Plato on Poets

I haven't the time for any of my own comments, but here is another section of Plato's Ion, in which Socrates comments upon the nature of poets. Not that we should necessarily trust every philosopher's opinion of poetry, but here it is:

"For the poet is a light and winged and sacred thing, and is not first to compose unless he also becomes inspired and out of his senses and his mind is no longer in him; as long as he should have possession of these, man is wholly powerless to compose and to chant an oracle."

and the Greek:

κοῦφον γὰρ χρῆμα ποιητής ἐστι καὶ πτηνὸν καὶ ἱερόν, καί οὐ πρότερον οἷός τε ποιεῖεν, πρὶν ἄν ἔνθεός τε γένηται καὶ ἔκφρων καὶ ὁ νοῦς μηκέτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐνῇ· ἕως δ᾽ ἄν τουτὶ ἔχῃ τὸ κτῆμα, ἀδύνατος πᾶς ποιεῖεν ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος καὶ χρησμῳδεῖν.