And all this because of the licentiousness of Ajax.[37:2] Now where is the reasonableness or rightfulness of these things? Equally little can we commend the Thracians[38:1] for still tattooing their wives, to avenge Orpheus; or the barbarians about the Po, who wear black, as they say, in mourning for Phaethon, which seems all the more ridiculous when we consider that, while those who lived when Phaethon perished cared nothing at all about the matter, their posterity of the fifth or the tenth generation are changing their garments and mourning for him.[38:2] Yet this is merely foolish, not atrocious or intolerable. But on what justifiable ground does the anger of the gods, suddenly disappearing, as some rivers do, break out again in a different place, on other people than the evil-doers, terminating only in extreme calamity?

13. As soon as Timon came to a pause, fearing that with a fresh start he might bring forth more and greater absurdities, I instantly asked him,—Do you really think that all these things are true?

If not all, said he, yet if some of them be true, do you not think that the discussion labors under the same difficulty?

Perhaps, said I; and so to persons in a high fever, whether they chance to wear one garment, or to be wrapped in many, the burning heat is nearly or quite the same, and yet it contributes to their relief to remove the multitude of coverings. But if the patient is unwilling to have this done, let him have his own way. Yet most of these stories seem like myths and fictions. But recall to mind the religious festival lately held here, when you saw the magnificent portion of the viands[39:1] which the heralds took from the table, proclaiming that it was due to the posterity of Pindar, and remember how solemn and sweet this token of honor seemed to you.

But, said he, who would not be delighted by the gracefulness of a commemoration so entirely Grecian and so simply archaic? unless he had, to borrow Pindar’s own words, a black heart forged in a cold fire.

There is then no need, said I, of my citing a similar proclamation made in Sparta, “After the Lesbian singer,”[39:2] in honor and remembrance of the ancient Terpander; for the principle is the same. But you,[40:1] I suppose, think yourselves superior to other Boeotians, as being of the race of the Opheltiadae;[40:2] you make similar claims among the Phocians[40:3] by virtue of your descent from Daiphantus;[40:4] and you, indeed, were the first to stand by me and help me in preserving for the Lycormaeans and the Satilaeans[40:5] their hereditary honor, and the right to wear crowns in public which belongs to the posterity of Hercules,—maintaining that lasting honors and favors are due to those descended from Hercules, because he, though a great benefactor to the Greeks, never received his due of gratitude, or any fitting recompense.

You remind us, said Timon, of a truly noble contest, and of one in which it was especially becoming for a philosopher to take part.

Relax then, my friend, said I, the severity of your accusation, and do not take it so hard if some of the descendants of wicked and depraved people are punished; or else do not welcome or commend the honor rendered to worthy parentage. For if we would retain the reward of virtue in the posterity of the virtuous, we cannot reasonably think that punishments for misdoings ought to fail and cease, but must suppose that they will run on at even pace with the rewards, giving retribution in each case in proportion to desert. But he who gladly sees the posterity of Cimon honored in Athens, yet is vexed and angry at the exile of the descendants of Lachares[41:1] or of Ariston,[41:2] is very stupid and feeble-minded, or rather has the presumption to take the place of a wrangler and railer against the Divine Being,—accusing him, forsooth, if the children’s children of an unrighteous and wicked man seem to prosper, and again accusing him if the posterity of bad ancestors are suffered to decline and to become extinct,—indeed, finding equal fault with God when the children of a good father or those of a bad father fare ill.

14. Let these considerations serve you as defences against those who are so excessively bitter and objurgatory. But taking up again the beginning of the thread in our discussion concerning God,—obscure, indeed, and with many turnings and windings,—let us direct our way discreetly and deliberately toward what is probable and credible. For not even in the things which we ourselves do can we always state with confidence the actual and true meaning. Thus we cannot tell why we order the children of those who die of phthisis or of dropsy to sit with their feet in water till the corpse is buried, though it is believed that in this case they neither contract the disease at the time nor are liable to it afterward. Nor, again, can we tell the reason why, when a goat takes into his mouth a piece of snakeroot,[42:1] the whole flock stand still till the goatherd comes and takes it out of his mouth. There are properties of various objects that are transfused or transmitted in ways incredible as to velocity and distance. In these cases we are indeed more surprised at remoteness of time than of space. Yet it is really more amazing that Athens should have been infected throughout with a pestilence[42:2] that began in Aethiopia, and that Pericles should have died of it, and Thucydides should have been attacked by it, than that, if the Delphians and the Sybarites have been wicked, protracted punishment should come upon their posterity. For all properties of objects have mutual action and reaction from their very beginning till now, and bear relations to one another of which, though we are ignorant of the cause, it none the less produces its appropriate effect.

