Chapter VI (4)

22. When he had spoken thus he held his peace, whereupon Olympichus said with a smile, “We do not give you our approval lest we shall seem to excuse you from telling the story, on the ground that the case has been sufficiently proved; but we shall only then render our verdict when we have heard that.” In this wise I accordingly began: “Thespesius of Soli, a kinsman and friend of the Protagenes who spent some time here with us, having passed the first part of his life in great dissoluteness, and having speedily squandered all his patrimony, now pressed by the exigencies of his situation, for some time led a vicious life; besides repenting of his bad management, he also sought in every way to recover what he had lost, and acted just like those libertines who care nothing for their wives so long as they are in possession of them, but after they are divorced and married to other men, basely try to corrupt them. Accordingly, by holding aloof from no act of meanness that brought either gratification or gain, he acquired in a short time not only very great possessions, but also the reputation of being a thorough scoundrel. Above all, an oracle brought from Amphilochus gave him a bad name; for having asked the god through a messenger, as we are told, whether he would lead a better life in the future, the answer came back that it would be better with him after he was dead. And in a measure this turned out to be true, not long after. For happening to fall on his head from a height he lay like one dead from the shock alone, for he had received no wound, and on the third day was already carried forth for burial. Then all at once recovering strength and coming to himself, he showed a most astonishing change in his manner of life; for the Cilicians know of no man of his time more just in dealings between man and man, none more reverent toward the gods, none more dreaded by his enemies, or more faithful to his friends. Consequently all who knew him were eager to hear the cause of this transformation, as they thought such an alteration of character could not be a mere matter of chance—which was in fact the case, as he himself related to Protagenes and other equally intimate friends. For when he lost consciousness,—(literally, when his rational soul left his body)—he at first experienced about the same sensation as the result of the change that a pilot would feel who should be hurled from a ship into the deep; afterwards, having recovered a little, he thought he had entirely regained his breath and was able to see on every side with his soul opened as if it were all one eye. Yet he beheld none of the former things, but the objects he recognized were stars of immense magnitude at immeasurable distances from one another, and a radiance proceeding from them, surprising in its brilliancy and color, in which his soul moved about with facility just as a man in a calm moves a ship in any direction, easily and quickly. Though he omitted most of what he saw, he said that the souls of the dead, rising from below, made flame-like bubbles as they displaced the air before them; then, as each bubble noiselessly burst, the souls came forth, human in form but of a smaller size. Their movements, however, were not alike, for some started forth with surprising fleetness and darted straight up, while others whirled round in a circle just like spindles, and whisking, now upward, now downward, with a kind of confused and aimless motion, they came to rest only after a long time and with great difficulty. Respecting most of the souls, however, he was in ignorance as to who they were; but recognizing two or three of his acquaintances, he tried to approach and address them, yet they neither heard him nor were in their right mind, but beside themselves and dazed, trying to avoid all notice and intercourse, moving aimlessly about, at first alone by themselves, then encountering many who were in a like condition, they joined themselves to these, and, tossed about in a disorderly manner in all directions, they uttered unintelligible cries that sounded like mingled screams of lamentation and fear. Others, again, were seen at the very summit of the upper air, radiant with joy, frequently approaching each other with signs of affection, but avoiding the disorderly ones and testifying their aversion, as he thought, by drawing themselves together, but their delight and satisfaction, by expanding and extending themselves. Here, he said, he recognized the soul of one of his kinsmen, though not quite distinctly, for he had died when yet very young; but drawing near it saluted him with, ‘Hail, Thespesius!’ When he, in surprise, rejoined that his name was not Thespesius, but Aridaeus. ‘Formerly, it is true,’ replied the spirit, ‘that was thy name, but henceforth it is Thespesius (the Divine). For thou didst not die, but through the interposition of God art come hither in the full possession of thy faculties; the other part of thy soul thou hast left behind in thy body, as it were an anchor; and let this be a token to thee both, now, and henceforth, that the souls of the departed neither cast a shadow nor move the eyelids.’ On hearing this, Thespesius, who had by this time somewhat recovered consciousness, looked and beheld a kind of faint line about himself, while the rest were completely encircled with a radiance and diaphanous, though not all in the same manner, for some, like the moon in her brightest splendor, had a uniformly smooth and even color, while others were marked with a kind of spots or faint weals; others again were all variegated and strange to look upon; while still others were marked with livid fleckings like vipers, and some even showed slight scarifications. The kinsman of Thespesius explained these things in detail (for there is nothing to hinder us from calling the souls of men by the name they themselves bore during life) by reciting that Adrastea, the daughter of Necessity and Zeus, had been placed in the highest seat as the avenger of all crimes, and that there is no wicked man so powerful or so insignificant as to be able, either by craft or by force, to escape her. Three attendants wait upon her to each of whom has been assigned a different mode of inflicting punishment: those who are to be chastised while yet in the body and by means of the body, swift Poena (Punishment) seizes, though in a rather mild way that still leaves behind many things needing expiation; those whose cure is a matter of greater difficulty on account of their vices, the daemon hands over, after death, to Dike (Justice), while those that Dike gives up as entirely incorrigible, the third and most terrible of the attendants of Adrastea, Erinys (the Fury), pursues, and after hounding them as they rush about trying to escape her in one way or another, she puts them all out of sight in a pitiless and awful way by thrusting them into a nameless and invisible abyss. Of the other punishments, said he, that inflicted by Poena in this life is like those of the non-Greeks. For as among the Persians the clothes and tiaras of those who are undergoing chastisement are pulled off and they are scourged, while the culprits beg with tears that their castigation may be ended; so the punishments suffered in body or estate are no severe affliction, nor do they touch vice itself, but are chiefly for appearance sake and for the outward sense. But him who comes hither from there, unpunished and unpurged, Dike seizes and exposes his soul in all its nakedness, and there is no place where it can hide or go into concealment or cover up its baseness, but it is completely seen on all sides and by everybody. At first Dike shows this soul to honest parents, if such he had, or to ancestors, as a detestable creature and unworthy (of such ancestry); but if they were likewise wicked, he sees them undergoing chastisement, while he is in turn beheld by them receiving his deserts and expiating, for a long time, each of his evil passions with pains and torments which as far exceed in sharpness those endured in the flesh as the reality exceeds in distinctness the mere vision (before you). The stripes and weals for each of the passions remain on some a longer, on others a shorter time.” ‘Observe also,’ said he, ‘the variegated and party-colored appearance of the souls; the darkish and filthy hue is the mark of fraud and avarice, while the blood-red and flame-colored indicates cruelty and ugliness of temper; where the soul has a bluish color, a lack of self-control as against lust has not been wholly eradicated from it; inherent malevolence combined with envy give out the violet color and festering appearance underneath, just as the cuttle-fish sets free its black fluid. For yonder (in the world), vice, when the soul is changed by its passions and changes the body, occasions a variety of colors, but here (in the realm of departed spirits) there is an end of purification and punishment, and when the passions are purged out, the soul recovers entirely its native luster and uniform color. Until this takes place, paroxysms of passion break forth, causing relapses and heart-throbs, in some cases faint and easily recovered from, in others exceedingly violent. Some of the souls, after undergoing repeated castigations resume their natural character and disposition; others again are carried away into the bodies of animals by the force and power of ignorance and the innate love of sensual gratification; for, owing to the weakness of the reasoning faculty and a disinclination to discursive thought, one is impelled by its active principle to procreation, while another, though lacking an instrument of sensual gratification, yet longs to satisfy its desires with worldly pleasures and to attain its ends by means of the body, for in this place there is only a kind of imperfect shadow and vision of joys that can have no reality.’ When the spirit had thus spoken, it conducted him (Thespesius) swiftly through boundless space, as he thought, easily and without deviation, borne up by the beams of light as if on wings, until he came to a wide and deep chasm where the power that supported him gave way; he saw, too, that the other souls had a like experience at that place, for these, crowding together like birds, and darting downward, flew about the chasm,—for they dared not venture to pass directly across it—which he saw was decorated within like the grottoes of Bacchus, with shrubbery and plants and with all sorts of green twigs bearing flowers; it also sent forth a gentle and agreeable breeze which was singularly pleasant and which produced the same effect that wine does on those who are addicted to it, for the souls that inhaled these fragrant odors were in ecstasies of joy and embraced one another. All around this place there was revelry and laughter, together with every kind of enjoyment and merry-making. He said that here Dionysus had ascended and had afterwards fetched up Semele and that it was called the place of Forgetfulness (Lethe). Here, too, Thespesius desired to tarry, but his conductor would not allow it, and hurried him forcibly away, at the same time telling him that the rational soul is melted and dissolved under the influence of pleasure, but that the irrational and carnal part, moistened and clothed in flesh, revives the memory of the body, and as a result of this reminiscense, a desire and a concupiscence that incites to procreation; for which reason it is called an _inclination toward the earth_ because the soul is weighed down with moisture. Passing next over another way of equal extent, he thought he saw a huge goblet into which streams flowed, of which one was of a whiter color than the foam of the sea or snow; another, purple like the iris; while others again showed, from afar, different hues, each of which shone with its own particular luster, yet when he came near, the ambient air became more and more rarified, the colors became fainter, and the goblet lost its brilliant tints, except the white. Here he saw three supernatural beings (daemons) sitting by one another in the form of a triangle, mixing together the streams with certain measures. The conductor of the soul of Thespesius said that to this point Orpheus had advanced when he was following after the soul of his wife, but because his memory partly failed him he brought back to men an incorrect account when he said that the oracle at Delphi was the common property of Apollo and Night, when in sooth, there is nothing in common between Apollo and Night. ‘But this oracle,’ the spirit said, ‘is common to night and the moon; it gives response nowhere upon the earth and has no fixed abode, but roams about everywhere among men, in dreams and apparitions; and emanating from it, as thou seest, dreams mixed up with the plain and simple truth, spread abroad trickery and fraud. But that of Apollo thou didst not see,’ it said, ‘nor wilt thou be able to see it, for the earthly part of the soul neither strives toward what is higher nor does it release (the spiritual part), but it tends downward as long as it is joined to the body.’ At the same time the spirit leading him (Thespesius) nearer tried to show him the light issuing from the tripod which, as he said, passed through the bosom of Themis and reached as far as Parnassus. Though greatly desiring to see it, he was not able to do so because of its brilliancy; but as he passed by he heard the shrill voice of a woman chanting in verse some other things, and the time of his death, as he thought. The supernatural being (daemon) said it was the Sibyl, and that she foretold future events as she was whirled about on the face of the moon. Though wishing to hear more, he was carried round to the opposite side by the rotary motion of the moon and caught but a few words; among which was the prediction about Mount Vesuvius and the impending destruction of Dicaearchea by fire, and a verse about the reigning emperor, thus:

