''Bezumna požuda, koja je savladala misao i njenu težnju za onim što je pravo i
pohitala za uživanjem naslade što je daje lepota, pa je opet od njoj srodnih požuda
dovedena telesnoj lepoti, te je tako na svom pobedničkom hodu ojačala do najživljeg
razvitka snage, dobila je ime po toj istoj snazi i nazvana je ljubavlju.''


Mnogo lepo Platon piše o lepoti i zanesenosti, o duši i istini, o ljubavi... Ali, njegova predstava je toliko idealistička da sam u jednom trenutku stekao utisak da će se tekst ispred mene rasparnuti u hiljadu komadića, kao kad bi neko maljem udario o ogledalo. A, možda je to i zbog toga što sam knjigu čitao u pdf-u.

Written by Plato, this Socratic dialogue with Phaedrus, focuses on the topics of rhetoric (as in its correct use and practice) and that of erotic love.

Stephen Scully's translation of Phaedrus
Focus 2003

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amazon review

This is a fine translation, both fluent and accurate. It captures the range of tonalities of the original in elegant English that is neither stiffly formal nor cheaply colloquial….The supplementary matter is appropriate and useful. The introduction is crisp and clear, the interpretive essay illuminating…Scully has done a sound and serious job of translating and annotating for the general reader. Above all, his translation is excellent in respect to style and clarity: really a pleasure to read.

David Konstan, Brown University

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A modern translation and commentary; what it misses in the depth achieved by earlier translation-commentaries it makes up for with clarity of thought and expression. If you have the chance, read it aloud with a friend using a second translation. It'll double your pleasure!

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Pursuing wisdom, inspired by beauty

I suppose I should start by establishing the fact that I am anything but an expert on Plato. When persuing my undergraduate degree in philosophy 30+ years ago, I read most of the dialogues and found them uninspiring, indeed, some like The Parminedes I found to be incomprehensible.

All these years later, I have come to believe that without an understanding of Plato, one cannot understand the story of Western Culture. And so I have been trying to reread Plato with mixed results.

I have never read any of his dialogues that I enjoyed as much as Scully's edition of Phaedrus. I have no Greek, I cannot assure you that it is a accurate translation. I can tell you that this is the first time I wanted to see the dialogue performed by really good actors. There are moments of great beauty in this dialogue - in the setting, the words and the thought.

As pointed out by the other reviewers, there has been much debate on the central theme of this dialogue. Scully does an excellent job of explaining the different interpretations that other translators or scholars have brought to their readings and how his differs.

So among other graces, Scully serves as an introduction to the literature around the dialogue and influenced by the dialogue (he offers passages by Shakespeare, Donne and Eliot as examples of that influence).

I find myself swayed by what Scully sees as the central theme in the dialogue - the turning of the soul back toward its true understanding and nature. Around this theme of how we can guide or be guided back to the truth, Plato weaves a the myth of the charioteer to explain the nature and history of the soul, a Egyptian myth to explain the difference between writing and speech (influential on Derrida) and explains the difference between the true use of rhetoric and the common use of it in (somewhat)democratic Athens.

All of this is woven around a framework of a holy place (part of what we have lost in our understanding of the Bible and of the Greeks is that God/s were present at certain places. Those places were holy because they were inhabited by God/s and people would go to those places to meet with and interact with that presence). Socrates, as always, proves to be more aware than any of his contemporaries of the presence and the gravity of God/s.

The dialogue is also woven around an older man trying to seduce a younger man. That seduction is largely spiritual but there are moments when I think Socrates is supposed to be tempted. The language of the dialogue is full with methaphors for tumnescence (the wing stubs of the soul throb, etc.).

I would take Scully's theme and put it another way. I think that a lot of ancient philosophy is best understood as a relationship between a teacher and an acolyte.

In this dialogue, Socrates is proven a teacher with many methods of turning the soul of young Phaedrus inward toward a remebrance of his vision of the forms. The dialogue as a whole is striving toward, a loving pursuit of what is true about the nature of our soul.

The discussion of rhetoric, the use of myths, the gravitas of the holy place are all means a teacher uses to inspire his young lover toward remembering that vision.

It is a beautiful work presented by Scully with great skill, sensitivity and scholarship.
Whether you read it as a key work in Western culture or to guide you on your own personal path, this is a great edition to read.

Greg Taylor

Platão é a minha crush filosófica desde o 12º ano. É bom constatar que há coisas (positivas) que não mudam.

At first glance, Pheadrus is a dialogue about homoerotic love. The dialogue takes place between young and attractive Athenian aristocrat, Phaedrus, and the familiar Socrates, as they walk, and then sit under a tree waiting for the heat to pass. Within this outwardly simplistic organisation, however, Plato constructs an intricate layering of forms, topics, and arguments.

