Phaedrus 246a · 246a
The Winged Charioteer
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ἐοικέτω δὴ συμφύτῳ δυνάμει ὑποπτέρου ζεύγους τε καί ἡνιόχου· θεῶν μέν οὖν ἵπποι τε καί ἡνίοχοι ἀγαθοί
Plato marks what follows as a likeness, not a proof: "let the soul be likened," he says, to a charioteer driving two winged horses. One pulls toward the noble and the good, the other toward the ground. The soul is not one thing but a tension — a driver managing powers that do not agree.
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The setting
To explain the soul's immortality, Socrates says its true nature belongs to divine speech — beyond what humans can describe. Instead he offers a likeness: the soul is like a charioteer driving a winged team.
A note on this passage
This is the three-part soul of the <em>Republic</em> — reason, spirit, appetite — but here it is set in motion, given wings and somewhere to go. The image carried a charge for its first hearers that ours has lost: in Homer the charioteer is the warrior's closest companion, the one who holds the reins while the other fights. Reason, here, is not a master standing over the passions but a partner bound up with them, who gets nowhere alone.
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