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Plato - Myth of Er

Plato - ER’s Myth – Republic (10.614-621)¹

sources: https://eurosis.org/cms/files/projects/Plato_Republic_HB.pdf 

also: http://www.ldysinger.com/@texts/0-03_plato/03_myth_er.htm

[613d]… all that you said of the unjust? For I am going to say that the just, when they become older, hold the offices in their own city if they choose, marry from what families they will, and give their children in marriage to what families they please, and everything that you said of the one I now repeat of the other; and in turn I will say of the unjust that the most of them, even if they escape detection in youth, at the end of their course are caught and derided, and their old age is made miserable by the contumelies of strangers and townsfolk. [613e] They are lashed and suffer all things2 which you truly said are unfit for ears polite.3 Suppose yourself to have heard from me a repetition of all that they suffer. But, as I say, consider whether you will bear with me.” “Assuredly,” he said, “for what you say is just.”

“Such then while he lives are the prizes, the wages, and the gifts [614a] that the just man receives from gods and men in addition to those blessings which justice herself bestowed.” “And right fair and abiding rewards,” he said. “Well, these,” I said, “are nothing in number and magnitude compared with those that await both4 after death. And we must listen to the tale of them,” said I, “in order that each may have received in full2 what is due to be said of him by our argument.” “Tell me,” he said, [614b] “since there are not many things to which I would more gladly listen.” “It is not, let me tell you,” said I, “the tale5 to Alcinous told6 that I shall unfold, but the tale of a warrior bold,7 Er, the son of Armenius, by race a Pamphylian8 . He once upon a time was slain in battle, and when the corpses were taken up on the tenth day already decayed, was found intact, and having been brought home, at the moment of his funeral, on the twelfth day9 as he lay upon the pyre, revived,10 and after coming to life related what, he said, he had seen in the world beyond. He said that when his soul went forth from his body he journeyed with a great company [614c] and that they came to a mysterious region11 where there were two openings side by side in the earth, and above and over against them in the heaven two others, and that judges were sitting12 between these, and that after every judgement they bade the righteous journey to the right and upwards through the heaven with tokens attached13 to them in front of the judgement passed upon them, and the unjust to take the road to the left14 and downward, they too wearing behind signs [614d] of all that had befallen them, and that when he himself drew near they told him that he must be the messenger15 to mankind to tell them of that other world,16 and they charged him to give ear and to observe everything in the place. And so he said that here he saw, by each opening of heaven and earth, the souls departing after judgement had been passed upon them, while, by the other pair of openings, there came up from the one in the earth souls full of squalor and 2 dust, and from the second there came down from heaven a second procession of souls clean and pure, [614e] and that those which arrived from time to time appeared to have come as it were from a long journey and gladly departed to the meadow17 and encamped18 there as at a festival19, and acquaintances greeted one another, and those which came from the earth questioned the others about conditions up yonder, and those from heaven asked how it fared with those others. And they told their stories to one another, the one lamenting [615a] and wailing as they recalled how many and how dreadful things they had suffered and seen in their journey beneath the earth20 - it lasted a thousand years21 --while those from heaven related their delights and visions of a beauty beyond words. To tell it all, Glaucon, would take all our time, but the sum, he said, was this. For all the wrongs they had ever done to anyone and all whom they had severally wronged they had paid the penalty in turn tenfold for each, and the measure of this was by periods of a hundred years each22 [615b] so that on the assumption that this was the length of human life the punishment might be ten times the crime; as for example that if anyone had been the cause of many deaths or had betrayed cities and armies and reduced them to slavery, or had been participant in any other iniquity, they might receive in requital pains tenfold for each of these wrongs, and again if any had done deeds of kindness and been just [615c] and holy men they might receive their due reward in the same measure; and other things not worthy of record he said of those who had just been born23 and lived but a short time; and he had still greater requitals to tell of piety and impiety towards the gods and parents24 and of self-slaughter. For he said that he stood by when one was questioned by another ‘Where is Ardiaeus25 the Great?’ Now this Ardiaeos had been tyrant in a certain city of Pamphylia just a thousand years before that time and had put to death his old father [615d] and his elder brother, and had done many other unholy deeds, as was the report. So he said that the one questioned replied, ‘He has not come,’ said he, ‘nor will he be likely to come here.