The work is composed around three speeches: the first one is given by Phaedrus (actually he is regurgitating a speech written by Lysias); the second and third are composed by Socrates in answer. Socrates' first speech is an improvement of Lysias' speech, correcting its structural and logical deficits, but not changing the thrust of the argument or the conclusion that a cool and calculating lover is superior to one enthralled by his beloved. Socrates second speech is a palinode, or recantation, of the first, and in it he argues that a kind of divine madness or passion is necessary for love to achieve its full (educational) potential.

SOCRATES: But I’m sure you’d agree that every speech should be put together like a living creature, with its own proper body, so that it lacks neither a head nor feet.

As Athenian women of the time were either wives (designated for bearing children) or slaves (designated for mindless sex), the focus on homoerotic love as a means for men to obtain education (from other men) is understandable within context. This topic is also addressed in Plato's  Symposium, but here Plato's concept of a tripartite soul is brought to bear on the problem. The soul is described through an analogy: the rational part of the soul is a charioteer trying to control two horses: the black horse (corresponding to the lustful/appetitive part of the soul) and the white horse (corresponding to the good/spirited part). In the palinode, Socrates explains that the best passionate lover will reign in his black horse (an argument against the physical aspect of a relationship) in favour of helping his beloved on the path to becoming a better man.

The palinode also touches upon other topics, such as the superiority of dialectic over rhetorical speeches and indeed, over the written word. Paradoxically, it seems, Plato argues against writing by writing about it. Nevertheless, as Waterfield points out in the Introduction, Plato chose to present his written argument in the form of a dialogue, which is as close to dialectic conducted in the flesh between two people as one can get on the page.

If you enjoy deep, aesthetically complex literary works, read Pheadrus. You don't have to be a scholar to appreciate it.


Note regarding the Oxford World's Classics edition: most readers, no matter how (in)experienced in philosophy or Plato's works, will greatly benefit from Robin Waterfield's forty-page Introduction. It is divided into sections addressing the relevant topics: Erōs and Homoeroticism, First Speech, Second Speech, Third Speech (the Palinode), Rhetoric, Dialectic and the Weakness of Writing, The Unity of the Dialogue.

لا أعرف حقيقة لم استخدمت الاسم البديل "عن الجمال" ، إذا كانت قد ترجمت المحاورة عن الحب؟!
والمحاورة عدة أجزاء تبدأ بمقال لوسياس عن الحب،وهي بالأصل في تفضيل غير المحب على المحب، ويطرح قرائنه لى ذلك، لأول وهلة يبدو الكلام مقنعًا إلا أنني لم أعجب به، وبعد أن أنهيت المقال ورأي سقراط فيه تركت الكتاب يومًا ثم عدت فأعدت قراءة ذات المقال مرة أخرى، لكن هذه المرة عرفت لم لم يعجبني،ولم يقنعني رد سقراط الأول إلى أن راجع نفسه قائلًا:
لتنظر يا صديقي فايدروس كم من وقاحة في الحديثين السابقين سواءهذا الذي قلته أنا أم ذلك الذي قرأته أنت من كتابك ..ولنفرض أن رجلًا قد تميز بالنبل والفضيلة وأنه كان عاشقًا أو معشوقًا على النحو الذي ذكرناه، ثم استمع لحديثنا عن العشاق الذين ينقلبون إلى عداوة ضارية لأتفه الأسباب ويسلكون مسلك الغيرة والمضايقة نحو معشوقيهم، ألا تظنه يحكم على من يقولون هذا القول بأنهم قوم قد نشأوا وسط سفلة من البحارة؟ أو أنهم لم يروا الحب نقيًا خالصًا أبدًا؟ ألا يمتنع مثل ذلك الرجل عن موافقتنا على لوم الحب
ونعم طوال الكتاب يشار إلى المحبين طوال الكتاب على كونهم من الرجال، وهو ما لم أتوقع أن يشار إليه هنا صراحة..
ثم يتعرض إلى شروط العمل الفني، وأنواع الخطابة والشرط الأساسي في الخطابة الفلسفية ونهاية يتعرض لقيمة الحديث المكتوب وأهميته قائلًا:
وللكتابةيا فايدروس تلك الصفة العجيبةالتي توجد أيضا في التصوير، وذلك لأن الصور المرسومة تبدو كما لو كانت كائنات حية، ولكنها تظل صامتة لو أننا وجهنا إليها سؤالًا، وكذلك الحال في الكلام المكتوب. إنك لتظنه يكاد ينطق كأنما يسري فيه الفكر ولكنك إذا ما استجوبته بقصد استيضاح أمر ما فإنه يكتفي بترديد نفس الشيء، وهناك أمر آخر هو أن الشئ بعد أن يكتب يظل ينتقل من اليمين إلى اليسار بغير مبالاة، فيساق إلى من يفهمون وإلى من لا يعنيهم منه شيء على السواء وهو فضلا عن ذلك لايدري إلى من من الناس يتجه أو لايتجه. ومن جهة أخرى حين تتجه إلى موضوعه أصوات المعارضة أو حين يحتقر ظلمًا يصبح في حاجةلمساعدة مؤلفه لأنه لا يستطيع وحده أن يدرأ عن نفسه خطرًا ولايقدر على الدفاع عن نفسه
ألا وقد صدق إلا أن لولا الكتب لما كنا قرأنا هذا الكتاب مثلًا..
ولا أعرف لم أصابني الملل كثيرًا هنا..