‘Though he is good, disease shall end his reign.’ Next in order they turned to look upon those who were undergoing punishments. From the very first they beheld nothing but repulsive and pitiable sights; then Thespesius quite unexpectedly came upon kindred and acquaintances and former companions who were in terrible sufferings and undergoing horrible torments and pains, and who besought him with loud lamentations to have pity on them. Finally, he recognized his own father coming up from a kind of abyss, all covered with marks and wounds, stretching out his hands to him; nor did those who directed his castigations suffer him to hold his peace, but they compelled him to confess that he had been guilty of a base crime against some guests, for their gold, by taking them off with poison, and that, though the deed was unknown to everybody in the world above, it was known to those below. (He also said) that he had already undergone some torments, but was being dragged away to suffer others. Smitten with fear and horror he durst not offer supplications and intercessions for his father; but wanting to turn about and flee, he no longer saw his kind and familiar guide, and felt himself urged forward by other beings horrible to look upon, by whom he was compelled to pass among and behold the chastisements of others of his acquaintances who had openly led a wicked life, though the shade of those who had been punished in the world was less grievously tormented than the rest, and not in the same way, as they were merely condemned to severe toil for the irrational nature and the passions. On the other hand, those who had worn the garb and assumed the name of virtue, but had in secret led corrupt lives, were forced by other tormentors, with severe exertion and great pain, to turn the inner parts of the soul outward; which action being so contrary to their nature, they performed it with wrigglings and contortions like those made by the marine scolopendra when they have swallowed the hook; some, their tormentors flayed and laid open in order to show how corrupt and flecked they were, and that their iniquity had its root in the reason which is the noblest part of the soul. Other souls, he also said, he observed coiled about each other by twos and threes and even more, gnawing one another on the score of old grudges for the deeds of malice they had suffered or committed in life. And he noticed further, some lakes alongside of each other, one of which was of seething gold, another of exceeding cold lead, and still another of hard iron; that over these stood certain demons who in turn, like smiths, seized with tongs the souls of those who had been guilty of insatiable greed and avarice, drawing them out and thrusting them in. When they had become heated through and diaphanous in the gold from the effects of the burning, they were plunged into the sea of lead; having become congealed here and hard as hailstones, they were next thrust into the lake of iron, where they turned completely black, and were then twisted round and round because of their hard-heartedness, and rubbed together until they lost all semblance of their former selves. They were then put once more into the lake of gold to undergo, as he said, awful torments by the change. But he said those endured the keenest anguish, who, supposing they had been released by Justice (Dike) were seized anew: these were the souls of those for whose transgressions their descendants or children had to pay the penalty. For whenever one of these arrived and encountered the other, he fell upon the shade in great wrath, uttering loud cries and showing the marks of what he had endured, at the same time execrating and pursuing it while it endeavored to flee away and hide itself, yet could not. For swiftly did the avengers of justice pursue such, dragging them back again amid loud lamentations because they foreknew their impending doom. To some of the souls, he said, many of their descendants at the same time attached themselves like bees or bats, uttering shrill cries and falling into transports of rage at the recollection of what they had endured for their sakes; and last of all he saw the souls of those who were undergoing the preparation for a second birth by a forced transformation into all sorts of animals, and by metempsychosis at the hands of those who were appointed to the task. These, by the use of certain tools, and with blows, hammered together entire members, turned others round, scraped down or removed others entirely in order to adapt them to different modes of life, among which also appeared the soul of Nero that had already undergone the other castigations, and had been transfixed with red-hot nails. When the workmen had begun to prepare the figure of a Pindaric viper, in which it was destined to live after it had been conceived and had eaten its way out of its mother, he said that a great light appeared and a voice came out of the light commanding that it be transformed into some more gentle creature and made over into an animal that is wont to chant around marshes and ponds, as he had already expiated his crimes, and some consideration was due him at the hands of the gods for freeing Greece, the land in which dwelt the best and most god-favored of his subjects. Thus far now Thespesius was an eyewitness; but when he was about to turn back, he got into the utmost perplexity through fright; for a woman, imposing by her stature and beauty, taking hold of him, said, ‘Pray come hither, my friend, in order that you may the better remember everything’ (you have seen). And as she was about to apply to him a little red-hot iron rod such as the painters in encaustic are wont to use, another woman interfered. But he himself was carried away all at once by a sudden and very violent gust of wind, as if blown through a tube, and so lighting again in his own body, he was restored to life, as it were, on the very brink of the grave.”