“‘For indeed this was one of the dreadful sights we beheld; when we were near the mouth and about to issue forth and all our other sufferings were ended, we suddenly caught sight of him and of others, the most of them, I may say, tyrants26. But there were some [615e] of private station, of those who had committed great crimes. And when these supposed that at last they were about to go up and out, the mouth would not receive them, but it bellowed when anyone of the incurably wicked27 or of those who had not completed their punishment tried to come up. And thereupon,’ he said, ‘savage men of fiery aspect28 who stood by and took note of the voice laid hold on them29 and bore them away. But Ardiaeus [616a] and others they bound hand and foot and head and flung down and flayed them and dragged them by the 3 wayside, carding them on thorns and signifying to those who from time to time passed by for what cause they were borne away, and that they were to be hurled into Tartarus30. And then, though many and manifold dread things had befallen them, this fear exceeded all - lest each one should hear the voice when he tried to go up, and each went up most gladly when it had kept silence. And the judgments and penalties were somewhat after this manner, [616b] and the blessings were their counterparts. But when seven days had elapsed for each group in the meadow, they were required to rise up on the eighth and journey on, and they came in four days to a spot whence they discerned, extended from above throughout the heaven and the earth, a straight light like a pillar, most nearly resembling the rainbow, but brighter and purer. To this they came [616c] after going forward a day's journey, and they saw there at the middle of the light the extremities of its fastenings stretched from heaven; for this light was the girdle of the heavens like the undergirders31 of triremes, holding together in like manner the entire revolving vault. And from the extremities was stretched the spindle of Necessity32 , through which all the orbits turned. Its staff and its hook were made of adamant, and the whorl of these and other kinds was commingled. And the nature of the whorl was this: [616d] Its shape was that of those in our world, but from his description we must conceive it to be as if in one great whorl, hollow and scooped out, there lay enclosed, right through, another like it but smaller, fitting into it as boxes that fit into one another33, and in like manner another, a third, and a fourth, and four others, for there were eight of the whorls in all, lying within one another, [616e] showing their rims as circles from above and forming the continuous back of a single whorl about the shaft, which was driven home through the middle of the eighth. Now the first and outmost whorl had the broadest circular rim, that of the sixth was second, and third was that of the fourth, and fourth was that of the eighth, fifth that of the seventh, sixth that of the fifth, seventh that of the third, eighth that of the second; and that of the greatest was spangled, that of the seventh brightest, that of the eighth [617a] took its color from the seventh, which shone upon it. The colors of the second and fifth were like one another and more yellow than the two former. The third had the whitest color, and the fourth was of a slightly ruddy hue; the sixth was second in whiteness. The staff turned as a whole in a circle with the same movement, but within the whole as it revolved the seven inner circles revolved gently in the opposite direction to the whole34, and of these seven the eighth moved most swiftly, [617b] and next and together with one another the seventh, sixth and fifth; and third in swiftness, as it appeared to them, moved the fourth with returns upon itself, and fourth the third and fifth the second. And the spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and up above on each of the rims of the circles a Siren stood, borne around in its revolution and uttering one 4 sound, one note, and from all the eight there was the concord of a single harmony35 . And there were another three [617c] who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Fates36 , 1 daughters of Necessity, clad in white vestments with filleted heads, Lachesis, and Clotho, and Atropos, who sang in unison with the music of the Sirens, Lachesis singing the things that were, Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be. And Clotho with the touch of her right hand helped to turn the outer circumference of the spindle, pausing from time to time. Atropos with her left hand in like manner helped to turn the inner circles, and Lachesis [617d] alternately with either hand lent a hand to each. “Now when they arrived they were straight-way bidden to go before Lachesis, and then a certain prophet37 first marshalled them in orderly intervals, and thereupon took from the lap of Lachesis lots and patterns of lives and went up to a lofty platform and spoke, ‘This is the word of Lachesis, the maiden daughter of Necessity, “Souls that live for a day38 , now is the beginning of another cycle of mortal generation where birth is the beacon of death. [617e] No divinity39 shall cast lots for you, but you shall choose your own deity. Let him to whom falls the first lot first select a life to which he shall cleave of necessity. But virtue has no master over her40, and each shall have more or less of her as he honors her or does her despite. The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless41. “’ So saying, the prophet flung the lots out among them all, and each took up the lot that fell by his side, except himself; him they did not permit42. And whoever took up a lot saw plainly what number he had drawn. [618a] And after this again the prophet placed the patterns of lives before them on the ground, far more numerous than the assembly. They were of every variety, for there were lives of all kinds of animals and all sorts of human lives, for there were tyrannies among them, some uninterrupted till the end43 and others destroyed midway and issuing in penuries and exiles and beggaries; and there were lives of men of repute for their forms and beauty and bodily strength otherwise [618b] and prowess and the high birth and the virtues of their ancestors, and others of ill repute in the same things, and similarly of women. But there was no determination of the quality of soul, because the choice of a different life inevitably44 determined a different character. But all other things were commingled with one another and with wealth and poverty and sickness and health and the intermediate45 conditions. - And there, dear Glaucon, it appears, is the supreme hazard46 for a man. [618c] And this is the chief reason why it should be our main concern that each of us, neglecting all other studies, should seek after and study this thing47 - if in any way he may be able to learn of and discover the man who will give him the ability and the knowledge to distinguish the life that is good from that which is bad, and always and everywhere to choose the best that the conditions allow, and, taking into account all the things of which we have 5 spoken and estimating the effect on the goodness of his life of their conjunction or their severance, to know how beauty commingled with poverty or wealth and combined with [618d] what habit of soul operates for good or for evil, and what are the effects of high and low birth and private station and office and strength and weakness and quickness of apprehension and dullness and all similar natural and acquired habits of the soul, when blended and combined with one another48, so that with consideration of all these things he will be able to make a reasoned choice between the better and the worse life, [618e] with his eyes fixed on the nature of his soul, naming the worse life that which will tend to make it more unjust and the better that which will make it more just. But all other considerations he will dismiss, for we have seen that this is the best choice, [619a] both for life and death. And a man must take with him to the house of death an adamantine49 faith in this, that even there he may be undazzled⁵⁰ by riches and similar trumpery, and may not precipitate himself into tyrannies and similar doings and so work many evils past cure and suffer still greater himself, but may know how always to choose in such things the life that is seated in the mean51 and shun the excess in either direction, both in this world so far as may be and in all the life to come; [619b] for this is the greatest happiness for man.

