XXII. ‘He said that, when he descended into the oracular chamber, he first found himself in a great darkness; then, after a prayer, lay a long while not very clearly conscious whether he was awake or dreaming; only he fancied that his head received a blow, while a dull noise fell on his ears, and then the sutures parted and allowed his soul to issue forth. As it passed upwards, rejoicing to mingle with the pure transparent air, it appeared |C| first to draw a long deep breath, after its narrow compression, and to become larger than before, like a sail as it is filled out. Then he heard dimly a whirring noise overhead out of which came a sweet voice. He looked up and saw land nowhere, only islands shining with lambent fire, from time to time changing colour with one another, as though it were a coat of dye, while the light became spangled in the transition. They appeared to be countless in number and in size enormous, not all equal but all alike circular. He thought that as these moved around there was an answering hum of the air, for the gentleness of |D| that voice which was harmonized out of all corresponded to the smoothness of the motion. Through the midst of the islands a sea or lake was interfused, all shining with the colours as they were commingled over its grey surface. Some few islands floated in a straight course and were conveyed across the current; many others were drawn on by the flood, being almost submerged. The sea was of great depth in some parts towards the south, but [northwards[[43]]] there were very shallow reaches, and it often swept over places and then left them dry, having no strong |E| ebb. The colour was in places pure as that of the open sea, in others turbid and marsh-like. As the islands passed through the surf they never came round to their starting-point again or described a circle, but slightly varied the points of impact, thus describing a continuous spiral as they went round. The sea was inclined to the approximate middle and highest part of the encompassing firmament by a little less than eight-ninths of the whole, as it appeared to him. It had two openings which |F| received rivers of fire pouring in from opposite sides, so that it was lashed into foam, and its grey surface was turned to white. This he saw, delighted at the spectacle; but as he turned his eyes downwards, there appeared a chasm, vast and round as though hewn out of a sphere; it was strangely terrible and deep and full of utter darkness, not in repose but often agitated and surging up; from which were heard roarings innumerable and groanings of beasts, and wailings of innumerable infants, and with these mingled cries of men and women, dim sounds of all sorts, and turmoils sent up indistinctly from the distant depth, |591| to his no small consternation. Time passed, and an unseen person said to him, “Timarchus, what do you wish to learn?” “Everything,” he replied, “for all is wonderful.” “We”, the voice said, “have little to do with the regions above, they belong to other Gods; but the province of Persephone which we administer, being one of the four which Styx bounds, you may survey if you will.” To his question, “What is Styx?” “A way to Hades,” was the reply, “and it passes right opposite, parting the light at its very vertex, but reaching up, as you see, from Hades below; where it touches the light in its revolution |B| it marks off the remotest region of all. Now, there are four first principles of all things, the first of life, the second of motion, the third of birth, the fourth of death. The first is linked to the second by Unity, in the Unseen: the second to the third by Mind, in the sun: the third to the fourth by Nature, in the moon. Over each of these combinations a Fate, daughter of Necessity, presides, and holds the keys; of the first Atropus, of the second, Clotho, of the one belonging to the moon Lachesis, and the turning-point of birth is there. For the other islands contain Gods, but the moon, which belongs to |C| earthly spirits, only avoids Styx by a slight elevation, and is caught once in one hundred and seventy-seven secondary measures[[44]]. As Styx moves upon her, the souls cry aloud in terror; for many slip from off her and are caught by Hades. Others the moon bears upwards from below, as they turn towards her; and for these death coincides with the moment of birth, those excepted which are guilty and impure, and which are not allowed to approach her while she lightens and bellows fearfully; mourning for their own fate they slip away and are borne downwards for another birth, as you see.” “But I see |D| nothing,” said Timarchus, “save many stars quivering around the gulf, others sinking into it, others, again, darting up from below.” “Then you see the spirits themselves,” the voice said, “though you do not know it. It is thus: every soul partakes of mind, there is none irrational or mindless; but so much of soul as is mingled with flesh and with affections is altered and turned towards the irrational by its sense of pleasures and pains. But the mode of mingling is not the same for every soul. Some