PHAEDRUS: Well, Socrates, that was the end for which he gave the speech! [b]
SOCRATES: And what about the rest? Don’t the parts of the speech appear to have been thrown together at random? Is it evident that the second point had to be made second for some compelling reason? Is that so for any of the parts? I at least—of course I know nothing about such matters—thought the author said just whatever came to mind next, though not without a certain noble willfulness. But you, do you know any principle of speech-composition compelling him to place these things one after another in this order?
PHAEDRUS: It’s very generous of you to think that I can understand his [c] reasons so clearly.
SOCRATES: But surely you will admit at least this much: Every speech must be put together like a living creature, with a body of its own; it must be neither without head nor without legs; and it must have a middle and extremities that are fitting both to one another and to the whole work.
PHAEDRUS: How could it be otherwise?
SOCRATES: But look at your friend’s speech: Is it like that or is it otherwise? Actually, you’ll find that it’s just like the epigram people say is inscribed on the tomb of Midas the Phrygian.
PHAEDRUS: What epigram is that? And what’s the matter with it? [d]
SOCRATES: It goes like this:
A maid of bronze am I, on Midas’ tomb I lie
As long as water flows, and trees grow tall
Shielding the grave where many come to cry
That Midas rests here I say to one and all.
I’m sure you notice that it makes no difference at all which of its verses [e] comes first, and which last.
PHAEDRUS: You are making fun of our speech, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Well, then, if that upsets you, let’s leave that speech aside—even though I think it has plenty of very useful examples, provided one tries to emulate them as little as possible—and turn to the others. I think it is important for students of speechmaking to pay attention to one of their features.
PHAEDRUS: What do you mean? [265]
SOCRATES: They were in a way opposite to one another. One claimed that one should give one’s favors to the lover; the other, to the non-lover.
PHAEDRUS: Most manfully, too.
SOCRATES: I thought you were going to say “madly,” which would have been the truth, and is also just what I was looking for: We did say, didn’t we, that love is a kind of madness?
PHAEDRUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that there are two kinds of madness, one produced by human illness, the other by a divinely inspired release from normally accepted behavior?
[b] PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: We also distinguished four parts within the divine kind and connected them to four gods. Having attributed the inspiration of the prophet to Apollo, of the mystic to Dionysus, of the poet to the Muses, and the fourth part of madness to Aphrodite and to Love, we said that the madness of love is the best. We used a certain sort of image to describe love’s passion; perhaps it had a measure of truth in it, though it may also have led us astray. And having whipped up a not altogether implausible [c] speech, we sang playfully, but also appropriately and respectfully, a story-like hymn to my master and yours, Phaedrus—to Love, who watches over beautiful boys.
PHAEDRUS: And I listened to it with the greatest pleasure.
SOCRATES: Let’s take up this point about it right away: How was the speech able to proceed from censure to praise?
PHAEDRUS: What exactly do you mean by that?
SOCRATES: Well, everything else in it really does appear to me to have been spoken in play. But part of it was given with Fortune’s guidance, [d] and there were in it two kinds of things the nature of which it would be quite wonderful to grasp by means of a systematic art.
PHAEDRUS: Which things?
SOCRATES: The first consists in seeing together things that are scattered about everywhere and collecting them into one kind, so that by defining each thing we can make clear the subject of any instruction we wish to give. Just so with our discussion of love: Whether its definition was or was not correct, at least it allowed the speech to proceed clearly and consistently with itself.
PHAEDRUS: And what is the other thing you are talking about, Socrates?
[e] SOCRATES: This, in turn, is to be able to cut up each kind according to its species along its natural joints, and to try not to splinter any part, as a bad butcher might do. In just this way, our two speeches placed all [266] mental derangements into one common kind. Then, just as each single body has parts that naturally come in pairs of the same name (one of them being called the right-hand and the other the left-hand one), so the speeches, having considered unsoundness of mind to be by nature one single kind within us, proceeded to cut it up—the first speech cut its left-hand part, and continued to cut until it discovered among these parts a sort of love that can be called “left-handed,” which it correctly denounced; the second speech, in turn, led us to the right-hand part of madness; discovered a love that shares its name with the other but is actually divine; set it out [b] before us, and praised it as the cause of our greatest goods.
