Eryximachus on Drunkenness, and Phaedrus Agrees
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Aristodemus — κατάδηλον γεγονέναι ἐκ τῆς ἰατρικῆς, ὅτι χαλεπὸν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἡ μέθη ἐστίν· καὶ οὔτε αὐτὸς ἑκὼν εἶναι πόρρω ἐθελήσαιμι ἂν πιεῖν οὔτε ἄλλῳ συμβουλεύσαιμι, ἄλλως τε καὶ κραιπαλῶντα ἔτι ἐκ τῆς προτεραίας. ἀλλὰ μήν, ἔφη φάναι ὑπολαβόντα Φαῖδρον τὸν Μυρρινούσιον, ἔγωγέ σοι εἴωθα πείθεσθαι ἄλλως τε καὶ ἅττʼ ἂν περὶ ἰατρικῆς λέγῃς· νῦν δʼ, ἂν εὖ βουλεύωνται, καὶ οἱ λοιποί.
It's become clear from medicine, that drunkenness is harmful to people. And I myself would never willingly drink to excess, nor would I advise another, especially one still hungover from the day before. But surely, said Phaedrus of Myrrhinous, breaking in — I'm used to trusting you, especially in whatever you say about medicine. And now, if they're sensible, so will the rest.
Aristodemus's narration continues, still reporting Eryximachus's remarks: the physician closes his point that medicine itself proves heavy drinking harmful, so he will neither drink to excess himself nor advise it to anyone else, especially anyone still hungover from the night before. Phaedrus of Myrrhinous breaks in to say he always defers to Eryximachus on medical matters, and that the rest of the company should do the same if they are wise.
The verb for Phaedrus's interruption, hypolambanein, literally "to take up from underneath," is Plato's ordinary word for catching another speaker's remark and answering it — the whole dialogue runs on this small mechanism, turn after turn. What Phaedrus actually says once he has the floor is telling: he offers no view of his own on wine, only a blanket deference to Eryximachus's professional authority. A few pages later, when his own turn comes to speak of erōs, he will do the same thing at greater length, leaning on Hesiod, Acusilaus, and Parmenides rather than building an argument of his own. Eryximachus, meanwhile, is already doing in miniature what his coming speech will do on a cosmic scale: turning a question of pleasure into a question of iatrikē, the physician's craft, as though a hangover and the harmony of the heavens both belonged, in the end, to the same expert.
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