Having spent limited time with Plato, (maybe just the Symposium?) I decided to read Phaedrus after it kept popping up in older queer texts and contemporary queer historical fiction. (Pretty much any time an Oxbridge queer romance occurs pre 1955, Phaedrus will show up).

Philosophical dialogues on rhetoric aren't an intuitive genre for most, but Phaedrus' brevity and specificity make it a fairly breezy read, all things considered. The third speech on love is the most famous, and is powerfully evocative, even if the nuances and implications of the charioteer metaphor are still tricky to parse for this particular reader, no matter how many times I encounter it.

I'm usually fan of Penguin editions and their text notes, but this translation, although semi-revised in 2005, is largely a 40-year-old text and I felt that in the language. Also, the endnotes were solely concerned with disciplinary debates and delineations about 17 layers deeper than the average Penguin Plato reader (me) can climb, and generally stymied rather than illuminated. But since I was in some ways reading the text from the lens of its meaningful place in queer dialogues of the past centuries, having a more staid and aging translation was likely a closer representation of the text readers were engaging in the past than the more poetically direct contemporary translations such as the Phaedrus passage in Seán Hewitt's "300,000 Kisses" collection on queer love in the ancient world.

As an intertextual nerd, if I see a title mentioned enough times in enough novels, I'm going to read it. It's a little like reading in character, seeing what the character saw and being able to bring that layer to one's own interpretation. As a constant conversation partner in queer discourse for centuries, Phaedrus is fascinating now for the questions it raises and insights it provides about what it helped people see, to say, and to carefully avoid saying, much less what it meant for Plato's generation.

Sokrates kadar büyük bir adamı ancak Platon kadar büyük bir adam ve büyük bir yazar anlatabilirdi... İç içe geçmiş gölgeler gibi, hangisinin daha büyük olduğunu asla bilemeyeceğiz...

Spre deosebire de alte incercari filozofice (cum ar fi Sartre cu a lui "Fiinta si neant" din care citeam si nu intelegeam nimic), aici textul curge si este clar. Stau in fata laptop-ului si ma gandesc ce naiba sa scriu. Cum sa scriu un review la un asemenea text???

- dragostea ca dorinta, trupul ca sclav al dorintei sexuale (desfrau vs cumpatare)
- indragostitul vs omul rational. Omul manat de dorinta vs ratiune
- dragostea ca nebunie. Forme de nebunie (pricinuita de bolile omenesti si nebunia produsa de parasirea vietii obisnuite ca urmare a unui indemn divin)
- fiinta, calatoria sufletelor (cei doi cai, sufletele calatorind impreuna cu zeii...povestea este foarte frumoasa)
- arta oratoriei (arta calauzirii sufletelor cu ajutorul cuvintelor), arta manipularii prin limbaj
- ce este adevarul? "A convinge nu are nici o legatura cu a spune adevarul". Nu trebuie sa spui adevarul, ci sa spui ceva asemanator adevarului (verosimil) si sa il spui atat de bine incat sa poata convinge (devious!!!!). Pentru a putea convinge, trebuie sa stii cui te adresezi si sa iti organizezi discursul in functie de "sufletele" celor care asculta (stil concis, vehement, induiosator).
- caracteristicile discursului. Puterea lui sta in calauzirea sufletului (psychagogie)
"Nu este foarte lesne sa formulezi lucrul in cuvinte" - aici a trebuit sa ma gandesc la Wittgenstein
- scrisul. Cand e bine sa scrii? Cand ai de spus ceva care pentru tine este adevarat, cand iti poti apara propriile idei atunci cand sunt contestate. "Odata ce a fost scris, colindul pastreaza aceeasi infatisare si pentru cei care il inteleg, si pentru cei care nu"

Asta iarasi mi-a placut: "Nu suntem noi in dezacord unii cu altii, ba chiar si cu noi insine?"

Mi-ar placea sa iau fiecare paragraf in parte si sa il analizez. Voi face si asta. Calatoria alaturi de Platon abia a inceput.

