[220] 554 D. Literally, “they were not punished when they grew old, but grew old in punishment.”
[221] 555 E, F.
[222] Stobæus: Anthologion, Tit. 79, 15.
[223] 557 D. Cf. the sarcasm of the Academic Cotta in the De Natura Deorum, iii. 38: “Dicitis eam vim Deorum esse ut, etiam si quis morte pœnas sceleris effugerit, expetantur eæ pœnæ a liberis, a nepotibus, a posteris. O miram æquitatem Deorum!”
[224] 558 F.
[225] 559 E.
[226] 560 C. Wyttenbach quotes Lucretius, iii. 437 and 456: “Ergo dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animai Naturam ceu fumus in altas aeris auras.” He might have added, iii. 579, sqq.: “Denique, cum corpus nequeat perferre animai Discidium, quin id tetro tabescat odore, Quid dubitas quin ex imo penitusque coörta, Emanarit uti fumus diffusa animæ vis?” Plutarch is probably thinking of Plato’s “intelligent gardener” (Phædrus, 276 B), although, as Wyttenbach says, “Horti Adonidis proverbii vim habent.” The English reader will think of Shakespeare’s beautiful lines—
“Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens,
That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next.”
Henry VI., Pt. 1, act i. sc. 6.