Turned on a Lathe
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Socrates — ἀλλʼ οὐκ ἐκείνῃ μόνον, ὅτι σαφῆ καὶ στρογγύλα, καὶ ἀκριβῶς ἕκαστα τῶν ὀνομάτων ἀποτετόρνευται;
Phaedrus, dazzled, demands to know whether any Greek could possibly have done better. Socrates answers with a raised eyebrow. Are we to praise the speech, he asks, for its substance — for the writer having said what actually needed saying? Or only on that other count: that the words are clear and nicely rounded, every one of them turned on a lathe to a perfect finish? The distinction is the whole game. Phaedrus has been admiring the polish; Socrates wants to know whether anything true got said at all.
Phaedrus is ecstatic — could any Greek say more, or greater things, on this theme? Socrates, dry as ever, redirects: are we really to praise the speech for saying what needed saying — or only for its finish, its clarity and roundness, each word lathe-turned to a flawless polish?
Socrates reaches into the carpenter's shop for his verdict, and the word does the work: apotetorneutai — each phrase 'turned on a lathe.' It is praise of exactly the wrong kind. You admire a bowl for being lathe-turned, smooth and perfectly round; you do not admire a true account that way, because a true account takes its shape from its subject, not from the craftsman's tool. Lysias's speech is all surface finish — saphē kai strongyla, 'clear and rounded' — and Socrates's irony is that these are the virtues of a well-made object, not of a thought. This is the hinge of the dialogue. Everything before it was the display-piece; everything after asks what a speech is actually for, and builds, by the end, toward the claim that real rhetoric must know the truth of its subject and the soul of its hearer. The lathe-turned words are beautiful. Socrates is about to ask whether beauty of that kind has anything to do with knowing what love is.
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