15. Nevertheless, the public calamities of cities have obviously their reason in justice. For a city has unity and continuity like a living creature, not devesting itself of identity by the changes that occur at successive periods of its life, nor becoming a different being from its former self by the lapse of time, but always retaining a conscious selfhood with the peculiarities that belong to it, and receiving the entire blame or praise of whatever it does or has done in its collective capacity, so long as the community which constitutes it and binds it together remains a unit. But dividing it by successive periods of time so as to make of a single city many cities, or rather an infinite number of cities, is like making of one man many men, because he is now elderly, yet once was younger, and still earlier was a mere stripling. This might remind one of the Epicharmians, from whom the sophists derived the cumulative argument,[43:1] according to which he who used to be in debt now owes nothing, having become a different man, and he who was yesterday invited to supper to-day comes uninvited, being another person. However, different periods of life make greater changes in every one of us than they ordinarily make in cities. One who sees Athens would recognize it thirty years afterward; for the present manners, sports, industries, likings, and resentments of the people closely resemble those of former days. But after a considerable time, scarce a kinsman or friend would recognize a man’s countenance and form; while the change of manners readily brought about in a person by differing fashions of intercourse, employment, experience, and legal obligation look strange and new even to one who has always known him. But yet the man is said to be one and the same man from the beginning to the end. The city in like manner remaining the same, we regard it as involved in the disgrace of its ancestry by the very right by which it shares their glory and their power. Else we shall throw everything into the river of Heracleitus, into which, he says, no one can enter twice, because changing nature is transposing and altering all things.

16. But if a city is one continuous entity, equally so is a race that springs from one original stock and carries along with it certain common tendencies derived from that stock; and that which is born is not, like a manufactured article, separated from him who produced it; for it exists from him, not merely by him, so that it possesses and bears within itself some part of him, which is properly the object of chastisement or of commendation. Not in mere sport I would say that it was more unjust for the Athenians to destroy the brazen statue of Cassander,[45:1] and for the people of Syracuse to cast beyond their borders the body of Dionysius,[45:2] than for the posterity of those men to suffer punishment. For there was nothing of the nature of Cassander in the statue, and the soul of Dionysius had already left the corpse; but in Nisaeus,[45:3] and Apollocrates,[45:4] and Antipater and Philip,[45:5] and equally in other sons of wicked parents, there was implanted, and remains continuously, the part of their parents that had the mastery over their lives, and in the children this is not quiescent or inactive, but they live by it, and are nourished by it, and order their conduct by it, and think as it prompts. Nor is it at all marvellous or absurd that, being the children of such men, they should possess their qualities. In fine, I would say that, as in the healing art, whatever is beneficial is therefore right, and as he would be ridiculous who should think it wrong in a case of hip-disease to cauterize the thumb, and when the liver is ulcerated to scarify the upper part of the abdomen, and when the hoofs of oxen are tender to anoint the tips of their horns,[46:1] equally is he ridiculous who thinks in the matter of punishment that anything else than the cure of wickedness is right, and who is vexed when the remedy is applied to some parts rather than to others, after the manner of those who open a vein to cure ophthalmia. Nor does such a person seem to look beyond the range of his bodily senses; nor does he bear it in mind that a teacher in whipping one boy admonishes all, and that a general in the capital punishment of one out of ten brings all the guilty men under his command back to their duty. In truth not only is one part of the body cured through another part, but there are certain dispositions of mind and conduct, equally those that are evil and those that tend to reformation, as to which soul is influenced by soul more than body is affected by body. For from body to body the same affection and the same change seem to be transmitted; while in the case under consideration the soul, through the influence of the imagination, becomes worse or better in a degree corresponding to the intensity of hope or fear.

17. While I was still speaking, Olympicus interrupted me, saying,—You seem to have, underlying this reasoning of yours, an hypothesis of prime importance,—the continued existence of the soul.

Yes, said I, inasmuch as you yourselves admit it, or rather did admit it; for the argument from the very beginning proceeded from the supposition that God deals with men according to their merits.

Olympicus replied,—Do you think that it follows from God’s dealing with us according to our merits, that souls are either absolutely incorruptible, or destined at least to continue in being for a certain period after death?[48:1]

I replied,—No, my good friend. God, forsooth, is so petty and so trifling,[48:2] that—as if we had nothing of the divine in us, nor anything closely resembling him, and stable and firm, but were, as Homer says, mere leaves, like those that wither and perish altogether—he makes such account of us as the women do of their gardens of Adonis,[48:3] which they tend and cultivate in earthen pots,—souls lasting for a day, blooming in a frail flesh that has no strong root of life, then at once extinguished by any casualty that may chance to occur. But if you choose, making no mention of other gods, look at this one of ours here, and say whether you suppose that he, knowing that the souls of the dying are instantly destroyed when they are exhaled from their bodies, like clouds or smoke-wreaths, should demand so many propitiations for those who die, and such tokens of great reverence and honor for the dead, thus deceiving and deluding those who believe in him. I therefore would not deny the continued existence of the soul, unless some one, like Hercules, should carry off the tripod of the Pythian priestess, and abolish and destroy the oracle. For while even down to our own time many such things are foretold by the oracle as are said to have been announced to Corax of Naxos,[49:1] it is unholy to deem the soul capable of dying.

Then Patrocleas said,—What was that prediction, and who was that Corax? Both the story and the name are unfamiliar to me.

By no means, said I; but I was to blame in using a by-name instead of the real name. For he who killed Archilochus in battle was named Calondas, as they say, and had Corax for a surname. He, having been first driven out of the temple by the Pythian priestess because he had killed a man sacred to the Muses, then employing prayers and entreaties with a statement of the case in his own justification, was ordered to go to the residence of Tettix,[50:1] in order to propitiate the soul of Archilochus. This place was Taenarus;[50:2] for there it is said that Tettix the Cretan arrived with a fleet, built a city, and established himself hard by the oracle of the dead. In like manner, the Spartans were ordered by the oracle to propitiate the soul of Pausanias, and they sent for necromancers from Italy, who by their sacrifices drove the apparition of Pausanias from the temple.[50:3]

18. There is then, said I, one course of reasoning which confirms equally the providence of God and the continued life of the human soul, and neither can remain credible if the other is taken away. But to the soul existing after death there is a stronger probability that rewards and punishments are rendered, than there is that they should be fully rendered in this life.[51:1] For during this life the soul is, like an athlete, in perpetual conflict; but when the conflict is over, then what the soul has deserved is allotted to it. Yet whatever favors or whatever chastisements the soul, being there by itself, receives, are of no concern to us living here, nay, they are disbelieved and they are out of the field of our knowledge; but these penalties that pass on through children and remoter posterity, being manifest to men living here, check and restrain many of the wicked. There is, indeed, no punishment more shameful or more sorrowful than for men to see their posterity suffering on their account. Were the soul of an impious and lawless man to behold after death, not his statues overthrown, or any honors that he had received cancelled, but his children, or friends, or kindred, or family, suffering great misfortunes and receiving punishment on his account, such a soul would not choose again to be depraved and profligate,—no, not even to obtain honors like those which belong to Zeus. To show this I have a story to tell, which I lately heard; but I hesitate, lest you may think it a myth, while I want to confine myself to what is reasonable.

Do not hesitate by any means, said Olympicus, but tell the story.

The others made the same request.

Then, said I, permit me to finish my reasoning, and afterward we will take up the myth, if indeed it be a myth.

