The
easiest way with him seems to be a pitying contempt. "For all good
poets," says Socrates sagely in the Ion, "epic as well as lyric, compose
their lovely strains, not by art, but because they are inspired and
possessed. And as the Corybantian dances are not quite 'rational,' so
the lyric poets are, so to speak, not quite '_all there_.' ... They tell
us," he goes on condescendingly, "that they bring songs from honeyed
fountains, culling them from the gardens and dells of the Muses; that,
like the bees, they wing from one flower to another. Yes of a truth: the
Poet is a light and a winged and a holy thing, without invention in him
until he is inspired and out of his senses, and out of his own wit;
until he has attained to this he is but a feeble thing, unable to utter
his oracles." I can imagine all this reported to Homer in the Shades and
Homer answering with a smile: "Well, and who in the world is denying it?
I certainly did not, while I lived and sang upon earth. Nay, I never
even sang, but invited the Muse to sing to me and through me. [Greek:
_Menin haeide theha ... Handra moi hennepe, Moysa_.]--Surely the dear
fellow might remember the first line of my immortal works! And if he
does remember, and is only bringing it up against me that in the
intervals of doing my work in life I was a feeble fellow, go back and
tell him that it is likely enough, yet I fail to see how it can be any
business of his, since it was only my work that I ever asked for
recognition.
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