phaedrus   

leave, you a fool in the world below.

And thus, dear Eros, I have made and paid my recantation, as well

and as fairly as I could; more especially in the matter of the

poetical figures which I was compelled to use, because Phaedrus

would have them. And now forgive the past and accept the present,

and be gracious and merciful to me, and do not in thine anger

deprive me of sight, or take from me the art of love which thou hast

given me, but grant that I may be yet more esteemed in the eyes of the

fair. And if Phaedrus or I myself said anything rude in our first

speeches, blame Lysias, who is the father of the brat, and let us have

no more of his progeny; bid him study philosophy, like his brother

Polemarchus; and then his lover Phaedrus will no longer halt between

two opinions, but will dedicate himself wholly to love and to

philosophical discourses.

Phaedr. I join in the prayer, Socrates, and say with you, if this be

for my good, may your words come to pass. But why did you make your

second oration so much finer than the first? I wonder why. And I begin

to be afraid that I shall lose conceit of Lysias, and that he will

appear tame in comparison, even if he be willing to put another as

fine and as long as yours into the field, which I doubt. For quite

lately one of your politicians was abusing him on this very account;

and called him a "speech writer" again and again. So that a feeling of

pride may probably induce him to give up writing speeches.

Soc. What a very amusing notion! But I think, my young man, that you

are much mistaken in your friend if you imagine that he is

frightened at a little noise; and possibly, you think that his

assailant was in earnest?

Phaedr. I thought, Socrates, that he was. And you are aware that the

greatest and most influential statesmen are ashamed of writing

speeches and leaving them in a written form, lest they should be

called Sophists by posterity.

Soc. You seem to be unconscious, Phaedrus, that the "sweet elbow" of