ION: A prophet.

SOCRATES: And if you were a prophet, would you not be able to interpret
them when they disagree as well as when they agree?

ION: Clearly.

SOCRATES: But how did you come to have this skill about Homer only, and
not about Hesiod or the other poets? Does not Homer speak of the same
themes which all other poets handle? Is not war his great argument? and
does he not speak of human society and of intercourse of men, good and bad,
skilled and unskilled, and of the gods conversing with one another and with
mankind, and about what happens in heaven and in the world below, and the
generations of gods and heroes? Are not these the themes of which Homer
sings?

ION: Very true, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And do not the other poets sing of the same?

ION: Yes, Socrates; but not in the same way as Homer.

SOCRATES: What, in a worse way?

ION: Yes, in a far worse.

SOCRATES: And Homer in a better way?

ION: He is incomparably better.