PHAEDRUS: You are absolutely right.
SOCRATES: Well, Phaedrus, I am myself a lover of these divisions and collections, so that I may be able to think and to speak; and if I believe that someone else is capable of discerning a single thing that is also by nature capable of encompassing many,46 I follow “straight behind, in his tracks, as if he were a god.”47 God knows whether this is the right name for those who can do this correctly or not, but so far I have always called [c] them “dialecticians.” But tell me what I must call them now that we have learned all this from Lysias and you. Or is it just that art of speaking that Thrasymachus and the rest of them use, which has made them masters of speechmaking and capable of producing others like them—anyhow those who are willing to bring them gifts and to treat them as if they were kings?
PHAEDRUS: They may behave like kings, but they certainly lack the knowledge you’re talking about. No, it seems to me that you are right in calling the sort of thing you mentioned dialectic; but, it seems to me, rhetoric still eludes us.
SOCRATES: What are you saying? Could there be anything valuable which [d] is independent of the methods I mentioned and is still grasped by art? If there is, you and I must certainly honor it, and we must say what part of rhetoric it is that has been left out.
PHAEDRUS: Well, there’s quite a lot, Socrates: everything, at any rate, written up in the books on the art of speaking.
SOCRATES: You were quite right to remind me. First, I believe, there is the Preamble with which a speech must begin. This is what you mean, isn’t it—the fine points of the art?
PHAEDRUS: Yes. [e]
SOCRATES: Second come the Statement of Facts and the Evidence of Witnesses concerning it; third, Indirect Evidence; fourth, Claims to Plausibility. And I believe at least that excellent Byzantine word-wizard adds Confirmation and Supplementary Confirmation.
PHAEDRUS: You mean the worthy Theodorus?48
SOCRATES: Quite. And he also adds Refutation and Supplementary Refutation, [267] to be used both in prosecution and in defense. Nor must we forget the most excellent Evenus of Paros,49 who was the first to discover Covert Implication and Indirect Praise and who—some say—has even arranged Indirect Censures in verse as an aid to memory: a wise man indeed! And Tisias50 and Gorgias? How can we leave them out when it is they who realized that what is likely must be held in higher honor than what is true; they who, by the power of their language, make small things appear great and great things small; they who express modern ideas in ancient garb, [b] and ancient ones in modern dress; they who have discovered how to argue both concisely and at infinite length about any subject? Actually, when I told Prodicus51 this last, he laughed and said that only he had discovered the art of proper speeches: What we need are speeches that are neither long nor short but of the right length.
PHAEDRUS: Brilliantly done, Prodicus!
/> SOCRATES: And what about Hippias?52 How can we omit him? I am sure our friend from Elis would cast his vote with Prodicus.
PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And what shall we say of the whole gallery of terms Polus53 [c] set up—speaking with Reduplication, Speaking in Maxims, Speaking in Images—and of the terms Licymnius gave him as a present to help him explain Good Diction?54
PHAEDRUS: But didn’t Protagoras actually use similar terms?55
SOCRATES: Yes, Correct Diction, my boy, and other wonderful things. As to the art of making speeches bewailing the evils of poverty and old age, the prize, in my judgment, goes to the mighty Chalcedonian.56 He it is also [d] who knows best how to inflame a crowd and, once they are inflamed, how to hush them again with his words’ magic spell, as he says himself. And let’s not forget that he is as good at producing slander as he is at refuting it, whatever its source may be.
As to the way of ending a speech, everyone seems to be in agreement, though some call it Recapitulation and others by some other name.
