Phaedrus — Plato

PH.BDRUS 157 a thousand years : and if they choose this Hfe three times in succession, then they have their wings given them, and go away at the end of three thousand years.

But the others receive judgment when they have completed their first life, and after the judgment they go, some of them to the houses of correction which are under the earth, and are punished ; others to some place in heaven whither they are lightly borne by justice, and there they live in a manner worthy of the life which they led here when in the form of men.

And at the end of the first thousand years the good souls and also the evil souls both come to cast lots and choose their second life, and they may take any that they like. And then the soul of the man may pass into the life of a beast, or from the beast again into the man.

But the soul of him who has never seen the truth will not pass into the human form, for man ought to have intelligence of universals, proceeding from many particulars of sense to one conception of reason ; and this is the recollection of those things which our soul once saw when in company with God — when looking down from above on that which we now call being and upwards towards the true being.

And therefore the mind of the philosopher alone has wings ; and this is just, for he is always, according to the measure of his abilities, clinging in recollection to those things in which God abides, and in beholding which He is what he is. And he who employs aright these memories is ever being initiated into perfect mysteries and alone becomes truly perfect.

But, as he forgets earthly interests and is rapt in the divine, the vulgar deem him mad, and rebuke him ; they do not see that he is inspired.

Thus far I have been speaking of the fourth and last kind of madness, which is imputed to him who, when he sees the beauty of earth, is transported with the recollection of the true beauty ; he would like to fly away, but he cannot ; he is like a bird fluttering and looking upward and careless of the world below ; and he is therefore esteemed mad.

And I have shown that this is of all inspirations the noblest and best, and comes of the best, and that he who has part or lot in this madness is called a lover of the beautiful. For, as has been already said, every soul of man has in the way of nature beheld * true being ; this was the condition of her passing into the form of man. But all men do not easily recall the things of the

IS8 PLATO THE TEACHER Other world ; they may have seen them for a short time only, or they may have been unfortunate when they fell to earth, and may have lost the memory of the holy things which they saw there, through some evil and corrupting association.

Few there are who retain the remembrance of them sufficiently ; and they, when they behold any image of that other world, are rapt in amazement ; but they are ignorant of what this means, because they have no clear perceptions.

For there is no light in the earthly copies of justice or temperance or any of the higher qualities which are precious to souls ; they are seen but through a glass dimly ; and there are few who, going to the images, behold in them the realities, and they only with difficulty.

They might have seen beauty shining in brightness, when, with the happy band following in the train of Zeus, as we philosophers did, or with other gods as others did, they saw a vision and were initiated into most blessed mysteries, which we celebrated in our state of innocence; and having no feeling of evils as yet to come; beholding apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy as in a mystery ; shining in pure light, pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the body, as in an oyster-shell.

Let me linger thus long over the memory of scenes which have passed away. But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms ; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense.

For sight is the keenest of our bodily senses ; though not by that is wisdom seen, for her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her, and this is true of the loveliness of the other ideas as well. But beauty only has this portion, that she is at once the loveliest and also the most apparent.

Now he who has not been lately initiated, or who has become corrupted, is not easily carried out of this world to the sight of absolute beauty in the other; he looks only at that which has the name of beauty in this world, and instead of being awed at the sight of her, like a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy. . . . ^ But he whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face or form, which is the expression or imitation of divine beauty ; and at first a

PH^EDRUS 159 shudder runs through him, and some "misgiving" of a former world steals over him ; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god. [When the lover beholds the divine beauty of his beloved he receives the effluence of that beauty into his own soul, and by it the nobler and diviner part of his nature is nourished.

He is filled with joy, because the wing of his soul thus begins to grow, and he is happy only when in the presence of his beloved. When the beloved is absent, and the holy effluence is withdrawn, this growth of the soul's wing ceases, and the lover is filled with pain and unrest.

He is constrained to flee to his beloved as to a physician.] And this state, my dear imaginary youth, is by men called love, and among the gods has a name which you, in your simplicity, may be inclined to mock ; there are two lines in honor of love in the Homeric Apocrypha ^ in which the name occurs.

One of them is rather outrageous, and is not quite metrical ; they are as follow : — ** Mortals call him Eros (love), But the immortals call him Pteros (fluttering dove) Because fluttering of wings is a necessity to him. You may believe this or not as you like.

At any rate the loves of lovers and their causes are such as I have described. [Now the character of the lover depends upon the god whom he followed in the upper world, and this same character the lover tries to cultivate in the object of his love.

The followers of every god] seek a love who is to be like their god, and when they have found him, they themselves imitate their god, and persuade their love to do the same, and bring him into harmony with the form and ways of the god as far as they can ; for they have no feelings of envy or mean enmity towards their beloved, ^ Writings falsely attributed to Homer.