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Phaedrus
Phaedrus. Evidently in the class of doubtful things.
Socrates
Socrates. Then he who is to develop an art of rhetoric must first make a methodical division and acquire a clear impression of each class, that in which people must be in doubt and that in which they are not.
Phaedrus
Phaedrus. He who has acquired that would have conceived an excellent principle.
Socrates
Socrates. Then I think when he has to do with a particular case, he will not be ignorant, but will know clearly to which of the two classes the thing belongs about which he is to speak.
Phaedrus
Phaedrus. Of course.
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Socrates
Socrates. Well then, to which does Love belong? To the doubtful things or the others?
Phaedrus
Phaedrus. To the doubtful, surely; if he did not, do you think he would have let you say what you said just now about him, that he is an injury to the beloved and to the lover, and again that he is the greatest of blessings?
Socrates
Socrates. Excellent. But tell me this—for I was in such an ecstasy that I have quite forgotten—whether I defined love in the beginning of my discourse.
Phaedrus
Phaedrus. Yes, by Zeus, and wonderfully well.
Socrates
Socrates. Oh, how much more versed the nymphs, daughters of Achelous, and Pan, son of Hermes, are in the art of speech than Lysias, son of Cephalus! Or am I wrong, and did Lysias also, in the beginning of his discourse on Love, compel us to suppose Love to be some one thing which he chose to consider it, and did he then compose and finish his discourse with that in view? Shall we read the beginning of it again?
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