| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: 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 just come to Athens; he has been exhibiting in
Epidaurus at the festival of Asclepius, and is intending to exhibit at the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: holiness is learning how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers
and sacrifices. Such piety is the salvation of families and states, just
as the impious, which is unpleasing to the gods, is their ruin and
destruction.
SOCRATES: I think that you could have answered in much fewer words the
chief question which I asked, Euthyphro, if you had chosen. But I see
plainly that you are not disposed to instruct me--clearly not: else why,
when we reached the point, did you turn aside? Had you only answered me I
should have truly learned of you by this time the nature of piety. Now, as
the asker of a question is necessarily dependent on the answerer, whither
he leads I must follow; and can only ask again, what is the pious, and what
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: And, pointing to the East, began to say:
'Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.
'And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love;
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
'For, when our souls have learned the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
