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THE MYTHS OF PLATO 





THE 


MYTHS OF PLATO 


TRANSLATED 
WITH INTRODUCTORY AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS 


BY 


J. A. STEWART, M.A. 


STUDENT AND TUTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH AND WHITE'S PROFESSOR 
OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ; 
HON. LL.D., EDINBURGH 


London 
MACMILLAN AND OCO., LimttepD 


NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


1905 


All rights reserved 













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PREFACE 


THE object of this volume is to furnish the reader with material 
for estimating the characteristics and influence of Plato the 
Mythologist, or Prophet, as distinguished from Plato the 
Dialectician, or Reasoner. 

In order to effect this special object within a reasonable 
space, it was necessary to extract the Myths from the Dialogues 
in which they occur, with only the shortest possible indication 
of the Context in each case, and to confine the Observations 
to the Myths as individual pieces and as a series. The reader, 
therefore, must not expect to find in the Observations on, say, 
the Phaedo Myth or the Phaedrus Myth a Study of the Phaedo 
or the Phaedrus. 

The Greek text printed opposite the Translations and 
followed by them throughout, except in a few places where 
preferred readings are given in footnotes, is that of Stallbaum’s 
Platonis Opera Omnia Uno Volumine Comprehensa (1867). 

I owe a large debt of gratitude to two friends for help 
received. 

Professor J. 8. Phillimore read all the Translations through 
in proof with the most friendly care; and errors which may be 
detected in these Translations will, I feel sure, turn out to be 
in places where, from some cause or other, I may have failed 
to make proper use of his suggestions. 

The other friend who helped me, Frederick York Powell, 
is gone. A few weeks before his last illness began to cause 


serious anxiety to his friends, he read through all the 
Υ 


vi THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Translations in manuscript up to the Phaedrus Myth, inclusive, 
and I read to him nearly the whole of the Introduction, and 
also other parts, especially those relating to the Theory of 
Poetry. The help he then gave me by his suggestive and 
sympathetic discussion of various points closed a long series of 
acts of friendship on which I shall always look back with a 
feeling of deep gratitude. 


J. A. STEWART, 


OxFORD, December 1904. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 


1. The Platonic Drama—Two elements to be distinguished in it: Argumentative 
Conversation and Myth. Pages 1-4 

2. General remarks on μυθολογία, or Story- telling — Primitive Story-telling 
described as ἀνθρωπολογία καὶ fwodoyia—Stories, or Myths, are (1) Simply 
Anthropological and Zoological ; (2) Aetiological ; (3) Eschatological—A 
Myth, as distinguished from an Allegory, has no Moral or Other- 
meaning . d 4-20 

3. Plato’s Myths dietinenizhed from Mlegories—To ‘what ΩΝ to what 
‘Part of the Soul,” does the Platonic Myth appeal? To that part which 
expresses itself, not in ‘theoretic judgments,” but in ‘‘value-judgments,” 
or rather “‘ value-feelings’”—The effect produced in us by the Platonic 
Myth is essentially that produced by Poetry ; ‘‘ Transcendental Feeling,” 
the sense of the overshadowing presence of ‘‘ That which was, and is, and 
ever shall be,” is awakened in us—Passages from the Poets, quoted to 
exemplify the production of this effect . . , 20-39 

4, ‘Transcendental Feeling” explained genetically as the reflection i in Conscious- 
ness of the Life of the ‘‘ Vegetative Part of the Soul,” the fundamental 
principle in us, and in all living creatures, which silently, in timeless 
sleep, makes the assumption on which the whole rational life of Conduct 
and Science rests, the assumption that ‘‘ Life is worth living,” that there is 
a Cosmos, in which, and of which, it is good to be—‘ Transcendental 
Feeling” is thus Solemn Sense of Timeless Being, and Conviction that 
Life is good, and is the beginning and end of Metaphysics—It is with the 
production of the first of these two phases of ‘‘ Transcendental Feeling” 
that the Platonic Myth, and Poetry generally, are chiefly concerned— 
The Platonic Myth rouses and regulates this mode of ‘‘ Transcendental 
Feeling” for the use of Conduct and Science . j 39-42 

5. The Platonic Myth rouses and_ regulates Pv iciehadnatal Feeling” by 
(1) Imaginative Representation of Ideas of Reason,” and (2) Imaginative 
Deduction of ‘‘ Categories of the Understanding” and ‘‘ Moral Virtues”’ 
—Distinction between “Ideas” and “Categories” implicit in Plato— 
Kant’s distinction explained—Why does Plato employ Myth when he 
“represents” Ideas of Reason, Soul, Cosmos, God, and when he 
** deduces” Categories of the Understanding and Moral Virtues? 42-51 

6. Plato’s treatment of the ‘‘Ideaof God”  . : ἔ ‘ 51-60 

vii 


B, 
244 


Viii THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


7. Plato’s treatment of the ‘‘Idea of Soul”—Agnosticism of Plato’s day with 
regard to the Immortality of the Soul—Influence of Orphic Belief as felt 
by Pindar and Plato—Plato’s Eschatological Myths plainly reproduce the 
matter of Orphic teaching Ἶ . Pages 60-71 

8. Summary of Introductory Observations in the form of a defence of Plato 
against a charge brought against him by Kant, Kritik d. reinen Vernunft, 
Einleitung, § 3—Plato’s Myths (roughly distinguished as (1) representing 
Ideas of Reason, or Ideals, and (2) deducing Categories, Faculties, 
Virtues, i.e. tracing them back to their origins) will be taken in the 
following order: (a) as representing Ideas of Reason, the Phaedo Myth, 
the Gorgias Myth, the Myth of Er (the three Eschatological Myths par 
excellence), the Politicus Myth together with the Myth of the Golden Age, 
the Protagoras Myth (Aetiological Myths), and the Discourse of Timaeus ; 
(b) as chiefly concerned with the deduction of Categories or Virtues, the 
Phaedrus Myth, the Meno Myth, and the Myth told by Aristophanes 
and Discourse of Diotima in the Symposiwm; (c) the Atlantis Myth 
and the Myth of the Earth-born, which respectively represent the 
Ideals and deduce the Categories of the Nation, as distinguished from 
the Individual . : ‘ 72-76 


THE PHAEDO MYTH 


Context of the Myth ‘ : A : : μ ; 77 
Translation . A : 79-93 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHAEDO MytH 


1. Plato’s method of giving verisimilitude to Myth, by bringing it into conform- 
ity with the ‘‘ Modern Science” of his day, illustrated from the Phaedo, 
and paralleled from Henry More ; . 94-101 
2. The subject of the last section further illustrated ty reference to the parallel 
between Plato’s Geography of Tartarus and the ‘‘True Surface of the 
Earth” and Dante’s Geography of Hell, Purgatory, and the Earthly 
Paradise—The parallelism between Plato and Dante dwelt on chiefly 
with the view of suggesting the method by which we may best under- 
stand the function of Myth in the Platonic Philosophy, the method of 
sealing the impression made on us by the Myth of one great master 
by the study of the Myth of another with whom we may happen to be 
in closer sympathy . . 101-113 
3. The distinction between Dogma) and Myth insisted ‘upon by Socrates, 
Phaedo, 114 D—*‘ Moral ΕΝ tae ” the “ of the Phaedo 
Myth . 3 118-114 


THE GORGIAS MYTH 


Context i : : A ‘ 115 
Translation . , . ; 117-125 


CONTENTS ix 


OBSERVATIONS ON ΤῊΝ Gorcias ΜΥΤῊ 


1. ‘*Moral Responsibility is the motif of the Gorgias Myth, as it is of the 
Phaedo Myth—The Gorgias Myth sets forth, in a Vision of Judgment, 
Penance, and Purification, the continuity and sameness of the Active, 
as distinguished from the Passive, Self, the Self as actively developing its 
native power under the discipline of correction, κόλασις, not as being the 
mere victim of vengeance, ryuwpla—Death as Philosopher Pages 126-128 

2. The mystery of the infinite difference between Vice with Large Opportunity 


and Vice with Narrow Opportunity —, ; . 129-130 
8. Observations on Tablets aflixed to the Judged ‘Shite on the Meadow of 
Judgment, and on the Three Ways : . 180-132 


THE MYTH OF ER 


Context . ᾿ ‘ : ; ‘ : 133 
Translation ‘ , . ‘ ; 5 ν , 185-151 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE ΜΎΤΗ or ER 


1, Cosmography and Geography of the Myth . #@ . . 152-154 
2. Dante’s Lethe and Eunoé taken in connection ‘with the Orphio Ritual and 
Mythology, to which Plato is Jargely indebted for his account of the 
Soul’s κάθαρσις as a Process of Forgettingand Remembering . 154-161 
3. More about the Cosmography and Geography of the Myth—The Pillar of 
Light, the Spindle of Necessity, the Model of the Cosmos in the lap 


of Necessity ‘ . 162-169 
4. The great philosophical qnestion raised and solved in the Myth, How to 
reconcile ‘‘ Free Will” with the ‘‘ Reign of Law”’ ; . 169-172 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 


Introductory Remarks . : ; : : : . 173-174 
Context . : ς : : ; R : 175 
Translation : : : , 7.181 
Translation of the Myth of the Gosden A ge Ἀ 3 . 193-195 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE PoLiTicus ΜΎΤΗ 


1. Relation of the Politicws Myth to the “‘ Science” of Plato’s day . 196-197 
2. Is Plato “‘in earnest” in supposing that God, from time to time, withdraws 
from the government of the World? . ν . ὃ 197-198 
3. Resurrection τοῦ Metempsychosis 3 198-200 
4. ‘The Problem of Evil” raised in the, ΓΈΝΟΣ Myth—How does Plato 
suppose the solution of this problem to be furthered by an Aetiological 
Myth like that of the Politicus’—The value of Aetiological Myth as 
helping us to ‘‘solve” a ‘‘ universal difficulty” as distinguished from a 
‘*particular difficulty’”—It helps us to ‘‘put by” the former kind of 


x THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


difficulty—The Kalewala quoted to illustrate the function of Aetiological 
Myth—The Story of the Birth of Iron—Transition from the Politicus 
Myth to the ‘‘Creation Myths” eet so called, the Protagoras Myth, 
and the Discourse of Timaeus_ . , . Pages 200-211 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 


Context of the Myth ; ἴ : : , ; . 212-213 
Translation : : 7 ᾿ . ᾿ ὃ . 215-219 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROTAGORAS ΜΎΤΗ 


1. Is it a ‘‘ Platonic Myth,” or only a ‘‘ Sophistic Apologue ” ?—It is a true Myth, 
as setting forth a priori elements in man’s experience . . 220-222 
2. It sets forth the distinction between the ‘‘mechanical” and the ‘‘teleo- 
logical” explanation of the World and its parts—It raises the question 
discussed in Kant’s Critique of Judgment ν . 222-226 
8. Account given in the Myth of the 7 of Virtue as distinguished from 
Art . 226-228 
4. A Sculptured Myth, the Prometheus "Sarcophagus in the Capitoline 
Museum . . 228-229 
5. The difference betwee Myth and ‘Allegory—Sketch of the History of Alle- 
gorical Interpretation—The interpreters of Homer and of Greek Mythology 
—Philo—The Christian Fathers—The Neo-Platonists—Dante—Plato’s 
Allegory of the Cave (which is a Myth as well as an Allegory)—His Alle- 
gory of the piasicabel Crew — sas and sii compared with 
Ritual . : . 230-258 


THE TIMAEUS 


Context . ; : ; ᾿ ; ; ; ; 259 
Translation . ’ ; : : Ἶ . 261-297 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE JIMAEUS 


1. General observations on its scope. : ‘ Ἶ . 298-802 
2. Purification and Metempsychosis_. ; : . 802-304 
3. On the Creation of Souls. : ; ; ᾿ . 804-305 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 


Context of the Myth : : : : . 806.807 
Translation ‘ ; . . : ; . 809-335 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHAEDRUS MytTH 


1. Preliminary . ὁ 336 
2. The Phaedrus Myth as giving ae Deduction " of the Categories of the Under- 
standing—But it also sets forth the Ideas of Reason. . 837-339 


— 


CONTENTS xi 


8. The doctrines of ᾿Ανάμνησις, 'Epws, Lmortality--The Jfeno Myth translated, 
and compared with the Phaedrus Myth—In what sense is the ‘' Doctrine 
of Ideas" ‘‘ mythical’, , ; ; Pages 339-349 
4, The Number 729, : ; . ' ' . 849.300 
5. Tho celestial, or astronomical, mise en scéne of the ‘ History of the Soul” in 
the Phaedrus Myth, and the importance of that mise en seéne for sub- 
sequent philosophical and religious thought down to Dante . 350-381 
6. Poetic Inspiration. ᾿ : ; Ξ ᾿ . 8.82-39θ0 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 
Context of the Myths. : : : 397 


I.—THE MYTH TOLD BY ARISTOPHANES 
Translation ᾿ P ᾿ ν ᾿ : ‘ : 399-407 


GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE ΜΎΤΗ 
and comparison with the Zagreus Myth and with Rabelais. . 408-413 


II.—THE DISCOURSE OF DIOTIMA 
Translation : ; ‘ ς ν ᾿ ! ᾿ 415-427 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE DiscouRsE OF DIoTIMA 


1. The Discourse at once an Allegory and a Myth—May be taken as a study of 
the Prophetic Temperament—The nature of Prophecy . . 428-484 
2, The History of the Doctrine of Daemons . : : . 434-450 


GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON MYTHS 
WHICH SET FORTH THE NATION’s, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM 


THE INDIVIDUAL’S, IDEALS AND CATEGORIES 


Myths in which we have the spectacle of a Nation’s life, (a) led on by a Vision 
of its Future, (Ὁ) conditioned by its Past. These are (a) the Atlantis 
Myth in the Zimaeus and Critias, which, taken in connection with the 
account of the Ideal State in the Republic, sets forth the Vision of an 
Hellenic Empire; (Ὁ) the Myth of the Earth-born in the Republic 451-456 


THE ATLANTIS MYTH 


Abbreviated translation, or rendering . ὁ. ‘ ; . 457-464 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE ATLANTIS ΜΎΤΗ 
The Geology and Geography of the Myth - 465-469 


xii THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


THE MYTH OF THE EARTH-BORN 


Translation, ° : Ξ , ' 4 Pages 471-473 
Note on the Myth of the Earth-born . ν , : , 474 


CONCLUSION—THE MYTHOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS 
OF THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 


The ‘‘Cambridge Platonists” represent Plato the Mythologist, or Prophet, 
rather than Plato the Dialectician, or Reasoner, and in this respect are 
important for the understanding of our modern English “ Idealists,” who, 
it is contended, are ‘‘ Platonists” of the same kind as Cudworth and his 
associates : : ; : ; . 475-519 


INTRODUCTION 
l. Tuk PLATONIC DRAMA 


THE Platonic Dialogue may be broadly described as a Drama 
in which speech is the action,’ and Socrates and his companions 
are the actors. The speech in which the action consists is 
mainly that of argumentative conversation in which, although 
Socrates or another may take a leading part, yet everybody has 
his say. The conversation or argument is always about matters 
which can be profitably discussed—that is, matters on which 
men form workaday opinions which discussion may show to 
be right or wrong, wholly or in part. 

But it is only mainly that the Platonic Drama consists in 
argumentative conversation. It contains another element, the 
Myth, which, though not ostensibly present in some Dialogues, 
is so striking in others, some of them the greatest, that we 
are compelled to regard it, equally with the argumentative 
conversation, as essential to Plato’s philosophical style. 

The Myth is a fanciful tale, sometimes traditional, some- 
times newly invented, with which Socrates or some other 
interlocutor interrupts or concludes the argumentative conversa- 
tion in which the movement of the Drama mainly consists. 

The object of this work is to examine the examples of the 
Platonic Myth in order to discover its function in the organism 
of the Platonic Drama. That Myth is an organic part of the 
Platonic Drama, not an added ornament, is a point about 
which the experienced reader of Plato can have no doubt. 
The Sophists probably ornamented their discourses and made 


1 Cf. Cratylus, 387 B, τὸ λέγειν μία τίς ἐστι τῶν πράξεων. 
Β 


2 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


them more interesting by the insertion of illustrative fables or 
allegories like the Choice of Hercules ;* but the Platonic Myth 
is not illustrative—it is not Allegory rendering pictorially 
results already obtained by argument. Of this the experienced 
reader of Plato is well aware. He feels when the brisk debate 
is silenced for a while, and Socrates or another great interlocutor 
opens his mouth in Myth, that the movement of the Philosophic 
Drama is not arrested, but is being sustained, at a crisis, on 
another plane. The Myth bursts in upon the Dialogue with 
a revelation of something new and strange; the narrow, matter- 
of-fact, workaday experience, which the argumentative con- 
versation puts in evidence, is suddenly flooded, as it were, 
and transfused by the inrush of a vast experience, as from 
another world—* Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the 
place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” 

It is in the mouth of the dramatic Socrates that Plato puts 
those Myths best fitted to fill us with wondering surmise and 
make us think—the so-called Eschatological Myths. It may 
be that here Plato represents a trait of the real Socrates. 
Socrates’ method of argumentative conversation, it is fully 
recognised, determined the dialogue-form of the Platonic 
writings. It may be that also the introduction of Myths, at 
least of the Eschatological Myths—Myths distinguished by 
great impressiveness of matter and style—was suggested to 
Plato by something in the real Socrates. The personal influence 
of Socrates worked as a vital principle in Plato’s mind, and 
bodied itself forth in Socratic dramas—plays in which, as 1 
have said, Socrates and his companions are the actors, and 
philosophical discourse is the action. Any element, then, in 
the Platonic writings which the experienced reader finds of 
great dramatic moment—and the Myth is suech—is likely to 
represent some striking trait in the person and influence of the 
real Socrates. In the Myths put into his mouth Socrates 
prophesies—sets forth, by the aid of imaginative language, the 
fundamental conditions of conduct and knowledge. He 
‘‘ prophesies,” and his hearers listen spellbound. That Socrates 
possessed what is now called mesmeric influence is very likely. 
The comparison of his influence (in ordinary debate) with that 


1 See Grote’s Plato, ii. 38, note 6, 


INTRODUCTION 3 


of the electric fish, ἡ θαλαττία νάρκη, may be thought to 
imply as much; while his familiar spirit, or δαιμόνιον, must 
be taken as evidence of “abnormality.”* I venture to offer 
the suggestion, for what it may be worth, that the Platonic 
Myths, in manner if not always in matter, represent (directly 
as spoken by “Socrates” himself, indirectly as spoken by 
“'Timaeus,” “ Critias,” “ Protagoras,” “the Eleatic Stranger”) 
certain impressive passages in the conversation of the real 
Socrates, when he held his hearers spellbound by the magnetism 
of his face and speech. Be this as it may, Myth distinguished 
once for all by weight and ring from Allegory ® is an essential 
element of Plato’s philosophical style; and his philosophy 
cannot be understood apart from it.‘ 

The main plan of this work is to append to the English 
translation of each of the Platonic Myths observations and 
notes relating specially to that Myth itself. Each Myth is a 
unique work of art, and must be dealt with individually in its 
own context. But I hope that the general effect of these 
special observations will be to leave the reader, at the end, 
with an adequate impression of the significance of Myth, first 
in Plato’s philosophy, and then in present-day thought. 

Before beginning, however, to carry out the main plan of 


1 Meno, 80 A. 

3 Hegel (Gesch. d. Philos. ii. 94-101) regards the δαιμόνιον as a “ magnetic” 
phenomenon, physiologically explicable. C. R. Volquardsen (Das Daémonium des 
Socrates und seine Interpreten, Kiel, 1862) holds (pp. 58 and 71) that it cannot 
be explained by any daw of anthropology or physiology, but is a ‘‘ singular” 
phenomenon. Zeller (Socrates and the Socratic Schools, pp. 72-79, Eng. Transl.) 
concludes that it is ‘‘a vague apprehension of some good or ill result following on 
certain actions.” 

F. W. H. Myers (Human Personality, ii. 95 ff.) cites the δαιμόνιον of Socrates 
“fas an example of wise automatism ; of the possibility that the messages which 
are conveyed to the supraliminal mind from subliminal strata of the personality 
—whether as sounds, as sights, or as movements—may sometimes come from far 
beneath the realm of dream and confusion,—from some self whose monitions 
convey to us a wisdom profounder than we know” (p. 100). Against L. F. Lélut 
(Du Démon de Socrate, 1856), who argues from the records of the δαιμόνιον in 
Xenophon and Plato that Socrates was insane, Myers contends (p. 95) that ‘‘it 
is now possible to give a truer explanation ; to place these old records in juxta- 
position with more instructive parallels ; and to show that the messages which 
Socrates received were only advanced examples of a process which, if supernormal, 
is not abnormal, and which characterises that form of intelligence which we 
describe as genius.” Dr. H. Jackson’s article on “the δαιμόνιον σημεῖον of Socrates” 
in the Journal of Philology (vol. x. pp. 232 ff.) may also be referred to, and 
Kiihner’s Prolegomena (v. de Socratis δαιμονίῳ) to his edition of Xen. Mem. 

3 See infra, p. 15 and pp. 230 ff. 

4 Zeller’s Plato, pp. 159-163 (Eng. Transl.), may be read in connection with 
this and preceding paragraphs. 


4 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


this work, I will offer some preliminary remarks on μυθολογία, 
or story-telling in general, in the course of which I hope to 
indicate what I conceive to be the ground of Plato’s methodical 
employment of it in philosophy. 


2. GENERAL REMARKS ON μυθολογία, OR STORY-TELLING. 
MYTH DISTINGUISHED FROM ALLEGORY 


It is a profound remark that Imagination rather than 
Reason makes the primary difference between man and brute.’ 

The brute lives mainly among the immediate impressions of 
sense, The after-images of these impressions are evidently of 
little account in his life, being feeble and evanescent.” 

But man lives a double life—not only, with the brute, in 
the narrow world of present sensations, but also in a wide world 
of his own, where his mind is continually visited and re-visited 
by crowds of vivid, though often grotesque and grotesquely 
combined, images of past sense-impressions, It is in this wide 
wonder-world of waking dream, which encompasses the narrow 
familiar world of his present sense-impressions, that man begins 
his human career. It is here that the savage and the child 
begin to acquire what the brute has no such opportunity of 
beginning to acquire, and never does acquire,—a sense of vast 
environment and of the long course of time. This waking 
dream, which constitutes so great a part of man’s childish 
experience, probably owes much of its content to the dreams 
of sleep. Some of the lower animals, as well as man, seem to 
have dreams in sleep. But man, we may suppose, differs from 


' “Tn the lower stages of civilisation Imagination, more than Reason, dis- 
tinguishes men from the animals ; and to banish art would be to banish thought, 
to banish language, to banish the expression of all truth.”—Jowett, Dialogues of 
Pilato, Introduction to the Republic, p. elxiv. 

2 “At the proper season these birds (swallows) seem all day long to be im- 
pressed with the τὰ to migrate ; their habits change ; they become restless, 
are noisy, and congregate in flocks. Whilst the mother-bird is feeding, or 
brooding over her nestlings, the maternal instinct is probably stronger than the 
migratory ; but the instinct which is the more persistent gains the victory, and 
at aa at a moment when her young ones are not in sight, she takes flight and 
deserts them. When arrived at the end of her long journey, and the migratory 
instinct has ceased to act, what an agony of remorse the bird would feel if, from 
being endowed with great mental activity, she could not prevent the image 
constantly passing through her mind of her young ones perishing in the bleak 
north from cold and hunger” (Darwin, The Descent of Man, part i. chap. iv. 
p. 173, ed. 1901). 


INTRODUCTION 5 


the lower animals in remembering his dreams. And he can 
tell them, and improve upon them in the telling, whether they 
be dreams of sleep or waking dreams—indeed, he must tell 
them. ‘They are so vivid that they will out; he cannot keep 
them to himself; and, besides, the telling of them gives what 
may be called secondary expression and relief to certain 
emotions and feelings, which in the case of the brute find only 
primary expression in acts within the world of sense-impres- 
sions. In the case of man, fear, confidence, anger, love, hate, 
curiosity, wonder, find not only primary expression in acts 
within the world of sense-experience, but also secondary and, 
as it were, dramatic expression in the adventures and doings 
of the dream-world, all circumstantially told. It is impossible 
to over-estimate the early debt which man owes to his love of 
story-telling thus inspired and supplied with material. In 
telling and listening to stories about the dream-world, man, in 
short, learns to think. The dream-world of the primitive 
story-teller and his audience is a large, easy world, in which 
they can move about freely as they like—in which they are 
rid of the hard facts of the world of sense-experience, and can 
practise their powers without hindrance on tractable material, 
calling up images and combining them at will, as the story goes 
on, and thus educating, in play, the capacity which, afterwards 
applied to the explanation of the world of sense-experience, 
appears as the faculty of constructive thought. The first 
essays of this faculty are the so-called Aetiological Myths, 
which attempt to construct a connection between the world of 
sense-experience and the dream-world—which take the dream- 
world as the context which explains the world of sense- 
experience. Judged by the standard of positive science the 
matter of the context supplied from the dream-world by the 
mythopoeic fancy is in itself, of course, worthless; but the 
mind is enlarged by the mere contemplation of it; the habit 
of looking for a context in which to read the sense-given is 
acquired, and matter satisfactory to science is easily received 
when it afterwards presents itself. The conceptual context of 
science thus gradually comes to occupy the place once filled by 
the fantastical context of the dream-world. But this is not 
the only respect in which the mythopoeic fancy serves the 
development of man. If it prepares the way for the exercise 


6 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


of the scientific understanding, it also indicates limits within 
which that exercise must be confined. This it does by 
supplying an emotional context, if the phrase may be used, 
along with the fantastical context. The visions of the 
mythopoeic fancy are received by the Self of ordinary 
consciousness with a strange surmise of the existence, in 
another world, of another Self which, while it reveals itself in 
these visions, has a deep secret which it will not disclose. It 
is good that a man should thus be made to feel in his heart 
how small a part of him his head is—that the Scientific 
Understanding should be reminded that it is not the Reason— 
the Part, that it is not the Whole Man. Herein chiefly 
lies the present value of Myth (or of its equivalent, Poetry, 
Music, or whatever else) for civilised man. 

The stories which the primitive inhabitants of the dream- 
world love to tell one another are always about the wonderful 
adventures and doings of people and animals. ᾿Ανθρωπολογία 
καὶ Zwodoyia’ may be taken as a full description of these 
stories. The adventures and doings happened “Once upon a 
time ”—“ Long ago ”——“ Somewhere, not here ”—that is preface 
enough for the most improbable story,—it receives belief ormake- 
believe simply because it is very interesting—because the animals 
speak and behave like people, and everything else happens 
topsy-turvy in a wonderful manner, and there is no lack of 
bloodshed and indecency. If the story is not “ very interesting,” 
i.e. not marvellous, gruesome, indecent, it does not carry belief 
or make-believe, and is not interesting at all. The attitude of 
make-believe, which I have mentioned, is worth the careful 
attention of the psychologist. This is not the place to analyse 
it. I will only say that it seems to me likely that it is very 
often the attitude of the primitive story-teller and his audience. 
The story may be very interesting to its teller and audience 
without being believed, This is as true, I take it, of a grotesque 
Zulu tale as of a modern novel written with due regard to 
probability or a jeu d’esprit like Alice in Wonderland. But it 
the story is very interesting, there will always be make-believe 


1 I hope that I may be pardoned for introducing two words which are not in 
Liddell and Scott, but seem to be justitied, in the sense in which I use them, by 
Aristotle’s ἀνθρωπολόγος (HL. N. iv. 3. 31)=‘‘ fond of personal talk.” 

? Coleridge, referring to Lyrical Ballads, speaks of ‘‘ that willing suspension 
of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.” 


INTRODUCTION 


at least, and often serious, deliberate make-believe. It is in 
the spirit of this serious make-believe that not only the little 
girl talks about her dolls, but we ourselves read our Dante, or 
make pilgrimages to places associated with the events of great 
fiction. The adventures of Robinson Crusoe and the journey 
of Dr. Johnson are followed with little difference in our sense 
of actuality. The topography of the Jnferno and that of the 
Roman Forum are approached in much the same spirit by the 
interested student in each case. These instances from civilised 
experience may serve to show how vague the line must be 
dividing belief from make-believe in the mind of primitive man 
with his turbulent feelings and vivid imagination controlled by 
no uniform standard of ascertained fact.' His tendency is to 
believe whatever he tells and is told. That he sometimes stops 
short of belief at make-believe is, after all,a small matter. At 
any rate, we may be sure that Nature in this case, as in all 
other cases, does nothing that is superfluous—ovdév ποιεῖ 
περίεργον οὐδὲ μάτην ἡ φύσις. If make-believe serve Nature’s 
“purpose” as well as belief, which is more difficult, she will 
take care that her protégé stops at make-believe. Certain 
stories, we assume, have to be wonderful or horrid up to a 
certain pitch, in order to give full expression and relief to 
feeling and imagination at a certain stage of development ; 
and the belief without which these necessary stories could not 
maintain themselves at all, we further assume, will be that 
which comes easiest, 1.6. make-believe. 

It is plain that in proportion as stories are more 
extravagantly wonderful or horrid, the more likely is make- 
believe to be the attitude of tellers and hearers; and that, where 
this is the attitude, stories are likely to go on becoming more 
and more extravagantly wonderful or horrid. 

This is one tendency which, however, is met by another. 
When a wonderful story is often told and becomes very 
familiar, it comes to be believed more seriously ; and, in propor- 
tion as it is believed more seriously, it tends to disembarrass itself 
more and more of the wilder improbabilities which pleased when 
the attitude towards it was still that of make-believe. An im- 


1 Professor Tylor (Primitive Culture, i. 284) describes ‘‘a usual state of the 
imagination among ancient and savage peoples” as ‘‘intermediate between the 
conditions of a healthy prosaic modern citizen and a raving fanatic or a patient 
in a fever-ward.” 


8 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


promptu story full of extravagant improbability and, it may be, 
of revolting indecency is told about some one. When and if that 
some one afterwards comes to be regarded, it may be on the sole 
authority of this story itself, as a hero or god of the race, those 
who revere him become ashamed of the old story about him. 
They rationalise and moralise it, either leaving out the improb- 
abilities and indecencies, and retaining the parts that are probable 
and proper; or allegorising it,7.e. showing that the improbabilities 
and indecencies are not to be regarded as historical facts, but to 
be interpreted as figures of some philosophic or scientific or 
religious doctrine favoured by the interpreters. Thus make- 
believe accumulates material for the “ higher criticism.” 

᾿Ανθρωπολογία καὶ Zworoyia— “ about people and animals ” 
—is a sufficient account of what story-telling always is and 
why it is interesting. 

1. Sometimes the story is about adventures and doings 
which happened once upon a time, and left no results to en- 
hance the interest which belongs to it intrinsically as a story 
about people and animals. Such a story may be called 
“Simply Anthropological and Zoological.” 


A very large elephant came and said, “‘ Whose are those re- 
markably beautiful children?” The child replied, ‘‘ Unanana- 
bosele’s.” The elephant asked a second time, ‘‘ Whose are those 
remarkably beautiful children?” The child replied, “ Unanana- 
bosele’s.” The elephant said, “‘She built in the road on purpose, 
trusting to self-confidence and superior power.” He swallowed 
them both, and left the little child. The elephant then went 
away. 

In the afternoon the mother came and said, “ Where are the 
children?” The little girl said, ‘‘They have been taken away by 
an elephant with one tusk.” Unanana-bosele said, “ Where did 
he put them?” The little girl replied, ‘‘ He ate them.” Unanana- 
bosele said, ‘‘Are they dead?” The little girl replied, “No, I 
do not know.” 

They retired to rest. In the morning she ground much maize, 
and put it into a large pot with amasi, and set out, carrying a 
knife in her hand. She came to the place where there was an 
antelope ; she said, “‘ Mother, mother, point out for me the elephant 
which has eaten my children; she has one tusk.” The antelope 
said, ‘You will go till you come to a place where the trees are 
very high and where the stones are white.” She went on. 

She came to the place where was the leopard; she said 


INTRODUCTION 9 


“Mother, mother, point out for me the elephant which has eaten 
my children,” The leopard replied, ‘ You will go on and on, and 
come to the place where the trees are high and where the stones 
are white.” 

She went on, passing all animals, all saying the same. When 
she was still at a great distance she saw some very high trees, and 
white stones below them. She saw the elephant lying under the 
trees. She went on; when she came to the elephant she stood 
still and said, ‘“‘ Mother, mother, point out for me the elephant 
which has eaten my children.” The elephant replied, “ You will 
go on and on, and come to where the trees are high and where the 
stones are white.” The woman merely stood still, and asked again 
saying, “‘ Mother, mother, point out for me the elephant which has 
eaten my children.” ‘The elephant again told her just to pass 
onward. But the woman, seeing that it was the very elephant she 
was seeking, and that she was deceiving her by telling her to go 
forward, said a third time, “ Mother, mother, point out for me the 
elephant which has eaten my children.” 

The elephant seized her and swallowed her too. When she 
reached the elephant’s stomach, she saw large forests, and great 
rivers, and many high lands; on one side there were many rocks ; 
and there were many people who had built their villages there ; 
and many dogs and many cattle; all was there inside the 
elephant ; she saw, too, her own children sitting there. She gave 
them amasi, and asked them what they ate before she came. They 
said, “‘ We have eaten nothing, we merely lay down.” She said, 
“Why did you not roast this flesh?” They said, “If we eat this 
beast, will it not kill us?” Shesaid, “No; it will itself die; you 
will not die.” She kindled a great fire. She cut the liver, and 
roasted it and ate with her children. They cut also the flesh and 
roasted and ate. 

All the people which were there wondered, saying, ‘‘Oh, forsooth, 
are they eating, whilst we have remained without eating any- 
thing?” The woman said, “ Yes, yes. The elephant can be eaten.” 
All the people cut and ate. 

And the elephant told the other beasts, saying, ‘“‘ From the time 
I swallowed the woman I have been ill; there has been a pain in 
my stomach.” The other animals said, “It may be, O chief, it 
arises because there are now so many people in your stomach.” 
And it came to pass after a long time that the elephant died. The 
woman divided the elephant with a knife, cutting through a rib 
with an axe. A cow came out and said, ‘“‘ Moo, moo, we at length 
see the country.” A goat came out and said, “Mey, mey, at 
length we see the country.” A dog came out and said, “‘ At length 
we see the country.” And the people came out laughing and 
saying, “At length we see the country.” They made the woman 


10 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


presents; some gave her cattle, some goats, and some sheep. 
She set out with her children, being very rich. She went home 
rejoicing because she had come back with her children. On her 
arrival her little girl was there; she rejoiced, because she was 
thinking that her mother was dead.! 


2. Sometimes the story is about doings and adventures 
which produced interesting results which remain, and are 
explained by means of these doings and adventures—as when 
the shape of a hill is explained by the action of some giant or 
wizard—*“ He cleft the Eildon Hills in three.” This is the 
Aetiological Story. It is not only interesting as a piece of 
simple anthropology,—every story must have that intrinsic 
interest,—but it satisfies what may be called the “scientific 
curiosity "—the desire to know the causes of things. It sets 
forth the cause. 

To the class of Aetiological Stories belong those myths in 
which the creation of the heavens and earth as one whole 
is set forth—the so-called Cosmological Myths; also myths 
which set forth the creation of man, and the origin of his 
faculties and virtues; also Foundation Myths describing the 
origin of society and of particular nations and cities, as well 
as myths describing the invention of the arts and their 
instruments; and myths—a large and important section— 
explaining the origin of ritual practices—the so-called Cultus 
Myths; and lastly, myths explaining topographical features 
and the peculiarities of animals and plants. 

The “scientific” curiosity which inspires these Aetio- 
logical Stories is not idle. Curiosity, indeed, is never idle. 
“To know the cause” is matter of much practical concern 
to the savage as well as to the civilised man. If one knows 
the cause one can control the effect. For example, to heal a 
wound made by iron one must know the story οἵ the origin of 
iron. That story duly recited becomes the charm which will 
heal the wound? Many <Aetiological Myths doubtless have 
their rise in the practice of magic. 

Let me illustrate the Aetiological Myth by giving examples 
of its principal varieties, beginning with a Cosmological Myth 





1 Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus, Callaway, 1868, vol. i. 
pp. 332 ff. 
2 See infra, pp. 204 ff., where the Finnish Story of the Origin of Iron is given. 


INTRODUCTION 1] 


—the “Story of the Children of Heaven and Earth,” written 
down by Sir George Grey among the Maoris,' 


From Rangi, the Heaven, and Papa, the Earth, it is said, sprang 
all men and things; but sky and earth clave together, and darkness 
rested upon them and the beings they had begotten, till at last 
their children took counsel whether they should rend apart their 
parents or slay them. Then ‘Tane-mahuta, father of forests, said 
to his five great brethren, “It is better to rend them apart, and 
let the heaven stand far above us, and the earth lie under our 
feet. Let the sky become as a stranger to us, but the earth 
remain close to us as our nursing mother.” So Rongo-ma-tane, 
god and father of the cultivated food of man, rose and strove to 
separate the heaven and the earth; he struggled, but in vain; and 
vain, too, were the efforts of Tangaroa, father of fish and reptiles, 
and of Haumia-tikitiki, father of wild-growing food, and of Tu- 
matauenga, god and father of fierce men. Then slow uprises 
Tane-mahuta, god and father of forests, and wrestles with his 
parents, striving to part them with his hands and arms. “ Lo, he 
pauses ; his head is now firmly planted on his mother the earth, 
his feet he raises up and rests against his father the skies, he 
strains his back and limbs with mighty effort. Now are rent 
apart Rangi and Papa, and with cries and groans of woe they 
shriek aloud. . . . But Tane-mahuta pauses not; far, far beneath 
him he presses down the earth; far, far above him he thrusts up 
the sky.” But Tawhiri-ma-tea, father of winds and storms, had 
never consented that his mother should be torn from her lord, and 
now there arose in his breast a fierce desire to war against his 
brethren. So the Storm-god rose and followed his father to the 
realms above, hurrying to the sheltered hollows of the boundless 
skies, to hide and cling and nestle there. Then came forth his 
progeny, the mighty winds, the fierce squalls, the clouds dense, 
dark, fiery, wildly drifting, wildly bursting; and in the midst 
their father rushed upon his foe. Tane-mahuta and his giant 
forests stood unconscious and unsuspecting when the raging 
hurricane burst on them, snapping the mighty trees across, leaving 
trunks and branches rent and torn upon the ground for the insect 
and the grub to prey on. Then the father of storms swooped 
down to lash the waters into billows whose summits rose like 
cliffs, till Tangaroa, god of ocean and father of all that dwell 
therein, fled affrighted through his seas. His children, Ika-tere, 
the father of fish, and Tu-te-wehiwehi, the father of reptiles, — 


1] give this myth as itis quoted from Grey’s Polynesian Mythology (p. 1, 
ff.) by Prof. Tylor (Prim. Cult. i. 290 ff.). Mr A. Lang compares this myth, 
and others like it found in India and China, with the Greek myth of the mutila- 
tion of Uranus by Cronus (Custom and Myth, ‘‘The Myth of Cronus ”’). 


12 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


sought where they might escape for safety; the father of fish 
cried, ‘‘ Ho, ho, let us all escape to the sea;” but the father of 
reptiles shouted in answer, “ Nay, nay, let us rather fly inland,” 
and so these creatures separated, for while the fish fled into the 
sea, the reptiles sought safety in the forests and scrubs. But the 
sea-god Tangaroa, furious that his children the reptiles should 
have deserted him, has ever since waged war on his brother Tane, 
who gave them shelter in his woods. Tane attacks him in 
return, supplying the offspring of his brother Tu-matauenga, 
father of fierce men, with canoes and spears and fish-hooks made 
from his trees, and with nets woven from his fibrous plants, that 
they may destroy withal the fish, the Sea-god’s children; and 
the Sea-god turns in wrath upon the Forest-god, overwhelms his 
canoes with the surges of the sea, sweeps with floods his trees and 
houses into the boundless ocean. Next the god of storms pushed on 
to attack his brothers, the gods and progenitors of the tilled field 
and the wild; but Papa, the Earth, caught them up and hid them, 
and so safely were these her children concealed by their mother 
that the Storm-god sought for them in vain. So he fell upon the 
last of his brothers, the father of fierce men, but him he could not 
even shake, though he put forth all his strength. What cared 
Tu-matauenga for his brother’s wrath? He it was who had 
planned the destruction of their parents, and had shown himself 
brave and fierce in war; his brethren had yielded before the 
tremendous onset of the Storm-god and his progeny ; the Forest- 
god and his offspring had been broken and torn in pieces; the 
Sea-god and his children had fled to the depths of the ocean or 
the recesses of the shore; the gods of food had been in safe 
hiding; but man still stood erect and unshaken upon the 
bosom of his mother Earth, and at last the hearts of the 
Heaven and the Storm became tranquil, and their passion was 
assuaged., 

But now Tu-matauenga, father of fierce men, took thought how 
he might be avenged upon his brethren who had left him unaided 
to stand against the god of storms. He twisted nooses of the 
leaves of the whanake tree, and the birds and beasts, children 
of Tane the Forest-god, fell before him; he netted nets from the 
flax-plant, and dragged ashore the fish, the children of Tangaroa 
the Sea-god; he found in their hiding-place underground the 
children of Rongo-ma-tane, the sweet potato and all cultivated 
food, and the children of Haumia-tikitiki, the fern-root and all wild- 
growing food; he dug them up and let them wither in the sun. 
Yet, though he overcame his four brothers, and they became his 
food, over the fifth he could not prevail, and Tawhiri-ma-tea, the 
Storm-god, still ever attacks him in tempest and hurricane, striving 
to destroy him both by sea and land. It was the bursting forth 


INTRODUCTION 13 


of the Storm-god’s wrath against his brethren that caused the dry 
land to disappear beneath the waters: the beings of ancient days 
who thus submerged the land were Terrible-rain, Long-continued- 
rain, Fierce-hailstorms, and their progeny were Mist, and Heavy- 
dew, and Light-dew ; and thus but little of the dry land was left 
standing above the sea. Then clear light increased in the world, 
and the beings who had been hidden between Rangi and Papa before 
they were parted now multiplied upon the earth. “Up to this 
time the vast Heaven has still ever remained separated from his 
spouse the Earth. Yet their mutual love still continues: the soft 
warm sighs of her loving bosom still ever rise up to him ascending 
from the woody mountains and valleys, and men call these mists ; 
and the vast Heaven, as he mourns through the long nights his 
separation from his beloved, drops frequent tears upon her bosom, 
and men seeing these term them dewdrops.” 


Another important variety of the Aetiological Myth— 
the Cultus Myth—is well illustrated by Grote in the follow- 
ing passage : '— 


It was the practice to offer to the gods in sacrifice the bones 
of the victim only, enclosed in fat ; how did this practice arise ? 
The author of the Hesiodic Theogony has a story which explains 
it.2 Prometheus tricked Zeus into an imprudent choice, at the 
period when the gods and mortal men first came to an arrangement 
about privileges and duties (in Mekéné). Prometheus, the tutelary 
representative of man, divided a large steer into two portions ; 
on the one side he placed the flesh and guts, folded up in the 
omentum and covered over with the skin; on the other he put the 
bones enveloped in fat. He then invited Zeus to determine which 
of the two portions the gods would prefer to receive from mankind. 
Zeus “with both hands” decided for and took the white fat, but 
was highly incensed on finding that he had got nothing at the bottom 
except the bones. Nevertheless the choice of the gods was now 
irrevocably made; they were not entitled to any portion of the 
sacrificed animal beyond the bones and the white fat; and the 
standing practice is thus plausibly explained. I select this as 
one amongst a thousand instances to illustrate the genesis of 
legend out of religious practices. In the belief of the people, the 
event narrated in the legend was the real producing cause of the 
practice ; but when we come to apply a sound criticism, we are 
compelled to treat the event as existing only in its narrative 
legend, and the legend itself as having been, in the greater number 


1 Grote’s History of Greece, part i. chap. i. 
3 Hesiod, Theog. 550-557. 


14 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


of cases, engendered by the practice,—thus reversing the supposed 
order of production.! 


Let me complete my illustration of the Aetiological Myth 
by giving the pretty Japanese story which accounts for the 
physiological effect produced by tea :-— 


It is Daruna whom legend credits with the origin of tea. 
Before he went off into his present trance he made another effort 
at permanent contemplation, and had failed through falling asleep 
at the end of the ninth year. When he awoke he was so vexed 
at his eyelids for their drooping that he cut them off. No sooner 
had they fallen to the ground than, lo! they took root, sprouted, 
and sent forth leaves. As the old monk looked in wonder, a disciple 
of Buddha appeared and told him to brew the leaves of the new 
shrub and then drink thereof. Daruna plucked the leaves, which 
now all the world knows as tea, did as the vision commanded him 
to do, and has not slept a minute since.” 


