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Complete Works Page 144

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.


  HIPPIAS: So it seems.

  SOCRATES: What about in other physical activities? Isn’t the physically better person able to accomplish both sorts of things: the strong and the [b] weak, the shameful and the fine? So whenever he accomplishes worthless physical results, the one who is physically better does them voluntarily, whereas the one who is worse does them involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: That how it seems to be in matters of strength, also.

  SOCRATES: What about gracefulness, Hippias? Doesn’t the better body strike shameful and worthless poses voluntarily, and the worse body involuntarily? What do you think?

  HIPPIAS: That’s right.

  SOCRATES: So awkwardness, when voluntary, counts toward virtue, but [c] when involuntary, toward worthlessness.

  HIPPIAS: Apparently.

  SOCRATES: What do you say about the voice? Which do you say is better, one that sings out of tune voluntarily, or involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: One that does so voluntarily.

  SOCRATES: And the one that does so involuntarily is in a worse condition?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Would you prefer to possess good or bad things?

  HIPPIAS: Good.

  SOCRATES: Then would you prefer to possess feet that limp voluntarily, or involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: Voluntarily. [d]

  SOCRATES: But doesn’t having a limp mean having worthless and awkward feet?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Well, again; doesn’t dullness of sight mean having worthless eyes?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Which sort of eyes, then, would you wish to possess and live with: those with which you would see dully and incorrectly voluntarily, or involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: Those with which one would do so voluntarily.

  SOCRATES: So you regard organs that voluntarily accomplish worthless results as better than those that do so involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: Yes, in these sorts of cases.

  SOCRATES: So then one statement embraces them all, ears, nose, mouth [e] and all the senses: those that involuntarily accomplish bad results aren’t worth having because they’re worthless, whereas those that do so voluntarily are worth having because they’re good.

  HIPPIAS: I think so.

  SOCRATES: Well, then. Which tools are better to work with? Those with which one accomplishes bad results voluntarily, or involuntarily? For example, is a rudder with which one will involuntarily steer badly better, or one with which one will do so voluntarily?

  HIPPIAS: One with which one will do so voluntarily.

  SOCRATES: Isn’t it the same with a bow, a lyre, flutes, and all the rest?

  [375] HIPPIAS: What you say is true.

  SOCRATES: Well, then. Is it better to possess a horse with such a soul that one could ride it badly voluntarily, or involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: Voluntarily.

  SOCRATES: So that’s a better one.

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: With the better horse’s soul, then, one would voluntarily do the worthless acts of this soul, but with the soul of the worthless mare one would do them involuntarily.

  HIPPIAS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: And so also with a dog and all other animals?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Well now, then. For an archer, is it better to possess a soul [b] which voluntarily misses the target, or one which does so involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: One which does so voluntarily.

  SOCRATES: So this sort of soul is better also for archery?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: A soul which involuntarily misses the mark is more worthless than one which does so voluntarily.

  HIPPIAS: In archery, anyway.

  SOCRATES: How about in medicine? Isn’t one that voluntarily accomplishes bad things for the body better at medicine?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Then this sort of soul is better at this craft than the other.

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Well, then. As to the soul that plays the lyre and the flute better and does everything else better in the crafts and the sciences—doesn’t [c] it accomplish bad and shameful things and miss the mark voluntarily, whereas the more worthless does this involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: Apparently.

  SOCRATES: And perhaps we would prefer to have slaves with souls that voluntarily miss the mark and act badly, rather than those which do so involuntarily, as being better at these things.

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Well, then. Would we not wish to possess our own soul in the best condition?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: So, will it be better if it acts badly and misses the mark [d] voluntarily or involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: But it would be terrible, Socrates, if those who commit injustice voluntarily are to be better than those who do it involuntarily!

  SOCRATES: But nonetheless they appear to be, at least given what’s been said.

  HIPPIAS: Not to me.

