bloom; while above them the cicalas are chirruping, and at their feet is the soft grass and the cool water, with images of the Nymphs who guard the spot.
"My dear Phædrus," says Socrates, "you are an admirable guide."
"You, Socrates, are such a stay-at-home, that you know nothing outside the city walls, and never take a country walk."
"Very true," says Socrates; "trees and fields tell me nothing: men are my teachers;[1] but only tempt me with the chance of a discussion, and you may lead me all round Attica. Read on." And Phædrus accordingly reads the formal and rhetorical essay to which he had been listening in the morning. It is on a somewhat wasted theme—the advantages of a sober friendship, which lasts a lifetime, over the jealousies and torments caused by a spasmodic and fleeting love.
Socrates, with an irony which even Phædrus sees through, professes to be charmed with the balanced phrases and the harmonious cadence of the essay which has just been read; but he hints that, if he is allowed to use a few commonplaces, he too might add something to what Lysias has said; and then, inspired (as he says) by the genius loci, he delivers himself of a speech, denouncing, in a mock heroic style, the selfish infatuation and the wolf-like passion of the lover. But he almost immediately pretends to be alarmed at
- ↑ Socrates would have agreed on this point with Dr Johnson. "Sir, when you have seen one green field, you have seen all green fields. Sir, I like to look upon men.—Let us walk down Cheapside."
