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SOCRATES: And if I am not mistaken, you never met with any one among
flute-players or harp-players or singers to the harp or rhapsodes who was able
to discourse of Olympus or Thamyras or Orpheus, or Phemius the rhapsode of
Ithaca, but was at a loss when he came to speak of Ion of Ephesus, and had no
notion of his merits or defects?
ION: I cannot deny what you say, Socrates. Nevertheless I am conscious in
my own self, and the world agrees with me in thinking that I do speak better
and have more to say about Homer than any other man. But I do not speak
equally well about others—tell me the reason of this.
SOCRATES: I perceive, Ion; and I will proceed to explain to you what I
imagine to be the reason of this. The gift which you possess of speaking
excellently about Homer is not an art, but, as I was just saying, an inspiration;
there is a divinity moving you, like that contained in the stone which
Euripides calls a magnet, but which is commonly known as the stone of
Heraclea. This stone not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them a
similar power of attracting other rings; and sometimes you may see a number
of pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another so as to form quite a
long chain: and all of them derive their power of suspension from the original
stone. In like manner the Muse first of all inspires men herself; and from these
inspired persons a chain of other persons is suspended, who take the
inspiration. For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful
poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed. And as the
Corybantian revellers when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric
poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful
strains: but when falling under the power of music and metre they are inspired
and possessed; like Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the
rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysus but not when they are in
their right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they
themselves say; for they tell us that they bring songs from honeyed fountains,
culling them out of the gardens and dells of the Muses; they, like the bees,
winging their way from flower to flower. And this is true. For the poet is a
light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has
been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when
he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his
oracles. Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the
actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not
speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that to
which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when inspired, one of them
will make dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral strains,
another epic or iambic verses—and he who is good at one is not good at any
other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine.
148
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International