Phaedrus

The language of plants seems to be one of Socrates’s favorite tools for demonstrating the effects of good rhetoric in the second half of the dialogue. A good speaker is compared to someone who plants a seed to bring forth “fruit” in the mind of their audience. To produce that fruit, the speaker will, naturally, need to pay attention to the soil he plants it in (that is, the soul of his listener) and tend to it as it grows. Socrates stresses that an effective speaker knows his audience well in the way that a farmer knows the soil and his seeds well. If the farmer wants to grow a specific crop, he must plan his planting carefully; likewise, an effective speaker will plan his speech carefully and prepare his audience in such a way that the speaker will produce precisely his desired effect. The heavy use of this simile is foreshadowed by the setting of the dialogue: under a plane-tree on the banks of the Ilissus River. Such a place, Socrates notes, has very fertile soil and a comfortable climate, an ideal setting for both growing crops and Socrates and Phaedrus’s discussion.