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Section 540

SOCRATES. You did not say "all of them" earlier, Ion! Are you so forgetful? It is not fitting for a rhapsode to be forgetful.

ION. What have I forgotten?

SOCRATES. Do you not remember agreeing that the art of the rhapsode is different from the art of the charioteer?

ION. I remember.

SOCRATES. And you agreed that because they are different, they will know different things.

ION. Yes.

SOCRATES. Then by your own argument, the rhapsode's art will not know everything, nor will the rhapsode.

ION. Perhaps with the exception of those specialized things, Socrates.

SOCRATES. By "those specialized things," you mean the subjects of the other arts. But if the rhapsode does not know everything, what is it that he does know?

ION. I think he knows what it is fitting for a man to say, and what it is fitting for a woman to say; what a slave should say, and what a freeman should say; what a subject should say, and what a ruler should say.

SOCRATES. Do you mean what is fitting for the ruler of a ship caught in a storm at sea to say? Will the rhapsode know this better than the pilot?

ION. No, the pilot will know that.

SOCRATES. Or what is fitting for a man ruling a sick person to say? Will the rhapsode know better than the doctor?

ION. No, not that either.

SOCRATES. What about a slave? Do you mean what it is fitting for a slave tending a flock of sheep to say to soothe them? Will the rhapsode know this better than the herdsman?

ION. No.

SOCRATES. Or what is fitting for a spinning-woman to say about preparing wool?

ION. No.

SOCRATES. Then what about what it is fitting for a man to say when he is a general exhorting his troops? Will the rhapsode know that?

ION. Yes! That is the sort of thing the rhapsode will know.

SOCRATES. Wait. Is the art of the rhapsode the same as the art of the general?

ION. At least I would know what a general ought to say.