Phaedrus — Eros, the oldest god

Phaedrus begins where every Greek speech begins — with the gods and the ancient poets. Eros, he says, is the oldest of all the gods. No poet has ever named his parents because there were none; he simply was, before the others, a power before there were powers. Hesiod puts him just after Chaos and Earth in the order of creation. And whoever is oldest is the source of the greatest goods. So Eros is, of all the gods, the one most responsible for what is best in human life.

What Eros gives, Phaedrus continues, is the willingness to be ashamed in front of one's beloved. Nothing else makes a man behave better. He will not let himself be seen as a coward, or vain, or petty. The presence of the beloved is a stricter discipline than any law. An army of lovers — though no city has ever managed to build one — would be unbeatable, because no man would flee while his beloved was watching. Love makes virtue possible at the moment when nothing else can.

Phaedrus closes with two examples and a third. Alcestis, the only person willing to die in her husband Admetus's place, was so honored by the gods that they sent her back from the underworld — a thing they almost never do. Achilles, knowing his death was certain if he killed Hector, chose to kill Hector anyway because Patroclus had been killed; he chose to die avenging the man he loved. Even Orpheus, who tried to bring Eurydice out of Hades by cleverness rather than dying for her, was punished by the gods for his cowardice — half-measures in love are not enough. Love is the willing sacrifice or it is nothing. So says Phaedrus, and the next speaker rises.