Ion

SOC: “’Wretched men, what is this evil you suffer? With night your heads and faces and limbs below are shrouded, and wailing blazes, and cheeks are wet with tears; the porch is full of ghosts, and the courtyard also is full of those hastening to the underworld, under the darkness; and the sun has perished out of heaven, and an evil mist has spread over.’” And in many places also in the Iliad, for example, on the battle at the wall; for he speaks also there— “’For a bird came upon them as they were eager to cross, a high-flying eagle, skirting the host on the left, bearing in its talons a monstrous blood-red serpent, alive, still gasping; and it had not yet forgotten the fight. For it bit him, who held it, on the breast beside the neck, bending backward; and he let it go from him to the ground, grieved by the pain, and dropped it in the midst of the crowd; and he himself with a clang flew away on the blasts of the wind.’” These things and suchlike I shall say belong to the seer both to examine and to judge. ION: You speak very truly, Socrates. SOC: And you too, Ion, speak the truth in this. Come then, you also for me, just as I selected for you both from the Odyssey and from the Iliad what kind of things belong to the seer, and what to the doctor, and what to the fisherman, so you also select for me, since you are more experienced than I in the works of Homer, what kind of things belong to the rhapsode, Ion, and to the rhapsodic art, which it belongs to the rhapsode both to examine and to distinguish beyond other men. ION: I say, Socrates, all things. SOC: You certainly do not say all things, Ion; or are you so forgetful? And yet it would not be fitting at least for a rhapsode to be forgetful.

ION: But what indeed am I forgetting? SOC: Do you not remember that you said the rhapsodic art was different from the charioteering art? ION: I remember. SOC: Then did you not also agree that, being different, it would know different things? ION: Yes. SOC: Then, according to your account, the rhapsodic art will not know all things, nor will the rhapsode. ION: Except, perhaps, for such things, Socrates. SOC: By “such things” you mean, roughly speaking, except the things of the other arts; but what kind of things indeed will it know, since not all? ION: The things, I think, that are fitting for a man to say, and what kind of things for a woman, and what kind for a slave and what kind for a free man, and what kind for a subject and what kind for a ruler. SOC: Do you mean that what is fitting for a ruler to say when a ship is tempest-tossed at sea, the rhapsode will know better than the helmsman? ION: No, the helmsman for that, indeed. SOC: But what is fitting for a ruler of a sick person to say, will the rhapsode know better than the doctor? ION: Not that either. SOC: But do you mean the things fitting for a slave? ION: Yes. SOC: For example, do you say that what is fitting for a slave who is a herdsman to say when soothing wild cows, the rhapsode will know, and not the herdsman? ION: Certainly not. SOC: But what is fitting for a woman who spins wool to say about the working of wool? ION: No. SOC: But will he know what is fitting for a man who is a general to say when exhorting his soldiers? ION: Yes, such things the rhapsode will know. SOC: What then? Is the rhapsodic art the general’s art? ION: I, at least, would know what is fitting for a general to say. SOC: For perhaps you are also skilled in generalship, Ion. Indeed, if you happened to be skilled in horsemanship as well as in cithara-playing, you would have known horses well and poorly ridden; but if I asked you: “By which indeed of the arts, Ion, do you know the well-ridden horses? In that you are a horseman, or in that you are a cithara-player?” What would you answer me? ION: In that I am a horseman, I would say. SOC: Then if you also distinguished those who play the cithara well, you would agree that you distinguish by this, in that you are a cithara-player, but not in that you are a horseman. ION: Yes. SOC: And since you know military matters, do you know them in that you are skilled in generalship, or in that you are a good rhapsode? ION: It seems to me to make no difference at all.