Phaedrus — Plato

p. 436fore birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born again ? surely the proof which you desire has been already furnished.

Still I suspect that you and Simmias would be glad to probe the argument further ; like children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow her away and scatter" her ; especially if a man should happen to die in stormy weather and not when the sky is calm.

Cebes answered with a smile : Then, Socrates, you must argue us out of our fears — and yet, strictly speaking, they are not our fears, but there is a child within us to whom death is a sort of hobgoblin ; him too we must persuade not to be afraid when he is alone with him in the dark. Socrates said : Let the voice of the charmer ^ be applied daily until you have charmed him away.

And where shall we find a good charmer of our fears, Socrates, when you are gone ? Hellas, he replied, is a large place, Cebes, and has many good men, and there are barbarous races not a few : seek for g him among them all, far and wide, sparing neither pains ' nor money ; for there is no better way of using your money. And you must not forget to seek for him among yourselves too ; for he is nowhere more likely to be found.

The search, replied Cebes, shall certainly be made. And now, if you please, let us return to the point of the argument at which we digressed. [Socrates leads the discussion. Another argument against the dissolution of the soul at death is found in the nature of the soul itself. Only those things which are compound ^" or composite, like the objects of sense, are naturally capable of being dissolved and changed.

But the soul, not being compound is indivisible and therefore indestructible. It belongs to that class of unchanging things which are also invisible like the essence of beauty or equality. It is only when the soul makes use of the senses that she is dragged by the body down into the region of changeable things.] 3« As incantations are employed against hobgoblins, wise words must be the charm against foolish fears. In another dialogue Plato speaks of the soul being healed by the charm of fair words.

PHiEDO 437 But when returning into herself she reflects ; then she passes into the re^lm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered ; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging.

And this state of the soul is called wisdom ? [Again when we compare the functions of the soul and body we find that the soul is akin to the divine and the body to the mortal.

For the soul rules and governs, the body obeys and serves.] The soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable ; and the body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintelligible, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable. [Even the body may be preserved almost entire for ages by the embalmer*s art.] And are we to suppose that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the true Hades, which like her is invisible, and pure, and noble, and on her way to the good and wise God^^ whither, if God will, my soul is also soon to go, — that the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, is blown away and perishes immediately on quitting the body, as the many say ?

That can never be, my dear Simmias and Cebes. The truth rather is, that the soul which is pure at departing draws after her no bodily taint, having never voluntarily had connection with the body, which she is ever avoiding, herself gathered into herself (for such abstraction has been the study of her hfe). And what does this mean but that she has been a true disciple of philosophy, and has practiced how to die easily ?

And is not philosophy the practice of death ? g Certainly. That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world, — to the divine and immortal and rational : thither arriving, she lives in bliss and is released from the error and folly ** " And the spirit shaU return unto God who gave it" — EccL xii 7.

438 l>LATO THE TEACHER of men, their fears and wild passions and all other human ills, and forever dwells, as they say of the initiated, in company with the gods ? Is not this true, Cebes ? Yes, said Cebes, beyond a doubt.

But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of the body always, and is in love with and fascinated by the body and by the desires and pleasures of the body, until she is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a man may touch and see and taste and use for the purposes of his lusts, — the soul, I mean, accustomed to hate and fear and avoid the intellectual principle, which to the bodily eye is dark and invisible, and can be attained only by philosophy ; do you suppose that such a soul as this will depart pure and unalloyed ?

That is impossible, he replied. She is engrossed by the corporeal, which the continual association and constant care of the body have made natural to her. [The souls of the wicked, loath to leave the body and fearful of the world below, must wander about tombs ^ until g'" they are imprisoned in another body. And some enter the bodies of birds or animals which have natures like their own.

Others which are less evil pass again into the forms of men.] But he who is a philosopher or lover of learning, and is entirely pure at departing, is alone permitted to reach the gods.^' And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes, why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and endure and refuse to give themselves up to them, — not because they fear poverty or the ruin of their families, like the lovers of «• •• The soul grows clotted by contagion, Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose ITie divine property of her first being.

Such are those thiclc and gloomy shadows damp Oft seen in chamel vaults and sepulchres Lingering and sitting by a new-made erave As loath to leave the body that it loved, And linked itself by carnal sensuality To a degenerate and degraded state." ^Milton's ''Comus." ^ Conipare Phaedrus, 249.