“And at that time also the messenger from that other world reported that the prophet spoke thus: ‘Even for him who comes forward last, if he make his choice wisely and live strenuously, there is reserved an acceptable life, no evil one. Let not the foremost in the choice be heedless nor the last be discouraged.’ When the prophet had thus spoken he said that the drawer of the first lot at once sprang to seize the greatest tyranny52, and that in his folly and greed he chose it [619c] without sufficient examination, and failed to observe that it involved the fate of eating his own children, and other horrors, and that when he inspected it at leisure he beat his breast and bewailed his choice, not abiding by the forewarning of the prophet. For he did not blame himself53 for his woes, but fortune and the gods and anything except himself. He was one of those who had come down from heaven, a man who had lived in a well-ordered polity in his former existence, [619d] participating in virtue by habit54 and not by philosophy; and one may perhaps say that a majority of those who were thus caught were of the company that had come from heaven, inasmuch as they were unexercised in suffering. But the most of those who came up from the earth, since they had themselves suffered and seen the sufferings of others, did not make their choice precipitately. For which reason also there was an interchange of good and evil for most of the souls, as well as because of the chances of the lot. Yet if at each return to the life of this world [619e] a man loved wisdom sanely, and the lot of his choice did not fall out among the last, we may venture to affirm, from what was reported 6 thence, that not only will he be happy here but that the path of his journey thither and the return to this world will not be underground and rough but smooth and through the heavens. For he said that it was a sight worth seeing to observe how the several souls selected their lives.

[620a] He said it was a strange, pitiful, and ridiculous spectacle, as the choice was determined for the most part by the habits of their former lives55. He saw the soul that had been Orpheus’, he said, selecting the life of a swan56, because from hatred of the tribe of women, owing to his death at their hands, it was unwilling to be conceived and born of a woman. He saw the soul of Thamyras57 choosing the life of a nightingale; and he saw a swan changing to the choice of the life of man, and similarly other musical animals. [620b] The soul that drew the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion; it was the soul of Ajax, the son of Telamon, which, because it remembered the adjudication of the arms of Achilles, was unwilling to become a man. The next, the soul of Agamemnon, likewise from hatred of the human race because of its sufferings, substituted the life of an eagle58. Drawing one of the middle lots the soul of Atalanta caught sight of the great honors attached to an athlete's life and could not pass them by but snatched at them.

[620c] After her, he said, he saw the soul of Epeius59, the son of Panopeus, entering into the nature of an arts and crafts woman. Far off in the rear he saw the soul of the buffoon Thersites60 clothing itself in the body of an ape. And it fell out that the soul of Odysseus drew the last lot of all and came to make its choice, and, from memory of its former toils having flung away ambition, went about for a long time in quest of the life of an ordinary citizen who minded his own business61, and with difficulty found it lying in some corner disregarded by the others, [620d] and upon seeing it said that it would have done the same had it drawn the first lot, and chose it gladly. And in like manner, of the other beasts some entered into men62 and into one another, the unjust into wild creatures, the just transformed to tame, and there was every kind of mixture and combination. But when, to conclude, all the souls had chosen their lives in the order of their lots, they were marshalled and went before Lachesis. And she sent with each, [620e] as the guardian of his life and the fulfiller of his choice, the genius63 that he had chosen, and this divinity led the soul first to Clotho, under her hand and her turning64 of the spindle to ratify the destiny of his lot and choice; and after contact with her the genius again led the soul to the spinning of Atropos65 to make the web of its destiny66 irreversible, and then without a backward look it passed beneath the throne of Necessity.

[621a] And after it had passed through that, when the others also had passed, they all journeyed to the Plain of Oblivion67 , through a terrible and stifling heat, for it was bare of trees 7 and all plants, and there they camped at eventide by the River of Forgetfulness68, whose waters no vessel can contain. They were all required to drink a measure of the water, and those who were not saved by their good sense drank more than the measure, and each one as he drank forgot all things. [621b] And after they had fallen asleep and it was the middle of the night, there was a sound of thunder and a quaking of the earth, and they were suddenly wafted thence, one this way, one that, upward to their birth like shooting stars69. Er himself, he said, was not allowed to drink of the water, yet how and in what way he returned to the body he said he did not know, but suddenly recovering his sight⁷⁰ he saw himself at dawn lying on the funeral pyre. - And so, Glaucon, the tale was saved⁷¹, as the saying is, and was not lost. [621c] And it will save us⁷² if we believe it, and we shall safely cross the River of Lethe, and keep our soul unspotted from the world⁷³. But if we are guided by me we shall believe that the soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil, and so we shall hold ever to the upward way and pursue righteousness with wisdom always and ever, that we may be dear to ourselves⁷⁴ and to the gods both during our sojourn here and when we receive our reward, [621d] as the victors in the games⁷⁵ go about to gather in theirs. And thus both here and in that journey of a thousand years, whereof I have told you, we shall fare well⁷⁶ . 8

References

1 Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969. pp. Perseus - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Rep.+10.595a

2 He turns the tables here as in Gorg. 527 A. The late punishment of the wicked became an ethical commonplace. Cf. Plutarch's De sera numinis vindicta 1, also Job and Psalms passim.

3 Cf. 361 Eagroikoterôs, and Gorg. 473 C.

4 i.e. the just and unjust man.

5 See Proclus, In Remp.,Kroll ii. 96 ff., Macrob. in Somnium Scip. i. 2. The Epicurean Colotes highly disapproved of Plato's method of putting his beliefs in this form. See Chassang, Histoire du roman, p. 15. See also Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 114 ff., and Adam ad loc.