  SOCRATES: But I thought, Hippias, that they appeared to be so to you, too. But answer again: isn’t justice either some sort of power or knowledge, or both? Or isn’t justice necessarily one of these things?

  HIPPIAS: Yes. [e]

  SOCRATES: So if justice is a power of the soul, isn’t the more powerful soul the more just? For, my excellent friend, it appeared to us, didn’t it, that one of this sort was better?

  HIPPIAS: Yes, it did.

  SOCRATES: And if it’s knowledge? Then isn’t the wiser soul more just and the more ignorant more unjust?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: And if it’s both? Then isn’t the soul which has both—knowledge and power—more just, and the more ignorant more unjust? Isn’t that necessarily so?

  HIPPIAS: It appears so.

  SOCRATES: This more powerful and wiser soul was seen to be better and to have more power to do both fine and shameful in everything it [376] accomplishes?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Whenever it accomplishes shameful results, then, it does so voluntarily, by power and craft, and these things appear to be attributes of justice, either both or one of them.

  HIPPIAS: So it seems.

  SOCRATES: And to do injustice is to do bad, whereas to refrain from injustice is to do something fine.

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: So the more powerful and better soul, when it does injustice, will do injustice voluntarily, and the worthless soul involuntarily?

  HIPPIAS: Apparently.

  [376b] SOCRATES: And isn’t the good man the one who has a good soul, and the bad man the one who has a bad soul?

  HIPPIAS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Therefore, it’s up to the good man to do injustice voluntarily, and the bad man to do it involuntarily; that is, if the good man has a good soul.

  HIPPIAS: But surely he has.

  SOCRATES: So the one who voluntarily misses the mark and does what is shameful and unjust, Hippias—that is, if there is such a person—would be no other than the good man.

  HIPPIAS: I can’t agree with you in that, Socrates.

  [c] SOCRATES: Nor I with myself, Hippias. But given the argument, we can’t help having it look that way to us, now, at any rate. However, as I said before, on these matters I waver back and forth and never believe the same thing. And it’s not surprising at all that I or any other ordinary person should waver. But if you wise men are going to do it, too—that means something terrible for us, if we can’t stop our wavering even after we’ve put ourselves in your company.

  1. Iliad ix.308–10, 12–14. The “Prayers” is the embassy scene in which Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax plead with Achilles to give up his anger and return to the fighting.

  2. Or rather, “one who says what is false,” whether or not their intent is to deceive. In what follows “liar” should be understood in that broad sense.

  3. The strigil was a tool used to scrape from the skin the residue of olive oil used to wash off perspiration and soil after athletic
exercise.

  4. Iliad ix.357–63; the Earth-shaker is the god Posidon.

  5. Iliad i.169–71.

  6. Iliad ix.650–55.

  7. Reading euētheias in e1.

  ION

  Translated by Paul Woodruff.

  A ‘rhapsode’ is a professional reciter of the poetry of Homer and certain other prestigious early poets of Greece. In Athens the prize-winning rhapsode Ion from Ephesus (we do not know whether he is a historical personage or Plato’s invention) runs into Socrates, who expresses admiration for his profession and questions him about it. Theirs is a private conversation, apparently with no others present (as in Euthyphro). Ion professes not just to recite superbly Homer’s poetry (his specialty) but also to speak beautifully in his own right about Homer—in interpreting and explaining his poetry and its excellences. Socrates is more interested in this second aspect of Ion’s professional expertise than in the first. He wants to know whether Ion speaks about Homer ‘on the basis of knowledge or mastery’: is he the master of some body of knowledge, which he employs and expresses in speaking about Homer?

