【英文原著类】ION(埃奥恩).pdf

ION
ION
by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
1
ION
INTRODUCTION.
The Ion is the shortest, or nearly the shortest, of all the writings which
bear the name of Plato, and is not authenticated by any early external
testimony. The grace and beauty of this little work supply the only, and
perhaps a sufficient, proof of its genuineness. The plan is simple; the
dramatic interest consists entirely in the contrast between the irony of
Socrates and the transparent vanity and childlike enthusiasm of the
rhapsode Ion. The theme of the Dialogue may possibly have been
suggested by the passage of Xenophon's Memorabilia in which the
rhapsodists are described by Euthydemus as 'very precise about the exact
words of Homer, but very idiotic themselves.' (Compare Aristotle, Met.)
Ion the rhapsode has e to Athens; he has been exhibiting in
Epidaurus at the festival of Asclepius, and is intending to exhibit at the
festival of the Panathenaea. Socrates admires and envies the rhapsode's
art; for he is always well dressed and in pany--in pany of
good poets and of Homer, who is the prince of them. In the course of
conversation the admission is elicited from Ion that his skill is restricted to
Homer, and that he knows nothing of inferior poets, such as Hesiod and
Archilochus;--he brightens up and is wide awake when Homer is being
recited, but is apt to go to sleep at the recitations of any other poet. 'And
yet, surely, he who knows the superior ought to know the inferior also;--he
who can judge of the good speaker is able to judge of the bad. And
poetry is a whole; and he who judges of poetry by rules of art ought to be
able to judge of all poetry.' This is confirmed by the analogy of sculpture,
painting, flute-playing, and the other arts. The argument is at last
brought home to the mind of Ion, who asks how this contradiction is to be
solved. The solution given by Socrates is as follows:--
The rhapsode is not guided by rules of art, but is an inspired