Ion (537-539)

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,

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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.