Ion

SOC: How? You say it makes no difference at all? Do you say that the rhapsodic art and the general’s art are one art, or two? ION: One, it seems to me. SOC: Then whoever is a good rhapsode happens to be a good general as well? ION: Certainly, Socrates. SOC: And then, whoever happens to be a good general is a good rhapsode as well? ION: That, on the other hand, does not seem so to me. SOC: But still, does that other point seem true to you, that whoever indeed is a good rhapsode is also a good general? ION: Yes, entirely. SOC: Then are you the best rhapsode of the Greeks? ION: By far, Socrates. SOC: And are you also, Ion, the best general of the Greeks? ION: Know well, Socrates, and that too by having learned these very things from Homer. SOC: Why in the world then, by the gods, Ion, being the best of the Greeks in both, both as a general and as a rhapsode, do you go about reciting as a rhapsode to the Greeks, but do not act as a general? Or does it seem to you that there is great need of a rhapsode crowned with a golden crown for the Greeks, but of a general none at all? ION: For our city, Socrates, is ruled and generaled by you and has no need of a general, while yours and that of the Lacedaemonians would not choose me as general; for you yourselves think you are sufficient. SOC: My excellent Ion, do you not know Apollodorus of Cyzicus? ION: What sort of man is he? SOC: The one whom the Athenians have often chosen as their general, though he is a foreigner; and Phanosthenes of Andros, and Heracleides of Clazomenae, whom this city, though they are foreigners, because they showed themselves to be of account, leads to generalships and other offices. Will it not then choose Ion of Ephesus as general and honor him, if he seems to be of account? What indeed? Are you Ephesians not Athenians of old, and is Ephesus second to no city? But in fact, Ion, if you speak the truth when you say that by art and knowledge you are able to praise Homer, you are doing wrong, who, having promised me that you know many beautiful things about Homer and saying you would demonstrate them, are deceiving me and are far from demonstrating them, seeing that you are not even willing to say what these things are in which you are clever, though I have been entreating you for a long time, ​SOC: But like Proteus you turn and twist up and down, becoming all kinds of things, until finally, escaping me, you have turned up as a general, so that you might not demonstrate how clever you are in your wisdom about Homer. If, then, being skilled in the art, as I was saying just now, and having promised to make a demonstration about Homer, you are deceiving me, you are unjust; but if you are not skilled, but possessed by a divine dispensation, knowing nothing of Homer, you say many beautiful things about the poet, just as I said about you, you do no wrong at all. Choose, then, which you wish to be thought of by us, as an unjust man or as a divine one. ION: There is a great difference, Socrates; for it is much more beautiful to be thought divine. SOC: This more beautiful thing, then, is yours in our judgment, Ion: to be a divine and not an artistic praiser of Homer.