3. From the Simply Anthropological Story and from the 
Aetiological Story it is convenient to distinguish a third kind 
of story, the Eschatological Story. Here the teller and his 
audience are not concerned with the adventures and doings of 
people once upon a time, long ago, but with adventures and 
doings which they themselves must take part in after death, 
like all who have gone before them. It is not to mere love 
of “personal talk” or to mere “scientific curiosity” that the 
Eschatological Story appeals, but to man’s wonder, and fear, 
and hope with regard to death. This seems to make a great 
difference, and to justify us in putting the Eschatological 
Myths in a class by themselves. Where men fear and hope, 
they tend to believe strongly ; and if ritual practice is associ- 
ated with their fear and hope, more strongly. Hence we find 
that Eschatological Myths as a class have more actuality, 
more consistency and sobriety, and more dignity, than other 


1 The reader who wishes to pursue the subject of the Cultus Myth may consult 
Miss Harrison’s Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, pp. xxvi. ff., where 
he will find a very interesting treatment of the story of the birth of Erichthonios 
‘as an instance of aetiological myth-making of a special kind, of a legend that 
has arisen out of a ritual practice, the original meaning of which had become 
obscured”; also Robertson Smith’s Religion of the Semites, pp. 20 ff., where the 
rule is laid down that ‘‘in the study of ancient religions we must begin, not with 
Myth but with ritual and traditional usage”; cf. p. 16—‘‘ The antique religions 
had for the most part no creed; they consisted entirely of institutions and 
practices.” 

2 The Heart of Japan, by OC. L. Brownell (1902), p. 197. 


INTRODUCTION 16 


myths, in proportion as the belief given is, for these reasons, 
stronger. If make-believe is enough for other myths, Eschato- 
logical Myths demand genuine belief, and easily get it from 
primitive man, It is in no spirit of make-believe that he 
performs the rites for the departed, which he knows will be 
performed one day for himself, when he shall have gone to the 
other world of which the stories tell, 

It is not always easy to assign a story to its class. The 
cause of something that attracts notice may be found in some- 
thing done by somebody in the course of adventures which 
have already been recounted as being in themselves interest- 
ing. <A story which started as “Simply Anthropological,” 
being told from pure love of ἀνθρωπολογία, may be annexed 
by the scientific imagination and become Aetiological. And, 
again, a story which started as Aetiological may easily forget 
its original scientific inspiration and become a piece of simple 
avOpwroroyia. Lastly, the interest of Eschatology—of talk 
about man’s latter end— is so peculiar and engrossing that it 
tends to compel into its service Simply Anthropological and 
Aetiological Stories already in existence. The Phaedrus Myth 
may be mentioned as showing this tendency at work. 

We have seen that in form every story of the dream- 
world, to whichever of the three classes it belongs, is anthropo- 
logical and zoological; that it is about the adventures and 
doings of people and animals—men and men-like beasts and 
gods; and that it is intrinsically interesting as a story, and 
receives belief, or, at any rate, make-believe. We must now 
add that it has no moral—i.e. the teller and his hearers do not 
think of anything but the story itself. This is the criterion 
of Myth as distinguished from Allegory or Parable: Myth 
has no moral or other meaning in the minds of those who 
make it, and of those for whom it is made. It is a later age 
which reads other meaning into it, when the improbability 
and indecency of stories told by savage men provoke the 
rationalising work of those who are unwilling to give up the 
stories entirely, but cannot receive them as they stand. The 
stories which seem to need this work most, and on which it is ~ 
most effectually done, are apt to perish under the treatment 
which they receive. Becoming transparent allegories or ful- 
filled prophecies, they cease to be interesting, and are soon 


16 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


forgotten. But there stand out among the myths of the world 
some which rationalism has not been able to destroy or even 
impair. These, we may be sure, were the creations, not of 
ordinary story-tellers, but of “divine poets” and “inspired 
prophets ”—of genius, using, indeed, material supplied by 
ordinary story-tellers, but transforming it in the use.’ Such 
myths—chiefly Eschatological Myths, created and originally 
received in the spirit of genuine belief, not of make-believe— 
yield precious fruit to interpretation, But the interpretation 
of a masterpiece of imagination, to be fruitful, must be 
“ psychological.” The revival, in any shape, must be eschewed 
of that now formally discredited method which treated a 
masterpiece of creative imagination as an allegory by which 
the accepted dogma of the day might be supported, or as a 
prediction to be fulfilled, if not already fulfilled, in some 
particular event of history. Fruitful interpretation of a 
masterpiece of creative imagination will consist in showing 
the mind of its maker, and in so placing his creation before 
our own minds by means of some accompaniment or rendering 
—some parallel corroborative appeal to imagination and feeling 
—that it does for us in our age what it did for him in his 
age, making us pause in the midst of our workaday life, as 
he paused in the midst of his, filled 


With admiration and deep muse, to hear 
Of things so high and strange. 


The allegorical interpretation of old myths (which were 
made, it is hardly necessary to say, without thought of the 
doctrine got out of them by the interpretation) doubtless sug- 
gested the deliberate making of allegorical tales and parables. 
When their makers are men of genius, these tales are often 
myths as well as allegories and parables. Such are Plato's 
Cave and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which I shall consider 
later with reference to this point.’ 

Aesop’s Fables, again, though retaining much of the 

1“ We must not be astonished if we come across myths which surprise us by 
their ingenious direction, or even by their profound philosophy. This is often 
the character of spontaneous products of the human mind. . . . The human 
mind, when it works thus spontaneously, is a philosopher just as the bee is a 
mathematician.” —Reville, Prolégoménes de l’ Histoire des Religions, Eng. Transl. 


by Squire, p. 112. 
2 See infra, “ Excursus on Allegory,” pp. 230 ff. 


INTRODUCTION 17 


“anthropological and zoological” interest which belongs to 
the African Beast-tale on which they were modelled, were 
doubtless, for the most part, deliberately composed for the 
sake of their morals or applications. 

As the Beast-tale is rewritten “ with a purpose ” in Aesop's 
Fables, so in the moral zoology of Physiologus even “The 
Natural History of Animals” is rewritten and turned into 
allegory.’ The following, about the Lion, based on Physiologus, 
occurs in a British Museum Bestiary (Codd. Reg. 2 C. xii.) 
quoted by Mann in his instructive work, der Bestiaire Divin 
des Guillawme le Clere (p. 37) :— 

“ De natura leonis, bestiarum seu animalium regis. Etenim 
Jacob benedicens filium suum Judam ait (Gen. 49. 9): 
‘Catulus leonis Judas filius meus, quis suscitabit eum?’ 
Fisiologus dicit tres naturales habere leonem. 

“Prima: ambulat in montibus, et si contigerit, ut queratur 
a venatoribus, venit odor venatoris et de cauda sua post tergum 
cooperit vestigia sua quocumque ierit, ut secutus venator per 
vestigia eius non inveniat cubile ejus, et capiat eum. Sic et 
Salvator Noster ‘spiritualis leo de tribu Juda, radix Jesse, 
filius David’ (Apoc. 5. 5), missus a superno patre, cooperuit 
intelligentibus vestigia deitatis sue. Et hoc est: factus est 
cum angelis angelus, cum archangelis archangelus, cum 
thronis thronus, cum potestatibus potestas, donee descendit in 
uterum virginis, ut salvaret hoc quod erraverat humanum 
genus. Ex hoe ignorantes eum ascendentem ad patrem hi 
qui sursum erant angeli, dicebant ad eos qui cum Domino 
ascendebant (Ps. 24. 8 ἢ): ‘Quis est iste rex glorie?’ 
Responderunt illi: ‘Dominus virtutum ipse est rex glorie.’ 


1 Physiologus, ὁ φυσιολόγος, is a work, in its original Greek form, compiled at 
Alexandria towards the end of the second century, consisting of chapters, in 
each of which an animal, real or fabulous, (or a precious stone) is first described 
in the manner of natural history (or rather, as if in that manner), and then pre- 
sented as a type of Christian doctrine and life. After being translated into 
Latin, Physiologus spread over the whole West, and versions of it were made 
everywhere in the vulgar tongues—in Anglo-Saxon, Old English, Old High 
German, Flemish, Icelandic, Provencal, Old French, and Italian. In the East, 
too, it appeared in Syrian, Armenian, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Slavonic versions. 
After the Bible it was probably the most popular book throughout the Middle 
Age. Examples of it—the so-called Bestiaries—are to be found in all the 
libraries of Europe. See der Bestiaire Divin des Guillaume le Clere (Franzisische 
Studien, 1888), by Max Friedr. Mann, pp. 17 ff.; Pitra, Spicilegiwm Solesmense, 
1855, t. ili. pp. xlvii. ff; Carus, Gesch. d. Zoologie, pp. 108 ff.; and article, 
Physiologus, by Prof. J. P. N. Land, in Eneyci. Brit. 


σ 


18 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


“(Secunda natura.) Cum dormierit, oculi eius vigilant, 
aperti enim sunt, sicut in Canticis Canticorum testatur spon- 
sus dicens (5. 2): ‘Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat.’ 
Etenim corporaliter Dominus meus obdormiens in eruce et 
sepultus, deitas eius vigilabat. ‘Ecce non dormiet qui 
eustodit Israel’ (Ps. 121. 4). 

“(Tercia natura.) Cum leena parit catulum, generat eum 
mortuum et custodit eum mortuum tribus diebus, donec 
veniens pater eius die tercio insufflet in faciem ejus et vivi- 
ficet eum. Sic omnipotens pater Dominum Nostrum Jesum 
Christum filium suum tercia die suscitavit a mortuis, dicente 
Jacob (4 Mos. 24. 9): ‘Dormitabit tanquam leo, et sicut 
catulus leonis. Quis suscitabit eum ?’” 

In Physiologus “The Natural History of Animals” has 
a double character: it is not only a narrative of “ facts,” but, 
at the same time, a divinely appointed, as it were dramatic, 
representation of doctrine for the benefit of man. 

Similarly, “Old Testament History ” is regarded by Philo 
and his school as at once a chronicle of actual events, and a 
great allegorical representation of doctrine in which events 
are figures or symbols of philosophic truths—and that, in the 
intention of God, not merely in the mind of the interpreter. 
I shall have occasion to return to this strange school of 
allegory ; meanwhile the purpose of this introductory refer- 
ence to the subject will be sufficiently served if I quote in 
passing, without comment, a classical passage in which one 
of the great masters of Myth distinguishes between the literal 
and the allegorical or mystical truth of events recorded in 
history. 

In the letter to Kan Grande,’ which is really a preface to 
the Commedia, Dante writes as follows, §§ 7, 8:— 

“Ad evidentiam itaque dicendorum, sciendum est quod 
istius operis [the Commedia] non est simplex sensus, immo 
dici potest polysemum, hoe est plurium sensuum; nam alius 
sensus est qui habetur per literam, alius est qui habetur per 
significata per literam. Et primus dicitur literalis, secundus 
vero allegoricus, sive mysticus. Qui modus tractandi, ut 

1 Dean Church (Dante and other Essays, p. 108, ed. 1897) refers to this letter 
as one ‘‘which, if in its present form of doubtful authenticity, without any 


question represents Dante's sentiments, and the substance of which is incor- 
porated in one of the earliest writings on the poem, Boccaccio’s commentary.” 


INTRODUCTION 19 


melius pateat, potest considerari in his versibus: ‘In exitu 
Israel de Aegypto, domus Jacob de populo barbaro, facta est 
Judaea sanctificatio eius, Israel potestas eius.’ Nam si /iteram 
solam inspiciamus, significatur nobis exitus filiorum Israel de 
Aegypto, tempore Moysis; si allegoriam, nobis significatur 
nostra redemptio facta per Christum; si moralem sensum, 
significatur nobis conversio animae de luctu et miseria peccati 
ad statum gratiae; si anagogicum, significatur exitus animae 
sanctae ab huius corruptionis servitute ad aeternae Gloriae 
libertatem. Et quamquam isti sensus mystici variis appel- 
lentur nominibus, generaliter omnes dici possunt allegorici, 
quum sint a literali sive historiali diversi. . .. His visis, 
manifestum est quod duplex oportet esse swhjectwm, circa quod 
currant alterni sensus. Et ideo videndum est de subjecto 
huius operis, prout ad literam accipitur; deinde de subjecto, 
prout allegorice sententiatur. Est ergo subjectum totius 
operis, literaliter tantum accepti, ‘status animarum post 
mortem simpliciter sumptus. Nam de illo et circa illum 
totius operis versatur processus. ‘Si vero accipiatur opus 
allegorice, subjectum est ‘homo, prout merendo et demerendo 
per arbitrii’ libertatem Justitiae praemianti aut punienti 
obnoxius est.” 

In the Convivio (11. 1 and 13) the four “senses” are dis 
tinguished exactly as in the Letter. Of the moral and 
anagogic senses he says (11. 1, p. 252, 1. 42, Oxf. ed.): “The 
third sense is called moral; it is that which readers ought 
attentively to note, as they go through writings, for their 
own profit and that of their disciples; as it may be noted in 
the Gospel, when Christ went up into the Mount to be 


1 Gebhart (L’/talie Mystique, pp. 318 ff.), referring to this Letter, remarks 
that the literal interpretation of the Divina Commedia represents the traditional 
belief of the medieval church, the other interpretations represent Dante’s own 
personal religion. M. Gebhart’s analysis of Dante’s ‘‘ personal religion ᾿ is very 
instructive : ‘‘ Le dernier mot de sa croyance, cette ‘religion du ceeur’ quila 
nommeée dans le Convito, est au vingt-quatrieme chant du Paradis, et c’est a 
Saint-Pierre lui-méme qu’il en fait la confession. 1] est revenu au symbole trés 
simple de Saint-Paul, la foi, l’espérance et l’amour; pour lui comme pour 
l’apdtre, la foi elle-méme n’est, au fond, que l’espérance, fides sperandarwm 
substantia rerum. . .. Pour lui, le péché supréme, celui qu'il punit d’un 
mépris écrasant, ce n’est ni Vhérésie, ni l’incrédulité, qu’il a montrées, par le 
dédain méme et la figure altiére des damnés, supérieures ἃ l’enfer ; c’est la υἱζέὰ, 
le renoncement timide au devoir actif, au dévouement, a la vie, la lacheté du 
pape Célestin, 

Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto.” 


20 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


transfigured, that of the twelve apostles he took with him the 
three; wherein morally we may understand, that in matters 
of the greatest secrecy we ought to have few companions. 

“The fourth sense is called anagogic, that is, above sense ; 
and this is when a writing is expounded spiritually which, 
even in its literal sense, by the matters signified, sets forth 
the high things of glory everlasting: as may be seen in that 
Song of the Prophet which says that in the coming out of the 
people of Israel from Egypt, Judah was made holy and free. 
Which, although it is plainly true according to the letter, is 
not less true as understood spiritually: that is, the Soul, in 
coming out from sin, is made holy and free.” 

The rest of the chapter (Conv. ii. 1) dwells on the point, 
which Dante evidently considers of great importance, that the 
literal sense must always be understood before we go on to 
seek out the other senses. The reversal of this order is, indeed, 
iempossible, for the other senses are contained in the literal 
sense, which is their envelope; and besides, the literal sense 
is “ better known to us,” as the Philosopher says in the First 
Book of the Physics; and not to begin with it would be 
irrational—contrary to the natural order, 


3. PLATO’s MYTHS DISTINGUISHED FROM ALLEGORIES. To 
WHA’ EXPERIENCE, OR “ PART OF THE SOUL,” DOES THE 
PLATONIC MYTH APPEAL ? 


Plato, we know from the Republic’ and Phaedrus? 
deprecated the allegorical interpretation of Myths, and his own 
Myths, we assume, are not to be taken as allegories; but 
rather as representing, in the action of the Platonic Drama, 
natural products of that dream-world consciousness which 
encompasses the field of ordinary wide-awake consciousness in 
educated minds as well as in the minds of children and 
primitive men. 

In appealing to the dream-world consciousness of his 
readers by a brilliant literary representation of its natural 
products—those stories which primitive men cannot leave un- 


1 Rep. 378 pv. 
2 Phaedrus, 229 5»-Ὲ, and see infra, pp. 231 ff. 


INTRODUCTION 2] 


told, and philosophers love to hear well told '—Plato appeals 
to an experience which is more solid than one might infer 
from the mere content of the μυθολογία in which it finds expres- 
sion. He appeals to that major part of man’s nature which is 
not articulate and logical, but feels, and wills, and acts—to that 
part which cannot explain what a thing is, or how it happens, 
but feels that the thing is good or bad, and expresses itself, 
not scientifically in “existential” or “theoretic judgments,” 
but practically in“ value-judgments”—or rather“ value-feelings.” 
Man was, with the brute, practical, and had struck the roots 
of his being deep into the world of reality, ages before he 
began to be scientific, and to think about the “ values” which 
he felt. And long before he began to think about the “values” 
which he felt, feeling had taken into its service his imagination 
with its whole apparatus of phantasms—waking dreams and 
sleep-dreams—and made them its exponents. In appealing, 
through the recital of dreams, to that major part of us which 
feels “ values,” which wills and acts, Plato indeed goes down 
to the bedrock of human nature. At that depth man is more 
at one with Universal Nature—more in her secret, as it were 
—than he is at the level of his “higher” faculties, where he 
lives in a conceptual world of his own making which he is 
always endeavouring to “think.” And after all, however high 
he may rise as “thinker,” it is only of “values” that he 
genuinely thinks; and the ground of all “ values ”"—the Value 
of Life itself—was apprehended before the dawn of thinking, 
and is still apprehended independently of thinking. It is 
good, Plato will have us believe, to appeal sometimes from the 
world of the senses and scientific understanding, which is “ too 
much with us,” to this deep-lying part of human nature, as to 
an oracle. The responses of the oracle are not given in 
articulate language which the scientific understanding can 
interpret; they come as dreams, and must be received as 
dreams, without thought of doctrinal interpretation. Their 
ultimate meaning is the “feeling” which fills us in beholding 
them ; and when we wake from them, we see our daily concerns 
and all things temporal with purged eyes. 

This effect which Plato produces by the Myth in the 
Dialogue is, it is hardly necessary to say, produced, in various 


16 φιλόμυθος φιλόσοφός πώς éorw.—Arist. Met, A 2, 982 Ὁ 18. 


22 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


degrees, by Nature herself, without the aid of literary or other 
art. The sense of “might, majesty and dominion” which 
comes over us as we look into the depths of the starry sky,’ 
the sense of our own short time passing, passing, with which 
we see the lilacs bloom again—these, and many like them, are 
natural experiences which closely resemble the effect produced 
in the reader’s mind by Plato’s art. When these natural 
moods are experienced, we feel “That which was, and is, and 
ever shall be” overshadowing us; and familiar things—the 
stars, and the lilac bloom—become suddenly strange and 
wonderful, for our eyes are opened to see that they declare its 
presence. It is such moods of feeling in his cultivated reader 
that Plato induces, satisfies, and regulates, by Myths which set 
forth God, Soul, and Cosmos, in vision. 

The essential charm of these Myths is that of Poetry 
generally, whether the theme of a poem be expressly eschato- 
logical and religious, like that of the Divina Commedia, or of 
some other kind, for example, like that of the Fairy Queene, 
or like that of a love song. The essential charm of all 
Poetry, for the sake of which in the last resort it exists, lies 
in its power of inducing, satisfying, and regulating what may 
be called Transcendental Feeling, especially that form of 
Transcendental Feeling which manifests itself as solemn sense 
of Timeless Being—of “That which was, and is, and ever shall 
be,” overshadowing us with its presence. Where this power 
is absent from a piece—be it an epic, or a lyric, or a play, or 
a poem of observation and reflection—there is no Poetry; only, 
at best, readable verse,—an exhibition of wit and worldly 
wisdom, of interesting “anthropology,” of pleasing sound,—all 
either helpful or necessary, in their several places, for the 
production of the miliew in which poetic effect is felt, but 
none of them forming part of that effect itself. Sometimes 
the power of calling up Transcendental Feeling seems to be 
exercised at no point or points which can be definitely indicated 
in the course of a poem; this is notably the case where the 
form of the poem is dramatic, 7.e. where all turns on our 
grasping “one complete action.” Sometimes “a lonely word” 


1 Coleridge says (Anima Poetae, from unpublished note-books of 8. T. Coleridge, 
edited by E. H. Coleridge, 1895 ; p. 125), ‘‘ Deep sky is, of all visual impressions, 
the nearest akin toa feeling. It is more a feeling than a sight, or rather, it is 
the melting away and entire union of feeling and sight!” 


INTRODUCTION 23 


makes the great difference. At any rate, elaborate dream- 
consciousness apparatus, such as we find employed in the 
Platonic Myths, in the Divina Commedia, and in poems like 
Endymion and Hyperion, is not essential to the full exercise 
of the power of Poetry. Some common scene is simply 
pictured for the mind’s eye; some place haunted by memories 
and emotions is pictured for the heart; a face declaring some 
mood is framed in circumstances which match it and its mood ; 
some fantasia of sound or colour fills eye or ear; some sudden 
stroke of personification amazes us; there is perhaps nothing 
more than the turn of a phrase or the use of a word or the 
falling of a cadence—and straightway all is done that the 
most elaborate and sustained employment of mythological 
apparatus could do—we are away in the dream-world; and 
when we presently return, we are haunted by the feeling that 
we have “seen the mysteries ”"—by that Transcendental Feeling 
which Dante finds language to express in the twenty-fifth 
sonnet of the Vita Nuova, and in the last canto of the 
Paradiso :— 
O abbondante grazia, ond’ io presunsi 
Ficcar lo viso per la luce eterna 
Tanto, che la veduta vi consunsi ! 
Nel suo profondo vidi che s’ interna, 
Legato con amore in un volume, 
Cid che per l’ universo si squaderna ; 
Sustanzia ed accidenti e lor costume, 
Quasi conflati insieme per tal modo, 
Che cid ch’ io dico ὃ un semplice lume. 
La forma universal di questo nodo 
Credo ch’ io vidi, perché pit di largo, 
Dicendo questo, mi sento ch’ io godo. 
Un punto solo m’ ὃ maggior letargo, 


Che venticinque secoli alla impresa, 
Che fe’ Nettuno ammirar l’ ombra αὐ Argo.? 


Let me give some examples from the Poets of their 
employment of the means which I have just now mentioned. 


A common scene ts simply pietured for the mind's eye :— 


Sole listener, Duddon ! to the breeze that played 
With thy clear voice, I caught the fitful sound 


1 See infra, p. 38, where this sonnet is quoted. 
2 Paradiso, xxxiii. 82-9. 


24 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Wafted o’er sullen moss and craggy mound— 
Unfruitful solitudes, that seem’d to upbraid 

The sun in heaven !—but now, to form a shade 
For thee, green alders have together wound 
Their foliage ; ashes flung their arms around ; 
And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade. 

And thou hast also tempted here to rise, 

Mid sheltering pines, this cottage rude and grey ; 
Whose ruddy children, by the mother’s eyes 
Carelessly watched, sport through the summer day, 
Thy pleased associates :—light as endless May 
On infant bosoms lonely Nature lies, 


Sometimes, again, the scene is pictured for the heart rather 
than for the eye-—we look upon a place haunted, for the Poet, 
and after him for ourselves, by memories and emotions :— 


Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row! 

So they τον ἃ, and!there we landed—* O venusta Sirmio !” 
There to me thro’ all the groves of olive in the summer glow, 
There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow, 
Came that “ Ave atque Vale” of the Poet’s hopeless woe, 
Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago, 
“Frater Ave atque Vale ”—as we wander’d to and fro 

Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake below 
Sweet Catullus’s all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio ! 


Again, it is a face that we see declaring some mood, and 
framed in circumstances which match it and its mood :— 


At eve a dry cicala sung, 
There came a sound as of the sea; 
Backward the lattice-blind she flung, 
And lean’d upon the balcony. 
There all in spaces rosy-bright 
Large Hesper glitter’d on her tears, 
And deepening thro’ the silent spheres 
Heaven over Heaven rose the night. 


Again, some fantasia of sound or light fills ear or eye-— 
of sownd, like this :— 


Sometimes a-dropping from the sky 

I heard the skylark sing ; 

Sometimes all little birds that are, 
How they seemed to fill the sea and air 
With their sweet jargoning ! 


INTRODUCTION 


to 
οι 


And now ’twas like all instruments, 
Now like a lonely flute ; 

And now it is an angel’s song, 
That makes the heavens be mute. 


Or like this :— 


The silver sounding instruments did meet 
With the base murmur of the Water's fall : 
The Water’s fall with difference discrete, 
Now soft, now loud, unto the Wind did call : 
The gentle warbling Wind low answeréd to all. 


Of sownd and light together, like this :— 


A sunny shaft did I behold, 
From sky to earth it slanted : 

And poised therein a bird so bold— 
Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted ! 

He sank, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled 
Within that shaft of sunny mist ; 

His eyes of fire, his beak of gold, 
All else of amethyst ! 


And thus he sang: “ Adieu! adieu ! 
Love’s dreams prove seldom true. 
The blossoms, they make no delay : 
The sparkling dewdrops will not stay. 
Sweet month of May, 
We must away ; 
Far, far away ! 
To-day ! to-day !” 


Again, ἐξ is some stroke of personification that fills us with 
amazement—where we thought that Nature was most solitary, 
see ! some one is present ! 


The nightingale, up-perched high, 
And cloister’d among cool and bunched leaves— 
She sings but to her love, nor e’er conceives 
How tiptoe Night holds back her dark-grey hood. 


Or, it may be, the presence is that of Great Nature herself— 
and she feels what we feel, and knows what we know :— 


O fair is Love’s first hope to gentle mind! 

As Eve’s first star thro’ fleecy cloudlet peeping ; 
And sweeter than the gentle south-west wind, 

O’er willowy meads and shadowed waters creeping, 
And Ceres’ golden fields ;—the sultry hind 

Meets it with brow uplift, and stays his reaping. 


26 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Lastly, i¢ is perhaps but the turn of a phrase or the fall of 
a cadence that touches the heart :— 


I heard a linnet courting 
His lady in the spring ; 
His mates were idly sporting, 
Nor stayed to hear him sing 
His song of love :— 
I fear my speech distorting 
His tender love. 


So much by way of illustrating poetic effect produced, as 
only the inspired poet knows how to produce it, by very 
simple means. I venture to ask the student of Plato to 
believe with me that the effect produced, in the passages just 
quoted, by these simple means, does not differ in kind from 
that produced by the use of elaborate apparatus in the Myths 
with which this work is concerned. The effect is always the 
induction of the dream-consciousness, with its atmosphere of 
solemn feeling spreading out into the waking consciousness 
which follows. 

It will be well, however, not to confine ourselves to the 
examples given, but to quote some other examples from 
Poetry, in which this effect is produced in a way more closely 
parallel to that in which it is produced in the Platonic Myths. 
I will therefore ask the reader to submit himself to an experi- 
ment: first, to take the three following passages —all 
relating to Death—and carefully reading and re-reading them, 
allow the effect of them to grow upon him; and then, turning 
to Plato’s Eschatological Myths in the Phaedo, Gorgias, and 
Republic, and reading them in the same way, to ask himself 
whether or no he has had a foretaste of their effect in the 
effect produced by these other pieces. I venture to think 
that the more we habituate ourselves to the influence of the 
Poets the better are we likely to receive the message of the 
Prophets. 

Deh peregrini,' che pensosi andate 
Forse di cosa che non ν᾽ ὃ presente, 
Venite voi di si lontana gente, 


Come alla vista voi ne dimostrate ? 
Che non piangete, quando voi passate 


1 La Vita Nuova, § 41, Sonetto 24. 


INTRODUCTION 27 


Per lo suo mezzo la citth dolente, 

Come quelle persone, che neente 

Par che intendesser la sua gravitate. 
Se voi restate, per volerla udire, 

‘erto lo core ne’ sospir mi dice, 

Che lagrimando n’ uscirete pui. 
Ella ha perduta la sua Beatrice ; 

E le parole, ch’ uom di lei pud dire, 

Hanno virtt di far piangere altrui. 


To that high Capital,’ where Kingly Death 
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, 
He came: and bought, with price of purest breath, 
A grave among the eternal—Come away ! 
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still 
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay ; 
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill 
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 


He will awake no more—oh, never more ! 
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace 
The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
Invisible Corruption waits to trace 
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place ; 
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 
So fair a prey, till darkness and the law 

Of change shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. 


Oh, weep for Adonais !—The quick Dreams, 
The passion-wingtd Ministers of thought, 
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught 
The love which was its music, wander not,— 
Wander no more from kindling brain to brain, 
But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot 
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, 
They ne’er will gather strength, nor find a home again. 


And one with trembling hand clasps his cold head, 
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries: 
“Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; 

See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 

Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 

A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain.” 


1 Shelley, Adonais. 


28 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise ! 
She knew not ’twas her own; as with no stain 


She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 


One from a lucid urn of starry dew 

Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them ; 
Another clipt her profuse locks, and threw 

The wreath upon him, like an anadem, 

Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 
Another in her wilful grief would break 

Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 

A greater loss with one which was more weak ; 


And dull the barbéd fire against his frozen cheek. 


Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 

That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath 
Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, 
And pass into the panting heart beneath 

With lightning and with music: the damp death 
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips ; 

And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath 

Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, 


It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse. 


And others came,—Desires and Adorations, 

Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, 

Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations 
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies ; 

And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 

And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam 

Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, 

Came in slow pomp ;—the moving pomp might seem 


Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. 


And 


All he had loved and moulded into thought 

From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound, 
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 

Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, 
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, 
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day ; 

Afar the melancholy thunder moaned, 

Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 

the wild winds flew around, sobbing in their dismay. 


Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, 

And feeds her grief with his remembered lay, 

And will no more reply to winds or fountains, 

Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, 
Or herdsman’s horn, or bell at closing day ; 

Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear 


INTRODUCTION 29 


Than those for whose disdain she pined away 
Into a shadow of all sounds ;}—a drear 
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. 


» » . o ν» ᾿ 


» » » - ". -" 


Alas! that all we loved of him should be, 

But for our grief, as if it had not been, 

And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me! 

Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene 

The actors or spectators ? Great and mean 

Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow. 

As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, 

Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, 
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. 


* a Ἀ w * ΄ 


ΕΝ * * * ” * 


Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep— 
He hath awakened from the dream of life— 
"Tis we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep 
With phantoms an unprofitable strife, 
And in mad trance strike with our spirit’s knife 
Invulnerable nothings—/Ve decay 
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief 
Convulse us and consume us day by day, 
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. 


He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 

Envy and calumny, and hate and pain, 

And that unrest which men miscall delight, 

Can touch him not and torture not again ; 

From the contagion of the world’s slow stain 

He is secure, and now can never mourn 

A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain ; 

Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn, 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 


* * * ΩΣ * * 


* * * * * * 


He is made one with Nature: there is heard 

His voice in all her music, from the moan 

Of thunder to the song of night’s sweet bird ; 

He is a presence to be felt and known 

In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 

Spreading itself where’er that Power may move 

Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 

Which wields the world with never-wearied love, 
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 


80 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


He is a portion of the loveliness 
Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear 
His part, while the one Spirit’s plastic stress 
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there 
All new successions to the forms they wear ; 
Torturing the unwilling dross that checks its flight 
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; 
And bursting in its beauty and its might 
From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven’s light. 


The splendours of the firmament of time 

May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ; 

Like stars to their appointed height they climb, 

And death is a low mist which cannot blot 

The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 

Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, 

And love and life contend in it, for what 

Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, 
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. 


The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 
Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, 
Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton 
Rose pale, his solemn agony had not 
Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought, 
And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, 
Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot, 
Arose ; and Lucan, by his death approved : 
Oblivion, as they rose, shrank like a thing reproved. 


And many more, whose names on Earth are dark, 
But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 
So long as fire outlives the parent spark, 
Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 
“Thou art become as one of us,” they cry ; 
“It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 
Swung blind in unascended majesty, 
Silent alone amid a Heaven of Song. 
Assume thy wingéd throne, thou Vesper of our throng 


1» 
. 


When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,! 

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, 
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. 
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, 

Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, 

And thought of him I love. 


> * ~ - τε * * 


1 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (Memories of President Lincoln). 


INTRODUCTION 31 


From this bush in the dooryard, 
With delicate-colour'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, 
A sprig with its flower I break, 


In the swamp in secluded recesses, 
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song— 


‘+ ” ” ’ . . > 


” ” ” . af 7 


Song of the bleeding throat, 
Death’s outlet song of life, 


Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, 

Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from 
the ground, spotting the grey débris, 

Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless 
grass, 

Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the 
dark-brown fields uprisen, 

Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, 

Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, 

Night and day journeys a coffin. 


Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, 

Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, 

With the pomp of the inloop’d flags, with the cities drap’d in black, 
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil’d women 


standing, 
Χ * ἧς * * * > 
o * * * * * 
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the 
bared heads, 
* * * * * * * 
* * * * * * * 


With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang, 

Here, coffin that slowly passes, 

I give you my sprig of lilac. 

Sing on there in the swamp, 

O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call, 
I hear, I come presently, I understand you, 

But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain’d me, 
The star, my departing comrade, holds and detains me. 


O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I Ἰον 3 
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone ? 
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love? 


32 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Sea-winds blown from East and West, 

Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, .. . 
on the prairies meeting . . .— 

With these and the breath of my chant, 

I'll perfume the grave of him I love. 

Sing on, sing on, you grey-brown bird, 

Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes, 

Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines. 

Sing on, dearest brother, warble your reedy song, 

Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe. 


O liquid and free and tender! 

O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer ! 

You only I hear—yet the star holds me (but will soon depart), 
Yet the lilac with the mastering odour holds me. 


* * * * * * * 
* * 


With the knowledge of death as walking one side of me, 

And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me, 

And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of 
companions, 

I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not, 

Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, 

To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still. 


And the singer so shy to the rest received me, 

The grey-brown bird I know receiv’d us comrades three, 
And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love. 
And the charm of the carol rapt me, 

As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night, 
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird. 


Come, lovely and soothing death, 

Undulate rownd the world, serenely arriving, arriving, 

In the day, in the night, to all, to each, 

Sooner or later delicate death. 

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, 

Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome ? 

Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, 

I bring thee a song that when thow must indeed come, come wnfalteringly. 
From me to thee glad serenades, 

Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee, 
And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting, 
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night— 


INTRODUCTION 35 


The night in silence under many a star, 

The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, 
And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veil’d death, 

And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. 


Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, 

Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies 
wide, 

Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, 

1 float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O death. 


The conclusion which follows, as it seems to me, from 
examination of what one experiences in perusing great Poetry 
—of which the three widely dissimilar pieces which I have 
quoted at length are eminent examples—is that the essential 
charm of Poetry—that for the sake of which, in the last 
resort, it exists—lies in its power of inducing, in certain care- 
fully chosen circumstances, that mode of Transcendental 
Feeling which is experienced as solemn sense of the over- 
shadowing presence of “ That which was, and is, and ever shall 
be.” The Poet, always by means of Representations—images, 
μιμήματα----᾿τοἀποῖβ of the dream-consciousness in himself, 
and often with the aid of Rhythm and Melody which call up 
certain shadowy Feelings, strange, in their shadowy form, to 
ordinary consciousness, induces in his patient the dream-con- 
sciousness in which such Representations and Feelings are at 
home. But the dream-consciousness induced in the patient 
by the imagery and melody of the Poet lasts only for a 
moment. The effect of even the most sustained Poetry is a 
succession of occasional lapses into the state of dream-con- 
sciousness, each one of which occurs suddenly and lasts but 
for a moment, in the midst of an otherwise continuous 
waking consciousness which is concerned, in a matter-of-fact 
way, with “what the poem is about,’ and “how the poet 
manages his theme,’ and a hundred other things. It is at 
the moment of waking from one of these lapses into the 
dream-world that the solemn sense of the immediate presence 
of “That which was, and is, and ever shall be” is experienced 
—at the moment when one sees, in the world of wide-awake 
consciousness, the image, or hears the melody, which one saw 
or heard only a moment ago—or, was it not ages ago ?—in 
the dream-world :— 

D 


34 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Un punto solo m’ ὃ maggior letargo, 
Che venticinque secoli alla impresa, 
Che fe’ Nettuno ammirar l’ ombra d’ Argo. 


It is thus, as these sudden lapses, each followed immediately — 
by waking and amazement, succeed one another, it may be, at 
long intervals, in a poem, that the power of its Poetry grows 
upon us. It is essential to our experiencing the power of 
Poetry that there should be intervals, and intervals of con- 
siderable length, between the lapses. The sense of having 
seen or heard things belonging to a world in which “ Time is 
not” needs for its immediate realisation the presence, in the 
world of waking consciousness, of things which shall “ remind ” 
us of the things of that other world in which “ Time is not ” 
—without such things to “remind” us, there would be no 
“recollection” of our visit to the world in which “Time is 
not.” The poet’s image, therefore, which began by throwing 
us into the dream-state, must persist in the state of waking 
consciousness to which we are now returned, and there, as we 
look at it in the light of common day, amaze us by its “ resem- 
blance” to an archetype seen in the world in which “ Time 
is not.” And its persistence in the world of waking con- 
sciousness can be guaranteed only by a more or less wide 
context addressed to our ordinary faculties—to the senses and 
understanding—and to our ordinary sentiments. Over this 
matter-of-fact context, however, the amazement produced in 
us when we perceive that the image, or other product of the 
Poet’s dream-consciousness, which just now set us, too, 
a-dreaming, is double—is something both in the world without 
Time, and in this temporal world—casts a glamour for a 
while. Then the glamour fades away, and we find ourselves 
accompanying the Poet through the every-day world; and it 
may be in accordance with the secret scheme which he is 
carrying out that we are kept in this every-day world for 
a long while, in order that we may be taken the more by 
surprise when suddenly, as we journey, the light from heaven 
shines round about us. “ Whatever specific import,’ says 
Coleridge,’ “ we attach to the word poetry, there will be found 
involved in it, as a necessary consequence, that a poem of any 
length neither can be, nor ought to be, all poetry.” 


1 Biog. Lit. ch. xiv. 


INTRODUCTION 35 


The chief end of Poetry, then, is to induce Transcendental] 
Feeling—experienced as solemn sense of the immediate pre- 
sence of “That which was, and is, and ever shall be ”"—#in the 
Poet's patient, by throwing him suddenly, for a moment, into 
the state of dream-consciousness, out of a waking conscious- 
ness which the Poet supplies with objects of interest; the 
sudden lapse being effected in the patient by the communica- 
tion to him of images and other products of the Poet’s dream- 
consciousness, through the medium of language generally, but 
not always, distinguished from that of ordinary communication 
by rhythm and melody. 

But the same result—the induction of the same form of 
Transcendental Feeling—is produced, not only by the means 
which the Poet employs,—dream-imagery communicated by 
language generally, but not necessarily, rhythmic and 
melodious,—but also by different artistic means—by the 
means which the Painter and the Musician respectively 
employ ; indeed—and this seems to me to be a matter of first- 
rate importance for the Theory of Poetry—it is sometimes 
produced by mere Nature herself without the aid of any art, 
and by events as they happen in one’s life, and, above all, by 
scenes and situations and persons remembered out of the days 
of childhood and youth. “ We are always dreaming,” Renan 
(I think) says somewhere, “of faces we knew when we were 
eighteen.” In this connection let me ask the reader to 
consider Wordsworth’s lines beginning— 


There was a Boy ; ye knew him well, ye cliffs 
And islands of Winander— 


It seems to me that the mere scene described in these lines— 
a scene to which it would not be difficult to find parallels in 
any one’s experience—is, entirely apart from the language in 
which it is described, and simply as a picture in the mind of 
the person who remembers it, and in the minds of those to 
whom he describes it, the miliew in which true poetic effect 
is experienced. As I write this, I can hardly recall a line 
of Wordsworth’s description ; but the picture which the read- 
ing of his description has left in my mind is distinct; and 
it is in dwelling on the picture that I feel the poetic effect— 
as it was, 1 am convinced, in dwelling on the picture, before 


96 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


he composed a line of the poem, that the poet himself ex- 
perienced the feeling which he has communicated to me. 
And the re-reading of such a poem is more likely to impair 
than to enhance the feeling experienced by one who has once 
for all pictured the scene. 

The more I read and re-read the works of the great poets, 
and the more I study the writings of those who have some 
Theory of Poetry to set forth, the more am I convinced that 
the question What is Poetry ? can be properly answered only 
if we make What it does take precedence of How it does τί. 
The result produced by Poetry—identical, I hold, with that 
produced by the other fine arts, and even sometimes by the 
mere contemplation of Nature and Human Life—is the one 
thing of prime importance to be kept always in view, but is 
too often lost sight of in the examination of the means by 
which Poetry produces it, as distinguished from those by 
which, say, Painting produces it. Much that is now being 
written on the Theory of Poetry leaves one with the impres- 
sion that the writers regard the end of Poetry as something 
sui generis—in fact, something not to be distinguished from 
the employment of technique peculiar to Poetry among the 
fine arts.’ I shall return to this point afterwards. 

In making the essential charm of Poetry—that for the 
sake of which, in the last resort, it exists—lie in its power 
of inducing, in certain carefully chosen circumstances, and so 
of regulating, Transcendental Feeling experienced as solemn 
sense of “That which was, and is, and ever shall be” over- 
shadowing us with its presence, 1 must not be taken to mean 
that there is no Poetry where this sense is not induced as 
a distinct ecstatic experience. Great Poetry, just in those 
places where it is at its very greatest, indeed shows its 
peculiar power not otherwise than by inducing such distinct 
ecstatic experience; but generally, poetic effect—not the very 
greatest, but yet indisputably poetic effect—is produced by 
something less—-by the presence of this form of Tran- 
scendental Feeling in a merely nascent state,—just a little 
more, and it would be there distinctly; as it is, there is a 


1 Mr. Courthope (Life in Poetry, p. 78) says: ‘‘ Poetry lies in the invention 
of the right metrical form—be it epic, dramatic, lyric, or satirie—for oe expres- 
sion of some idea universally interesting to the imagination.” And ef. p. 63. 


INTRODUCTION 37 


“magic,” as we say, in the picture called up, or the natural 
sentiment aroused, which fills us with wondering surmise— 
of what, we know not. This “magic” may be illustrated 
perhaps most instructively from lyric poetry, and there, from 
the lightest variety of the kind, from the simple love song. 
The pictures and sentiments suggested in the love song, 
regarded in themselves, belong to an experience which seems 
to be, more than any other, realised fully in the present, 
without intrusion of past or future to overcast its blue day 
with shadow. But look at these natural pictures and senti- 
ments not directly, but as reflected in the magic mirror of 
Poetry! They are still radiant in the light of their Present 
—for let us think now only of the happy love song, not of the 
love song which is an elegy—they are still in their happy 
Present ; but they are not of it—they have become something 
“rich and strange.” No words can describe the change which 
they have suffered; it is only to be felt—as in such lines as 
these :— 
Das Médchen. 

Ich hab’ ihn gesehen ! 

Wie ist mir geschehen ? 

O himmlischer Blick ! 

Er kommt mir entgegen : 

Ich weiche verlegen, 

Ich schwanke zuriick. 

Ich irre, ich triume ! 

Ihr Felsen, ihr Baume, 


Verbergt meine Freude, 
Verberget mein Gliick ! 


Der Jiingling. 
Hier muss ich sie finden ! 
Ich sah sie verschwinden, 
Ihr folgte mein Blick. 
Sie kam mir entgegen ; 
Dann trat sie verlegen 
Und schamroth zuriick. 
Ist ’s Hoffnung, sind ’s Triume ? 
Thr Felsen, ihr Baume, 
Entdeckt mir die Liebste, 
Entdeckt mir mein Gliick ! 


The magic of such lines as these is due, I cannot doubt, 
to the immediate presence of some great mass of feeling which 


38 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


they rouse, and, at the same time, hold in check, behind our 
mere understanding of their literal meaning. The pictures and 
sentiments conjured up, simple and familiar though they are, 
have yet that about them which I can only compare with the 
mysterious quality of those indifferent things which are so 
carefully noticed, and those trifling thoughts which are so 
seriously dwelt upon, in an hour of great trouble. 

But the Transcendental Feeling which, being pent up 
behind our understanding of their literal meaning, makes the 
magic of such lines, may burst through the iridescent film 
which contains it. We have an example of this in the trans- 
figuration of the Earthly into the Heavenly Beatrice. The 
Transcendental Feeling latent behind our understanding of 
the praise of Beatrice in the earlier sonnets and canzoni of 
the Vita Nuova emerges as a distinct experience when we 
assist at her praise in the Paradiso. Contrast the eleventh 
sonnet of the Vita Nuova with the twenty-fifth, which, with 
its commentary, is a prelude to the Paradiso. The eleventh 
sonnet of the Vita Nuova ends :-— 


Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore. 

Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile 
Nasce nel core a chi parlar la sente ; 
Ond’ é beato chi prima la vide. 

Quel ch’ ella par quand’ un poco sorride, 
Non si pud dicer, πὸ tener a mente, 
Si ὃ nuovo miracolo gentile. 


Here it is the magic of the lines which is all in all. Now let 
us turn to the twenty-fifth, the last, sonnet of the Vita Nuova, 
and to the words after it ending the book with the promise 
of more worthy praise—more worthy, because offered with a 
deeper sense of the encompassing presence of “That which 
was, and is, and ever shall be ” :— 


Oltre la spera, che pit larga gira, 
Passa il sospiro ch’ esce del mio core : 
Intelligenza nuova, che |’ Amore 
Piangendo mette in lui, pur su lo tira. 
Quand’ egli ὃ giunto 1d, dov’ el desira, 
Vede una donna, che riceve onore, 
E luce si, che per lo suo splendore 
Lo peregrino spirito la mira, 
Vedela tal, che, quando il mi ridice, 


INTRODUCTION 39 


Io non lo intendo, δὶ parla sottile 
Al cor dolente, che lo far parlare. 
So io ch’ el parla di quella gentile, 
Perocché spesso ricorda Beatrice, 
Sicch’ io lo intendo ben, donne mie care. 


“Straightway after this sonnet was writ, there appeared 
unto me a marvellous vision, wherein I beheld things which 
made me determine not to say more concerning this Blessed 
One until I should be able to speak of her more worthily. 
To this end 1 studied with all diligence, as she knoweth well. 
Wherefore, if it shall be the pleasure of Him through Whom 
all things live that my life endure for some years, I hope to 
say of her that which never before hath been said of woman. 
And then may it please Him Who is Lord of Courtesy that 
my Soul may go to behold the glory of her Lady, to wit, of 
that Blessed Beatrice, who in glory doth gaze upon the face of 
Him Who is blessed for evermore.” 