PHAEDRUS: You mean, summarizing everything at the end and reminding the audience of what they’ve heard?
SOCRATES: That’s what I mean. And if you have anything else to add about the art of speaking—
PHAEDRUS: Only minor points, not worth making.
[268] SOCRATES: Well, let’s leave minor points aside. Let’s hold what we do have closer to the light so that we can see precisely the power of the art these things produce.
PHAEDRUS: A very great power, Socrates, especially in front of a crowd.
SOCRATES: Quite right. But now, my friend, look closely: Do you think, as I do, that its fabric is a little threadbare?
PHAEDRUS: Can you show me?
SOCRATES: All right, tell me this. Suppose someone came to your friend Eryximachus or his father Acumenus and said: “I know treatments to raise or lower (whichever I prefer) the temperature of people’s bodies; if I decide [b] to, I can make them vomit or make their bowels move, and all sorts of things. On the basis of this knowledge, I claim to be a physician; and I claim to be able to make others physicians as well by imparting it to them.” What do you think they would say when they heard that?
PHAEDRUS: What could they say? They would ask him if he also knew to whom he should apply such treatments, when, and to what extent.
SOCRATES: What if he replied, “I have no idea. My claim is that whoever learns from me will manage to do what you ask on his own“? [c]
PHAEDRUS: I think they’d say the man’s mad if he thinks he’s a doctor just because he read a book or happened to come across a few potions; he knows nothing of the art.
SOCRATES: And suppose someone approached Sophocles and Euripides and claimed to know how to compose the longest passages on trivial topics and the briefest ones on topics of great importance, that he could make them pitiful if he wanted, or again, by contrast, terrifying and menacing, [d] and so on. Suppose further that he believed that by teaching this he was imparting the knowledge of composing tragedies—
PHAEDRUS: Oh, I am sure they too would laugh at anyone who thought a tragedy was anything other than the proper arrangement of these things: They have to fit with one another and with the whole work.
SOCRATES: But I am sure they wouldn’t reproach him rudely. They would react more like a musician confronted by a man who thought he had mastered harmony because he was able to produce the highest and lowest [e] notes on his strings. The musician would not say fiercely, “You stupid man, you are out of your mind!” As befits his calling, he would speak more gently: “My friend, though that too is necessary for understanding harmony, someone who has gotten as far as you have may still know absolutely nothing about the subject. What you know is what it’s necessary to learn before you study harmony, but not harmony itself.”
PHAEDRUS: That’s certainly right.
SOCRATES: So Sophocles would also tell the man who was showing off [269] to them that he knew the preliminaries of tragedy, but not the art of tragedy itself. And Acumenus would say his man knew the preliminaries of medicine, but not medicine itself.
PHAEDRUS: Absolutely.
SOCRATES: And what if the “honey-tongued Adrastus” (or perhaps Pericles)57 were to hear of all the marvelous techniques we just discussed—Speaking Concisely and Speaking in Images and all the rest we listed and [b] proposed to examine under the light? Would he be angry or rude, as you and I were, with those who write of those techniques and teach them as if they are rhetoric itself, and say something coarse to them? Wouldn’t he—being wiser than we are—reproach us as well and say, “Phaedrus and Socrates, you should not be angry with these people—you should be sorry for them. The reason they cannot define rhetoric is that they are ignorant of dialectic. It is their ignorance that makes them think they have discovered what rhetoric is when they have mastered only what it is [c] necessary to learn as preliminaries. So they teach these preliminaries and imagine their pupils have received a full course in rhetoric, thinking the task of using each of them persuasively and putting them together into a whole speech is a minor matter, to be worked out by the pupils from their own resources“?
PHAEDRUS: Really, Socrates, the art these men present as rhetoric in their courses and handbooks is no more than what you say. In my judgment, [d] at least, your point is well taken. But how, from what source, could one acquire the art of the true rhetorician, the really persuasive speaker?
