The Portable Plato (77 page)
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Authors: Plato,
Tags: #Philosophy, #History & Surveys, #Ancient & Classical, #History, #Ancient, #Greece
And according to the report of the messenger from the other world this was what the prophet said at the time: “Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence. Let not him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last despair.” And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny; his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet; for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy. And it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims who came from earth having themselves suffered and seen others suffer were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this world dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, and had.been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger reported, be happy here, and also his journey to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, he said, was the spectacle—sad and laughable and strange; for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to be born of a woman because they had been his murderers; he beheld also the soul of Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale; birds, on the other hand, like the swan and other musicians, wanting to be men. The soul which obtained the twentieth
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lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done him in the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated human nature by reason of his sufferings.About the middle came the lot of Atalanta; she, seeing the great fame of an athlete, was unable to resist the temptation: and after her there followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a woman cunning in the arts; and far away among the last who chose, the soul of the jester Thersites was putting on the form of a monkey. There came also the soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the last of them all. Now the recollection of former toils had disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a private man who had no cares; he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else; and when he saw it, he said that he would have done the same had his lot been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it. And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one another and into corresponding human natures—the good into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations.
All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice: this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the threads and made them ir. reversible, whence without turning round they passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure; and then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there was a thunder-storm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were driven upwards in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what means he returned to the body he could not say; only, in the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre.
And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and has not perished, and will save us if we are obedient to the word spoken; and we shall pass safely over the river of Forgetfulness and our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing.
Translated by A. J. Murray. Loeb Classical Library.
Iliad xxiv. 348·
Cp. Rep. x., p. 666.
Odyssey xi. 601 foll.
Ib. xi. 582.
Borrowed by Milton, Paradise Lost, viii. 2, 3.
Reading sµiv.
Iliad xxi. 308.
Works and Days 264 foll.
Reading φɩλεiν καì έπαɩνεɩν καì φíλoυ τiυí
κ.τ.λ.
Il. x. 224.
Probably a play of words on φαλαρòs “bald-headed.”
Iliad ii. 408, and xvii. 588.
Ib. x. 224.
Cp. Prot., p. 97.
Cp. Rep. v., p. 484.
Cp. Arist. Politics, v. 11, S 15.
Cp. Arist. Pol. ii. 4, § 6.
Cp. Arist. Pol. ii. 2, § 3.
A fragment of the Sthenoboea of Euripides.
Odyssey, λ. 632.
Eurip. Hyppolytus, 1. 622.
Cp. Plato, I. Alcibiades.
Cp. Plato, Gorgias.
Supra p. 150.
“Will you have a very drunken man?” etc., a few lines above.
From Pope’s Homer, Iliad xi. 514.
Cp. Arist. Pol. viii. 5, § 16.
In allusion to the two proverbs,
olvos κ
αi παiδες
άληθεiς
, and
olvos καi ăλnθεɩα.
Cp. supra p. 125.
Aristoph. Clouds, 362.
Cp. Gorg.
But cp. Rep. x., p. 682.
Cp. Plato, Meno.
Cp. Plato, Apology.
Cp Milton, Comus, 463 foll.:—
“But when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose,
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave,
As loath to leave the body that it lov’d,
And linked itself by carnal sensuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.”
Cp. Rep. x., pp. 693-94.
Cp. Revelation, esp. c. xxi. v. 18 ff.
Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.
Reading φυλξασθα
καi
λαθεiν, ouτoς,
κ.τ.λ.
Reading Γγη
τ
Kρoiσoυ τou Δυδou
πρoγδνw.
Seven against Thebes, 574.
Hesiod, Works and Days, 230.
Homer, Odyssey xix. 109.
Eumolpus.
Hesiod, Works and Days, 287.
Homer, Iliad ix. 493.
Placing the comma after
γpavσl,
and not after γiγoµένoiς.
Il. XXIV. 527.
Il. ii. 69.
Ib. xx.
Od. xvii- 485.
Omitting κατά Øαντασíας.
From a lost play.
Od. ix. 489.
II. xx. 64.
Ib. xxiii. 103.
Od. x. 495.
Il. xvi. 856.
lb. xxiii. 100.
Od. xxiv. 6.
Il. xxiv. 10.
Ib. xviii. 23.
Ib. xxii. 414.
Ib. xviii. 54.
Il. xxii. 168.
Ib. xvi. 433.
Il. i. 599.
Od. xvii. 383 sq.
Or, “if his words are accompanied by actions.”
Il. iv. 412.
Od. iii. 8.
Ib. iv. 431.
Ib. i. 225.
Od. ix. 8.
Ib. xii. 342.
Il. xiv. 342.
Od. viii. 266
Od. xx. 17.
Quoted by Suidas as attribute to Hesiod.
Il. ix. 515.
Ib. xxiv. 175.
Cp. infra x., p. 658
Il. xxii. 15 sq.
Il xxi. 130, 223 sq.
Ib. xxiii. 151.
Ib. xxii. 394
Ib xxiii. 175
From the Niobe of Acschylus.
i. e., the four notes of the tetrachord.
Socrates expresses himself carelessly in accordance with his assumed ignorance of the details of the subject. In the first part of the sentence he appears to be speaking of paconic rhythms which are in the ratio of
; in the second part, of dactylic and anapaestic rhythms, which are in the ratio of
; in the last clause, of iambic and trochaic rhythms, which are in the ratio of
or
.