Part 20

XXII. When I had spoken thus I remained silent. Olympicus laughed quietly, and said: ‘We are not applauding you, lest we should seem to be letting you off the myth, as though the demonstration of your view were sufficient without it; when we have heard it, we will give judgement.’ So I went on to tell them: ‘Thespesius of Soli, a kinsman and friend of that Protogenes who has been with us here, after an early life [Sidenote: C] of great profligacy, quickly ran through his fortune, changed his ways perforce, and took to the pursuit of wealth; when he had the usual experience of the profligates who do not keep their wives when they have them, but cast them away and try wrongfully to get their favours when united to other men. He stopped at nothing disgraceful if it led to enjoyment or gain, and in a short time got together an inconsiderable fortune and a mighty reputation for evil. What hit him hardest was an answer [Sidenote: D] delivered to him by the oracle of Amphilochus. It appears that he had sent to ask the God “whether he will do better the rest of his life?”[242] The answer was that he “will live better when he has died”. And sure enough this, in a way, so fell out not long afterwards. He fell over from a high place, upon his head; there was no wound, but he appeared to die of the mere blow, and on the third day, at the very time of the funeral, revived. He quickly recovered his strength, and came to himself, and the change of life which followed was incredible. For the Cilicians know of no man more fair in all business relations, or more holy in religious duties, so formidable a foe or so faithful a friend. [Sidenote: E] Hence those who were brought into contact with him were very curious to hear the cause of the difference, thinking that a character so completely remodelled must have been the result of no trifling experience. And so it truly was, according to the story related by him to Protogenes, and other equally considerate friends. For, when sentience left his body, he felt affected by a change, as a helmsman might do when first plunged overboard into the depth of the sea; then, recovering a little, he seemed to himself to breathe all over and to look around, while his soul opened like one great eye. But he saw [Sidenote: F] nothing of what he had been seeing before, only stars of vast size, at infinite distances from one another, each emitting a ray of marvellous colour and of a tonic force, so that the soul, riding smoothly on the light, as though over a calm sea, was carried easily and quickly in every direction. Passing over most of the sights he saw, he said that the souls of those who die make a flame-like bubble where the air parts as they rise [Sidenote: 564] from below, then the bubble quickly bursts, and they emerge with human form but light in bulk, with a movement which is not the same for all. Some bound forth with marvellous agility, and dart upwards in a straight line, while others whirl round together like spindles, now with an upward tendency, now a downward, borne on by a mingled confused agitation, which after a very long time, and then with difficulty, is reduced to calm. Most of them he did not recognize, but seeing two or three persons of his acquaintance, he tried to approach them and speak. They would not hear him, and [Sidenote: B] appeared not to be themselves, but to be distraught and scared out of their senses, shunning all sight or touch, while they roamed about, first by themselves; then they would meet and embrace others in like case, and whirl round in random indefinite figures of every sort, uttering unmeaning sounds, like cries of battle mingled with those of lamentation and terror. Others above, on the extremity of the firmament, were cheerful to behold, often drawing near to one another in kindness, and turning away from those other turbid souls; and they would signify, as it seemed, their annoyance by [Sidenote: C] out drawing close together, but joy and affability by opening and dispersing. There he saw, he said, the soul of a kinsman, but not very certainly, for the man had died while he was himself a child. However, the soul drew towards him, and said, “Hail Thespesius!” He was surprised at this, and said that his name was not Thespesius, but Aridaeus. “Formerly so,” was the reply, “but from now Thespesius. For you are not really dead, but, by some appointment of Heaven, have come hither with your sentient part, the rest of your soul is left within the body, as a light anchor. Let this be a sign to you now and hereafter; the souls of the dead make no shadow, and their eyes do not [Sidenote: D] blink.”[243] When Thespesius heard this, he drew himself together in deeper thought, and as he gazed, he saw a sort of dim and shadowy line which wavered as he moved, while the others were transparent within, all set around with brightness, yet not all equally. Some were like the full moon at her purest, and emitted one smooth, continuous, uniform colour; over others there ran scales, so to call them, or slender weals; others were quite dappled and strange to look upon, branded with black spots like those on serpents; others again showed open blunted scars. Then [Sidenote: E] the kinsman of Thespesius (for nothing forbids us to designate the souls in this way by the names of men) began to explain it all to him, as thus: “Adrasteia, daughter of Zeus and Necessity, has been appointed to punish all crimes in the highest place; no criminal has there ever yet been, so small or so great, as to pass unseen or to escape by his might. But there are three modes of punishment, and each mode has its proper guardian minister. Some men are punished, at once in the body and through their body, and these swift Retribution handles; her [Sidenote: F] method is a gentle one, and passes over many crimes which ask for expiation. Those whose cure is a heavier matter are passed after death to Justice by the daemon. The wholly incurable Justice rejects; and these the third, and the fiercest, of the satellites of Adrasteia, whose name is Erinnys, chases, as they wander and try to escape in all directions; and it is pitiful and cruel how she brings them all to nothing and plunges them into the gulf which is beyond speech or sight. As to the [Sidenote: 565] other two modes of justification,” he went on, “that which is wrought by Retribution during life resembles the usage of barbarian countries. For as in Persia they pluck off and scourge the robes