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Plato · c. 428/427-348/347 BC

Phaedrus

Φαῖδρος
Ancient Sources / Plato / Phaedrus

In the Phaedrus Socrates walks out of Athens along the Ilissus with young Phaedrus, who has Lysias' speech on love under his cloak. Socrates gives two speeches on love, then retracts the first in a palinode like that of Stesichorus about Helen, with the myth of the soul as a winged chariot and the procession of the gods led by Zeus. In the second half the two discuss the art of rhetoric and writing, and Socrates tells how the Egyptian god Theuth offered his invention of letters to King Thamus, and how the locusts, once men, were rewarded by the Muses.

Read from the start
Text
Greek original with English translation, 15 passages, about 23200 words in English.
Translator
Harold North Fowler (1914)
Edition
Harold North Fowler (trans.), Plato I: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1914; Greek text: John Burnet, Platonis Opera, Oxford Classical Texts (as digitised by Perseus)
Cite as
Plato, Phaedrus 227a (by Stephanus page and section (e, g, 404e))

Contents · 15 passages

  1. 227a–230ePhaedrus and Socrates by the Ilissus: Boreas and Oreithyia, Typhon and the plane tree1587 words
  2. 231a–234eLysias' speech: the non-lover should be granted favours1679 words
  3. 235a–237eSocrates answers Lysias and prepares to speak with his head covered1402 words
  4. 238a–241eSocrates' first speech: love as a harmful desire1798 words
  5. 242a–244eThe divine sign, Stesichorus' palinode and the four kinds of madness1358 words
  6. 245b–247eThe soul immortal; the winged chariot and the procession of the gods1369 words
  7. 248a–250eThe fate of souls: the fall, the judgement and recollection of the Forms1350 words
  8. 251a–253eBeauty and the lover: the wings begin to grow1423 words
  9. 254a–256eThe charioteer and the two horses; the lover and the beloved1407 words
  10. 257b–259eThe end of the palinode; the writing of speeches and the story of the locusts1214 words
  11. 260a–263eRhetoric and truth: what must the speaker know?1805 words
  12. 264a–267dThe form of a speech; collection and division; the rhetorical handbooks1662 words
  13. 268a–272eWhat the art of rhetoric requires: the soul, its types and the right moment2239 words
  14. 273b–275eTisias and probability; Theuth and Thamus on the invention of writing1354 words
  15. 276a–279cWriting and living speech; the garden of Adonis, dialectic and the prayer to Pan1601 words

More by Plato

English translation by Harold North Fowler (1914). Original text: Harold North Fowler (trans.), Plato I: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1914; Greek text: John Burnet, Platonis Opera, Oxford Classical Texts (as digitised by Perseus).

Greek text and translation from the Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Perseus Digital Library); translation public domain. Introductions, summaries and notes © GreekMythology.com.