6 Odyssey ix.-xii. The term also became proverbial for a lengthy tale. See K. Tümpel, Alkinou apologos, Philologus 52. 523 ff.

7 Plato puns on the name Alcinous. For other puns on proper names see on 580 B. See Arthur Platt, “Plato's Republic, 614 B,” CIass. Review, 1911, pp. 13-14. For the alla men without a corresponding de he compares Aristoph.Acharn. 428ou Bellerophontês: alla kakeinos men ê chôlos . . .(which Blaydes changed to alla mên), Odyssey xv. 405 and Eryxias 308 B.

8 Perhaps we might say, “of the tribe of Everyman.” For the question of his identity see Platt, loc. cit.

9 Thomas Browne, Urn Burial, ch. iii., “Plato's historian of the other world lies twelve days incorrupted, while his soul was viewing the large stations of the dead,” See also Rohde, Psyche ii.6 pp. 92-93.

10 Stories of persons restored to life are fairly common in ancient literature. There are Eurydice and Alcestis in Greek mythology, in the Old Testament the son of the widow revived by Elijah (1Kings xvii. 17 ff. Cf. 2 Kings iv. 34 ff. and xiii. 21), in the New Testament the daughter of Jairus (Matt. ix. 23 f.), the son of the widow of Nain (Luke vii. 11 ff.), and Lazarus(John xi.). but none of these recount their adventures. Cf. also Luke xvi. 31 “If they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded through one rose from the dead.” But in that very parable Lazarus is shown in Abraham's bosom and the rich man in torment. See further, Proclus, In Remp. ii. pp. 113-116, Rohde, Psyche ii.6 p. 191.

11 For the description of the place of judgement cf. also Gorg. 524 A. Cf. Phaedo 107 D, 113 D, where there is no description but simply the statement that the souls are brought to a place and judged. On the topography of the myth in general cf. Bréhier, La Philos. de Plot. pp. 28-29: “Voyez, par exemple, la manière dont Numénius . . . interprète le mythe du Xe livre de Ia République, et comment il précise, avec Ia lourdeur d'un théologien, les traits que la poésie de Platon avait abandonnés à l'imagination du lecteur. Le lieu du jugement devient le centre du monde; le ciel platonicien devient Ia sphère des fixes; le ‘lieu sonterrain’ où sont punies les âmes, ce sont les planètes; la ‘bouche du ciel,’ par laquelle les âmes descendront à la naissance, est le tropique du Cancer; et c'est par le Capricorne qu'elles remontent.”

12 Cf. Gorg. 523 E f., 524 E-525 B, 526 B-C.

13 Gorg. 526 B.

14 Cf. Gorg. 525 A-B, 526 B. For “right” and “left” cf. the story of the last judgement, Matt. xxv. 33-34 and 41.

15 Cf. the rich man's request that a messenger be sent to his brethren, Luke xvi. 27-31.

16 ekei: so in 330 D, 365 A, 498 C, Phaedo 61 E, 64 A, 67 B, 68 E, Apol. 40 E, 41 C, Crito 54 B, Symp. 192 E. In 500 D and Phaedr. 250 A it refers to the world of the ideas, in 516 C and 520 C to the world of the cave.

