266
Socrates
Socrates. Now I myself, Phaedrus, am a lover of these processes of division and bringing together, as aids to speech and thought; and if I think any other man is able to see things that can naturally be collected into one and divided into many, him I follow after and walk in his footsteps as if he were a god.Home. Od. 5.193 ὃ δ’ ἔπειτα μετ’ ἴχνια βαῖνε θεοῖο, and he walked in the footsteps of the god. And whether the name I give to those who can do this is right or wrong, God knows, but I have called them hitherto dialecticians. But tell me now what name to give to those who are taught by you and Lysias, or is this that art of speech by means of which Thrasymachus and the rest have become able speakers themselves, and make others so, if they are willing to pay them royal tribute?
Phaedrus
Phaedrus. They are royal men, but not trained in the matters about which you ask. I think you give this method the right name when you call it dialectic; but it seems to me that rhetoric still escapes us.
Socrates
Socrates. What do you mean? Can there be anything of importance, which is not included in these processes and yet comes under the head of art? Certainly you and I must not neglect it, but must say what it is that remains of rhetoric.
5
Phaedrus
Phaedrus. A great many things remain, Socrates, the things that are written in the books on rhetoric.
