INTRODUCTION.
Phaedrus.
Introduction
The Phaedrus is closely connected with the Symposium, and Phaedrus.
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 man-
kind 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, and to the human soul, will be here-
after considered. And perhaps we may arrive at some conclusion
such as the following — that the dialogue is not strictly confined
to a single subject, but passes from one to another with the natural
freedom of conversation.
Steph. 227 Analysis. Phaedrus lias been spending the morning with Lysias, 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 vmtil he has delivered up the speech 228 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 229 country is a novelty to Socrates, who never goes out of the town;