and the hats of men under punishment, while their owners implore them to stop, so punishments through money or upon the person get no close grip, they do not fasten on the vice itself, but are mostly for appearance and appeal to the senses. But whoever makes his way here from earth unchastened and unpurged, Justice firmly seizes him, with his soul naked and manifest, having no place into which to skulk, [Sidenote: B] that he may hide and veil his wickedness, but eyed from all sides, and by all, and all over. And first she shows him to good parents, if such he has, or to ancestors, a contemptible and unworthy sight. If these are all bad, he sees them punished and is seen by them, and so is justified during a long time, while each of his passions is dislodged by pains and toils, which as much exceed in greatness and intensity those which are through the flesh, as a day dream may be clearer than that which comes in sleep. Scars and weals left by particular passions[244] are more [Sidenote: C] persistent in some men than in others. And look”, he said, “at those motley colours upon the souls, which come from every source. There is the dusky, dirty red, which is the smear made by meanness and greed; the fiery blood-red of cruelty and harshness. Where you see the bluish grey, there intemperance in pleasures has been rubbed away, and a heavy work it was; malice and envying have been there to inject that violet beneath the skin, as cuttle-fishes their ink. For down on earth vice brings out the colours, while the soul is turned about by the passions and turns the body, but here, when these have been smoothed away, the final result of purgation, and chastisement is this, that the soul becomes radiant all over [Sidenote: D] and of one hue. But as long as the colours are in it, there are certain reversions to passion, with throbbings and a pulsation which in some is faint and easily passes off, in others makes vigorous resistance. Of these souls, some, being chastised again and again, attain their fitting habit and disposition; others are transferred into the bodies of beasts by masterful ignorance and the passionate love of pleasure;[245] for ignorance, through weakness of the reasoning part and inactivity of the speculative, inclines on its practical side towards generation; while the love of pleasure, requiring an instrument for intemperance, [Sidenote: E] craves to unite the desires with their satisfaction, and to have share in corporeal excitement, since here is nothing save a sort of ineffectual shadow, and a dream of pleasure without its fulfilment.” Having said this, he began to lead him on, moving rapidly yet covering, as it seemed, a space of infinite extent with unfaltering ease, borne upwards on the rays of light, as though by wings, until he reached a great chasm which yawned downwards. There he was deserted by the supporting force, and saw the other souls in the same case. Packing together, like birds, and borne down and around, they [Sidenote: F] circled about the chasm, which they did not venture to cross outright. You might see it within, resembling the caves of Bacchus, dressed in wood and greenery, and gay with blossoms of flowers of every sort; and it exhaled a mild and gentle breeze which wafted odours of marvellous delight, and produced such an atmosphere as wine throws off for its votaries; for the souls feasted on the fragrant smells and were relaxed into mutual kindliness. All around a bacchic humour prevailed, and laughter, and every joy which the Muses can give where men sport and are merry. By this way, he said, Dionysus went up to the Gods, and [Sidenote: 566] afterwards brought Semele; it is called “the Place of Lethe”. Here he did not allow Thespesius to linger, even though he would, but kept drawing him away by force, explaining to him as he did so that the sentient mind becomes wasted and sodden by pleasure, while the irrational and corporeal part is watered and pampered and suggests recollection of the body, and, from that recollection, a yearning and desire which makes for generation (genesis), so named because it is a leaning towards earth (Ge-neusis)[246] when the soul is weighed down by moisture. Having travelled another journey as long as the first, he seemed to be gazing into a mighty bowl, with rivers discharging into [Sidenote: B] it, one whiter than foam of the sea, or snowflakes, another with the purple flush of the rainbow, others tinged with different hues. From a distance each showed its proper ray, but as he drew near the rim became invisible, and the colouring was dulled, and the more brilliant hues deserted the bowl, leaving only the whiteness. And there he saw three daemons seated close together in a triangle, mingling the streams in certain measures. Now the soul-conductor of Thespesius told him that thus far Orpheus advanced, when he was questing [Sidenote: C] for the soul of his wife, and, from not rightly remembering, put out an untrue account among men, namely that “there was an oracle at Delphi, held by Apollo and Night in common, whereas Night has nothing in common with Apollo. Really,” he said, “this oracle is shared by Night and the moon, having nowhere an earthly bound, or a single habitation, but roaming over men everywhere in dreams and phantoms. From here it is that dreams, which are mingled, as you see, with what is deceitful and embroidered, get so much simplicity and truth as they scatter abroad. The oracle of Apollo”, he continued, [Sidenote: D] “you have not seen, nor will you ever be able to see it, for the earthly element of the soul does not mount upwards or allow that; it is attached closely to the body and bends downwards.” And as he spoke, he led him on, and he tried to show him the light coming, as he said, from the tripod, resting on Parnassus between the breasts of Themis. Earnestly desiring to see, he saw nothing for the brightness. But he heard, as he passed, a woman’s shrill voice chanting in verse many things, among them the time of his own death. The daemon told him that the voice was that of the Sibyl,[247] who was singing about things to be, as she was carried round on the face of the moon. He [Sidenote: E] desired to hear more, but was thrust off by the whirling of the moon to the opposite side, as though caught in the eddies, and only heard scraps, one of which was about Mount Vesuvius and the future destruction by fire of Dicaearcheia, and a fragment of song about the emperor of that day, how that