4. TRANSCENDENTAL FEELING, THE EXPERIENCE TO WHICH THE 
PLATONIC MYTH AND ALL OTHER FORMS OF POETRY 
APPEAL, EXPLAINED GENETICALLY. 


Transcendental Feeling I would explain genetically (as 
every mood, whatever its present value may be,—that is 
another matter— ought to be explained) as an effect produced 
within consciousness (and, in the form in which Poetry is 
chiefly concerned with Transcendental Feeling, within the 
dream-consciousness) by the persistence in us of that primeval 
condition from which we are sprung, when Life was still as 
sound asleep as Death, and there was no Time yet. That we 
should fall for a while, now and then, from our waking, time- 
marking life, into the timeless slumber of this primeval life is 
easy to understand; for the principle solely operative in that 
primeval life is indeed the fundamental principle of our 
nature, being that “ Vegetative Part of the Soul” which 
made from the first, and still silently makes, the assumption 
on which our whole rational life of conduct and science rests 
—the assumption that Life is worth hving. No arguments 
which Reason can bring for, or against, this ultimate truth 


40 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


are relevant; for Reason cannot stir without assuming the 
very thing which these arguments seek to prove or to disprove. 
“Live thy life” is the Categorical Imperative addressed by 
Nature to each one of her creatures according to its kind. 

At the bottom of the scale of Life the Imperative is 
obeyed silently, in timeless sleep, as by the trees of the 
tropical forest :-— 


The fair and stately things, 

Impassive as departed kings, 

All still in the wood’s stillness stood, 

And dumb. The rooted multitude 

Nodded and brooded, bloomed and dreamed, 
Unmeaning, undivined. It seemed 

No other art, no hope, they knew, 

Than clutch the earth and seek the blue. 


* % * * 4 
* 


My eyes were touched with sight. 
I saw the wood for what it was: 

The lost and the victorious cause, 

The deadly battle pitched in line, 

Saw weapons cross and shine ; 

Silent defeat, silent assault, 

A battle and a burial vault. 

* * * * * 
Green conquerors from overhead 
Bestrode the bodies of their dead : 

The Cesars of the sylvan field, 

Unused to fail, foredoomed to yield : 

For in the groins of branches, lo ! 

The cancers of the orchid grow.! 


When to the “ Vegetative” the “Sensitive” Soul is first 
added, the Imperative is obeyed by creatures which, experi- 
encing only isolated feelings, and retaining no traces of them 
in memory, still live a timeless life, without sense of past or 
future, and consequently without sense of selfhood. 

Then, with Memory, there comes, in the higher animals, 
some dim sense of a Self dating back and prospecting for- 
ward. Time begins to be. But the sense of its passage brings 
no melancholy; for its end in death is not yet anticipated 
by reflective thought. 

Man’s anticipation of death would oppress his life with 


1 Songs of Travel, R. L. Stevenson: ‘‘The Woodman.” 


INTRODUCTION 4] 


insupportable melancholy, were it not that current employ- 
ments, especially those which are spoken of as duties, are 80 
engrossing—that is, | would explain, were it not that his 
conscious life feels down with its roots into that “ Part of the 
Soul” which, without sense of past or future or self, silently 
holds on to Life, in the implicit faith that it is worth living 
—that there is a Cosmos in which it is good to be. As it 18, 
there is still room enough for melancholy in his hours of ease 
and leisure. If comfort comes to him in such hours, it is 
not from his thinking out some solution of his melancholy, 
but from his putting by thought, and sinking, alone, or led by 
some μυσταγωγὸς τοῦ βίου, for a while into the sleep of that 
fundamental “ Part of the Soul.” When he wakes into daily 
life again, it is with the elementary faith of this Part of his 
Soul newly confirmed in his heart; and he is ready, in the 
strength of it, to defy all that seems to give it the lie in the 
world of the senses and scientific understanding. Sometimes 
the very melancholy, which overclouds him at the thought 
of death, is transfigured, in the glow of this faith, into an 
exultant resignation—“ I shall pass, but He abideth for ever.” 
Sometimes, and more often, the faith does not merely trans- 
figure, but dispels, the melancholy, and fills his heart with 
sweet hope, which fancy renders into dreams of personal 
immortality. 

To sum up in effect what I have said about Transcendental 
Feeling: it is feeling which indeed appears in our ordinary 
object-distinguishing, time-marking consciousness, but does 
not originate in it. It is to be traced to the influence on 
consciousness of the presence in us of that “ Part of the 
Soul” which holds on, in timeless sleep, to Life as worth 
living. Hence Transcendental Feeling is at once the solemn 
sense of Timeless Being—of “ That which was, and is, and ever 
shall be” overshadowing us—and the conviction that Life 
is good. In the first-mentioned phase Transcendental Feeling 
appears as an abnormal experience of our conscious life, as 
a well-marked ecstatic state;*+ in its other phase—as con- 
viction that Life is good—Transcendental Feeling may be said 
to be a normal experience of our conscious life: it is not 





1 See Paradiso, xxxiii. 82-96, quoted supra, p. 23, and Vita Nuova, Sonnet 
xxv., quoted supra, p. 38. 


42 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


an experience occasionally cropping up alongside of other 
experiences, but a feeling which accompanies all the experi- 
ences of our conscious life—that “sweet hope,” γλυκεῖα 
ἐλπίς, in the strength of which we take the trouble to seek 
after the particular achievements which make up the waking 
life of conduct and science. Such feeling, though normal, is 
rightly called Transcendental,’ because it is not one of the 
effects, but the condition, of our entering upon and persever- 
ing in that course of endeavour which makes experience. 


5. THE PLATONIC MYTH ROUSES AND REGULATES TRAN- 
SCENDENTAL FEELING BY (1) IMAGINATIVE REPRESEN- 
TATION OF IDEAS OF REASON, AND (2) IMAGINATIVE 
DEDUCTION OF CATEGORIES OF THE UNDERSTANDING 
AND MORAL VIRTUES. 


I have offered these remarks about Transcendental Feeling 
in order to preface a general statement which I now venture 
to make about the Platonic Myths—that they are Dreams 
expressive of Transcendental Feeling, told in such a manner 
and such a context that the telling of them regulates, for 
the service of conduct and science, the feeling expressed. 

How then are conduct and science served by such regulation 
of Transcendental Feeling ? 

In the wide-awake life of conduct and science, Under- 
standing, left to itself, claims to be the measure of truth ; 
Sense, to be the criterion of good and bad. Transcendental 
Feeling, welling up from another “ Part of the Soul,” whispers 
to Understanding and Sense that they are leaving out some- 
thing. What? Nothing less than the secret plan of the 
Universe. And what is that secret plan? The other “ Part 
of the Soul” indeed comprehends it in silence as it is,*® but 
can explain it to the Understanding only in the symbolical 
language of the interpreter, Imagination—in Vision.* In 
the Platonic Myth we assist at a Vision in which the 


1 γλυκεῖά ol καρδίαν ἀτάλλοισα γηροτρόφος συναορεῖ ἐλπίς, ἃ μάλιστα θνατῶν 
πολύστροφον γνώμαν xvSepva.—Pindar, quoted Rep. 331 a, 

2 As distinguished from ‘‘ Empirical Feeling’’ ; see infra, p. 389. 

3 Plotinus, Znn. iii. 8. 4, and see infra, p. 45. 

* Tim. 71 Ὁ, &. The liver, the organ of [magination, is a μαντεῖον, 


INTRODUCTION 43 


wide-awake life of our ordinary experiences and doings is 
seen as an act in a vast drama of the creation and con- 
summation of all things. The habitudes and faculties of our 
moral and intellectual constitution, which determine @ priori 
our experiences and doings in this wide-awake life, are them- 
selves clearly seen to be determined by causes which, in turn, 
are clearly seen to be determined by the Plan of the Universe 
which the Vision reveals. And more than this —the Universe, 
planned as the Vision shows, is the work—albeit accomplished 
under difficulties—of a wise and good God; for see how 
mindful He is of the welfare of man’s soul throughout all its 
wanderings from creation to final purification, as the Vision 
unfolds them! We ought, then, to be of good hope, and to 
use strenuously, in this present life, habitudes and faculties 
which are so manifestly in accordance with a universal plan 
so manifestly beneficent. 

It is as producing this mood in us that the Platonic Myth, 
Aetiological and Eschatological, regulates Transcendental Feel- 
ing for the service of conduct and science. In Aetiological 
Myth the Categories of the Understanding and the Moral 
Virtues are deduced from a Plan of the Universe, of which 
they are represented as parts seen, together with the whole, 
in a former life, and “remembered” piecemeal in this; in 
Aetiological and Eschatological (but chiefly in Eschatological) 
Myth the “Ideas of Reason,” Soul, Cosmos, as completed 
system of the Good, and God, are set forth for the justification 
of that “sweet hope which guides the wayward thought of mortal 
man ’—the hope without which we should not take the trouble 
to enter upon, and persevere in, that struggle after ever fuller 
* comprehension of conditions,’ ever wider “correspondence with 
environment,’ which the habits and faculties of our moral 
. and intellectual structure—the Categories of the Understand- 
ing and the Moral Virtues—enable us to carry on in detail. 

At this point, before I go on further to explain Plato’s hand- 
ling of Transcendental Feeling, I will make bold to explain my 
own metaphysical position. A very few words will suffice. 

I hold that it is in Transcendental Feeling, manifested 


1 Kant makes ‘‘ Reason” (¢.e. the whole man in opposition to this or that 
part, ¢.g. “‘understanding”) the source of ‘‘ Transccndental Ideas,” described as 
‘“‘conceptions of the unconditioned,” ‘‘conceptions of the totality of the con- 
ditions of any thing that is given as conditioned.” 


~— 


44 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


normally as Faith in the Value of Life, and ecstatically as 
sense of Timeless Being, and not in Thought proceeding by 
way of speculative construction, that Consciousness comes 
nearest to the object of Metaphysics, Ultimate Reality. It is 
in Transcendental Feeling, not in Thought, that Consciousness 
comes nearest to Ultimate Reality, because without that 
Faith in the Value of Life, which is the normal manifestation 
of Transcendental Feeling, Thought could not stir. It is 
in Transcendental Feeling that Consciousness is aware of 
“The Good”—of the Universe as a place in which it is good 
to be. Transcendental Feeling is thus the beginning of 
Metaphysics, for Metaphysics cannot make a start without 
assuming “The Good, or the Universe as a place in which 
it is good to be”; but it is also the end of Metaphysics, for 
Speculative Thought does not really carry us further than 
the Feeling, which inspired it from the first, has already 
brought us: we end, as we began, with the Feeling that it 
is good to be here. To the question, “ Why is it good to be 
here ?” the answers elaborated by Thought are no more really 
answers than those supplied by the Mythopoeic Fancy inter- 
preting Transcendental Feeling. When the former have 
value (and they are sometimes not only without value, but 
mischievous) they are, like those supplied by the Mythopoeic 
Fancy, valuable as impressive affirmations of the Faith in us, 
not at all as explanations of its ground. Conceptual solutions 
of the “ problem of the Universe” carry us no further along 
the pathway to reality than imaginative solutions do. The 
reason why they are thought to carry us further is that they 
mimic those conceptual solutions of departmental problems 
which we are accustomed to accept, and do well to accept, 
from the positive sciences. Imaginative solutions of the 
“problem of the Universe” are thought to be as inferior to 
conceptual solutions as imaginative solutions of departmental 
problems are to conceptual. The fallacy involved in this 
analogy is that of supposing that there is a “problem of the 
Universe” —a difficulty presented which Thought may 
“solve.” The “problem of the Universe” was first pro- 
pounded, and straightway solved, at the moment when Life 
began on the earth,—when a living being—as such, from the 
very first, lacking nothing which is essential to “ selfhood ” or 


INTRODUCTION 45 


“personality first appeared as Mode of the Universe. The 
“problem of the Universe” is not propounded to Consciousness, 
and Consciousness cannot solve it, Consciousness can feel 
that it has been propounded and solved elsewhere, but cannot 
genuinely think it. It is “propounded” to that on which 
Consciousness supervenes (and supervenes only because the 
problem has been already “solved”’)—it is propounded to 
what I would call “selfhood,” or “ personality,’ and is ever 
silently being “understood” and “solved” by that principle, 
in the continued “ vegetative life” of individual and race. 
And the most trustworthy, or least misleading, report of 
what the “problem” is, and what its “solution” is, reaches 
Consciousness through Feeling. Feeling stands nearer than 
Thought does to that basal self or personality which is, 
indeed, at once the living “ problem of the Universe” and its 
living “solution.” The whole matter is summed up for me in 
the words of Plotinus, with which I will conclude this statement 
which I have ventured to make of my metaphysical position : 
“Tf a man were to inquire of Nature—‘ Wherefore dost 
thou bring forth creatures?’ and she were willing to give 
ear and to answer, she would say—‘ Ask me not, but under- 
stand in silence, even as I am silent.’” ! 

In suggesting that the Platonic Myth awakens and 
regulates Transcendental Feeling (1) by imaginative representa- 
tion of Ideas of Reason, and (2) by imaginative deduction 
of Categories of the Understanding and Moral Virtues, I do 
not wish to maintain that the Kantian distinction between 
Categories of the Understanding and Ideas of Reason was 
explicit in Plato’s mind. There is plenty of evidence in his 
writings to show that it was not explicit; but it is a distinction 
of vital importance for philosophical thought, and it need not 
surprise us to find it sometimes implicitly recognised by a thinker 
of Plato’s calibre. At any rate, it is a distinction which the 
student of Plato’s Myths will do well to have explicit in his 
own mind. Let us remind ourselves, then, of what Kant 
means by Categories of the Understanding and Ideas of 
Reason respectively. 





1 Plot. Enn. iii. 8. 4, καὶ εἴ ris δὲ αὐτὴν (τὴν φύσιν) ἔροιτο τίνος ἕνεκα ποιεῖ, 
εἰ τοῦ ἐρωτῶντος ἐθέλοι ἐπαΐειν καὶ λέγειν, εἴποι ἄν" “ἐχρῆν μὲν μὴ ἐρωτᾶν, ἀλλὰ 
συνιέναι καὶ αὐτὸν σιωπῇ, ὥσπερ ἐγὼ σιωπῷ καὶ οὐκ εἴθισμαι λέγειν." 


46 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Kant’s Categories of the Understanding are certain ὦ priori 
Conceptions, certain Characters of the Mental Structure, 
without which there could be no “experience ”—no “ know- 
ledge” of that which alone is “ known,” the world of sensible 
phenomena. These Categories, however, if they are not 
to remain mere logical abstractions, must be regarded as 
functions of the Understanding—as active manifestations of 
the unifying principle of mind or consciousness. As func- 
tions, the Categories need for their actual manifestation the 
presence of “sensations.” In the absence of sensations they 
are “empty.” They are functions of the mental organism or 
structure which are called into operation by stimulation from 
“environment,” and that only in schemata or “ figurations ” 
involving the “garment” or “vehicle” of Time Thus, the 
Category of Substance is realised in “the schema of the per- 
sistent in time’”—Something present to sense is perceived as 
“Substance” persisting in change of “attributes”; the 
Category of Cause is realised in “the schema of succession in 
time,”—two sensible phenomena, one of which is antecedent 
and the other consequent, are conceived as cause and effect— 
the latter is conceived as following necessarily from the 
former. “The schemata, then, are the true scientific cate- 
gories.”” This amounts to saying that the Understanding, 
if rightly conducted, will never make a transcendental use, 
but only an empirical use, of any of its a priori principles. 
These principles can apply only to objects of sense, as con- 
forming to the universal conditions of a possible experience 
(phenomena), and never to things as such (nowmena), or apart 
from the manner in which we are capable of perceiving them.* 

In contrast to the Categories of the Understanding which 
are immanent—adequately realised in sense experience; we 
say, for instance, that this thing present to sense is cause cf 
that other thing—the Ideas of Reason are transcendent : 
they overleap the limits of all experience—in experience no 
objects can be presented that are adequate to them. They 


1 See Wallace's Kant, p. 172. 

* Wallace’s Kant, p. 173. 

3 See Kritik d. reinen Vern pp. 297, 298, 303. A conception is employed 
transcendentally when it occurs in a proposition regarding things as such or in 
themselves ; empirically, when the proposition relates merely to phenomena, or 
objects of a possible experience. 


INTRODUCTION 47 


are defined, generally, as “problematic conceptions of the 
totality of conditions of anything that is given as con- 
ditioned”; or, since the unconditioned alone makes a totality 
of conditions possible, as “conceptions of the unconditioned, 
in so far as it contains a ground for the synthesis of the 
conditioned.” ‘There are three Ideas of Reason, products of 
its activity in “carrying the fragmentary and detailed results 
of human experience to their rational issues in a postulated 
totality. . . . These three ideas are the Soul, as the super- 
sensible substance from which the phenomena of Consciousness 
are derivative manifestations; the World [Cosmos, Universe], 
as ultimate totality of external phenomena; and God, as 
unity and final spring of all the diversities of existence. 
The ideas, strictly as ideal, have a legitimate and a necessary 
place in human thought. They express the unlimited obliga- 
tion which thought feels laid upon itself to unify the details 
of observation; they indicate an anticipated and postulated 
convergence between the various lines indicated by observation, 
even though observation may show that the convergence will 
never visibly be reached; or they are standards and model 
types towards which experience may, and indeed must, if she 
is true to the cause of truth, conceive herself bound to approxi- 
mate. Such is the function of ideas, as regulative; they 
govern and direct the action of intellect in the effort to 
systematise and centralise knowledge. ... But the ideas 
naturally sink into another place in human knowledge. 
Instead of stimulating research, they become, as Kant once 
puts it, a cushion for the lazy intellect. Instead of being the 
ever-unattainable goals of investigation, they play a part in 
founding the edifice of science. Ceasing to be regulative of 
research, they come to be constitutive of a pretended know- 
ledge.” ὅ 

The Ideas of Reason, then, are aims, aspirations, ideals ; 
but they have no adequate objects in a possible experi- 
ence. The three “Sciences” which venture to define objects 
for them—Rational Psychology, Rational Cosmology, and 
Theology—are, according to Kant, sham sciences. The Idea 
of Soul, the absolute or unconditioned unity of the thinking 


1 Kritik,? pp. 379, 384 (Prof. Watson’s Transl. ). 
2 Wallace’s Kant, pp. 182, 183. 


48 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


subject, has no object in possible experience answering 
to it. We are making an illegitimate transcendental use 
of a Category when we conceive the subject of all knowledge 
as an object under the Category of Substance. Similarly, the 
ultimate totality of external phenomena—the Cosmos as 
absolute whole—is not an object of possible experience; it is 
not something given in sense, to be brought under Categories 
or scientific conceptions. Finally, the Idea of God is perverted 
from its regulative use, when it is made the foundation of a 
science—Dogmatic Theology—which applies the Categories 
of Substance, Cause, and the rest, to a Supreme Being, as if 
He were an object presented in sense experience. 

To sum up:—The Categories of the Understanding are so 
many conditions of thought which Human Understanding, 
constituted as it is, expects to find, and does find, fully 
satisfied in the details of sensible experience. The Ideas 
of Reason indicate the presence of a condition of thought 
which is not satisfied in any particular item of experi- 
ence. They are aspirations or ideals expressing that nisus 
after fuller and fuller comprehension of conditions, wider and 
wider correspondence with environment—in short, that nisus 
after Life, and faith in it as good, without which man would 
not will to pursue the experience rendered possible in detail 
by the Categories. But although there can be no speculative 
science of objects answering to the Ideas of Reason, we 
should come to naught if we did not act as if there were such 
objects; and any representation of objects answering to these 
Ideas which does not invite exposure by pretending to scientifie 
rank is valuable as helping us to “act as 1. The objects of 
these Ideas are objects, not for science, but for faith. When 
the scientific understanding “ proves” that God exists, or that 
the Soul is immortal, refutation lies near at hand; but the 
“as if” of the moral agent rests on a sure foundation.’ 

1 «We have three postulates of practical reason which are closely related to 
the three Ideas of theoretical reason. These Ideas reason in its theoretical use 
set before itself as problems to be solved ; but it was unable to supply the solution. 
Thus, the attempt to prove theoretically the ΟΝ of the thinking subject 
led only to paralogism ; for it involved a confusion of the subject presupposed in 
all knowledge of objects, and only in that point of view permanent, with an 
object known under the Category of Substance. But now we find that a faith of 
reason in the endless existence of the self-conscious subject is bound up with the 


possibility of his fulfilling the moral law. Again, the attempt speculatively to 
determine the world as a system complete in itself landed us in an antinomy 


INTRODUCTION 49 


To return now from Kant to Plato :—Plato’s Myths induce 
and regulate Transcendental Feeling for the service of conduct 
and knowledge by setting forth the @ priori conditions of con- 
duct and knowledge—that is, (1) by representing certain ideals 
or presuppositions, in concrete form——the presuppositions of 
an immortal Soul, of an intelligible Cosmos, and of a wise and 
good God—all three being natural expressions of the sweet 
hope in the faith of which man lives and struggles on and on ; 
and (2) by tracing to their origin in the wisdom and goodness of 
God, and the constitution of the Cosmos, certain habitudes or 
faculties (categories and virtues), belonging to the make of 
man’s intellectual and moral nature, which prescribe the various 
modes in which he must order in detail the life which his 
faith or sweet hope impels him to maintain. Myth, not 
argumentative conversation, is rightly chosen by Plato as the 
vehicle of exposition when he deals with @ priori conditions 
of conduct and knowledge, whether they be ideals or faculties. 
When a man asks himself, as he must, for the reason of the 
hope in which he struggles on in the ways prescribed by his 
faculties, he is fain to answer—‘“ Because I am an immortal 
Soul, created with these faculties by a wise and good God, 
under whose government I live in a Universe which is His 
finished work.” This answer, according to Plato, as I read 
him, is the natural and legitimate expression of the “ sweet hope 
which guides the wayward thought of mortal man”; and the 
expression reacts on—gives strength and steadiness to—that 
which it expresses. It is a “true answer” in the sense that 
man’s life would come to naught if he did not act and think 
as if it were true. But Soul, Cosmos as completed system of 
the Good, and God are not particular objects presented, along 


which we were able to escape only by the distinction of the phenomenal from 
the intelligible world—a distinction which theoretic reason suggested, but which 
it could not verify. But now, the moral law forces us to think ourselves as free, 
and therefore as belonging to an intelligible world which we are further obliged 
to treat as the reality of which the phenomenal world is the appearance. Lastly, 
the Absolute Being was to theoretic reason a mere ideal which knowledge could 
not realise ; but now His existence is certified to us as the necessary condition of 
the possibility of the object of a Will determined by the moral law. Thus, through 
practical reason we gain a conviction of the reality of objects corresponding to the 
three Ideas of Pure Reason. We do not, indeed, acquire what is properly to be 
called knowledge of these objects. We only change the problematic conception 
of them into an assertion of their real existence; but, as we are not able to 
bring any perception under such Ideas, so we are unable to make any synthetic 
judgment regarding the objects the existence of which we assert.’’—Caird’s 
Critical Philosophy of Kant, ii. 297. 


E 


50 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


with other particular objects, in sensible experience. This 
the Scientific Understanding fails to grasp. When it tries to 
deal with them—and it is ready enough to make the venture 
—it must needs envisage them, more suo, as though they were 
particular objects which could be brought under its Categories in 
sensible experience. Then the question arises, “Where are 
they?” And the answer comes sooner or later, “They are 
nowhere to be found.” Thus “science ” chills the “sweet hope ” 
in which man lives, by bringing the natural expression of it 
into discredit. 

This, I take it, is Plato’s reason for employing Myth, 
rather than the language and method of “science,” when he 
wishes to set forth the @ priori as it expresses itself in Ideals. 
In the mise en scéne of the Zimaeus or Myth of Er, Soul, 
Cosmos, and God are presented concretely indeed, but in such 
visionary form that there is little danger of mistaking them 
for particulars of sense requiring “scientific explanation.” 
Again, as for the a priori Habitudes or Faculties of man’s 
moral and intellectual structure, whereby he corresponds with 
his environment in detail—these, too, Plato holds, are to be 
set forth in Myth; for they are properly set forth when they 
are “deduced ”—traced to their origin, which is that of the 
Cosmos—a matter beyond the reach of the Scientific Under- 
standing. It is in a Myth of Reminiscence, therefore, such 
as that in the Phaedrus, that we must take account of the 
question of “the origin of knowledge”; in a Myth such as 
that of the Golden Age in the Laws, of the question of “ the 
origin of society.” "ἢ 

These and other ultimate “questions of origin,” carrying 
us back as they do to the nature of God and the constitution 
of the Cosmos, are not for “science.” Plato found Myth 
invested in the minds of his contemporaries with the authority 
of old tradition and the new charm which Pindar and the 
tragedians had bestowed upon it; perhaps, too, if my sugges- 
tion? has any value, he found it associated, in his own mind 
and the minds of other Socratici viri, with the personal 
influence of the Master where that influence was most im- 


! The spirit, and much in the detail, of the Cratylus justify the view that 
Plato approached the question of the ‘‘ origin of language” too διὰ μυθολογίας. 
4 Supra, p. 3. 


INTRODUCTION 5] 


pressive and mysterious—he found Myth thus ready to his 
hand, and he took it up, and used it in an original way for a 
philosophical purpose, and transformed it as the Genius of 
Sculpture transformed the ξόανα of Daedalus. 

Further remarks on the @ priori in conduct and knowledge 
as set forth by means of the mythological deduction of 
Faculties will be best deferred till we come to the Phaedrus 
Myth; but some general observations on the ὦ priori as set 
forth by means of the mythological representation of Ideals— 
“forms of hope,” ὁ “ objects of faith ’”—may be helpful at this 
introductory stage. Let us then consider broadly, first, Plato’s 
handling of the “ Idea of God,” and then his handling of the 
“Tdea of Soul.” Consideration of his handling of the “ Idea 
of Cosmos” may well be deferred till we come to the 
Timaeus. 


6. PLato’s TREATMENT OF THE IDEA OF GOD 


To the religious consciousness, whether showing itself in 
the faith which “ non-religious people” sometimes find privately 
and cling to in time of trouble, or expressed to the world in 
the creeds and mythologies of the various religions, the Idea 
of God is the idea of a Personal God, or, it may be, of personal 
Gods. The God of the religious consciousness, whatever else 
he may be, is first of all a separate individual—one among 
other individuals, human and, it may be, superhuman, to 
whom he stands in relations by which he is determined or 
limited. He is Maker, King, Judge, Father, Friend. It may 
be true that attributes logically inconsistent with his being a 
finite individual person are ascribed to him in some of the 
creeds; but the inconsistency, when perceived, is always so 
dealt with that the all-important idea of his personality 
is left with undiminished power. The idea of the separate 
individuality or personality of the Self is not more essential 
to the moral consciousness than the idea of the separate 
individuality or personality of God is to the religious conscious- 
ness; and in the religious consciousness, at any rate, both of 

i It never yet did hurt, 


To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. 
Henry IV. (Part ii.), i. 3, 


52 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


these ideas are involyed—an individual Self stands in a 
personal relation to another individual, God.’ 

But logical thinking—whether in natural science or in 
metaphysics—when it busies itself, as it is too fond of doing, 
with the “Idea of God,” arrives at a conclusion—this cannot 
be too plainly stated—flatly opposed to the conviction of the 
religious consciousness.  Aristotle’s ἐνέργεια ἄνευ δυνάμεως 
is not a Person; nor is Spinoza’s Substantia Infinita; nor 
is the Absolute of later systems, although its true logical 
character has sometimes been disguised; nor is the “ Nature ” 
of modern science. Logical or scientific thinking presupposes 
and makes explicit the idea of an orderly Universe, of an 
organic whole determining necessarily the behaviour of its 
parts, of a single system realising itself fully, at every 
moment and at every place, in events which, for the most 
part, recur, and recurring retain a uniform character, or only 
change their character gradually. We should not be here, 
science assures us—living beings, acting and thinking—if the 
changes in our environment were catastrophic, not orderly and 
gradual. But although the Universe must be orderly 7 we 
are to live, it does not follow that it is orderly that we may 
live. Logical or scientific thinking, as such, scouts teleology 
in that form in which it is cherished by the religious conscious- 
ness, belief in a Particular Providence,—logical or scientific 
thinking, as such, that is, when it is not deflected from its path, 
as it sometimes is, by the attraction of religious conviction, 
just as the religious consciousness, on the other hand, is 
sometimes disturbed by science. Teleology, when taken up 
seriously, not merely played with, is a method which assumes 
the intentions of a Personal Ruler of the Universe, and explains 
the means which he employs in order to carry out his 
intentions.” Logical or scientific thinking, as such, finds it 


1 Of. Hegelianism and Personality, A. 8. Pringle-Pattison, pp. 217-218. 

2 In saying that “science” scouts the teleology which recommends itself to the 
‘* religious consciousness” I do not think that I contradict the view, so ably 
enforced by Prof. W. James, that “ teleology is the essence of intelligence "—that 
the translation, in which ‘‘science” consists, of the perceptual into the con- 
ceptual order “always takes place for the sake of some subjective interest, . . . 
and the conception with which we handle a bit of sensible experience is really 
nothing but a teleological instrument. This whole function of conceiving, of 
fixing, and holding-fast to meanings, has no significance apart from the fact that 
the conceiver is a creature with partial purposes and private ends.”—Princ. of 
Psych. i. 482. 


INTRODUCTION 53 


inconceivable that the Part——and a Personal God, an individual 
distinguished from other individuals, is a Part—should thus 
rule the Whole. If science and the religious consciousness 
try, as they sometimes do, to come to an understanding with 
each other on the basis of such a phrase as “ Infinite Person ” 
or “ Universal Consciousness,” the result is only to bring out 
more clearly, in the self-contradictory phrase, the incompati- 
bility of their two points of view, and to make the breach, 
which it is attempted thus to heal, still wider. It is wise to 
recognise, once for all, that the scientific understanding, work- 
ing within its own region, finds no place for a Personal God, 
and that the religious consciousness demands a Personal God 
—a Part which rules the Whole. The scientific conception 
of Whole ruling Parts is, indeed, so distasteful to the religious 
consciousness that it always leans to Polytheism rather than 
to Monotheism. 

That the incompatibility of the scientific conception with 
the conviction of the religious consciousness was present to 
Plato’s mind is proved, as it seems to me, by the circumstance 
that it is in Myth that he presents the idea of a Personal 
God and the correlate idea of a Personal Immortality of the 
Soul. 

Lest it should be objected that it is “ unhistorical” to 
ascribe to Plato any perception of the issue on which religion 
and “modern science” are at variance, it may be well to point 
out that Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, was aware of the issue, and 
faced it with characteristic directness. Any one who reads the 
Metaphysics, De Anima, and Ethics in connection will be struck 
by the way in which the logician gives up, apparently without 
scruple, the idea of a Personal God, and the correlate idea of 
the Personal Immortality of the Soul. 

It may help us to make out what Plato hopes for from 
presenting these correlate ideas, in Myth, to the adult readers 
of his Dialogues, if we recall what he lays down in the second 
book of the Republic about the religious instruction of young 
children, on which all mental and moral education, according 
to him, is to be founded. 

The education of children, he tells us, is not to begin with 
instruction in “ facts” or “truths.” It is not to begin, as we 
might say, with the “ elementary truths of science” and “ facts 


54 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


of common life,” as learned in the primer. Young children 
cannot yet understand what is true in fact. We must begin, 
then, with what is false in fact—with fictions, with stories. 
Their only faculty is that of being interested in stories. 
Hence it is all important to have good stories to tell them— 
to invent Myths with a good tendency. They are to be 
told what is literally false, in order that they may get hold of 
what is spiritually trve—the great fundamental truth that God 
is “ beneficent” and “ truthful ”—both adjectives applicable to 
a person ; and a finite person, for they are to believe that he is 
the author only of what is good. 

That God is such a finite person, then, is true, Plato would 
tell us; not, indeed, true in the sense in which the description 
of phenomena or data of experience may be true, but true, as 
being the only or best possible expression, at least for children, 
of the maxim or principle of guidance without which human 
life must come to naught. If children believe that God is the 
author, not of good only, but of evil also, they will grow up to 
be discontented and without hope—without faith in the good 
providence which helps those who help themselves—ready 
always to blame God or bad luck, rather than themselves, for 
their troubles and failures. If they do not believe that he is 
truthful, they will grow up to be careless observers and abstract 
reasoners, neglecting, as insignificant and “due to accident,” 
those so-called little things which the careful interpreter of 
nature recognises as important signs and symptoms. They 
will grow up without the principles on which Conduct and 
Science respectively depend. On the one hand, they will be 
without that “hope which guides the wayward thoughts of 
men ”—the faith (which indeed all struggle for existence 
implies) that honest effort will, on the whole, succeed in attain- 
ing good; they will believe instead—so far as it is possible 
for a living being to believe this—that “life is not worth 
living”; and so far as they are not, and cannot be, consistent 
pessimists, they will be selfish, individualistic citizens. On 
the other hand, if they have not been taught in their 
childhood to believe that “God is truthful,” they will grow 
up without the first postulate of science—faith in the order 
and interpretability of the world. In one sentence,—“ The 
Lie in the Soul”—the spirit of pessimism in conduct and 


INTRODUCTION 55 


scepticism in science——will bring to naught all those who have 
not believed, in their childhood, that God is a Person, good 
and true. Jn their childhood: May they, will they, give up 
afterwards the belief in his Personality when it has done its 
work ? 

Most of them, continuing to live in “sense and imagina- 
tion,’—albeit, under good guidance, useful lives,—will have no 
difficulty in retaining the belief of their childhood; but a few 
will become so “logical” that they will hardly be able to 
retain it. 

It is in relation to the needs of these latter that we ought 
to consider the Myths setting forth the idea of a Personal God 
and the correlate idea of Personal Immortality of the Soul, 
which Plato has put into his Dialogues. In these Myths 
they have representations of what they once believed as 
fact without questioning. They see the world of childhood 
—that dream-world which was once so real—put on the stage 
for them by a great Maker of Mysteries and Miracles. 

But why represent it? That the continuity of their lives 
may be brought home to them—that they may be led to 
sympathise with what they were, and, sympathising, to realise 
that what they now are—is due to what they were. It is 
because the continuity of life is lost sight of, that religious 
conviction and scientific thought are brought into opposition. 
The scientific thinker, looking back over his life, is apt to 
divide it sharply into the time during which he believed what 
is not true, and the time during which he has known the 
truth. 

Thus to fail in sympathy with his own childhood, and 
with the happy condition of the majority of men and women, 
and with the feelings which may yet return to comfort him 
when the hour of his death draws near, betokens, Plato would 
Say, a serious flaw in a man’s “ philosophy of life.” The man 
abstracts “the present time” from its setting in his whole life. 
He plucks from its stem the “ knowledge of truth,” and thinks 
that it still lives. The “knowledge of truth,” Plato would tell 
us, does not come except to the man whose character has been 
formed and understanding guided, in childhood and youth, by 
unquestioning faith in the goodness and truthfulness of a 
Personal God. And this faith he must reverence all his life 


56 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


through, looking back to his childhood and forward to his 
death. To speak of this faith as false, and a thing of the 
past, is what no Thinker will care to do. The Thinker—*“ the 
spectator of all time and all existence ”—does not cut up the 
organic unity of his life into the abstractions of Past, and 
Present, and Future—Past which is non-existent, Present 
which is a mere imaginary point, Future which is non- 
existent. His life is all one Present, concrete, continuous, 
indivisible.? 

The man who cuts up life into Past, Present, and Future, 
does so with the intent of appropriating something for his own 
private use. The Thinker, who sees Life clearly and sees it 
whole, will regard religious belief and scientific knowledge as 
both means for the sake of conduct, or corporate action. 
He will show his devotion to this end by setting his face 
steadily against individualism in the pursuit of knowledge and 
the holding of belief—against the scientific specialist’s ideal 
of the indefinite accumulation of knowledge—against the 
priest’s doctrine of the opus operatum, effectual in securing the 
only true good, as it is thought, the private profit of the 
individual—hardest of all, against the refined form of indi- 
vidualism by which he is himself tempted, the individualism 
of the schoolman, or doctrinaire, who withdraws himself within 
his logical faculty, and pleases himself there with the con- 
struction of “a System”—pyyata ἐξεπίτηδες ἀλλήλοις 
ὡμοιωμένα. 

In the Allegory” of the Cave, Plato shows us the victory of 
the Thinker over individualism. The Thinker has come out at 
last into the daylight, and, when he might stay in it always 
and enjoy it, he will not stay, but returns into the Cave to 
pay his tpodeta—the debt which he owes for the education 
which he has received—by carrying on, in the training of a 
new generation, the régime to which he owes it that he has 
seen the light. “We shall compel him to return,” Plato says, 
and he adds, “ We do him no injustice.” The compulsion is 
moral, not external.’ It is the obligation which the perfectly 


' He realises in an eminent degree what seems to be the experience of us all ; 
for ‘‘our ‘present’ is always an extended time,” not an indivisible point: see 
Bosanquet’s Logic, i. 351. 

* —and Myth; see infra, p. 252. 

* Rep. 520. 


INTRODUCTION 57 


educated man feels laid upon him by his consciousness of his 
inherence in the continuous life of his city—the obligation 
of seeing to it that his own generation shall have worthy 
successors. 

How important, then, to keep alive in the elders sympathy 
with the faith in which it is necessary they should bring up the 
young generation ! Consciousness of what they owe as τροφεῖα, 
and earnest desire to pass the State on to worthy successors, 
will do most to keep alive this sympathy; but, on the other 
hand, the logical understanding will always be reminding them 
that “in truth” (though perhaps not “in practice”) the doctrines 
of science and the convictions of the religious consciousness are 
“incompatible”; and it is here, I take it, with regard to this 
ἀπορία started by abstract thought, that Plato hopes for good 
from Myth, as from some great Ritual at which thinkers may 
assist and feel that there are mysteries which the scientific 
understanding cannot fathom. 

That the scientific understanding, then, working within 
its own region, must reject the idea of a Personal God, was, I 
take it, as clear to Plato as it was to Aristotle. 

Would Plato, then, say that the proposition “There is a 
Personal God” is not trwe? He would say that what children 
are to be taught to believe—*“ that once upon a time God or 
the Gods did this thing or that”— is not true as historical 
fact. Where historical or scientific fact is concerned, the 
scientific understanding is within its own region, and is com- 
petent to say “it is true” or “it is not true.” But the 
scientific understanding cannot be allowed to criticise its own 
foundation—that which all the faculties of the living man, the 
scientific understanding itself included, take for granted—“ that 
it 15 good to go on living the human life into which I have 
been born; and that it is worth while employing my faculties 
carefully in the conduct of my life, for they do not deceive me.” 
This fundamental assumption of Life, “ It is good to live, and 
my faculties are trustworthy,” Plato throws into the proposi- 
tion, “ There is a Personal God, good and true, who keeps me 
in all my ways.” He wishes children to take this proposition 
literally. He knows that abstract thinkers will say that “it 
is not true ”; but he is satisfied if the men, whose parts and 
training have made them influential in their generation, read 


58 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


it to mean—things happen as if they were ordered by ἃ 
Personal God, good and true. To this as 7f—this recognition 
of “Personal God” as “Regulative Principle”—they are 
helped—so I take Plato to think—by two agencies, of which 
Myth, breaking in upon the logic of the Dialogue with the 
representation of the religious experience of childhood, and of 
venerable old age like that of Cephalus, is one. The other 
agency is Ritual.’ This is recognised by Plato as very im- 
portant ; and Myth may be taken to be its literary counterpart. 
One of the most significant things in the Republic is the de- 
ference paid to Delphi. Philosophy—that is, the Constitution 
of the Platonic State—indeed lays down “ canons of orthodoxy,” 
the τύποι περὶ θεολογίας *—determines the religious dogma ; 
but the ritual is to be determined from without, by Delphi.’ 
Religion is to be at once rational and traditional—at once 
reformed, and conservative of catholic use. Plato was not in 
a position to realise the difficulty involved in this arrangement. 
It is a modern discovery, that ritual reacts on dogma, and in 
some cases even creates it. Plato seems to take for granted 
that the pure religious dogma of his State will not in time be 
affected by the priestly ritual. At any rate, he assumes that 
his State, as the civil head of a united Hellas,* and Delphi, as 
the ecclesiastical head, will, like Empire and Church in Dante’s 
De Monarchia, be in sympathy with each other. 

It is plain, then, from the place—if I have rightly indicated 
the place—which Plato assigns to Ritual in daily life, and to 


1 **A rite is an assemblage of symbols, grouped round a religious idea or a 
religious act, intended to enhance its solemn character or develop its meaning— 
just asa myth is the grouping of mythic elements associated under a dramatic 
form. . . . Thus we have the rite of baptism, funeral rites, sacrificial rites.” 
Réville, Proléigomeéenes de lV Histoire des Religions (Eng. Transl. by Squire), p. 110. 

Rep. 379 A. 

ϑ ΓΟ 427 B, Τί οὖν, ἔφη, ἔτι ἂν ἡμῖν λοιπὸν τῆς νομοθεσίας εἴη ; καὶ ἐγὼ εἶπον 
ὅτι Ἡμῖν μὲν οὐδέν, τῷ μέντοι ᾿Απόλλωνι τῷ ἐν Δελφοῖς τά τε μέγιστα καὶ 
κάλλιστα καὶ πρῶτα τῶν νομοθετημάτων. Τὰ ποῖα ; ἣ δ᾽ ὅς. ἱερῶν τε ἱδρύσεις 
καὶ θυσίαι καὶ ἄλλαι θεῶν τε καὶ δαιμόνων καὶ ἡρώων θεραπεῖαι, τελευτησάντων 
τε αὖ θῆκαι καὶ ὅσα τοῖς ἐκεῖ δεῖ ὑπηρετοῦντας ἵλεως αὐτοὺς ἔχειν. τὰ γὰρ δὴ 
τοιαῦτα οὔτ᾽ ἐπιστάμεθα ἡμεῖς οἰκίζοντές τε πόλιν οὐδενὶ ἄλλῳ πεισόμεθα, ἐὰν 
νοῦν ἔχωμεν, οὐδὲ χρησόμεθα ἐξηγητῇ, ἀλλ᾽ ἢ τῷ πατρίῳ’ οὗτος γὰρ δήπου ὁ 
θεὸς περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις πάτριος ἐξηγητὴς ἐν μέσῳ τῆς γῆς ἐπὶ τοῦ 
ὀμφαλοῦ καθήμενος ἐξηγεῖται. 

* See infra, pp. 454-5, where it is argued that;Plato’s καλλίπολις is misunder- 
stood (as in part by Aristotle) if its constitution is taken to be drawn for an 
isolated municipality, and not for an Empire-city (like the antediluvian Athens 
of the Atlantis Myth), under which, as civil head (Delphi being the ecclesiastical 
head), Hellas should be united against barbarians for the propagation of liberty 
and culture in the world. 


INTRODUCTION 59 


Myth in philosophical literature,’ what place he assigns to 
the scientific understanding. 

The scientific understanding, which is only a small part, 
and a late developed part, of the whole man, as related to his 
whole environment, is apt, chiefly because it has the gift of 
speech and can explain itself, while our deeper laid faculties 
are dumb, to flatter itself with the conceit that it is the 
measure of all things—that what is to it inconceivable is 
impossible. It cannot conceive the Part ruling the Whole: 
therefore it says that the proposition “the World is ruled by 
a Personal God” is not true. 

Plato has, so far as I can gather, two answers to this 
pronouncement of the scientific understanding. The first 15, 
“Life would come to naught if we acted as 7 the scientific 
‘understanding were right in denying the existence of a 
Personal God”; and he trusts to Ritual and Myth (among 
other agencies) to help men to feel this. His attitude here is 
very like Spinoza’s :— 


Deum nullam aliam sui cognitionem ab hominibus per prophetas 
petere, quam cognitionem divinae suae justitiae et caritatis, hoc 
est, talia Dei attributa, quae homines certa vivendi ratione imitari 
possunt ; quod quidem Jeremias expressissimis verbis docet (22. 
15, 16). . . . Evangelica doctrina nihil praeter simplicem fidem 
continet ; nempe Deo credere eumque revereri, sive, quod idem est, 
Deo obedire. . . . Sequitur denique fidem non tam requirere vera, 
quam pia dogmata, hoc est, talia, quae animum ad obedientiam 
movent. . . . Fidem non tam veritatem, quam pietatem exigere.* 


Plato’s other answer goes deeper. It consists in showing 
that the “ Whole,” or all-embracing Good, cannot be grasped 
scientifically, but must be seen imperfectly in a similitude.° 
The logical understanding, as represented by Glaucon, not 
satisfied with knowing what the all-embracing Good is Jike, 
wishes to know what it 7s—as if it were an object presented 
to knowledge. But the Good is not an object presented to 
knowledge. It is the condition of knowledge. It is like 


1 Or rather, in philosophical conversation ; for the Platonic Dialogues, after 
all, with their written discussions and myths, are only offered as models to be 
followed in actual conversation—actwal conversation being essential to the 
continued life of Philosophy. 

2 Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-politicus, chapters 13 and 14. 


