Phaedrus — Plato
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PHiEDRUS 163 Phcedr. What gifts do you mean ? I never heard of any. Soc, A lover of music like yourself ought surely to have heard the story of the grasshoppers, who are said to have been human beings in an age before the Muses. And when the Muses came and song appeared they were ravished with delight ; and singing always, never thought of eating and drinking, until at last they forgot and died.
And now they live again in the grasshoppers ; and this is the return which the Muses make to them, — they hunger no more, neither thirst any more, but are always singing from the moment that they are born, and never eating or drinking ; and when they die they go and inform the Muses in heaven who honors them on earth.
They win the love of Terpsichore** for the dancers by their report of them ; of Erato ^ for the lovers, and of the other Muses for those who do them honor, according to the several ways of honoring them : of Calliope ^ the eldest Muse, and of her who is next to her *^ for the votaries of philosophy ; for these are the Muses who are chiefly concerned with heaven and the ideas, divine as well as human, and they have the sweetest utterance.
For many reasons, then, we ought always to talk and not to sleep at midday. Phcedr, Let us talk. Soc, Shall we discuss the rules of writing and speech as we were proposing? PhcEdr, Very good. ^^ [The first, rule of good speaking, Socrates claims, is that the speaker must have knowledge — he must know the truth of the matter about which he is going to speak.
This seems doubtful at first, for rhetoric does not deal with truth but only with the opinions of men. The art of rhetoric, whether employed in public or private, in regard to matters great or small, good or bad, is *' a universal art of enchanting the mind by arguments. ' ' It makes the good appear evil, the just unjust, the like unlike, or vice versa^ just as the speaker pleases.
Nevertheless, though knowledge of the truth alone will not give one the art of persuasion, neither can that art be *« Terpsichore (terp-sfk'o-re) : the Muse who presided over choral song and dancing. <* Erato (§r'a-t6) : the Muse who presided over love-poetry. ^* Calliope (Idil-li'o-pe) : the Muse of Epic poetry ana eloauence. «' Jowett says this refers to Urania (Q-r&'ni-a), the Muse or Astronomy.
1 p. 64separated from such knowledge. Even when the object of the speaker is to deceive his hearers, he must depart from the truth very gradually indeed or he will -be detected. He must present to his audience something which very nearly resembles the truth, for error slips in through resemblances.
Now in order to know w^hat resembles the truth, the deceiver must know the truth itself This knowledge of the truth also enables him to detect a deception employed against himself. *' Then he who would be a master of the art must know the real nature of everything ; or he will never know either how to contrive or how to escape the gradual departure from truth into the opposite of truth which is effected by the help of resemblances.
Socrates proposes that they use the speech of Lysias and his own about love as illustrations of the art of rhetoric. Lysias is first criticised for not beginning with a definition of his subject. Love is a term as to whose meaning we are not all agreed, and it should be defined by a speaker in the opening of his discourse. Socrates began with a definition of love, but Lysias began with what should have been the end of his speech.
Socrates' speeches are also superior to that of Lysias in respect to arrangement. Lysias seems to have written things down just as they came into his head without any regard to arrangement. ** Every discourse,'* says Socrates, ''ought to be a living creature, having its own body and head and feet ; there ought to be a middle, beginning, and end, which are in a manner agreeable to one another, and to the whole.
' ' Such a vital connection does not exist between the parts of Lysias' discourse. Although the myth which Socrates related was only the creation of fancy, it ** involved two principles which would be charming if they could be fixed by art."] Phcedr. What are they ?
Soc, First,', the comprehension of scattered particulars in one idea : the speaker defines his several notions in order that he may make his meaning clear, as in our definition of love, which whether true or false certainly gave clearness and consistency to the discourse. Phcedr. What is the other principle, Socrates ? Soc. Secondly, there is the faculty of division according to the naturat ideas or members, not breaking any part 93 ^ ph.*:drus 165 bad carver might.
But, as the body may be divided into a left side and into a right side, having parts right and left, so in the two discourses there was assumed, first of all, the general idea of unreason, and then one of the two ^^9o proceeded to divide the parts of the left side and did not desist until he found in them an evil or left-handed love which the speaker justly reviled ; and the other leading us to the right portion in which madness lay, found another love, having the same name, but yet divine, which he held up before us and applauded as the author of the greatest benefits.
Phcedr. That is most true. Soc, I am a great lover of these processes of division and generalization ; they help me to speak and think. And if I find any man who is able to see unity and plurality in nature, him I follow, and walk in his steps as if he were a god. And those who have this art, I have hitherto been in the habit of calling dialecticians ; but God knows whether the name is right or not.
And I should like to know what name you would give to your or Lysias' disciples, and whether this may not be that famous art of rhetoric which Thrasymachus ^ and others practice ? Skillful speakers they are, and impart their skill to any who will consent to worehip them as kings and to bring them gifts.
Phcedr, Yes, they are royal men ; but their art is not the same with the art of those whom you call, and rightly, in my opinion, dialecticians. [The rhetorician does not employ the ** processes of division and generalization'* which Socrates praises in the art of the dialectician. Instead of this, he relies upon a great array of technical devices which are given imposing names and the rules for which fill many books on rhetoric.
It is true that \ rhetoric has very great power in public meetings. The orator, however, does not acquire his power by a study of rules, as the rhetoricians seem to think. Rules are only the preliminaries of an art, and should not be confused with the art itself.] Soc. Suppose a person to come to your friend Eryximachus, or to his father Acumenus,*' and to say to him : ** I know how ^*See Rep., L, note i. «*See Protagoras, note z8.
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