previous next

[238c] that strives toward the right, and which is led away toward the enjoyment of beauty and again is strongly forced by the desires that are kindred to itself toward personal beauty, when it gains the victory, takes its name from that very force, and is called love.1 Well, my dear Phaedrus, does it seem to you, as it does to me, that I am inspired?

Phaedrus
Certainly, Socrates, you have an unusual fluency.

Socrates
Then listen to me in silence; for truly


1 This somewhat fanciful statement is based on a supposed etymological connection betweenἔρωςandῥώμη, ἐρρωμένως, ῥωσθεῖσα.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.

The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Greek (1903)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (5 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (1):
    • R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato, 210D
  • Cross-references to this page (1):
    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.2
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (3):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: