# Apollo's music and healing, with a complication about sanity

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH02.P020](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH02.P020/#char=580,665): "the Greeks were right when they made Apollo the god both of imagination and of sanity"

Apollo supplies an ancient religious image for Chesterton's claim that imagination and mental health belong together. The *Homeric Hymn to Apollo* explicitly joins music and healing: Apollo claims the lyre at lines 131–132; later he directs his followers to sing the healer's paean, then leads them playing his lyre while they chant it. These are genuine ancient associations, although the hymn does not state Chesterton's general proposition about sanity. [*Homeric Hymn* 3, 131–132, 474–523, Evelyn-White translation](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/348/348-h/348-h.htm).

Greek thought also complicates that proposition. In Plato's *Phaedrus*, 265a–b, Apollo presides over prophetic inspiration, one of four beneficial forms of divine madness; the Muses preside over poetic madness. Plato distinguishes such inspiration from madness caused by human infirmity. Consequently, Apollo is not simply an ancient endorsement of ordinary rational composure against every form of madness. Chesterton's claim is better read as a selective interpretation of Apollo's powers: inspiration can restore and enlarge life, rather than necessarily disintegrating it. Plato offers a related distinction between destructive disorder and beneficial inspiration, but draws the boundary using different terms. [Plato, *Phaedrus*, 265a–b, Jowett translation](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1636/1636-h/1636-h.htm).

## Sources

- [Homeric Hymn 3, To Apollo, Hugh G. Evelyn-White translation, Project Gutenberg 348](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/348/348-h/348-h.htm), 131–132; 474–501; 502–523
- [Plato, Phaedrus, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg 1636](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1636/1636-h/1636-h.htm), 265a–b; dialogue passage beginning 'And of madness there were two kinds'

Revision 1 · 2026-11-07 · https://glosses.org/a/a_zwgt2s2w/