Ion (535-539)

Ion.

Yes, upon my word, I do: for you somehow touch my soul with your words, Socrates, and I believe it is by divine dispensation that good poets interpret to us these utterances of the gods.

Soc.

And you rhapsodes, for your part, interpret the utterances of the poets?

Ion.

Again your words are true.

Soc.

And so you act as interpreters of interpreters?

Ion.

Precisely.

Soc.

Stop now and tell me, Ion, without reserve what I may choose to ask you: when you give a good recitation and specially thrill your audience, either with the lay of Odysseus [*] leaping forth on to the threshold, revealing himself to the suitors and pouring out the arrows before his feet, or of Achilles [*] dashing at Hector, or some part of the sad story of Andromache [*] or of Hecuba, [*] or of Priam, [*] are you then in your senses, or are you carried out of yourself, and does your soul in an ecstasy suppose

herself to be among the scenes you are describing, whether they be in Ithaca, or in Troy, or as the poems may chance to place them?

Ion.

How vivid to me, Socrates, is this part of your proof! For I will tell you without reserve: when I relate a tale of woe, my eyes are filled with tears; and when it is of fear or awe, my hair stands on end with terror, and my heart leaps.

Soc.

Well now, are we to say, Ion, that such a person is in his senses at that moment,—when in all the adornment of elegant attire and golden crowns he weeps at sacrifice or festival, having been despoiled of none of his finery; or shows fear as he stands before more than twenty thousand friendly people, none of whom is stripping or injuring him?

Ion.

No, on my word, not at all, Socrates, to tell the strict truth.

Soc.

And are you aware that you rhapsodes produce these same effects on most of the spectators also?

Ion.

Yes, very fully aware: for I look down upon them from the platform and see them at such moments crying and turning awestruck eyes upon me and yielding to the amazement of my tale. For I have to pay the closest attention to them; since, if I set them crying, I shall laugh myself because of the money I take, but if they laugh, I myself shall cry because of the money I lose.

Soc.

And are you aware that your spectator is the last of the rings which I spoke of as receiving from each other the power transmitted from the Heraclean lodestone?

You, the rhapsode and actor, are the middle ring; the poet himself is the first; but it is the god who through the whole series draws the souls of men whithersoever he pleases, making the power of one depend on the other. And, just as from the magnet, there is a mighty chain of choric performers and masters and under-masters suspended by side-connections from the rings that hang down from the Muse. One poet is suspended from one Muse, another from another: the word we use for it is possessed, but it is much the same thing, for he is held. And from these first rings—the poets—are suspended various others, which are thus inspired, some by Orpheus and others by Musaeus [*]; but the majority are possessed and held by Homer. Of whom you, Ion, are one, and are possessed by Homer; and so, when anyone recites the work of another poet, you go to sleep and are at a loss what to say; but when some one utters a strain of your poet, you wake up at once, and your soul dances, and you have plenty to say: for it is not by art or knowledge about Homer that you say what you say, but by divine dispensation and possession; just as the Corybantian worshippers are keenly sensible of that strain alone which belongs to the god whose possession is on them, and have plenty of gestures and phrases for that tune, but do not heed any other. And so you, Ion, when the subject of Homer is mentioned, have plenty to say, but nothing on any of the others. And when you ask me the reason why you can speak at large on Homer but not on the rest, I tell you it is because your skill in praising Homer comes not by art, but by divine dispensation.

Ion.

Well spoken, I grant you, Socrates; but still I shall be surprised if you can speak well enough to convince me that I am possessed and mad when I praise Homer. Nor can I think you would believe it of me yourself, if you heard me speaking about him.

Soc.

I declare I am quite willing to hear you, but not until

you have first answered me this: on what thing in Homer’s story do you speak well? Not on all of them, I presume.

Ion.

I assure you, Socrates, on all without a single exception.

Soc.

Not, of course, including those things of which you have in fact no knowledge, but which Homer tells.

Ion.

And what sort of things are they, which Homer tells, but of which I have no knowledge?

Soc.

Why, does not Homer speak a good deal about arts, in a good many places? For instance, about chariot-driving: if I can recall the lines, I will quote them to you.

Ion.

No, I will recite them, for I can remember.

Soc.

Tell me then what Nestor says to his son Antilochus, advising him to be careful about the turning-post in the horse-race in honor of Patroclus.

Ion.

Bend thyself in the polished car slightly to the left of them; [*] and call to the right-hand horse

537b

and goad him on, while your hand slackens his reins. And at the post let your left-hand horse swerve close, so that the nave of the well-wrought wheel may seem to come up to the edge of the stone, which yet avoid to touch.

Hom. Il. 23.335 ff.

Soc.

Enough. Now, Ion, will a doctor or a charioteer be the better judge

whether Homer speaks correctly or not in these lines?

