Phaedrus

Socrates’s vision of the soul as a charioteer with two horses is an allegory meant to help him make his point about the double-sided nature of all human impulses. It is not quite a symbol, but rather a symbolic representation of the human tendencies he is discussing. The good horse, well-bred and obedient, represents the parts of the soul which are receptive to reason and are willing to delay instant gratification in the pursuit of some higher purpose. The bad horse, impulsive and disobedient, represents the urges for physical pleasure. The passage in which this allegory appears (Socrates’s second speech) has become the most well-known section of Phaedrus. The figure does not make another appearance before or after its original exposition in the speech, but the theme of double-ness is foreshadowed earlier in the dialogue.

The language of plants seems to be one of Socrates’s favorite tools for demonstrating the effects of good rhetoric in the second half of the dialogue. A good speaker is compared to someone who plants a seed to bring forth “fruit” in the mind of their audience. To produce that fruit, the speaker will, naturally, need to pay attention to the soil he plants it in (that is, the soul of his listener) and tend to it as it grows.