A gift of madness

244aSocratesNow, beautiful boy, understand this: the earlier speech was by Phaedrus, son of Pythocles, of the deme of Myrrhinus; the one I am about to give is by Stesichorus, son of Euphemus, of Himera. It must begin like this: “The tale is untrue that, when a lover is present, one should favour a man who is not in love because one is mad and the other is in his right mind.” If madness were simply an evil, that would be sound. But the greatest goods come to us through madness when it is bestowed by the gods.