Ion.

A charioteer, of course.

Soc.

Because he has this art, or for some other reason?

Ion.

No, because it is his art.

Soc.

And to every art has been apportioned by God a power of knowing a particular business? For I take it that what we know by the art of piloting we cannot also know by that of medicine.

Ion.

No, to be sure.

Soc.

And what we know by medicine, we cannot by carpentry also?

Ion.

No, indeed.

Soc.

And this rule holds for all the arts, that what we know by one of them we cannot know by another? But before you answer that, just tell me this: do you agree that one art is of one sort, and another of another?

Ion.

Yes.

Soc.

Do you argue this as I do, and call one art different from another when one is a knowledge of one kind of thing, and another a knowledge of another kind?

Ion.

Yes.

Soc.

Since, I suppose, if it were a knowledge of the same things—how could we say that one was different from another, when both could give us the same knowledge? Just as I know that there are five of these fingers, and you equally know the same fact about them; and if I should ask you whether both you and I know this same fact by the same art of numeration, or by different arts, you would reply, I presume, that it was by the same?

Ion.

Yes.

Soc.

Then tell me now, what I was just going to ask you, whether you think this rule holds for all the arts—that by the same art we must know the same things, and by a different art things that are not the same; but if the art is other, the things we know by it must be different also.

Ion.

I think it is so, Socrates.

Soc.

Then he who has not a particular art will be incapable of knowing aright the words or works of that art?

Ion.

True.

Soc.

Then will you or a charioteer be the better judge of whether Homer speaks well or not in the lines that you quoted?

Ion.

A charioteer.

Soc.

Because, I suppose, you are a rhapsode and not a charioteer.

Ion.

Yes.

Soc.

And the rhapsode’s art is different from the charioteer’s?

Ion.

Yes.

Soc.

Then if it is different, it is also a knowledge of different things.

Ion.

Yes.

Soc.

Now, what of the passage where Homer tells how Hecamede,

Nestor’s concubine, gives the wounded Machaon a posset? His words are something like this:

Of Pramneian wine it was, and therein she grated cheese of goat’s milk with a grater of bronze; and thereby an onion as a relish for drink.

Hom. Il. 11.639-40 [*] Is it for the doctor’s or the rhapsode’s art to discern aright whether Homer speaks correctly here or not?

Ion.

For the doctor’s.

Soc.

Well now, when Homer says:

And she passed to the bottom like a plummet which, set on a horn

977) supports Aristotle’s view that the horn acted as a sheath to protect the line from being bitten through by the fish. are we to say it is for the fisherman’s or for the rhapsode’s art to decide what he means by this, and whether it is rightly or wrongly spoken?

Ion.

Clearly, Socrates, for the fisherman’s art.

Soc.

Then please observe: suppose you were questioning me and should ask:

Since therefore, Socrates, you find it is for these several arts to appraise the passages of Homer that belong to each, be so good as to make out those also that are for the seer and the seer’s art, and show me the sort of passages that come under his ability to distinguish whether they are well or ill done; observe how easily and truly I shall answer you. For he has many passages, both in the Odyssey, as for instance the words of Theoclymenus, the seer of the line of Melampus, to the suitors:

Soc.

Hapless men, what bane is this afflicts you? Your heads and faces and limbs below are shrouded in night, and wailing is enkindled, and cheeks are wet with tears: of ghosts the porch is full, and the court full of them also, hastening hell-wards ’neath the gloom: and the sun is perished out of heaven, and an evil mist is spread abroad;

Hom. Od. 20.351-57[*] and there are many passages in the Iliad also, as in the fight at the rampart, where he says:

For as they were eager to pass over, a bird had crossed them, an eagle of lofty flight, pressing the host at the left hand,

539c

and bearing a blood-red monster of a snake, alive and still struggling; nor had it yet unlearnt the lust of battle. For bending back it smote its captor on the breast by the neck, and the bird in the bitterness of pain cast it away to the ground, and dropped it down in the midst of the throng; and then with a cry flew off on the wafting winds.

Hom. Il. 12.200-7 This passage, and others of the sort, are those that I should say the seer has to examine and judge.

Ion.

And you speak the truth, Socrates.

Soc.

And so do you, Ion, in saying that. Now you must do as I did, and in return for my picking out and the Iliad the kinds of passage that belong severally to the seer,

the doctor, and the fisherman, you have now to pick out for me—since you are so much more versed in Homer than I—the kinds which belong to the rhapsode, Ion, and the rhapsode’s art, and which he should be able to consider and distinguish beyond the rest of mankind.

Ion.

What I say, Socrates, is—all passages.

Soc.

Surely you do not say all, Ion! Can you be so forgetful? And yet forgetfulness would ill become a rhapsode.