SOCRATES: I think that he has a genius which soars above the orations of
Lysias, and that his character is cast in a finer mould. My impression
of him is that he will marvellously improve as he grows older, and that
all former rhetoricians will be as children in comparison of him. And I
believe that he will not be satisfied with rhetoric, but that there is
in him a divine inspiration which will lead him to things higher still.
For he has an element of philosophy in his nature. This is the message
of the gods dwelling in this place, and which I will myself deliver to
Isocrates, who is my delight; and do you give the other to Lysias, who
is yours.
PHAEDRUS: I will; and now as the heat is abated let us depart.
SOCRATES: Should we not offer up a prayer first of all to the local
deities?
PHAEDRUS: By all means.
SOCRATES: Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give
me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be
at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such
a quantity of gold as a temperate man and he only can bear and
carry.--Anything more? The prayer, I think, is enough for me.
PHAEDRUS: Ask the same for me, for friends should have all things in
common.
SOCRATES: Let us go.