Dialogue

 1   Ion|   Socrates asks whether he can speak well about everything in
 2   Ion|       I believe myself able to speak about Homer better than
 3   Ion|    other poets? Does not Homer speak of the same themes which
 4   Ion|      argument? and does he not speak of human society and of
 5   Ion|        Hesiod and Archilochus, speak of the same things, although
 6   Ion|    good judge of all those who speak of the same things; and
 7   Ion|       that almost all poets do speak of the same things?~ION:
 8   Ion|       can fail to see that you speak of Homer without any art
 9   Ion| knowledge. If you were able to speak of him by rules of art,
10   Ion|        would have been able to speak of all other poets; for
11   Ion|      am a common man, who only speak the truth. For consider
12   Ion|      at a loss when he came to speak of Ion of Ephesus, and had
13   Ion|       me in thinking that I do speak better and have more to
14   Ion|        other man. But I do not speak equally well about others—
15   Ion|     noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of
16   Ion|       about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of
17   Ion|        would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but
18   Ion|  filled with tears, and when I speak of horrors, my hair stands
19   Ion|       and if you could hear me speak of him I am sure you would
20   Ion|      what part of Homer do you speak well?—not surely about every
21   Ion| Socrates, about which I do not speak well: of that I can assure
22   Ion|  SOCRATES: Why, does not Homer speak in many passages about arts?
23   Ion|  believe, you have no art, but speak all these beautiful words