Ion

Section 530

Welcome, Ion. Where have you come from now, to pay us this visit? From your home in Ephesus?

No, no, Socrates; from Epidaurus and the festival there of Asclepius.

Do you mean to say that the Epidaurians honor the god with a contest of rhapsodes also?

Certainly, and of music in general.

Why then, you were competing in some contest, were you? And how went your competition?

We carried off the first prize, Socrates.

Well done: so now, mind that we win too at the Panathenaea.

Why, so we shall, God willing.

I must say I have often envied you rhapsodes, Ion, for your art: for besides that it is fitting to your art that your person should be adorned and that you should look as handsome as possible, the necessity of being conversant with a number of good poets, and especially with Homer, the best and divinest poet of all, and of apprehending

530chis thought and not merely learning off his words, is a matter for envy; since a man can never be a good rhapsode without understanding what the poet says. For the rhapsode ought to make himself an interpreter of the poet’s thought to his audience; and to do this properly without knowing what the poet means is impossible. So one cannot but envy all this.

530cWhat you say is true, Socrates: I at any rate have found this the most laborious part of my art; and I consider I speak about Homer better than anybody, for neither

530dMetrodorus of Lampsacus, nor Stesimbrotus of Thasos, nor Glaucon, nor any one that the world has ever seen, had so many and such fine comments to offer on Homer as I have.

530dThat is good news, Ion; for obviously you will not grudge me an exhibition of them.

530dAnd indeed it is worth hearing, Socrates, how well I have embellished Homer; so that I think I deserve to be crowned with a golden crown by the Homeridae.

Section 531

530dYes, and I must find myself leisure some time to listen to you;

531abut for the moment, please answer this little question: are you skilled in Homer only, or in Hesiod and Archilochus as well?

531aNo, no, only in Homer; for that seems to me quite enough.

531aAnd is there anything on which Homer and Hesiod both say the same?

531aYes, I think there are many such cases.

531aThen in those cases would you expound better what Homer says than what Hesiod says?

531aI should do it equally well in those cases, Socrates, where they say the same.

531aBut what of those where they do not say the same? For example, about the seer’s art, on which both Homer and Hesiod say something.

531aQuite so.

531aWell then, would you, or one of the good seers, expound better what these two poets say, not only alike but differently, about the seer’s art?

531aOne of the seers.

531aAnd if you were a seer, would you not, with an ability to expound what they say in agreement, know also how to expound the points on which they differ?

531aOf course.

531aThen how is it that you are skilled in Homer,

531cand not in Hesiod or the other poets? Does Homer speak of any other than the very things that all the other poets speak of? Has he not described war for the most part, and the mutual intercourse of men, good and bad, lay and professional, and the ways of the gods in their intercourse with each other and with men, and happenings in the heavens and in the underworld, and origins of gods and heroes?

531dAre not these the subjects of Homer’s poetry?

531dWhat you say is true, Socrates.

531dAnd what of the other poets? Do they not treat of the same things?

531dYes; but, Socrates, not on Homer’s level.

531dWhat, in a worse way?

531dFar worse.

531dAnd Homer in a better?

531dBetter indeed, I assure you.

531dWell now, Ion, dear soul; when several people are talking about number, and one of them speaks better than the rest, I suppose there is some one who will distinguish the good speaker?

531dI agree.

531dAnd will this some one be the same as he who can distinguish the bad speakers, or different?

531dThe same, I suppose.

531dAnd he will be the man who has the art of numeration?

531dYes.

531dAnd again, when several are talking about what kinds of foods are wholesome, and one of them speaks better than the rest, will it be for two different persons to distinguish the superiority of the best speaker and the inferiority of a worse one, or for the same?

531dObviously, I should say, for the same.

531dWho is he? What is his name?

531dA doctor.

Section 532

531dAnd so we may state, in general terms, that the same person will always distinguish, given the same subject and several persons talking about it,

532aboth who speaks well and who badly: otherwise, if he is not going to distinguish the bad speaker, clearly he will not distinguish the good one either, where the subject is the same.

532aThat is so.

532aAnd the same man is found to be skilled in both?

532aYes.

532aAnd you say that Homer and the other poets, among whom are Hesiod and Archilochus, all speak about the same things, only not similarly; but the one does it well, and the rest worse?

532aYes, and what I say is true.

532aAnd since you distinguish the good speaker,

532byou could distinguish also the inferiority of the worse speakers.

532bSo it would seem.

532bThen, my excellent friend, we shall not be wrong in saying that our Ion is equally skilled in Homer and in the other poets, seeing that you yourself admit that the same man will be a competent judge of all who speak on the same things, and that practically all the poets treat of the same things.

532bThen what can be the reason, Socrates, why I pay no attention when somebody discusses any other poet, and am unable to offer any remark at all of any value,

532cbut simply drop into a doze, whereas if anyone mentions something connected with Homer I wake up at once and attend and have plenty to say?

532cThat is not difficult to guess, my good friend; anyone can see that you are unable to speak on Homer with art and knowledge. For if you could do it with art, you could speak on all the other poets as well; since there is an art of poetry, I take it, as a whole, is there not?

532cYes.

532cAnd when one has acquired any other art whatever as a whole, the same principle of inquiry holds through all the arts? Do you require some explanation from me, Ion, of what I mean by this?

532cYes, upon my word, Socrates, I do; for I enjoy listening to you wise men.

532cI only wish you were right there, Ion: but surely it is you rhapsodes and actors, and the men whose poems you chant, who are wise; whereas I speak but the plain truth, as a simple layman might.

532eFor in regard to this question I asked you just now, observe what a trifling commonplace it was that I uttered—a thing that any man might know—namely, that when one has acquired a whole art the inquiry is the same. Let us just think it out thus: there is an art of painting as a whole?

532eYes.

532eAnd there are and have been many painters, good and bad?

532eCertainly.

Section 533

532eNow have you ever found anybody who is skilled in pointing out the successes and failures among the works of Polygnotus son of Aglaophon, but unable to do so with the works of the other painters;

533aand who, when the works of the other painters are exhibited, drops into a doze, and is at a loss, and has no remark to offer; but when he has to pronounce upon Polygnotus or any other painter you please, and on that one only, wakes up and attends and has plenty to say?

533aNo, on my honor, I certainly have not.

533aOr again, in sculpture, have you ever found anyone who is skilled in expounding the successes of Daedalus son of Metion, or Epeius son of Panopeus,

533bor Theodorus of Samos, or any other single sculptor, but in face of the works of the other sculptors is at a loss and dozes, having nothing to say?

533bNo, on my honor, I have not found such a man as that either.

533bBut further, I expect you have also failed to find one in fluting or harping or minstrelsy or rhapsodizing who is skilled in expounding the art of Olympus

533cor Thamyras, or Orpheus, or Phemius, the rhapsode of Ithaca, but is at a loss and has no remark to offer on the successes or failures in rhapsody of Ion of Ephesus.

533cI cannot gainsay you on that, Socrates: but of one thing I am conscious in myself—that I excel all men in speaking on Homer and have plenty to say, and everyone else says that I do it well; but on the others I am not a good speaker. Yet now, observe what that means.

533cI do observe it, Ion, and I am going to point out to you

533dwhat I take it to mean. For, as I was saying just now, this is not an art in you, whereby you speak well on Homer, but a divine power, which moves you like that in the stone which Euripides named a magnet, but most people call Heraclea stone. For this stone not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them a power whereby they in turn are able to do the very same thing as the stone,

533eand attract other rings; so that sometimes there is formed quite a long chain of bits of iron and rings, suspended one from another; and they all depend for this power on that one stone. In the same manner also the Muse inspires men herself, and then by means of these inspired persons the inspiration spreads to others, and holds them in a connected chain.

Section 534

533eFor all the good epic poets utter all those fine poems not from art, but as inspired and possessed, and the good lyric poets likewise;

534ajust as the Corybantian worshippers do not dance when in their senses, so the lyric poets do not indite those fine songs in their senses, but when they have started on the melody and rhythm they begin to be frantic, and it is under possession—as the bacchants are possessed, and not in their senses, when they draw honey and milk from the rivers—that the soul of the lyric poets does the same thing, by their own report. For the poets tell us, I believe, that the songs they bring us are the sweets they cull from honey-dropping founts

