ABSTRACT
Phaedrus Plato speaks for Eryximacus and Acumenis, for Sophocles and Euripides—even, at one, revealing, self-referential moment, for an irreal version of himself. Phaedrus' appetite for listeners is less omnivorous than Socrates', though he does speak Lysias' words to a thinly veiled version of himself, he replies to the arguments of Rhetoric, and he answers the challenges of "someone" for physicians and poets. Plato is certainly as involved in the rhetoric of Phaedrus as either of the principals or any of their casually adopted personae, but attending only to the choirmaster does not silence the choir. But the voices that populate the words of Phaedrus, voices prior and subsequent to its composition, are voices of clarity, of power, and of wisdom. They are voices to care about, to study, and now there is one more, one who joins the concert, who speaks with them, who amplifies and supports them, and helps us to hear more clearly.
