257–258
Socrates
Socrates. That is an absurd idea, young man, and you are greatly mistaken in your friend if you think he is so much afraid of noise. Perhaps, too, you think the man who abused him believed what he was saying.
Phaedrus
Phaedrus. He seemed to believe, Socrates; and you know yourself that the most influential and important men in our cities are ashamed to write speeches and leave writings behind them, through fear of being called sophists by posterity.
Socrates
Socrates. You seem to be unacquainted with the sweet elbow,This is a proverbial expression, similar in meaning to our sour grapes. The explanation given in the Mss., that the sweet elbow gets its name from the long bend, or elbow, in the Nile may be an addition by some commentator; at any rate, it hardly fits our passage. Phaedrus, and besides the elbow, you seem not to know that the proudest of the statesmen are most fond of writing and of leaving writings behind them, since they care so much for praise that when they write a speech they add at the beginning the names of those who praise them in each instance.
5
Phaedrus
Phaedrus. What do you mean? I don’t understand.
Socrates
Socrates. You don’t understand that the name of the approver is written first in the writings of statesmen.
Phaedrus
Phaedrus. How so?