534bin certain gardens and glades of the Muses—like the bees, and winging the air as these do. And what they tell is true. For a poet is a light and winged and sacred thing, and is unable ever to indite until he has been inspired and put out of his senses, and his mind is no longer in him: every man, whilst he retains possession of that, is powerless to indite a verse or chant an oracle. Seeing then that it is not by art that they compose and utter so many fine things about the deeds of men—

534cas you do about Homer—but by a divine dispensation, each is able only to compose that to which the Muse has stirred him, this man dithyrambs, another laudatory odes, another dance-songs, another epic or else iambic verse; but each is at fault in any other kind. For not by art do they utter these things, but by divine influence; since, if they had fully learnt by art to speak on one kind of theme, they would know how to speak on all. And for this reason God takes away the mind of these men and uses them as his ministers, just as he does soothsayers and godly seers,

534din order that we who hear them may know that it is not they who utter these words of great price, when they are out of their wits, but that it is God himself who speaks and addresses us through them. A convincing proof of what I say is the case of Tynnichus, the Chalcidian, who had never composed a single poem in his life that could deserve any mention, and then produced the paean which is in everyone’s mouth, almost the finest song we have, simply—as he says himself—an invention of the Muses. For the god, as it seems to me,

534eintended him to be a sign to us that we should not waver or doubt that these fine poems are not human or the work of men, but divine and the work of gods; and that the poets are merely the interpreters of the gods, according as each is possessed by one of the heavenly powers. To show this forth, the god of set purpose sang the finest of songs through the meanest of poets:

535aor do you not think my statement true, Ion?

Section 535

535aYes, 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.

535aAnd you rhapsodes, for your part, interpret the utterances of the poets?

535aAgain your words are true.

535aAnd so you act as interpreters of interpreters?

535aPrecisely.

535aStop 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

535cherself 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?

535cHow 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.

535cWell 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?

535cNo, on my word, not at all, Socrates, to tell the strict truth.

535cAnd are you aware that you rhapsodes produce these same effects on most of the spectators also?

535cYes, 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.

Section 536

535cAnd 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?

536aYou, 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:

536bthe 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,

536cand 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

536dwhy 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.

536dWell 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.

536dI declare I am quite willing to hear you, but not until

536eyou have first answered me this: on what thing in Homer’s story do you speak well? Not on all of them, I presume.

536eI assure you, Socrates, on all without a single exception.

536eNot, of course, including those things of which you have in fact no knowledge, but which Homer tells.

536eAnd what sort of things are they, which Homer tells, but of which I have no knowledge?

Section 537

536eWhy, 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.

536eNo, I will recite them, for I can remember.

536eTell 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.

536eBend thyself in the polished car slightly to the left of them; and call to the right-hand horse

537band 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.

537bEnough. Now, Ion, will a doctor or a charioteer be the better judge

537cwhether Homer speaks correctly or not in these lines?

537cA charioteer, of course.

537cBecause he has this art, or for some other reason?

537cNo, because it is his art.

537cAnd 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.

537cNo, to be sure.

537cAnd what we know by medicine, we cannot by carpentry also?

537cNo, indeed.

537cAnd 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?

537cYes.

537cDo 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?

537cYes.

537cSince, 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?

537cYes.

Section 538

537cThen 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.

537cI think it is so, Socrates.

537cThen he who has not a particular art will be incapable of knowing aright the words or works of that art?

537cTrue.

537cThen will you or a charioteer be the better judge of whether Homer speaks well or not in the lines that you quoted?

537cA charioteer.

537cBecause, I suppose, you are a rhapsode and not a charioteer.

537cYes.

537cAnd the rhapsode’s art is different from the charioteer’s?

537cYes.

537cThen if it is different, it is also a knowledge of different things.

537cYes.

537cNow, what of the passage where Homer tells how Hecamede,

538cNestor’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. Is it for the doctor’s or the rhapsode’s art to discern aright whether Homer speaks correctly here or not?

538cFor the doctor’s.

538cWell now, when Homer says:

538dAnd 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?

538dClearly, Socrates, for the fisherman’s art.

538dThen please observe: suppose you were questioning me and should ask:

538eSince 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 , as for instance the words of Theoclymenus, the seer of the line of Melampus, to the suitors:

Section 539

538eHapless 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;

539band 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,

539cand 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. This passage, and others of the sort, are those that I should say the seer has to examine and judge.

539cAnd you speak the truth, Socrates.

