Harvard Studies in Classical Philology (Volume 16) Harvard Studies in Classical Philology (Volume 16)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 Excerpt: ... e ff. 'Ibid., 265 a. In the account of love, which is the best kind of madness, we are reminded of the earlier dialogue on love, the Symposium, in which the love of beautiful objects of sense incited the lover to the love of absolute beauty. In the Phaedrus, however, Plato not only attempts to depict the process with greater wealth of mythological detail, but he gives us more hints that enable us to connect the account with his view of poetry proper. The soul is figured as a charioteer with a pair of winged horses; in the human being, the pair is ill-matched, one horse being noble, the other ignoble. The wings, the corporeal element most like the divine, tend to soar to the upper region which is the habitation of the gods, where is the divine--beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the like--on which the wing is especially nourished.4 The gods go to the vault of heaven easily, and at the outside of heaven behold the things beyond. 6 At this point, Plato can hardly find words to describe the vision of the absolute that awaits the charioteers; it is absolute reality; it is without color or form, and is intangible; it is visible only to the intelligence that is at the helm of the soul, and with it true knowledge is concerned. On this feeds the divine intelligence, and the intelligence of every soul that is capable of receiving its proper food. It beholds perfect justice, temperance and knowledge, not under the form of generation or of relation, but in existence absolute.8 But most souls have difficulty in beholding true being, because their steeds are unruly. Many fail, and feed on opinion instead. So with broken wings, they drop to earth, and are born as men. Those souls that have seen most of truth pass into the body of a philosopher or of ...