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 person who
derives a mysterious power from the poet; and the poet, in like manner, is
inspired by the God. The poets and their interpreters may be compared to a
chain of magnetic rings suspended from one another, and from a magnet. The
magnet is the Muse, and the ring which immediately follows is the poet
himself; from him are suspended other poets; there is also a chain of
rhapsodes and actors, who also hang from the Muses, but are let down at the
side; and the last ring of all is the spectator. The poet is the inspired
interpreter of the God, and this is the reason why some poets, like Homer,
are restricted to a single theme, or, like Tynnichus, are famous for a
single poem; and the rhapsode is the inspired interpreter of the poet, and
for a similar reason some rhapsodes, like Ion, are the interpreters of
single poets.

Ion is delighted at the notion of being inspired, and acknowledges that he
is beside himself when he is performing;--his eyes rain tears and his hair
stands on end. Socrates is of opinion that a man must be mad who behaves