3 Rep. 506. 


60 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Light which is not one of the things seen, but the condition 
of seeing. To suppose that the Whole, or Good, is an object, 
among objects, of knowledge, is the fault which Plato, as I 
read him, finds with the logical understanding ; and a Platonist 
might, I think, be allowed to develop the Master’s criticism as 
follows :—The conception of “Whole” or “ Universe” which 
the logical understanding professes to have, and manipulates 
in its proof of the non-existence of a Personal God, is not a 
“conception” at all. The understanding cannot conceive the 
Universe as finished Whole. Its “whole” is always also a 
“part ” of something indefinitely greater. The argument that 
“the Ruler of the Universe is not a Personal God, because the 
Part cannot rule the Whole,” juggling, as it does, with this 
sham conception—that of “Whole which is not also Part ”— 
is inconclusive. 


7. PLATO’S TREATMENT OF THE IDEA OF SOUL 


Let us now turn to the “Idea of Soul.” The Soul is 
represented in the three strictly Eschatological Myths of the 
Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic, and in other Myths not strictly 
Eschatological, as a Person created by God, and responsible to 
him for acts in which it is a free agent within limits set by 
avayxn—responsible to God throughout an existence which 
began before its incarnation in this body, and will continue 
for ever after the death of this body—an existence in which 
it is subject to periodical re-incarnations, alternating with 
terms of disembodiment, during which it receives recompense 
for the deeds done in the flesh; till at last—if it is not 
incorrigible—it is thoroughly purified by penance, and enters 
into the peace of a never-ending disembodied state, like that 
which it enjoyed in its own peculiar star, before it began the 
cycle of incarnations. 

Zeller, while admitting that many details in Plato’s 
doctrine of the pre-existence and future destiny of the 
immortal Soul are mythic, maintains that the doctrine itself, 
in its broad outlines, is held by him dogmatically, and 
propounded as scientific truth. Pre-existence, recollection, 


1 Zeller, Plato, Eng. Transl. pp. 397-413. Thiemann (Die Platonische 
Eschatologie in ihrer genetischen Entwickelung, 1892, p. 27) agrees with Zeller. 


INTRODUCTION 61 


retribution, re-incarnation, final purification, and never-ending 
disembodied existence of the purified soul—these, Zeller thinks, 
are set forth by Plato as facts which are literally true. Hegel,’ 
on the other hand, holds that the Platonic doctrine of the 
Soul is wholly mythic. I take it from a passage in the 
Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason* that Kant would 
think with Zeller against Hegel. Where such authorities 
differ one might well remain neutral; but I cannot help 
saying that I incline to the view that the bare doctrine of 
immortality (not to mention the details of its setting) is 
conceived by Plato in Myth, and not dogmatically—or perhaps 
I ought to say, conceived eminently in Myth; for the dogmatic 
way of conceiving immortality is not formally excluded on 
Platonic, as it is on Kantian, principles; although the mere 
circumstance that Plato has an alternative way of conceiving 
it—the mythological way, not to mention the great attraction 
which the mythological way plainly has for him—shows that 
he was dissatisfied with the scientific proof of immortality— 
entertained a doubt, to say the least, whether “the Soul is 
immortal” ought to be regarded as a scientific truth, 

Nor need Plato’s doubt surprise us, when we consider the 
state of opinion in the Athens of his day. Belief in personal 
immortality had become very feeble among a large number of 
educated and even half-educated people in Athens.* For the 
belief of the ordinary half-educated man, the Attic Orators, in 
their frequent references to the cult of the dead, are our best 


1 Hegel, Werke, vol. xiv. pp. 207 ff. Couturat (de Platonis Mythis, Paris, 
1896, pp. 84-88) agrees with Hegel. Grote (Plato, ii. 190, n. q.) expresses qualified 
agreement: ‘‘There is ingenuity,” he says, ‘‘in this view of Hegel, and many 
separate expressions of Plato receive light from it ; but it appears to me to refine 
away toomuch. Plato had in his own mind and belief both the Soul as a particular 
thing, and the Soul as an universal. His language implies sometimes the one, 
sometimes the other.” That Coleridge would have endorsed Hegel’s view is clear 
from the following passage in Biogr. Lit. ch. 22. Speaking of Wordsworth’s Ode 
on the Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, he 
says: ‘‘The Ode was intended for such readers only as had been accustomed to 
watch the flux and reflux of their inmost nature, to venture at times into the 
twilight realms of consciousness, and to feel a deep interest in modes of inmost 
being, to which they know that the attributes of time and space are inapplicable 
and alien, but which yet cannot be conveyed, save in symbols of time and space. 
For such readers the sense is sufficiently plain, and they will be as little disposed 
to charge Mr. Wordsworth with believing the platonic pre-existence in the 
ordinary interpretation of the words, as Iam to believe that Plato himself ever 
meant or taught it.” 

2 See infra, p. 72, where the passage is quoted. 

ς 3 See Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, vol. i, 419 (Introduction to the Phaedo, 
12). 


62 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


authorities. They seem to take for granted a belief very much 
like that which Aristotle makes the basis of his remarks in 
Eth. Nic. i. 10 and 11; and, like him, are concerned chiefly 
to avoid τὸ λίαν ἄφιλον, statements lkely to wound tender 
feeling. “The continued existence of the Soul after death,” 
says Rohde,’ “is not questioned by the orators; but its con- 
sciousness of what happens in this world is only affirmed with 
deliberate uncertainty. Such qualifications as εἴ τίνες τῶν 
τετελευτηκότων λάβοιεν τρόπῳ τινὶ τοῦ νῦν γυγνομένου 
πράγματος αἴσθησιν are frequent. Apart from the offerings 
of his relatives there is little more to bind the deceased to this 
world than his fame among survivors. Even in the exalted 
language of solemn funeral orations we miss, among the con- 
solations offered to the mourners, any reference to a higher 
condition—to an eternal life of conscious blessedness attained 
to by the famous dead.” Here the Orators are in agreement 
with that great master of the art of epitaph-writing, as Rohde’ 
well describes Simonides, “ who has never a word assigning the 
departed to a land of eternal blessedness,” but places their 
immortality entirely in the memory of their deeds, which lasts, 
and will last, in this world :-— 


οὐδὲ τεθνᾶσι θανόντες, ἐπεί σφ᾽ ἀρετὴ καθύπερθεν 
ὃ / > > ’ ὃ , > ᾿Αἱὸὃ 3 
κυδαίνουσ᾽ ἀνάγει δώματος ἐξ ᾿Αἴδεω. 


Similarly Tyrtaeus* had identified ἀθανασία expressly with 
κλέος ----- 


οὐδέ ποτε κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἀπόλλυται οὐδ᾽ ὄνομ᾽ αὐτοῦ, 
ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὸ γῆς περ ἐὼν γίγνεται ἀθάνατος--- 


His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth for evermore. 


The Dramatists, too, did much to induce their public 
to look at the dead in the same way; for the dramatic 
interest required that prominence should be given to the pos- 
thumous influence of the dead here rather than to their personal 


' Psyche, vol. ii, pp. 202, 203 ; and see his important footnotes to these pages, 
in which he gives references to H. Meuss (δεν die Vorstellungen von Dasein nach 
dem Tode bei den attischen Rednern, Jahrb. f. Philol., 1889, pp. 801 ff.), Wester- 
mann (on Demosth. Lept. 87), and Lehrs (Popul. Au/fs. 329 ff.), for the views 
expressed by the Attic Orators concerning the state of the departed, 

* Psyche, ii, 204, 

3. Simon. Epigr. 99, 3, 4, quoted by Rohde, Psyche, ii. 204, n. 1, 

‘ Tyrtaeus, 12, 31 f., quoted by Rohde, Psyche, ii. 201, ἡ, 3 


INTRODUCTION 63 


condition in another world. When the Dramatists put the 
old national legends on the stage, attention was turned, as 
Rohde’ points out, from the mere events of the story to the 
characters and motives of the hitherto shadowy legendary 
personages now presented, for the first time, clearly to sense. 
The plots were well known, and not so curiously attended to 
by the audience as the characters of the personages now mov- 
ing before their eyes. Motives became more important than 
events. The Dramatist had to combine the traditional story 
of the legend with the motives of agents who must have the 
hearts of modern men, or else not be understood by the audi- 
ence. Hence the tragic conflict between events and motives. 
It is fated that a good man shall do an evil deed. How can 
he be responsible for such a deed, and merit the retribution 
which the moral sense of the audience would resent if he did 
not merit it? This is the tragic ἀπορία which the Dramatists 
solved, I would’suggest, by taking the Family, rather than the 
Individual, as the moral unit.” The descendant is free because 
he is conscious of doing the ancestral, the fated, thing—a 
doctrine which Rohde,’ in ascribing especially to Aeschylus, 
compares with the Stoic doctrine of συγκατάθεσις. The 
human interest of tragedy requires that the penalty for sin 
shall be paid here on earth rather than in Hades. This is why 
there is so little in the Greek Dramatists about the punish- 
ment of the wicked in the other world for their own sins. It 
is in this world that sin must be punished if the drama is to 
have any human interest. Since the Family, not the Indi- 
vidual, is the moral unit, it matters not that the sin punished 
here is ancestral. Nay, the tragic effect is heightened when 
the children suffer for the sins of their fathers. The dead 
fathers live in their children: that is, for aught we can ever 
know, the only life they have :— 

τοὺς yap θανόντας εἰ θέλεις εὐεργετεῖν 

εἴτ᾽ οὖν κακουργεῖν, ἀμφιδεξίως ἔχει 

τῷ μήτε χαίρειν μήτε λυπεῖσθαι νεκρούς. 





1 Psyche, ii. 225, 

2 See Plutarch, de sera numinis vindicta, 16, on the continuity of the Family, 
and the justice of punishing children for the sins of fathers. 

3 Psyche, ii. 229. 

* Cic. de fato, 18, where συγκατάθεσις is rendered by adsensio. 

® Aeschylus, frag. 266, quoted by Rohde, Psyche, ii. 232. ‘‘ Under all cireum- 
stances,” says Dr. Westcott (Religious Thought in the West, edit. 1891, pp. 91, 92), 


θ4 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


If the dead, then, are unconscious or barely conscious, the 
living must be punished for the sins of the dead, that the justice 
of the Gods may be satisfied.’ Aristotle did little more than 
formulate the widely-prevalent opinion supported by Orators 
and Dramatists, when he defined the Soul as “ the function of 
the body ”——and Plato himself bears witness to the prevalence 
of the opinion when he makes Glaucon express surprise on 
hearing it suggested by Socrates that the Soul is immortal.’ 
It had never occurred to Glaucon that the doctrine of the Soul’s 
immortality could be taken seriously. Socrates then offers a 
“scientific ” proof of its immortality—a proof which he offers, 
I would suggest, only or chiefly that he may supersede it by 
the Myth of Er.’ 

So much for considerations which make it reasonable to 
suppose that Plato, like many others in the Athens of his 
day, felt at least serious doubt as to whether anything could 
be known scientifically about the conscious life of the Soul 
after death, if he did not actually go the length of holding, 
as his disciple Aristotle did, that, as conscious individual, 
it perishes with the body whose function it is. That, while 
entertaining this serious doubt, Plato did not go so far as 
Aristotle, seems to me to be shown by the manner in which 
he allows himself to be affected by another class of opinions 


“the view of the condition of the Dead, which Aeschylus brings out into the 
clearest light in describing the condition of the Guilty, is consistent. The ful- 
ness of human life is on earth. The part of man, in all his energy and capacity 
for passion and action, is played out here; and when the curtain falls there 
remains unbroken rest, or a faint reflection of the past, or suffering wrought by 
the ministers of inexorable justice. The beauty and the power of life, the mani- 
fold ministers of sense, are gone. They can be regretted, but they cannot be 
replaced. Sorrow is possible, but not joy. 

‘* However different this teaching may be from that of the Myths of Plato, 
and the vague popular belief which they witnessed to and fostered; however 
different, again, even from that of Pindar, with which Aeschylus cannot have 
been unacquainted, it is pre-eminently Greek. Plato clothed in a Greek dress 
the common instincts of humanity ; Aeschylus works out a characteristically 
Greek view of life. Thus it is that his doctrine is most clearly Homeric. As a 
Greek he feels, like Homer, the nobility of our present powers, the grandeur of 
strength and wealth, the manifold delights of our complex being ; and what was 
‘ the close-packed urn of ashes which survived the funeral pyre’ compared with 
the heroes whom it represented? ‘That ‘ tear-stained dust’ was the witness that 
man—the whole man—could not live again. The poet, then, was constrained to 
work out a scheme of divine justice upon earth, and this Aeschylus did, though 
its record is a strain of sorrow.” 

1 On the necessity of satisfying the justice of the Gods, see Rohde, Psyche, 
ii. 232. 

2 Rep. 608 pv, on which see Rohde, Psyche, ii. 264, 265, and Adam, ad loc, 

3 See infra, p. 73. 


INTRODUCTION 65 


opposed to the agnosticism of his time. I refer to the 
opinions associated with the Mysteries and the Orphic revival 
throughout Greece, and especially in Athens, The Eleusinian 
Mysteries were the great stronghold in Greece of the doctrine 
of a future life;’ and the same doctrine was taught, in 
definite form, by the Orphic societies which appeared in 
Italy and Sicily (in some cases in close connection with 
the spread of Pythagoreanism) before the close of the 
latter half of the sixth century. As Athens became more 
and more the centre of Greek life, the Orphic cult gravitated 
thither. We find it represented by Onomacritus at the 
Court of the Pisistratids; and, meeting the need of “ personal 
religion,” felt especially during the tribulation caused by the 
Peloponnesian War and the Great Plague,’ it had, in Plato’s 
day, become firmly rooted in the city. The sure hope of 
salvation, for themselves and those dear to them, in a future 
life, the details of which were minutely described, was held 
before the anxious and aftlicted who duly observed the pre- 
scribed Orphic rites. The hope was all the surer because 
it was made to rest on the consciousness of having one’s self 
done something; it was all the surer, too, because the comfort 
which it brought was offered, not to selfish, but to sympathetic 
feeling—for even ancestors long dead could be aided in their 
purgatorial state by the prayers and observances of their 
pious descendants.® 


1 See Gardner's New Chapters in Greek History, p. 397, and Gardner and 
Jevons’ Manual of Greek Antiquities, p. 275. 

* See Rohde, Psyche, ii. 105, 106. 

% See important note (5), Rohde, Psyche, ii. 128, in which Rep. 364 B, c, E- 
365 a is cited—especially 365 a, πείθοντες. . . ὡς dpa λύσεις τε καὶ καθαρμοὶ 
ἀδικημάτων διὰ θυσιῶν καὶ παιδιᾶς ἡδονῶν εἰσὶ μὲν ἔτι ζῶσιν, εἰσὶ δὲ καὶ τελευτή- 
σασιν, ἃς δὴ τελετὰς καλοῦσιν, ἃ τῶν ἐκεῖ κακῶν ἀπολύουσιν ἡμᾶς, μὴ θύσαντας 
δὲ δεινὰ περιμένει---ἃ8 showing that deceased ancestors could be aided by the 
prayers and observances of descendants. Although the Orphic Fragm. 208 (ef. 
Mullach, Fr. Ph. Gr.i. 188) ὄργια τ᾽ ἐκτελέσουσι, λύσιν προγόνων ἀθεμίστων | 
μαιόμενοι, σὺ δὲ τοῖσιν ἔχων κράτος οὕς x’ ἐθέλησθα | λύσεις Ex τε πόνων χαλεπῶν 
καὶ ἀπείρονος οἴστρου, quoted by Rohde in the same note, seems to make it quite 
clear that dead ancestors could be aided by their descendants, I think that the 
passage quoted from Hep. 365 a leaves the matter in doubt; see Paul Tannery in 
Rev. de Philol. October 1901, on τελεταί (Orphica, Fr. 221, 227, 228, 254), who 
explains the εἰσὶ μὲν ἔτι ζῶσιν, εἰσὶ δὲ καὶ τελευτήσασι of Rep. 365.4 to mean 
that the expiatory rites clear the initiated person, some of them for the time of 
his earthly life, some of them for his life after death. These latter are ἃς δὴ 
τελετὰς καλοῦσι. TedXeral cannot affect any one except the initiated person 
himself (to whom they supply directions as to his journey in the other world) : 
they cannot clear an ancestor. According to this explanation, the reference in 
Rep. 364 c, εἴτε τι ἀδίκημά του γέγονεν αὐτοῦ ἢ προγόνων, is not to ancestors as 
affected by the observances of their descendants, but to sin inherited from an 


F 


66 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Now, what is Plato’s attitude to this Orphic cult? This 
question can be answered, in part at least, without difficulty : 
—He derived the main doctrine, together with most of the 
details, of his Eschatological Myths—the doctrine of the pre- 
existence, penance, re-incarnation, and final purification of the 
Soul—directly, and through Pindar, from Orphie sources, the 
chief of which, if we accept the carefully formed view of 
Dieterich, was a popular Orphic Manual, the κατάβασις 
εἰς Αἴδου, in which the vicissitudes endured by the immortal 
Soul, till it frees itself, by penance, from the Cycle of Births, 
were described—a work which lay at the foundation of 
Pindar’s theology, was ridiculed by Aristophanes in the Frogs, 
was the ultimate source of the Νέκυιαι of Plutarch and Virgil, 
and greatly influenced Neo-Platonic doctrine.’ 

Pindar, a poet and theologian after Plato’s heart, whom 
he always quotes with deep respect, was, we may suppose, 
brought into contact with the Orphic cult in Sicily, where, 
along with the Pythagorean discipline, it had found a con- 
genial home.” The difference between Pindar’s outlook, and 
that of the Athenian Orators and Dramatists and their 
agnostic public, is very striking. In certain places he indeed 
speaks of the dead as gone, their earthly fame alone 
surviving. But this is not his dominant tone. Not only 
have a favoured few—heroes like Amphiaraus—been trans- 
lated, by a miracle, “ body and soul,” to immortal homes, but, 


ancestor, which a man may cleanse himself of. I do not think, however, 
that the reference in the λύσιν προγόνων ἀθεμίστων of the Orphic fragment 
quoted by Mullach (i. 188) and Rohde can be to this. 

1 See Dieterich, Nekyia, 116-158; and cf. Jevons, Introduction to the 
History of Religion, pp. 358, 354: Orpheus had descended into Hades ; hence 
came to be regarded as the author of verses descriptive of Hades, which were 
current in thiasi, or disseminated by itinerant agyrtae. In Rep. 364 Ε, 
βίβλων δὲ ὅμαδον παρέχονται Μυσαίου καὶ ’Opdéws, the reference is, doubtless, 
to this and other Orphic guide-books for the use of the dead. These Orphic 
books may be compared with the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a guide for the 
use of the Ka, or “double” (on which see Budge’s Kgyptian Ideas of the Future 
Life, p. 163), which wanders from the body, and may lose its way ; ef. Petrie’s 
Egyptian Tales, second series, p 124; see also Eleuwsinia, by le Comte Goblet 
d’Alviella (1903), pp. 73 ff, on the connection between Greek and Egyptian 
guide-books for the use of the dead. To Dieterich’s list of eschatological 
pieces in literature inspired by the Orphic teaching we ought perhaps to add 
the Voyage of Odysseus to Hades (Ud. xi.) ; see ν, Wilamowitz-MOollendorff, 
Hom, Untersuch. p. 199, who supposes that the passage was put in by 
Onomacritus, when Homer was being edited at Athens in the time of the 
lyrants. 

"2 See Rohde, Psyche, ii. 216, 217; and, for the spread of the Orphic 
Religion, Bury, Hist. of Greece, chap. vii, sec. 13. 


INTRODUCTION 67 


when any ordinary man dies, his Soul survives his body, and 
that, not as a poor vanishing shade, but as a responsible 
person destined for immortal life. The ψυχή, as Pindar 
conceives it, is not the “ totality of the bodily functions,” as 
the philosophers and the agnostic Athenian public conceived 
it, but the Double which has its home in the body. This 
Double comes from the Gods and is immortal :-— 

Kal σῶμα μὲν πάντων ἕπεται 

θανάτῳ περισθενεῖ, ζωόν 


δ᾽ ἔτι λείπεται αἰῶνος εἴδωλον" 
’ , 7 » ( ~ 1 
τὸ γάρ ἐστι μόνον ἐκ θεῶν. 


Being of God, the Soul is necessarily immortal, but is 
immersed in the body because of ancient 511.--- παλαιὸν 
πένθος. 

At the death of its first body, the Soul goes to Hades, 
where it is judged and recompensed for the deeds, good or ill, 
done in the flesh. But its sin is not wholly purged. It 
reappears on earth in a second body, at the death of which 
it goes a second time to Hades, where its sin is further 
purged. Then it returns to animate a third body on earth 
(see Pindar, Ol. 1. 68 ff). Then, if these three lives on 
earth, as well as the two periods of sojourn in Hades, have 
been spent without fault, and if, when it returns for the third 
time to Hades, it lives there without fault, Persephone, in the 
ninth year of this third sojourn in Hades, receives the full 
tale of satisfaction due for παλαιὸν πένθος, and sends it back 
to earth, to be born in the person of a Philosopher or King 
(see Pindar, quoted Jfeno, 81 B), who, at his death, becomes 
a holy Hero, or Daemon—a finally disembodied spirit: the 
Soul has at last got out of the κύκλος yevécewr.” This is 

1 Pindar, fr. apud Plut. Consol. ad Apoll. 35. 

2 Tam indebted to Rohde (Psyche, ii. 207-217) for the substance of this sketch 
of Pindar’s Eschatology. In the last paragraph I have tried to combine the 
doctrine of OJ, ii. 68 ff. and the fragment, Men. 813. The life of Philosopher 
or King is indeed a bodily life on earth, but it is not one of the three bodily 
lives necessary (together with the three sojourns in Hades) to the final purifica- 
tion of the Soul. The Soul has been finally purified before it returns to this 
fourth and last bodily life which immediately precedes its final disembodiment. 
In the case of Souls which do not pass three faultless lives here and in Hades, 
the number of re-incarnations would be greater. Pindar’s estimate seems to be 
that of the time required in the most favourable circumstances. We may take 
it that it is the time promised by the Orphic priests to those whose ritual 


observances were most regular. According to Phaedrus, 249 a, however, it 
would appear that a Soul must have been incarnate as a Philosopher in three 


68 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Pindar’s doctrine—plainly Orphic doctrine, with beauty and 
distinction added to it by the genius of the great poet. 

Plato’s Eschatological Myths also, like Pindar’s poems, 
plainly reproduce the matter of Orphic teaching. [5 it going 
too far, when we consider Plato’s reverence for the genius of 
Pindar, to suggest that it was Pindar’s form which helped to 
recommend to Plato the matter which he reproduces in his 
Eschatological Myths—that the poet’s refined treatment of 
the Orphic μῦθος helped the philosopher, himself a poet, to 
see how that μῦθος might be used to express imaginatively 
what indeed demands expression of some kind,—man’s hope 
of personal immortality——but cannot, without risk of fatal 
injury, be expressed in the language of science? It is Pindar, 
as chief among divine seers who is quoted, in the Meno (81), 
for the pre-existence, transmigrations, responsibility, and 
immortality of the Soul; but the Platonic “Socrates” is care- 
ful to say that he does not contend for the literal truth of 
the doctrine embodied in Pindar’s myth, but insists on its 
practical value in giving us hope and courage as seekers after 
knowledge (Meno, 86 B). It is Pindar, again, who is quoted 
at the beginning of the Republic (331 B) for that γλυκεῖα 
ἐλπίς, Which is visualised in Orphic outlines and colours at 
the close of the Dialogue, in the greatest of Plato’s Eschato- 
logical Myths. Orphic doctrine, refined by poetic genius for 
philosophic use, is the material of which Plato weaves his 
Eschatological Myths. And he seems almost to go out of his 
way to tell us this. Not only is the Meno Myth introduced 
with special mention of the priestly source from which it is 
derived (Meno, 81 B), but even brief allusions made elsewhere 
to the doctrine contained in it are similarly introduced—as in 
the Phaedo, 70 c, where the doctrine of the transmigrations 
of the Soul is said to be derived from a παλαιὸς λόγος; in 
the Phaedo, 81 A, where it is connected with what is said 
κατὰ τῶν μεμνημένων; and in the Laws, 872 Ἐ, where the 


successive lives before entering on the disembodied state: see Zeller, Plato, 
Eng. Tr. p. 393; and cf. Phaedo, 113 p ff, where five classes of men are 
distinguished with respect to their condition after death—on which see Rohde, 
Psyche, ii. 275, n. 1. ‘*’Eorpis éxarépwh,” says Prof. Gildersleeve in his note 
on Pind. Ol. ii. 75, “would naturally mean six times, ἐστρίς may mean three 
times in all. The Soul descends to Hades, then returns to earth, then 
descends again for a final probation.” I do not think that this last interpreta- 
tion can be accepted, 


INTRODUCTION 69 


παλαιοὶ ἱερεῖς are referred to for the doctrine that, if a man 
kills his mother, he must be born again as a woman who is 
killed by her son. But, after all, the most convincing evidence 
for the great influence exercised by Orphice doctrine over 
Plato is to be found in the way in which he loves to 
describe Philosophy itself in terms borrowed from the Orphic 
cult and the Mysteries.’ Thus in the Phaedo, 69 ὁ 
καὶ κινδυνεύουσι καὶ οἱ τὰς τελετὰς ἡμῖν οὗτοι KaTa- 
στήσαντες οὐ φαῦλοι εἶναι, ἀλλὰ τῷ ὄντι πάλαι αἰνίτ- 
τεσθαι ὅτι ὃς ἂν ἀμύητος καὶ ἀτέλεστος εἰς “Αιδου ἀφίκηται, 
ἐν βορβόρῳ κείσεται, ὁ δὲ κεκαθαρμένος τε καὶ τετελε- 
σμένος ἐκεῖσε ἀφικόμενος μετὰ θεῶν οἰκήσει. εἰσὶ γὰρ 
δή, φασὶν οἱ περὶ τὰς τελετάς, ναρθηκοφόροι μὲν πολλοί, 
βάκχοι δέ τε παῦροι. οὗτοι δ᾽ εἰσὶν κατὰ τὴν ἐμὴν δόξαν 
οὐκ ἄλλοι ἣ οἱ πεφιλοσοφηκότες ὀρθῶς. Again, in the 
Gorgias, 493 A, borrowing an Orphic phrase, he likens the 
body, with its lusts, to a tomb—ro μὲν σῶμά ἐστιν ἡμῖν 
o}ma—trom which Wisdom alone can liberate the Soul (ef. 
also Cratylus, 400 B); and in the Phaedrus, 250 B, c, he 
describes Philosophy—the Soul’s vision of the Eternal Forms 
—as a kind of Initiation: κάλλος δὲ τότ᾽ ἣν ἰδεῖν λαμπρόν, 
ὅτε σὺν εὐδαίμονι χορῷ μακαρίαν ὄψιν τε καὶ θέαν, ἑπό- 
μενοι μετὰ μὲν Διὸς ἡμεῖς, ἄλλοι δὲ μετ᾽ ἄλλου θεῶν, εἶδόν 
τε καὶ ἐτελοῦντο τῶν τελετῶν, ἣν θέμις λέγειν μακαριωτά- 
τὴν, ἣν ὠργιάζομεν ὁλόκληροι μὲν αὐτοὶ ὄντες καὶ ἀπαθεῖς 
κακῶν ὅσα ἡμᾶς ἐν ὑστέρῳ χρόνῳ ὑπέμενεν, ὁλόκληρα δὲ 
καὶ ἁπλᾶ καὶ ἀτρεμὴῆ καὶ εὐδαίμονα φάσματα μυούμενοί τε 
καὶ ἐποπτεύοντες ἐν αὐγῇ καθαρᾷ, καθαροὶ ὄντες καὶ 
ἀσήμαντοι τούτου ὃ νῦν σῶμα περιφέροντες ὀνομάζομεν, 
ὀστρέου τρόπον δεδεσμευμένοι. Again, in the Zimaeus, 44 6, 
he speaks of the Soul which has neglected the ὀρθὴ τροφὴ 
παιδεύσεως as returning, “ uninitiated” and “ without know- 
ledge of truth,” into Hades—daredrs καὶ ἀνόητος εἰς “Ardov 
πάλιν ἔρχεται; and in the Symposium, 209 E, in Diotima’s 
Discourse on épws, the highest Philosophy is described as 
Ta τέλεα Kal ἐποπτικά, for the sake of which we seek 
initiation in τὰ ἐρωτικά. 


᾽ὔ 


1 See Rohde, Psyche, ii. 279. 
2 See Archer-Hind’s note on Phaedo, 69 c. 
* See Couturat, de Plat. Mythis, p. 55. 


70 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Let us not think that this is “ mysticism ”——“ the scholas- 
ticism of the heart” '—such as we find afterwards in the Neo- 
Platonic teaching. On the contrary, it is to be regarded 
as evidence of the non-scholastic, concrete view which Plato 
takes of Philosophy. Philosophy to Plato is not codia—a 
mere system of ascertained truth—but strictly φιλο copia— 
ἔρως, child of πόρος and ἀπορία, as the parentage is set forth 
in Diotima’s Myth in the Symposium: Philosophy is not what 
finally satisfies—or surfeits—the intellect: it is the organic 
play of all the human powers and functions—it is Human 
Life, equipped for its continual struggle, eager and hopeful, 
and successful in proportion to its hope—its hope being 
naturally visualised in dreams of a future state. These 
dreams the human race will never outgrow,—so the Platonist 
holds,—will never ultimately cast aside as untrue; for the 
young will believe in them in every generation, and the 
weary and bereaved will cherish them, and men of genius— 
poets, philosophers, saints—will always rise up to represent 
them anew. The Philosophy of an epoch must be largely 
judged by the way in which it “represents” them. How 
much virtue Plato finds in “ representation ”—philosophical 
and poetical—may be gathered from the fact that, while 
he attaches the highest value to the Orphic doctrine which 
he himself borrows for philosophical use, he ascribes the 
worst moral influence to the actual teaching of the Orphic 
priests.” 

I said that it is reasonable to suppose that Plato was 
affected by the agnosticism which prevailed in Athens, and 
felt, notwithstanding some “proofs” which he ventured to 
offer, serious doubt as to whether even the bare fact of con- 
scious immortality is matter of scientific knowledge.* It may 

1 “Der Mysticismus ist die Scholastik des Herzens, die Dialektik des 
Gefithls,” Goethe, Spriiche in Prosa: Maximen und Reflewionen: Adritte 
Abtheilung. 

2 Republic, 364%. In Aristoph. Ranae, 159, and Demosth. de Corona, 259 ff., 
the practices of the agyrtae, or itinerant celebrants of initiatory rites, are held 
up to ridicule, 

3 But see Zeller’s Plato, p. 408 (Eng. Transl.). Zeller holds that the fact of 
immortality and future retribution was regarded by Plato as established beyond 
doubt ; only details were uncertain. Couturat (de Pl. Myth. p. 112) thinks that 
the whole doctrine of immortality in Plato is ‘‘mythic.” Jowett (Introduction 
to Phaedo) remarks that in proportion as Plato succeeds in substituting a philo- 


sophical for a mythological treatment of the immortality of the Soul, ‘‘ the con- 
templation of ideas ‘under the form of eternity’ takes the place of past and 


INTRODUCTION ΤΙ 


now be added, however, that his sympathy with the personal 
religion, in which many took refuge from agnosticism, was 
profound, and moved him to deal, in Myth openly borrowed 
from the religious teachers, with subjects which Aristotle left 
alone. Official (as distinct from personal) religion offers no 
safe refuge from agnosticism. Recognising this, Plato took 
the matter of his strictly Eschatological Myths almost entirely 
from the Orphic teaching, which presented religion as a way 
of salvation which all, without distinction of sex or civil status, 
simply as human beings, of their own free choice, can enter 
upon and pursue.’ 


future states of existence.” Mr. Adam (Rep. vol. ii. p. 456) says, ‘‘ that soul is 
immortal, Plato is firmly convinced; transmigration he regards as probable, to 
say the least.” 

' See Gardner and Jevons’ Manual of Greek Antiquities, Book iii. ch. iv. 
** Orgiastic Cults,” and Jevons’ Jntroduction to the History of Religion, pp. 327- 
374, ‘The leading characteristic,” says Dr. Jevons (0.c. p. 339), “of the re- 
vival in the sixth century B.c., both in the Semitic area, and as transplanted into 
Greece, is a reaction against the gift theory of sacrifice, and a reversion to the 
older sacramental conception of the offering and the sacrificial meal as affording 
actual communion with the God whose flesh and blood were consumed by his 
worshippers. . . . The unifying efficacy (p. 331) of the sacrificial meal made it 
possible to form a circle of worshippers. . . . We have the principle of voluntary 
religious associations which were open to all. Membership did not depend on 
birth, but was constituted by partaking in the divine life and blood of the sacred 
animal,” These voluntary associations formed for religious purposes—thiasi or 
erani—‘‘ differed (p. 335) from the cult of the national gods in that all—women, 
foreigners, slaves—were admitted, not merely members of the State.” In short, 
initiatio (uinois) took the place of civitas as the title of admission to religious 
privileges. 

Prof. Gardner closes the chapter on ‘‘ Orgiastic Cults,” referred to above, with 
the following words :—‘‘In several respects the thiasi were precursors of 
Christianity, and opened the door by which it entered. If they belonged to a 
lower intellectual level than the best religion of Greece, and were full of vulgarity 
and imposture, they yet had in them certain elements of progress, and had some- 
thing in common with the future as well as the past history of mankind. All 
properly Hellenic religion was a tribal thing, belonged to the state and the race, 
did not proselytise, nor even admit foreign converts; and so when the barriers 
which divided cities were pulled down it sank and decayed. The cultus of 
Sabazius or of Cybele was, at least, not tribal: it sought converts among all 
ranks, and having found them, placed them on a level before the God. Slaves 
and women were admitted to membership and to office. The idea of a common 
humanity, scarcely admitted by Greek philosophers before the age of the Stoics, 
found a hold among these despised sectaries, who learned to believe that men of 
low birth and foreign extraction might be in divine matters superior to the 
wealthy and the educated. In return for this great lesson we may pardon them 
much folly and much superstition.” Prof. Gardner pursues this subject further 
in his Exploratio Evangelica, pp. 325 ἢν, chapter on ‘Christianity and the 
Rr ”; see also Grote’s History of Greece, part i. ch. i. (vol. i. 19, 20, 

. 1862). 


“I 
Lo 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


8. SUMMARY OF INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS IN THE FORM 
OF A DEFENCE OF PLATO AGAINST A CHARGE BROUGHT 
AGAINST HIM BY KANT. 


Let me close this Introduction with a summing up of its 
meaning, in the form of a defence of Plato against a charge 
brought by Kant in a well-known passage.’ 


The light dove, in free flight cleaving the air and feeling its 
resistance, might imagine that in airless space she would fare 
better. Even so Plato left the world of sense, because it sets so 
narrow limits to the understanding, and ventured beyond, on the 
wings of the Ideas, into the empty space of the pure understanding. 
He did not see that, with all his effort, he made no way. 


Here Kant brings against Plato the charge of “ transcen- 
dental use, or rather, misuse, of the Categories of the Under- 
standing ”*——of supposing super-sensible objects, Soul, Cosmos, 
God, answering to “Ideas” which have no adequate objects 
in a possible experience, and then determining these sup- 
posed objects by means of conceptions—the Categories — 
the application of which ought to be restricted to sensible 
objects. 

In bringing this charge, Kant seems to me to ignore the 
function which Myth performs in the Platonic philosophy. 
I submit that the objects which Plato supposes for the 
“Transcendental Ideas”*® are imaginatively constructed by 
him, not presented as objects capable of determination by 
scientific categories—that Plato, by means of the plainly non- 
scientific language of Myth, guards against the illusions which 
Kant guards against by means of “criticism”; or, to put it 
otherwise, that Plato’s employment of Myth, when he deals 
with the ideals of Soul, Cosmos, and God—Kant’s three Ideas 
of Reason—shows that his attitude is “critical,” not dog- 
matic. The part which the Myth of Er plays in the philo- 
sophie action of the Republic may be taken as a specimen 
of the evidence for this view of Plato’s attitude. There is 
nothing in the Republic, to my mind, so significant as the 


| Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Einleitung, § 3. 
2 See Krit. d. rein. Vern. : die transe, Dialectik, Einleitung, 1. 
9. “Tdeas” in Kant’s sense, not the Platonic ἰδέαι. 


INTRODUCTION 73 


deep sympathy of its ending with the mood of its beginning. 
It begins with the Hope of the aged Cephalus—* The sweet 
hope which guides the wayward thought of mortal man ;” it 
ends with the great Myth in which this Hope is visualised. 
As his Hope is suflicient for Cephalus, who retires to his 
devotions from the company of the debaters, so is the Repre- 
sentation of it—the Vision of EKr—given as sufficient, in the 
end, for the debaters themselves. To attempt to rationalise 
here—to give speculative reasons for such a Hope, or against 
it, would be to forget that it is the foundation of all our 
special faculties, including the faculty of scientific explanation; 
and that science can neither explain away, nor corroborate, its 
own foundation. The attempt which is made in the latter 
half of the Tenth Book of the Republic to place the natural 
expression of this Hope—man’s belief in the immortality of 
the Soul—on a “scientific basis,’—to determine “Soul” by 
means of “Categories of the Understanding,’—I regard as 
intended by the great philosopher-artist to lead up to the 
Myth of Er, and heighten its effect by contrast—to give 
the reader of the Republic a vivid sense of the futility of 
rationalism in a region where Hope confirms itself by “vision 
splendid.” ἢ 

Of course, I do not deny that passages may be found in 
which the Ideas of Soul, Cosmos, and God are treated by 
Plato, without Mythology, as having objects to be determined 
under the scientific categories of Cause and Substance—e.g. 
in Phaedrus, 245 §, and Phaedo, 105 c,? we seem to have 





1 <The argument about immortality (Rep. 608c to 6124),” says R. L. 
Nettleship (Philosophical Lectures and Remains, ii. 355), ‘‘ does not seem to be in 
any organic connection either with what actually precedes or with what actually 
follows it. It would seem that Plato had two plans in his mind as to how to 
finish the Repuddic.” I cannot think that Plato had two plans in his mind. 
The argument for the immortality of the Soul in Rep. 608 c-612a is formally 
so inconclusive that it is impossible to suppose Plato to be serious with it. The 
equivocal use of the term Death (θάνατος) in the argument could not have 
escaped a logician so acute as Plato. The argument is, that, as Injustice (ἀδικία), 
the proper vice (κακία) of the Soul, does not cause ‘‘ Death” (θάνατος), in the 
sense of the separation of Soul from body, nothing else can ever cause ‘‘ Death” 
(θάνατος), now, however, to be understood in the sense of the annihilation of the 
disembodied Soul itself. 

2 Grote (Plato, ii. 190) has an interesting note on Phaedo, 105 c,—“ Nemesius, 
the Christian bishop of Emesa, declares that the proofs given by Plato of the 
immortality of the Soul are knotty and difficult to understand, such as even 
adepts in philosophical study can hardly follow. His own belief in it rests upon 
inspiration of the Christian Scriptures (Nemesius, de Nat. Homin. c. 2, p. 55, 
ed. 1565).” 


74 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


serious scientific argument for the immortality of the Soul— 
indeed, it would be astonishing if there were no such passages, 
for the distinction between Category and Idea, as understood 
by Kant, is not explicit in Plato’s mind; but I submit that 
such passages fade into insignificance by the side of the great 
Myths. We are safe in saying at least that, if sometimes 
Plato lapses into a logical treatment of these ideals, or “ Ideas 
of Reason,” he is well aware that there is another way of 
treating them,—in Myth,—and that he shows a marked pre- 
ference for this latter way. 

The Platonic Myth, then, effects its purpose—the regula- 
tion of Transcendental Feeling for the service of conduct and 
science—in two ways which we may profitably distinguish, 
while admitting that the distinction between them was not 
explicit in Plato's mind: (1) by representing ideals, and (2) 
by tracing faculties back to their origins. In following either 
of these two ways the Platonic Myth carries us away to 
“ Places” and “ Times” which are, indeed, beyond the ken of 
sense or science, but yet are felt to be involved in the concrete 
“ Here” and “ Now” of ordinary experience. 

The order in which I propose to take the Myths scarcely 
amounts to an arrangement of them in two classes according 
as the object is, either to represent ideals, or trace faculties to 
their origins, for most of them do both. I shall begin, how- 
ever, with the Myths which are mainly concerned with ideals, 
and shall end with those which are mainly concerned with 
origins. The former, it may be remarked, answer roughly to 
the so-called Eschatological Myths—but only roughly, for 
some of them are more properly described as Aetiological; the 
latter answer to the Aetiological Myths. 

I shall take first the Myths in the Phaedo and Gorgias, 
and the Myth of Er in the Repudlic—strictly “ Eschato- 
logical” Myths,—which present the Soul as immortal, free 
within limits set by ἀνάγκη, and responsible, under God's 
government, throughout all its transmigrations. 

Next I shall take the Myths—mainly “ Aetiological ”—in 
the Politieus, Fourth Book of the Laws, and Protagoras, where 
God’s creative agency, and government of the Cosmos and 
Man, are broadly treated, and presented as consistent with the 
existence of evil. 


INTRODUCTION 75 


Then I shall go on to the Zimaeus,' in which the three 
ideals, or “Ideas of Reason ”’—Soul, Cosmos, and God—are 
represented in one vast composition, 

Having examined these Myths—all chiefly interesting as 
representations of ideals, or “Ideas of Reason”—TI shall 
examine three Myths which are chiefly concerned with the 
deduction of Categories or Virtues. These are the Myths in 
the Phaedrus, Meno, and Symposium. They are mainly con- 
cerned with showing how man, as knowing subject and moral 
agent, is conditioned by his past. Although the “ Eschato- 
logical” outlook, with its hope of future salvation, is by no 
means absent from these three Myths, their chief interest les 
in the way in which, as “ Aetiological” Myths, they exhibit 
the functions of the understanding and moral faculty as cases 
of ἀνάμνησις which, quickened by ἔρως, interprets the par- 
ticular impressions, and recognises the particular duties, of 
the present life, in the light of the remembered vision of the 
Eternal Forms once seen in the Supercelestial Place. 

Having examined the Myths which set forth the Ideals 
and Categories of the Individual, I shall end my review with 
an examination of two Myths which set forth respectively the 
Ideals and the Categories of a Nation—one of which gives us 
the spectacle of a Nation led on by a vision of its future, 
while the other shows us how the life of the “social organism ” 
is conditioned by its past. These are the Atlantis Myth, 
introduced in the Zimaeus and continued in the fragmentary 
Critias, and the Myth of the Earth-Born in the Republic. The 
Atlantis Myth (intended to complete the account of the Ideal 
State given in the Repudlic) is to be regarded as an Eschato- 
logical Myth; but it differs from the Eschatological Myths of 
the other class which have been examined in representing, not 
the future lot of the Individual Soul, but the ideal which a 
Nation has before it in this world—the ideal of a united 
Hellas, under a New Athens, maintaining civilisation against 
the assaults of outer barbarism. 

After the Atlantis Myth I shall take the Myth of the_ 
Earth-Born in the Repudlic, which is an Aetiological Myth, 

1 Couturat, de Platonis Mythis (Paris, 1896), p. 32, Timaeus ipse totus 
mythicus est ; and Zeller, Plato, p. 160 (Eng. Transl), ‘‘ The whole investiture of 


the Timaeus is mythic—the Demiurgus, together with the subordinate gods, and 
all the history of the creation of the world.” 


76 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


differing from the Aetiological Myths of the other class which 
have been examined, in deducing, not the Categories— 
faculties and virtues—of the Individual, but the deep-cut 
characteristics of the “social organism.” And yet, here 
again, while Categories are deduced, an Ideal—that of the 
orderly life of the καλλίπολις----ἰΒ represented. Indeed, this 
is more or less true of all the Platonic Myths. They all 
view man’s present life sub specie aeternitatis—in God; 
exhibit it as part of the great plan of Providence—as one 
term of a continuous progress to be reviewed at once a parte 
ante and a parte post. Especially in the Zimaeus do we 
see the “Genesis” and the “ Apocalypse” of the Platonic 
Mythology blended in one Vision. 


THE PHAEDO MYTH 
CONTEXT OF THE ΜΎΤΗ 


Iv the Phaedo, the disciple from whom the Dialogue takes 
its name tells some Friends what was said and done in the 
Prison on the day of the Master’s death. 

The conversation was concerning the Immortality of the 
Soul, and was continued up to the last hour. 

Cebes and Simmias, the chief speakers, brought forward 
arguments tending to show that, even granted that the identity 
of Learning with Reminiscence is in favour of the Orphic 
doctrine of the pre-existence of the Soul, yet its after-existence, 
not to mention its immortality, is not proved. 

Thereupon Socrates brought in the Doctrine of Eternal 
Ideas—a doctrine which the company were already prepared to 
accept—and showed, in accordance with it, that Life—and the 
Soul is Life—e«cludes Death. 

Thus was the Immortality of the Soul proved. 

Next came the practical question: How must a man live 
that ἐξ may be well with him both in this World and in the 
World Eternal ? 

lt was then that Socrates, standing in the very presence of 
death, was filled with the spirit of prophecy, and made able to 
help his friends before he left them :—ZJf, he said, they took to 
heart the Myth which he told them, they should know how to 
live, and ἐξ would be well with them both now and hereafter 
for ever. 

When he had finished the telling of the Myth, and had 
warned his friends against a too literal interpretation of it, 
he gave directions about his family and some other private 
matters ; then the Officer came in with the Cup. 

