batch.motif.greek-plato-phaedrus-jowett-gutenberg-l1896-l1985
---
record_id: batch.motif.greek-plato-phaedrus-jowett-gutenberg-l1896-l1985
source_text_path: texts/public-domain/greek/project-gutenberg/phaedrus-jowett.md
passage_locator:
label: PHAEDRUS / INTRODUCTION. / ON THE DECLINE OF GREEK LITERATURE. / PHAEDRUS;
lines 1896-1985
start: '1896'
end: '1985'
translation: Phaedrus
notes: Generated from OpenAI Batch run motif-extraction-2026-04-28-high-priority;
human review required.
canonical_text:
quote: ''
summary: Socrates asks Phaedrus to listen in silence in a holy place and continues
a speech assessing whether a lover or non-lover benefits a youth. He argues that
a passion-driven lover harms the beloved by making him mentally inferior, keeping
him from wisdom and philosophy, weakening his body, isolating him from family,
friends, property, marriage, and household, and forcing upon him an unpleasant
and jealous companionship.
language: English
quote_policy: summarized
literal_observations:
- id: obs:1
text: Socrates tells Phaedrus to listen in silence and describes the place as holy.
category: speech
evidence_refs:
- ev:1
- id: obs:2
text: Socrates says he may appear to be in a divine fury and to be entering dithyrambics.
category: attribute
evidence_refs:
- ev:1
- id: obs:3
text: Socrates frames the inquiry as weighing the advantage or disadvantage that
may come from the lover or the non-lover to one who accepts their advances.
category: speech
evidence_refs:
- ev:2
- id: obs:4
text: The lover is described as a victim of passions and slave of pleasure who wants
the beloved to be agreeable to himself.
category: attribute
evidence_refs:
- ev:3
- id: obs:5
text: The lover is said to reduce the beloved to inferiority and to delight in,
or implant, mental defects in him.
category: action
evidence_refs:
- ev:4
- id: obs:6
text: The lover is said to bar the beloved from society that would make a man of
him, especially society that would give him wisdom.
category: action
evidence_refs:
- ev:4
- id: obs:7
text: The lover is said to banish divine philosophy from the beloved.
category: action
evidence_refs:
- ev:4
- id: obs:8
text: The lover, described as a master whose law is pleasure and not good, is said
to prefer a delicate beloved raised in shade and luxury rather than a sturdy one
trained by exercise and toil.
category: relationship
evidence_refs:
- ev:5
- id: obs:9
text: The delicate beloved is said to become an anxiety to friends and lover in
war or crisis, not a terror to enemies.
category: sequence
evidence_refs:
- ev:5
- id: obs:10
text: The lover is said to want to deprive the beloved of father, mother, kindred,
friends, gold, silver, property, wife, children, and home.
category: action
evidence_refs:
- ev:6
- id: obs:11
text: Socrates compares certain harmful but temporarily pleasant figures, such as
flatterers and courtesans, with the lover, whom he calls hurtful and disagreeable.
category: speech
evidence_refs:
- ev:7
- id: obs:12
text: The lover is described as old, the beloved as young, and the lover as forcing
himself upon the beloved day and night under necessity and desire.
category: relationship
evidence_refs:
- ev:8
- id: obs:13
text: The beloved is described as watched, guarded, praised, and censured by the
lover in ways that are intolerable or wearisome.
category: action
evidence_refs:
- ev:8
figures:
- id: fig:1
name_or_label: Socrates
description: Speaker who asks for silence and delivers the argument about the lover
and beloved.
role_refs:
- role:1
evidence_refs:
- ev:1
- ev:2
- id: fig:2
name_or_label: Phaedrus
description: Interlocutor who answers Socrates and listens to the speech.
role_refs:
- role:2
evidence_refs:
- ev:1
- id: fig:3
name_or_label: the lover
description: A passion-driven lover described as jealous, harmful, pleasure-seeking,
and controlling toward the beloved.
role_refs:
- role:3
- role:5
evidence_refs:
- ev:3
- ev:4
- ev:5
- ev:6
- ev:8
- id: fig:4
name_or_label: the beloved / youth
description: The recipient of the lover's advances, described as harmed in mind,
body, social ties, property, and daily life.
role_refs:
- role:4
evidence_refs:
- ev:2
- ev:4
- ev:5
- ev:6
- ev:8
- id: fig:5
name_or_label: father, mother, kindred, and friends of the beloved
description: Relatives and friends named as persons the lover wants to remove because
they may hinder or reprove the lover's converse with the beloved.
role_refs:
- role:6
evidence_refs:
- ev:6
roles:
- id: role:1
label: speaker in sacred setting
assigned_to:
- fig:1
basis: Socrates directs Phaedrus to listen in a holy place and continues the speech.
