Socrates, Ion
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
This is a dialogue between Socrates and the “rhapsode” or reciter, Ion of Ephesus, who declares himself unequalled as a reciter and exponent of Homer. The rhapsodes (“song-stitchers”) were men who made a living by giving public recitations from the great epic poets, chiefly Homer. The most successful held large audiences spellbound and moved them to amazement, laughter or tears. They also lectured or taught.
Socrates suggests to Ion that his skill as a reciter and his hold on his audiences are due to divine inspiration passed down to him through the poet, and shows up as absurd the claims of the reciters to teach practical rules of conduct from Homer.
The dialogue foreshadows the views on art as a whole which are explained in the Republic (see pp. 481–482).
SOCRATES: Good morning, Ion. Where have you now come from in your travels? From home, from Ephesus?
ION: Oh no, Socrates, from Epidauros; I have been at the feast of Asclepios.
SOCRATES: Do the Epidaurians hold a contest of reciters* of poetry in honour of the god?
ION: Yes, of course, and in other fine arts also.
SOCRATES: Well! and did you compete, please? And how did your contest go?
ION: First prize is what I won, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Well done! Now then, we must win the Panathenaia* too!
ION: So we will, please God.
SOCRATES: I have often envied you reciters that art of yours, Ion. You have to dress in all sorts of finery, and make yourselves as grand as you can, to live up to your art! And you are, at the same time, bound to spend your time on no end of good poets, especially Homer, the best and most divine of all poets; you have to learn his meaning thoroughly, not only his verses, another enviable thing. For no one could be a good reciter unless he understood what the poet says. Yes, the reciter must be the interpreter of the poet’s mind to the audience; and to do this, if he does not understand what the poet says, is impossible. So all that very properly makes one envy.
ION: Very true, Socrates. At least I found this myself the most troublesome part of the art; and I believe I can speak on Homer better than any other man alive. Not Metrodoros of Lampsacos, not Stesimbrotos the Thasian, not Glaucon, nor anyone else who ever was born could utter so many fine thoughts on Homer as I can.
SOCRATES: I’m glad to hear it, Ion, for it is clear you won’t mind giving me a show.
ION: I will most certainly. You’ll find it a treat to hear, Socrates, how finely I have decked out Homer! I believe I’ve earned a golden crown from the Homer Association.†
SOCRATES: Many thanks. I’ll make leisure to hear it some time, but just answer me one question now: Are you as good at Hesiod and Archilochos, or only Homer?
ION: Only Homer, no one else; I think Homer’s quite enough.
SOCRATES: But is there anything which both Homer and Hesiod speak about, and say the same?
ION: Yes, I think so, a good many things.
SOCRATES: Well then, in such matters could you explain what Homer says better than what Hesiod says?
ION: Oh, just the same, Socrates, when they say the same.
SOCRATES: What about when they don’t say the same? For example, they both say something about divination?
ION: Yes, certainly.
SOCRATES: Well then, could a good diviner explain better what these two poets say about divination, both when they say the same and when they don’t, or could you?
ION: A diviner could.
SOCRATES: But if you were a diviner, and if you were able to explain what was said the same, you would know how to explain what was said otherwise?
ION: That’s obvious.
SOCRATES: Then how comes it that you are good at Homer but not at Hesiod and the other poets? Does not Homer speak about those very things which all other poets speak of? War, now—has not he said nearly everything about war, and the intercourse of men together, good men and bad men, craftsmen and laymen, about the gods’ dealings with men and with each other, how they do it, about what happens in heaven and in the house of Hades, and the origins of gods and heroes? Are not these the things about which Homer made his poetry?
ION: That is quite true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And the other poets, did not they speak of these same things?
ION: Yes, they did, Socrates, but not as Homer did.
SOCRATES: What then—worse than Homer?
ION: Much worse.
SOCRATES: And Homer did it better?
ION: Better indeed, I should think so, by Zeus!
SOCRATES: Now listen, dear heart alive! Suppose there are several people talking about number, and one speaks much better than the rest; I suppose somebody will be able to pick out the good speaker?
