In apology for enjoying and giving a speech that disparaged love, Socrates gives his speech praising love and its positive effects on mankind. He begins by saying that though love is madness, it is a divine madness that only benefits those who suffer from it. Then, Socrates explains how it is from sights of real things that the soul saw while following the gods that cause madness to fall upon him. When he sees the brightness of reality shining through a person, he is inevitably drawn to it and can only find comfort by being close to it, thus causing people to think he’s mad because he does anything to be close to the reflection of that reality.
Once the speech is over, Socrates says a prayer to love. “[Convert Lysias] to philosophy like his brother Polemarchus so that his lover [Phaedrus] here may no longer play both sides as he does now, but simply devote his life to Love through philosophical discussions,” (257b). It is interesting that Socrates would word his prayer this way. Rather than praying for Phaedrus directly, he prays for Lysias so as to free Phaedrus. When they first meet, Phaedrus is wonderfully enthralled with Lysias’ speech even going so far as to try to memorize it. However, after a short discussion with Socrates, he realizes how wrong the speech was and agrees that amends must be made. Because of his love for Lysias and for true Love, Phaedrus in caught in a pickle between the two. In his prayer, Socrates acknowledges this and asks that the gods change Lysias’ power over Phaedrus so that he may pursue what is higher and better, Love.
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