Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. II. · Plutarch
FROM THE DIALOGUE ‘ON THE SOUL’ A FRAGMENT
A man when he dies is said to be “released”, and death called a “release”—if you ask the question “from what?”, a release from body[256]—for body is called dĕmas, because the soul is kept in bondage in it, contrary to nature, nothing being forcibly detained in a place which is natural to it. A further play upon this “bondage” and “force” gives the word “life”, as Homer,[257] I think, uses Hesperus for the feminine “evening”, and so, in contrast to “life”, the dead is said to come to his rest, released from a great and unnatural stress. So with the change and reconstitution of the soul into the Whole; we say that it has perished when it has made its way thither; while here it does not know this unless at the actual approach of death, when it undergoes such an experience as those do who are initiated into great mysteries. Thus death and initiation closely correspond, word to word,[258] and thing to thing. At first there are wanderings, and laborious circuits, and journeyings through the dark, full of misgivings where there is no consummation; then, before the very end, come terrors of every kind, shivers, and trembling, and sweat, and amazement.
After this, a wonderful light meets the wanderer; he is admitted into pure meadow lands, where are voices, and dances, and the majesty of holy sounds and sacred visions. Here the newly initiate, all rites completed, is at large; he walks at large like the dedicated victim with a crown on his head, and joins in high revelry; he converses with pure and holy men, and surveys the uninitiate unpurified crowd here below in the dirt and darkness, trampled by its own feet and packed together; through fear of death remaining in its ills, because it does not believe in the blessings which are beyond. For that the conjunction of soul with body, and its imprisonment, are against nature, you may clearly see from this.’
III. ‘From what?’ said Patrocleas. ‘From the fact that of all our experiences sleep is the most agreeable. First, it always extinguishes any perception of pain, because its pleasure is mingled with so much that is familiar, secondly, it overpowers all other appetites, even the most vehement. For even those who are devoted to the body become disinclined for pleasure when sleep comes on, and when they slumber reject loving embraces. Why dwell on this? When sleep takes possession, it excludes even the pleasure which comes from learning, and discussion, and philosophic thought, as though a smooth deep stream swept the soul along. All pleasure, perhaps, is by its essence and nature a respite from pain, but of sleep this is absolutely true. For, though nothing exciting or delightful should approach from without, yet we feel pleasure in a sound sleep; sleep seems to remove a condition of toil and hardness. And that condition is no other than that which binds soul to body. In sleep the soul is separated, and speeds upward, and is gathered unto itself after having been strained to fit the body, and dispersed among the senses. Yet some assert that, on the contrary, sleep immingles soul with body. They are wrong. The body bears its witness the other way, by its lack of sensation, its coldness, and heaviness, and pallor proving that the soul leaves it in death, and shifts its quarters in sleep. This produces the pleasure; it is a release and respite for the soul, as though it laid down a burthen which it must again resume and shoulder. For when it dies it runs away from the body for good; when it is asleep, it plays truant. Therefore death is sometimes accompanied by pains, sleep always by pleasure; in the former case the bond is snapped altogether, in the latter it gives, and is slackened, and becomes easier, as the senses are loosened like parting knots, and the strain which ties soul to body is gone.’
_For life the gods conceal from mortal men_, says the wise Hesiod.[260] They have not strained soul to body by fleshy bonds, one bond they have contrived and one encompassing device, the uncertainty of what comes after death, and our slowness to believe; since, “if the soul were persuaded”, as Heraclitus[261] says, “of all the things which await men when they have died, no force would keep it back.”’ Footnote 251: Where it is ascribed to Themistius. It was reclaimed for Plutarch by Wyttenbach in the Preface to his edition of the _De Sera Numinum Vindicta_—Leiden 1772. Footnote 252: In the Dialogue (_Ne suaviter quidem_, c. 26) in which the Epicureans are attacked, the ‘hope of eternal existence’ or ‘desire to be’, is spoken of as the ‘oldest and greatest of loves’. Footnote 253: θάνατος—ἀναθεῖν εἰς θεόν. Footnote 254: γένεσις—γῆ, νεῦσις. Cp. p. 210, l. 6. Footnote 255: γενέθλιον—γένεσις ἄθλων. Footnote 256: Reading ἂν δὲ ἔρῃ, καὶ σώματος for ἂν δὲ ἔρημαι σώματος. See the Lex.-Plat. _s.v._ ἔρομαι. Footnote 257: e.g. _Od._ 1, 423. Footnote 258: τελευτᾶν—τελεῖσθαι. Footnote 259: _Od._ 12, 432 foll. Footnote 260: _W. and D._ 42. Footnote 261: Fr. 122.
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