Ion claims to be able to speak well about any subject Homer has written about. So, Socrates concludes, the poets are the interpreters of the gods because the gods use the poets to speak their divine messages through them. The poet himself explains that he was only able to write that one amazing poem because the Muses compelled him to do it. Socrates gives an example of a terrible poet who never wrote anything worth hearing except one incredible poem that everyone knows and loves. True poetry is the work of the gods, and humans are merely their mouthpieces when they are inspired. Socrates says that the god inspires the poet Homer directly and that inspiration comes to Ion through Homer’s poetry, which Ion passes on to whoever watches him recite the poetry. Socrates explains that a magnet endows a metal object with the ability to attract other metal objects, and so on, with the strength of the magnetism becoming weaker as the original magnet gets further away. To explain what he means by inspiration, Socrates uses the metaphor of magnets, claiming “it’s a divine power that moves you, as a ‘Magnetic’ stone moves iron rings” (941).
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