  The chief interest of this short dialogue, apart from its comical portrayal of Ion’s enthusiasm for his own skills, lies in the way Socrates develops his own view—which Ion in the end blithely accepts!—that Ion speaks not from knowledge but from inspiration, his thoughts being ‘breathed into’ him without the use of his own understanding at all. Using the analogy of a magnet, with the power to draw one iron ring to itself, and through that another, and another, Socrates suggests that Homer himself—the greatest of the Greek poets—had no knowledge of his own in writing his poetry, but was divinely possessed. Ion and other expert rhapsodes are also divinely possessed—as it were, ‘magnetized’—through him, both when they recite his poetry and when they speak about it—and they pass on the inspiration to their hearers, who are in a state of divine possession in opening themselves to the poetry. Neither poets nor rhapsodes have any knowledge or mastery of anything: their work, with all its beauty, is the product of the gods working through them, not of any human intelligence and skill. Thus these minor characters, the rhapsodes, provide Socrates entrée to much bigger game, the poet Homer himself, the great ‘teacher’ of the Greeks. Readers should compare (and contrast) Socrates’ criticisms of Homer here with those in Republic II and III, and his critique of poetry in X, along with the views about poetic ‘madness’ that he advances in Phaedrus and elsewhere.

  J.M.C.

  [530] SOCRATES: Ion! Hello. Where have you come from to visit us this time? From your home in Ephesus?

  ION: No, no, Socrates. From Epidaurus, from the festival of Asclepius.

  SOCRATES: Don’t tell me the Epidaurians hold a contest for rhapsodes in honor of the god?

  ION: They certainly do! They do it for every sort of poetry and music.

  SOCRATES: Really! Did you enter the contest? And how did it go for you?

  [b] ION: First prize, Socrates! We carried it off.

  SOCRATES: That’s good to hear. Well, let’s see that we win the big games at Athens, next.

  ION: We’ll do it, Socrates, god willing.

  SOCRATES: You know, Ion, many times I’ve envied you rhapsodes your profession. Physically, it is always fitting for you in your profession to be dressed up to look as beautiful as you can; and at the same time it is necessary for you to be at work with poets—many fine ones, and with [c] Homer above all, who’s the best poet and the most divine—and you have to learn his thought, not just his verses! Now that is something to envy! I mean, no one would ever get to be a good rhapsode if he didn’t understand what is meant by the poet. A rhapsode must come to present the poet’s thought to his audience; and he can’t do that beautifully unless he knows what the poet means. So this all deserves to be envied.

  ION: That’s true, Socrates. And that’s the part of my profession that took the most work. I think I speak more beautifully than anyone else about [d] Homer; neither Metrodorus of Lampsacus nor Stesimbrotus of Thasos nor Glaucon nor anyone else past or present could offer as many beautiful thoughts about Homer as I can.

  SOCRATES: That’s good to hear, Ion. Surely you won’t begrudge me a demonstration?

  ION: Really, Socrates, it’s worth hearing how well I’ve got Homer dressed up. I think I’m worthy to be crowned by the Sons of Homer1 with a golden crown.

  [531] SOCRATES: Really, I shall make time to hear that later. Now I’d just like an answer to this: Are you so wonderfully clever about Homer alone—or also about Hesiod and Archilochus?

  ION: No, no. Only about Homer. That’s good enough, I think.

  SOCRATES: Is there any subject on which Homer and Hesiod both say the same things?

  ION: Yes, I think so. A good many.

  SOCRATES: Then, on those subjects, would you explain Homer’s verse better and more beautifully than Hesiod’s?

  [b] ION: Just the same Socrates, on those subjects, anyway, where they say the same things.

  SOCRATES: And how about the subjects on which they do not say the same things? Divination, for example. Homer says something about it and so does Hesiod.

  ION: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Well. Take all the places where those two poets speak of divination, both where they agree and where they don’t: who would explain those better and more beautifully, you, or one of the diviners if he’s good?

  ION: One of the diviners.

  SOCRATES: Suppose you were a diviner: if you were really able to explain the places where the two poets agree, wouldn’t you also know how to explain the places where they disagree?

  ION: That’s clear.

  SOCRATES: Then what in the world is it that you’re clever about in Homer [c] but not in Hesiod and the other poets? Does Homer speak of any subjects that differ from those of all the other poets? Doesn’t he mainly go through tales of war, and of how people deal with each other in society—good people and bad, ordinary folks and craftsmen? And of the gods, how they deal with each other and with men? And doesn’t he recount what happens in heaven and in hell, and tell of the births of gods and heroes? Those are [d] the subjects of Homer’s poetry-making, aren’t they?