are merged entirely into body, and are disturbed by passions throughout their whole being during life. Others |E| are in part mixed up with it, but leave outside their purest part, which is not drawn in, but is like a life-buoy which floats on the surface, and touches the head of one who has sunk into the depth, the soul clinging around it and being kept upright, while so much of it is supported as obeys and is not overmastered by the affections. The part which is borne below the surface within the body is called soul. That which is left free from dissolution most persons call mind, taking it to be something inside themselves, resembling the reflected images in mirrors; but those who are rightly informed know that it is outside themselves and address it as spirit. The stars, Timarchus,” the voice went on, “which you see extinguished, you are to |F| think of as souls entirely merged in bodies; those which give light again and shine from below upwards, shaking off, as though it were mud, a sort of gloom and dimness, are those which sail up again out of their bodies after death; those which are parted upwards are spirits, and belong to men who are said to have understanding. Try to see clearly in each the bond by which it coheres with soul.” Hearing this, he paid closer attention himself, and saw the stars tossing about, some less, some more, as we see the corks which mark out nets in the sea move over its surface; but some, like the shuttles used in |592| weaving, in entangled and irregular figures, not able to settle the motion into a straight line. The voice said that those who kept a straight and orderly movement were men whose souls had been well broken in by fair nurture and training, and did not allow their irrational part to be too harsh and rough. Those which often inclined upwards and downwards in an irregular and confused manner, like horses plunging off from a halter, were |B| fighting against the yoke with tempers disobedient and ill-trained for want of education; sometimes getting the mastery and swerving round to the right; again bent by passions and drawn on to share in sins, then again resisting and putting force upon them. The coupling bond, like a curb set on the irrational part of the soul whenever it resists, brings on repentance, as we call it, for sins, and shame for all lawless and intemperate pleasures, being really a pain and a stroke inflicted by it on the soul when it is bitted by that which masters and rules it, until at length, being thus punished, it becomes obedient to the rein |C| and familiar with it, and then, like a tame creature, without blow or pain, understands the spirit quickly by signs and hints. These then are led, late in the day and by slow degrees, to their duty. Out of those who are docile and obedient to their spirit from the first birth, is formed the prophetic and inspired class, to which belonged the soul of Hermodorus[[45]] of Clazomenae, of which you have surely heard; how it would leave the body entirely and wander over a wide range by night and by day, and |D| then come back again, having been present where many things were said and done far off, until the enemy found the body, which his wife had betrayed, left at home deserted by its soul, and burnt it. Now this part is not true; the soul used not to go out from the body; but by always yielding to the spirit, and slackening the coupling-band, he gave it constant liberty to range around, so that it saw and heard and reported many things from the world outside. But those who destroyed the body while he was asleep are paying the penalty in Tartarus unto |E| this day. All this, young man, you shall know more clearly in the third month from this; now begone!” When the voice ceased, Timarchus wished to turn round, he said, and see who the speaker was; but his head again ached violently, as though forcibly compressed, and he could no longer hear or perceive anything passing about him; afterwards, however, he came to |F| by degrees, and saw that he was lying in the cave of Trophonius, near the entrance where he had originally sunk down.
XXIII. ‘Such was the tale of Timarchus. When he died, having returned to Athens in the third month after hearing the voice, and when, in our wonder, we told Socrates of the story, he blamed us for not reporting it while Timarchus was still alive, since he would gladly have heard it more clearly from himself, and have questioned him further. There, Theocritus, you have all, tale and theory both. But perhaps we ought to invite the stranger to join our inquiry; the subject comes nearly home to inspired men.’ ‘Well, but’, the stranger answered, ‘Epaminondas, who puts out from the same port, is not contributing his opinion.’ Our father smiled: ‘That is just his character, Sir. Silent and cautious in speaking, but a glutton for learning and listening. That is why Spintharus of Tarentum, after spending no little time with him here, is always saying, as you know, that he never met |593| any man of his own standing who knew more or who spoke less. So pray let us have all your own thoughts on the subject.’
