Ion

SOC: Does not Homer speak in many places and of many things concerning arts? For example, concerning charioteering—if I recall the verses, I will tell you. ION: But I will say them; for I remember them. SOC: Tell me then what Nestor says to his son Antilochus, advising him to be careful about the turn in the horse-race in honor of Patroclus. ION: “Lean,” he says, “yourself also in the well-polished chariot slightly to the left of them; but the right horse urge with a shout, and give him rein with your hands. At the turning-post let the left horse draw close, so that the hub of the well-made wheel seems to reach the edge; but avoid touching the stone, lest you harm it.” SOC: That is enough. Whether Homer speaks correctly or not in these verses, Ion, who would know better, a doctor or a charioteer? ION: A charioteer, surely. SOC: Is it because he has this art, or for some other reason? ION: No, but because of his art. SOC: Then to each of the arts has there been assigned by the god a certain task to be able to know? For surely what we know by the art of steering, we shall not know also by the art of medicine. ION: Certainly not. SOC: Nor what we know by medicine, shall we know also by carpentry. ION: Certainly not. SOC: Then is it so for all the arts, that what we know by one art, we shall not know by the other? But answer me this first before that: do you say that one art is one thing, and another is another? ION: Yes. SOC: Do you, like me, call one art different from another when one is the knowledge of certain things, and the other of other things? ION: Yes. SOC: For if there were some knowledge of the same things, why should we say one is one art, and the other another, when the same things could be known from both? Just as I know that these are five fingers, and you, like me, know the same about them; and if I were to ask you whether we know the same things by the same art of arithmetic, or by another, you would surely say by the same. ION: Yes.

SOC: What I was just about to ask you, tell me now, whether you think it is so for all the arts: that by the same art it is necessary to know the same things, and by another not the same, but if it is indeed another, it is necessary to know other things. ION: It seems so to me, Socrates. SOC: Then whoever does not possess a certain art will not be able to know well the things said or done belonging to this art? ION: You say what is true. SOC: Then concerning the verses which you spoke, whether Homer speaks well or not, will you know better or will a charioteer? ION: A charioteer. SOC: For you are a rhapsode, I suppose, but not a charioteer. ION: Yes. SOC: And is the rhapsodic art different from the charioteering art? ION: Yes. SOC: If then it is different, it is also a knowledge of different things. ION: Yes. SOC: What then when Homer says that Hecamede, Nestor’s concubine, gives the wounded Machaon a potion to drink? And he speaks somewhat like this— “Over Pramnian wine,” he says, “she grated goat’s cheese with a bronze grater; and by the drink, an onion as a relish;” whether Homer speaks correctly or not in this, is it for the art of medicine to judge well, or for the rhapsodic art? ION: Medicine. SOC: And what when Homer says— “She went to the bottom like a lead weight, which, eager to go down through the horn of a wild ox, comes bringing death to the carnivorous fish;” whether Homer speaks well or not in this, shall we say it belongs to the art of fishing to judge rather than to the rhapsodic art? ION: It is clear, Socrates, that it belongs to the art of fishing. SOC: Consider then, suppose you were to ask me, if you should ask me: “Since then, Socrates, you find in Homer what belongs to each of these arts to judge, come and find for me also those things of the seer and of the art of divination, what kind of things they are which it belongs to him to be able to judge, whether they are made well or poorly”— see how easily and truly I will answer you. For he speaks in many places, also in the Odyssey, for instance, what the seer of the descendants of Melampus, Theoclymenus, says to the suitors—