  ION: That’s true, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: And how about the other poets? Did they write on the same subjects?

  ION: Yes, but Socrates, they didn’t do it the way Homer did.

  SOCRATES: How, then? Worse?

  ION: Much worse.

  SOCRATES: And Homer does it better?

  ION: Really better.

  SOCRATES: Well now, Ion, dear heart, when a number of people are discussing arithmetic, and one of them speaks best, I suppose someone will know how to pick out the good speaker. [e]

  ION: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Will it be the same person who can pick out the bad speakers, or someone else?

  ION: The same, of course.

  SOCRATES: And that will be someone who has mastered arithmetic, right?

  ION: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Well. Suppose a number of people are discussing healthy nutrition, and one of them speaks best. Will one person know that the best speaker speaks best, and another that an inferior speaker speaks worse? Or will the same man know both?

  ION: Obviously, the same man.

  SOCRATES: Who is he? What do we call him?

  ION: A doctor.

  SOCRATES: So, to sum it up, this is what we’re saying: when a number [532] of people speak on the same subject, it’s always the same person who will know how to pick out good speakers and bad speakers. If he doesn’t know how to pick out a bad speaker, he certainly won’t know a good speaker—on the same subject, anyway.

  ION: That’s so.

  SOCRATES: Then it turns out that the same person is “wonderfully clever” about both speakers.

  ION: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Now you claim that Homer and the other poets (including Hesiod and Archilochus) speak on the same subjects, but not equally well. He’s good, and they’re inferior.

  ION: Yes, and
it’s true.

  [b] SOCRATES: Now if you really do know who’s speaking well, you’ll know that the inferior speakers are speaking worse.

  ION: Apparently so.

  SOCRATES: You’re superb! So if we say that Ion is equally clever about Homer and the other poets, we’ll make no mistake. Because you agree yourself that the same person will be an adequate judge of all who speak on the same subjects, and that almost all the poets do treat the same subjects.

  ION: Then how in the world do you explain what I do, Socrates? When [c] someone discusses another poet I pay no attention, and I have no power to contribute anything worthwhile: I simply doze off. But let someone mention Homer and right away I’m wide awake and I’m paying attention and I have plenty to say.

  SOCRATES: That’s not hard to figure out, my friend. Anyone can tell that you are powerless to speak about Homer on the basis of knowledge or mastery. Because if your ability came by mastery, you would be able to speak about all the other poets as well. Look, there is an art of poetry as a whole, isn’t there?

  ION: Yes.

  [d] SOCRATES: And now take the whole of any other subject: won’t it have the same discipline throughout? And this goes for every subject that can be mastered. Do you need me to tell you what I mean by this, Ion?

  ION: Lord, yes, I do, Socrates. I love to hear you wise men talk.

  SOCRATES: I wish that were true, Ion. But wise? Surely you are the wise men, you rhapsodes and actors, you and the poets whose work you sing. As for me, I say nothing but the truth, as you’d expect from an ordinary [e] man. I mean, even this question I asked you—look how commonplace and ordinary a matter it is. Anybody could understand what I meant: don’t you use the same discipline throughout whenever you master the whole of a subject? Take this for discussion—painting is a subject to be mastered as a whole, isn’t it?

  ION: Yes.

  SOCRATES: And there are many painters, good and bad, and there have been many in the past.

  ION: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Have you ever known anyone who is clever at showing what’s well painted and what’s not in the work of Polygnotus, but who’s powerless to do that for other painters? Someone who dozes off when the work of [533] other painters is displayed, and is lost, and has nothing to contribute—but when he has to give judgment on Polygnotus or any other painter (so long as it’s just one), he’s wide awake and he’s paying attention and he has plenty to say—have you ever known anyone like that?

 

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