XXIV. ‘Then, for my part,’ said Theanor, ‘I think that the story of Timarchus ought to be dedicated to the God, as holy and inviolable. But it will be strange to me if any shall be found to discredit what Simmias tells us about the matter; thus, while they designate swans, serpents, dogs and horses as sacred, refusing to believe that men may be godlike and friends of God, yet holding that God is not a friend of birds but a friend of man. As, then, a man who loves horses does not care equally for all individuals which make the class, but always picks out and separates |B| some excellent member of the class, and trains him by himself and feeds him and loves him beyond others; so it is with ourselves; the higher powers extract, if the word may pass, the best out of the herd, and deem them worthy of a very special training, directing their course, not by reins nor by halters, but by reason, through signs utterly incomprehensible to the general herd. Why, most dogs do not understand the signals used in hunting, nor most horses those used in the manège; but those who have learned know at once from a whistle or a chirrup what they are required to do, and easily take the right position. Homer clearly knows the distinction |C| to which I refer. Some of his prophets he calls “readers of dreams” and “priests”, others understand the conversation of the Gods themselves, he thinks, by sympathy, and signify the future to us. For instance:
Thus they conferred: but Helenus, Priam’s son,
That scheme, which pleased them, in his heart divined.[[46]]
And again:
So the everlasting voice I have heard and known.[[47]]
The mind of kings and generals is made known to outsiders through the senses, by special beacons or proclamation, or calls on the trumpet; and so the divine message reaches few of us in and |D| through itself, and that rarely; for ordinary men signals are employed and these are the groundwork of what we call divination. The Gods, then, regulate life only for a few, for those whom they wish to make blessed in a single degree, and truly divine; but souls released from coming to the birth, and now for ever at rest from a body, and dismissed into freedom, are spirits who care for men, in Hesiod’s sense. For as athletes, when age has brought them an end of training, do not wholly lose the spirit of competition or of care for the body, but delight to see others in practice, and cheer them on and run beside them, so |E| those who have ceased from the struggles of life, made spirits because of the excellence of their soul, do not utterly despise our earthly affairs, our discussions and our interests: they have a kindly feeling for those training with the same end before them, they share their eagerness for virtue, encourage them, and join them in their bursts, whenever they see them running with hope near at hand and already within touch. For the spirit does not help |F| all men as they come. It is as with swimmers upon the sea; spectators on the shore merely gaze in silence on those who are out in the open, drifting far from land; whereas they run along the beach towards those who are already nearing it, they dash in to meet them, and with hand, and voice, and endeavour, hasten to the rescue. Such, Simmias, is the way of a spirit; while we are dipped beneath the tides of life, changing body for body, like relays on a road, he allows us to struggle out for ourselves, to be brave and patient, to try by our own virtue to reach the harbour in safety. But when any soul through a myriad of births has striven once and again a long-drawn strife well and stoutly, and when, with the cycle now wellnigh complete, it |594| takes the risks, and sets its hope high, as it nears the landing-place, and presses upwards with sweat and endeavour, the God thinks it no wrong that its own spirit should go to the help of such a soul, but lets zeal go free, and the Gods are zealous to encourage and to save, one this soul and one that. The soul hearkens because it is so near, and it is saved; but if it does not hearken the spirit leaves it, and its happy chance is gone.’
XXV. As he finished, Epaminondas looked at me. ‘It is nearly your time, Capheisias, to go to the gymnasium and not fail your comrades; we will take care of Theanor, and break up |B| our conference whenever he likes.’ ‘Let us do so,’ I said, ‘but I think Theocritus here wants a few words with you while Galaxidorus and I are present.’ ‘By all means’, said he; he rose and led the way to the angle of the portico. We stood round and tried to encourage him to join the scheme. He answered that he perfectly well knew the day of the return of the exiles, and had arranged with Gorgidas as to all that was necessary for our friends, but that he refused to take the life of any citizen without trial, unless there were an urgent necessity; also, looking to the body of the Thebans, it was specially convenient that there should be some person with hands clean |C| and beyond suspicion, when the time should come to advise the people for the best. We agreed, and he returned at once to Simmias and his party. We went down to the gymnasium and met our friends, and, pairing off for wrestling matches, exchanged information and plans for action. We saw also Archias and Philippus, anointed and starting for the supper. For Phyllidas, |D| fearing that they might put Amphitheus to death first, called on Archias immediately after he had escorted Lysanoridas, and by suggesting hopes that the lady he desired to meet would come to the place, persuaded him to turn his mind to having a good time with the usual companions of his revels.
XXVI. It was now getting late, and the cold was intense, as the wind had got up. Most people had therefore made for their homes more quickly than usual. We had fallen in with Damocleidas, Pelopidas, and Theopompus, and were taking them with us, as others took others of the exiles. For the party had broken up immediately after crossing Cithaeron; and the bitter |E| weather allowed them to muffle up their faces and pass through the city in security. Some of them were met by a lightning flash on the right without thunder, as they entered through the gates; and the sign seemed favourable for safety and glory, with a bright issue to follow and no danger.