ION: I should say so.
SOCRATES: Will it be the same person who can also pick out the bad speakers, or somebody else?
ION: The same, I suppose.
SOCRATES: Well, this will be the person who has arithmetic, the art of numbers?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Very well. Suppose a number of people discussing which foods are healthy, and one speaking much the best; will the same person recognise that the best speaker speaks best and the worse worse, or will one person recognise the best and another the worse?
ION: The same, that’s clear, I suppose.
SOCRATES: Who is he? What’s his name?
ION: Doctor.
SOCRATES: So we should say that in general the same person will always know who speaks well and who speaks badly, when a number of people are speaking about the same things; or else, if he does not know the bad speaker, it is clear he will not know the good speaker either about one and the same thing.
ION: Just so.
SOCRATES: Then the same person is good at both?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Very well. You say, then, that both Homer and the other poets, two of them being Hesiod and Archilochos, speak about the same things, but not in the same way: that Homer speaks well, and the others not so well?
ION: Yes, I do say so, and it is true.
SOCRATES: Then if you recognise the one who speaks well, you would recognise the ones who speak worse, and know that they do speak worse?
ION: Yes, so it seems.
SOCRATES: Then, my dear fellow, if we say Ion is good at Homer and good at the other poets alike, we shan’t be wrong, since you admit yourself that the same person is a sufficient judge of all that speak about the same things, and the poets pretty well all poetise the same things.
ION: Very well, Socrates, kindly explain the reason for something I am about to tell you. When someone speaks about any other poet, I can’t attend. I can’t put in one single remark to the point, I’m just in a doze—but only mention Homer and I’m wide awake in a jiffy, and I attend, and I have plenty to say!
SOCRATES: Oh, that’s not hard to guess, old fellow. Anyone can see that not by art and science are you able to speak about Homer; for if art made you able, you would be able to speak about all the other poets too; for there is, I suppose, an art of poetry as a whole; isn’t there?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well now, if one gets a grasp of any other art whatever, the whole of it, the same way of looking at your problem holds good for all the arts, doesn’t it? Would you like me to say what I mean, my dear Ion?
ION: I should indeed, my dear Socrates; I love to listen to a clever man like you.
SOCRATES: I only wish that were true, my dear Ion. But clever! You are the clever ones, you reciters and actors, and the poets whose verses you chant;* all I can do is to tell the truth, as any plain man can do. Just look at my question; how plain and simple it is; everyone recognises, as I said, that if one takes any art as a whole, it is the same problem for all arts. Suppose for our discussion we take, say, painting; there is a general art of painting, isn’t there?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: And there have been also many painters, good and bad?
ION: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Well, have you ever seen anyone who was good at Polygnotos, son of Aglaophon, and could show which of his paintings are good and which are not, but with the other painters was incapable? When someone shows him works of other painters, does he just doze, and has nothing to say, and can’t put in a remark: but when he has to give an opinion about Polygnotos, or any other one painter that you may choose, does he wake up and take notice, and does he find plenty to say?
ION: Oh dear me, no, not at all.
SOCRATES: Well then, take sculpture: Did you ever see anyone who was good at Daidalos, Metion’s son, or Epeios, Panopeus’ son, or Theodoros the Samian, or any other one sculptor, and could explain all his good work, but before the work of the other sculptors is dumb-founded, starts dozing, and has nothing to say?
ION: Oh dear me, no, I have not seen him either.
SOCRATES: Go on, then, to piping and harping and singing to the harp and reciting poetry; you saw never a man, as I think, who was good at discoursing on Olympos or Thamyras or Orpheus, or Phemios,† the Ithacan reciter, but is struck dumb before Ion the Ephesian, and has no remark to make when he recites well or ill!
ION: I can’t contradict you there, Socrates. But one thing I do know about myself: I speak about Homer better than any other man alive, I have plenty to say and all declare that I speak well; but yet about the others, no. Do just see what that means.