539cAnd 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,

539ethe 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.

539eWhat I say, Socrates, is—all passages.

539eSurely you do not say all, Ion! Can you be so forgetful? And yet forgetfulness would ill become a rhapsode.

Section 540

539eWhy, how am I forgetting?

539eDo you not remember that you said that the art of the rhapsode was different from that of the charioteer?

539eI remember.

539eAnd you also admitted that, being different, it would know different things?

539eYes.

539eThen by your own account the rhapsode’s art cannot know everything, nor the rhapsode either.

539eLet us say, everything except those instances, Socrates.

539eBy 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?

539eThose 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.

539eDo 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?

539eNo, the pilot knows better in that case.

539eWell, will the rhapsode know better than the doctor what sort of thing a ruler of a sick man should say?

539eNot in that case either.

539eBut he will know the sort for a slave, you say?

539eYes.

539eFor 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?

539eThat is not so.

539eWell, the sort of thing that a woman ought to say—a spinning-woman—about the working of wool?

539eNo.

539eBut he will know what a man should say, when he is a general exhorting his men?

539eYes, that sort of thing the rhapsode will know.

539eWell, but is the art of the rhapsode the art of the general?

539eI, at any rate, should know what a general ought to say.

539eYes, 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:

540ebut if I asked you, By which art is it, Ion, that you know that horses are being well managed, by your skill as a horseman, or as a player of the lyre? what would your answer be?

540eI should say, by my skill as a horseman.

540eAnd 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.

540eYes.

540eAnd when you judge of military matters, do you judge as having skill in generalship, or as a good rhapsode?

540eTo my mind, there is no difference.

Section 541

540eWhat, no difference, do you say? Do you mean that the art of the rhapsode and the general is one, not two?

540eIt is one, to my mind.

540eSo that anyone who is a good rhapsode is also, in fact, a good general?

540eCertainly, Socrates.

540eAnd again, anyone who happens to be a good general is also a good rhapsode.

540eNo there I do not agree.

540eBut still you agree that anyone who is a good rhapsode

541bis also a good general?

541bTo be sure.

541bAnd you are the best rhapsode in Greece?

541bFar the best, Socrates.

541bAre you also, Ion, the best general in Greece?

541bBe sure of it, Socrates and that I owe to my study of Homer.

541bThen how, in Heaven’s name, can it be, Ion, that you, who are both the best general and the best rhapsode in Greece, go about performing as a rhapsode to the Greeks, but not as a general?

541cOr do you suppose that the Greeks feel a great need of a rhapsode in the glory of his golden crown, but of a general none at all?

541cIt is because my city, Socrates, is under the rule and generalship of your people, and is not in want of a general; whilst you and Sparta would not choose me as a general, since you think you manage well enough for yourselves.

541cMy excellent Ion, you are acquainted with Apollodorus of Cyzicus, are you not?

541cWhat might he be?

541cA man whom the Athenians have often chosen as their general, though a foreigner;

541dand Phanosthenes of Andros, and Heracleides of Clazomenae, whom my city invests with the high command and other offices although they are foreigners, because they have proved themselves to be competent. And will she not choose Ion of Ephesus as her general, and honor him, if he shows himself competent? Why, you Ephesians are by origin Athenians, are you not, and Ephesus is inferior to no city?

541eBut in fact, Ion, if you are right in saying it is by art and knowledge that you are able to praise Homer, you are playing me false: you have professed to me that you know any amount of fine things about Homer, and you promise to display them; but you are only deceiving me, and so far from displaying the subjects of your skill, you decline even to tell me what they are, for all my entreaties.

Section 542

541eYou are a perfect Proteus in the way you take on every kind of shape, twisting about this way and that, until at last you elude my grasp in the guise of a general, so as to avoid displaying your skill

542ain Homeric lore. Now if you are an artist and, as I was saying just now, you only promised me a display about Homer to deceive me, you are playing me false; whilst if you are no artist, but speak fully and finely about Homer, as I said you did, without any knowledge but by a divine dispensation which causes you to be possessed by the poet, you play quite fair. Choose therefore which of the two you prefer us to call you, dishonest or divine.

542aThe difference is great, Socrates; for it is far nobler to be called divine.

542aThen you may count on this nobler title in our minds, Ion, of being a divine and not an artistic praiser of Homer.