77 


1010 


Ε 


108 


78 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Phaedo 107 c-114¢ 
» , , τ re 
Αλλὰ τόδε γ᾽, ἔφη, ὦ ἄνδρες, δίκαιον διανοηθῆναι ὅτι, 
ν e \ ᾽ / > ’ \ a ᾽ φ \ “ 
εἴπερ ἡ ψυχὴ ἀθάνατος, ἐπιμελείας δὴ δεῖται οὐχ ὑπὲρ τοῦ 
; 7 / > τ rn \ - ᾽ ,’ e \ a“ 
γρόνου τούτου μόνον, ἐν ᾧ καλοῦμεν TO ζῆν, ἀλλ ὑπὲρ τοῦ 
; \ ς , a \ \ “ x \ s 
παντός, καὶ ὁ κίνδυνος viv δὴ καὶ δόξειεν ἂν δεινὸς εἶναι, 
v , OA > / > \ \ e , A 
εἴ Tis αὐτῆς ἀμελήσει. εἰ μὲν yap ἣν ὁ θάνατος τοῦ 
παντὸς ἀπαλλαγή, ἕρμαιον ἂν ἣν τοῖς κακοῖς ἀποθανοῦσι 
τοῦ τε σώματος ἅμα ἀπηλλάχθαι καὶ τῆς αὐτῶν κακίας 
μετὰ τῆς ψυχῆς: νῦν δὲ ἐπειδὴ ἀθάνατος φαίνεται οὖσα, 
» , a »μ ᾽ wn ” ’ \ w“ ᾽ \ / 
οὐδεμία ἂν εἴη αὐτῇ ἄλλη ἀποφυγὴ κακῶν οὐδὲ σωτηρία 
\ κ ς , \ / , 
πλὴν τοῦ ὡς βελτίστην τε καὶ φρονιμωτάτην γενέσθαι. 
\ Ν 
οὐδὲν γὰρ ἄλλο ἔχουσα εἰς “Αἰδον ἡ ψυχὴ ἔρχεται πλὴν 
7 / \ fal ἃ \ \ / / 
τῆς παιδείας τε Kal τροφῆς, ἃ δὴ Kal μέγιστα δλέγετα, 
ὠφελεῖν ἢ βλάπτειν τὸν τελευτήσαντα εὐθὺς ἐν ἀρχῇ τῆς 
an ’ e e / 
ἐκεῖσε πορείας. λέγεται δὲ οὕτως, ὡς ἄρα τελευτήσαντα 
a ¢ lal / 
ἕκαστον ὁ ἑκάστου δαίμων, ὅσπερ ζῶντα εἰλήχει, οὗτος 
v ᾽ a ’ / / = »"» \ / 
ἄγειν ἐπιχειρεῖ εἰς δή τινα τόπον, of δεῖ τοὺς ξυλλεγέντας 
7 > “ , \ ς / 
διαδικασαμένους εἰς “ΔΑιδον πορεύεσθαι μετὰ ἡγεμόνος 
ἐκείνου, ᾧ δὴ προστέτακται τοὺς ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε πορεῦσαι. 
τυχόντας δ᾽ ἐκεῖ ὧν δεῖ τυχεῖν καὶ μείναντας ὃν χρὴ 
lal / -»"Ἢ 
χρόνον ἄλλος δεῦρο πάλιν ἡγεμὼν κομίζει ἐν πολλαῖς 
-" / ’ 
ypovov καὶ μακραῖς περιόδοις. ἔστι δὲ ἄρα ἡ πορεία οὐχ 
ὡς ὁ Αἰσχύλου Τήλεφος λέγει’ ἐκεῖνος μὲν γὰρ ἁπλῆν 
/ > ’ a 
οἷἶμόν φησιν ets “Avdov φέρειν, ἡ ὃ οὔτε ἁπλῆ οὔτε μία 
φαίνεταί μοι εἶναι. οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂν ἡγεμόνων ἔδει" οὐ γάρ πού 
Δ 7 ᾽ / 5 e rn vv r \ Μμ 
τις ἂν διαμάρτοι οὐδαμόσε μιᾶς ὁδοῦ οὔσης. νῦν δὲ ἔοικε 
, / \ n e / 
σχίσεις τε καὶ περιόδους πολλὰς ἔχειν: ἀπὸ τῶν ὁσίων TE 
r / 
Kal νομίμων τῶν ἐνθάδε τεκμαιρόμενος λέγω. ἡ μὲν οὖν 
᾽ / ‘ ; ‘ A 
Koopia τε Kal φρόνιμος ψυχὴ ἕπεταί TE καὶ οὐκ ἀγνοεῖ 
τὰ παρόντα' ἡ δὲ ἐπιθυμητικῶς τοῦ σώματος ἔχουσα, 
“ ᾿ co - Ἁ ’ 
ὅπερ ἐν τῷ ἔμπροσθεν εἶπον, περὶ ἐκεῖνο πολὺν χρόνον 
» ΄ ; 
ἐπτοημένη Kal περὶ τὸν ὁρατὸν τόπον, πολλὰ ἀντιτείνασα 
‘ \ ΄σ ’ \ ’ ta \ - 7 
καὶ πολλὰ παθοῦσα, βίᾳ καὶ μόγις ὑπὸ τοῦ προστεταγμένου 
’ ᾽ ᾿ ΝΜ 
δαίμονος οἴχεται ἀγομένη. ἀφικομένην δὲ ὅθιπερ αἱ ἄλλαι, 


᾿ ‘ ᾿ / 7 ω ἃ / 
τὴν μὲν ἀκάθαρτον καί TL πεποιηκυῖαν τοιοῦτον, ἢ φόνων 


ΤῊΝ PHAEDO MYTH 79 


TRANSLATION 


“Tt is meet, my friends, that we should take thought of 
this:—that the Soul, being immortal, standeth in need of 
care, not only in regard of the time of this present life, but in 
regard of the time without end, and that ’tis now, even to-day, 
that the jeopardy is great, if a man will still be careless of his 
Soul. Were death riddance of all, ’twould be good luck for the 
wicked man to die and be rid of body and soul and his 
wickedness ; but inasmuch as the Soul is manifestly immortal, 
no other escape from evil hath she nor salvation save this 
—that she be perfected in righteousness and wisdom. For 
she taketh hence nothing with her to the House of Hades, 
save only her instruction and nurture—that, to wit, where- 
from they say the greatest profit cometh to the dead or 
greatest damage straightway at the beginning of their journey 
thither; for when a man dieth, his own Familiar Spirit, which 
had gotten him to keep whilst he lived, taketh and leadeth 
him to a certain place whither the dead must be gathered 
together; whence, after they have received their sentences, 
they must journey to the House of Hades with him who hath 
been appointed to guide thither those that are here; and 
when they have received there the things which are meet for 
them, and have sojourned the time determined, another Guide 
bringeth them again hither, after many long courses of time. 
The way, belike, is not as Aeschylus his Telephus telleth; for 
he saith that a single path leadeth to the House of Hades. 
But, methinks, if it were single and one, there would be no 
need of guides, for no man would go astray. Nay, that it 
hath many partings and windings I conclude from the offerings 
which men use to make unto the dead. 

“The Soul which ordereth herself aright and hath wisdom, 
understandeth well her present case,and goeth with her Familiar. 
But the Soul which lusteth after the body, having fluttered 
about it and the Visible Place for a long while, and having 
withstood her appointed Familiar with great strife and pain, 
is by him at the last mastered and carried away; and when 
she is come to the place where the other Souls are assembled 
together, inasmuch as she is impure and hath wrought that 


109 


80 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


»O/ ς , x Μ ᾽ ΝΜ a ? 7 ἃ 
ἀδίκων ἡμμέννν ἢ ἀλλ ἄττα τοιαῦτα εἰργασμένην, ἃ 
τούτων ἀδελφά τε καὶ ἀδελφῶν ψυχῶν ἔργα τυγχάνει ὄντα, 
/ / 
ταύτην μὲν ἅπας φεύγει Te Kal ὑπεκτρέπεται Kal οὔτε 
/ » € \ ᾽ / / ᾽ \ \ A 
ξυνέμπορος οὔτε ἡγεμὼν ἐθέλει γίγνεσθαι, αὐτὴ δὲ πλανᾶται 
/ » ’ δ / , , 
ἐν πάσῃ ἐχομένη ἀπορίᾳ, ἕως ἂν δή τινες χρόνοι γένωνται, 
? >, / id , > / / > \ > aA / 
ὧν ἐξελθόντων ὑπ᾽ ἀνάγκης φέρεται εἰς τὴν αὐτῇ πρέπουσαν 
\ A / \ lal 
οἴκησιν ἡ δὲ καθαρῶς τε καὶ μετρίως Tov βίον διεξελθοῦσα, 
/ lal ω 
καὶ ξυνεμπόρων καὶ ἡγεμόνων θεῶν τυχοῦσα, ὥκησε τὸν 
7 U / 
αὐτῇ ἑκάστη τόπον προσήκοντα. 
lal »" / 
Εἰσὶ δὲ πολλοὶ καὶ θαυμαστοὶ τῆς γῆς τόποι, Kal αὐτὴ 
" “ » “ / e \ a \ “ ᾽ / 
οὔτε οἵα οὔτε ὅση δοξάζεται ὑπὸ τῶν περὶ γῆς εἰωθότων 
e / / e r 
χέγειν, ὡς ἐγὼ ὑπό Twos πέπεισμαι. Kai ὁ Σιμμίας, Πῶς 
a » / s , \ / a a 
ταῦτα, ἔφη, λέγεις, ὦ Σώκρατες ; περὶ γάρ τοι τῆς γῆς 
\ ae \ \ δι. ἢ > , a ἃ \ / 
Kal αὐτὸς πολλὰ δὴ ἀκήκοα, οὐ μέντοι ταῦτα, ἃ σὲ πείθει. 
͵, “ἢ ἢ 
ἡδέως ἂν οὖν ἀκούσαιμι. ᾿Αλλὰ μέντοι, ὦ Σιμμία, οὐχ ἡ 
/ Lal 6 
Γλαύκου γέ μοι τέχνη δοκεῖ εἶναι διηγήσασθαι & γ᾽ ἐστίν' 
ς / ᾽ a ; f , Ἁ \ \ 
ὡς μέντοι ἀληθῆ, χαλεπώτερον μοι φαίνεται ἢ κατὰ τὴν 
\ > / 
Γλαύκου τέχνην, καὶ ἅμα μὲν ἐγὼ ἴσως οὐδ᾽ ἂν οἷός τε 
" od 7 ᾽ \ > / e , A id ᾽ , 
εἴην, ἅμα δέ, εἰ Kal ἠπιστάμην, ὁ Bios μοι δοκεῖ ὁ ἐμός, 
με ’ lal / cal / > b] 7 \ , 
ὦ Σιμμία, τῷ μήκει τοῦ λόγου οὐκ ἐξαρκεῖν. THY μέντοι 
- - / / 3 / - 
ἰδέαν τῆς γῆς, οἵαν πέπεισμαι εἶναι, καὶ τοὺς τόπους αὐτῆς 
/, / > ” e / an 
οὐδέν με κωλύει λέγειν. "AXA, ἔφη ὁ Σιμμίας, καὶ ταῦτα 
> - 7 / “ ’ -’ ᾿ ’ ξ΄ π᾿ , > 
ἀρκεῖ. ἸΠέπεισμαι τοίνυν, ἣ δ᾽ ὅς, ἐγώ, ὡς πρῶτον μέν, εἰ 
» S| / a » a \ ° \ > A 7 
ἔστιν ἐν μέσῳ τῷ οὐρανῷ περιφερὴς οὖσα, μηδὲν αὐτῇ δεῖν 
/ »/ \ \ \ a / » > 7 - 
μήτε ἀέρος πρὸς τὸ μὴ πεσεῖν μὴτε ἄλλης ἀνάγκης μηδεμιᾶς 
> \ e \ > » \ v \ e ’ 
τοιαύτης, ἀλλὰ ικανὴν εἰναι αὑτὴν ἴσχειν τὴν ομοιότητα 
- ΄σ lal e “Ὁ 4 Ν - - "»" 
τοῦ οὐρανοῦ αὐτοῦ ἑαυτῷ πάντῃ καὶ τῆς γῆς αὐτῆς τὴν 
ο > / \ - e , 
ἰσορροπίαν᾽ ἰσόρροπον yap πρᾶγμα ομοίου τινὸς ἐν μέσῳ 
n ’ ? / 7 
τεθὲν οὐχ ἕξει μᾶλλον οὐδ᾽ ἧττον οὐδαμόσε κλιθῆναι, 
΄ ᾽ > ww > \ a A \ / > “ὦν 
ὁμοίως δ᾽ ἔχον ἀκλινὲς μενεῖ. πρῶτον μὲν τοίνυν, } 8 ὅς, 
΄ \ , “-“ v ΄ 
τοῦτο πέπεισμαι. Καὶ ὀρθῶς γε, ἔφη ὁ Σιμμίας. “Ere 


" , , ° > ’ \ ΙΝ A 
τοίνυν, ἔφη, πάμμεγά τι εἶναι αὐτὸ, Kal ἡμᾶς οἰκεῖν τοὺς 


Β μέχρι Ἡρακλείων στηλῶν ἀπὸ Φάσιδος ἐν σμικρῷ τινι 


μορίῳ, ὥσπερ περὶ τέλμα μύρμηκας ἢ βατράχους, περὶ τὴν 


THE PHARDO MYTH 81 


which is impure, having shed innocent blood, or done like 
deeds which Souls that are her like use to do, her all flee and 
eschew, and none will be her companion or guide; wherefore 
she wandereth alone in great stress, until certain times have 
been accomplished; then is she constrained to go unto the 
habitation fit for her. But the Soul which hath lived all her 
days in purity and sobriety hath given unto her Gods to be 
her companions and guides, and she maketh her habitation in 
the place meet for her. 

“The Karth hath many and wondrous places, and it is of a 
fashion and greatness whereof those who use to tell concerning 
the Earth have no true opinion. There is one who hath 
persuaded me of this.” 

“ Socrates,” quoth Simmias, “ how sayest thou this? for I 
also have heard many things concerning the Earth, but not 
this of which thou art persuaded. Wherefore I would gladly 
hear it.” 

“Well, Simmias,” quoth he, “methinks it needeth not the 
skill of Glaucus to set forth that which I have heard; but 
the truth thereof, which I wot it surpasseth the skill of 
Glaucus to find out, haply I should not be able to attain 
unto: nay, if I knew it, my life is too far spent, methinks, 
for the length of the discourse which should declare it: but 
my persuasion as touching the Earth and the places it hath 
nothing hindereth me from declaring unto thee.” 

“That is enough,” said Simmias. 

“Tam persuaded, then,” said he, “ of this first—that if the 
Earth, being a globe, is in the middle of the Heaven, it hath 
no need of air or any other like constraint to keep it from 
falling, but ’tis sufficient to hold it that the Heaven is of one 
substance throughout, and that itself is equally balanced: for 
that which is itself equally balanced and set in the midst of 
that which hath one substance, will have no cause at all of 
inclining towards any side, but will continue the same and 
remain without inclination. Of this first 1 am persuaded.” 

“ And rightly,” said Simmias. 

“ Moreover, I am persuaded that the Earth is very great, 
and that we who inhabit unto the Pillars of Hercules from 
the river Phasis dwell in a small part thereof, like unto ants 
or frogs round about a pool, dwelling round this Sea; and 

G 


110 


82 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


“ Mv a 
θάλατταν οἰκοῦντας, Kal ἄλλους ἄλλοθι πολλοὺς ἐν πολλοῖς 
/ a “- " 
τοιούτοις τόποις οἰκεῖν. εἶναι γὰρ πανταχῇ περὶ τὴν γῆν 
πολλὰ κοῖλα καὶ παντοδαπὰ καὶ τὰς ἰδέας καὶ τὰ μεγέθη, 
\ e \ 
els ἃ ξυνερρυηκέναι τὸ τε ὕδωρ Kal τὴν ὁμίχλην Kal τὸν 
\ lel a ω a 
aépa’ αὐτὴν δὲ τὴν γῆν καθαρὰν ἐν καθαρῴ κεῖσθαι τῷ 
οὐρανῷ, ἐν ᾧπερ ἔστι τὰ ἄστρα, ὃν δὴ αἰθέρα ὀνομάζειν 
\ \ lal \ \ »" >’ , / La \ 
τοὺς πολλοὺς τῶν περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα εἰωθότων λέγειν: οὗ δὴ 
΄ la > » lal ε΄ 
ὑποστάθμην ταῦτα εἶναι καὶ ξυρρεῖν ἀεὶ εἰς τὰ κοῖλα τῆς 
γῆς. ἡμᾶς οὖν οἰκοῦντας ἐν τοῖς κοίλοις αὐτῆς λεληθέναι 
καὶ οἴεσθαι ἄνω ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς οἰκεῖν, ὥσπερ ἂν εἴ τις ἐν μέσῳ 
a / fa 7 ϑ δὰ ΝΜ / δὲν a , 
τῷ πυθμένι TOU πελώγους οἰκῶν οἴοιτο τε ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάττης 
- “-“ δ ¢ a \ 
οἰκεῖν καὶ διὰ τοῦ ὕδατος ὁρῶν τὸν ἥλιον Kal τὰ ἄλλα 
a \ / e Lal > Ν > \ fal ’ 
ἄστρα τὴν θάλατταν ἡγοῖτο οὐρανὸν εἶναι, διὰ δὲ βραδυτῆτά 
τε καὶ ἀσθένειαν μηδεπώποτε ἐπὶ τὰ ἄκρα τῆς θαλάττης 
> / \ e \ y > \ \ > / > an 
ἀφυγμένος μηδὲ ἑωρακὼς ein, ἐκδὺς Kal ἀνακύψας ἐκ τῆς 
/ 
θαλάττης εἰς τὸν ἐνθάδε τόπον, ὅσῳ καθαρώτερος καὶ 
/ 4 Ἅ “ \ / \ »” > \ 
καλλίων τυγχάνει ὧν τοῦ Tapa σφίσι, μηδὲ ἄλλου ἀκηκοὼς 
- / a a 
εἴη TOD ἑωρακότος. ταὐτὸν δὴ τοῦτο καὶ ἡμᾶς πεπονθέναι" 
οἰκοῦντας γὰρ ἔν τινι κοίλῳ τῆς γῆς οἴεσθαι ἐπάνω αὐτῆς 
οἰκεῖν, καὶ τὸν ἀέρα οὐρανὸν καλεῖν, ὡς διὰ τούτου οὐρανοῦ 
» “Ὁ -“" ᾽ 
ὄντος τὰ ἄστρα χωροῦντα. τὸ δὲ εἶναι τοιοῦτον" ὑπ ἀσθε- 
/ \ a > ” 7 ς a a 
velas καὶ βραδυτῆτος οὐχ οἵους τε εἶναι ἡμᾶς διεξελθεῖν 
\ a > x 
ἐπ᾿ ἔσχατον Tov ἀέρα" ἐπεί, εἴ τις αὐτοῦ ἐπ᾽ ἄκρα ἔλθοι ἢ 
- / Ὁ 
πτηνὸς γενόμενος ἀνάπτοιτο, κατιδεῖν ἂν ἀνακύψαντα, ὥσπερ 
᾽ 7 e > nr / > / > / e lal \ 
ἐνθάδε οἱ ἐκ τῆς θαλάττης ἰχθύες ἀνακύπτοντες ὁρῶσι τὰ 
᾽ / ec » \ \ >, ra a \ > ἢ / 
ἐνθάδε, οὕτως av Twa Kal τὰ ἐκεῖ κατιδεῖν, καὶ εἰ ἡ φύσις 
ς rn a ” «Ὁ 
ἱκανὴ εἴη ἀνέχεσθαι θεωροῦσα, γνῶναι ἄν, ὅτι ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν 
ὁ ἀληθῶς οὐρανὸς καὶ τὸ ἀληθῶς φῶς καὶ ἡ ὡς ἀληθῶς 
κ 0 an e ’ e 
γῆ. ἥδε μὲν yap ἡ yh Kal of λίθοι καὶ ἅπας ὁ τόπος ὁ 
b) / / > \ \ / “ \ > 
ἐνθάδε διεφθαρμένα ἐστὶ καὶ καταβεβρωμένα, ὥσπερ τὰ ἐν 
- 7 ig \ rn [cA \ Μ / > \ ” 
τῇ θαλάττῃ ὑπὸ τῆς ἅλμης: Kal οὔτε φύεται οὐδὲν ἄξιον 
/ , a / ” / ε ” ᾽ - »ὺὼ 
λόγου ἐν τῇ θαλάττῃ, οὔτε τέλειον, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, οὐδέν 
ἐστι, σήραγγες δὲ καὶ ἄμμος καὶ πηλὸς ἀμήχανος καὶ 
ω “ ᾽ a 
βόρβοροί εἰσιν, ὅπου ἂν καὶ γῆ ἢ, Kal πρὸς Ta Tap ἡμῖν 
/ / > ᾽ e fal v ᾽ an \ s “~ 
κάλλη κρίνεσθαι οὐδ᾽ ὁπωστιοῦν ἄξια. ἐκεῖνα δὲ αὖ τῶν 
’ ΄ “ \ v / / / ᾽ \ 
Tap ἡμῖν πολὺ ἂν ἔτι πλέον φανείη διαφέρειν. εἰ yap 
- r / ’ lal / 
δεῖ καὶ μῦθον λέγειν καλόν, ἄξιον ἀκοῦσαι, ὦ Σιμμία, ola 


᾽ 


7, \ ‘ A 7 ¢ \ a > a ΝΜ Ἰλλλὰ 
τυγχάνει τα €7Tb TS γῆς ὕπο Τῷ ουραᾶνῳ οντα. a 


THE PHAEDO MYTH 83 


that many other men dwell in many other like places; for in 
all parts of the Earth are hollows, many, various in shape and 
magnitude; into these flow water and thick clouds and air, 
and are therein gathered together; but the Earth itself is 
lifted up clear in the clear Heaven wherein are the stars. 
This Heaven is that which those who use to speak of these 
things call the Aether, whose sediment is that collwvies which 
is alway being gathered together into the hollows of the 
Karth. We, then, who dwell in the hollows, being ignorant, 
think that we dwell above on the Karth, even as he who had 
his dwelling down at the bottom of the sea would think that 
he was on the surface thereof, and beholding through the 
water the sun and the stars, would conceit the sea to be 
the heaven, inasmuch as, being sluggish and weak, he never 
mounted up to the surface of the sea, and put forth his 
head, and looked out at our place, and saw how far it 
excelleth the things of his own place in purity and beauty, 
neither had heard concerning it from another who had seen 
it. This is our case: for we, dwelling in a hollow of the 
Earth, think that we dwell upon the Earth itself; and the 
Air we call Heaven, and think that it is that Heaven wherein 
are the courses of the stars: whereas, by reason of weakness 
and sluggishness, we cannot go forth out of the Air: but if 
a man could journey to the edge thereof, or having gotten 
wings could fly up, it would come to pass that even as fishes 
here which rise out of the sea do behold the things here, he, 
looking out, would behold the things there, and if his 
strength could endure the sight thereof, would see that there 
are the True Heaven and the True Light and the True Earth. 
For the Earth here, with the stones thereof, and the whole 
place where we are, is corrupted and eaten away, after the 
manner of things in the sea by the salt wherein there is 
brought forth nothing either goodly or perfect at all, but only 
hollow rocks, and sand, and clay without measure, and miry 
sloughs wheresoever there is also earth—things not worthy at 
all to be compared with the things here that are fair, albeit 
the things beyond do much more excel the things here in beauty. 

“Wherefore, if ye desire of me a Tale, hearken to the Tale 
of the Things that be beyond upon the Earth under the 
Heaven.” 


84 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


, » e / 5 > /, ς a / A 
μήν, ἔφη ὁ Σιμμίας, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἡμεῖς ye τούτου τοῦ 
μύθου ἡδέως ἂν ἀκούσαιμεν. 

Λέγεται τοίνυν, ἔφη, ὦ ἑταῖρε, πρῶτον μὲν εἶναι τοιαύτη 
ἡ γῆ αὕτη ἰδεῖν, εἴ τις ἄνωθεν θεῷτο, ὥσπερ αἱ δωδεκάσκυτοι 
- δι / ὃ ἊΝ / Φ \ \ 3 θ (ὃ 
σφαῖραι, ποικίλη, χρώμασι διειλημμένη, ὧν καὶ τὰ ἐνθάδε 


σεἶῖναι χρώματα ὥσπερ δείγματα, οἷς δὴ οἱ γραφεῖς κατα- 


a a a \ - / 
χρῶνται. ἐκεῖ δὲ πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν ἐκ τοιούτων εἶναι, Kal 
\ 
πολὺ ἔτι ἐκ λαμπροτέρων καὶ καθαρωτέρων ἢ τούτων" τὴν 
\ \ e a ἣν \ \ \ / \ \ 
μὲν yap ἁλουργῆ εἶναι καὶ θαυμαστὴν τὸ κάλλος, τὴν δὲ 
a \ \ Ὁ \ / x / / 
χρυσοειδῆ, τὴν δὲ ὅση λευκὴ γύψου ἢ χιόνος λευκοτέραν, 
a », / 
καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἄλλων χρωμάτων ξυγκειμένην ὡσαύτως, Kal ἔτι 
/ / ω a 
πλειόνων Kal καλλιόνων ἢ ὅσα ἡμεῖς ἑωράκαμεν. καὶ yap 
> \ fal \ ._& ee , \ >/ Μ 
αὐτὰ ταῦτα τὰ κοῖλα αὐτῆς, ὕδατός τε καὶ ἀέρος ἔμπλεα 


Ὁ ὄντα, χρώματός τι εἶδος παρέχεσθαι στίλβοντα ἐν τῇ τῶν 


»᾿ ’ / [4 “ >? fal 3 \ 
ἄλλων χρωμάτων ποικιλίᾳ, WOTE EV TL αὑτῆς εἶδος ξυνεχὲς 
,ὔ 7 ? \ / ” 7 ΒΥ, ἢ / 
ποικίλον φαντάζεσθαι. ἐν δὲ ταύτῃ οὔσῃ τοιαύτῃ ἀνὰ λόγον 
\ ἢ ΄ , A aie \ \ ΄, 
τὰ φυόμενα φύεσθαι, δένδρα τε καὶ ἄνθη καὶ τοὺς καρπούς" 

/ 7 ΝΜ 
καὶ av τὰ ὄρη ὡσαύτως καὶ τοὺς λίθους ἔχειν ἀνὰ τὸν 
> \ / / / \ \ / \ \ 
αὐτὸν λόγον THY τε λειότητα Kal τὴν διαφάνειαν Kal τὰ 
, Φ δ \ / 3 a 
χρώματα καλλίω: ὧν Kat Ta ἐνθάδε λιθίδια εἶναι ταῦτα 
7, / / / 
Ta ἀγαπώμενα μόρια, σάρδιά τε Kal idomidas καὶ σμαράγ- 


ὃ \ / \ a > a δὲ δὲ Ὁ ? - 
E ὃὁους καὶ παντὰα Τὰ TOLAUVTA* EKEL Εε OVOEV O TL OV TOLOUTOV 


111 


Ἵν \ » / / \ b y ΄ 4 
εἶναι καὶ ἔτι τούτων καλλίω. τὸ δ᾽ αἴτιον τούτου εἶναι, 
" > a e / > \ \ \ > / 
ὅτι ἐκεῖνοι of λίθοι εἰσὶ καθαροὶ καὶ οὐ κατεδηδεσμένοι 
>O\ / 4 e ? / ς Ν , \ 
οὐδὲ διεφθαρμένοι ὥσπερ οἱ ἐνθάδε ὑπὸ σηπεδόνος Kai 
“ e \ a “- / ἃ \ / \ “ 
ἅλμης ὑπὸ τῶν δεῦρο ξυνερρυηκότων, ἃ καὶ λίθοις καὶ γῇ 
co , a / 
καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ζώοις τε καὶ φυτοῖς αἴσχη τε Kal νόσους 
an \ an 7 
παρέχει. τὴν δὲ γῆν αὐτὴν κεκοσμῆσθαι τούτοις τε ἅπασι 
a / a Μ “ - 
καὶ ἔτι χρυσῷ τε καὶ ἀργύρῳ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις αὖ τοῖς 
/ A / 
τοιούτοις. ἐκφανῆ yap αὐτὰ πεφυκέναι, ὄντα πολλὰ πλήθει 
-" - - \ - 3: 
Kal μεγάλα καὶ πολλαχοῦ τῆς γῆς, ὥστε αὐτὴν ἰδεῖν εἶναι 
/ - A ᾽ - v 
θέαμα εὐδαιμόνων θεατῶν. ζῶα δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῆς εἶναι ἄλλα τε 
, ’ >’ a 
πολλὰ Kal ἀνθρώπους, τοὺς μὲν ἐν μεσογαίᾳ οἰκοῦντας, 
\ \ \ \ ID e/ id A \ \ / 
τοὺς δὲ περὶ τὸν ἀέρα ὥσπερ ἡμεῖς περὶ τὴν θάλατταν, 
ol a > 
τοὺς δὲ ἐν νήσοις, ἃς περιρρεῖν τὸν ἀέρα, πρὸς TH ἠπείρῳ 
wv 4 δια / " ΄ lal \ -“ \ ΄ / / 
οὔσας" Kal ἑνὶ λόγῳ, ὅπερ ἡμῖν τὸ ὕδωρ Kal ἡ θάλαττά 


΄ / an a / ἃ \ 
Β ἐστι πρὸς τὴν ἡμετέραν χρείαν, τοῦτο ἐκεῖ τὸν ἀέρα, ὃ δὲ 


‘ea ΄ , 7 > / 4 77s \ \ “ ᾿ “ a 
ἡμῖν ὁ ἀήρ, ἐκείνοις τὸν αἰθέρα. τὰς δὲ ὥρας αὐτοῖς κρᾶσιν 


THE ΠΑΡῸ MYTH BD 


“ Indeed, Socrates,” quoth he, “we would gladly hear this 
Tale,” 

“The beginning of the Tale, then, is this, my friend, 
that the Karth itself, if any one look down on it from 
the Heaven, is like unto a ball which is fashioned with twelve 
leathern stripes, whereof each hath his own colour. These be 
the colours whereof the colours here which limners use are as 
samples; but there the whole Karth is of such, yea of far 
brighter than these and purer; for one part is purple and of 
marvellous beauty, and another part is like gold, and all that 
part which is white is whiter than chalk or snow, and in like 
manner unto other parts are portioned the other colours— 
yea, and colours besides more than all those which we have 
seen here and fairer; for even these hollows of the Earth, 
being full to the brim of water and air, display a specific colour 
wherewith they glisten in the midst of the variety of the other 
colours, so that the face of the Earth seemeth, as it were, one 
picture of many colours contiguous, without blot. 

“According as the Earth is, so also are the things which 
grow therein—her trees and flowers and fruits; and so also 
are her mountains, and her stones, which are polished and 
transparent and of exceeding fair colours; whereof the precious 
stones here are fragments—sardian, jasper, smaragdus, and all 
such: but in that place there is no stone which is not as these 
are and fairer. The reason whereof is this, that the stones 
there are pure, and are not eaten away or corrupted as are the 
stones here by the rot and salt of that sediment which is 
gathered together here, whereof come, unto stones, and earth, 
and likewise unto beasts and herbs, deformities and diseases. 
Now, the True Earth hath these things, and also gold and 
silver and other things like unto them for her ornaments; for 
there they are not hidden but manifest, and are in abundance, 
and of exceeding greatness, and in many places of that Earth ; 
so that to behold it is a sight meet for the eyes of the blessed. 
And on that Earth there are beasts of many kinds, and men, 
whereof some dwell in the inland parts, and some round about 
the Air, as we about the Sea, and some in islands encompassed 
by the Air, hard by the mainland; for that which Water is 
and the Sea with us for our use, the Air is in that region, and 
that which the Air is with us, the Aether is with them. 


86 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


ἔχειν τοιαύτηι, ὥστε ἐκείνους ἀνόσους εἶναι καὶ χρόνον τε 
ζῆν πολὺ πλείω τῶν ἐνθάδε καὶ ὄψει καὶ ἀκοῇ καὶ 
ὀσφρήσει᾽' καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς τοιούτοις ἡμῶν ἀφεστάναι τῇ αὐτῇ 
ἀποστάσει, ἧπερ ἀήρ τε ὕδατος ἀφέστηκε καὶ αἰθὴρ ἀέρος 
πρὸς καθαρότητα. καὶ δὴ καὶ θεῶν ἕδη " τε καὶ ἱερὰ αὐτοῖς 
εἶναι, ἐν οἷς τῷ ὄντι οἰκητὰς θεοὺς εἶναι, καὶ φήμας τε 
καὶ μαντείας καὶ αἰσθήσεις τῶν θεῶν καὶ τοιαύτας 


/ ,ὔ > a \ > / \ / Ὁ 
c ξυνουσίας γίγνεσθαι αὐτοῖς πρὸς αὐτούς" καὶ τὸν γε ἥλιον 


D 


112 


\ / \ ” <b oe συν > A / 
Kal σελήνην Kal ἄστρα ὁρᾶσθαι ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ola τυγχάνει 
»” \ Ἁ ” > ᾽ὔ / > / ἂν 
ὄντα, καὶ τὴν ἄλλην εὐδαιμονίαν τούτων ἀκόλουθον εἶναι. 

K \ ee \ ὃ} \ a “ / \ \ \ 
al ὅλην μὲν δὴ THY γῆν οὕτω πεφυκέναι Kal τὰ περὶ 

\ a / 7 an ~ 
τὴν γῆν: τόπους ὃ ἐν αὐτῇ εἶναι κατὰ Ta ἔγκοιλα αὐτῆς 

/ \ [τ 4 \ \ / \ > 
κύκλῳ περὶ ὅλην πολλούς, τοὺς μὲν βαθυτέρους καὶ ἀναπε- 

4 lal x > Ξε ς A > A \ \ 
πταμένους μᾶλλον ἢ ἐν ᾧ ἡμεῖς οἰκοῦμεν, TOs δὲ βαθυ- 
τέρους ὄντας τὸ χάσμα αὐτοὺς ἔλαττον ἔχειν τοῦ Tap 

- / ’ ἃ 7 a 
ἡμῖν τόπου, ἔστι ὃ ods καὶ βραχυτέρους τῷ βάθει τοῦ 
ἐνθάδε εἶναι καὶ πλατυτέρους. τούτους δὲ πάντας ὑπὸ γῆν 
> ’ / n 7 Lal \ \ / 
εἰς ἀλλήλους συντετρῆσθαί τε πολλαχῇ, καὶ κατὰ στενότερα 

\ > / \ / ” Φ \ \ e ta 
καὶ εὐρύτερα, καὶ διεξόδους ἔχειν, ἧ πολὺ μὲν ὕδωρ ῥεῖν 
> > / > > / [2 > a \ > / 
ἐξ ἀλλήλων εἰς ἀλλήλους ὥσπερ ELS κρατῆρας, Kal ἀενάων 
ποταμῶν ἀμήχανα μεγέθη ὑπὸ τὴν γῆν καὶ θερμῶν ὑδάτων 

lal \ lal 
Kal ψυχρῶν, πολὺ δὲ πῦρ Kal πυρὸς μεγάλους ποταμούς, 
πολλοὺς δὲ ὑγροῦ πηλοῦ καὶ καθαρωτέρου καὶ βορβορωδε- 
7 e a “ 
στέρου, ὥσπερ ἐν Σικελίᾳ οἱ πρὸ τοῦ ῥύακος πηλοῦ ῥέοντες 
¢ , \ , 
ποταμοὶ Kal αὐτὸς ὁ ῥύαξ' ὧν δὴ Kal ἑκάστους τοὺς τόπους 
rn / \ 
πληροῦσθαι, ὧν av ἑκάστοις τύχῃ ἑκάστοτε ἡ περιρροὴ 
al rad “ 
γιγνομένη. ταῦτα δὲ πάντα κινεῖν ἄνω καὶ κάτω ὥσπερ 
rn a a , 
αἰώραν τινὰ ἐνοῦσαν ἐν TH γῇ. ἔστι δὲ ἄρα αὕτη ἡ aiwpa 
/ - lal a 
διὰ φύσιν τοιάνδε τινά. ἕν TL τῶν χασμάτων τῆς γῆς 
” / 
ἄλλως τε μέγιστον τυγχάνει dv Kal διαμπερὲς τετρημένον 
᾽ a a al / \ 
δι᾿ ὅλης τῆς γῆς, τοῦτο ὅπερ “Ὅμηρος εἶπε, λέγων αὐτὸ 


τῆλε par, ἧχι βάθιστον ὑπὸ χθονός ἐστι βέρεθρον, 


Δ a Μ a a 

ὃ καὶ ἄλλοθι καὶ ἐκεῖνος καὶ ἄλλοι πολλοὶ τῶν ποιητῶν 

/ \ ω / / 

Τάρταρον κεκλήκασιν. εἰς yap τοῦτο TO χάσμα συρρέουσι 
‘ \ / > / 

Te πάντες οἱ ποταμοὶ Kal ἐκ τούτου πάλιν ἐκρέουσι" 

/ - ᾽ ᾽ a A 

γίγνονται δὲ ἕκαστοι τοιοῦτοι, δι’ οἵας ἂν Kal τῆς γῆς 

᾽ / A a la) > lal 

péwow ἡ δ᾽ αἰτία ἐστὶ τοῦ ἐκρεῖν τε ἐντεῦθεν καὶ εἰσρεῖν 

/ \ μ / “ / > y > \ / \ 

πάντα Ta ῥεύματα, ὅτι πυθμένα οὐκ ἔχει οὐδὲ βάσιν τὸ 


| φρονήσει. 2 ἄλση. 


THE PHAELDO MYTH 87 


Moreover, their seasons are so tempered that disease smiteth 
them not at all, and they live far beyond the measure of our 
days, and as touching eyesight, and hearing, and wisdom, and 
all such parts, are distant from us even as Air is distant from 
Water, and Aether is distant from Air in purity. Also they 
have groves of the Gods and temples wherein Gods verily are 
dwellers; into whose very presence men come, hearing their 
voices and their prophecies and seeing them face to face. 
Moreover, the sun and moon and stars are seen there as they 
are truly; and likewise in all things else the state of these 
men is blessed. 

“The Earth itself, then, and the parts that encompass the 
Karth are thus fashioned. But the Tale also telleth that in 
the Earth are many hollow places round about her whole girth, 
whereof some are deeper and more open than this place we dwell 
in, and some are deeper with a narrower mouth, and some are 
shallower and broader: all these are joined together, having 
channels bored under the Earth from one to another in many 
places, some narrow and some wide, whereby passage is given 
so that much water floweth from one into another, as into 
bowls, and measureless floods of perennial rivers run under the 
Earth, and streams hot and cold; also much fire floweth, and 
there are great rivers of fire, and many rivers of running mud, 
some clearer, some thicker, even as in Sicily there run before 
the fiery flood rivers of mud, and then cometh the fiery flood. 
With these floods, therefore, each place is filled according as at 
each time the stream floweth round unto each. Now, all these 
waters are moved upward and downward by that in the Earth 
which swayeth like a swing. And it swayeth after this wise. 
There is a cavern in the Earth, which is the greatest of them 
all, and, moreover, pierceth right through the whole Earth, 
whereof Homer maketh mention, saying, ‘Afar off, where 
deepest underground the Pit is digged, which he in other 
places, and many of the other poets, call Tartarus. Now, into 
this cavern all the rivers flow, and from it flow out again, and 
each one becometh such as is that part of the Earth it floweth 
through. The cause of all streams flowing out and flowing in 
is that this flood hath no bottom or foundation. Wherefore it 


119 


88 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Ν a a \ ” ᾿ 
ὑγρὸν τοῦτο. αἰωρεῖται δὴ καὶ κυμαίνει ἄνω καὶ κάτω, καὶ 
e \ \ a \ \ Cal 
ὁ ἀὴρ Kal TO πνεῦμα TO περὶ αὐτὸ ταὐτὸν ποιεῖ" ξυνέπεται 
Lal lal cal e 
yap αὐτῷ καὶ ὅταν εἰς TO ἐπέκεινα τῆς γῆς ὁρμήσῃ Kal 
- 
ὅταν εἰς τὸ ἐπὶ τάδε, καὶ ὥσπερ τῶν ἀναπνεόντων ἀεὶ 
A an \ lal - 
ἐκπνεῖ τε καὶ ἀναπνεῖ ῥέον τὸ πνεῦμα, οὕτω καὶ ἐκεῖ 
/ “A Ὁ Ν lal 
ξυναιωρούμενον TO ὑγρῷ TO πνεῦμα δεινούς τινας ἀνέμους 
/ / 
Kal ἀμηχάνους παρέχεται καὶ εἰσιὸν καὶ ἐξιόν. ὅταν Te οὖν 
ς lo / \ > \ / Ν \ 
ὁρμῆσαν ὑποχωρήσῃ τὸ ὕδωρ εἰς τὸν τόπον τὸν δὴ κάτω 
/ - ᾽ a \ / n - - 
καλούμενον, τοῖς κατ ἐκεῖνα τὰ ῥεύματα διὰ τῆς γῆς εἰσρεῖ 
a ¢ a 
τε Kal πληροῖ αὐτὰ ὥσπερ οἱ ἐπαντλοῦντες" ὅταν τε αὖ 
lal / lal e a 
ἐκεῖθεν μὲν ἀπολίπῃ, δεῦρο δὲ ὁρμήσῃ, τὰ ἐνθάδε πληροῖ 
50 \ δὲ x θέ con ὃ \ a > aA \ ὃ \ a 
αὖθις, Ta δὲ πληρωθέντα ῥεῖ διὰ τῶν ὀχετῶν καὶ διὰ τῆς 
- / / 
γῆς, καὶ eis τοὺς τόπους ἕκαστα ἀφικνούμενα, εἰς ods 
. al \ 
ἑκάστους ὁδοποιεῖται, θαλάττας Te Kal λίμνας Kal ποταμοὺς 
\ / "»" » 7 / \ κ ~ 
καὶ κρήνας ποιεῖ. ἐντεῦθεν δὲ πάλιν δυόμενα κατὰ τῆς γῆς, 
\ / ’ \ \ 
Ta μὲν μακροτέρους τόπους περιέλθόντα Kai πλείους, τὰ 
\ / \ / / > \ / 
δὲ ἐλάττους καὶ βραχυτέρους, πάλιν εἰς τὸν Τάρταρον 
» \ \ \ / A > lal \ \ 
ἐμβάλλει, τὰ μὲν πολὺ κατωτέρω ἢ ἐπηντλεῖτο, τὰ δὲ 
,ὔ s a a fo) \ 
odityov' πάντα δὲ ὑποκάτω εἰσρεῖ τῆς ἐκροῆς. Kal Evia μὲν 
\ e an / \ x \ \ / 
καταντικρὺ ἡ εἰσρεῖ ἐξέπεσεν, ἔνια δὲ κατὰ TO αὐτὸ μέρος" 
» \ \ ἃ 7 / / x Ψ x 
ἔστι δὲ καὶ ἃ παντάπασι κύκλῳ περιελθόντα, ἢ ἅπαξ ἢ 
\ / / \ \ n ef e Μ 
καὶ πλεονάκις περιελιχθέντα περὶ τὴν γῆν ὥσπερ οἱ ὄφεις, 
> \ \ \ > 
εἰς TO δυνατὸν κάτω καθέντα πάλιν ἐμβάλλει. δυνατὸν ὃ 
ἴω / / ” 
ἐστὶν ἑκατέρωσε μέχρι τοῦ μέσου καθιέναι, πέρα 8 ov. 
» a \ / 
ἄναντες yap ἀμφοτέροις τοῖς ῥεύμασι τὸ ἑκατέρωθεν 
’ / 
γίγνεται μέρος. 
\ / 
Ta μὲν οὖν δὴ ἄλλα πολλά TE Kal μεγάλα Kal 
᾿] Μ / 
παντοδαπὰ ῥεύματά ἐστι' τυγχάνει δ᾽ apa ὄντα ἐν τούτοις 
- A > \ / 
τοῖς πολλοῖς τέτταρ ἄττα ῥεύματα, @Y TO μὲν μέγιστον 
\ > , κὰν \ 7, ς 7 > / > 
καὶ ἐξωτάτω ῥέον περὶ κύκλῳ ὁ καλούμενος ᾿ῶκεανὸς ἐστι, 
’ ,ὔ , » / > 
τούτου δὲ καταντικρὺ καὶ ἐναντίως ῥέων ᾿Αχέρων, ὃς δι 
᾽ 7 / tn ΝΜ Ν \ \ e Ν a and > 
ἐρήμων Te τόπων ῥεῖ ἄλλων καὶ δὴ Kal ὑπὸ γῆν ῥέων εἰς 
\ / ᾽ a \ ai 7 ° e A 
τὴν λίμνην ἀφικνεῖται τὴν ᾿ΑἈχερουσιάδα, ov αἱ τῶν 
a - r / 
τετελευτηκότων ψυχαὶ τῶν πολλῶν ἀφικνοῦνται καί τινας 
΄ , 7 e \ 
εἱμαρμένους χρόνους μείνασαι, αἱ μὲν μακροτέρους, ai δὲ 
- / 
βραχυτέρους, πάλιν ἐκπέμπονται εἰς Tas τῶν ζώων γενέσεις. 
\ \ 
τρίτος δὲ ποταμὸς τούτων κατὰ μέσον ἐκβάλλει, Kal ἐγγὺς 
fal - , / fal / 
τῆς ἐκβολῆς ἐκπίπτει eis τόπον μέγαν πυρὶ πολλῷ Kaopevor, 


THE PHAEDO MYTH 89 


swingeth and surgeth up and down, and the air and wind surge 
with it; for the wind goeth with it when it rusheth to the 
further side of the Earth, and with it returneth hitherward ; 
and even as the breath of living creatures is driven forth and 
drawn in as a stream continually, so there also the wind, 
swinging with the flood, cometh in and goeth out, and causeth 
terrible, mighty tempests. Now, when the water rusheth back 
into the place “beneath,” as men speak, coming unto the 
region of the streams which run through that part of the 
Earth, it floweth into them and filleth them, as men fill 
reservoirs with pumps; but when it ebbs again from thence 
and rusheth hither, it filleth again the streams here, which, 
being full, run through their conduits and through the Earth, 
coming severally to those places whither they are bound, and 
make seas and lakes and rivers and fountains. Thence they 
sink under the Earth again, and some, having fetched a longer 
compass and some a shorter, fall again into Tartarus, some far 
beneath the channel into which they were pumped up, and 
some a little way beneath; but all flow into Tartarus again 
beneath the places of their outflowing. Some waters there be 
that, coming forth out of the Earth at one side thereof, flow 
in at the contrary side; and some that go in and come out on 
the same side; and some there be that go round the whole 
Earth and are wound about it once—yea, perchance, many 
times, like serpents. These rivers pour their waters back 
into Tartarus as low down as water can fall. Now, it can fall 
as far as the centre in each way, but no further: each half of 
the Earth 15. ἃ hill against the stream that floweth from the 
side of the other half. 

