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67 lines
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<title>Plato: ION - The Shelley Translation</title>
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<meta content="Plato, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Lauritsen" name="author">
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;"><big style="font-weight: bold;"><big>Plato's Ion:</big> </big></big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;"><big style="font-weight: bold;">The Shelley Translation</big></big>
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</div> <big style="font-family: Verdana;"><br> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br> <span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Introduction by John Lauritsen</span></span><br style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of our greatest poets, was a brilliant translator as well — only equalled among poets, if at all, by Pope and Dryden. He translated three of the Plato dialogues: </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">The Banquet</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> </span><a style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);" href="#star">*</a> (<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Symposium</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">) in 1818 and </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Ion</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> in 1821. His translation of <i><b>Phaedo</b></i> is lost.</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> Shelley especially relished the central conceit of </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Ion</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">: Poets and their interpreters are all mad — or, as it were, divinely inspired.</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> <br style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> </big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;">The God seems purposely to have deprived all poets, prophets, and soothsayers of every particle of reason and understanding, the better to adapt them to their employment as his ministers and interpreters; and that we, their auditors, may acknowledge that those who write so beautifully are possessed and address us inspired by the God. (From the Shelley translation of Ion)</big>
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</div> <big style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"><br> He expanded upon and reinterpreted this idea for his famous essay, “A Defence of Poetry”, in which he wrote:<br> <br> </big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;">Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. (Shelley, “A Defence of Poetry”)</big>
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</div> <big style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"><br> Shelley did not strive for a slavishly literal, word-for-word translation. Though he was loyal to the sense and spirit of Plato's Greek, he did not hesitate to condense a long passage into its essence, or on the other hand, to add his own interpolations. His goal was to understand Plato's meaning fully, and then to re-create that meaning in English.<br> Shelley's translation of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ion</span> is not a masterpiece in its own right, as are his translations of Plato's <i><b>Banquet</b></i> or of the Homeric hymn, “To Mercury”. Nevertheless, his <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ion</span> translation conveys wit and irony; the dialogue is natural as well as elevated; and the ideas come across clearly. <br> The most famous passage in <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ion</span> is a long speech by Socrates, where divine inspiration is likened to the effect of a magnet. Here Shelley comes into his own, and, though it may be nearly two centuries old, his rendition excels all others for beauty of language. Here is an excerpt from the magnet speech:<br> <br> </big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;">[The souls of poets], flying like bees from flower to flower and wandering over the gardens and the meadows and the honey-flowing fountains of the Muses, return to us laden with the sweetness of melody; and arrayed as they are in the plumes of rapid imagination they speak truth. For a poet is indeed a thing ethereally light, winged, and sacred, nor can he compose anything worth calling poetry until he becomes inspired and as it were mad; or whilst any reason remains in him. For whilst a man retains any portion of the thing called reason he is utterly incompetent to produce poetry or to vaticinate. (From the Shelley translation of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ion</span>)</big>
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</div> <big style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"><br> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ion</span> is a dialogue which has polarized critics: some are hostile to it, while others, who do like it, believe it has been misinterpreted. Without wishing to get embroiled in the <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ion</span> controversies, I'll simply lay out my thoughts on the dialogue.<br> Ion may seem obtuse and boastful, and under the questioning of Socrates he becomes seriously confused, but he is a good sport. There is a degree of irony when Socrates flatters Ion, as he does in the beginning of the dialogue — but perhaps there is also a smidgeon of irony in Ion's flattery of Socrates. <br> <br> </big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;"> Socrates. The same mode of consideration must be admitted with respect to all arts which are severally one and entire. Do you desire to hear what I understand by this, O Ion?</big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;"> Ion. Yes, by Jupiter, Socrates, I am delighted with listening to you wise men. (<span style="font-style: italic;">Ibid.</span>)</big>
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</div> <big style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"><br> On the whole the exchanges are good-natured, and Socrates treats Ion gently at the end.<br> A central idea of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ion</span> is the distinction between real and fake (pretended, simulated) knowledge or skill. One should not confuse the military abilities of a real general with those of an actor portraying a general, and so on. (On this note we might recall that in the 1990s the actors from Mash were on the collegiate circuit as lecturers on foreign policy, based presumably on the expertise they acquired from playing their roles in the television series.)<br> Socrates in <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ion</span> also criticizes the misuse of Homer as holy text, as the authority on everything from charioteering to warfare. The salient present-day analogy here is the fundamentalist use of the “Holy Bible” as the authority on everything, from morality to geology. Again, the concern is for truth. Is the Grand Canyon better explained by the book of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Genesis</span> or by modern geology?<br> Sometimes Socrates and Ion speak at cross-purposes, but Ion is not a complete dunce. At least once he turns the tables on Socrates, asking him to base his opinions on evidence, not pre-conceived ideas:<br> <br> </big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;"> Ion. You speak well, O Socrates. Yet I should be surprised if you had eloquence enough to persuade me that when I praise Homer I am mad and possessed. I think you would change your opinion if you once heard me declaim. (From the Shelley translation of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ion</span>)</big>