17 Cf. Gorg. 524 A.

18 Cf. 621 A, 610 E, and John i. 14eskênôsen.

19 Cf. 421 B.

20 Cf. Phaedr. 256 D, Epist. vii. 335 B-C. 9

21 Phaedr. 249 A, Virgil, Aen. vi. 748.

22 The ideal Hindu length of life is said to be 100 years.

23 For the words Cf. Tim. 76 Eeuthus gignomenois. Plato does not take up the problem of infant damnation! Warburton says, “and I make no doubt but the things not worth to be remembered was the doctrine of infants in purgatory, which appears to have given Plato much scandal, who did not at that time at least reflect upon its original and use.” See also Mozley, Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 307, apud Seebohm.The Oxford Reformers(3rd ed.), p. 495: “Augustine had laid down that the punishment of such children was the mildest of all punishment in hell. . . . Aquinas laid down the further hypothesis that this punishment was not pain of body or mind, but want of the Divine vision.” Virgil, Aen. vi. 427, Anth. Pal. ix. 359. 10 thanein autika tiktomenon. Stallbaum and Ast think apothanontôn dropped out of the text after genomenôn. 24 Cf. Phaedo 113 E-114 A, where there is a special penalty for murderers and parricides. 25 Cf. Archelaus in Gorg. 471. 26 Cf. Gorg. 525 D-526 A. 27 Cf. Gorg. 525 C, and What Plato Said, p. 536, on Phaedo 113 E. Biggs, Christian Platonists, ii. p. 147 “At the first assize there will be found those who like Ardiaeus are incurable.” 28 This naturally suggests the devils, of Dante (Inferno xxi. 25 ff.) and other mediaeval literature. See Dieterich, Nekyia, p.4 and pp. 60 f. 29 See Rogers on Aristoph. Knights 262. Cf. Herod. i. 92epi knaphou helkôn diephtheire.