SOCRATES: I do see, my dear Ion, and I’m going to show you what I think that means. Really, as I said just now, this is no art in you to speak well about Homer; no, some divine power is moving you, such as there is in that stone which Euripides called the Magnesian, but most people call it the Heracleian stone.* This magnet attracts iron rings, and not only that, but puts the same power into the iron rings, so that they can do the same as the stone does; they attract other rings, so that sometimes there is a whole long string of these rings hanging together, and all depend for their power on that one stone. So the Muse not only inspires people herself, but through these inspired ones others are inspired and dangle in a string. In fact, all the good poets who make epic poems use no art at all, but they are inspired and possessed when they utter all these beautiful poems, and so are the good lyric poets; these are not in their right mind when they make their beautiful songs, but they are like Corybants out of their wits dancing about. As soon as they mount on their harmony and rhythm, they become frantic and possessed; just as the Bacchant women, possessed and out of their senses, draw milk and honey out of the rivers, so the soul of these honey-singers does just the same, as they say themselves. The poets, as you know, tell us that they get their honey-songs from honey-founts of the Muses, and pluck from what they call Muses’ gardens, and Muses’ dells, and bring them to us, like honeybees,† on the wing themselves like the bees; and what they say is true. For the poet is an airy thing, a winged and a holy thing; and he cannot make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his senses and no mind is left in him; so long as he keeps possession of this, no man is able to make poetry and chant oracles. Not by art, then, they make their poetry with all those fine things about all sorts of matters—like your speeches about Homer—not by art, but by divine dispensation; therefore, the only poetry that each one can make is what the Muse has pushed him to make, one ecstatic odes, one hymns of praise, one songs for dance or pantomime, one epic, one satiric iambic; in every other kind each one of them is a failure. For not by art do they speak these things, but by divine power, since if an art taught them how to speak well in one kind, they could do it also in all the other kinds. Therefore God takes the mind out of the poets, and uses them as his servants, and so also those who chant oracles, and divine seers; because he wishes us to know that not those we hear, who have no mind in them, are those who say such precious things, but God himself is the speaker, and through them he shows his meaning to us. A very strong piece of evidence for the argument is Tynnichos of Chalcis, who never made one poem which a man would think worth mentioning except only the hymn of praise which all the world sings,* well-nigh most beautiful of all lyrics, really and truly “a godsend from the Muses” as he calls it himself. Here most of all I think God has shown us, beyond all dispute, that these beautiful poems are not human, not made by man, but divine and made by God; and the poets are nothing but the gods’ interpreters, possessed each by whatever god it may be. Just to prove this, God purposely sang the most beautiful of songs through the meanest of poets. Don’t you think I speak the truth, my dear Ion?
ION: Upon my word I do! You touch my soul in some way by your words, my dear Socrates! I feel sure that a divine dispensation from heaven for us makes good poets the interpreters in these things.
SOCRATES: And don’t you reciters interpret the poet’s works?
ION: That is quite true also.
SOCRATES: So you are interpreters of interpreters?
ION: We are indeed.
SOCRATES: Then go on and tell me something more, my dear Ion; don’t hide it, just answer my question. When you speak your verses well, and astound the audience most—you know, when you sing how Odysseus leaps onto the threshold, and reveals himself to the wooers, and spreads out the arrows before his feet,* or how Achilles rushes on Hector,† or one of those touching scenes about Andromache‡ or Hecuba or Priam¶—are you in your right mind then, or do you get beside yourself, does your soul feel itself inspired and present in the action which you describe, somewhere in Ithaca or at Troy or wherever the epic scene is?
ION: Clear as daylight I see your proof, my dear Socrates! I will not hide it, I will tell you frankly. Why, whenever I speak of sad and touching scenes, my eyes are full of tears; when it is something terrible or awful, my hair stands up straight with fear and my heart leaps!
