Complete Works (205 page)

I
ON
: Lord yes,
I
certainly do. Somehow you touch my soul with your words, Socrates, and I do think it’s by a divine gift that good poets are able to present these poems to us from the gods.

S
OCRATES
: And you rhapsodes in turn present what the poets say.

I
ON
: That’s true too.

S
OCRATES
: So you turn out to be representatives of representatives.

I
ON
: Quite right.

[b] S
OCRATES
: Hold on, Ion; tell me this. Don’t keep any secrets from
me
. When you recite epic poetry well and you have the most stunning effect on your spectators, either when you sing of Odysseus—how he leapt into the doorway, his identity now obvious to the suitors, and he poured out arrows at his feet—or when you sing of Achilles charging at Hector, or when you sing a pitiful episode about Andromache or Hecuba or Priam, are you at that time in your right mind, or do you get beside yourself? [c] And doesn’t your soul, in its enthusiasm, believe that it is present at the actions you describe, whether they’re in Ithaca or in Troy or wherever the epic actually takes place?

I
ON
: What a vivid example you’ve given me, Socrates! I won’t keep secrets from
you
. Listen, when
I
tell a sad story, my eyes are full of tears; and when I tell a story that’s frightening or awful, my hair stands on end with fear and my heart jumps.

S
OCRATES
: Well, Ion, should we say this man is in his right mind at times [d] like these: when he’s at festivals or celebrations, all dressed up in fancy clothes, with golden crowns, and he weeps, though he’s lost none of his finery—or when he’s standing among millions of friendly people and he’s frightened, though no one is undressing him or doing him any harm? Is he in his right mind then?

I
ON
: Lord no, Socrates. Not at all, to tell the truth.

S
OCRATES
: And you know that you have the same effects on most of your spectators too, don’t you?

I
ON
: I know very well that we do. I look down at them every time from [e] up on the rostrum, and they’re crying and looking terrified, and as the stories are told they are filled with amazement. You see I must keep my wits and pay close attention to them: if I start them crying,
I
will laugh as I take their money, but if
they
laugh, I shall cry at having lost money.

S
OCRATES
: And you know that this spectator is the last of the rings, don’t you—the ones that I said take their power from each other by virtue of the Heraclean stone [the magnet]? The middle ring is you, the rhapsode
[536]
or actor, and the first one is the poet himself. The god pulls people’s souls through all these wherever he wants, looping the power down from one to another. And just as if it hung from that stone, there’s an enormous chain of choral dancers and dance teachers and assistant teachers hanging off to the sides of the rings that are suspended from the Muse. One poet is attached to one Muse, another to another (we say he is “possessed,” [b] and that’s near enough, for he is
held
). From these first rings, from the poets,
they
are attached in their turn and inspired, some from one poet, some from another: some from Orpheus, some from Musaeus, and many are possessed and held from Homer. You are one of
them
, Ion, and you are possessed from Homer. And when anyone sings the work of another poet, you’re asleep and you’re lost about what to say; but when any song of that poet is sounded, you are immediately awake, your soul is dancing, [c] and you have plenty to say. You see it’s not because you’re a master of knowledge about Homer that you can say what you say, but because of a divine gift, because you are possessed. That’s how it is with the Corybantes, who have sharp ears only for the specific song that belongs to whatever god possesses them; they have plenty of words and movements to go with
that
song; but they are quite lost if the music is different. That’s how it is with you, Ion: when anyone mentions Homer, you have plenty to say, but [d] if he mentions the others you are lost; and the explanation of this, for which you ask me—why it is that you have plenty to say about Homer but not about the others—is that it’s not mastering the subject, but a divine gift, that makes you a wonderful singer of Homer’s praises.

I
ON
: You’re a good speaker, Socrates. Still, I would be amazed if you could speak well enough to convince me that I am possessed or crazed when I praise Homer. I don’t believe you’d think so if you heard me speaking on Homer.

[e] S
OCRATES
: And I really do want to hear you, but not before you answer me this: on which of Homer’s subjects do you speak well? I don’t suppose you speak well on
all
of them.

I
ON
: I do, Socrates, believe me, on every single one!

S
OCRATES
: Surely not on those subjects you happen to know nothing about, even if Homer does speak of them.

I
ON
: And these subjects Homer speaks of, but I don’t know about—what are they?

[537]
S
OCRATES
: But doesn’t Homer speak about professional subjects in many places, and say a great deal? Chariot driving, for example, I’ll show you, if I can remember the lines.

I
ON
: No, I’ll recite them. I
do
remember.

S
OCRATES
: Then tell me what Nestor says to his son Antilochus, when he advises him to take care at the turning post in the horse race they held for Patroclus’ funeral.

I
ON
: “Lean,” he says,

Lean yourself over on the smooth-planed chariot
[b]
Just to the left of the pair. Then the horse on the right—
Goad him, shout him on, easing the reins with your hands.
At the post let your horse on the left stick tight to the turn
So you seem to come right to the edge, with the hub
Of your welded wheel. But escape cropping the stone …
⁴

[c] S
OCRATES
: That’s enough. Who would know better, Ion, whether Homer speaks correctly or not in these particular verses—a doctor or a charioteer?

I
ON
: A charioteer, of course.

S
OCRATES
: Is that because he is a master of that profession, or for some other reason?

I
ON
: No. It’s because he’s a master of it.

S
OCRATES
: Then to each profession a god has granted the ability to know a certain function. I mean, the things navigation teaches us—we won’t learn them from medicine as well, will we?