30 Il. viii. 13 f., Hesiod, Theog. 682, 721, etc., Pind.Pyth. i. 15 f., Eurip. Orest. 265 meson m' ochmazeis hôs balêis eis Tartaron. 31 Cf. Blaydes on Aristoph. Knights 279, Acts xxvii. 17. 32 Plotinus, Enn. ii. 3 9, p. 35, vol. ii. Budé e. “Mais (dira-t-on) rappelons-nous ‘le fuseau’; pour les anciens, c’était un fuseau matériel que tournent en filant les Moires; pour Platon, il représente le ciel des fixes; or les Moires et la Nécessité, leur mère, en le faisant tourner, filent le destin de chaque être à sa naissance; par elle, les êtres engendrés arrivent â la naissance,” etc. St. Paulinus Nolanus calls it a deliramentum. Tannery, Science hellène, p. 238, thinks it alludes to the system of Parmenides. “Le fuseau central de la Nécessité l'indique suffisamment; si la présence des sirènes est une marque de pythagorisme, elle pent seulement signifier soit les relations de Parménide avec l’école soit plutôt l'origine des déterminations particulières que donne Platon et qui évidemment ne remontent pas à l’Eléate.” Cf. ibid. p. 246. For various details of the picture cf. Milton, the Genius's speech in “Arcades” (quoted and commented on in E.M.W. Tillyard, Milton, p. 376). 33 Cf. Burnet, Early Greek Philos. pp. 216-217 “In Plato's Myth of Er, which is certainly Pythagorean in its general character, we do not hear of spheres but of the ‘lips’ of concentric whorls fitted into one another like a nest of boxes . . . “ With 616-617 Cf. Laws 822 A-B, Tim. 36 D, Dante, Convivio, ii. 3. 5 ff. The names of the planets occur first in Epinomis 987 B-C. 34 Burnet, op. cit. p. 123, says; “This view that the planets had an orbital motion from west to east is attributed by Aetios ii. 16. 3 to Alkmaion (96), which certainly implies that Pythagoras did not hold it. As we shall see (152) it is far from clear that any of the Pythagoreans did. It seems rather to be Plato's discovery.” Cf. ibid. p. 352. 35 The music of the spheres. Cf. Cic.De nat. deor. iii. 9. 26, Mayor, vol. iii. p. 86, Macrob. on Somn. Scip. ii. 3, Ritter-Preller (9th ed.), pp. 69-70 ( 81-82), K. Gronau, Poseidonios und die jüdisch-christliche Genesisexegese, pp. 59-61. Aristotle's comment, De caelo 290 b 12 ff., is that the notion of a music of the spheres is pretty and ingenious, but not true. He reports the (Pythagorean?) explanation that we do not hear it because we have been accustomed to it from birth. see Carl v. Jan, “Die Harmonie der Sphären,”Philologus, lii. 13 ff. 36 Pictured in Michelangelo's Le Parche. Cf. Catullus 64. 306 ff.; Lowell, “Villa Franca”: “Spin, Clotho, spin, Lachesis twist and Atropos sever.” 37 See What Plato Said, p. 550, on Phaedr. 235 C. 10 38 Cf. Laws 923 A, Pindar, Pyth. viii. 95, Aesch.Prom. 83, 547, Aristot.Hist. an. 552 b 18 f., Cic.Tusc. i. 39. 94, Plut.Cons. ad Apol. 6 (104 A)anthrôpôn . . . ephêmera ta sômata, ibid. 27 (115 D)ephêmeron sperma. See also Stallbaum ad loc., and for the thought Soph. Ajax 125-126, Iliad i. 146, Mimnermus ii. 1, Soph.fr. 12 and 859 (Nauck), Job vii. 6, viii. 9, ix. 25, xiv. 2, xxi. 17, etc. 39 Zeller-Nestle, p. 166, says that this looks like intentional correction of Phaedo 107 D. Cf. Phaedo 113 D and Lysias ii. 78 ho te daimôn ho tên hêmeteran moiran eilêchôs aparaitêtos. Arnobius, Adversus gentes, ii. 64, says that similarly Christ offers us redemption but does not force it upon us. 40 Cf. Milton's “Love Virtue; she alone is free” (Comus). 41 Justin Martyr. Apol. xliv. 8, quotes this. Cf. Tim. 42 D, Dieterich, Nekyia, p. 115, Odyssey i. 32 f., Bacchylides xiv. 51 f. (Jebb, p. 366) Zeus . . . ouk aitios thnatois megalôn acheôn, etc., Manitius, Gesch. d. lat. Lit. d. Mittelalters, ii. p. 169. For the problem of evil in Plato see What Plato Said, p. 578 on Theaet. 176 A, and for the freedom of the will ibid. pp. 644-645 on Laws 904 C. 42 Cf. Symp. 175 C, where the words are the same but the construction different. For the indirect reflexive cf. 614 Bou ekbênai, Symp. 176 D, Symp. 223 Bhe de hupnon labein. 43 For diateleis Cf. Laws 661 Dturannida dia telous. 44 For the idiom anankaiôs echein Cf. Phaedo 91 E, Laws 771 E, 928 E, Lysias vi. 35. 45 mesoun Phaedr. 241 D. 46 Cf. Phaedo 107 C, 114 D, Gorg. 526 E, Eurip. Medea 235 agôn megistos, Thucyd. i. 32. 5 megas ho kindunos, Aristoph. Clouds 955 nun gar hapas . . . kindunos aneitai, Frogs 882 agôn . . . ho megas, Antiphon v. 43 en ôi moi ho pas kindunos ên. For the expression Cf. Gorg. 470 Een toutôi hê pasa eudaimonia estin. 