_so good a man Shall die upon his bed, and end his reign._[248]

After that, they turned to the sight of those under punishment. At first they met only with repulsive and piteous spectacles. Afterwards, when Thespesius found friends and relations and intimates, whom he could never have conceived of as punished, enduring sore sufferings and penalties both ignominious and [Sidenote: F] painful, and pitying themselves to him and weeping aloud; and at last saw his own father emerging from a certain pit, all over brands and scars, reaching out his hand towards his son and not permitted to be silent, but compelled by the warders to confess his infamous conduct to some strangers who had come with gold—how he had poisoned them, and had escaped detection there on earth, but had been convicted here, how he had already suffered part, and was now led to suffer the remainder—, then he did not dare to supplicate [Sidenote: 567] or to entreat for his father, so great was his consternation and horror. Wishing to turn about and flee, he saw no longer that gracious and familiar guide, but was thrust forward by others of terrible visage, because it was necessary that he should go through it all. There he beheld the shadows of those who had been notoriously wicked, and who had been punished on the spot, not savagely handled as were the former ones, because[249] their trouble was in the irrational seat of the passions. [Sidenote: B] But those who had passed through life under a veil or cloak of the appearance of virtue, were compelled by others, who stood around, laboriously and painfully to turn their soul inside out, writhing and bending themselves back unnaturally, as the scolopendrae[250] of the sea, when they have gorged the hook, turn themselves inside out. Others they would flay, and fold the skin back, to show how scarred and mottled they were beneath it, because the vice was seated in the rational and directing part. Other souls he said that he saw intertwined like vipers, by twos or threes or more together, gnawing one another out of spite and rancour for what they had suffered [Sidenote: C] in life, or done. And there were lakes lying side by side, one of boiling gold, one of lead, exceeding cold, and one of iron, which was rough. Over these stood daemons, as it might be smiths, with tongs, picking up by turns the souls of those whose wickedness came of greed and grasping, and plunging them in. When they had become all fiery and transparent in the burning gold, they were thrust into the bath of lead; and when frozen till they became hard as hailstones, they were shifted on to the iron, and there they became hideously black, [Sidenote: D] and were broken up and crushed, so hard and brittle were they, and their shapes were changed. Then they were conveyed, just as they were, back to the gold, enduring dire pains in the transition. Most pitiful of all, he said, was the case of those who seemed already quit of Justice and then were seized up anew. These were the souls whose penalty had come round to any descendants or children. For whenever any one of these last came up and met them, he would fall upon them in anger, and shout aloud, and show the marks of his sufferings, reviling and pursuing, while the parent soul sought to flee and hide [Sidenote: E] itself, but could not; for the torturers would run swiftly after and bring them to Justice, and force them through all from the beginning, while they bewailed themselves because they knew the punishment before them. And there were some, he said, to whom a number of their offspring were attached, clinging to them just like bees or bats, and jibbering in wrathful recollection of what they had suffered on account of their parents. Last of all, while he was looking at the souls returning to a second birth—how they were violently bent and transformed into animals of every sort by the executioners of this task, [Sidenote: F] who used certain implements and blows, here squeezing together the limbs entire, here twisting them aside, here planing them away and getting rid of them altogether, to fit into other characters and other lives—, there appeared among these the soul of Nero, already in torment, and pierced with red-hot nails. For it the executioners had prepared the form of a viper, as Pindar describes it, wherein the beast is to be conceived, and live, after having devoured its own mother. And then, he said, there shone out a great light, and from the light came a voice commanding them to shift Nero to some other milder species, and to fashion a beast to sing around marshes and pools, for that he had paid the penalty of his crimes; and moreover some benefit was due to him from the Gods, because he had freed [Sidenote: 568] the best and most God-loving race, that of Hellas. Up to this point, Thespesius had been, he said, a spectator. But as he was about to return, he suffered a horrible fear. For a woman of marvellous form and stature seized hold of him: “Come here, fellow!” she said, “that thou mayest have a better memory of these things.” Then she brought near him a rod, such as painters use, red-hot, but another woman prevented her. He, sucked up by a sudden violent wind, as out of a blow-pipe, fell on to his own body, and just opened his eyes on the edge of the tomb.’

