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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: souls of men in any direction which he pleases, and makes one man hang down
from another. Thus there is a vast chain of dancers and masters and under-
masters of choruses, who are suspended, as if from the stone, at the side
of the rings which hang down from the Muse. And every poet has some Muse
from whom he is suspended, and by whom he is said to be possessed, which is
nearly the same thing; for he is taken hold of. And from these first
rings, which are the poets, depend others, some deriving their inspiration
from Orpheus, others from Musaeus; but the greater number are possessed and
held by Homer. Of whom, Ion, you are one, and are possessed by Homer; and
when any one repeats the words of another poet you go to sleep, and know
not what to say; but when any one recites a strain of Homer you wake up in
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