And I bethink me of an ancient purgation of mythological error which was devised, not by Homer, for he never had the wit to discover why he was blind, but by Stesichorus, who was a philosopher and knew the reason why; and therefore, when he lost his eyes, for that was the penalty which was inflicted upon him for reviling the lovely Helen, he at once purged himself.
And the purgation was a recantation, which began thus,- False is that word of mine-the truth is that thou didst not embark in ships, nor ever go to the walls of Troy; and when he had completed his poem, which is called "the recantation," immediately his sight returned to him.
Now I will be wiser than either Stesichorus or Homer, in that I am going to make my recantation for reviling love before I suffer; and this I will attempt, not as before, veiled and ashamed, but with forehead bold and bare.
Phaedr.
Nothing could be more agreeable to me than to hear you say so.
Soc.
Only think, my good Phaedrus, what an utter want of delicacy was shown in the two discourses; I mean, in my own and in that which you recited out of the book.
Would not any one who was himself of a noble and gentle nature, and who loved or ever had loved a nature like his own, when we tell of the petty causes of lovers' jealousies, and of their exceeding animosities, and of the injuries which they do to their beloved, have imagined that our ideas of love were taken from some haunt of sailors to which good manners were unknown-he would certainly never have admitted the justice of our censure?
Phaedr.
I dare say not, Socrates.
Soc.
Therefore, because I blush at the thought of this person, and also because I am afraid of Love himself, I desire to wash the brine out of my ears with water from the spring; and I would counsel Lysias not to delay, but to write another discourse, which shall prove that ceteris paribus the lover ought to be accepted rather than the non-lover.
Phaedr.
Be assured that he shall.
You shall speak the praises of the lover, and Lysias shall be compelled by me to write another discourse on the same theme.
Soc.
You will be true to your nature in that, and therefore I believe you.
Phaedr.
Speak, and fear not.
Soc.
But where is the fair youth whom I was addressing before, and who ought to listen now; lest, if he hear me not, he should accept a non-lover before he knows what he is doing?
Phaedr.
He is close at hand, and always at your service.
Soc.
Know then, fair youth, that the former discourse was the word of Phaedrus, the son of Vain Man, who dwells in the city of Myrrhina (Myrrhinusius).
And this which I am about to utter is the recantation of Stesichorus the son of Godly Man (Euphemus), who comes from the town of Desire (Himera), and is to the following effect: "I told a lie when I said" that the beloved ought to accept the non-lover when he might have the lover, because the one is sane, and the other mad.
It might be so if madness were simply an evil; but there is also a madness which is a divine gift, and the source of the chiefest blessings granted to men.
Ecstatic irrational rapture — Plato's mania, Bruno's furore — by which the soul transcends ordinary reason and attains direct contact with divine reality; madness reframed as higher knowledge.
The passage centrally defines madness as a 'divine gift' that grants the chiefest blessings to men.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The text distinguishes between madness as an evil and madness as a divine gift, implying evil is a lack of the good.
Diotima's staged ascent from love of beautiful bodies → beautiful souls → beautiful pursuits → beautiful knowledge → Beauty itself; the canonical scala amoris that grounds Plotinus's On the Beautiful and Bruno's Eroici Furori — distinct from generic spiritual_ascent in that eros is the specific motive force.
The passage is from the Phaedrus dialogue and centrally discusses the nature of love as a divine gift that transcends ordinary reason.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
By accepting the lover over the non-lover, the soul is transformed into a partaker of divine nature through love.