19. Bion[52:1] says that God in punishing the children of the wicked is more ridiculous than a physician who should administer medicine to a grandson or a son for his grandfather’s or his father’s illness. But the two things are in some respects unlike, though in others alike and similar. It is true, indeed, that one person’s being medically treated does not remove another’s illness, nor is one who is suffering from ophthalmia or from fever relieved by seeing another person anointed or plastered; but the punishments of the wicked are inflicted in the sight of all, because it is the office of justice reasonably administered to restrain some by means of the penalties endured by others. But the point in which Bion’s comparison really applies to the subject under discussion escaped his discernment. When a man seized with a stubborn, but not necessarily incurable illness, yields up his body to the disease by intemperance and effeminacy, and dies in consequence, if his son, though not seeming to be ill, yet barely has a tendency to the same disease, his physician, or kinsman, or apothecary, or judicious master, putting him upon a rigid diet, taking from him stimulants, delicacies, strong drinks, and opportunities for sensual indulgence, employing medicaments continually, and disciplining his body by gymnastic exercises, excludes and expels the disease, not suffering the minute seed of a grievous bodily affection to grow into an appreciable magnitude. Do we not thus give our advice, thinking it fitting for the children of diseased fathers and mothers to take care of themselves, to be on their guard, and not to lose thought of their inherited liability to disease, but promptly taking the inborn malady in hand, to expel it at the beginning, while it is easily removed and has no fixed seat?

This is perfectly true, they say.

You grant then, I continue, that we do, not what is absurd, but what is necessary,—not what is ridiculous, but what is beneficial,—when we prescribe gymnastic exercises, diet, and medicine for the children of epileptics, or of hypochondriacs, or of sufferers from the gout, not because they are ill, but to prevent them from being ill. For a body born of a diseased body is deserving, not indeed of punishment, but of medical treatment and of vigilance, which if any one sees fit to call the punishment of timidity and feebleness, his opinion is of no account. If then it is worth our while to cherish and to preserve the body born of a diseased body, ought we to permit the congenital likeness of wickedness to spring up and come to growth in a young character, and to wait till, having its issue in vicious passions, it becomes openly manifest, and, as Pindar says, displays the malignant fruit of the inmost soul?

20. In this matter God in his wisdom does not even transcend the sentiment expressed by Hesiod,[54:1]

implying that not only wickedness or virtue, but sadness, and happiness, and all other properties whatsoever, are transmitted from parents, so that those who would be responsible for bringing children into the world should be cheerful, and sweet-tempered, and genial. However, it is not the result of Hesiod’s maxim nor the work of human wisdom, but of God, to discern and discriminate likenesses and differences, before they become conspicuous by men’s falling through the force of passion into great transgressions. The young of bears and wolves and monkeys, indeed, show at once their inborn disposition, without cover or concealment. But a man’s nature, conforming to customs, opinions, and laws, conceals what in it is evil, and often imitates the good, in such a way as either altogether to wipe off and get rid of the native plague-spot of wickedness, or else to keep it long concealed, craftily veiling itself and escaping our notice, so that we are scarcely aware of his depravity when assailed as with a blow or sting by successive instances of his wrong-doing,—imagining, as is our wont, that men become wholly unrighteous when they first perform an unrighteous act, or licentious when they first gratify lust unlawfully, or cowards when they first flee from danger,—a simplicity that may be compared to one’s thinking that the stings of scorpions grow when they first use them, or that the poison is generated in vipers at the moment when they bite. No bad man becomes and first appears bad at the same time; but one has the evil in him from the beginning, and puts it into practice, availing himself of opportunity and ability, the thief in stealing, the tyrant in exercising despotic rule. But God is not ignorant of any man’s disposition and nature, inasmuch as he discerns the soul even more than the body; nor does he wait to punish till violence has been committed by the hands, effrontery uttered by the voice, or lasciviousness actualized in fleshly deed. For he does not avenge himself on the wrong-doer as himself suffering wrong, nor is he angry with the robber as having been himself robbed, nor does he hate the adulterer as injured in his own honor; but he often punishes beforehand the adulterers, and the avaricious, and the unrighteous, to cure them, thus removing guilt, as physicians attempt to cure epilepsy, before the fit seizes the patient.