SOCRATES: Well then, my dear Ion, could we say such a man is for the time being in his right senses who, decked out in gorgeous raiment and golden crown, bursts out crying at a sacrifice or a festival, when he has lost none of these fine things? Or who is terrified, with more than twenty thousand friendly faces about him, when no one robs him or wrongs him?
ION: No, upon my word, not at all, my dear Socrates, to tell the honest truth.
SOCRATES: And do you know that you reciters make most of the audience do the very same?
ION: Oh yes, indeed I do! I always look down from my platform, and there they are crying and glaring and amazed, according to what I say. Indeed, I’m bound to pay careful attention to them. If I leave them crying in their seats, I shall laugh at my pockets full of money; if I leave them laughing, I myself shall cry over the money lost.
SOCRATES: Then do you know that the member of the audience is the last of those rings which I described as getting power from each other through the magnet? You the reciter and the actor, are the middle ring, and the first is the poet himself; but God through all these draws the soul of men whithersoever he will, by running the power through them one after another. It’s just like that magnet! And there is a great string of choristers and producers and under-producers all stuck to the sides of these hanging rings of the Muse. And one poet hangs from one Muse and another from another—we call it “possessed,” and it is very like that, for he is held fast; and from these first rings, the poets, different people again, hang on each to his own poet, some to Orpheus, and some to Musaios, but most hang on to Homer, and they are possessed and held fast through the poet. And you are one of them, Ion; you are possessed through Homer; and whenever someone recites who belongs to another poet, you go to sleep and have nothing to say, but whenever someone chants a melody of this poet, you are awake in a jiffy and your soul dances and you have plenty to say; for it is not by any art or science of Homer that you say what you say, but by divine dispensation and possession. Just so with the wild Corybants; the only melody which they quickly perceive is that which belongs to the god of whom they are possessed, whoever he is, and for that melody they have plenty of dances and songs, but they care nothing about the rest. The same with you, my dear Ion. Let anyone mention Homer, you are ready; for anyone else you are dumb. And this is the reason why, this answers your question why you have plenty to say about Homer and nothing about the others; because no art, but divine dispensation, makes you Homer’s great encomiast.
ION: That is excellently said, Socrates. But I should be surprised if you could be eloquent enough to persuade me that I am always possessed and mad when I praise Homer. If you heard me speaking about Homer, I believe you would not think so yourself.
SOCRATES: Well, that’s just what I want to hear—but not until you answer one more question: What in Homer do you speak well about? Not everything, I suppose.
ION: Every mortal thing, my dear Socrates, I assure you.
SOCRATES: Surely not when he speaks about something which you do not know?
ION: And what is there that Homer speaks about which I don’t know?
SOCRATES: Why, does not Homer speak often enough about arts and crafts? For example, driving a chariot—if I can remember the verses, I will repeat them.
ION: Oh, I’ll say them, I remember.
SOCRATES: Then tell me what Nestor says to his son Antilochos, in the horse race at the funeral of Patroclos, when he advises him to be careful in turning the post.*
ION: This is what he says:
Lean yourself over in your polished car
A little to the left of both your steeds;
Call to the right-hand horse and goad him on,
And slacken with your hand his reins. Then let
The left horse swerve close round the turning post,
So that the nave of well-made wheel may seem
To reach the stone’s edge: but avoid to graze it!
SOCRATES: That will do. Now then, Ion, which would know better whether that is good or bad advice, a doctor or a charioteer?
ION: A charioteer, I suppose.
SOCRATES: Because that’s his own art, or why?
ION: Because it is his art.
SOCRATES: Well, has God granted to each of the arts to be able to know some particular work? For example, what we know by the art of the pilot we shall not know by the art of physic.
ION: Of course not.
SOCRATES: And what we know by the art of physic, we shall not know by the art of carpentry.
ION: Of course not.
