The Prayer to Pan
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Socrates — ὦ φίλε Πάν τε καὶ θεοί, δοίητέ καλῷ γενέσθαι τἄνδοθεν· ἔξωθεν ἔχω, ἐντός φίλια· πλούσιον νομίζοιμι τὸν σοφόν
The dialogue closes as it should — not with a proof but a prayer, spoken to the goat-god of the very riverbank where it all happened. Socrates asks for nothing external: not wealth, not reputation, not to be thought wise. He asks to <em>become beautiful within</em>, and that whatever he owns on the outside make peace with the soul on the inside.
The dialogue's final words. As they prepare to leave the riverbank, Socrates offers a prayer to Pan and the local gods — asking not for wealth or fame, but for beauty of soul.
Every thread of the Phaedrus gathers into this last sentence. The word is <em>kalós</em> — 'beautiful,' but for a Greek also 'good' and 'noble' — so the prayer to become beautiful <em>within</em> (<em>éndothen</em>) is a prayer for goodness of soul, the inner counterpart to the Beauty the palinode chased through the heavens. The dialogue that opened with a written speech smuggled under a cloak — a beauty carried on the outside — ends by asking for the beauty that cannot be carried, only become. And true wealth is relocated inward: not what you have, but that you are wise. It is the whole movement of the dialogue, from surface to soul, folded into a single spoken prayer — spoken, fittingly, not written.
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