A meeting outside the walls
SocratesMy dear Phaedrus, where are you off to, and where have you come from?
PhaedrusFrom Lysias, Cephalus’ son, Socrates. I am going for a walk outside the walls; I have been sitting with him since early morning, for quite a long while. Our friend Acumenus, yours and mine, advises walking along the roads. He says it is less tiring than walking on the running tracks.
SocratesHe is right, my friend. So Lysias was in town, it seems.
PhaedrusYes, staying with Epicrates, in the house of Morychus here beside the temple of Olympian Zeus.
SocratesWhat kept you there, then? Or is it plain that Lysias gave you a feast of speeches?
PhaedrusYou will find out, if you have time to listen as we go.
SocratesWhat? Do you think I would not put the chance to hear what you and Lysias were doing, as Pindar says, “above even pressing business”?
PhaedrusLead on, then.
SocratesYou can tell me.
PhaedrusAnd it is a subject you, Socrates, ought especially to hear. The speech we were busy with was, somehow or other, about love. Lysias has written about a man courting one of the handsome youths, though the man is no lover. That is the ingenious point: he says the favour should be granted to the man who is not in love rather than the one who is.