“Now there are many great rivers of divers sorts, but 
amongst these there are four chiefest: whereof that one which 
is greatest, and floweth round the outermost, is that which is 
called Ocean, and over against him is Acheron, which floweth 
the contrary way, and flowing through desert places and also 
under the Earth, cometh to the Acherusian Lake, whither the 
Souls of the most part of the dead do come, and having 
sojourned there certain appointed times, some longer, some 
shorter, are again led forth to be born in the flesh. The 
third river issues forth betwixt these, and, near unto the 
part whence it issues forth, falleth into a great place burning 


90 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ , a , a Ε] ‘oA 7 / 
καὶ λίμνην ποιεῖ μείζω τῆς παρ᾽ ἡμῖν θαλάττης, ζέουσαν 
“ \ a > rn \ lal / \ \ 
ὕδατος καὶ πηλοῦ: ἐντεῦθεν δὲ χωρεῖ κύκλῳ θολερὸς καὶ 
, / \ “~ “ ~ 
Β πηλώδης, περιελιττόμενος δὲ [TH yn] ἄλλοσέ TE ἀφικνεῖται 
> > a > 
καὶ παρ᾽ ἔσχατα τῆς ᾿Αχερουσιάδος λίμνης, οὐ ξυμμι- 
, A cf \ \ / e \ an 
yvupevos τῴ ὕδατι: περιελιχθεὶς δὲ πολλάκις ὑπὸ γῆς 
> / / fa) / e > ᾽ \ ἃ 
ἐμβάλλει κατωτέρω τοῦ Ταρτάρου. οὗτος δ᾽ ἐστὶν ὃν 
> / / 2 \ e « ἢ ᾽ 
ἐπονομάζουσι ἹἸΠυριφλεγέθοντα, οὗ καὶ οἱ ῥύακες ἀπο- 
σπάσματα ἀναφυσῶσιν, ὅπῃ ἂν τύχωσι τῆς γῆς. τούτου δὲ 
e / / al / 
av καταντικρὺ ὁ τέταρτος ἐκπίπτει εἰς τόπον πρῶτον δεινὸν 
A e 
τε Kal ἄγριον, ὡς λέγεται, χρῶμα δὲ ἔχοντα ὅλον οἷον ὁ 
/ ἃ ὃ} > / ἘΣ 4 \ ‘\ / A 
C xvavos, dv δὴ ἐπονομάζουσι Στύγιον, Kal τὴν λίμνην, ἣν 
- e \ ᾽ / e ᾽ > \ > A 
ποιεῖ ὁ ποταμὸς ἐμβάλλων, Στύγα. ὁ δ᾽ ἐμπεσὼν ἐνταῦθα 
\ \ ΄ \ > my ee \ \ a An 
καὶ δεινὰς δυνάμεις λαβὼν ἐν τῷ ὕδατι, SVs κατὰ τῆς γῆς, 
/ an - 
περιελιττόμενος χωρεῖ ἐναντίος τῷ [Ιυριφλεγέθοντι καὶ 
> ΠΣ A "A (ὃ wi > ? / ἐ \ δὲ \ 
ἀπαντᾷ ἐν τῇ Ἀχερουσιάδι λίμνῃ ἐξ ἐναντίας" καὶ οὐδὲ TO 
/ e > \ / ? \ \ = / 
τούτου ὕδωρ ovdevi μίγνυται, ἀλλὰ Kal οὗτος κύκλῳ 
\ > / ᾽ \ / > / Lal 
περιελθὼν ἐμβάλλει εἰς τὸν Τάρταρον ἐναντίως τῷ 
\ 
Πυριφλεγέθοντι: ὄνομα δὲ τούτῳ ἐστίν, ὡς οἱ ποιηταὶ 
/ 
λέγουσι, Kwxutos. 
/ 
D Τούτων δὲ οὕτω πεφυκότων, ἐπειδὰν ἀφίκωνται οἱ 
/ ’ [ 
τετελευτηκότες εἰς τὸν τόπον, οἷ ὁ δαίμων ἕκαστον κομίζει, 
lal A e , 
πρῶτον μὲν διεδικάσαντο οἵ τε καλῶς καὶ ὁσίως βιώσαντες 
\ e / \ \ \ x 4 4 / 
καὶ οἱ μή. Kal of μὲν ἂν δόξωσι μέσως βεβιωκέναι, 
/ > \ \ > / > / ἃ \ > Lal 
πορευθέντες ἐπὶ τὸν ‘Ayépovta, ἀναβάντες ἃ δὴ αὐτοῖς 
lal \ 
ὀχήματά ἐστιν, ἐπὶ τούτων ἀφικνοῦνται εἰς τὴν λίμνην, 
- n , / al / 
καὶ ἐκεῖ οἰκοῦσί Te Kal καθαιρόμενοι TOV τε ἀδικημάτων 
/ a 
διδόντες δίκας ἀπολύονται, εἴ τίς τι ἠδίκηκε, τῶν TE 
rn “Δλ ᾽ 
Ε εὐεργεσιῶν τιμὰς φέρονται κατὰ τὴν ἀξίαν ἕκαστος" οἱ ὃ 
/ lal 
ἂν δόξωσιν ἀνιάτως ἔχειν διὰ τὰ μεγέθη τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων, 
/ , 
ἢ ἱεροσυλίας πολλὰς Kal μεγάλας ἢ φόνους ἀδίκους καὶ 
/ \ ᾽ / x ΝΜ Ὁ“ a 
παρανόμους πολλοὺς ἐξειργασμένοι, ἢ ἄλλα ὅσα τοιαῦτα 
/ ω e ᾽ 
τυγχάνει ὄντα, τούτους δὲ ἡ προσήκουσα μοῖρα ῥίπτει εἰς 
\ / “ Μ ᾽ / \ ’ δ ,7 
tov Τάρταρον, ὅθεν οὔποτε ἐκβαίνουσιν. οἱ δ᾽ ἂν ἰάσιμα 
/ id / \ 
μέν, μεγάλα δὲ δόξωσιν ἡμαρτηκέναι ἁμαρτήματα, οἷον πρὸς 
, ᾽ ~ ’ ’ 
πατέρα ἢ μητέρα ὑπ᾽ ὀργῆς βίαιόν τι πράξαντες, καί, 
lal \ Μ “ A U 
114 μεταμέλον αὐτοῖς, τὸν ἄλλον βίον βιῶσιν, ἢ ἀνδροφόνοι 
/ a 
τοιούτῳ τινὲ ἄλλῳ τρόπῳ γένωνται, τούτους δὲ ἐμπεσεῖν 
/ \ \ 
μὲν eis τὸν Τάρταρον ἀνάγκη, ἐμπεσόντας δὲ αὐτοὺς Kal 
la \ rn \ \ 
ἐνιαυτὸν ἐκεῖ γενομένους ἐκβάλλει TO κῦμα, τοὺς μὲν 


ΤῊΝ PHARDO MYTH 91 


with much fire, and maketh a lake greater than our Sea, 
seething with water and mud; thence it fetcheth a compass, 
and going thick and muddy, and winding round the Earth, 
cometh at last unto the coasts of the Acherusian Lake, mixing 
not with the water thereof. Then after many windings under 
the Earth it poureth itself into a lower part of Tartarus, 
This is the river which they name Pyriphlegethon, whereof 
also the fiery floods which boil up in divers places of the 
Karth are derivations, Over against him the fourth river 
issues forth, first into a fearful savage place, they tell, which 
hath wholly the colour of blue steel; and they call it the 
Stygian place, and the Lake which the river maketh with his 
flood they call Styx; whereinto this river falling conceiveth 
mighty virtues in his water, and afterward sinketh under the 
Earth, and windeth round, going contrary to Pyriphlegethon, 
and cometh to the Acherusian Lake from the contrary side: 
neither doth his water mix with any; but he also goeth 
round about, and falleth into Tartarus over against Pyri- 
phlegethon. The name of this river, the poets tell, is 
Cocytus. 

“When the dead are come unto the place whither his 
Familiar bringeth each, first are they judged, and according 
as they have lived righteous and godly lives, or lived un- 
righteously, are they divided. Thereafter all those who are 
deemed to have lived indifferently well journey unto Acheron, 
and go on board the vessels which are prepared for them, and 
so come to the Lake; and abiding there, get themselves 
cleansed, and paying the price of their evil deeds, are 
acquitted from the guilt thereof; and for their good deeds 
receive each the reward that is meet. But whoso are deemed 
incurable by reason of the greatness of their sins, robbers of 
temples, and those who have oftentimes shed blood unlaw- 
fully, or wrought other iniquities that are great, them the 
appointed Angel doth cast into Tartarus, and thence they 
come not out at all: and whoso are deemed to have com- 
mitted sins great but curable, who in wrath have violently 
entreated father or mother and have repented them thereof 
all the days of their lives thereafter, or who in like manner are 
manslayers, they must needs fall into Tartarus, but when they 
have been there one year, the surge casts them forth, the 


92 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


/ / 
ἀνδροφόνους κατὰ τὸν Κωκυτόν, τοὺς δὲ πατραλοίας καὶ 
\ ; 
μητραλοίας κατὰ τὸν ἸΤ]υριφλεγέθοντα: ἐπειδὰν δὲ φερόμε- 
\ / > ca) 
vow γένωνται κατὰ τὴν λίμνην τὴν ᾿Αχερουσιάδα, ἐνταῦθα 
κ᾿ “ \ 
βοῶσί te καὶ καλοῦσιν, οἱ μὲν ods ἀπέκτειναν, of δὲ ods 
“ / ’ id / \ / 1” »" 
Β ὕβρισαν, καλέσαντες δ᾽ ἱκετεύουσι καὶ δέονται ἐᾶσαι σφᾶς 
᾽ n > \ / \ / \ ΝᾺ \ 4 
ἐκβῆναι εἰς τὴν λίμνην καὶ δέξασθαι, καὶ ἐὰν μὲν πείσωσιν, 
/ fal a) / 
ἐκβαίνουσί τε καὶ λήγουσι τῶν κακῶν, εἰ δὲ μή, φέρονται 
a > \ / 
αὖθις eis τὸν Τάρταρον κἀκεῖθεν πάλιν εἰς τοὺς ποταμούς, 
fal / / 

Kal ταῦτα πάσχοντες οὐ πρότερον παύονται, πρὶν ἂν 
4 \ ἢ \ n 
πείσωσιν ods ἠδίκησαν: αὕτη yap ἡ δίκη ὑπὸ τῶν 
-“ a ε' \ / / 
δικαστῶν αὐτοῖς ἐτάχθη. οἱ δὲ δὴ ἂν δόξωσι διαφερόντως 
\ rn e an la) / 
πρὸς TO ὁσίως βιῶναι, οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ τῶνδε μὲν τῶν τόπων 

‘a > an ΩΝ / / \ > / “ 
τῶν ἐν τῇ γῇ ἐλευθερούμενοί τε καὶ ἀπαλλαττόμενοι ὥσπερ 
\ \ / 

c δεσμωτηρίων, ἄνω δὲ εἰς τὴν καθαρὰν οἴκησιν ἀφικνούμενοι 
\ a, a el > / / \ > lal e / 
καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς οἰκιζόμενοι. τούτων δὲ αὐτῶν οἱ φιλοσοφίᾳ 
lal a \ / 
ἱκανῶς καθηράμενοι ἄνευ Te σωμάτων ζῶσι τὸ παράπαν 

> / / / 
εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον, Kal εἰς οἰκήσεις ETL τούτων καλλίους 
en ’ al , ς / e \ 
ἀφικνοῦνται, ἃς οὔτε ῥάδιον δηλῶσαι οὔτε ὁ χρόνος ἱκανὸς 
“Ὁ / 

ἐν τῴ παρόντι. 
’ * , > 
Αλλὰ τούτων δὴ ἕνεκα χρὴ ὧν διεληλύθαμεν, ὦ 
rn a / al / A / 
Σιμμία, πᾶν ποιεῖν, ὥστε ἀρετῆς καὶ φρονήσεως ἐν TO βίῳ 


μετασχεῖν: καλὸν γὰρ τὸ ἄθλον καὶ ἡ ἐλπὶς μεγάλη. 


THE PHARDO MYTH 93 


manslayers by Cocytus, and the slayers of father or mother 
by Pyriphlegethon ; and when they are carried down and are 
come to the Acherusian Lake, there they cry out aloud unto 
those whom they slew or used despitefully, and call upon them 
and beseech them with prayers that they will suffer them to 
come out into the Lake and will receive them; and if they 
prevail, they come out and cease from their torments; but if 
they prevail not, they are carried back into Tartarus, and 
thence again into the rivers, and they cease not from this 
torment till they have prevailed with those whom they have 
wronged ; for this was the doom that was appointed of the 
Judges unto them. But whosoever are deemed to have been 
godly above others in their lives, they are released from these 
places in the Earth, and depart from them as from a prison- 
house, and come unto the Pure Mansions which are above, and 
dwell upon the Earth. And of these whoso have cleansed 
themselves throughly by Wisdom live without fleshly bodies 
for evermore, and come to yet fairer Mansions, whereof it 
is not easy to tell, nor doth the time now suffice for the 
telling. Nevertheless, by that which hath been told are we 
admonished to do all so that we may lay hold of Righteousness 
and Wisdom in this life; for the prize is fair and the hope 
is great.” 


94 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHAEDO MYTH 
I 


We may begin by noting that Plato here, as elsewhere, 
gives verisimilitude to Myth by making it explain facts, or 
what he accepts as facts, and bringing it, as far as possible, 
into conformity with the “modern science” of his day. The 
fact of the Earth’s rotundity had already been ascertained— 
or guessed—in Plato’s day ;' and the geography of the Myth 
is made consistent with this fact, as well as with the supposed 
“fact” of the Earth’s central position in the Cosmos—a 
position which it retains for a sufficient reason, which Plato 
sets forth “scientifically.” The Phaedo Myth, starting with 
the “scientific truths” of the Earth’s rotundity and central 
position, gives a consistent geography, which makes it easy 
for the reader to localise the “ Earthly Paradise” and Tartarus, 
as real places continuous with the part of the world which 
men inhabit. Geography is treated in this Myth, as ancient 
history may, or must, be treated according to Plato—romanti- 
cally: the general scheme is, as far as possible, true to facts ; 
but blanks are filled in by puOoroyia.” The line between 
uncritical “ science” and μυθολογία is difficult to draw, and 
Plato knows how to turn the difficulty to artistic, and more 
than that—to philosophic use. A sophistic use of the difficulty 
he happily has no temptation to make, because he holds no 
brief obliging him to contend for a large amount of literal 
truth in the traditional myths which he borrows. 

Again, the Phaedo Myth recommends itself to the “scien- 
tific mind” by explaining the origin of hot and cold springs, 
voleanic action, winds, and, I think, the tides of the Atlantic 
Ocean. The suggestion, too, that gems—objects which have 





| See Zeller’s Plato, Engl. Transl. pp. 379, 380. 

2 See Republic, 382 p, καὶ ἐν als viv δὴ ἐλέγομεν ταῖς μυθολογίαις, διὰ τὸ μὴ 
εἰδέναι ὅπῃ τἀληθὲς ἔχει περὶ τῶν παλαιῶν, ἀφομοιοῦντες τῷ ἀληθεῖ τὸ ψεῦδος ὅτι 
μάλιστα οὕτω χρήσιμον ποιοῦμεν ; καὶ μάλα, ἢ δ᾽ bs. Cf. Legg. 682 ff., where the 
early history of mankind appears as a myth, founded on fact, but embellished— 
πολλῶν τῶν κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν γιγνομένων ξύν τισι χάρισι Kal Μούσαις ἐφάπτεται 
ἑκάστοτε ; and cf, Campbell's Politicus, Introd, p. xxxi. 


THE PHAELDO MYTH 95 


always been regarded with wonder, as possessing mysterious 
virtues—are fragments which have found their way down to 
this part of the world from the rocks of the “ Karthly Para- 
dise,” is a touch of fine imagination which helps to bring the 
two regions—our part of the world and the “ Earthly Para- 
dise””"—into physical connection.’ ‘Tartarus and the True 
Surface of the Earth, or Earthly Paradise, are indeed real 
places to which there are real approaches for the ghostly 
travellers from this οἰκουμένη. The care, half playful, 
half earnest, which Plato takes to prove this scientifically 
from observed effects — volcanoes, tides, precious stones — 
has its parallel in the method of Dante and other great 
masters of Myth. Skilful use of “modern science” is indeed 
one of the marks of the great master. Before referring to 
Dante for this, let me first compare Plato’s delicate handling of 
“science ” in the Phaedo Myth with the work of one who is cer- 
tainly not a great master of Myth—the Cambridge Platonist, 
Dr. Henry More; but let me preface his “Myth” with a few 
words explanatory of the “science” which serves as foundation 
to his “ mythology.” 

The Spirit of Nature, according to More and his school, 
is an incorporeal substance, without sense, diffused through 
the whole universe, exercising plastic power, producing 
those phenomena which cannot be explained mechanically.* 
This plastic principle in nature explains “sympathetic 
cures,” the “astral bodies” (the phrase More borrows 
from the Paracelsians) of witches, in which they appear as 
hares, cats, weasels (so that if the hare or other animal is 
wounded, the witch is found to be similarly wounded—More 
was a firm believer in all that, and could give “scientific ” 
reasons for his belief), the growth of plants and embryos, and 
the instincts of animals, such as the nest-building instinct of 
birds, the cocoon-spinning instinct of silk-worms.* The Soul 
of man partakes in this plastic principle, and by means of it 
constructs for herself a body terrestrial, aerial, or aethereal 
(ὦ... celestial), according as the stage of her development has 

1 Cf. Conv. iv. 20, p. 323, Oxf. Dante: ‘‘ E cosi é difinita questa nostra Bonta, 
la quale in noi similmente discende da somma e spirituale Virti, come virtute in 
pietra da corpo nobilissimo celestiale. 


2 More’s Immortality of the Soul, book iii. ch. 12. 
3 More, o.c. iii. 18. 


96 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


brought her into vital relation with the vehicle of earth, air, 
or aether. “As we see,” he says,’ “that the perceptive part of 
the Soul is vitally affected with that which has no life in it, 
so it is reasonable that the plastich part thereof may be so too; 
that there may be an Harmony betwixt matter thus and thus 
modified, and that Power that we call plastick that is utterly 
devoid of all perception, And in this alone consists that which 
we call Vital Congruity in the prepared matter either to be 
organised or already shaped into the perfect form of an Ani- 
mal.” He then lays it down as an “axiome”” that “there 
is a Triple Vital Congrwity in the Soul, namely, Aethereal, 
Aerial, and Terrestrial”; and proceeds: “That this is the 
common opinion of the Platonists, I have above intimated 
(Immortality of the Soul, ii. 14). That this opinion is also 
true in itself, appears from the foregoing axiome. Of the 
Terrestrial Congruity there can be no doubt; and as little can 
there be but that at least one of the other two is to be granted, 
else the Soul would be released from all vital union with 
matter after Death. Wherefore she has a vital aptitude, at 
least, to unite with Aire. But Acre is a common receptacle 
of bad and good spirits (as the Harth is of all sorts of men 
and beasts), nay, indeed, rather of those that are in some sort 
or other bad, than of good, as it is upon Karth. But the Soul 
of man is capable of very high refinements, even to a condition 
purely angelical, whence Reason will judge it fit, and all Anti- 
quity has voted it, that the souls of men arrived to such 
a due pitch of purification must at last obtain Celestial 
vehicles.” 

The Soul, by means of her plastic power, moulds the 
vehicle—earth, air, or aether—to any form she pleases; but 
having been first habituated to the human shape in the terres- 
trial body, she naturally moulds the aerial and celestial 
vehicles to the same shape. This is why ghosts (in whom 
More is a firm believer),® being the Souls of the departed in 
their aerial bodies, are easily recognised by their features, when 

! More, o.c. ii. 14. 2 More, o.c. iii. 28. 

3 See Immortality of the Soul, ii. 16, for the wonderfully well-told story of 
Marsilius Ficinus appearing (by arrangement) on the day of his death to his 
friend Michael Mereatus. He rides up to Michael’s window on a white 
horse, saying, ‘‘ Michael, Michael, vera sunt illa.’’ Michael sends to Florence, 


and finds that Marsilius died the same hour his ghost appeared at the 
window. 


THE ΠΑΡῸ MYTH 97 


they return to the scenes of their terrestrial life.’ Now, it 
may be asked what the effect of the Final Destruction of the 
World by Fire at the Last Day will be on the human souls 
which then have still only terrestrial bodies, and on the human 
souls and souls of Daemons (or Angels) which have still only 
aerial bodies. These bodies, unless saved by a miracle, will be 
burnt up, and their souls, having no vehicles, will cease to live 
the life of active consciousness.” Therefore, More argues,’ using 
Stoical terms, an ἀποκατάστασις and παλυγγενεσία after the 
ἀνάστασις and ἐκπύρωσις would not meet their case ; for a 
soul whose body had been burnt would have ceased to be con- 
scious, and παλυγγενεσία would only bring it back to con- 
sciousness a different being. It will require supernatural 
means to rescue the souls of good men and Daemons (or 
Angels) at the time of the Final Conflagration, or even 


1 Cf. More’s Philosophical Poems, p. 260 (ed. 1647) :— 


In shape they walk much like to what they bore 
Upon the Earth: for that light Orb of Air 
Which they inact must yielden evermore 
To Phansie’s beck, so when the Souls appear 
To their own selves alive as once they were, 
So cloath’d and conversant in such a place, 
The inward eyes of Phansie thither stear 
Their gliding vehicle, that bears the face 
Of him that liv’d, that men may reade what Wight it was. 


Similarly Dante (Purg. xxv. 91-99) explains the aerial bodies of the souls in 
Purgatory :— 

E come 1᾿ aer, quand’ ὁ ben piorno, 
Per |’ altrui raggio che in sé si riflette, 
Di diversi color diventa adorno, 

Cosi |’ aer vicin quivi si mette 
In quella forma che in lui suggella 
Virtualmente |’ alma che ristette : 

E simigliante poi alla fiammella 
Che segue il foco la ’vunque si muta, 
Segue allo spirto sua forma novella. 


See also More’s Immortality of the Soul, iii. 1, § 8, p. 149, where it is stated 
that the Soul, although she has a marvellous power, by the imperium of her will, 
of changing the temper and shape of her aerial vehicle, and of solidifying it so 
that it reflects light and becomes visible, she has a much greater power over her 
aethereal vehicle. The aethereally embodied soul can temper the solidity of her 
vehicle (see Jmmortality of the Soul, p. 233), so as to ascend or descend, and 

from one ‘‘ vortex’”’ to another. More looks forward (Defence of the Moral 
Cabbala, ch. ii. p. 165) to the Millennium as the time when, instead of occasional 
communications between souls terrestrially and aethereally embodied, there will 
be close and constant intercourse. 

2 ««The very nature of the Soul, as it is a Soul, is an aptitude of informing 
a actuating Body.”—More’s Defence of the Moral Cabbaia, ch. ii. p. 167, 
ed. 1662. 

3 More, Immortality of the Soul, iii. 18. 


H 


98 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


before that time, when the extinction of the sun—presaged 
by his spots recently discovered by one Shiner /—takes place. 
Neither terrestrial nor aerial bodies could, without the interven- 
tion of a miracle, survive such heat or such cold. But it is only 
in this lower part of the universe that such destructive agencies 
can operate. The aethereal region will not be affected by 
them; and souls which have reached the stage of aethereal 
or celestial embodiment will remain unharmed. 

So much for the “science” which serves to give plausibility 
to the following Myth, as we may well call it :— 


The greatest difficulty is to give a rational account whence 
the Bad Geni have their food, in their execrable Feasts, so formally 
made up into dishes. That the materials of it is a vaporous Aire, 
appears as well from the faintness and emptiness of them that 
have been entertained at those Feasts, as from their forbidding the 
use of Salt at them, it having a virtue of dissolving of all aqueous 
substances, as well as hindering their congelation. But how Aire 
is moulded up into that form and consistency, it is very hard to 
conceive: whether it be done by the mere power of Imagination 
upon their own Vehicles, first dabled in some humidities that 
are the fittest for their design, which they change into these forms 
of Viands, and then withdraw, when they have given them such 
a figure, colour, and consistency, with some small touch of such 
a sapour or tincture; or whether it be the priviledge of these 
Aereal Creatures, by a sharp Desire and keen Imagination, to pierce 
the Spirit of Nature, so as to awaken her activity, and engage 
her to the compleating in a moment, as it were, the full design of 
their own wishes, but in such matter as the Element they are 
in is capable of, which is this crude and vaporous Aire; whence 
their food must be very dilute and flashie, and rather a mockery 
than any solid satisfaction and pleasure. 

But those Superiour Daemons, which inhabit that part of the 
Aire that no storm nor tempest can reach, need be put to no such 
shifts, though they may be as able in them as the other. For in 
the tranquillity of those upper Regions, that Promus-Condus of the 
Universe, the Spirit of Nature, may silently send forth whole Gardens 
and Orchards of most delectable fruits and flowers of an equilibri- 
ous ponderosity to the parts of the dire they grow in, to whose 
shape and colours the transparency of these Plants may adde 
a particular lustre, as we see it is in precious stones. And the 
Chymists are never quiet till the heat of their Fancy have calcined 
and vitrified the Earth into a crystalline pellucidity, conceiting 
that it will then be a very fine thing indeed, and all that then 


1 More, Immortality of the Soul, iii. 19. 


THE PHARDO MYTH 99 


grows out of it: which desirable spectacle they may haply enjoy 
in a more perfect manner whenever they are admitted into those 
higher Regions of the Aire. For the very Soile then under them 
shall be transparent, in which they may trace the very Roots of 
the Trees of this Superiour Paradise with their eyes, and if it may 
not offend them, see this opake Earth through it, bounding their 
sight with such a white faint splendour as is discovered in the 
Moon, with that difference of brightness that will arise from the 
distinction of Land and Water; and if they will recreate their 
palats, may taste of such Fruits as whose natural juice will vie 
with their noblest Extractions and Quintessences. For such cer- 
tainly will they there find the blood of the Grape, the rubie- 
coloured Cherries, and Nectarines. 

And if, for the compleating of the pleasantness of these habi- 
tations, that they may look less like a silent and dead solitude, they 
meet with Birds and Beasts of curious shapes and colours, the single 
accents of whose voices are very grateful to the Ear, and the vary- 
ing of their notes perfect musical harmony ; they would doe very 
kindly to bring us word back of the certainty of these things, and 
make this more than a Philosophical Conjecture. 

But that there may be Food and Feasting in those higher 
Aereal Regions, is less doubted by the Platonists; which makes 
Maximus Tyrius call the Soul, when she has left the body, θρέμμα 
αἰθέριον ; and the above-cited Oracle of Apollo describes the Felicity 
of that Chorus of immortal Lovers he mentions there, from feasting 
together with the blessed Genii— 


[ ’ » 4 
ὅσοις κέαρ ἐν θαλίῃσιν 
5Ἀ Jee , 

αἰὲν ἐδφροσύνῃσιν ἰαίνεται. 


So that the Nectar and Ambrosia of the Poets may not be a mere 
fable. For the Spirit of Nature, which is the immediate Instru- 
ment of God, may enrich the fruits of these dereal Paradises with 
such liquors, as being received into the bodies of these purer 
Daemons, and diffusing it self through their Vehicles, may cause 
such grateful motions analogical to our fast, and excite such a 
more than ordinary quickness in their minds, and benign chearful- 
ness, that it may far transcend the most delicate Refection that 
the greatest Epicures could ever invent upon Earth; and that 
without all satiety, burdensomeness, it filling them with nothing 
but Divine Love, Joy, and Devotion. 


It is very difficult to \disentangle the motives which go 
to the production of a passage like this. We should say 


1 More’s Immortality of the Soul, iii. 9, pp. 183, 184, ed. 1662. The 
indebtedness of More’s ‘‘ Myth” to the Platonic, and Stoic mythology of 
τὰ περὶ γῆν inhabited by δαίμονες and human souls, is obvious. For further 
reference to that mythology see infra, pp. 437 if. 


100 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


without hesitation that the writer wished to adorn his 
discourse with a myth, if we did not know how uncritical 
his “ science” was, and how credulous he was in accepting, as 
literally true, things quite as visionary as those here described. 
In his Antidote against Atheism he shows how thoroughly he 
believes current stories about the doings of witches and ghosts 
(see especially Book ui. chap. vii. of that work, for the story of 
Anne Bodenham, a witch, who suffered at Salisbury in 1653), 
and how valuable he holds these stories to be as evidence for 
the immortality of the Soul; indeed, in the Preface to his 
Philosophickal Poems he goes the length of expressing the 
wish that stories of witchcraft and apparitions “ were publicly 
recorded in every parish,’ for “that course continued would 
prove one of the best antidotes against that earthly and cold 
disease of Sadducisme and Atheisme which may easily grow 
upon us, if not prevented, to the hazard of all Religion and 
the best kinds of Philosophy.” It is to be noted, however, 
that Cudworth and Smith are not so credulous as More. 
Cudworth may be said to be a cautious believer in apparitions, 
and dwells on the Scripture evidence for demoniacal possession, 
and not, like More, on that afforded by modern stories ;* 
while Smith, in a sermon preached on an occasion when 
credulity seemed to be required,” expresses himself in a 
manner which makes one feel that he was in advance of 
his age. 

There is just one general remark I should like to make 
in taking leave of More for the present :—That facility of 
scientific explanation is apt to make men indifferent about 
the substantiation of the facts, as facts. The facility of 
scientific explanation afforded by the hypothesis of “ plastick 
power” doubtless made it more easy for More and other 
Cambridge Platonists to accept as sufficient the evidence 
forthcoming for the actual appearance of ghosts and’ Daemons. 
Facility of scientific explanation is a danger which we have to 
be on our guard against at the present day too. 

The true object of the Phaedo Myth is, indeed, moral and 


1 Intellectual System, vol. ii. p. 640 (ed. Mosheim). 

2 Discourse 10, Of a Christian's Conflicts with and Conqucsts over Satan, 
“delivered in publick at Huntingdon, where one of Queen’s College, in every 
year on March 25, preached a Sermon against Witchcraft, Diabolical Contracts, 
etc.” ; see Worthington’s Preface to Smith's Select Discowrses. 


THE PHALDO MYTH 101 


religious, not in any way scientific—its true object is to give 
expression to man’s sense of responsibility, which it does in 
the form of a vivid history, or spectacle, of the connected life- 
stages of an immortal personality. This moral and religious 
object, however, is served best, if the history or spectacle, 
though carefully presented as a creation of fancy, is not made 
too fantastical, but is kept at least consistent with “ modern 
science.” ' It is of the greatest importance that the student 
of the philosophy of Plato’s Myths should learn to appreciate 
the terms of this alliance between Myth and Science ;* and I 
do not know how the lesson can be better learnt than from 
parallel study of Dante’s Divina Commedia, in which all the 
science—moral and physical—of the age is used to give 
verisimilitude to the great μῦθος of medieval Christianity. 
Fortunately, no better instances of the art with which Dante 
presses Science into the service of Myth could be found than 
in his treatment of a subject which has special interest for 
us here, in connection with the geography and geology of the 
Phaedo Myth. This brings me to the second head of obser- 
vations which I have to offer on the Phaedo Myth. 


II 


In this section I wish to draw attention to the parallel 
between Plato’s geography of Tartarus and the True Surface 
of the Earth, and Dante’s geography of Hell and the Mount 
of Purgatory with the Earthly Paradise on its summit. 

The parallel is close. On the one hand, the Phaedo Myth 
and the Divina Commedia stand entirely alone, so far as 
I know, among Eschatological Myths in making Tartarus or 
Hell a chasm bored right through the globe of the Earth 
(διαμπερὲς τετρημένον δι᾿ ὅλης τῆς γῆς, Phaedo, 1114; Inferno, 
XXXlv. swb jin.), with two antipodally placed openings. On 
the other hand, while the Phaedo Myth stands alone among 
Plato’s Eschatological Myths in describing a lofty terrestrial 
region raised, above the elements of water and air, up into the 


1 Aristotle’s canon applies—rpoaipeto@ai re δεῖ ἀδύνατα εἰκότα μᾶλλον ἣ 
δυνατὰ driéava.—Poet. 1460 a 30. 

2 In this connection the reader should turn to Prof. Dill’s illuminating 
remarks on the mixture of science with devotional allegory and myth in the 
Commentary of Macrobius on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio: Roman Society in the 
Last Century of the Western Empire, Book i. ch. iv. pp. 88-90, ed. 1. 


102 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


element of fire or aether, Dante also, in agreement with a 
common medieval belief, places the Earthly Paradise on the 
top of a mountain—his own Mount of Purgatory—which 
rises up into the element of fire. 

The “ Earthly Paradise” of the Phaedo Myth probably 
owes a good deal to the Homeric Olympus; and the Earthly 
Paradise of medieval belief and of the Divina Commedia may 
have derived at least its altitude from the same source. But 
the description of Tartarus as bored night through the Earth, 
unique in Greek mythology, in no way countenanced by Virgil, 
and yet reappearing in the Jnferno, which is so largely modelled 
on the Sixth Book of the Aeneid—this is surely a strange 
coincidence. The Z%maeus (in the version of Chalcidius) was, 
it would appear, the only work of Plato which Dante knew 
directly." There is no evidence whatever—unless this coin- 
cidence be regarded as evidence—that he was acquainted with 
the Latin version of the Phaedo which was made in the 
twelfth century.” It is possible, however, but I hardly think 
likely, that the passage in the Jeteorologica (11. 2, 355 b, 
92 ff.), in which the Phaedo description of Tartarus is referred 
to, may have given Dante the idea of an antipodal exit from 
Hell; although it is to be noted that Aristotle, in criticising 
the hydrostatics of the Phaedo Myth, curiously enough omits 
to quote, or paraphrase, Plato’s emphatic διαμπερὲς τετρημένον; 
and 8. Thomas does not make good the omission in his com- 
mentary on the Aristotelian passage. I do not think that 
any one reading the Aristotelian passage, without having read 
the Phaedo, would easily gather that the Tartarus of the 
Phaedo is bored right through the Earth. Aristotle is 
concerned to show that the theory of a central ai@pa, or 
oscillation, gives a wrong explanation of the origin of seas 
and rivers; and, move suo, he is careless in his description of 
the theory to which he objects. Although the hydrostatics 
of the Quaestio de Aqua et Terra* agree in the main with 


1 See Moore's Studies in Dante, first series, p. 156, and Toynbee’s Dante 
Dictionary, s.v. ‘‘ Platone.” 

2 See Rashdall’s Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, i. 37, ii. 744, 
and Immisch, Philologische Studien zu Plato, pp. 33, 34, Henricus Aristippus 
(Archdeacon of Catania) translated the Phaedo and Meno in 1156. There is a 
MS. of his translation in Corpus Christi College, Oxford (243), written in 
1423 ; see Coxe, ii. 100. 

3 With regard to the authenticity of this treatise see Moore’s Studies in 
Dante, second series, pp. 303 ff. 


THE ΠΑΡ MYTH 103 


those of the Meteorologica, the Inferno is not influenced 
by the Meteorologica, The Inferno follows the traditional 
mythology in supposing subterranean rivers, and, indeed, 
agrees with the account of these rivers given in the Phaedo, 
to the extent, at least, of regarding them as forming a single 
system of waters connected somehow with waters on the 
surface of the Earth. Dante may have been helped to this 
view by Brunetto Latini, who speaks, very much in the same 
way as Plato does, of waters circulating in channels through 
the Earth, like blood through the veins of the body, and 
coming out in springs.’ But mark how the Poet uses these 
mere hydrostatics—how his genius transforms the physical 
relation between the living world and Tartarus into a moral 
relation! It is the ¢ears of this world that flow in the rivers 
of Dante’s Hell.’ 

Let me close this passage on Plato’s Tartarus and Dante's 
Hell with the remark that an antipodal exit from Hell, near 
the Mount of Purgatory, is almost necessary to the movement 
of the Commedia. If such an exit—whether derived directly 
or indirectly from the Phaedo, or obtained from some other 
source—did not already exist among Dante’s mythological 
data, he would practically have been obliged to invent it, and 
offer some explanation of it, such as that which he actually 
offers—the Fall of Lucifer (Jnf. xxxiv.). 

Now to pass on to the parallel between Plato’s “True 
Surface of the Earth” and Dante’s Earthly Paradise on the 
top of the Mount of Purgatory :—Dante’s Mount of Purga- 
tory is definitely a part of this Earth. It is an island, 
antipodal to Jerusalem, in the middle of the ocean which 
covers the southern hemisphere. This island rises up, in a 
series of circular terraces, into one lofty height on which is 
situated the Earthly Paradise,—where our first parents 
were created,—where the souls which have been purified by 


1 See Schmidt, iiber Dantes Stellung in der Geschichte der Kosmographie, 
I. Teil, de Aqua et Terra (1876), p. 7. 

2 Inferno, xiv. Dante probably profited by the crude fancy of predecessors 
in the matter of the contents of the infernal rivers ; see Cary on Jnf. xii. It 
is perhaps worth noticing here that Dante’s River of Blood (Jn/. xii.) has its 
parallel in the Scottish ballad of Thomas the Rhymer :— 


It was mirk mirk night and there was nae stern-light, 
And they waded through red bluid to the knee ; 

For a’ the bluid that’s shed on earth 

Rins through the springs οὐ that countrie (i.e. Elf-land). 


104 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


penance during their ascent of the Mount are gathered 
together, before they drink the waters of Lethe and Eunoé, 
the twin streams of this Paradise, and are translated into the 
Heavenly Paradise. That Purgatory is a real place, on the 
surface of this globe, which an adventurous voyager from our 
hemisphere might possibly reach νηὶ μελαίνῃ, is suggested 
with consummate art in the Jnferno, Canto xxvi., where 
Ulysses describes his last voyage—how, with Ceuta on his 
left and Seville on his right, he sailed out through the Straits, 
and south over the ocean for five months, till the stars of the 
northern hemisphere sank beneath the horizon, and new stars 
appeared in the sky, and he sighted 


A Mountain dim, loftiest, methought, 
Of all I e’er beheld 1— 


and then the storm burst which overwhelmed him. 

Dante’s Mount of Purgatory—for that was the land 
which Ulysses sighted—is identical with the lofty mountain 
on the top of which medieval belief placed the Earthly Para- 
dise; but Dante apparently drew entirely on his own im- 
agination when he localised Purgatory on its slopes.” This 
Mountain of the Earthly Paradise rises, according to the 
medieval belief, as high as the Lunar Sphere *—z.. its upper 
parts are above the air, in the aether or fire, like Plato’s True 
Surface of the Earth. Hence, as S. Thomas explains, the 
Earthly Paradise was not reached by the flood* §. Thomas 
further remarks that Enoch and Elias are said to be now 
in it; also, that it is said to be sub aequinoctiali circulo; but 
he will not vouch for its exact position, only expressing his 
belief that it must be in a “ temperate clime.”® The Arabians, 
whose geographical treatises, and epitomes of the Greek 
geographers, Dante knew in Latin versions,° spoke of a great 

1 Cary’s translation. 

2 See Scartazzini (Companion to Dante, Butler’s Transl. p. 419). ‘‘ Purga- 
tory, so far as form and position go, is a creation quite of the poet’s own.” It 
may, I think, have relationship to the “steep hill of virtue” which the Stoics 
climbed ; see Lucian, Vera Hist. ii. 18—no Stoics were to be seen in the For- 
tunate Island, because they were climbing this hill: τῶν δὲ Στωικῶν οὐδεὶς 
maphv: ἔτι yap ἐλέγοντο ἀναβαίνειν τὸν τῆς ἀρετῆς ὄρθιον λόφον. 

3 See 5, Thom. Aqui. Swmma, i. 102, 2. 

+ Of. Schmidt, Cosmographie des Dante, p. 23. 

5 Summa, i. 102, 2. 


® See Lelewel, Histoire de la Géographie, i. \xxxv., and Toynbee’s Dante 
Dictionary, arts. ‘‘ Alfergano”’ and ‘* Tolommeo!,” 


THE PHABRDO MYTH 105 


mountain in the far south. It is called Mons Caldicus by 
Albertus,’ and Mons Malcus by Roger Bacon, who places it in 
India? The view that this mountain, identified by the 
Christian Schoolmen with the seat of the Earthly Paradise, 
is an island antipodal to Jerusalem in the middle of the 
Southern Ocean (Purg. iv. 70), was due entirely, it would 
seem," to Dante’s own “ scientific imagination ” or “ mythopoeic 
faculty.” According to the doctrine of Orosius, generally 
accepted in Dante’s time, there is no land at all in the 
southern hemisphere. If there were land, its inhabitants 
would be cut off from those of the orbis notus—the unity and 
continuity of the human race, postulated by the command, 
“Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature,” would not exist. The ideal of one Church and one 
Empire (and one Aristotelian Philosophy, as Dante adds in 
the Convivio, iv. 6) requires the geographical condition of one 
continuous οἰκουμένη. Dante’s antipodal island, however, 
being peopled only by the souls of the departed, is in no way 
inconsistent with the teleological geography of Orosius— 
indeed, is made, with consummate art, to corroborate it; for 
the cause which produced the solitary island of Purgatory in 


1 Meteor, ii. 2.7. Cf. Schmidt, Cosm. d. Dante, p. 23. 

2 Op. Maj. pp. 192, 195, ed. prince. Jebb, London. 

3 See Scartazzini’s Companion to Dante, p. 419, Butler’s Eng. Transl. It is, 
however, an island in the Hxeter Book (an Anthology of Anglo-Saxon Poetry 
given to the Library of Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, first Bishop of Exeter, 
1050-1071): see Exeter Book, edited by Israel Gollancz for the Early English 
Text Society, 1895, poem on the ‘‘ Pheenix,” pp. 200 ff: ‘‘ The Earthly Paradise 
is in eastern parts. . . itis all plain. . . isanisland. . . . There the door of 
Heaven's Realm is oft-times opened. . . . It is green and flowery. There is no 
rain there, nor snow nor frost nor fire. It is neither too hot nor too cold. The 
plain (which is quite smooth) is higher than any mountain by 12 fathom 
measures. It escaped the flood. . . . It shall abide perennially blooming till 
the Day of Judgment. Water falls not there, but rises from the turf in the 
midst of the forest each month of the year, and irrigates the grove [we are 
reminded of Dante’s Lethe and Eunoé}. The beautiful grove is inhabited by 
the Phoenix ’—which the Poet then goes on to describe. 

It ought to be mentioned that Claudian (Jdyll. i. 1. Phoenix) makes “the 
Earthly Paradise ” an island :— 


Oceani summo circumfluus aequore lucus 
Trans Indos Eurumque viret. ... 


Mr. Toynbee, however, thinks it doubtful whether Dante had any acquaintance 
with Claudian (see Dante Dict. art. ‘‘Claudianus”). Benvenuto da Imola, in his 
Commentary on the Divina Commedia, quotes Claudian several times, describing 
him, erroneously, as a Florentine ; see Mr. Toynbee’s Index of Authors quoted by 
Benv. da Imola in his Commentary on the D. C. (Annual Report of the Dante 
Society, Cambridge, Mass., 1901). 

4 Orosius, Hist. adv. paganas, i. 2, §§ 87-89 ; vi. 22,§1; vii. 1; vii. 3,4; and 
ef. Moore’s Studies in Dante, first series, pp. 279 ff. 


106 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


the southern hemisphere, simultaneously produced the one 
οἰκουμένη οἵ the northern hemisphere. Lucifer fell on the 
southern hemisphere (/nf. xxxiv.), and the shock of his fall 
submerged the land which originally existed there, and caused 
an equivalent amount of land in the northern hemisphere 
to bulge up above the sea; the Mount of Purgatory, the only 
land now in the southern hemisphere, having been formed 
by the material extruded, as Lucifer, with the force of his fall, 
bored a passage down to the centre of the Earth. Thus does 
Dante give verisimilitude to his mythology of “the abhorred 
worm that boreth through the world” (/nf. xxxiv. 108), by 
making it explain a physical fact, or what the science of his 
day accepted as a fact; and, at the same time, by means of 
the explanation, he brings the fact—so important for the 
doctrine of one Church and one Empire—into clear con- 
nection with a vast system of belief already accepted. When 
the rebel angels—about a tenth part of the original number 
created—were lost to Heaven, the human race was created 
to make good the loss." The descent of the Prince of these 
rebel angels produced, at one blow, Hell, and Purgatory, and 
the One Continent which is the condition of the ecclesiastical 
and civil unity of the human race. All hangs together clearly. 
“Science” recommends Myth, and Myth “Science,” in one 
consistent whole. 

