-
1. Myth
- Purdue University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
CHAPTER ONE Myth We treat myth first of all, a form of thinking and communicating that was far older than Plato and his philosophical text, but which he has woven into it. Myth is perhaps the most archaic sort of thinking, and philosophy, like rhetoric and history, rose up in opposition to myth in the fifth century. Yet myths are in the foreground of the Phaedrus, right at the beginning and throughout the whole. Why does the Phaedrus have so many myths, and why does it talk so much about them? Let us look at the first myth that appears in the text. It is a beautiful scene that Plato has set in the opening pages,! and this is due in part to the storied past of the river Ilissos. The different altars and statues that adorn its banks are a sign that the river has been alive with nymphs and demigods since time immemorial. As they proceed upstream , 229b, Phaedrus mentions the god of the North Wind, Boreas, recalling a fragment of the old story, in which Boreas had come to carry off the maiden Oreithuia. He asks whether it was right on this very spot that it happened. This was a story of great significance for the Athenians in particular, for this girl was an Athenian princess, the daughter of the legendary Erechtheus, Athens's first king in remotest times. Boreas had come to carry her off to his home in the north country, and because of Oreithuia, he retained an affection for the Athenians. Later in 1. Ferrari, Listening to the Cicadas, has an excellent discussion of Plato's scene setting, particularly in its opening chapter, but recurring throughout the book. Charles Griswold, Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus, pp. 33-36, also has excellent commentary, particularly on the symbolism of the scene. I 15 16 I CHAPTER ONE historic times, when the Persians invaded Hellas under King Xerxes and were approaching Athens, Boreas proved his loyalty by blowing on the Persian ships and wrecking them on the rocks-so the story is told by Herodotus in his Histories, VII, 189. In gratitude for the rescue, the Athenians built for Boreas a sanctuary on the banks of the Ilissos, on the very spot where, it is said, he had carried off Oreithuia, and they instituted an annual festival to honor him: the Boreasmi. As he and Socrates walk through a particularly lovely part of the river, Phaedrus asks if this is the exact spot. Perhaps we can imagine a counterpart to the mythical scene in Sandro Botticelli's painting La Primavera, for at the center of it there are Eros and Aphrodite (i.e., Cupid and Venus), and out of the trees on the right-hand side there looms the pale blue wind-spirit, Zephyr, reaching out to capture the nymph Chloris, just like what happened to Plato's Oreithuia. It is true, as Ferrari has shown, that Plato recurs to his "background," his scene setting, repeatedly throughout the course of the dialogue-far more so than in any other work-and we can surmise that this natural beauty and its mythic elaboration are germane to the philosophy of the Phaedrus.2 At the moment it is the question posed by Phaedrus, 229b, that concerns us: Is this the exact spot where Boreas captured Oreithuia? The water is certainly beautiful here, just right for maidens to be playing in. But Socrates says no. It all took place two or three stadia (about one-fourth of a mile) downstream from here. Socrates knows this because that is where the Boreas altar is, but Phaedrus had never noticed the altar. Socrates' confident answer to his question, however, leads Phaedrus to ask a second question: "do you really think that this bit of mythology [this mythologema] is true?" (229c). Now he is not asking where the capture took place, but whether it took place at all, and Phaedrus 's question has a scope more general than the details about Boreas. By calling the story here a mythologema, he is typing it as one species of things said and things heard, and if this myth should not be true, it is not because of details peculiar to it, but rather because of something about the whole class of myths. By generalizing in this way, Phaedrus's second question has inaugurated a philosophical discussion. And he is speaking for his generation. Socrates' reply makes it clear enough that 2. Ibid., pp. 1...