, 533 foll.), without which no man can enter their temple. All this shows that madness is one of Heaven's blessings, and may sometimes be a great deal better than sense. There is also a fourth kind of madness which cannot be explained without inquiring into the nature of the soul.

The soul is immortal, for she is the source of all motion both in herself and in others. Of her true and divine form it would be long to tell, but she may be described in a figure as a composite being made up of a charioteer and a pair of winged steeds. The steeds of the gods are immortal, but ours are one mortal and the other immortal. The immortal soul soars upwards into the heavens, but the mortal drops her plumes and is draggled upon the earth.

Now the nature of the wings is to rise and carry the downward element into the upper world—there to behold beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the other things of God by which the soul is nourished. On a certain day Zeus the lord of heaven goes forth in a winged chariot; and an array of gods and demi-gods and of human souls in their train, follows him. There are glorious and blessed sights in the interior of heaven, and he who will may freely behold them. The great vision of all is seen at the feast of the gods, when they ascend the heights of heaven all but Hestia, who is left at home to keep house. The horses of the gods glide readily upwards and stand upon the outside, and are carried round in the revolutions of the spheres, and gaze upon the world beyond. But of this world beyond the heavens, who can tell? There is an essence formless, colorless, intangible, perceived by the mind only, circling above in the place of true knowledge. The divine mind in her revolution enjoys this fair prospect, and beholds justice, temperance, and knowledge in their everlasting essence. When fulfilled with the sight of them she returns home, and the charioteer Juts up the horses in their stable, and gives them ambrosia to eat and nectar to drink. This is the life of the gods; and the human soul tries to reach the same heights, but hardly succeeds; and sometimes the head of the charioteer rises above, and sometimes sinks below the fair vision, and is at last obliged, after much contention to turn away and leave the plain of

trath. Yet if she has followed in the train of any god and once beheld truth she is preserved harmless, and is carried round in the next revolution of the spheres; and if always following, and always seeing the truth, then forever harmless. But if she drops her wings and falls to the earth, then she the form of man, and the soul which has seen most of the truth passes into a philosopher or lover; that which has seen truth in the second degree, into a king or warrior; the third, into a householder or money-maker; the fourth, into a gymnast; the fifth, into a prophet or mystic; the sixth, into a poet or imitator; the seventh, into a husbandman or craftsman; the eighth, into a Sophist or demagogue; the ninth, into a tyrant. In all these conditions he who lives righteously improves, and he who lives unrighteously deteriorates his lot. Ten thousand years elapse before the souls of men in general can regain their first estate, and have their wings restored to them. And the soul of a man may descend into a beast, and return again into the form of man. But the form of man can only be acquired at all by those who have once beheld truth, for the soul of man alone apprehends the universal; and this is the recollection of that knowledge which she attained when in the company of the gods. At the end of every thousand years the soul has another choice, and may go upwards or downwards. Only the soul of a philosopher or lover who has three times in succession chosen the better life may receive wings and go her way in three thousand years.

For the soul in her own nature having the vision of true being remembers in her condition here those glorious sights of justice and temperance and wisdom and truth which she once gazed upon when in company with the heavenly choir. Then she celebrated holy mysteries and beheld blessed apparitions shining in pure light, herself pure and not as yet entombed in the oyster-shell of the body. And still she is eager to depart, and like a bird is fluttering and looking upwards, and is therefore esteemed mad. Such a light of other days is spread over her when she remembers that beauty which alone of the ideas has any visible representation on earth. For wisdom has no outward form, and is "too dazzling bright for mortal eye." Now the corrupted nature, when blindly excited by the vision of beauty, only rushes on to enjoy, and wallows like a quadruped in sensual pleasures. But the true mystic, who has seen the many sights of bliss, when he beholds a godlike form or face is ravished with delight, and if he were not afraid of being thought mad he would fall down and worship. Then the stiffened wing begins to relax and grow again. At the sight of earthly beauty the memory of the heavenly is recalled; desire which has been imprisoned, pours over the soul of the lover; the germ of the wing unfolds, and stings and pangs at birth, like the cutting of teeth, are everywhere felt. (Cp. Symp. 206 foll.) Father and mother, and goods and laws, and propri

eties are nothing to him; his beloved is his physician, who can alone cure his pain. An apocryphal sacred writer says that mortals call him Love, but the immortals call him Dove, or the winged one, in order to represent the force of his wings at any rate this is his nature Now the characters of lovers depend upon the god whom they followed in the other world, and they choose their loves in this world accordingly. The followers of Ares are fierce and violent; those of Zeus seek out some philosophical and imperial nature; the attendants of Here find a royal love; and in like manner the followers of every god seek a love who is in his likeness, and they communicate to him the nature which they have received from their god. The manner in which they take their love is as follows::

I told you about the charioteer and two steeds, the one a noble animal who is guided by word and admonition only, the other an ill-looking villain who will hardly yield to blow or spur. Together all three, who are a figure of the soul, approach the vision of love. And now a conflict begins. The ill-conditioned steed rushes on to enjoy, but the charioteer, who beholds the beloved with awe, falls back in adoration, and forces both the steeds on their haunches; again the evil steed rushes forwards and pulls shamelessly. Then a still more fearful conflict ensues; the charioteer dropping at the very start jerks violently the bit from the clinched teeth of the brute, and pulling harder than ever at the reins, covers his tongue and jaws with blood, and forces him to rest his hocks and haunches with pain upon the ground. When this has happened several times, the villain is tamed and humbled, and from that time forward the soul of the lover follows the beloved in modesty and holy fear. And now their bliss is consummated; the same image of love dwells in the breast of either; and if they have self-control, they pass their lives in the greatest happiness which is attainable by man- they live masters of themselves and conquer in one of the three heavenly victories. But if they choose the lower life of ambition they may still have a happy destiny, though inferior, because they have not the approval of the whole soul. At last they leave the body and proceed on their pilgrim's progress, and those who have once begun can never go back. When the time comes they receive their wings and fly away, and the lovers have the same wings.

Socrates concludes:

These are the blessings of love, and thus I have made my recantation in finer language than before, but this was only in order to please Phaedrus. If I said what was wrong at first, please to attribute my error to Lysias, who ought to study philosophy instead of rhetoric, and then he will not mislead his disciple Phaedrus.

Phaedrus is afraid that he will lose conceit of Lysias, and that Lysias will be out of conceit with !imself, and leave off making speeches, as the politicians have been deriding him. Socrates is of