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</div> <big style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"><br> Ion comes to the defence of his own profession, that of actor or rhapsodist: <br> <br> </big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;"> I imagine that the rhapsodist has a perfect acquaintance with what is becoming for a man to speak, what for a woman; what for a slave, what for a free man; what for the ruler, what for the governed. (Ibid.)</big>
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</div> <big style="font-family: Verdana;"><br style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">This is a fair description of the actor's art. He doesn't need to know all the skills or details of the people he portrays, but rather what they are like, how they speak, and so on. It's a pity Socrates couldn't have interrogated Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness — or, for that matter, Bette Davis. They might have given him a run for the money. On the other hand, Olivier and Guinness might have taken the opportunity to study Socrates, the better to portray him on the stage. I like to imagine Ion in his old age giving dramatic readings of the Plato dialogues, enthusiastically declaiming the part of Socrates.</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> At any rate, long introductions are tiresome, and it's time to let Socrates, Ion, and Shelley speak for themselves.</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> </span><a style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);" name="star"></a><br style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">* For a description of the Pagan Press edition of Shelley's translation of the </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Banquet</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> — the only one which includes his introductory essay, “A Discourse on the Manners of the Antient Greeks” — </span><a style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);" href="http://paganpressbooks.com/BOOKLIST.HTM">click here</a><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">.</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> <br> <br> <br> <br> </big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;"><big><span style="font-weight: bold;">ION, OR OF THE ILIAD</span></big> </big>
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<big style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Translated from Plato by Percy Bysshe Shelley</span></big>
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</div> <big style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"><br> SOCRATES and ION<br> <br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> Hail to thee, O Ion! from whence returnest thou amongst us now? — from thine own native Ephesus?<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ion.</span> No, Socrates; I come from Epidaurus and the feasts in honour of Aesculapius.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> Had the Epidaurians instituted a contest of rhapsody in honour of the God?<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ion.</span> And not in rhapsodies alone; there were contests in every species of music.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> And in which did you contend? And what was the success of your efforts?<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ion.</span> I bore away the first prize at the games, O Socrates.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> Well done! You have only to consider how you shall win the Panathenaea.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ion.</span> That may also happen, God willing.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> Your profession, O Ion, has often appeared to me an enviable one. For, together with the nicest care of your person and the most studied elegance of dress, it imposes upon you the necessity of a familiar acquaintance with many and excellent poets, and especially with Homer, the most admirable of them all. Nor is it merely because you can repeat the verses of this great poet that I envy you, but because you fathom his inmost thoughts. For he is no rhapsodist who does not understand the whole scope and intention of the poet and is not capable of interpreting it to his audience. This he cannot do without a full comprehension of the meaning of the author he undertakes to illustrate; and worthy indeed of envy are those who can fulfil these conditions.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ion.</span> Thou speakest truth, O Socrates. And indeed I have expended my study particularly on this part of my profession. I flatter myself that no man living excels me in the interpretation of Homer; neither Metrodorus of Lampsacus, nor Stesimbrotus the Thasian, nor Glauco, nor any other rhapsodist of the present times can express so many various and beautiful thoughts upon Homer as I can.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> I am persuaded of your eminent skill, O Ion. You will not, I hope, refuse me a specimen of it?<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ion.</span> And indeed it would be worth your while to hear me declaim upon Homer. I deserve a golden crown from his admirers.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> And I will find leisure some day or other to request you to favour me so far. At present I will only trouble you with one question. Do you excel in explaining Homer alone or are you conscious of a similar power with regard to Hesiod and Archilochus?<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ion.</span> I possess this high degree of skill with regard to Homer alone and I consider that sufficient.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> Are there any subjects upon which Homer and Hesiod say the same things?<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ion.</span> Many, as it seems to me.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> Do you demonstrate these things better in Homer or Hesiod?<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ion.</span> In the same manner, doubtless; inasmuch as they say the same words with regard to the same things.<br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Socrates.</span> But with regard to those things in which they differ — Homer and Hesiod both treat of divination, do they not?<br> <
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