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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: own writings--anybody taken at random from the crowd is a better
interpreter of them than they are of themselves. They are sacred persons,
'winged and holy things' who have a touch of madness in their composition
(Phaedr.), and should be treated with every sort of respect (Republic), but
not allowed to live in a well-ordered state. Like the Statesmen in the
Meno, they have a divine instinct, but they are narrow and confused; they
do not attain to the clearness of ideas, or to the knowledge of poetry or
of any other art as a whole.
In the Protagoras the ancient poets are recognized by Protagoras himself as
the original sophists; and this family resemblance may be traced in the
Ion. The rhapsode belongs to the realm of imitation and of opinion: he
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