SOCRATES: Well, Phaedrus, becoming good enough to be an accomplished competitor is probably—perhaps necessarily—like everything else. If you have a natural ability for rhetoric, you will become a famous rhetorician, provided you supplement your ability with knowledge and practice. To the extent that you lack any one of them, to that extent you will be less than perfect. But, insofar as there is an art of rhetoric, I don’t believe the right method for acquiring it is to be found in the direction Lysias and Thrasymachus have followed.
PHAEDRUS: Where can we find it then?
[e] SOCRATES: My dear friend, maybe we can see now why Pericles was in all likelihood the greatest rhetorician of all.
PHAEDRUS: How is that?
[270] SOCRATES: All the great arts require endless talk and ethereal speculation about nature: This seems to be what gives them their lofty point of view and universal applicability. That’s just what Pericles mastered—besides having natural ability. He came across Anaxagoras, who was just that sort of man, got his full dose of ethereal speculation, and understood the nature of mind and mindlessness58—just the subject on which Anaxagoras had the most to say. From this, I think, he drew for the art of rhetoric what was useful to it.
PHAEDRUS: What do you mean by that?
[b] SOCRATES: Well, isn’t the method of medicine in a way the same as the method of rhetoric?
PHAEDRUS: How so?
SOCRATES: In both cases we need to determine the nature of something—of the body in medicine, of the soul in rhetoric. Otherwise, all we’ll have will be an empirical and artless practice. We won’t be able to supply, on the basis of an art, a body with the medicines and diet that will make it healthy and strong, or a soul with the reasons and customary rules for conduct that will impart to it the convictions and virtues we want.
PHAEDRUS: That is most likely, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Do you think, then, that it is possible to reach a serious understanding [c] of the nature of the soul without understanding the nature of the world as a whole?
PHAEDRUS: Well, if we’re to listen to Hippocrates, Asclepius’ descendant,59 we won’t even understand the body if we don’t follow that method.
SOCRATES: He speaks well, my friend. Still, Hippocrates aside, we must consider whether argument supports that view.
PHAEDRUS: I agree.
SOCRATES: Consider, then, what both Hippocrates and true argument say about nature. Isn’t this the way to think systematically about the nature [d] of anything? First, we must consider whether the object regarding which we intend to become experts and capable of
transmitting our expertise is simple or complex. Then, if it is simple, we must investigate its power: What things does it have what natural power of acting upon? By what things does it have what natural disposition to be acted upon? If, on the other hand, it takes many forms, we must enumerate them all and, as we did in the simple case, investigate how each is naturally able to act upon what and how it has a natural disposition to be acted upon by what.
PHAEDRUS: It seems so, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Proceeding by any other method would be like walking with [e] the blind. Conversely, whoever studies anything on the basis of an art must never be compared to the blind or the deaf. On the contrary, it is clear that someone who teaches another to make speeches as an art will demonstrate precisely the essential nature of that to which speeches are to be applied. And that, surely, is the soul.
PHAEDRUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: This is therefore the object toward which the speaker’s whole [271] effort is directed, since it is in the soul that he attempts to produce conviction. Isn’t that so?
PHAEDRUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Clearly, therefore, Thrasymachus and anyone else who teaches the art of rhetoric seriously will, first, describe the soul with absolute precision and enable us to understand what it is: whether it is one and homogeneous by nature or takes many forms, like the shape of bodies, since, as we said, that’s what it is to demonstrate the nature of something.
PHAEDRUS: Absolutely.
SOCRATES: Second, he will explain how, in virtue of its nature, it acts and is acted upon by certain things.
PHAEDRUS: Of course.
[b] SOCRATES: Third, he will classify the kinds of speech and of soul there are, as well as the various ways in which they are affected, and explain what causes each. He will then coordinate each kind of soul with the kind of speech appropriate to it. And he will give instructions concerning the reasons why one kind of soul is necessarily convinced by one kind of speech while another necessarily remains unconvinced.
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