The discourse of Phaedrus is half-mythical, half-ethical; and he himself,
true to the character which is given him in the Dialogue bearing his name,
is half-sophist, half-enthusiast. He is the critic of poetry also, who
compares Homer and Aeschylus in the insipid and irrational manner of the
schools of the day, characteristically reasoning about the probability of
matters which do not admit of reasoning. He starts from a noble text:
'That without the sense of honour and dishonour neither states nor
individuals ever do any good or great work.' But he soon passes on to more
common-place topics. The antiquity of love, the blessing of having a
lover, the incentive which love offers to daring deeds, the examples of
Alcestis and Achilles, are the chief themes of his discourse. The love of
women is regarded by him as almost on an equality with that of men; and he
makes the singular remark that the gods favour the return of love which is
made by the beloved more than the original sentiment, because the lover is
of a nobler and diviner nature.
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