Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. II. · Plutarch
THE SPEAKERS
Here he did not allow Thespesius to linger, even though he would, but kept drawing him away by force, explaining to him as he did so that the sentient mind becomes wasted and sodden by pleasure, while the irrational and corporeal part is watered and pampered and suggests recollection of the body, and, from that recollection, a yearning and desire which makes for generation (genesis), so named because it is a leaning towards earth (Ge-neusis)[246] when the soul is weighed down by moisture. Having travelled another journey as long as the first, he seemed to be gazing into a mighty bowl, with rivers discharging into [Sidenote: B] it, one whiter than foam of the sea, or snowflakes, another with the purple flush of the rainbow, others tinged with different hues. From a distance each showed its proper ray, but as he drew near the rim became invisible, and the colouring was dulled, and the more brilliant hues deserted the bowl, leaving only the whiteness. And there he saw three daemons seated close together in a triangle, mingling the streams in certain measures.
There he beheld the shadows of those who had been notoriously wicked, and who had been punished on the spot, not savagely handled as were the former ones, because[249] their trouble was in the irrational seat of the passions. [Sidenote: B] But those who had passed through life under a veil or cloak of the appearance of virtue, were compelled by others, who stood around, laboriously and painfully to turn their soul inside out, writhing and bending themselves back unnaturally, as the scolopendrae[250] of the sea, when they have gorged the hook, turn themselves inside out. Others they would flay, and fold the skin back, to show how scarred and mottled they were beneath it, because the vice was seated in the rational and directing part. Other souls he said that he saw intertwined like vipers, by twos or threes or more together, gnawing one another out of spite and rancour for what they had suffered [Sidenote: C] in life, or done. And there were lakes lying side by side, one of boiling gold, one of lead, exceeding cold, and one of iron, which was rough. Over these stood daemons, as it might be smiths, with tongs, picking up by turns the souls of those whose wickedness came of greed and grasping, and plunging them in.
When they had become all fiery and transparent in the burning gold, they were thrust into the bath of lead; and when frozen till they became hard as hailstones, they were shifted on to the iron, and there they became hideously black, [Sidenote: D] and were broken up and crushed, so hard and brittle were they, and their shapes were changed. Then they were conveyed, just as they were, back to the gold, enduring dire pains in the transition. Most pitiful of all, he said, was the case of those who seemed already quit of Justice and then were seized up anew. These were the souls whose penalty had come round to any descendants or children. For whenever any one of these last came up and met them, he would fall upon them in anger, and shout aloud, and show the marks of his sufferings, reviling and pursuing, while the parent soul sought to flee and hide [Sidenote: E] itself, but could not; for the torturers would run swiftly after and bring them to Justice, and force them through all from the beginning, while they bewailed themselves because they knew the punishment before them.
And there were some, he said, to whom a number of their offspring were attached, clinging to them just like bees or bats, and jibbering in wrathful recollection of what they had suffered on account of their parents. Last of all, while he was looking at the souls returning to a second birth—how they were violently bent and transformed into animals of every sort by the executioners of this task, [Sidenote: F] who used certain implements and blows, here squeezing together the limbs entire, here twisting them aside, here planing them away and getting rid of them altogether, to fit into other characters and other lives—, there appeared among these the soul of Nero, already in torment, and pierced with red-hot nails. For it the executioners had prepared the form of a viper, as Pindar describes it, wherein the beast is to be conceived, and live, after having devoured its own mother.
Fr. 969. Footnote 206: The author of this famous line is unknown. Footnote 207: Fr. 57. Footnote 208: _Minos_, 319 C. Footnote 209: No specific passage can be identified with the words in the text. For the sequel cp. _Timaeus_, 30 A. Footnote 210: Cp. _Rep._ 6, 508 A. Footnote 211: See p. 181 n. 1. Footnote 212: This line is a continuation of the quotation from Melanthius above. Footnote 213: Cp. Aesch. _Cho._ 313, &c. Footnote 214: Quoted several times as from Pindar (see Fr. 77), but perhaps rather Simonides. Footnote 215: _Il._ 15, 641. Footnote 216: Cp. Aristot. _Poet._ c. 9. Footnote 217: _W. and D._ 266, 265. Footnote 218: _Laws_, 5, 728 C. Footnote 219: i.e. under Roman law. See Smith’s _Dict. Ant._, _s.v._ Crux. Footnote 220: _Rep._ 406 B. Footnote 221: See H. Richards in _Class. Rev._ vol. 29, p. 235, and, for the quotation, the _Life of Lucullus_, c. 1. Footnote 222: Fr. 42, and see Jebb’s Introd. to the _Electra_ of Sophocles. Footnote 223: See _Life of Aristides_, c. 6. also Dion Chrys. _Orat._ 64. Footnote 224: See _Life of Cimon_, c. 6. Footnote 225: Again quoted, _De Curiosit._ 520 A. Footnote 226: Eur. _Ino_, Fr. 403. Footnote 227: Fr. 970. Footnote 228: See Herod. 2, 134. Footnote 229: i. e. Polyphemus. See _Od._ 9, 375 foll.
Footnote 230: See Herod. 66, 74, and Pausan. 4, 252, and 8, 18. Footnote 231: From an unknown poet; Euphorion and Arctinus are suggested. Footnote 232: Fr. 123. Footnote 233: Hence a proverb applied to what was second-rate. Footnote 234: Arist. _H. A._ 9, 3, 610 b 29. Footnote 235: See Thuc. 2, 48; also _Plague and Pestilence in Literature and Art_, by Raymond Crawfurd, M.D., chap. 2 and Appendix. Footnote 236: Cp. Plato, _Laws_, 4, 715 A. Footnote 237: Fr. 41. Footnote 238: _Il._ 6, 146. Footnote 239: Fr. 211. Footnote 240: _W. and D._ 735-6. Footnote 241: Eur. Fr. 970. Footnote 242: I have transposed the verbs as suggested in Wyttenbach’s Commentary. Footnote 243: Cp. Dante, _Purg._ 3, 19 foll. The idea is Pythagorean (see _Quaest. Graec._ 40, p. 300). Footnote 244: Cp. Plato, _Gorg._ 524 D. Footnote 245: See H. Richards in _Class. Rev._, vol. 29, p. 236. Footnote 246: Cp. p. 215, n. 1. Footnote 247: Cp. p. 89. Footnote 248: Probably a Sibylline verse. See Suetonius, _Life of Vespasian_. Footnote 249: Reading ἅτε δή with C. F. Hermann. Footnote 250: Cp. Aristot. _Hist. Anim._ 2, 14, 505 b 13, and 10, 37, 621 a 6.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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