SOCRATES: And is that true of all arts—what we know by one we shall not know by another? But before that, answer me this: Do you agree that there are different arts?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Do you distinguish as I do—would you call them different arts when they are the knowledge of different things?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: For I suppose that if one were only a knowledge of the same things as another, there would be no reason to call the arts different, when you would know the same things from both. For example, I know that here are five fingers, and you know the same about them as I do; then if I asked you if we both knew it by the same art, arithmetic, or a different one, you would say, “by the same,” I suppose?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Very well, now tell me what I was going to ask you just now, is this what you think about all arts in general: by the same art we must know the same things, but by another art not the same things—if it is another art, we must know different things by that?
ION: Yes, that is what I think, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then if anyone has not a certain art, he will not be able to know what is said or done well in that art?
ION: Quite true.
SOCRATES: Then take those verses which you repeated: Will you or a charioteer know better whether Homer speaks well or ill?
ION: A charioteer.
SOCRATES: Because you are a reciter, not a charioteer.
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the reciter’s art is different from the charioteer’s art?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: If it is different, then, it is also a knowledge of different things?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well then, when Homer says how Nestor’s woman Hecamede gives wounded Machaon a posset to drink, it goes something like this—*
With Pramnian wine, and over it she grates
With a bronze grater goat’s-milk cheese, and adds
An onion as a relish for the drink.
Whether this is good or bad in Homer, what will decide properly, the art of physic or the art of reciting?
ION: Physic.
SOCRATES: Again when Homer says—†
Into the deep she plunged, like a lead weight
Set in an ox horn, which goes hurtling down
With death for greedy fishes.
Do we say this is rather for the fisherman’s art to judge than the reciter’s, whether it is good or bad?
ION: The fisherman’s art, Socrates, that is clear.
SOCRATES: Look here then. If you were asking the questions, and if you should say, “Ah well, Socrates, so much for these arts; you find the places in Homer where each of these ought to decide, but kindly find something about a seer and his divination, which are the bits which he ought to be able to decide and say whether they are done well or badly.” If you were to say that, see how easily and truly I shall answer. He speaks of these in many passages in the Odyssey, for example what that seer of Melampus’ family says* to the wooers, Theoclymenos, I mean—
Poor souls, what mischief’s on you? Night is wrapt
About your heads and faces, down to your feet—
There is a blaze of wailing, cheeks bedabbled—
The porch is full, the hall is full of spectres,
Hurrying to hell and darkness; and the sun
Put out in heaven, a foul mist covers all.
There are many places in the Iliad, too, as in the battle at the wall, where he says—†
A bird came over as they tried to cross,
An eagle flying high, skirting their left,
With a great serpent bleeding in his talons,
Alive and struggling still, not yet forgetful
Of battle’s joy. Bent back it struck the bird
That held it on the breast, hard by the neck.
The eagle hurled it from him to the ground
In agony, and down among the crowd
It fell; he shrieked, and flew on puffs of wind.
These and other such things I should say it is proper for the seer to examine and to decide.
ION: Yes, you are right in what you say, Socrates.
SOCRATES: So are you, Ion. Well now, come, I have picked out from both Odyssey and Iliad pieces which belong to the seer, and to the doctor, and to the fisherman; will you kindly pick out for me, since you are better up in Homer than I am, pieces which belong to the reciter, my dear Ion, and the reciter’s art, which are proper for the reciter to examine and judge beyond the rest of mankind.
ION: My reply, my dear Socrates, is all Homer.
SOCRATES: Oh dear me, Ion, surely not all? Have you such a bad memory? Surely a reciter ought not to have a bad memory.
ION: Why, what have I forgotten?
SOCRATES: Don’t you remember that you said the reciter’s art was different from the charioteer’s?
ION: Yes, I remember.
SOCRATES: Did you not agree that, being different, it would know different things?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then the reciter and his art will not know all Homer, according to your argument.
ION: All except, perhaps, a few things like that.
SOCRATES: By things like that, you mean all the business of the other arts, pretty well. But what will he know then, since he will not know everything?
ION: What is proper for a man to say—so at least I take it, or what for a woman, what for a slave or what for a free man, what for a subject or what for a ruler.
SOCRATES: Do you mean, what is proper to say for the ruler of a ship in a storm at sea? Will the reciter know that better than the pilot?