Again, in Purg. xxviii., the distribution of plants in 
our hemisphere, from a common centre of creation, is explained 
in such a way as to make the existence of an Earthly Para- 
dise appear the only hypothesis consistent with “science.” 
The wind which Dante notices with wonder among the trees 
of the Earthly Paradise is caused, he is told, by the rotation, 
from east to west, of the primwm mobile, or crystalline sphere 

1 See Convivio, ii. 6: ‘‘ Dico che di tutti questi Ordini si perderono alquanti 


tosto che furono creati, forse in numero della decima parte ; alla quale restaurare 
fu 1᾿ umana natura poi creata. So also Spenser (An Hymn of Heavenly Love) :— 


But that eternal Fount of Love and Grace, 
Still showing forth his goodness unto all, 
Now seeing left a waste and empty place 
In his wide Palace, through those Angels’ Fall, 
Cast to supply the same, and to enstall 
A new unknowen Colonie therein, 
Whose Root from Earth’s base Ground-work should begin. 


In this Hymn the whole drama worked out by Milton in Paradise Lost and 
Paradise Regained is indicated in outline. 


THE ΜΚ ὼ MYTH 107 


—the ninth sphere counted from that of the moon. The 
rotation of the primum mobile carries round with it the pure 
air or aether in which the Earthly Paradise is bathed; and 
this aether is impregnated with the seeds of the trees of the 
Earthly Paradise, and carries them round to our hemisphere, 
where they germinate according as they find soils and climates 
suitable to their various virtues. Here we have a “ Myth,’ 
in which Faith, Fancy, and Science are blended in the true 
Platonic manner, 

The close parallel between Plato’s “True Surface of the 
Karth” and Dante’s Earthly Paradise has been made evident, 
I trust, by what I have said about the latter. Plato’s “ True 
Surface of the Earth” is a real place in this world, physically 
connected with the region which we inhabit. It is distin- 
guished from our region essentially by its altitude. With its 
foundation, like that of Dante’s Island of Purgatory, bathed 
in the crass elements of water and air, it rises up into the 
region occupied by the element of fire or aether—a region 
which, we must remember, belonged as definitely to the 
domain of “science” for Plato and Dante as the regions of 
water and air, of which men have direct experience. Given 
a sufficient altitude, aether will take the place of air, and 
beneath aether, air will be as water. This is “scientifically ” 
true. It is also in accordance with “science” to believe that 
the inhabitants of the aethereal altitudes live longer, more 
vigorously, and more happily, than we, poor frogs, do, down 
in the mists beside the waters of our hollow. A place has 
been found—or as good as found—by “science,” where the 
souls of the virtuous may live in the enjoyment of the rewards 
of their virtue, and in preparation for an even more blessed 
existence elsewhere. There can be no doubt, I think, that 
the lofty terrestrial Paradise of the Phaedo Myth answers to 
the “Islands of the Blessed” in the Gorgias Myth, to the τὰ 
περὶ γῆν of the Phaedrus Myth, and to the “heaven” or 
οὐρανός of the Myth of Er, from which the souls of the 
virtuous, who have not yet completed their purgatorial course, 
return, after a thousand years’ sojourn, to the “meadow,” in 
order to journey thence to the plain of Lethe, and drink the 


1 Phaedrus, 257 A; and cf. 248 π-249., where τοὐρανοῦ τις τόπος seems to 
answer to τὰ περὶ γῆν, as contrasted with τὰ ὑπὸ γῆς in 257 A. 


108 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


water of the river, and be born again in terrestrial bodies. 
The “Islands of the Blessed” were doubtless pictured by 
Hesiod and Pindar as islands in the ordinary sense, sur- 
rounded by water, somewhere out in the Western Ocean ;?* 
Plato, in the Phaedo, is singular in making them aerial, not 
oceanic. With an art that is charming, he not only gives 
direct “scientific” reasons for believing in the existence of his 
aethereal altitudes of the Earth’s surface (the configuration of 
the Earth in its envelopes of air and aether—deep hollows of 
its surface being compensated for by lofty heights—naturally 
produces such blessed altitudes), but he also knows how to 
add the authority of the poets to the reasons of “science,” 
by making his description of these altitudes recall, not only 
the Homeric Olympus,’ but the Islands of the Blessed as 
described by Hesiod and Pindar. 

The original conception, in Greek as in Celtic ὅ mythology, 
of Islands of the Blessed was that of an Elysium or Paradise, 
somewhere on the surface of the Earth, inhabited by gods, in 
which also certain elect heroes, who have been translated 
thither, enjoy in the flesh eternal felicity. This is the con- 
ception which meets us in Homer,* Hesiod, Pindar, and the 
Hymn to Harmodius and Aristogeiton. But in course of 
time this original conception was modified in the interest of 
morality and religion, especially the religion of the Orphic 
cult, and the Islands of the Blessed came to be regarded as 
the abode of the sowls of the virtuous generally. This view 
is acquiesced in in the Gorgias, where Tartarus indeed appears as 
a Purgatory or place of temporary sojourn for the majority of 
the souls which go thither after judgment; but we are left to 
suppose that virtuous souls which go at once after judgment 
to the Islands of the Blessed remain there thenceforth for 


1 Hesiod, O. et D. 167 :— 


τοῖς δὲ Sly’ ἀνθρώπων βίοτον καὶ Oe’ ὁπάσσας 
Ζεὺς Κρονίδης κατένασσε πατὴρ ἐς πείρατα γαίης. 
καὶ τοὶ μὲν ναίουσιν ἀκήδεα θυμὸν ἔχοντες 

ἐν μακάρων νήσοισι παρ᾽ 'Qxeavdy βαθυδίνην, 
ὄλβιοι ἥρωες, τοῖσιν μελιηδέα καρπόν 

τρὶς ἔτεος θάλλοντα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα. 


32. See Thiemann, die Platonische Eschatologie in ihrer genetischen Entwickelung 
(1892), p. 20. 

3. See Myer and Nutt’s Voyage of Bran, i. 329. 

4 See Rohde, Psyche, i. 69. 


THE ΠΑ ΡΟ MYTH 109 


ever. In the Phaedo, however, the notion of progressive 
purification dominates the view taken of the Islands or 
“aethereal altitudes,” as well as of Tartarus. For “ Philo- 
sophers” mansions even fairer than the aethereal altitudes 
are indicated as the final abode. We are to think, perhaps, 
of the natal stars of the Zimaeus. Finally, in the Lepublie, 
where the notion of re-incarnation, kept in the background in 
the Gorgias and the Phaedo,' is so prominent, the region to 
which virtuous souls go after judgment is, at any rate for 
many of them, only a place of temporary sojourn. They 
return from it, as other souls return from Tartarus, to be 
born again in the flesh. This view of Elysium as a place of 
pleasant sojourn from which souls, virtuous on the whole, but 
not yet completely purified, pass to the river of Lethe, and 
thence, after drinking of its water, proceed to enter into new 
terrestrial bodies, is that which we find in the Sixth Book of 
the Aeneid. The view of Elysium represented in the Frogs 
and the Awxiochus, on the other hand, is rather that of a final 
abode of bliss, into which ceremonial observances secure a 
speedy entrance, immediately after death, to the soul of the 
μύστης. With this substitution of the opus operatum for the 
personal struggle after purification, prolonged through this 
life and perhaps many other lives, Plato has no sympathy. The 
view of Elysium or οὐρανός as still a place of probation he 
would have us accept as that which, on the whole, will guide 
us best in the conduct of our earthly life. 

Taking, then, the “ Islands of the Blessed” in the Gorgias 
Myth, the οὐρανός in the Myth of Er, and the “ True Surface 
of the Earth” in the Phaedo Myth, as names for the same 
region, we may perhaps venture to harmonise the accounts 
given of it in the three Myths, by saying that the souls of 
the virtuous, after judgment, go thither—some of them to 
sojourn for ever (Gorgias), some of them for a thousand years, 
till they return again to enter into the flesh (Rep.), and a few 
of them—Philosophers (Phaedo), till such time as they have 
been thoroughly purified, and are translated to still fairer 
mansions (οἰκήσεις ἔτε τούτων καλλίους, Phaedo, 114 Cc) in 
the true Heaven, as the purified are taken up from Dante's 
Earthly Paradise into the Heavenly Paradise. 


1 In the Phaedo Myth; it appears in the Dialogue, 81 E-82 B. 


110 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


It is certainly important to note that the place to which 
the souls of the virtuous go in the three Platonic Myths— 
variously called “ Islands of the Blessed,” “ True Surface of the 
Earth,” and οὐρανός, “ Heaven ”—is, for some of these souls 
at least, a temporary abode, a stage in their purgatorial course, 
just as Tartarus is a Purgatory for all except the utterly 
incorrigible. 

In what part of the world are the Platonic “ Islands of 
the Blessed” or “ Altitudes of the True Surface of the Earth ” ? 
The Phaedo Myth does not say; but we are allowed to sup- 
pose that they are far away from our οἰκουμένη, in another 
part of the world. Perhaps Plato, in writing the Phaedo 
Myth, did not even imagine a definite locality for them. We 
are bound to allow for this possibility, but, in doing so, we 
need not scruple to consider some evidence which may be 
thought to point to the conclusion that he did localise them 
—and that, in the antipodes, where Dante’s Mount of Purgatory 
stands. The Awiochus, a pseudo-Platonic Dialogue,’ identifies 
the world of the departed definitely with the antipodal hemi- 
sphere. The author of the Aziochus probably thought that 
the identification was in accordance with the geography and 
cosmography of Plato; at any rate, those who accepted the 
piece as written by Plato must have thought so. We may 
safely go the length of saying that the identification would 
not be impossible for Plato, so far as his view of the position 
and shape of the Earth is concerned. He holds, with the 
writer of the Axiochus, that the Earth is a sphere in the centre 
of the Cosmos. The passage in the Awiochus is as follows 
(371 A ff.) : τὴν ὑπόγειον οἴκησιν, ἐν ἡ βασίλεια Πλούτωνος, 
οὐχ ἥττω τῆς τοῦ Διὸς αὔλης, ἅτε τῆς μὲν γῆς ἐχούσης τὰ 
μέσα τοῦ κόσμου, τοῦ δὲ πόλου ὄντος σφαιροειδοῦς" οὗ τὸ 
μὲν ἕτερον ἡμισφαίριον θεοὶ ἔλαχον οὐράνιοι, τὸ δὲ ἕτερον οἱ 


1 See Thiemann, Plat. Eschat. p. 26, and Rohde, Psyche, i. 814 ; ii. 247, n. 1, 
and 422. Rohde says that it can hardly be earlier than the third century B.c. 
It is a παραμυθητικὸς λόγος containing expressions which point to the direct in- 
fluence of Orphic teaching and practice. Axiochus is described (371 D) as 
γεννήτης τῶν θεῶν .---ἴἶ, 6. as μεμνημένος, and therefore συγγενὴς τῶν θεῶν κατὰ Thy 
ποίησιν---ὈΥ adoption, with which μύησις was commonly identified. For 
γενούστης in Philebus, 30 p (a passage on which, I think, Plut. de gen. Soc, 22— 
where μονάς is said to be prior to νοῦς -- τον light), γεννήτης, I think, ought 
to be read ; but see R. G. Bury’s note ad loc. Apelt (zw Platons Philebus in 
Rhein, Mus. vol. 55, 1. p. 13, 1900) suggests that γενούστης means ‘‘ parent of 
vous,” by a punning derivation ! 


THE PHARDO MYTH 111 


ὑπένερθεν ----ἰ,ε. the “ Palace of Pluto,” in addition to its sub- 
terranean, or properly “infernal” parts, includes the whole 
antipodal hemisphere of the Earth, with its sky lighted by 
the sun, when it is night in our hemisphere,—toter λάμπει 
μὲν μένος ἀελίου τὰν ἐνθάδε νύκτα κάτω (Pindar, fragm. 129), 
--«Λητογενές, σὺ δὲ παῖδας ἐν ἡρώεσσι φυλάσσοις, εὐσεβέων 
αἰεὶ χῶρον ἐπερχόμενος (Kaibel, ep. lap. 228 Ὁ 7, 8)) Τὸ 
this “under world” the dead go to be judged. Some are 
sent into the subterranean parts, while others enjoy the light 
of day, in a land of flowers and streams, apparently still in 
the hemisphere of οἱ ὑπένερθεν Peoi—of the antipodal gods, 
as we may call them. Among these blessed ones it is dis- 
tinctly stated that the “initiated” take precedence—évraiéa 
τοῖς μεμυημένοις ἐστί τις προεδρία, 371 D. 

Now, we may safely say that there is nothing in the 
Platonic doctrine of the shape and position of the Earth 
inconsistent with this “under world” of the Awiochus. But 
can we say more? I venture to mention two points :—First, 
Plato’s judgment-seat in the Myth of Er, between the open- 
ings of “ Heaven” and Tartarus, is above ground, and so is 
the region across which the pilgrims travel towards the pillar 
of ight; and so (as I believe in all Greek accounts) is the 
river of Lethe.” It is from the plain of Lethe, on the surface 
of the Earth, that the souls shoot up (ἄνω, Rep. 621 8) to 
be born again in terrestrial bodies—that is, I venture to 
suggest, up from the lower, antipodal hemisphere to our hemi- 
sphere. Secondly, the hollow or cave of Tartarus extends 
right through the globe of the Earth, as we have seen— 
διαμπερὲς τετρημένον δι᾿ ὅλης τῆς γῆς (Phaedo, 111 E)—zie. 
has an opening in the lower hemisphere as well as in this. 
Without going the length of supposing that Plato’s unseen 
world is mapped out with the definiteness of Dante’s, we may 
take it that Plato, with his poet’s faculty of visualisation, 
must have formed a clear mental picture of the opening of 
Tartarus in the “lower” or antipodal hemisphere, and of the 
country into which one comes on issuing from it. The anti- 





1 Quoted by Rohde, Psyche, ii. 210, n. 1. 

* See Thiemann, Plat. Esch. p. 18. I shall return to this subject in my 
observations on the Myth of Er. Virgil’s Lethe is of uncertain position ; but 
Dante follows the universal Greek tradition in making Lethe a river of the 
surface of the Earth. 


112 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


podal opening was not, we may assume, imagined by Plato in 
vain. Those souls which, after being judged (whether above 
or under ground does not appear in the Phaedo—but probably 
underground), go, not to the Islands of the Blessed, but down 
the river Acheron to the Acherusian Lake (which is certainly 
subterranean), have entered the infernal regions, we may 
fairly suppose, by the opening in our hemisphere, and will 
come out, after their penance, by the other—the antipodal— 
opening, and will start thence on their journey—always above 
ground—to the river of Lethe. That Plato actually thought 
of the souls as going into Tartarus, and coming out of it, by 
distinct openings, we know from the Myth of Er. But while 
the entrance and exit are antipodally placed in the Phaedo 
Myth, which takes careful account of cosmographical and 
geological conditions, in the Myth of Er the purpose of 
pictorial composition is served by placing them side by side, 
opposite the entrance and exit of “Heaven”; the “ Meadow,” 
at once the place of judgment and the starting-place for the 
plain of Lethe, lying between Tartarus and “Heaven.” It 
would be easy to give examples, from Greek vase-painting, of 
similar compression in pictorial composition. I call attention 
to this discrepancy between the Phaedo Myth and the Myth 
of Er, to show how absurd it would be to attempt to con- 
struct one topographical scheme for Plato’s Eschatological 
Myths, as rigid as the one scheme to which Dante is so faith- 
ful in the Divina Commedia. What I venture to suggest, 
however, is that, in the Phaedo Myth, Plato is possibly—or 
shall I say “probably ” ?—thinking of the world of the de- 
parted, so far as it is not subterranean, or celestial, as some- 
where in the other hemisphere of the terrestrial globe,— 
somewhere, but as in a dream, in which inconsistencies are 
accepted as natural; for the “True Surface of the Earth,” 
though somewhere in the antipodal hemisphere, beneath us, 
is yet a region above us, whence gems have found their way 
down to our hollow! 

I have dwelt on the parallel between the geography of the 
Phaedo Myth and that of the Divina Commedia with the 
view, not of clearing up particular difficulties in mythological 
geography, but of suggesting a method by which the function 
of Myth in the Platonic philosophy may be better understood 


THE »ΠΑΡΟ MYTH 113 


—the method of sealing the impression made on us by the 
Myth of one great master by study of the Myth of another 
great master with whom we may happen to be in closer 
sympathy. The service which Myth, and poetical treatment 
generally, can render to the faith on which conduct and science 
ultimately rest is, 1 think, more easily and finely appreciated 
by us in Dante than in Plato; for we live, though in late days, 
in the same Christian epoch with the medieval poet. 


ΠῚ 


Let me close these observations on the Phaedo Myth by 
calling attention to what Socrates says at the end of the 
narrative (114 p),—that, while it would not be sensible to 
maintain that all about the Soul and the next world contained 
in the Myth is absolutely true, yet, since the Soul is plainly 
immortal, one ought to hazard the pious belief that, if not 
absolutely true, this Myth, or some other like it, is not far 
from being true, and “sing it over oneself” as if it were an 
enchanter’s song:—7T0 μὲν οὖν ταῦτα διισχυρίσασθαι οὕτως 
ἔχειν, ὡς ἐγὼ διελήλυθα, οὐ πρέπει νοῦν ἔχοντι ἀνδρί: ὅτι 
μέντοι ἢ ταῦτ᾽ ἐστὶν ἢ τοιαῦτ᾽ ἄττα περὶ τὰς ψυχὰς ἡμῶν 
καὶ τὰς οἰκήσεις, ἐπείπερ ἀθάνατόν γε ἡ ψυχὴ φαίνεται ovdca, 
τοῦτο καὶ πρέπειν μοι δοκεῖ καὶ ἄξιον κινδυνεῦσαι οἰομένῳ 
οὕτως ἔχειν: καλὸς γὰρ ὁ κίνδυνος" καὶ χρὴ τὰ τοιαῦτα ὥσπερ 
ἐπάδειν ἑαυτῷ, διὸ δὴ ἔγωγε καὶ πάλαι μηκύνω τὸν μῦθον. 
The distinction between Dogma and Myth is carefully insisted 
on here, and also the practical value of Myth as an expression 
of moral and religious feeling. Myth, it is suggested, may be 
put into such form that it will react favourably on the feeling 
expressed, and make it a surer guide to what is good. The 
reaction of expression on that which it expresses—of style on 
the man—is a matter about which Plato had reflected deeply, 
as is apparent from his whole scheme of education, mental, 
moral, and physical, in the Republic. If, then, the sense of 
responsibility, and the attendant sense of being a continuously 
existent Self, naturally express themselves, as Plato holds, διὰ 
μυθολογίας, pictorially, in visions of an immortal life, it follows 
from the general law of the reaction of expression on feeling, 
that, by refining and ennobling μυθολογία, we shall be able to 

I 





114 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


refine and ennoble morals and faith. This is the “use” to 
which μῦθος is put by Plato, not only in the education of 
young children, but in dialogues offered to mature readers as 
models on which they may mould their own conversations 
about the highest things. This is the “use” of great poetry, 
like Dante’s Commedia, or of great painting, like the fresco on 
the left-hand wall of the Spanish Chapel—*the most noble 
piece of pictorial philosophy and divinity in Italy.”* As 
philosophy and pictorial composition are blended together in 
that fresco—the philosophy is seen as a whole, in all the 
beauty of its μέγεθος καὶ τάξεις ----80. are philosophy and poetry 
blended together where Plato is at his highest—in his Myths. 
In the Phaedo Myth the poet-philosopher has taken moral 
responsibility as the motif of his piece. Moral responsibility 
cannot, he knows, be explained in scientific terms, as a 
phenomenon is explained by being put into its proper place 
among other phenomena; for moral responsibility attaches 
immediately to the subject of all phenomena—the continuously 
existing Self. But if it cannot be explained, moral responsi- 
bility may be pictured—pictured in a Myth representing the 
continuity of the responsible Self in terms of Pre-existence, 
Reminiscence, Judgment, Penance, Free Choice, Re-incarnation 
—a Myth not to be taken literally, but to be dwelt on (χρὴ 
Ta τοιαῦτα ὥσπερ ἐπάδειν ἑαυτῷ), till the charm of it touches 
one deeply—so deeply that, when the “uninitiated” say “it 
is not true,” one is able to answer by acting as if it were true. 


1 Ruskin’s Alornings in Florence, chap. iv., ‘‘The Vaulted Book”; cf. Renan, 
Averroes et l’ Averroisme, pp. 245, 246. 


ΤῊΝ GORGIAS MYTH 
CONTEXT 


GoRGIAS, the famous teacher of LKhetoric, and lis young 
disciple Polus, meet Socrates at the house of Callicles, an 
Athenian gentleman ; and the conversation turns on the differ- 
ence between Rhetoric and the Way of true Knowledge and the 
true Conduct of Life. 

What is Rhetoric? Socrates asks. Neither Gorgias nor 
Polus can give an intelligible answer; and Socrates answers 
for them by describing it as the Simulation of Justice, the Art 
of getting people to believe what the Professor of the Art wishes 
them to believe, and they themselves wish to believe, without 
regard to Truth or Justice. It is the Art of Flattery. It 
ignores the distinction between Pleasure and the Good—a dis- 
tinction to the reality of which human nature itself testrifies—for 
all men, bad as well as good, wish the Good, and bad men, in 
doing what they think best for themselves, do what they do not 
wish to do. To seek after the Good is of the very essence of Life 
—it is better to suffer evil than to do evil; and if a man has 
done evil, it ws better for him to be chastised than to escape 
chastisement. 

Here Callicles, speaking as a man of the world, takes up the 
argument, and maintains that Statesmanship does not recognise 
this distinction drawn by Socrates between Pleasure and the 
Good. Pleasure is the Good. Might is Right. 

After much talk Callicles is silenced, and Socrates points out 
that there are two kinds of Statesmanship—that which uses 
Rhetoric as its instrument, and flatters people, and deceives them, 
holding up Pleasure before them; and that which, keeping the 
Good always in view, makes them better. 

At the Day of Judgment, which the Myth now told by 
Socrates declares, there will be no place for the Art of Flattery. 
Pretence will not avail. There will be no side issues then. The 
only issue will be: Is this man righteous or is he wicked ? 

With the Myth of the Day of Judgment the Gorgias ends. 

115 


116 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Gorgias 523 A-527C 


’ a ’ ἃ \ / 
523 Ἄκουε δή, φασί, μάλα καλοῦ λόγου, ὃν σὺ μὲν ἡγήσει 
- ς A, κι ΒΟΥ͂Ν δὲ / e ) A \ ” 
μῦθον, ws ἐγὼ οἶμαι, ἐγὼ δὲ λόγον: ws ἀληθῆ yap ὄντα 
δ / , “ / / 
σοι λέξω ἃ μέλλω λέγειν. “Ὥσπερ yap “Ὅμηρος λέγει, 
ὃ / \ > \ ς 7, \ \ e Tl / > ὃ) \ 
ιενείμαντο THY ἀρχὴν ὁ Ζεὺς καὶ ὁ ἸΙλούτων, ἐπειδὴ παρὰ 
a \ / = “ / ef \ > , 
Tov πατρὸς παρέλαβον. ἣν οὖν νόμος ὅδε περὶ ἀνθρώπων 
“ον / \ Ast \ a » ” > a A 
ἐπὶ Κρόνου, καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ νῦν ἔτι ἔστιν ἐν θεοῖς, τῶν 
, \ / / \ e / 
ἀνθρώπων τὸν μὲν δικαίως τὸν βίον διελθόντα καὶ ὁσίως, 
> \ / > / / > / > lal 5 
Β ἐπειδὰν τελευτήσῃ, ἐς μακάρων νήσους ἀπιόντα οἰκεῖν ἐν 
/ ’ / > \ la \ \ 5» \ »f/ 
πάσῃ εὐδαιμονίᾳ ἐκτὸς κακῶν, τὸν δὲ ἀδίκως Kal ἀθέως 
> \ ‘ol / / \ / / ἃ \ / 
εἰς TO τῆς Ticeds τε Kal δίκης δεσμωτήριον, ὃ δὴ τάρταρον 
a >/ 4 \ \ ΕΣ ἢ / \ ΝΜ 
καλοῦσιν, ἰέναι. τούτων δὲ δικασταὶ ἐπὶ Κρόνου καὶ ἔτι 
\ a \ \ > \ ” lal a / 
νεωστὶ τοῦ Διὸς τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔχοντος ζῶντες ἦσαν ζώντων, 
> / A e / / - / “- A 
ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ δικάζοντες, ἣ μέλλοιεν τελευτᾶν. κακῶς 
93 ΄ / > / Ὁ 5S / \ e >’ 
οὖν at δίκαι éxpivovto, 6 Te οὖν Πλούτων Kal οἱ ἐπιμε- 
\ ΘΟ / / 7/7 » \ \ / 
ANTAL οἱ ἐκ μακάρων νήσων ἰόντες ἔλεγον πρὸς Tov Δία, 
“ as ” ε ͵ ee 3 > ε 
Ο ὅτι φοιτῴέν σφιν ἄνθρωποι ἑκατέρωσε ἀνάξιοι. εἶπεν οὖν ὁ 
» + / , Fi lal / lal 
Ζεύς, ᾿Αλλ᾽ ἐγώ, ἔφη, παύσω τοῦτο γιγνόμενον. νῦν μὲν 
\ a e δί ὃ / > / / » e 
yap κακῶς αἱ δίκαι δικάζονται. ἀμπεχόμενοι yap, ἔφη, οἱ 
/ / ia) \ / \ s ἂν 
κρινόμενοι κρίνονται" ζῶντες γὰρ κρίνονται. πολλοὶ οὖν, ἢ 
δ᾽ ef \ \ ” > / gs ’ / 
ὃς, ψυχὰς πονηρᾶς ἔχοντες ἠμφιεσμένοι εἰσὶ σώματά TE 
\ \ / \ / / > \ e / > 
καλὰ Kal γένη Kal πλούτους, Kal, ἐπειδὰν ἡ κρίσις ἢ, 
ΝΜ > ΄ \ / / e / 
ἔρχονται αὑτοῖς πολλοὶ μάρτυρες μαρτυρήσοντες, ὡς δικαίως 
͵ e εν 
Ὁ βεβιώκασιν. οἱ οὖν δικασταὶ ὑπό τε τούτων ἐκπλήττονται, 
\ Ὁ ‘\ > \ > / 7 Ν a a 
Kal ἅμα Kal αὐτοὶ ἀμπεχόμενοι δικάζουσι, πρὸ τῆς ψυχῆς 
- id “ > \ \ 9 ». ef \ a) 
τῆς αὑτῶν ὀφθαλμοὺς καὶ ὦτα Kal ὅλον TO σῶμα TpoKEKa- 
/ a \ > a / 
λυμμένοι. ταῦτα δὴ αὐτοῖς πάντα ἐπίπροσθεν γίγνεται, Kal 
\ > a) > / \ a rn 
Ta αὐτῶν ἀμφιέσματα καὶ τὰ τῶν κρινομένων. πρῶτον μὲν 
“ v / ᾽ \ / > \ \ 7 
οὖν, ἔφη, παυστέον ἐστὶ προειδότας αὐτοὺς τὸν θάνατον" 
a \ \ «Α r \ 9 \ \ ν lal 
νῦν μὲν yap προΐσασι. τοῦτο μὲν οὖν Kal δὴ εἴρηται τῷ 
ἘΠ θ a @ vn 4 > a ΝΜ \ / 
ρομηθεῖ ὅπως ἂν παύσῃ αὐτῶν. ἔπειτα γυμνοὺς κριτέον 


΄ 7 / cal \ A / \ 
ἁπάντων τούτων: τεθνεῶτας yap Set κρίνεσθαι. καὶ τὸν 


THE GORGIAS MYTH 117 


TRANSLATION 


Hearken now to an excellent True Story: a Fable, me- 
thinks, thou wilt deem it; but I deem it no Fable, for that 
the things are true, whereof I will now tell, I am fully per- 
suaded. What Homer telleth, that will I now tell: That Zeus 
and Poseidon and Pluto divided amongst them the kingdom, 
when they had received it from their father Cronus. Now, in 
his time there was this law among the gods concerning men, 
which standeth fast unto this day as of old, that the man who 
hath gone through his life righteously in the fear of the Gods, 
after death goeth to the Isles of the Blessed, and dwelleth there 
in all felicity beyond the touch of ill; but the man who hath 
lived unrighteously without the fear of the Gods before his 
eyes, he goeth to the prison-house of just retribution, which 
men call Tartarus. 

They who were Judges in the time of Cronus, and when 
Zeus was newly come to his kingdom, were living men; and 
they also were living men who were judged, each on that day 
on the which he should die. Now, judgments given thus were 
ill-given, and Pluto and the Overseers from the Isles of the 
Blessed came and spake unto Zeus, making complaint that 
many came unworthily unto either place. Wherefore Zeus 
said: Verily I will end this; for now are the judgments given 
ill, because they who are judged are judged with their raiment 
on, being judged alive. Many there be, he said, that have evil 
souls, and, for raiment, have fair bodies and noble birth and 
riches: when these are judged, many witnesses come to bear 
witness for them, that they have lived righteously. By these 
are the Judges confounded; and, moreover, they themselves 
sit in judgment with raiment on, having eyes and ears, yea, 
and the whole Body, as clothing wherewith their Soul is 
covered. All these things hinder them, to wit, their own 
raiment, and the raiment of those that are judged. First, then, 
he said, must they be stopped of their foreknowing the day of 
their death: for now have they foreknowledge. Wherefore 
Prometheus hath been charged to stop them of this. Then 
naked, stripped of all, must they be judged; for they must be 


524 


118 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ a lal A a A \ \ 
κριτὴν δεῖ γυμνὸν εἶναι, τεθνεῶτα, αὐτῇ TH ψυχῇ αὐτὴν τὴν 
la / , 
ψυχὴν θεωροῦντα ἐξαίφνης ἀποθανόντος ἑκάστου, ἔρημον 
ω la / a fal 
πάντων TOV συγγενῶν Kal καταλιπόντα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς πάντα 
-ι / lA “- 
ἐκεῖνον τὸν κόσμον, ἵνα δικαία ἡ κρίσις 7. ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν 
lo / lal ~ 
ταῦτα ἐγνωκὼς πρότερος ἢ ὑμεῖς ἐποιησάμην δικαστὰς υἱεῖς 
> “- 4 \ b] n 5» / / \ « / 
ἐμαυτοῦ, δύο μὲν ἐκ τῆς ᾿Ασίας, Μίνω te καὶ Ῥαδάμανθυν, 
“ \ > a > , > / * = > \ 
ἕνα δὲ ἐκ τῆς Εὐρώπης, Αἰακόν. οὗτοι οὖν, ἐπειδὰν 
A ~ a / 
τελευτήσωσι, δικάσουσιν ἐν τῷ λειμῶνι, ἐν TH τριόδῳ, ἐξ 
΄ , \ e , ς \ > / / ς > > 
ἧς φέρετον τὼ 060, ἡ μὲν εἰς μακάρων νήσους, ἡ δ᾽ εἰς 
\ a ᾽ lo 
τάρταρον. καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἐκ τῆς ᾿Ασίας “PaddpavOus κρινεῖ, 
“ a 
τοὺς δὲ ἐκ τῆς Edpwmns Αἰακός: Μίνῳ δὲ πρεσβεῖα δώσω 
/ \ an / / 
ἐπιδιακρίνειν, ἐὰν ἀπορῆτόν τι τὼ ἑτέρω, ἵνα ὡς δικαιοτάτη 
/ “. a / a 
ἡ κρίσις ἢ περὶ τῆς πορείας τοῖς ἀνθρώποις. 
a 9 
Ταῦτ ἔστιν, ὦ Καλλίκλεις, ἃ ἐγὼ ἀκηκοὼς πιστεύω 
~ / a / / 
ἀληθῆ εἶναι" καὶ ἐκ τούτων τῶν λόγων τοιόνδε TL λογίζομαι 
/ e / / ” ς > \ - »O\ 
συμβαίνειν. Ὃ θάνατος τυγχάνει ὦν, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, οὐδὲν 
ΝΜ Δ ad ; / an ral \ n 
ἄλλο ἢ δυοῖν πραγμάτοιν διάλυσις, τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τοῦ 
» nw ww ᾽ 
σώματος, ἀπ᾿ ἀλλήλοιν. ἐπειδὰν δὲ διαλυθῆτον ἄρα ἀπ 
> / >’ \ = e / > a“ » \ Ὁ 
ἀλλήλοιν, οὐ πολὺ ἧττον ἑκάτερον αὐτοῖν ἔχει τὴν ἕξιν 
la) ς , la 
τὴν αὑτοῦ ἥνπερ Kal ὅτε ἔζη ὁ ἄνθρωπος, TO TE σῶμα τὴν 
\ lal / 
φύσιν τὴν αὑτοῦ Kal τὰ θεραπεύματα καὶ τὰ παθήματα, 
5) al / 
ἔνδηλα πάντα. οἷον εἴ Tivos μέγα ἣν TO σῶμα φύσει ἢ 
"ἃ > / a / \ > \ > ΄ ς 
τροφῇ ἢ ἀμφότερα ζῶντος, τούτου καὶ ἐπειδὰν αποθάνῃ ὁ 
/ / 
νεκρὸς μέγας" Kal εἰ παχύς, παχὺς Kal ἀποθανόντος, Kal 
a / 
τᾶλλα οὕτως. Kal εἰ αὖ ἐπετήδευε κομᾶν, κομήτης τούτου 
/ rn 
Kal ὁ νεκρός. μαστιγίας αὖ εἴ τις ἣν Kal ἴχνη εἶχε τῶν 
a > \ > a ’ δ ς \ / Xx » 
πληγῶν οὐλὰς ἐν τῷ σώματι ἢ ὑπὸ μαστίγων ἢ ἄλλων 
τραυμάτων ζῶν, καὶ τεθνεῶτος τὸ σῶμα ἔστιν ἰδεῖν ταῦτα 
» , ’ / a“ 
ἔχον. KaTeayota τε εἴ Tov ἣν μέλη ἢ διεστραμμένα ζῶντος, 
\ a > 4 rn » α΄ κ \ / 3 
καὶ τεθνεῶτος ταὐτὰ ταῦτα ἔνδηλα. ἑνὶ δὲ λόγῳ, οἷος εἶναι 
παρεσκεύαστο τὸ σῶμα ζῶν, ἔνδηλα ταῦτα καὶ τελευτή- 
\ / 
σαντος ἢ πάντα ἢ Ta πολλὰ ἐπί τινα χρόνον ταὐτὸν δή 
an a \ 
μοι δοκεῖ τοῦτ᾽ ἄρα Kal περὶ τὴν Ψυχὴν εἶναι, ὦ 
Καλλίκλεις: ἔνδηλα πάντα ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἐπειδὰν 
a κ , an / 
γυμνωθῇ τοῦ σώματος, τά TE τῆς φύσεως Kal τὰ παθήματα 
/ / Lal 
ἃ διὰ τὴν ἐπιτήδευσιν ἑκάστου πράγματος ἔσχεν ἐν TH 


THE GORGIAS MYTH 119 


judged dead. The Judge also must be naked, dead, with very 
Soul beholding the very Soul of each, as soon as he is dead, 
bereft of all his kindred, having left upon the earth all the 
adornment he had there. So shall the judgment be just. I 
therefore, having considered all these things before that ye 
came unto me, have made my sons Judges—two from Asia, 
Minos and Rhadamanthys, and one from Europe, Aeacus. 
These, when they are dead, shall sit in judgment in the 
Meadow at the Parting of the Ways, whence the two Ways 
lead—the one unto the Isles of the Blessed, and the other unto 
Tartarus. And those of Asia shall Rhadamanthys judge, and 
those of Europe, Aeacus. But unto Minos will I appoint the 
chief place, that he may give judgment at the last, if the other 
two be in doubt as touching any matter. Thus shall the 
judgments concerning the Passage of Men be most just. 

These are the things, O Callicles, which I have heard ; 
and I believe that they are true; moreover, therefrom I con- 
clude this, to wit :—Death is only the separation of two things, 
Soul and Body, from each other. When they have been 
separated from each other, the state of each of them is well 
nigh the same it was while the man lived. The Body keepeth 
the natural fashion it had, and the marks plain of all the 
care that was taken for it and of all that happened unto it. 
For if any man while he lived was great of body, by nature, 
or nurture, or both, his corpse also is great when he is dead ; 
and if he was fat, his corpse also is fat when he is dead; 
also, if any man wore long hair, his corpse also hath long 
hair; and if any man was a whipped cur, and bore on his 
body the prints of his beatings—scars made by the whip, or 
scars of other wounds—while he lived, when he is dead thou 
mayest see his corpse with the same; and if any man had his 
limbs broken and disjoint while he lived, when he is dead also 
the same is plain. The sum of the whole matter is, that what- 
soever conditions of Body a man hath while he liveth, these 
are plain when he is dead, all or most, for some while. 

Now, O Callicles, that which happeneth unto the Body, 
happeneth, methinks, unto the Soul likewise, to wit, there are 
plain in the Soul, after she hath been stripped of the Body, her 
natural conditions and those affections which, through use in 
any matter, a man hath gotten in his Soul. 


120 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


A ε ” ’ \ io 5) ἕ \ \ 
ψυχῇ ὁ ἄνθρωπος. “Eredav οὖν ἀφίκωνται παρὰ τὸν 
/ e \ ᾿ lol 3 / \ \ ¢ / e 
E δικαστήν, of μὲν ἐκ τῆς ᾿Ασίας παρὰ τὸν Ῥαδάμανθυν, ὁ 
Ῥ ὃ / > / > / a e / \ / 
αδάμανθυς ἐκείνους ἐπιστήσας θεᾶται ἑκάστου τὴν ψυχήν, 
οὐκ εἰδὼς ὅτου ἐστίν, ἀλλὰ πολλάκις τοῦ μεγάλου 
/ xX e re 
βασιλέως ἐπιλαβόμενος ἢ ἄλλου ὁτουοῦν βασιλέως ἢ 
ὃ ΄, » δὲ ς \ x n - > \ 
υνάστου κατεῖδεν οὐδὲν uyles ὃν τῆς ψυχῆς, αλλὰ 
\ a \ \ a 
διαμεμαστυγωμένην Kal οὐλῶν μεστὴν ὑπὸ ἐπιορκιῶν Kal 
/ ἃ / rn r / 
525 ἀδικίας, ἃ ἑκάστῳ ἡ πρᾶξις αὐτοῦ ἐξωμόρξατο eis τὴν 
’, \ , \ Jers: ΄ \ ᾽ / \ 
ψυχὴν, Kal πάντα σκολιὰ ὑπὸ ψεύδους Kal ἀλαζονείας καὶ 
οὐδὲν εὐθὺ διὰ τὸ ἄνευ ἀληθείας τεθράφθαι: καὶ ὑπὸ 
/ a δ / a 
ἐξουσίας καὶ τρυφῆς καὶ ὕβρεως Kal axpatias τῶν πράξεων 
, / / \ \ 3 
ἀσυμμετρίας τε καὶ αἰσχρότητος γέμουσαν τὴν ψυχὴν εἶδεν. 
9 \ \ ᾽ / / > / b] \ a al ? 
ἰδὼν δὲ ἀτίμως ταύτην ἀπέπεμψεν εὐθὺ τῆς φρουρᾶς, of 
/ al >’ a \ / / 
μέλλει ἐλθοῦσα ἀνατλῆναι TA προσήκοντα πάθη. 
/ \ \ A ? / ” e ᾽ ” 

B Προσήκει δὲ παντὶ τῷ ἐν τιμωρίᾳ ὄντι ὑπ᾽ ἄλλου 
> a 7 a / / \ Φ δ Xx 
ὀρθῶς τιμωρουμένῳ ἢ βελτίονι γίγνεσθαι Kal ὀνίνασθαι ἢ 

, val bys / “ 5 bY cn 
παραδείγματι τοῖς ἄλλοις γίγνεσθαι, ἵν ἄλλοι ορῶντες 
΄ ἃ Ἃ / / / ’ὔ 
πάσχοντα ἃ ἂν πάσχῃ φοβούμενοι βελτίους γίγνωνται. 
\ e \ > 7 / \ / / 3 \ lal 
εἰσὶ δὲ οἱ μὲν ὠφελούμενοί Te καὶ δίκην διδόντες ὑπὸ θεῶν 
᾿' / 
Te καὶ ἀνθρώπων οὗτοι, of ἂν ἰάσιμα ἁμαρτήματα 
id / “ \ » ᾿] / \ ’ A / 
ἁμάρτωσιν: ὅμως δὲ δι ἀλγηδόνων Kal ὀδυνῶν γίγνεται 
r f / 
αὐτοῖς ἡ ὠφέλεια καὶ ἐνθάδε καὶ ἐν “Αἰιδου: ov γὰρ οἷόν 
ΝΜ \ 3 x μ᾽ 
στε ἄλλως ἀδικίας ἀπαλλάττεσθαι: of ὃ ἂν τὰ ἔσχατα 
/ a / , 
ἀδικήσωσι καὶ διὰ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀδικήματα ἀνίατοι γένωνται, 
/ \ φ 
ἐκ τούτων τὰ παραδείγματα γίγνεται, καὶ οὗτοι αὐτοὶ μὲν 
> / 2 / > / “ > / Μ ΝΜ \ > / 
οὐκέτι ὀνίνανται οὐδέν, ἅτε ἀνίατοι ὄντες, ἄλλοι δὲ ὀνίναν- 
ς a / \ / 
Tat οἱ τούτους ὁρῶντες διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας τὰ μέγιστα Kal 
/ \ \ 
ὀδυνηρότατα καὶ φοβερώτατα πάθη πάσχοντας τὸν ἀεὶ 
a “ 
χρόνον, ἀτεχνῶς παραδείγματα ἀνηρτημένους ἐκεῖ ἐν “Atdov 
a / / 
ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ, τοῖς ἀεὶ τῶν ἀδίκων ἀφικνουμένοις 
2 ἧς ἃ 4 5.3 , 

D θεάματα καὶ νουθετήματα. ὧν ἐγώ φημι ἕνα καὶ Ἀρχέλαον 
᾽ a lal / “ δ 
ἔσεσθαι, εἰ ἀληθῆ λέγει ἸΙῶλος, καὶ ἄλλον ὅστις ἂν 

-“ εἰ \ \ \ Φ 
τοιοῦτος τύραννος ἡ. οἶμαι δὲ καὶ τοὺς πολλοὺς εἶναι 
lal ’ 
τοὺς τούτων τῶν παραδειγμάτων ἐκ τυράννων καὶ βασιλέων 
- \ = / 7 ’ 
καὶ δυναστῶν καὶ τὰ τῶν πόλεων πραξάντων γεγονότας" 
οὗτοι γὰρ διὰ τὴν ἐξουσίαν μέγιστα καὶ ἀνοσιώτατα 
΄ / a / ν Ὁ, 
ἁμαρτήωατα ἁμαρτάνουσι. μαρτυρεῖ δὲ τούτοις καὶ ᾿Ομηρος" 
- / \ 
βασιλέας yap καὶ δυνάστας ἐκεῖνος πεποίηκε τοὺς ἐν 


THE GORGIAS MYTH 12] 


Wherefore, when they from Asia are come before the 
presence of Rhadamanthys their Judge, he causeth them to 
stand, and looketh at the Soul of each, not knowing whose 
Soul it is; but perchance having gotten hold of the Soul of 
the Great King, or of some other King or Ruler, perceiveth 
that it hath no soundness, but is seamed with the marks of 
many stripes, and full of the scars of perjuries and unrighteous- 
ness, according as the doings of each have stamped on his 
Soul their signs; and all therein is crooked by reason of false- 
hood and boasting, and nothing straight, because he hath 
been bred up without truth; and by reason of pride and 
luxury and wantonness and incontinency in his life, his Soul 
is altogether deformed and foul. This Soul then the Judge 
seeth, and having seen, sendeth with dishonour straightway 
unto the prison, whither it must go and endure the tor- 
ments appointed for it. Now, it is appointed for every one 
who is punished, if he be punished righteously by another, 
either to become better and himself receive benefit, or to be set 
forth for an example unto others, that they, seeing his torments, 
may fear and become better. Now, they who are profited the 
while they pay unto Gods and Men the penalty of their sins, 
are they whose sins may be cured. Through afflictions and 
pains there cometh unto them profit both here and in the 
House of Hades; for otherwise can no man be rid of un- 
righteousness. 

But they who have sinned to the utmost, and by reason 
of their great sins are beyond cure, they are the examples 
whereof I spake ; for now they cannot themselves be benefited, 
inasmuch as they are beyond cure, but other men are benefited, 
when they see them by reason of their sins suffering torments 
exceeding great and terrible for evermore, being verily examples 
hung up in the House of Hades, in the prison-house, for a 
spectacle and admonition unto every sinner which cometh. 