NOTES.

A few notes of general character are here appended. Biographical and mythological details may be found in classical dictionaries. They are, however, rarely necessary to make clear the object of the author’s allusions. A word or a phrase not in the original has, in a few cases, been inserted in the translation to preclude the necessity of a note.

Τοῦ θείου of the title. It is not clear from the writings of
Plutarch to what extent he was a monotheist. He uses θεὸς both with
and without the article. In some cases his meaning is perfectly
clear; in others not. The New Testament writers, whose monotheism is
beyond question, frequently use the article before the name of God.
In like manner proper names sometimes have the article and sometimes
are without it. Thus we have Παῦλος and ὁ Παῦλος, Πιλᾶτος usually
has the article while Τίτος never has it, etc.

CHAP. 3. The thought here expressed regarding the mills of the gods
has been put into the form of a couplet by Longfellow in his Poetic
Aphorisms, thus:

“Though the mills of God grind slowly
yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting,
with exactness grinds He all.”

The purport of the passage is plain, but the parallelism between the
fact and the figure is not very close. The idea is much older than
Plutarch.

CHAP. 4. “The ingle-side” or ancestral hearth. According to the
ancients the hearth was the center and beginning of the family and
the state. The expression, which is often used by Plato and others,
is equivalent to the _remotest beginning_. Compare also the Roman
Vesta.

5. “God having placed Himself,” etc. The following extract from the
Timaeus of Plato will serve to illustrate our author’s meaning. “Let
me tell you then why the Creator made this world of generation. He
was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And
being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as
like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the
origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in
believing on the testimony of wise men. God desired that all things
should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.
Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but
moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he
brought order, considering that this was in every way better than
the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been
other than the fairest and best; and the Creator, reflecting on the
things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent
creature taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a
whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything which
was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was framing the
universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he
might be the creator of a work which was, by nature, fairest.
Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the
world became a living creature, truly endowed with soul and
intelligence by the providence of God.”

6. “Souls going forth from him.” The idea here is, that the human
soul existed previous to its incarnation in the human body, and that
it is a direct emanation from the Deity. This doctrine is fully
expounded by Plato. How to establish the immortality of the soul, if
it comes into existence with the body, was a serious problem with
the ancients. Plutarch seems to have regarded both the soul and the
body as eternal and uncreated, but the latter without form until it
was united with the soul. Or we may put the case otherwise by saying
that the soul, upon entering into a conscious existence, shapes the
hitherto formless body into an abode for itself. He also holds that
the soul consists of two parts: The one part seeks after truth and
has an affection for the beautiful; the other is subject to the
passions and under the dominion of error. “For which reason,” the
author here assumes that the words ἔθος and ἦθος are from the same
root. The former means, use and wont; the latter was originally
applied to the haunts or abodes of animals; then the manners,
habits, and dispositions of men. Aristotle says, ἡ δ᾽ ἠθικὴ ἐξ ἔθους
περιγίνεται, ὅθεν καὶ τοῦνομα ἔσχηκε μικρὸν περικλῖνον ἀπὸ τοῦ
ἤθους. (Ethical is from ἔθος, for which reason the word differs but
slightly from ἤθος.) Plutarch himself says that custom is second
nature. It is easy to trace the connection between a man’s acts and
the psychical forces, the character, that produces them.

8. “An ill-omened deed.” It was a prevalent belief in antiquity that
misfortunes fell upon those who were concerned in disturbing a
swallow’s nest.

10. Near the end. The Greeks ventured to consult oracles of the dead
only on rare and extraordinary occasions. They probably borrowed the
custom from the East.

11. The story of Glaucus is told at length by Herodotus in the third
book of his history and is often alluded to by later writers. The
ethical import of the anecdote is far-reaching.

17. “Gardens of Adonis.” Shakespeare probably had these in mind when
he wrote (King Henry VI. Part 1, scene sixth): “Thy promises are
like Adonis’ gardens, That one day bloomed and fruitful were the
next.” At Taenarus, the most southern point of the Peloponnesus,
there was believed to be an entrance to the lower world.

22. “None more dreaded by his enemies.” To return good for good and
evil for evil was a fundamental article of Greek ethics. It is more
than once alluded to in the Anabasis, and is found in nearly all
Greek writers. Socrates, however, takes a firm stand against the
principle and maintains that whatever is intrinsically wrong can
never under any circumstances become right.

“An inclination toward the earth.” The author here assumes that
γένεσις, procreation, beginning, is both in fact and etymologically,
connected with νεῦσις ἐπὶ γῆν, an inclination or tendency toward the
earth. It need hardly be said that his idea is pure fancy.

This eruption of Vesuvius, as is well known, took place in the year
79. Decaearchea or Puteoli was one of the cities destroyed together
with Herculaneum, Pompei and others. Vespasian was one of the few
Roman emperors, who, up to his time, died a natural death.

What is meant by a Pindaric viper is not known. Plutarch is
evidently of the opinion that its young gnaw their way out of the
mother’s womb instead of being born in the natural way, and the
allusion to Nero’s treatment of his mother is plain. Nero’s love for
music and his proficiency in the musical art are evidently held up
to ridicule in this passage.