21. We were scandalized a little while ago because the punishment of the wicked is late and slow; yet now we equally call the Divine Providence in question, because for some it checks the vicious temperament and disposition before they become guilty; leaving it out of mind that the potential evil might be worse and more fearful than the crimes that are actually committed, and that which is concealed, than that which is in open view; and unable to comprehend the reasons why it is better to suffer some to do wrong, and to forestall others who are also evilly disposed,—just as medicines are unsuitable for some sick persons, while they are beneficial to some even who are not ill, yet in a more perilous condition than those who are. Nor do the gods visit all the transgressions of the fathers on the children; but if a good man is the son of a bad man, as one in sound health may be the son of an invalid, he is released from the penalty due to his race, as one taken by adoption out of a guilty family. But for a youth who becomes conformed to the likeness of a depraved race, it is certainly fitting that he should receive the punishment of guilt as a due heritage. On the other hand, Antigonus was not punished for the sins of Demetrius,[57:1] nor, to cite other cases of bad men, was Phyleus made to pay the penalty for Augeas,[57:2] nor Nestor for Neleus;[57:3] for they, though the children of bad men, were good men. But as for those whose nature loves and cherishes the inborn evil, justice has its course, pursuing with penalty the sinful likeness that is in them. Moreover, as the warts and birth-stains and freckles of fathers, not appearing in their own children, crop out again in the children of their sons and daughters; as a certain Greek woman, giving birth to a black child, when accused of adultery, discovered that she was descended in the fourth generation from an Aethiopian; as among the children of Pytho the Nisibian, said to belong to the Sparti,[58:1] the one who died lately bore the impress of a spear on his body,—a race-mark after so many ages rising and emerging as from the depths of the sea,—so not infrequently earlier generations conceal and merge ancestral habits and dispositions, while afterward and through later generations the inherited nature comes to flower, and reproduces the family tendency to vice or to virtue.[58:2]

22. After saying these things, I was silent. But Olympicus, smiling, said,—We are not ready to express our parting commendation of your reasoning, lest we may seem fully satisfied with your arguments, and lose the story. When we have heard that, we will pronounce our final sentence.

Then I spoke as follows:[59:1]—The Solian,[59:2] Thespesius, an associate and friend of that Protogenes who was here with us,[59:3] having led a very dissipated life in his youth, and in a short time squandering his property, for a while on account of his impoverished condition became desperately wicked, and, repenting of his wastefulness, sought in evil ways to become rich again, like those profligates who, when they have wives, do not keep them, but after divorcing them endeavor to corrupt them when they are married to other men. Abstaining from nothing vile that promised pleasure or profit, he got together in a short time a property by no means large, and the most ample reputation for depravity. But he was most widely known in connection with a certain response that was brought from the oracle of Amphilochus.[60:1] He sent thither, it is said, to ask the god whether he should be better off[60:2] for the rest of his life. The reply was that he would do better after he died. And this event in some sort happened to him not long afterward. Falling from a precipice and striking his neck on the ground, receiving no wound, but only a shock, he became as one dead, and the third day had already arrived for his funeral. But then, being suddenly aroused from his swoon and returning to himself, he made an incredible change in his manner of life; for the Cilicians know of no other person in his time more honest than he in keeping his engagements, more religiously devout, more resolutely hostile to his enemies,[60:3] or more loyal to his friends, so that those about him wanted to know the cause of the change, thinking that such a revolution in one’s habits could not have taken place by chance. And they were right, as he told his story to Protogenes and to other equally intimate friends. When his body became unconscious, the feeling at first was such as a pilot would have if he were hurled from his ship into the sea. Then, being somewhat recovered, he seemed to breathe with entire freedom, and to look round in every direction, as if his soul had been a single open eye. He saw nothing that he had ever seen before; but he beheld immensely large stars, at vast distances from one another, emitting a lustre marvellous in tint, and shooting forth rays, on which the soul was borne on the light as in a chariot, in perfect quietness, easily and swiftly.

