ES: Yes, of course that is what I mean. And now may I be allowed
to ask you a question: Would a husbandman, who is a man of sense, take
the seeds, which he values and which he wishes to bear fruit, and in
sober seriousness plant them during the heat of summer, in some garden
of Adonis, that he may rejoice when he sees them in eight days appearing
in beauty? at least he would do so, if at all, only for the sake of
amusement and pastime. But when he is in earnest he sows in fitting
soil, and practises husbandry, and is satisfied if in eight months the
seeds which he has sown arrive at perfection?

PHAEDRUS: Yes, Socrates, that will be his way when he is in earnest; he
will do the other, as you say, only in play.

SOCRATES: And can we suppose that he who knows the just and good and
honourable has less understanding, than the husbandman, about his own
seeds?

PHAEDRUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then he will not seriously incline to 'write' his thoughts
'in water' with pen and ink, sowing words which can neither speak for
themselves nor teach the truth adequately to others?

PHAEDRUS: No, that is not likely.

SOCRATES: No, that is not likely--in the garden of letters he will sow
and plant, but only for the sake of recreation and amusement; he will
write them down as memorials to be treasured against the forgetfulness
of old age, by himself, or by any other old man who is treading the same
path. He will rejoice in beholding their tender growth; and while others
are refreshing their souls with banqueting and the like, this will be
the pastime in which his days are spent.

PHAEDRUS: A pastime, Socrates, as noble as the other is ignoble, the
pastime of a man who can be amused by serious talk, and can discourse
merrily about justice and the like.

SOCRATES: True, Phaedrus. But nobler far is the serious pursuit of the
dialectician, who, finding a congenial soul, by the help of science sows
and plants therein words which are able to help themselves and him who
planted them, and are not unfruitful, but have in them a seed which
others brought up in different soils render immortal, making the
possessors of it happy to the utmost extent of human happiness.

PHAEDRUS: Far nobler, certainly.

SOCRATES: And now, Phaedrus, having agreed upon the premises we may
decide about the conclusion.

PHAEDRUS: About what conclusion?

SOCRATES: About Lysias, whom we censured, and his art of writing, and
his discourses, and the rhetori