ION: Oh no, the pilot will know that better.
SOCRATES: And what the ruler of a sick man ought to say: Will the reciter know that better than the doctor?
ION: No, he won’t know that either.
SOCRATES: But you say he knows what a slave ought to say?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: If, for example, the slave is an oxherd, and his cattle are wild and he wants to calm them, you say the reciter will know what he ought to say, and not the oxherd?
ION: Oh dear, no.
SOCRATES: Then, what a woman ought to say about working wool, a woman whose business is to spin?
ION: No.
SOCRATES: Then he will know what a man ought to say if he is a general encouraging his troops?
ION: Yes, that is the sort of thing a reciter will know.
SOCRATES: Oh, the reciter’s art is the general’s art?
ION: I should know, at any rate, what the general ought to say.
SOCRATES: Perhaps you are something of a general, Ion. In fact, if you were something of a horseman as well as a harpist, you might know when horses were well or badly managed; but then I might ask you, “Which of the two arts, Ion, makes you know the well-managed horses? The art by which you are a horseman, or the art by which you are a harpist?” What would you answer me then?
ION: That which makes me a horseman.
SOCRATES: Well, if you could distinguish good performances on the harp, would you agree that you did it as being a harpist and not as a horseman?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, since you understand military matters, do you do so as being a bit of a general, or as being a good reciter?
ION: I think there’s no difference.
SOCRATES: How’s that—no difference? Do you say that reciting and generalship are one art, or two?
ION: One, I think.
SOCRATES: Then whoever is a good reciter is also really a good general?
ION: Certainly, my dear Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then whoever is really a good general is also a good reciter?
ION: No, I don’t think that.
SOCRATES: But you do think that whoever is a good reciter is also a good general?
ION: By all means.
SOCRATES: Well, you are the best reciter in Hellas?
ION: Much the best, my dear Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then are you also the best general in Hellas?
ION: Yes, I assure you, Socrates; and I learnt it all from Homer.
SOCRATES: Good heavens, my dear Ion! You are the best man of the nation, both reciter and general! Then why do you career all round Hellas reciting, and don’t general at all? Do you think there is a great need for a reciter in our nation, with a golden crown on his head, and no need at all for a general?
ION: The reason is, my dear Socrates, that my own city of Ephesus is under your state’s rule and generalship, and needs no general of its own; and your state and Lacedaimon* would not choose me as general, for you think you are enough by yourselves.
SOCRATES: Dear old fellow, don’t you know Apollodoros of Cyzicos?
ION: Who is he?
SOCRATES: One whom the Athenians have often chosen as general over themselves, although he is a foreigner. And Phanosthenes of Andros, and Heracleides of Clazomenai, they are both foreigners, but they proved themselves men of merit, and so this our city invites them in for generalships and other high offices. But not Ion of Ephesus, it seems! Will she not choose him as general, and honour him, if he is considered a man of merit? Why, aren’t you Ephesians really Athenians in origin, and is not Ephesus no mean city?
But really, my dear Ion, if you are telling the truth when you say that by art and knowledge you are able to praise Homer, you are cheating me. You declared to me that you know any number of fine things about Homer, and you promised to make an exhibition; but you only deceive me, and there is no exhibition—far from it! You will not even tell me what these things are in which you are so clever, although I have been imploring you all this time. You are really nothing but a new Proteus, changing into all sorts of shapes, and twisting up and down, and at last you escaped me and turned into a general, all to avoid showing me how clever you are in the lore of Homer. Well, if you are an artist, and if you just promised to exhibit your art, and then deceived me, as I said just now, you are cheating; if you are not an artist, but are possessed by divine dispensation through Homer, and say all those fine things about the poet without knowing anything, as I described you, then you are not cheating. Choose, then, which you prefer us to believe you, a cheat or one divine.
ION: A great difference there, Socrates! It is much finer to be considered divine!
SOCRATES: Then that finer thing is yours, Ion, in our belief; you are divine, and not an artist, when you eulogize Homer.