That second Aristotle, Nicostratus, Plato's peer, splitter of the straws of the sublimest philosophy, was asked about the soul as follows: How may one rightly describe the soul, as mortal, or, on the contrary, immortal? and should we speak of it as a body or incorporeal? and is it to be placed among intelligible or sensible objects, or compounded of both? So he read through the treatises of the transcendentalists, and Aristotle's /de Anima/, and explored the Platonic heights of the /Phaedo/, and wove into a single fabric the whole exact truth on all its sides. Then wrapping his threadbare cloak about him, and stroking down the end of his beard, he proffered the solution:—If there exists at all a nature of the soul—for of this I am not sure—it is certainly either mortal or immortal, of solid nature or immaterial; however, when you cross Acheron, there you shall know the certainty like Plato. And if you will, imitate young Cleombrotus of Ambracia, and let your body drop from the roof; and you may at once recognise your self apart from the body by merely getting rid of the subject of your inquiry.
XXIX THE PHAEDO OF PLATO AUTHOR UNKNOWN
If Plato did not write me, there were two Platos; I carry in me all the flowers of Socratic talk. But Panaetius concluded me to be spurious; yes, he who concluded that the soul was mortal, would conclude me spurious as well.
XXX CLEOMBROTUS OF AMBRACIA CALLIMACHUS
Saying, "Farewell, O Sun," Cleombrotus of Ambracia leaped off a high wall to Hades, having seen no evil worthy of death, but only having read that one writing of Plato's on the soul.
XXXI THE DEAD SCHOLAR CALLIMACHUS
One told me of thy fate, Heraclitus, and wrung me to tears, and I remembered how often both of us let the sun sink as we talked; but thou, methinks, O friend from Halicarnassus, art ashes long and long ago; yet thy nightingale-notes live, whereon Hades the ravisher of all things shall not lay his hand.
XXXII ALEXANDRIANISM CALLIMACHUS
I hate the cyclic poem, nor do I delight in a road that carries many hither and thither; I detest, too, one who ever goes girt with lovers, and I drink not from the fountain; I loathe everything popular.