Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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" This is the life of the Gods. Of the other Souls, whosoever followeth God best, and is being made most like unto Him, keepeth the Head3 of her Charioteer lifted up into the Space without the firmament ; so she is carried round with the circuit thereof, yet being [still] troubled with the Horses,1 and hardly beholding the Things-which-are ; so she is now lifted up, now sinketh down, and because of the compulsion of the Horses, seeth some of the Things-which-are, and some she seeth not.
1 See commentary thereon.
2 Stewart (J. A.), The Myths of Plato (London, 1905), pp. 313 ff. ; cf. also Jowett (Oxford, 1892), i. 454 ff. ; and Taylor (London, 1804), iii. 325 ff.
3 Cf. G. H., x. (xi.) 11 : "Since Cosmos is a sphere — that is to say, a head."
" And the rest of the Souls, you must know, follow all striving after that which is above, but unable [to reach it], and so are carried round together and sink below it,2 trampling upon one another, and running against one another, and pressing on for to outstrip one another, with mighty great sound of tumult and sweat.
"And here by reason of the unskilf ulness 3 of the Charioteers, many Souls are maimed, and many have many feathers [of their wings] broken ; and all, greatly travailing, depart without initiation in the Sight of That-which-is, and departing betake them to the food of Opinion.
"Now this is why there is so great anxiety to see the Space where is the Plain of Truth, — both because the pasture suited to the Best Part of the Soul groweth in the Meadow there, and the power of wing, whereby the Soul is lightly carried up, is nourished by it, and that the law of Adrasteia is that whatsoever Soul by following after God hath seen somewhat of the true things, shall be without affliction till its next journey round; and if she can always do this,4 she shall be without hurt alway.
1 Cf. 246 B : " For 'tis a Yoke of Horses that the Charioteer of Man's Soul driveth, and, moreover, of his Horses the one is well favoured and good and of good stock, the other of the contrary and contrary."
2 Lit., under water.
3 Lit., evil — that is, ignorance.
4 Viz., behold the truth.
" But when through incapacity to follow [God] she doth not see, and, overtaken by some evil chance, filled with forgetfulness and wickedness, she is weighed down, and, being weighed down, she sheds the feathers of her wings and falls on to the Earth, — then is the law not to plant her l in her first birth in a beast's nature ; but to implant the Soul that hath seen most into the seed of one who shall become a Wisdom-lover, or a lover of the Beautiful, or a man who truly loves the Muses ; the Soul that hath seen second best, into the seed of one who shall become a king that loveth law, and is a warrior and a true ruler ; the Soul that hath seen third, unto the seed of one who shall become busied in civic duties, or in some stewardship, or in affairs ; the one that hath seen fourth, into the seed of one who shall be a hardship-loving master of the body's discipline or skilled in healing of the body ; the Soul that hath seen fifth, into that which shall have a life connected with the oracles .or mystic rites some way ; 2 unto the sixth a life poetic shall be joined, or that of some one or of another of the tribe of copiers ; unto the seventh, the life of workman or of husbandman ; unto the eighth, that of a sophist or a demagogue ; unto the ninth, that of a tyrant.
" In all these lives, whoever lives them righteously obtains a better fate ; he who unrighteously, a worse.