Personal, partea a doua, despre arta oratoriei, a discursului, m-a fascinat mai mult decat dialogurile despre iubire.

tFedro é um texto dos mais complexos. Mais do que ser lido, é um texto para ser estudado. Assim, acho que o livro será muito mais apreciado se acompanhado por algum tipo de orientação. Felizmente, hoje, há diversos vídeos no Youtube que podem auxiliar o leitor e também cursos online que valorizam a leitura.
tUma das dificuldades é abundância de temas presentes no diálogo. Fale-se sobre o Amor, mas também sobre a Teoria das formas, a Dialética e a Retórica. Enfim, muita coisa.
tDito isso, temos Sócrates que se encontra com o Fedro e, do lado de fora das muralhas, sob a sombra de uma árvore, passam a tratar do Amor. A base inicial é um discurso elaborado por Lísias.
tAs bases, como em todos os diálogos de Sócrates, é a. a melhor vida é aquela em que se visa a conhecer a si mesmo; b. a busca de si mesmo é feita através de um tipo especial de diálogo.
tO diálogo, aliás, é um método mimético, ou seja, se não é possível ser Sócrates (o modelo de vida bem vivida), o diálogo é uma imitação por meio da arte da vida do filósofo.
tAqui, como em outras obras, há uma hipótese formulada por Sócrates sobre algo da alma humana e examinam-se as consequências dessa hipótese.
tAlém disso, tudo em Platão, cada palavra, cada frase, significa algo: Fedro e Sócrates estão do lado de fora das muralhas, ou seja, buscam algo que não pode ser oferecido pela vida na pólis. Além disso, uma simples linha “Ó caro Feder, aonde e de onde?” ou, em outra tradução “Para onde vais, amigo Federo, e de onde vens?” pode gerar uma enormidade de comentários.
tO discurso é o modo como se pode conseguir apanhar e tornar inteligível a confusão do mundo. O discurso, de novo a mimesis, é um jeito de tentar se aproximar desse mundo de conceitos:
t“Que deve todo discurso constituir-se como um ser animado, tendo um corpo que seja o seu, de modo a não ficar sem pé nem cabeça, mas ter partes centrais e extremas, escritas de modo a se ajustarem entre si e com o todo” [264c]
tDaí, que mesmo o diálogo possa ter tratado do amor, também pode ser entendido como um grande tratado do método filosófico e, assim, o primeiro discurso de Sócrates pode ser lido como uma crítica ao discurso desordenado de Lísias. Sócrates, mesmo discordando, usa os mesmos argumentos para elaborar algo coeso.
tDe qualquer modo, o Amor significa um encontro com esse mundo das ideias, porque nos permite, por meio de uma loucura/delírio momentâneo essa reminiscência da beleza do mundo das almas.
t
t

"Fedar" je filozofsko i umjetničko remek-djelo. Oduvijek mi je to bio Platonov omiljeni dijalog, a primjećujem da mi se sa svakim novim čitanjem čini sve bolji i bolji, baš kao i Platon u cjelini.
Dijalog prvo kudi, zatim slavi boga Erosa, a paralelno sa tim tumači besjedničku vještinu. Meni se više dopao prvi dio napisan u velikom nadahnuću, posebno slikoviti prikaz ljudske duše kroz alegoriju sa kočijama. (jedan od najtoplijih filozofskih odlomaka!) Tu se Platon obilato služio mitologijom genijalno prikazavši stepenasto uzdizanje duše - od tjelesne žudnje, preko prijateljstva i istinske ljubavi, do ideje o praljepoti. Slično je to uspinjanje prikazano i u "Gozbi", samo što je ovdje u smislu umjetničke izražajnosti na mene ostavilo jači utisak.
U drugom dijelu se "Plećati" od bogom nadahnutog umjetnika transformiše u hladnog teoretičara. Tu on pravi oštru distinkciju između retorike kao tehničke i manipulatorske vještine, i dijalektike, jedine istinske filozofije. U skladu sa tim se daje prednost živoj riječi u odnosu na pisanu. Iako nisam pobornik sofističke retorike, ipak sam više na strani filozofiranja čekićem, tako da mi je drugi dio dijaloga malo pokvario utisak. Ipak, moram dati petaka zbog kočija!
Sve pohvale neprevaziđenom Đuriću na vrhunskim prevodima i opširnim napomenama. Ovih šest dijaloga u Deretinom izdanju su mi baš prirasli srcu, šteta samo što se, kao i većina Deretinih knjiga, brzo počinju raspadati.

I love Plato! I think the argument made in Phaedrus is so important—how rhetoric and memory rely on something we believe is more than it is. I think the story of memory is so important because we believe we have this skill and knowledge, but really most of our memory is just reminding not remembering. It makes me want to put more effort into the actual act of recollection. So good!