04 - Phaedrus - Plato

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p-o-d-c-a-s-t l-i-b-r-a-r-y dot o-r-g section four and now dear phaedrus i shall pause for an instant to ask whether you do not think me as i appear to myself inspired yes socrates you seem to have a very unusual flow of words listen to me then in silence for surely the place is holy so that you must not wonder if as i proceed i appear to be in a divine fury for already i am getting into diddy rambics nothing can be truer the responsibility rests with you but hear what follows and perhaps the fit may be averted all is in their hands above i will go on talking to my youth listen thus my friend we have declared and defined the nature of the subject keeping the definition in view let us now inquire what advantage or disadvantage is likely to ensue from the lover or the non-lover to him who accepts their advances he who is the victim of his passions and the slave of pleasure will of course desire to make his beloved as agreeable to himself as possible now to him who has a mind diseased anything is agreeable which is not opposed to him but that which is equal or superior is hateful to him and therefore the lover will not brook any superiority or equality on the part of his beloved he is always employed in reducing him to inferiority and the ignorant is the inferior of the wise the coward of the brave the slow of speech of the speaker the dull of the clever these and not these only are the mental defects of the beloved defects which when implanted by nature are necessarily a delight to the lover and when not implanted he must contrive to implant them in him if he would not be deprived of his fleeting joy and therefore he cannot help being jealous and will debar his beloved from the advantages of society which would make a man of him and especially from that society which would have given him wisdom and thereby he cannot fail to do him great harm that is to say in his excessive fear lest he should come to be despised in his eyes he will be compelled to banish from him divine philosophy and there is no greater injury which he can inflict upon him than this he will contrive that his beloved shall be wholly ignorant and in everything shall look to him he is to be the delight of the lover's heart and a curse to himself verily a lover is a profitable guardian and associate for him in all that relates to his mind let us next see how his master whose law of life is pleasure and not good will keep and train the body of his servant will he not choose a beloved who is delicate rather than sturdy and strong one brought up in shady bowers and not in the bright sun a stranger to manly exercises and the sweat of toil accustomed only to a soft and luxurious diet instead of the hues of health having the colors of paint and ornament and the rest of a piece such a life as anyone can imagine and which i need not detail at length but i may sum up all that i have to say in a word and pass on such a person in war or in any of the great crises of life will be the anxiety of his friends and also of his lover and certainly not the terror of his enemies which nobody can deny and now let us tell what advantage or disadvantage the beloved will receive from the guardianship and society of his lover in the matter of his property this is the next point to be considered the lover will be the first to see what indeed will be sufficiently evident to all men that he desires above all things to deprive his beloved of his dearest and best and holiest possessions father mother hindered friends of all whom he thinks may be hinderers or reprovers of their most sweet converse he will even cast a jealous eye upon his gold and silver or other property because these make him a less easy prey and when caught less manageable hence he is of necessity displeased at his possession of them and rejoices at their loss and he would like him to be wifeless childless homeless as well and the longer the better for the longer he is all this the longer he will enjoy him there are some sort of animals such as flatterers who are dangerous and mischievous enough and yet nature has mingled a temporary pleasure and grace in their composition you may say that her courtesan is hurtful and disapprove of such creatures and their practices and yet for the time they are very pleasant but the lover is not only hurtful to his love he is also an extremely disagreeable companion the old proverb says that birds of a feather flock together i suppose that equality of years inclines them to the same pleasures and similarity begets friendship yet you may have more than enough even of this and rarely constraint is always said to be grievous now the lover is not only unlike his beloved but he forces himself upon him for he is old and his love is young and neither day nor night will he leave him if he can help necessity and the sting of desire drive him on and allure him with the pleasure which he receives from seeing hearing touching perceiving him in every way and therefore he is delighted to fasten upon him and to minister to him but what pleasure or consolation can the beloved be receiving all this time must he not feel the extremity of disgust when he looks at an old shriveled face and the remainder to match which even in a description is disagreeable and quite detestable when he is forced into daily contact with his lover moreover he is jealously watched and guarded against everything and everybody and has to hear misplaced and exaggerated praises of himself and censures equally inappropriate which are intolerable when the man is sober and besides being intolerable are published all over the world in their indelicacy and wearisomeness when he is drunk and not only while his love continues is he mischievous and unpleasant but when his love ceases he becomes a perfidious enemy of him on whom he showered his oaths and prayers and promises and yet could hardly prevail upon him to tolerate the tedium of his company even from motives of interest the hour of payment arrives and now he is the servant of another master instead of love and infatuation wisdom and temperance are his bosom's lords but the beloved has not discovered the change which has taken place in him when he asks for a return and recalls to his recollection former sayings and doings he believes himself to be speaking to the same person and the other not having the courage to confess the truth and not knowing how to fulfill the oaths and promises which were made when under the dominion of folly and having now grown wise and temperate does not want to do as he did or to be as he was before and so he runs away and is constrained to be a defaulter the oyster shell in allusion to a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster shell which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost translator's footnote has fallen with the other side uppermost he changes pursuit into flight while the other is compelled to follow him with passion and implication not knowing that he ought never from the first to have accepted a demented lover instead of a sensible non-lover and that in making such a choice he was giving himself up to a faithless morose envious disagreeable being hurtful to his estate hurtful to his bodily health and still more hurtful to the cultivation of his mind than which there neither is nor ever will be anything more honored in the eyes both of gods and men consider this fair youth and know that in the friendship of the lover there is no real kindness he has an appetite and wants to feed upon you as wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves but i told you so i am speaking in verse and therefore i had better make an end enough i thought that you were only halfway and we're going to make a similar speech about all the advantages of accepting the non-lover why do you not proceed oh does not your simplicity observe that i have got out of diddy rambics into heroics when only uttering a censure on the lover and if i am to add the praises of the non-lover what will become of me do you not perceive that i am already overtaken by the nymphs to whom you have mischievously exposed me and therefore i will only add that the non-lover has all the advantages in which the lover is accused of being deficient and now i will say no more there's been enough of both of them leaving the tale to its fate i will cross the river and make the best of my way home let the worst thing be inflicted upon me by you not yet socrates not until the heat of the day has passed do you not see that the hour is almost noon there is a midday sun standing still as people say in the meridian let us rather stay and talk over what has been said and then return in the cool end of section four