But—omitting the greater part of what he saw—he said that the souls of the dying rose from beneath like fiery bubbles through the parted air. Then, the bubbles gradually bursting, they came forth, having a human form, but of diminutive size. But they did not move alike; for some sprang forth with wonderful agility, and mounted straight upward, while others, whirling round in a circle like spindles, tending now downward and then again upward, were borne with a complicated and confused movement that could hardly be arrested even in a very long time. He did not, indeed, know who many of these souls were; but seeing two or three whom he recognized, he tried to join them and talk with them. They, however, neither heard him, nor were in possession of their right mind; but, demented and shy, shrinking from sight and touch, they at first flitted round by themselves; then, meeting many souls in the same condition and mingling with them, they moved in all directions without aim or purpose, and gave utterance to inarticulate sounds like battle-cries mingled with strains of lamentation and terror. Others from above, in the zenith of the circumambient heavens, appeared refulgent, and often approached one another in a kindly way, yet avoiding those troubled souls; and they seemed to signify annoyance by shrinking within themselves, and pleasure and approval by the expansion and enlargement of the forms in which they moved.

Among these he said that he saw the soul of a kinsman of his, yet at first was not sure of his identity, as he himself was but a boy when this man died; but the soul, drawing near him, said, “Hail, Thespesius.” When he marvelled at this, and replied that his name was not Thespesius, but Aridaeus, the soul said, “It was Aridaeus, but from henceforth it is Thespesius;[62:1] for you are not yet dead; but by a certain allotment of the gods you come hither with your perceptive faculties, while you have left the rest of your soul, like an anchor, in your body. Let it be a token of this to you, both now and hereafter, that the souls of the dead neither cast a shadow nor wink.”[63:1]

Thespesius on hearing this became more self-collected in mind, and, taking a closer look, he saw that there moved along with him a certain dim and shadowy line, while those about him were surrounded with light, and transparent within. However, they were not all equally so. Some, indeed, like the clearest full moon, emitted continuously a uniform and unflickering light; but of the others, some had their bodies streaked with what looked like scales and flabby scourge-marks; some were very much discolored, and disgusting to the sight, like snakes branded all over with black spots; and others, still, had slight scars. The kinsman of Thespesius (for there is nothing to forbid one’s giving human titles to disembodied souls), explaining these appearances one by one, told him that Adrasteia, daughter of Necessity[63:2] and Zeus, holds the highest place of all, ordaining punishment for wrong-doings of every kind, and that of the guilty there was never either great or small that could escape her, whether by craft or by force. But a different mode of punishment is assigned to each of the three custodians and executive ministers that have the guilty in charge. The first of these, swift Poena,[64:1] takes in hand those who are punished at once while in the body and by means of their bodies, yet in a somewhat mild way, and passing over many things that need cleansing. Those the cure of whose guilt is a heavier task the Deity gives over after death to Dice.[64:2] But as for those whom she rejects as utterly incurable, Erinnys,[64:3] the third and sternest of Adrasteia’s subordinate ministers, chasing them as they wander and flee in different directions, removes them all from sight in misery and wretchedness, and plunges them into a destiny too horrible to be told or seen. Of the other chastisements, he compared that of Poena in the earthly life to certain modes of punishment practised by barbarians. For as among the Persians they strip off and beat the clothes and the turbans of those that are punished,[64:4] while the culprits beg with tears that the scourge may be laid aside,—so punishment by loss of wealth or by bodily suffering has not an intensely penetrating power, nor does it lay hold on the guilt in its own interior seat, but is inflicted generally for appearance’s sake, and to make an impression on the bodily senses.[65:1] But him who comes hither from these punishments uncorrected and uncleansed Dice takes in hand, open and naked as he is in soul, having nothing whereby to conceal or hide or cover his depravity, but beheld in every direction and by all and in his entire selfhood, and shows him first to his good parents, if good they are, as being despicable to his progenitors and unworthy of them. If they too are bad, he, seeing them punished, and being seen by them, is released only after having long expiated every one of his crimes by pains and sufferings which in magnitude and severity exceed those which come through the body alone, as much as reality is more substantial than a dream. But the scars and scourge-marks after punishment remain in some more conspicuous; in others, less so. “See,” said he, “those motley colors of every kind in the souls,—that dark and squalid dye, the pigment of meanness and avarice,—that blood-red and fiery hue, of cruelty and bitterness; where there is a bluish tint, intemperate indulgence in sensual pleasure has as yet hardly been rubbed off; while the malevolence that is united with envy discharges that violet-colored and ulcerous secretion, as the cuttle-fish emits his ink. For, as on the earth the wickedness of the soul controlled by the passions, while the soul controls the body, produces certain shades of complexion, so here such tints mark the last stage of the process of cleansing and correction, by which, the evil affections being altogether expelled, the soul becomes of clear complexion and of a uniform color. But so long as these evil affections remain in a man, certain revivals of the passions take place, accompanied by palpitation and excitement, in some souls slight and soon quenched, in others intensely strong. Of these last some, punished again and again, at length attain a suitable habit and disposition; but others by the force of ignorance and the fascination of sensual pleasure are carried back earthward into the bodies of beasts. For they are inclined to seek this new and lower birth by the predominance of the physical tendency, while reason is feeble, and their mental vision dull. Having in their spiritual state no longer the organs requisite for vicious indulgence, they still crave to satisfy their desires by sensual pleasure, and to give them full play by means of a body.[66:1] Here, indeed, there is nothing but a certain fruitless shadow and dream of sensual pleasure which has no realization.”