evidence_refs:
- ev:1
- ev:2
- id: role:2
label: listener and respondent
assigned_to:
- fig:2
basis: Phaedrus answers Socrates briefly and is addressed as the listener.
evidence_refs:
- ev:1
- id: role:3
label: harmful lover
assigned_to:
- fig:3
basis: The lover is described as a slave of pleasure who harms the beloved mentally,
bodily, socially, and materially.
evidence_refs:
- ev:3
- ev:4
- ev:5
- ev:6
- ev:8
- id: role:4
label: harmed beloved
assigned_to:
- fig:4
basis: The beloved is the person whose mind, body, social ties, property, and comfort
are said to be damaged by the lover.
evidence_refs:
- ev:4
- ev:5
- ev:6
- ev:8
- id: role:5
label: jealous guardian or master
assigned_to:
- fig:3
basis: The lover is described as a jealous guardian, associate, and master whose
law is pleasure rather than good.
evidence_refs:
- ev:4
- ev:5
- ev:8
- id: role:6
label: hinderers or reprovers
assigned_to:
- fig:5
basis: Relatives and friends are named as people the lover thinks may hinder or
reprove his converse with the beloved.
evidence_refs:
- ev:6
symbols:
- id: sym:1
label: holy place
literal_form: the place described by Socrates as holy
associated_figures:
- fig:1
- fig:2
taxonomy_refs: []
evidence_refs:
- ev:1
- id: sym:2
label: divine philosophy
literal_form: philosophy called divine and said to be banished from the beloved
associated_figures:
- fig:3
- fig:4
taxonomy_refs: []
evidence_refs:
- ev:4
- id: sym:3
label: gold and silver
literal_form: gold, silver, and other property of the beloved
associated_figures:
- fig:3
- fig:4
taxonomy_refs: []
evidence_refs:
- ev:6
- id: sym:4
label: birds of a feather
literal_form: proverbial birds used to express likeness and association
associated_figures: []
taxonomy_refs: []
evidence_refs:
- ev:7
- id: sym:5
label: sting of desire
literal_form: the sting of desire said to drive the lover on
associated_figures:
- fig:3
taxonomy_refs: []
evidence_refs:
- ev:8
scenes:
- id: scene:1
label: Socrates speaks in a holy place
summary: Socrates asks Phaedrus to listen silently, calls the place holy, and says
he may be entering a divine fury as he continues.
figure_refs:
- fig:1
- fig:2
symbol_refs:
- sym:1
evidence_refs:
- ev:1
- id: scene:2
label: Inquiry into lover and non-lover
summary: Socrates states that the subject has been defined and proposes to examine
the advantage or disadvantage from lover or non-lover to the one who accepts their
advances.
figure_refs:
- fig:1
- fig:3
- fig:4
symbol_refs: []
evidence_refs:
- ev:2
- id: scene:3
label: Mental harm of the beloved
summary: The lover is described as jealous and as making the beloved inferior, ignorant,
dependent, and deprived of society that would give wisdom and divine philosophy.
figure_refs:
- fig:3
- fig:4
symbol_refs:
- sym:2
evidence_refs:
- ev:3
- ev:4
- id: scene:4
label: Bodily weakening of the beloved
summary: The lover is said to choose and train a delicate beloved raised in shade
and luxury, leaving him ineffective in war or crisis.
figure_refs:
- fig:3
- fig:4
symbol_refs: []
evidence_refs:
- ev:5
- id: scene:5
label: Isolation from kin and possessions
summary: The lover is said to seek the beloved's separation from parents, kindred,
friends, wealth, wife, children, and home, because these make him less manageable.
figure_refs:
- fig:3
- fig:4
- fig:5
symbol_refs:
- sym:3
evidence_refs:
- ev:6
- id: scene:6
label: Forced and unpleasant companionship
summary: The lover is compared with harmful but temporarily pleasant figures, then
described as forcing himself on the young beloved, watching and guarding him,
and burdening him with praise and censure.
figure_refs:
- fig:3
- fig:4
symbol_refs:
- sym:4
- sym:5
evidence_refs:
- ev:7
- ev:8
candidate_motifs:
- id: motif:1
label: destructive erotic attachment
taxonomy_refs: []
basis: The lover's desire is represented as harmful to the beloved's mind, body,
social ties, property, and daily comfort.
evidence_refs:
- ev:3
- ev:4
- ev:5
- ev:6
- ev:8
confidence: high
cautions: This is an ethical and rhetorical motif in a philosophical dialogue, not
a mythic narrative episode.
- id: motif:2
label: jealous isolation of the beloved
taxonomy_refs: []
basis: The lover is said to remove or resent the beloved's society, kin, friends,
possessions, wife, children, and home so that the beloved remains dependent and
manageable.
evidence_refs:
- ev:4
- ev:6
- ev:8
confidence: high
cautions: The passage presents this as an argument about erotic conduct rather than
a narrated abduction or imprisonment.
