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Section 539

SOCRATES. Then consider this. What if you were questioning me, and you said: "Since you, Socrates, find passages in Homer that belong to different arts, come now, find for me the passages that belong to the diviner and the diviner's art, to see whether Homer describes them well or not." I would easily find them for you. In the Odyssey, the prophet Theoclymenus says: "Wretched men, what evil is this you suffer? Your heads And your faces and your knees are shrouded in night; Lamentation blazes up, and cheeks are wet with tears. The porch is full of ghosts, and the court is full, Hastening to the underworld beneath the darkness. The sun Has perished from the sky, and an evil mist envelops us." And there are many passages in the Iliad too, such as the battle at the wall: "An omen came to them as they were eager to cross, An eagle flying high on the left, dividing the host, Bearing in its talons a huge, blood-red serpent, Alive and still struggling; nor had it yet forgotten the fight. For twisting backward, it struck its captor on the breast By the neck. In agony, the eagle let it drop To the ground, into the midst of the throng, And shrieking loudly, flew away on the breath of the wind." I would say that these passages and others like them are for the diviner to examine and judge.

ION. And you would speak the truth, Socrates.

SOCRATES. You speak the truth too, Ion. Now you do the same for me. Just as I selected passages belonging to the diviner, the doctor, and the fisherman, you search through the Iliad and the Odyssey and pick out for me, Ion, the passages that belong to the rhapsode and the rhapsode's art—the things it is fitting for a rhapsode to examine and judge above all other men.

ION. I say it is all of them, Socrates.