539a
Hom. Od. 20.351-57
1
539b
and there are many passages in the
Iliad also, as in the fight at the rampart, where he says:
Hom. Il. 12.200-7
This passage, and others of the sort, are those that I should say the seer has to examine and judge.
Soc.
Hapless men, what bane is this afflicts you? Your heads and faces and limbs below are shrouded in night, and wailing is enkindled, and cheeks are wet with tears: of ghosts the porch is full, and the court full of them also, hastening hell-wards ’neath the gloom: and the sun is perished out of heaven, and an evil mist is spread abroad;
For as they were eager to pass over, a bird had crossed them, an eagle of lofty flight, pressing the host at the left hand,
539c
and bearing a blood-red monster of a snake, alive and still struggling; nor had it yet unlearnt the lust of battle. For bending back it smote its captor on the breast by the neck, and the bird in the bitterness of pain cast it away to the ground, and dropped it down in the midst of the throng; and then with a cry flew off on the wafting winds.
Ion.
And you speak the truth, Socrates.
Soc.
And so do you, Ion, in saying that. Now you must do as I did, and in return for my picking out and the
Iliad the kinds of passage that belong severally to the seer,
539e
the doctor, and the fisherman, you have now to pick out for me—since you are so much more versed in Homer than I—the kinds which belong to the rhapsode, Ion, and the rhapsode’s art, and which he should be able to consider and distinguish beyond the rest of mankind.
Ion.
What I say, Socrates, is—
all passages.
Soc.
Surely you do not say
all, Ion! Can you be so forgetful? And yet forgetfulness would ill become a rhapsode.
Ion. Plato. William Rangeley Maitland Lamb (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1925.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.