- id: motif:3
label: withholding of wisdom
taxonomy_refs:
- wisdom
basis: The lover is said to bar the beloved from society that would give wisdom
and to banish divine philosophy from him.
evidence_refs:
- ev:4
confidence: medium
cautions: The taxonomy link is limited to the explicit concern with wisdom and philosophy;
the passage does not present a quest for wisdom.
- id: motif:4
label: inspired speech in a holy place
taxonomy_refs: []
basis: Socrates marks the setting as holy and says he appears to be in a divine
fury and entering dithyrambics before continuing the speech.
evidence_refs:
- ev:1
confidence: medium
cautions: The passage gives a rhetorical frame of inspired speech, but does not
narrate a divine visitation.
comparison_claims: []
evidence:
- id: ev:1
type: summary
locator: lines 1896-1905
quote_or_summary: Socrates asks Phaedrus to listen in silence, calls the place holy,
says he may appear in divine fury and be getting into dithyrambics; Phaedrus agrees.
source_text_path: texts/public-domain/greek/project-gutenberg/phaedrus-jowett.md
rights_note: Public domain source; concise summary used.
- id: ev:2
type: summary
locator: lines 1906-1914
quote_or_summary: Socrates says the subject has been declared and defined, and proposes
to examine what advantage or disadvantage follows from the lover or non-lover
to one who accepts their advances.
source_text_path: texts/public-domain/greek/project-gutenberg/phaedrus-jowett.md
rights_note: Public domain source; concise summary used.
- id: ev:3
type: summary
locator: lines 1915-1920
quote_or_summary: The lover is described as a victim of passions and slave of pleasure
who wants the beloved to be agreeable to himself and hates what is equal or superior.
source_text_path: texts/public-domain/greek/project-gutenberg/phaedrus-jowett.md
rights_note: Public domain source; concise summary used.
- id: ev:4
type: summary
locator: lines 1920-1940
quote_or_summary: The lover is said to reduce the beloved to inferiority, delight
in or implant defects, act jealously, bar useful society, prevent wisdom, banish
divine philosophy, and keep the beloved ignorant and dependent.
source_text_path: texts/public-domain/greek/project-gutenberg/phaedrus-jowett.md
rights_note: Public domain source; concise summary used.
- id: ev:5
type: summary
locator: lines 1941-1957
quote_or_summary: Socrates asks how the lover as master will train the beloved's
body, saying he will prefer delicacy, shade, luxury, and lack of exercise, making
the beloved a source of anxiety in war or crisis.
source_text_path: texts/public-domain/greek/project-gutenberg/phaedrus-jowett.md
rights_note: Public domain source; concise summary used.
- id: ev:6
type: summary
locator: lines 1958-1973
quote_or_summary: The lover is said to desire the beloved's separation from father,
mother, kindred, friends, gold, silver, other property, wife, children, and home,
because these make him harder to manage.
source_text_path: texts/public-domain/greek/project-gutenberg/phaedrus-jowett.md
rights_note: Public domain source; concise summary used.
- id: ev:7
type: summary
locator: lines 1974-1982
quote_or_summary: Socrates mentions harmful but temporarily pleasant figures such
as flatterers and courtesans, cites the proverb that birds of a feather flock
together, and says the lover is hurtful and disagreeable.
source_text_path: texts/public-domain/greek/project-gutenberg/phaedrus-jowett.md
rights_note: Public domain source; concise summary used.
- id: ev:8
type: summary
locator: lines 1982-1985
quote_or_summary: The lover is described as old while the beloved is young; he forces
himself on the beloved day and night, driven by desire, and the beloved is watched,
guarded, praised, and censured in intolerable ways.
source_text_path: texts/public-domain/greek/project-gutenberg/phaedrus-jowett.md
rights_note: Public domain source; concise summary used.
confidence:
extraction: high
motif_candidates: medium
comparison_claims: high
notes: The passage is a philosophical-rhetorical argument rather than a mythic narrative;
literal extraction is straightforward, while motif labeling is necessarily cautious.
reviewer_status:
status: needs_review
reviewer: ''
reviewed_at: ''
notes: Machine-generated draft from OpenAI Batch; not human-reviewed.
extracted_by: openai_batch:gpt-5.5
extracted_at: '2026-04-28'
notes: |-
No comparison claims were added because the passage itself does not explicitly support a cross-textual or tradition-level comparison.
batch_run_id=motif-extraction-2026-04-28-high-priority
custom_id=motif_extract:greek-plato-phaedrus-jowett-gutenberg__l1896-l1985
passage_sha256=4da9ffa79f06e83367abfa05b2fe8b404603da50c06e479f0c7ba9ba6c6d803d