Footnote 199:

See p. 313.

Footnote 200:

On the proverb ‘Post Lesbium Cantorem’.

Footnote 201:

i. e. in the battle of Amphipolis. See Thuc. 5, 10 and Plut. _Life of Nicias_, c. 9.

Footnote 202:

_Orestes_, 420.

Footnote 203:

3, 38.

Footnote 204:

See Pausanias, 4, 17.

Footnote 205:

Fr. 969.

Footnote 206:

The author of this famous line is unknown.

Footnote 207:

Fr. 57.

Footnote 208:

_Minos_, 319 C.

Footnote 209:

No specific passage can be identified with the words in the text. For the sequel cp. _Timaeus_, 30 A.

Footnote 210:

Cp. _Rep._ 6, 508 A.

Footnote 211:

See p. 181 n. 1.

Footnote 212:

This line is a continuation of the quotation from Melanthius above.

Footnote 213:

Cp. Aesch. _Cho._ 313, &c.

Footnote 214:

Quoted several times as from Pindar (see Fr. 77), but perhaps rather Simonides.

Footnote 215:

_Il._ 15, 641.

Footnote 216:

Cp. Aristot. _Poet._ c. 9.

Footnote 217:

_W. and D._ 266, 265.

Footnote 218:

_Laws_, 5, 728 C.

Footnote 219:

i.e. under Roman law. See Smith’s _Dict. Ant._, _s.v._ Crux.

Footnote 220:

_Rep._ 406 B.

Footnote 221:

See H. Richards in _Class. Rev._ vol. 29, p. 235, and, for the quotation, the _Life of Lucullus_, c. 1.

Footnote 222:

Fr. 42, and see Jebb’s Introd. to the _Electra_ of Sophocles.

Footnote 223:

See _Life of Aristides_, c. 6. also Dion Chrys. _Orat._ 64.

Footnote 224:

See _Life of Cimon_, c. 6.

Footnote 225:

Again quoted, _De Curiosit._ 520 A.

Footnote 226:

Eur. _Ino_, Fr. 403.

Footnote 227:

Fr. 970.

Footnote 228:

See Herod. 2, 134.

Footnote 229:

i. e. Polyphemus. See _Od._ 9, 375 foll.

Footnote 230:

See Herod. 66, 74, and Pausan. 4, 252, and 8, 18.

Footnote 231:

From an unknown poet; Euphorion and Arctinus are suggested.

Footnote 232:

Fr. 123.

Footnote 233:

Hence a proverb applied to what was second-rate.

Footnote 234:

Arist. _H. A._ 9, 3, 610 b 29.

Footnote 235:

See Thuc. 2, 48; also _Plague and Pestilence in Literature and Art_, by Raymond Crawfurd, M.D., chap. 2 and Appendix.

Footnote 236:

Cp. Plato, _Laws_, 4, 715 A.

Footnote 237:

Fr. 41.

Footnote 238:

_Il._ 6, 146.

Footnote 239:

Fr. 211.

Footnote 240:

_W. and D._ 735-6.

Footnote 241:

Eur. Fr. 970.

Footnote 242:

I have transposed the verbs as suggested in Wyttenbach’s Commentary.

Footnote 243:

Cp. Dante, _Purg._ 3, 19 foll. The idea is Pythagorean (see _Quaest. Graec._ 40, p. 300).

Footnote 244:

Cp. Plato, _Gorg._ 524 D.

Footnote 245:

See H. Richards in _Class. Rev._, vol. 29, p. 236.

Footnote 246:

Cp. p. 215, n. 1.

Footnote 247:

Cp. p. 89.

Footnote 248:

Probably a Sibylline verse. See Suetonius, _Life of Vespasian_.

Footnote 249:

Reading ἅτε δή with C. F. Hermann.

Footnote 250:

Cp. Aristot. _Hist. Anim._ 2, 14, 505 b 13, and 10, 37, 621 a 6.

FROM THE DIALOGUE ‘ON THE SOUL’ A FRAGMENT

[Preserved by Stobaeus, _Florileg._ 119.[251]]

I. When Timon had spoken thus, Patrocleas replied: ‘Your argument is as forcible as it is ancient, yet there are difficulties. For if the doctrine of immortality is so very old, how is it that the fear of death is “oldest of terrors”[252]? Unless, of course, it is this which has engendered all other terrors. For there is nothing “fresh or new” in our mourning for the dead, or in the use of those sad sinister forms of speech, “Poor man!” “Unfortunate man!”’