Was hij niet van Oote oote boe, etc.?
Maar ik kan wel een poging wagen om hier chocola van te maken..
Het lijkt me dat proswton πρόσωπον voorstelt: gezicht. Ook lijkt xallos eerder κάλλος dan het niet bestaande χαλλος voor te stellen. Dit betekent schoonheid. Eu oftewel ἐύ is een bijwoord dat 'goed' betekent. Memimhmenos stelt waarschijnlijk het participium perfectum voor van μιμέομαι (nabootsen). Er staat: gezicht... schoonheid goed nagebootst. Veel meer kun je er niet mee.
Phaidros is een vriend van Sokrates, bekend van de dialoog die Plato Sokrates met hem liet voeren, die ook naar hem is genoemd.
Het stukje blijkt na enig onderzoek inderdaad een citaat uit deze dialoog, om precies te zijn uit passage 251a. Het gaat over schoonheid, ideeën, etc. Maar het fijne weet ik er niet van, dus ik zal weliswaar (een deel van) de context voor je gemak even aanhalen, maar laat toch aan jou (of iemand anders) de taak om dit dan weer te interpreteren.

De vet gemaakte woorden zijn de vertaling van het motto.
Citaat:
But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense. For sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses; though not by that is wisdom seen; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her, and the other ideas, if they had visible counterparts, would be equally lovely. But this is the privilege of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight. Now he who is not newly initiated or who has become corrupted, does not easily rise out of this world to the sight of true beauty in the other; he looks only at her earthly namesake, and instead of being awed at the sight of her, he is given over to pleasure, and like a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy and beget; he consorts with wantonness, and is not afraid or ashamed of pursuing pleasure in violation of nature. But he whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees a godlike face or form which is a good image of beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, and again the old awe steals over him; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god; then while he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, and the shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration; for, as he receives the effluence of beauty through the eyes, the wing moistens and he warms. And as he warms, the parts out of which the wing grew, and which had been hitherto closed and rigid, and had prevented the wing from shooting forth, are melted, and as nourishment streams upon him, the lower end of the wings begins to swell and grow from the root upwards; and the growth extends under the whole soul-for once the whole was winged.
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