SCENE: Under a plane-tree, by the banks of the Ilissus.
SOCRATES: My dear Phaedrus, whence come you, and whither are you going?
PHAEDRUS: I come from Lysias the son of Cephalus, and I am going to take a walk outside the wall, for I have been sitting with him the whole morning; and our common friend Acumenus tells me that it is much more refreshing to walk in the open air than to be shut up in a cloister.
SOCRATES: There he is right. Lysias then, I suppose, was in the town?
PHAEDRUS: Yes, he was staying with Epicrates, here at the house of Morychus; that house which is near the temple of Olympian Zeus.
SOCRATES: And how did he entertain you? Can I be wrong in supposing that Lysias gave you a feast of discourse?
PHAEDRUS: You shall hear, if you can spare time to accompany me.
SOCRATES: And should I not deem the conversation of you and Lysias 'a thing of higher import,' as I may say in the words of Pindar, 'than any business'?
PHAEDRUS: Will you go on?
SOCRATES: And will you go on with the narration?