Ion | Page 5

Plato

festival?
ION: O yes; and of all sorts of musical performers.
SOCRATES: And were you one of the competitors--and did you
succeed?
ION: I obtained the first prize of all, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Well done; and I hope that you will do the same for us at
the Panathenaea.
ION: And I will, please heaven.
SOCRATES: I often envy the profession of a rhapsode, Ion; for you
have always to wear fine clothes, and to look as beautiful as you can is
a part of your art. Then, again, you are obliged to be continually in the
company of many good poets; and especially of Homer, who is the best
and most divine of them; and to understand him, and not merely learn
his words by rote, is a thing greatly to be envied. And no man can be a
rhapsode who does not understand the meaning of the poet. For the
rhapsode ought to interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers, but how
can he interpret him well unless he knows what he means? All this is
greatly to be envied.
ION: Very true, Socrates; interpretation has certainly been the most
laborious part of my art; and I believe myself able to speak about
Homer better than any man; and that neither Metrodorus of Lampsacus,
nor Stesimbrotus of Thasos, nor Glaucon, nor any one else who ever
was, had as good ideas about Homer as I have, or as many.
SOCRATES: I am glad to hear you say so, Ion; I see that you will not
refuse to acquaint me with them.
ION: Certainly, Socrates; and you really ought to hear how exquisitely

I render Homer. I think that the Homeridae should give me a golden
crown.
SOCRATES: I shall take an opportunity of hearing your
embellishments of him at some other time. But just now I should like to
ask you a question: Does your art extend to Hesiod and Archilochus, or
to Homer only?
ION: To Homer only; he is in himself quite enough.
SOCRATES: Are there any things about which Homer and Hesiod
agree?
ION: Yes; in my opinion there are a good many.
SOCRATES: And can you interpret better what Homer says, or what
Hesiod says, about these matters in which they agree?
ION: I can interpret them equally well, Socrates, where they agree.
SOCRATES: But what about matters in which they do not agree?--for
example, about divination, of which both Homer and Hesiod have
something to say,--
ION: Very true:
SOCRATES: Would you or a good prophet be a better interpreter of
what these two poets say about divination, not only when they agree,
but when they disagree?
ION: A prophet.
SOCRATES: And if you were a prophet, would you not be able to
interpret them when they disagree as well as when they agree?
ION: Clearly.
SOCRATES: But how did you come to have this skill about Homer
only, and not about Hesiod or the other poets? Does not Homer speak
of the same themes which all other poets handle? Is not war his great
argument? and does he not speak of human society and of intercourse
of men, good and bad, skilled and unskilled, and of the gods conversing
with one another and with mankind, and about what happens in heaven
and in the world below, and the generations of gods and heroes? Are
not these the themes of which Homer sings?
ION: Very true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And do not the other poets sing of the same?
ION: Yes, Socrates; but not in the same way as Homer.
SOCRATES: What, in a worse way?
ION: Yes, in a far worse.

SOCRATES: And Homer in a better way?
ION: He is incomparably better.
SOCRATES: And yet surely, my dear friend Ion, in a discussion about
arithmetic, where many people are speaking, and one speaks better than
the rest, there is somebody who can judge which of them is the good
speaker?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: And he who judges of the good will be the same as he
who judges of the bad speakers?
ION: The same.
SOCRATES: And he will be the arithmetician?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, and in discussions about the wholesomeness of
food, when many persons are speaking, and one speaks better than the
rest, will he who recognizes the better speaker be a different person
from him who recognizes the worse, or the same?
ION: Clearly the same.
SOCRATES: And who is he, and what is his name?
ION: The physician.
SOCRATES: And speaking generally, in all discussions in which the
subject is the same and many men are speaking, will not he who knows
the good know the bad speaker also? For if he does not know the bad,
neither will he know the good when the same topic is
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