I
ON
: Of course not.

S
OCRATES
: And the things medicine teaches us we won’t learn from architecture.

I
ON
: Of course not. [d]

S
OCRATES
: And so it is for every other profession: what we learn by mastering one profession we won’t learn by mastering another, right? But first, answer me this. Do you agree that there are different professions—that one is different from another?

I
ON
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And is this how you determine which ones are different? When
I
find that the knowledge [involved in one case] deals with different subjects from the knowledge [in another case], then I claim that one is a [e] different profession from the other. Is that what you do?

I
ON
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: I mean if there is some knowledge of the same subjects, then why should we say there are two different professions?—Especially when each of them would allow us to know the same subjects! Take these fingers: I know there are five of them, and you know the same thing about them that I do. Now suppose I asked you whether it’s the same profession—arithmetic—that teaches you and me the same things, or whether it’s two different ones. Of course you’d say it’s the same one.

I
ON
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Then tell me now what I was going to ask you earlier. Do
[538]
you think it’s the same way for every profession—the same profession must teach the same subjects, and a different profession, if it
is
different, must teach not the same subjects, but different ones?

I
ON
: That’s how I think it is, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Then a person who has not mastered a given profession will not be able to be a good judge of the things which belong to that profession, whether they are things said or things done.

I
ON
: That’s true. [b]

S
OCRATES
: Then who will know better whether or not Homer speaks beautifully and well in the lines you quoted? You, or a charioteer?

I
ON
: A charioteer.

S
OCRATES
: That’s because you’re a rhapsode, of course, and not a charioteer.

I
ON
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And the rhapsode’s profession is different from the charioteer’s.

I
ON
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: If it’s different, then its knowledge is of different subjects also.

I
ON
: Yes.

[c] S
OCRATES
: Then what about the time Homer tells how Hecamede, Nestor’s woman, gave barley-medicine to Machaon to drink? He says something like this—

Over wine of Pramnos she grated goat’s milk cheese
With a brazen grater… . And onion relish for the drink …
⁵

Is Homer right or not: would a fine diagnosis here come from a doctor’s profession or a rhapsode’s?

I
ON
: A doctor’s.

S
OCRATES
: And what about the time Homer says:

[d]
Leaden she plunged to the floor of the sea like a weight
That is fixed to a field cow’s horn. Given to the hunt
It goes among ravenous fish, carrying death.
⁶

Should we say it’s for a fisherman’s profession or a rhapsode’s to tell whether or not he describes this beautifully and well?

I
ON
: That’s obvious, Socrates. It’s for a fisherman’s.

[e] S
OCRATES
: All right, look. Suppose you were the one asking questions, and you asked me, “Socrates, since you’re finding out which passages belong to each of the professions Homer treats—which are the passages that each profession should judge—come tell me this: which are the passages that belong to a diviner and to divination, passages he should be able to judge as to whether they’re well or badly composed?” Look how easily I can give you a true answer. Often, in the
Odyssey
, he says things like what Theoclymenus says—the prophet of the sons of Melampus:

[539]
Are you mad? What evil is this that’s upon you? Night
Has enshrouded your hands, your faces, and down to your knees.
Wailing spreads like fire, tears wash your cheeks.
Ghosts fill the dooryard, ghosts fill the hall, they rush
To the black gate of hell, they drop below darkness. Sunlight
[b]
Has died from a sky run over with evil mist.
⁷

And often in the
Iliad
, as in the battle at the wall. There he says:

There came to them a bird as they hungered to cross over.
An eagle, a high-flier, circled the army’s left
With a blood-red serpent carried in its talons, a monster,
[c]
Alive, still breathing, it has not yet forgotten its warlust,
For it struck its captor on the breast, by the neck;
It was writhing back, but the eagle shot it groundwards
In agony of pain, and dropped it in the midst of the throng,
Then itself, with a scream, soared on a breath of the wind.
⁸
[d]

I shall say that these passages and those like them belong to a diviner. They are for him to examine and judge.

I
ON
: That’s a true answer, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Well,
your
answers are true, too, Ion. Now
you
tell me—just as I picked out for you, from the
Odyssey
and the
Iliad
, passages that belong to a diviner and ones that belong to a doctor and ones that belong to a [e] fisherman—in the same way, Ion, since you have more experience with Homer’s work than I do, you pick out for me the passages that belong to the rhapsode and to his profession, the passages a rhapsode should be able to examine and to judge better than anyone else.

I
ON
: My answer, Socrates, is “all of them.”

S
OCRATES
: That’s not
your
answer, Ion. Not “all of them.” Or are you really so forgetful? But no, it would not befit a
rhapsode
to be forgetful.

I
ON
: What do you think I’m forgetting?
[540]

S
OCRATES
: Don’t you remember you said that a rhapsode’s profession is different from a charioteer’s?

I
ON
: I remember.

S
OCRATES
: And didn’t you agree that because they are different they will know different subjects?

I
ON
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: So a rhapsode’s profession, on
your
view, will not know everything, and neither will a rhapsode.

I
ON
: But things like that are exceptions, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: By “things like that” you mean that almost all the subjects of [b] the other professions are exceptions, don’t you? But then what sort of thing
will
a rhapsode know, if not everything?

I
ON
: My opinion, anyhow, is that he’ll know what it’s fitting for a man or a woman to say—or for a slave or a freeman, or for a follower or a leader.