You are in Athens, at the trial of Socrates. In his speech of defence he tells how he went looking for anyone wiser than himself. After questioning a man thought to be wise, he says, he went to the poets, thinking he would prove there that he knew less than they did.
He asked them what their poems meant, and found that hardly anyone present would not have spoken about the poems better than the poets themselves. They compose, he decided, not by wisdom but by nature and inspiration, like prophets and givers of oracles.
This line is about those prophets. Its other half says that they know none of the things they say.
This lesson takes for granted the lessons before it. Not done yet: 1 Nothing in excess, 2 Know yourself, 3 Everything moves on, 4 Life is short, 5 The art is long, 6 The measure of all things, 7 I do not think I know, 8 The unexamined life, 9 An animal of the city, 10 Full of gods.
Forgot how a letter is read? The whole alphabet
ClickTap a word to see what it means here, as you would in the reader. The words with a dotted line are new: pick what you think each one means, then it opens.
1 new word still to look at.