ing villain who will hardly yield to blow or spur. Together all
three, who are a figure of the soul, approach the vision of love. And
now a fierce conflict begins. The ill-conditioned steed rushes on to
enjoy, but the charioteer, who beholds the beloved with awe, falls back
in adoration, and forces both the steeds on their haunches; again the
evil steed rushes forwards and pulls shamelessly. The conflict grows
more and more severe; and at last the charioteer, throwing himself
backwards, forces the bit out of the clenched teeth of the brute, and
pulling harder than ever at the reins, covers his tongue and jaws with
blood, and forces him to rest his legs and haunches with pain upon the
ground. When this has happened several times, the villain is tamed and
humbled, and from that time forward the soul of the lover follows the
beloved in modesty and holy fear. And now their bliss is consummated;
the same image of love dwells in the breast of either, and if they have
self-control, they pass their lives in the greatest happiness which is
attainable by man--they continue masters of themselves, and conquer in
one of the three heavenly victories. But if they choose the lower
life of ambition they may still have a happy destiny, though inferior,
because they have not the approval of the whole soul. At last they leave
the body and proceed on their pilgrim's progress, and those who have
once begun can never go back. When the time comes they receive their
wings and fly away, and the lovers have the same wings.

Socrates concludes:--

These are the blessings of love, and thus have I made my recantation in
finer language than before: I did so in order to please Phaedrus. If I
said what was wrong at first, please to attribute my error to Lysias,
who ought to study philosophy instead of rhetoric, and then he will not
mislead his disciple Phaedrus.

Phaedrus is afraid that he will lose conceit of Lysias, and that Lysias
will be out of conceit with himself, and leave off making speeches,
for the politicians have been deriding him. Socrates is of opinion that
there is small danger of this; the politicians are themselves the
great rhetoricians of the age, who desire to attain immortality by the
authorship of laws. And therefore there is nothing with which they can
reproach Lysias in being a writer; but there may be disgrace in being a
bad one.

And what is good or bad writing or speaking? While the sun is hot in the
sky above us, let us