Spells and the Thoughts of Tiresias
“Halliwell’s basic argument is that Socrates admits the Book X arguments to be insecure and
open to defeat. He calls them ‘spells’ rather than philosophical knowledge, and he asserts that
he must use them [those arguments] constantly, rather than deploying them once and for all.
Socrates is committed to philosophical ideals, but does not have the full immunity granted by
the ‘transcendent knowledge of the good.’ Socrates seeks not to become deaf to poetry but ‘to
find an ethical justification for continuing to have [the] experience [of poetic enchantment].’
In this way, Plato shows that the model life, Socrates, seeks to welcome both philosophy and
poetry, all the while recognizing the intense difficulty in doing so.” ~
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/plato-and-the-poets/
When inspiration comes, it is God’s spell.
It casts a spell divinity implants
Inside a soul. When it begins to swell,
A voice in poems and in music pants
Its way to live through the throat, and mouth, and lips.
It is the sort of miracle that shakes
Philosophers and moves unwilling hips
To rhythms, rhymes, and rhythms like black snakes
In mating, writhing, hissing in their lust,
Their lust transcendent in their need to know
The meaning of the gods who made them, thrust,
And freed them on the stones and made them glow
With the mystery of desire that justifies
Existence of art for gasping thighs.