When the friend of Thespesius had thus spoken, he led him rapidly to a certain place that appeared immense, toward which he moved directly and easily, transported on light-beams as on wings,—until, coming to a large and deep cavern, he was deserted by the force that had borne him, and he saw other souls there in a like condition. Clustering together like birds, they flew round the chasm in a circle, but did not dare to cross it. Within, it resembled the caves of Bacchus,[67:1] like them diversified with boughs of trees, and living green, and flowers of every hue; and it exhaled a soft and mild breeze, wafting up odors of wonderful sweetness, and producing an effect similar to that which wine has on those who drink it freely. The souls filled with these sweet perfumes were dissolved in mirth, and kept embracing one another, and jollity and laughter, and every Muse of sport and gladness, had possession of the place all around. The spirit said that by this opening Dionysus[67:2] went up to the gods, and afterward led Semele up by the same way, and that the place is called Lethe.[68:1] He did not suffer Thespesius to remain there, though he wanted to stay, but took him away by force, teaching him at the same time, and telling him how the mind is melted and soaked by sensual pleasure, while the unreasoning and body-like part of the soul, being thus nourished and made fleshly, calls up the remembrance of the body, and from that remembrance wakes a desire and longing that draw it toward another birth, or genesis,[68:2] which is so called as being an inclination toward the earth in the soul that is thus weighed down and water-logged. Then, passing in another direction by as long a route as that previously traversed, Thespesius seemed to see from afar a vast basin, and rivers pouring into it, one whiter than the sea-foam or snow, another purple like that which Iris paints on the rainbow, others still with various tints, which, as beheld from a distance, had each its own peculiar lustre. But when he drew near, the circumambient air being more rarefied and the colors fading, the basin lost all of its surpassing beauty except its whiteness. He then saw three daemons sitting together in a triangle, mixing the rivers with one another in certain proportions.

The spirit-guide of Thespesius told him, that Orpheus advanced thus far when he was seeking his wife’s soul, and, failing in memory, carried back to men a false report that there was in Delphi an oracle that was the common property of Apollo and Night, while in fact Night has nothing in common with Apollo. “But the oracle here,” said the spirit, “is common to Night and the Moon, having no earthly limits, but wandering everywhere among men in visions and spectres. From this are dispersed dreams, mingled, as you see, blending the simple and the true with the false and the grotesque. But you do not see,” said he, “the oracle of Apollo, nor can you see it; for the earthly part of your soul cannot release or loose itself for an upward flight, but tends downward as not yet wholly undetached from the body.” At the same time, his guide, leading him on, attempted to show him the tripod, shining upon Parnassus through the bosom of Themis;[69:1] yet, though he wanted to see it, he could get no distinct view of it because of its intense brilliancy. But, in passing, he heard the shrill voice of a woman, uttering in rhythm among other things what sounded to him like the prediction of the time of his own death. The spirit said that it was the voice of a Sibyl,[69:2] who, borne round on the face of the moon, sang of things to come. Then he, while he wished to hear more, was forcibly driven, as on successive eddies, in a direction opposite to that in which the moon was rushing on her course. But among the predictions which he caught in passing was one about Vesuvius,[70:1] and about the destruction of Dicaearchia[70:2] by fire, and also a scrap of verse about the then reigning Emperor,[70:3]—