Ion (540)

Why, how am I forgetting?

Do you not remember that you said that the art of the rhapsode was different from that of the charioteer?

I remember.

And you also admitted that, being different, it would know different things?

Yes.

Then by your own account the rhapsode’s art cannot know everything, nor the rhapsode either.

Let us say, everything except those instances, Socrates.

By those instances you imply the subjects of practically all the other arts. Well, as he does not know all of them, which kinds will he know?

Those things, I imagine, that it befits a man to say, and the sort of thing that a woman should say; the sort for a slave and the sort for a freeman; and the sort for a subject or for a ruler.

Do you mean that the rhapsode will know better than the pilot what sort of thing a ruler of a storm-tossed vessel at sea should say?

No, the pilot knows better in that case.

Well, will the rhapsode know better than the doctor what sort of thing a ruler of a sick man should say?

Not in that case either.

But he will know the sort for a slave, you say?

Yes.

For instance, if the slave is a cowherd, you say the rhapsode will know what the other should say to pacify his cows when they get fierce, but the cowherd will not?

That is not so.

Well, the sort of thing that a woman ought to say—a spinning-woman—about the working of wool?

No.

But he will know what a man should say, when he is a general exhorting his men?

Yes, that sort of thing the rhapsode will know.

Well, but is the art of the rhapsode the art of the general?

I, at any rate, should know what a general ought to say.

Yes, since I daresay you are good at generalship also, Ion. For in fact, if you happened to have skill in horsemanship as well as in the lyre, you would know when horses were well or ill managed:

I should say, by my skill as a horseman.

And if again you were distinguishing the good lyre-players, you would admit that you distinguished by your skill in the lyre, and not by your skill as a horseman.

Yes.

And when you judge of military matters, do you judge as having skill in generalship, or as a good rhapsode?

To my mind, there is no difference.