47 Cf. 443-444, 591 E-592 A, Gorg. 527 B f., Laws 662 B f., 904 A ff. 48 The singular verb is used after plural subjects, because the subjects are united in the writer's mind into one general idea. Cf. Rep. 363 A, Laws 925 E, Symp. 188 B. 49 Cf. 576 D. See Unity of Plato's Thought, p. 25, Laws 661-662, and for the word 360 B, Gorg. 509 A. 50 Cf. 576 D. 51 An anticipation of the Aristotelian doctrine, Eth. Nic. 1106 b 6 f. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 629, on Laws 691 C. 52 Cf. Isoc.Epist. vi. 12 Xen.Hiero 7. 2 homôs propetôs pheresthe eis autên. 53 Cf. What Plato Said, p. 532, on Phaedo 90 D. 54 Phaedo 82 B. 55 Cf. Phaedo 81 E ff., Phaedr. 248-249, Tim. 42 A-D, 91 D ff. For the idea of reincarnation in Plato see What Plato Said, p. 529, on Phaedo 81 E-82 B. 56 Urwiek, The Message of Plato, p. 213, says: “If Plato knew anything at all of Indian allegory, he must have known that the swan (Hamsa) is in Hinduism the invariable symbol of the immortal Spirit; and to say, as he does, that Orpheus chose the life of a swan, refusing to be born again of a woman, is just an allegorical way of saying that he passed on into the spiritual life. . . . ” 57 Like Orpheus a singer. He contended with the Muses in song and was in consequence deprived by them of sight and of the gift of song. Cf. also Ion 533 B-C, Laws 829 D-E, Iliad ii. 595. 58 Cf. Aesch. Ag. 114 ff. 59 Who built the Trojan horse. See Hesychius s.v. 60 Cf. Iliad ii. 212 ff. 61 For apragmonos cf. on 565 A, p. 316, note b. 62 Phaedr. 249 specifies that only beasts who had once been men could return to human form. 63 Cf. 617 E, and for daemons in Plato What Plato Said, pp. 546-547, on Symp. 202 E, Dieterich, Nekyia, p. 59. 64 dinês: Cf. Cratyl. 439 C and Phaedo 99 B. 65 Cf. Laws 960 C. 11 66 ta epiklôsthenta: Cf. Laws 957 E, Theaet. 169 C, and the Platonic epigram on Dion, Anth. Pal. vii. 99 Moirai epeklôsan, Od. i. 17, iii. 208, etc., Aesch. Eumen. 335, Callinus i. 9 Moirai epiklôsôs'. 67 Cf. Aristoph. Frogs 186. 68 In later literature it is the river that is called Lethe. Cf. Aeneid vi. 714 f. 69 In Tim. 41 D-E each soul is given a star as its vehicle. Cf. Aristoph.Peace 833 f. hôs asteres gignometh' hotan tis apothanêi . . . with the Platonic epigram to Astêr: . . nun de thanôn lampeis Hesperos en phthimenois. There is an old superstition in European folklore to the effect that when a star falls a soul goes up to God. Cf. also Rohde, Psyche, ii.6 p. 131. 70 Cf. Phaedrus 243 Baneblepsen. 71 Cf. Phileb. 14 A, Laws 645 B, Theaet. 164 D. 72 Phaedo 58 Besôse te kai autos esôthê. sôzein is here used in its higher sense, approaching the idea of salvation, not as in Gorg. 511 C f., 512 D-E, Laws 707 D, where Plato uses it contemptuously in the tone of “whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it.” 73 Cf. James i. 27, Phaedo 81 B, 2Peter iii. 14, and the Emperor Julian's last speech “animum . . . immaculatum conservavi.” Cf. Marius the Epicurean, pp. 15-16: “A white bird, she told him once, looking at him gravely, a bird which he must carry in his bosom across a crowded public place his own soul was like that.” 74 Cf. Laws 693 Bheautêi philên, Rep. 589 B, Horace, Epist. i. 3. 29 “si nobis vivere cari.” Jowett's “dear to one another” misses the point. Cf. my review of Lemercier, Les Pensées de Marc-Aurèle, in Class. Phil. vii. p. 115: “In iii. 4, in fine, the words hoige oude autoi heautois areskontai are omitted because ‘le gens que méprise Marc-Aurèle sont loin de mépriser eux-mêmes.’ That is to forget that Seneca's ‘omnis stultitia fastidio laborat sui’ is good Stoic doctrine, and that the idea that only the wise and good man can be dear to himself is found in the last sentence of Plato's Republic.” Cf. also Soph. OC 309 tis gar esthlos ouch hautôi philos; 75 Cf. Vol. I. p. 480, note c, on 465 D: «“From all these, then, they will be finally free, and they will live a happier life than that men count most happy, the life of the victors at Olympia.” “How so?” “The things for which those are felicitated are a small part of what is secured for these. Their victory is fairer and their public support more complete. For the prize of victory that they win is the salvation of the entire state, the fillet that binds their brows is the public support of themselves and their children…». 76 For the thought Cf. Gorg. 527 Ceudaimonêseis kai zôn kai teleutêsas. Cf. Vol. I. p. 104, note b, on 353 E. The quiet solemnity of eu prattômen illustrates the same characteristic of style that makes Plato begin his Laws with the word theos, and Dante close each of the three sections of the Divine Comedy with “stelle.”