Excerpting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
An old crafted conversation, a writer's reflection
Socrates
Writing, Phaedrus, has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence; and so it is with written words.
“You might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing. Every word, when once written, is bandied about, alike among those who understand and those who have no interest in it, and it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or unjustly reviled it always needs its [creator or architect] to help it. For it has no power to protect or help itself.”
Phaedrus: What is this word and how is it begotten, as you say?”
Socrates
… The word which is written with intelligence in the mind of the learner, which is able to defend itself and knows to whom it should speak, and before whom to be silent.
Phaedrus: You mean the living and breathing word of [one] who knows, of which the written word may justly be called the image.
Socrates
“Exactly….
“Would sensible [cultivators of land] with seeds they care for and wish to bear fruit, plant them with serious purpose in the heat of summer in some garden [short-lived] and delight in seeing them appear in beauty in eight days, or would they do that sort of thing … only in play and for amusement? Would they not, when in earnest, follow the rules of [farming], plant seeds in fitting ground, and be pleased when those sowed reach their perfection in eighth months?”
Writers will plant gardens of letters for amusement to treasure up reminders for themselves … and for others who follow the same path. They will be pleased when they see [words] putting forth tender leaves. When others engage in other amusements, refreshing themselves with banquets and kindred entertainments, writers will pass the time in such pleasures as I have suggested.
Phaedrus: A noble pastime, Socrates… the pastime of the one who can find amusement in discourse, telling stories about justice, and the other subjects you speak of
Socrates
“Yes.…
“But in my opinion, serious discourse about [words] is far nobler, when one employs the dialectic method [reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation] and plants and sows in a fitting soul intelligent words capable of helping themselves and the writer who planted them; and which are not fruitless, but yield seed from which there spring up in other minds other words capable of continuing the process forever, and which make their possessor happy, to the farthest possible limit of human happiness.”
Notes
“The first critique of writing” Plato’s Phaedrus (from Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9, translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu), http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/482/482readings/phaedrus.html
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato was the second of a great trio of ancient Greeks — Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle — who between them laid the philosophical foundations of Western culture.
Building on the life and thought of Socrates, Plato developed a profound and wide-ranging system of philosophy. His thought has logical, epistemological, and metaphysical aspects; but its underlying motivation is ethical. Fundamentally, Plato was a rationalist, devoted to the proposition that reason must be followed wherever it leads.
Though Greek philosopher Socrates wrote nothing, he is depicted in conversation in compositions by a small circle of his admirers—Plato and Xenophon first among them. He is portrayed in these works as a man of great insight, integrity, self-mastery, and argumentative skill.
His way of life, character, and thought exerted a profound influence on ancient and modern philosophy. Socrates was a widely recognized and controversial figure in his native Athens. The impact of his life was all the greater because of the way in which it ended. At the age of 70, Socrates was charged with ‘impiety,’ brought to trial, and sentenced to death by poisoning.
Phaedrus was born a slave and went to Italy early in life, became a freedman in the emperor Augustus’ household, and received the usual education in Greek and Latin authors. Phaedrus was a Roman fabulist, the first writer to Latinize whole books of fables, producing free versions in iambic meter of Greek prose fables then circulating under the name of Aesop [Britannica notes].
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