What do artists do? The question runs through these two texts of Plato with sovereign irony. In the Ion, Socrates pushes to his limits a rhapsode who claims to interpret Homer by art: what he believes he has mastered is only divine possession – a favor granted by the Muses, not technical acquired through work. In book Together, these founding texts outline a question that philosophy has never ceased to reopen: if artistic creation escapes the person who accomplishes it, if it operates outside of any mastered knowledge, what exactly is it – inspiration, illusion, or power without a master?