Of these that be set forth for examples I say that 
Archelaus will be, if Polus speaketh truly; and any other 
Prince that is like unto him. Most, methinks, were Princes 
and Kings and Rulers and Chief Men in their cities; for they, 
by reason of the power they have, do sin more heinously than 
othermen. Whereof Homer is witness, in that he telleth that 
they which are tormented in the House of Hades for evermore 


122 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


E”Avdov τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον τιμωρουμένους, Τάνταλον καὶ Σίσυφον 

καὶ Τιτυόν. Θερσίτην δέ, καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλος πονηρὸς ἣν 
/ 

ἰδιώτης, οὐδεὶς πεποίηκε μεγάλαις τιμωρίαις συνεχόμενον 


᾿ > / > / s In > \ \ > / 
ὡς ἀνίατον" ov γάρ, οἶμαι, ἐξῆν αὐτῷ" διὸ καὶ evdatpove- 


« 


στερος ἣν ἢ οἷς ἐξῆν. ἀλλὰ γάρ, ὦ Καλλίκλεις, ἐκ τῶν 


/ a ' \ e / \ , ΝΜ 
526 δυναμένων εἰσὶ καὶ οἱ σφόδρα πονηροὶ γυγνόμενοι ἄνθρωποι" 
>’ \ \ , \ ’ / > \ Μ 5 / 
οὐδὲν μὴν κωλύει Kal ἐν τούτοις ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας ἐγγί- 
\ / » ” fal / 
γνεσθαι, καὶ σφόδρα ye ἄξιον ἄγασθαι τῶν γυγνομένων᾽ 
χαλεπὸν γάρ, ὦ Καλλίκλεις, καὶ πολλοῦ ἐπαίνου ἄξιον ἐν 
/ 5 / “ ᾽ "-" / / “ 
μεγάλῃ ἐξουσίᾳ τοῦ ἀδικεῖν γενόμενον δικαίως διαβιῶναι. 
3 / \ / . fal > \ \ > / \ Mv 
ὀλίγοι δὲ γίγνονται οἱ τοιοῦτοι: ἐπεὶ καὶ ἐνθάδε καὶ ἄλ- 
, “ \ ΝΙΝ \ > \ ΄ 
λοθι γεγόνασιν, οἶμαι δὲ καὶ ἔσονται καλοὶ κἀγαθοὶ ταύτην 
\ b , \ r / / a ” > / 
Β τὴν ἀρετήν, THY τοῦ δικαίως διαχειρίζειν ἃ ἄν τις ἐπιτρέπῃ" 
/ » i 
εἷς δὲ καὶ πάνυ ἐλλόγιμος γέγονε Kal εἰς τοὺς ἄλλους 
“ e / φ 
ἕλληνας, ᾿Αριστείδης ὁ Λυσιμάχου. οἱ δὲ πολλοί, ὦ 
ἄριστε, κακοὶ γίγνονται τῶν δυναστῶν. 
/ e a 
Ὅπερ οὖν ἔλεγον, ἐπειδδν ὁ Ῥαδάμανθυς ἐκεῖνος 
» / na 
τοιοῦτον τινα λάβῃ, ἄλλο μὲν περὶ αὐτοῦ οὐκ οἶδεν οὐδέν, 
» A be e 7g ᾿ ee \ / \ la 
οὔθ᾽ ὅστις οὔθ᾽ ὧντινων, ὅτι δὲ πονηρός Tis: Kal τοῦτο 
/ 
κατιδὼν ἀπέπεμψεν εἰς τάρταρον ἐπισημηνάμενος, ἐάν TE 
». ΙΑ 5.ν a 5 e \ > a » , 
Οσἰάσιμος ἐάν τε ἀνίατος δοκῇ εἶναι" ὁ δὲ ἐκεῖσε ἀφικόμενος 
\ / / ) Ny > ” > \ iN 
τὰ προσήκοντα πάσχει. ἐνίοτε δ᾽ ἄλλην εἰσιδὼν ὁσίως 
nA , Ns ΕΣ 
βεβιωκυῖαν καὶ pet ἀληθείας, ἀνδρὸς ἰδιώτου ἢ ἄλλου 
»“ ’ὔ / 
τινός, μάλιστα μέν, ἔγωγέ φημι, ὦ Καλλίκλεις, φιλοσόφου 
\ e “ 7 \ » / P| A 
τὰ αὑτοῦ πράξαντος καὶ ov πολυπραγμονήσαντος ἐν τῷ 
7 ᾽ 7 \ » 7 / > / > \ 
βίῳ, ἠγάσθη τε Kal ἐς μακάρων νήσους ἀπέπεμψε. ταὐτὰ 
- Ν e > / e / \ / 4 4 
ταῦτα καὶ ὁ Αἰακός. ἑκάτερος δὲ τούτων ῥάβδον ἔχων 
/ e \ / ’ lal / / v 
δικάζε. ὁ δὲ Μίνως ἐπισκοπῶν κάθηται, μόνος ἔχων 
a a e > e > a 
Ὁ χρυσοῦν σκῆπτρον, ws φησιν Ὀδυσσεὺς ὁ ὋὉμήρου ἰδεῖν 


> \ 
AUTOV 
A ” , , 
χρύσεον σκήηπτρον εχόοντα, θεμιστεύοντα μεκυσσιεν, 


᾽ ‘ ; , \ , a / 

Eyo μὲν οὗν, ὦ Καλλίκλεις, ὑπὸ τούτων τῶν λόγων 
΄“ id Lal a lal ¢ 

πέπεισμαι, Kal σκοπῶ, ὅπως ἀποφανοῦμαι τῷ κριτῇ ὡς 


ὑγιεστάτην τὴν ψυχήν. χαίρειν οὖν ἐάσας τὰς τιμὰς τὰς 


ΤῊΝ GORGIAS MYTH 123 


are Kings and Rulers, to wit, Tantalus, and Sisyphus, and Tityus. 
But of Thersites, or any other Commoner which was an evil- 
doer, no poet hath told that he is held in great torments as 
being beyond cure: nay, methinks, such an one had not the 
opportunity to sin greatly. Wherefore also he was happier 
than those who had opportunity. Verily, O Callicles, ‘tis 
from among those who have power that the greatest sinners 
come, notwithstanding even among these may good men arise ; 
whom, when they are found, it is most meet to reverence, 
for ‘tis a hard thing, O Callicles, and worthy of all praise, 
for a man, who hath great opportunity to do injustice, to live 
justly all his days. Few such are found; yet are some found ; 
for both here and elsewhere have there arisen, and, methinks, 
will arise again, men of a noble virtue and just conduct in 
those matters whereof charge at any time is given unto them: 
of whom was Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, a man famous 
throughout all Greece: but I tell thee, Sir, of them that 
have power in cities the most part are alway evil. 

When one of these evil men, therefore, standeth, as I told, 
before Rhadamanthys the Judge, he knoweth nought else 
concerning him, neither who he is nor whose son, but only 
this, that he is one of the wicked ; and perceiving this, sendeth 
him away unto Tartarus, having put a mark upon him to 
signify whether he can be cured or no: and he, coming to 
that place, there suffereth that which is due. 

But perchance the Judge seeth a Soul that hath lived in 
holiness and truth; it may be, the Soul of a Common Man or 
of some other; but in most likelihood, say I, of a Philosopher, 
Callicles, who hath minded his own matters and been no 
busybody in his life. That Soul pleaseth the eye of Rhada- 
manthys, and he sendeth it away to the Islands of the Blessed. 

In like manner Aeacus also judgeth. And each of these 
sitteth in judgment holding a rod in his hand. But Minos is 
seated as president over them; and he alone hath a golden 
sceptre, as Homer his Odysseus telleth, that he saw him 
“with a golden sceptre in his hand giving laws unto the 
Dead.” 

I am persuaded, O Callicles, that these things that are 
told are true. Wherefore I consider how I shall show my 
Soul most faultless before the Judge. I will take my farewell 


521 


124 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


a A ᾽ / \ > / Ὁ / 
τῶν πολλῶν ἀνθρώπων, τὴν ἀλήθειαν σκοπῶν πειράσομαι 
a e Sy , / x \ a / 2 \ 
τῷ ὄντι ὡς ἂν δύνωμαι βέλτιστος ὧν Kal ζῆν καί, ἐπειδὰν 
> / > / fa) \ \ \ ” 
ἀποθνήσκω, ἀποθνήσκειν. παρακαλῶ δὲ Kal τοὺς ἄλλους 
/ ᾽ « / \ 
πάντας ἀνθρώπους, καθ᾽ ὅσον δύναμαι, καὶ δὴ Kal σὲ 
“ rn \ \ aA o 
ἀντιπαρακαλῶ ἐπὶ τοῦτον Tov βίον Kal τὸν ἀγῶνα τοῦτον, 
Aa ᾽ , 5] 3 / A > 7 > , 3 Ν 
ὃν ἐγώ φημι ἀντὶ πάντων τῶν ἐνθάδε ἀγώνων εἶναι, καὶ 
> / sd > al » ” A fel Ὁ 
ὀνειδίζω σοι, OTL οὐχ οἷός T ἔσει σαυτῷ βοηθῆσαι, ὅταν 
e / 3 Ν e / A “ \ > Ἁ > Ἄ 
ἡ δίκη σοι ἦ καὶ ἡ κρίσις ἣν νῦν δὴ ἐγὼ ἔλεγον, ἀλλὰ 
\ \ \ \ \ a δῶν. «7 > / 
ἐλθὼν παρὰ τὸν δικαστὴν τὸν τῆς Αἰγίνης υἱόν, ἐπειδάν 
/ ” / > 
σου ἐπιλαβόμενος ayn, χασμήσει καὶ ἰλυγγιάσεις οὐδὲν 
x \ / + al / 
ἧττον ἢ ἐγὼ ἐνθάδε σὺ ἐκεῖ, Kal σε ἴσως τυπτήσει τις Kal 
\ - ’ 
ἐπὶ Koppns ἀτίμως Kal πάντως προπηλακιεῖ. Taya 8 οὖν 
- ral / - / 4 / \ 
ταῦτα μῦθος σοι δοκεῖ λέγεσθαι, ὥσπερ γραὸς, Kal KaTa- 
nw ~ / > x 93 \ [αν 
φρονεῖς αὐτῶν. καὶ οὐδέν y ἂν ἣν θαυμαστὸν καταφρονεῖν 
7 a a “, \ 
τούτων, εἴ πῃ ζητοῦντες εἴχομεν αὐτῶν βελτίω καὶ 
5) / ς al rn \ Ἐν’ ἊΝ Ὁ a ” e -“ 
ἀληθέστερα εὑρεῖν: νῦν δὲ ὁρᾷς, ὅτι τρεῖς ὄντες ὑμεῖς, 
+, / ͵ lal “ / 4 \ an 
οἵπερ σοφώτατοί ἐστε τῶν νῦν “EXAnvav, σύ τε καὶ ἸΙῶλος 
- - / / 
καὶ Vopyias, οὐκ ἔχετε ἀποδεῖξαι, ws δεῖ ἄλλον τινὰ βίον 
A Ἃ - oe \ > A / / > >’ 
Civ ἢ τοῦτον, ὅσπερ καὶ ἐκεῖσε φαίνεται cuuhEepwv, ἀλλ 
4 / al / / / 
ἐν τοσούτοις λόγοις τῶν ἄλλων ἐλεγχομένων μόνος οὗτος 
> aA e / e > / 2 \ \ > a lal δ 
ἠρεμεῖ ὁ λόγος, ὡς εὐλαβητέον ἐστὶ τὸ ἀδικεῖν μᾶλλον ἢ 
\ ᾽ lal \ \ nA > \ / > ‘ 
TO ἀδικεῖσθαι, καὶ παντὸς μᾶλλον ἀνδρὶ μελετητέον οὐ τὸ 
al 3 > / > \ \ - \ ᾽ / \ , 
δοκεῖν εἶναι ἀγαθόν, ἀλλὰ τὸ εἶναι καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ" 
/ \ / 
ἐὰν δέ τις κατά TL κακὸς γίγνηται, κολαστέος ἐστί, Kal 
-“ / \ \ 3 / \ 
τοῦτο δεύτερον ἀγαθὸν μετὰ TO εἶναι δίκαιον, TO γίγνεσθαι 
\ / / s \ “- / \ 
καὶ κολαζόμενον διδόναι δίκην: Kal πᾶσαν κολακείαν Kal 
\ \ \ \ »Μ \ \ 
τὴν περὶ ἑαυτὸν Kal THY περὶ τοὺς ἄλλους, καὶ περὶ 
᾽ / \ \ / / \ a τ cal 
Ολύγους καὶ περὶ πολλούς, φευκτέον: καὶ TH ῥητορικῇ 
, \ - » 
οὕτω χρηστέον, ἐπὶ τὸ δίκαιον ἀεί, καὶ τῇ ἄλλῃ πάσῃ 
πράξει. 


THE GORGIAS MYTH 125 


of the honours that are among men; and, considering Truth, 
will strive earnestly after Righteousness, both to live therein 
so far as I am able, and when I die, therein also to die. And 
I exhort all men, so far as I am able, and thee more especially 
do I exhort and entreat, to enter into this life and run this 
race, which, I say unto thee, is above all the races wherein 
men strive; and I tell thee, to thy shame, that thou shalt not 
be able to help thyself, when the Day of Judgment whereof 1 
spake cometh unto thee, but when thou dost appear before 
the Judge, the son of Aegina, and he hath gotten hold of thee 
to take thee, thou shalt gape and become dizzy there, even as I 
do here; yea and perchance some one will smite thee on the 
cheek to dishonour thee, and will utterly put thee to despite. 

Perchance this shall seem to thee as an old wife’s fable, 
and thou wilt despise it: well mightest thou despise it, if by 
searching we could find out aught better and truer. But as 
the matter standeth, thou seest that ye are three, the wisest 
men of Greece living at this day, thou and Polus and Gorgias, 
and ye cannot show any other life that a man must live save 
this whereof I have spoken, which is plainly expedient also 
for that other life; nay, of all sayings this saying alone is 
not confuted, but abideth sure:—That a man must shun the 
doing of wrong more than the receiving, and study above all 
things not to seem, but to be, righteous in the doing of his 
own business and the business of the city; and that if any 
man be found evil in anything, he is to be corrected; and that 
the next good thing after being righteous is to become righteous 
through correction and just retribution ; and that all flattery of 
himself and of other men, be they few or many, he must 
eschew ; and that he must use Oratory and all other Instru- 
ments of Doing, for the sake of Justice alway. 


120 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE GORGIAS MYTH 
I 


Here, again, as in the Phaedo Myth, it is Responsibility 
which Plato represents in a picture—a picture portraying the 
continuity of the Self through the series of its life-stages. 
It is in the consciousness of Responsibility—of being the 
cause of actions for which he takes praise and blame— 
that man first becomes conscious of Self as a constant in 
experience. Consciousness of an active—a responsible, or 
moral Self, is formally prior to consciousness of a passive, 
sensitive, Self realised as the one mirror in which sense- 
impressions are successively reflected. Thus, the Gorgias 
Myth gives a strictly natural representation of the Idea of 
Soul, when it sets forth, in a vision of Judgment, Penance, 
and Purification, the continuity and sameness of the active, as 
distinguished from the passive—of the responsible or moral, 
as distinguished from the sensitive Self. It is only in vision 
—in Myth—and not scientifically, that the Idea of Soul, or 
Subject, can be represented, or held up to contemplation as 
an Object at all; and it is best represented, that is, in the 
manner most suitable, not only to our consciousness of respon- 
sibility, but to our hope and fear, if it is represented in a 
vision of Judgment and Penance and Purification, where the 
departed are not the passive victims of vengeance, Tiuwpia, 
but actively develop their native powers under the discipline 
of correction, κόλασις. In such a vision it is consciousness 
of wrong done and fear (that fear mentioned by Cephalus in 
the Republic)* which conjure up the spectacle of punishment ; 
but hope, springing from the sense of personal endeavour after 
the good, speaks comfortably to the heart, and says, “If only 

1 What we call sin 
I could believe a painful opening out 


Of paths for ampler virtue. 
CLouGH, Dipsychus. 


O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum 
Meruit habere Redemptorem ! 
Easter hymn quoted by Leibniz, Théodicée, p. 507, ed. Erdmann. 


2 380k. 





THE GORGIAS MYTH 12 


-.᾿ 


ἂν man will strive steadfastly to overcome evil passions in this 
life, and in future lives, all will be well with him in the end. 
The very punishment which he fears will be for his ultimate 
good, for punishment regards the future which can still be 
modified, not the past which cannot be undone.” Pardon— 
for so we may bring home to ourselves the deeper meaning of 
Plato’s «d@apois—Pardon is thus involved in Punishment. 
This is a thought which cannot be set forth by the way of 
Science. Pardon is not found in the realm of Nature which 
Science describes. It “comes of the Grace of God.” It is 
received under another dispensation than that of Nature—a 
dispensation under which a man comes by “ Faith ”—Faith 
which Science can only chill, but Myth may confirm. Χρὴ 
τὰ τοιαῦτα ὥσπερ ἐπάδειν ἑαυτῷ. 

Besides containing this notable theory of Punishment 
and Pardon, the Gorgias Myth is remarkable for its power- 
ful imaginative rendering of the wonder with which man 
regards death—a rendering which is best taken side by side 
with another given in the Cratylus, 403, 4. Hades, Αἵδης, 
the God of Death, Socrates says in the Cratylus, is not called, 
as most people in their fear suppose, ἀπὸ τοῦ devdods—he is 
not the terrible Unseen One, who keeps the Dead in Hell, 
against their will, bound in the fetters of necessity. He is 
rather called ἀπὸ τοῦ πάντα τὰ καλὰ eidévac—he is the 
All-wise, the Philosopher, who, indeed, holds the Dead in 
fetters, but not against their will; for his fetters are those of 
that desire which, in disembodied souls, is stronger than 
necessity—the desire of knowledge. The Dead cleave to 
Hades as disciples cleave to a great master of wisdom. The 
wisest of men go to learn of him, and will not return from 
his companionship. He charms the charmers themselves— 
the Sirens '—so that they will not leave him. He is rightly 


1 The Sirens, although they became eventually simply Muses, were originally 
Chthonian deities, and as such are sculptured on tombs and painted on lekythi: 
see Miss Harrison’s Myths of the Odyssey, pp. 156-166; her Mythology and 
Monuments of Ancient Athens, pp. 582 ff.; and her article in J.H.S. vol. vi. 
pp. 19 ff. (‘‘Odysseus and the Sirens— Dionysiac Boat-races—Cylix of 
Nicosthenes’’), 1885. ‘‘As monuments on tombs, the Sirens,” writes Miss 
Harrison (Myth. and Mon. p. 584), ‘‘seem to have filled a double function ; 
they were sweet singers, fit to be set on the grave of poet or orator, and they 
were mourners to lament for the beauty of youth and maiden. It is somewhat 
curious that they are never sculptured on Attic tombs in the one function that 
makes their relation to death clearly intelligible—z.e. that of death-angels. The 


128 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


called Pluto, because he has the true riches—wisdom. Here 
we have what is really a Myth offered in satisfaction of the 
deep wonder with which man regards that undiscovered 
country from whose bourn no traveller returns. Plato 
appeals openly to the “science of etymology” in support 
of his “myth,” and, I would suggest, also appeals tacitly to 
traditional cultus :—Hades communicates true oracles to those 
who go down into his cave to sleep the sleep of death—truer 
oracles than those dreams which Trophonius sends to the 
living who sleep in his cave at Lebadia.* It is only with the 
disembodied soul that Hades will hold his dialectic, for only 
the disembodied soul, freed from the distractions of the bodily 
passions, can experience that invincible desire of knowledge, 
that ἔρως without which διαλεκτική is vain, which makes 
the learner leave all and cleave to his Teacher. In this, that 
he will hold converse only with the disembodied soul, Hades 
declares himself the true Philosopher. It is at this point 
that the connection appears between the Cratylus Myth—for 
we may call it a Myth—and the Gorgias Myth. The judges 
in the Gorgias Myth are naked souls (the phrase ἡ ψυχὴ 
γυμνὴ τοῦ σώματος occurs also in Cratylus, 403 B)—naked 
souls, without blindness or bias of the flesh, which see naked 
souls through and through, and pass true judgment upon 


them— 
There must be wisdom with Great Death : 
The dead shall look me thro’ and thro’. 


The wondering thought, that death may perhaps solve the 
enigma of life, has never been more impressively rendered 
than in these twin Myths of the Philosopher Death and the 
Dead Judges of the Dead. 


Siren of the Attic graves must surely be somehow connected with the bird death- 
angels that appear on the Harpy tomb, but her function as such seems to have 
been usurped for Attica by the male angels Death and Sleep.” 
Eriuna’s epitaph— 
στᾶλαι, καὶ Σειρῆνες ἐμαί, καὶ πένθιμε κρωσσέ, 
ὅστις ἔχεις ᾿Αΐδα τὰν ὀλίγαν σποδιάν---- 


brings the Sirens and Hades into connection just as Crat. 408 ἢ) ἀο68---διὰ ταῦτα 
dpa φῶμεν, ὦ Ἑρμόγενες, οὐδένα δεῦρο ἐθελῆσαι ἀπελθεῖν τῶν ἐκεῖθεν, οὐδὲ αὐτὰς 
τὰς Σειρῆνας, ἀλλὰ κατακεκλῆσθαι ἐκείνας τε καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους πάντας" οὕτω καλούς 
τινας, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐπίσταται λόγους λέγειν ὁ “Αιἰδης. According to Mr. J. P. Post- 
gate (Journal of Philology, ix. pp. 109 ff., ‘* A Philological Examination of the 
Myth of the Sirens”’), they are singing birds=souls winged for flight hence. 

1 Cf. Rohde, Psyche, i. 115 ff. 


THE GORGIAS MYTH 129 


[] 


Another point, and I have done with the “ Philosophy ” 
of the Gorgias Myth. 1 am anxious to have done with it, 
because I know that the “Philosophy of a Myth” too easily 
becomes “the dogmatic teaching which it covertly conveys” ; 
but I trust that in the foregoing remarks I have avoided, and 
in the following remarks shall continue to avoid, the error of 
treating a Myth as if it were an Allegory. ‘The point is this. 
The ineurably wicked who suffer eternal punishment are 
mostly tyrants—men like Archelaus and Tantalus, who had 
the opportunity of committing the greatest crimes, and used 
it. All praise to the few who had the opportunity and did 
not use it. But Thersites, a mere private offender, no poet 
has ever condemned to eternal punishment. He had not the 
opportunity of committing the greatest crimes, and in this is 
happier than those offenders who had. Here a mystery is set 
forth. The man who has the opportunity of committing the 
greatest crimes, and yields to the special temptation to which 
he is exposed, is held worthy of eternal damnation, which is 
escaped by the offender who has it not in his power, and has 
never been effectively tempted, to commit such crimes. First, 
the greatness of the crime is estimated as if it were a mere 
quantity standing in no relation to the quality of the agent; 
and then the quality of the agent is determined by the 
quantity of the crime; so that vice with large opportunity 
comes out as infinitely worse than vice with narrow ‘oppor- 
tunity, the former receiving eternal punishment, the latter 
suffering correction only for a limited time. This mystery of 
the infinite difference between vice with large opportunity and 
vice with narrow opportunity—the mystery which is set forth 
in “lead us not into temptation ””—this mystery is set forth 
by Plato in the Gorgias Myth as a mystery, without any 
attempt at explanation: “Men born to great power do not 
start with the same chance of ultimate salvation as men born 
to private stations.” With that the Gorgias Myth leaves us. 
In the Vision of Er, however, an explanation is offered—but 
still the explanation, no less than the mystery to be explained, 
is mythically set forth—not to satisfy the understanding, but 

K 


130 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


to give relief to feeling in imaginative expression. The 
explanation offered in the Vision of Er is that the Soul, before 
each incarnation, is free, within certain limits, to choose, and 
as a matter of fact does choose, its station in life—whether it 
be the station of a tyrant with large opportunity of doing 
evil, or that of a private person with narrow opportunity. In 
this way the mystery of the Gorgias Myth is “ explained ”— 
explained by another Myth. 

So much for the “ Philosophy” of the Gorgias Myth—so 
much for the great problems raised in it. Now let me add a 
few notes on some other points, for the better appreciation of 
the Myth itself as concrete product of creative imagination. 


III 


The judged are marked (Gorg. 526 B) as “corrigible” or 
“incorrigible.” So, too, in the Myth of Er (Rep. 614 Cc) 
those sent to Heaven have tablets fixed in front, those sent to 
Tartarus tablets fixed behind, on which their deeds and 
sentences are recorded. The idea of tablets may have been 
derived from the Orphic custom of placing in the graves of 
the dead tablets describing the way to be taken and the 
things to be done on the journey through the other world.’ 

Before Dante enters Purgatory the Angel at the Gate 
marks him with “seven P’s, to denote the seven sins ( peccata) 
of which he was to be cleansed in his passage through 
Purgatory ’— 

Seven times 
The letter that denotes the inward stain 
He on my forehead, with the blunted point 


Of his drawn sword, inscribed. And “ Look,” he cried, 
“When entered, that thou wash these scars away.” 5 


The judgment-seat of Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aeacus 
is ἐν τῷ λειμῶνι, ἐν τῇ τριόδῳ, ἐξ ἧς φέρετον τὼ 0d, ἡ 


! See Comparetti, J. H. S. iii. 111, and Dieterich, Nekyia, 85, on the gold 
tablets of Thurii and Petelia; and cf. p. 156 ff. infra. The Orphic custom 
itself may have come from Egypt, where texts from the Book of the Dead were 
buried with the corpse. The Book of the Dead was a guide-book for the Ka, or 
Double, which is apt to wander from the body and lose its way. See Jevons’ 
Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 323, and Flinders Petrie’s Zgyptian 
Tales, second series, p. 124. 

2 Purg. ix. 101, and see Cary’s note ad loc, 


THE GORGIAS MYTH 12] 


μὲν εἰς μακάρων νήσους, ἡ δ᾽ εἰς Τάρταρον (Gorg. 524 A). 
The topography of this passage corresponds with that of Ζέρρ. 
614 ὁ ff, where, however, it is added that the λειμών of the 
judgment-seat is also the spot in which the souls, returned 
from their thousand years’ sojourn in Tartarus and Heaven 
(i.e. the Islands of the Blessed), meet, and rest, before going 
on to the place where they choose their new lives before 
drinking of the water of Lethe. In the Gorgias the two 
ways mentioned are (1) that to Tartarus, and (2) that to the 
Islands of the Blessed; and the λειμών of judgment is “ at 
the parting of the ways” —év τῇ tprddm,—no reference being 
made to a third way leading to the throne of Necessity, and 
thence to the Plain of Lethe. In the parallel passage in 
Rep. 614 c ff. the ways are not mentioned as three; but 
they are three—(1) the way to Tartarus, (2) the way to 
Heaven, and (3) the way to the Plain of Lethe—all three 
diverging from the λειμών. 

The “ Three Ways,” as indicated in the Myth of Er,—one 
to Tartarus, one to Heaven, and the third to Lethe (a river of 
the surface of the EKarth)—constantly occur in the literature 
which reflects Orphic influence.’ They even appear in the 
folk-lore represented by the story of Thomas the Rhymer :— 





Light down, light down now, true Thomas, 
And lean your head upon my knee: 

Abide, and rest a little space, 

And I will show you ferlies three. 


Oh see ye not yon narrow road, 

So thick beset wi’ thorns and briars ? 
That is the path of righteousness, 
Though after it but few inquires. 


And see not ye that braid braid road, 
That lies across the lily leven ? 

That is the path of wickedness, 

Though some call it the road to Heaven. 


And see not ye that bonny road, 

That winds about the fernie brae ? 
That is the road to fair Elf-land, 
Where thou and I this night maun gae. 





‘ See Dieterich, Nekyia, 89, 90, and especially Rohde, Psy. ii. 221, note. 


132 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


The three parts of the Divina Commedia correspond, in 
the main, to the “Three Ways.” The theological doctrine of 
Purgatory, to which Dante gives such noble imaginative 
expression, is alien to the Hebrew spirit, and came to the 
Church mainly from the Platonic doctrine of κάθαρσις---- 
especially as the doctrine found expression in Eschatological 
Myths reflecting Orphic teaching.’ 

We come now to the Myth of Er (Rep. 614 α ff), the 
greatest of Plato’s Eschatological Myths, whether the fulness 
of its matter or the splendour of its form be considered. 


1 See Thompson’s note on Gorg. 525 8. 


THE MYTH OF ER IN THE REPUBLIC 
CONTEXT 


Tuk subject of the Republic is Justice—that character in the 
individual which manifests itself in the steady performance 
of Duty—Duty being what a man does for the maintenance of 
a certain Type of Social Life, the good of which he has been 
educated to identify with his own good. 

What, then, is this Type of Social Life, in living for which 
a man does his Duty and finds his true Happiness ? 

The Republic is mainly concerned with the description of 
ait, and of the Education which fits men for it; and as the 
Dialogue proceeds, the reader, who enters into the feelings of the 
dramatis personae, becomes, with them, more and more con- 
winced that true Happiness, in this world, is to be found only 
in the steady performance of Duty in and for a State ordered 
according to the spirit, if not according to the letter, of the 
Constitution described by Socrates. In this world, certainly, 
the man who does his Duty, as Socrates defines it, has his great 
reward. He is 729 times happier than the man who, despising 
the law of Duty, has fallen under the tyranny of Pleasure. 

But a greater reward awaits the Righteous man, and 
greater torments are prepared for the Unrighteous man, in the 
world to come. or the Soul is immortal ; and an ontological 
proof of its immortality is given. 

Then, as though this proof were insufficient, the Republic 
ends with the Myth of Er (told by Socrates), which proves, 
indeed, nothing for the Understanding, but visualises, for the 
Imagination, the hope of the Heart. 


\ 133 


134 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Republic 613 E-621D 


« / ς ᾽ , an ω A 
‘A μὲν τοίνυν, Wv δ᾽ ἐγώ, ζῶντι τῷ δικαίῳ παρὰ θεῶν 
614 Te καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἄθλά τε καὶ μισθοὶ καὶ δῶρα γίγνεται 
\ > / A > a > \ e 
πρὸς ἐκείνοις τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς οἷς αὐτὴ παρείχετο ἡ δικαιο- 
σύνη, τοιαῦτ᾽ ἂν εἴη. Καὶ μάλ᾽, ἔφη, καλά τε καὶ βέβαια. 
lal > 
Ταῦτα τοίνυν, ἣν & ἐγώ, οὐδέν ἐστι πλήθει οὐδὲ μεγέθει 
Ν 3 an A / e / / \ > > \ 
πρὸς ἐκεῖνα, ἃ τελευτήσαντα ἑκάτερον περιμένει. χρὴ δ᾽ αὐτὰ 
> a “ 7 ae 3. ὙᾺ > / ee A 
ἀκοῦσαι, ἵνα τελέως ἑκάτερος αὐτῶν ἀπειλήφῃ τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ 
/ κ 
λόγου ὀφειλόμενα ἀκοῦσαι. Λέγοις ἄν, ἔφη, ὡς οὐ πολλὰ 
’ , 
Β ἄλλ᾽ ἥδιον ἀκούοντι. ᾿Αλλ᾽ ov μέντοι σοι, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ᾿Αλκί- 
/ a a 
vou γε ἀπόλογον ἐρῶ, ἀλλ᾽ ἀλκίμου μὲν ἀνδρός, Ἢρὸς τοῦ 
᾿Αρμενίου, τὸ γένος Παμφύλου' ὅς ποτε ἐν πολέμῳ τελευ- 
τήσας, ἀναιρεθέντων δεκαταίων τῶν νεκρῶν ἤδη διεφθαρ- 
’ 
μένων, ὑγιὴς μὲν ἀνῃρέθη, κομισθεὶς δ᾽ οἴκαδε μέλλων 
θάπτεσθαι, δωδεκαταῖος ἐπὶ τῇ πυρᾷ κείμενος ἀνεβίω, 
᾽ lol lal 
ἀναβιοὺς δ᾽ ἔλεγεν ἃ ἐκεῖ ἴδοι. ἔφη δέ, ἐπειδὴ οὗ ἐκβῆναι 
στὴν ψυχήν, πορεύεσθαι μετὰ πολλῶν, καὶ ἀφικνεῖσθαι σφᾶς 
; / \ / , Φ a a 4? 7 
εἰς τόπον τινὰ δαιμόνιον, ἐν ᾧ τῆς τε γῆς δύ εἶναι χάσματε 
> / > / \ “A > a — , “A Μ Μ 
ἐχομένω ἀλλήλοιν καὶ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ αὖ ἐν τῷ ἄνω ἄλλα 
/ \ \ \ ’ a “ 
καταντικρύ. δικαστὰς δὲ μεταξὺ τούτων καθῆσθαι, ods, 
> \ / \ \ / ’ / 
ἐπειδὴ διαδικάσειαν, τοὺς μὲν δικαίους κελεύειν πορεΐεσθαι 
\ ᾽ 7 \ Μ a ᾽ A a U 
τὴν eis δεξιάν τε Kal ἄνω διὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, σημεῖα περιά- 
- 7 , 7 / 4 » , 
ψαντας τῶν δεδικασμένων ἐν τῷ πρόσθεν, τοὺς δὲ ἀδίκους 
\ , , / \ / Μ / > A 
τὴν εἰς ἀριστεράν τε Kal κάτω, ἔχοντας Kal τούτους ἐν τῷ 
Ὁ ὄπισθεν σημεῖα πάντων ὧν ἔπραξαν. ἑαυτοῦ δὲ προσελ- 


, - “ / FY, v > , / 
θόντος εἰπεῖν, ὅτι δέοι αὐτὸν ἄγγελον ἀνθρώποις γενέσθαι 


THE MYTH OF ER 135 


TRANSLATION 


“Of such sort, then, are the prizes and the wages and the 
gifts which the just man receiveth, while he is yet alive, from 
Gods and Men, over and above those good things whereof | 
spake which Justice herself provideth.” 

“Yea, in truth goodly gifts,” quoth he, “and exceeding 
sure.” 

“Well,” I said, “they are even as nothing, for number 
and greatness, in comparison with those things which await 
each of the two, to wit, the just man and the unjust man, 
when he is dead. Of these thou must hear, that each of 
them may have full payment of that which this Discourse 
oweth him to be said concerning him.” 

“Say on,” quoth he, “there is little else I would hear 
more gladly.” 

“ Nay,” said I, “but it is not a Tale of Alcinous I will tell 
thee, but the story of a mighty man, Er, the son of Armenius, 
of the nation of the Pamphylians. 

“Tt came to pass that he fell in battle; and when the 
corpses were taken up on the tenth day already stinking, he 
was taken up sound; and when they had carried him home 
and were about to bury him, on the twelfth day, being laid 
on the pyre, he came to life again; and began to tell of the 
things which he saw there. 

“He said that when his Soul went out, it journeyed 
together with a great company, and they came unto a certain 
ghostly place wherein were two open Mouths of the Earth 
hard by each other, and also above, two Mouths of the Heaven, 
over against them: and Judges were seated between these, 
who, when they had given their judgments, bade the righteous 
take the road which leadeth to the right hand and up through 
Heaven; and they fastened tablets on them in front, signify- 
ing the judgments; but the unjust they sent by the road 
which leadeth to the left hand and down, and they also had 
tablets fastened on them behind, signifying all that they had 
done. But when he himself came before the Judges they 
said unto him that he must be for a messenger unto men con- 
cerning the things there, and they charged him straitly that 


615 


136 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


an , - \ / / e , / \ a 
τῶν ἐκεῖ καὶ διακελεύοιντο οἱ ἀκούειν τε Kal θεᾶσθαι 
, \ ? A / ct aA δ) ΄, \ θ᾽ δι 
πάντα τὰ ἐν τῷ τόπῳ. ὁρᾶν δὴ ταύτῃ μὲν καθ ἑκάτερον 
\ , κ a a a / 
τὸ χάσμα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τε Kal τῆς γῆς ἀπιούσας τὰς 
7 > \ > -» / \ \ \ e / > \ 
ψυχάς, ἐπειδὴ αὐταῖς δικασθείη, κατὰ δὲ τὼ ἑτέρω ἐκ μὲν 
a a a -“ \ / 
τοῦ ἀνιέναι ἐκ τῆς γῆς μεστὰς αὐχμοῦ τε Kal κόνεως, ἐκ 
Ν lal e / / e / > lal > an / 
δὲ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταβαίνειν ἑτέρας ἐκ Tod οὐρανοῦ καθαράς. 
\ \ . Pad b] / Ὁ 5 lel / 
καὶ Tas ἀεὶ ἀφικνουμένας ὥσπερ ἐκ πολλῆς πορείας 
’ Ὁ \ > / > \ lal > 4 
φαίνεσθαι ἥκειν, Kal ἀσμένας εἰς τὸν λειμῶνα ἀπιούῦσας 
al ὔ / 
οἷον ἐν πανηγύρει κατασκηνᾶσθαι, καὶ ἀσπάζεσθαί τε ἀλλή- 
ee / \ / / > ipl ipl 
Aas ὅσαι γνώριμαι, Kal πυνθάνεσθαι τάς TE ἐκ τῆς γῆς 
ἡκούσας παρὰ τῶν ἑτέρων τὰ ἐκεῖ καὶ τὰς ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ 
al / \ \ 
Ta παρ᾽ ἐκείναις. διηγεῖσθαι δὲ ἀλλήλαις τὰς μὲν 
> / \ , > / ef \ 
ὀδυρομένας τε Kal κλαούσας, ἀναμιμνησκομένας, ὅσα τε καὶ 
/ \ »᾽ ᾿] A ΄ Ν - ’ s \ 
ola πάθοιεν καὶ ἴδοιεν ἐν τῇ ὑπὸ γῆς πορεία----εἶναι δὲ 
\ / = \ > 5S ᾽ rn > » > / 
τὴν πορείαν χιλιετῆ---τὰς δ᾽ αὖ ἐκ Tod οὐρανοῦ εὐπαθείας 
~ 5 
διηγεῖσθαι καὶ θέας ἀμηχάνους τὸ κάλλος. τὰ μὲν οὖν 
-» / \ ᾽ 
πολλά, ὦ Γλαύκων, πολλοῦ χρόνου διηγήσασθαι" τὸ ὃ 
» / / 
οὖν κεφάλαιον ἔφη τόδε εἶναι, ὅσα πώποτέ τινα ἠδίκησαν 
\ cad " [2 \ e , / / ᾿] / 
καὶ ὅσους ἕκαστοι, ὑπὲρ ἁπάντων δίκην δεδωκέναι ἐν μέρει, 


ς \ e / / lal ’ ι. 7 \ e 
UTEP EKATTOU δεκάκις ---τοῦτο ὃ €LVaL KATA εκατονταετῆ- 


Βρίδα ἑκάστην, ws βίου ὄντος τοσούτου τοῦ avOpwrivov—, 


“ , Xs ἣν A > , > , 
ἵνα δεκαπλάσιον τὸ ἔκτισμα τοῦ ἀδικήματος ἐκτίνοιεν" Kal 
- , / 
οἵτινες πολλῶν θανάτων ἦσαν αἴτιοι, ἢ πόλεις προδόντες ἢ 
/ / 
στρατόπεδα καὶ eis δουλείας ἐμβεβληκότες, ἤ τινος ἄλλης 
/ / / / / > / 
κακουχίας μεταίτιοι, πάντων τούτων δεκαπλασίας adyndovas 
‘ / 
ὑπὲρ ἑκάστου κομίσαιντο, καὶ avd εἴ Twas εὐεργεσίας 
> / \ , \ Ὁ U4 3 \ 
εὐεργετηκότες καὶ δίκαιοι Kal ὅσιοι γεγονότες εἶεν, κατὰ 
> 4 \ > / / lal \ > \ / \ 
ταὐτὰ τὴν ἀξίαν κομίζοιντος τῶν δὲ εὐθὺς γενομένων Kal 
, ; » ΝΜ / 
ὀλίγον χρόνον βιούντων πέρι ἄλλα ἔλεγεν οὐκ ἄξια μνήμης. 
εἰς δὲ θεοὺς ἀσεβείας τε καὶ εὐσεβείας καὶ γονέας καὶ 


αὐτόχειρας φόνου μείζους ἔτι τοὺς μισθοὺς διηγεῖτο. ἔφη 


THE MYTH OF ER 137 


he should give diligence to hear and see all the things in the 
place, 

“ Now, he told how that he beheld the Souls departing, some 
by one of the Mouths of Heaven, and some by one of the Mouths 
of Karth, when judgment had been given unto them; also 
how that he beheld Souls returning by the other two Mouths, 
some coming up from the Earth travel-stained, covered with 
dust, and some coming down from Heaven, pure. And he said 
that all, as they came, being come belike from a long journey, 
turned aside with joy into the Meadow and encamped there 
as in a Congregation; and they that were acquaintances 
greeted one another, and they questioned one another—they 
that were come from the Earth questioned them that were 
come from Heaven concerning the things there, and in like 
manner they that were come from Heaven questioned the 
others concerning the things that had happened unto them. 
So they discoursed with one another—some of them groaning 
and weeping when they called to mind all the terrible things 
they had suffered and seen in their journey under the Earth 
—he said that their journey was for a thousand years; and 
others of them, to wit, those which were come from Heaven, 
telling of blessings and marvellous fair sights. 

“Time would fail me, O Glaucon, to relate all that he said, 
but the sum thereof was this :—That according to the number 
of the wrongs which each man hath ever done, and the number 
of them whom he hath wronged, he payeth penalty for all in 
their course, ten times for each :—now, it is every hundred 
years that he payeth, for a hundred years are counted for the 
lifetime of a man: so is it brought to pass that the price of 
evil-doing is paid tenfold: thus if certain caused the death 
of many by betraying cities or armies, and casting men into 
bondage, or taking part of other iniquity, they are recom- 
pensed tenfold with torments for each one of these things ; 
but if any have done good unto other men, and have been 
just and religious, they in the same measure receive their 
rewards. Also concerning infants that died as soon as they 
were born, or lived but a short while, there were things he 
said that are not worth remembering. As for those who dis- 
honoured Gods and Parents, and those who honoured them, 
and as for those that were murderers, he spake of their wages 


610 


138 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ \ / >’ / ΄ / δ Ν [4 / “ 
γὰρ δὴ παραγενέσθαι ἐρωτωμένῳ ἑτέρῳ ὑπὸ ἑτέρου, ὅπου 
a ΄ ς χ.. Φ a a 7 
εἴη ᾿Αρδιαῖος ὁ μέγας. ὁ δὲ ᾿Αρδιαῖος οὗτος τῆς Παμφυλίας 
» / / ’ / ” \ Ν᾽ ᾽ 
ἔν τινι πόλει τύραννος ἐγεγόνει, ἤδη χιλιοστὸν ἔτος εἰς 
- / , 
ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον, γέροντά τε πατέρα ἀποκτείνας Kal 
,ὔ ’ 
πρεσβύτερον ἀδελφόν, καὶ ἄλλα δὴ πολλά τε καὶ ἀνόσια 
> ; ε 7 ” 2 \ ᾽ ΄ > » 
εἰργασμένος, ws ἐλέγετο. ἔφη οὖν τὸν ἐρωτώμενον εἰπεῖν, 
Οὐχ ἥκει, φάναι, οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἥξει δεῦρο. 
> / \ 5 \ \ an -“ a / 
ἐθεασάμεθα yap οὖν δὴ καὶ τοῦτο τῶν δεινῶν θεαμάτων. 
᾽ \ , \ fal , 9 / > / \ 
ἐπειδὴ ἐγγὺς τοῦ στομίου ἦμεν μέλλοντες ἀνιέναι καὶ 
/ “- ἔς / 
τἄλλα πάντα πεπονθότες, Exeivov τε κατείδομεν ἐξαίφνης 
\ »' / > lal \ / / 
Kal ἄλλους σχεδὸν TL αὐτῶν τοὺς πλείστους τυράννους" 
3 \ \ > a , κ 7 ς / A 
ἦσαν δὲ καὶ ἰδιῶταί τινες τῶν μεγάλα ἡμαρτηκότων" OVS 
’ὔ » 
οἰομένους ἤδη ἀναβήσεσθαι οὐκ ἐδέχετο τὸ στόμιον, ἀλλ, 
al id , -“ ’ / 
ἐμυκᾶτο, ὁπότε τις τῶν οὕτως ἀνιάτως ἐχόντων εἰς πονηρίαν 
ἃ \ e - \ / ᾿] a > / > lal ὃ) 
ἢ μὴ ἱκανῶς δεδωκὼς δίκην ἐπιχειροῖ ἀνιέναι. ἐνταῦθα δὴ 
ἄνδρες, ἔφη, ἄγριοι, διάπυροι ἰδεῖν, παρεστῶτες καὶ κατα- 
\ / \ \ 
μανθάνοντες TO φθέγμα, τοὺς μὲν διαλαβόντες ἦγον, τὸν δὲ 
, A A / 
Αρδιαῖον καὶ ἄλλους συμποδίσαντες χεῖράς τε Kal πόδας 
/ \ 
καὶ κεφαλήν, καταβαλόντες καὶ ἐκδείραντες, εἷλκον παρὰ 
\ τῶν > \ ἘΝῚ, Ε] 7 / \ a ee 
τὴν ὁδὸν ἐκτὸς ἐπ ἀσπαλάθων κνάπτοντες, Kal τοῖς ἀεὶ 
-" a \ 
παριοῦσι σημαίνοντες, ὧν ἕνεκά TE ταῦτα ὑπομένοιεν ἡ καὶ 
“ ᾽ \ ᾿ ᾽ / » Μ \ 
ὅτι εἰς τὸν Τάρταρον ἐμπεσούμενοι ayowto. ἔνθα δὴ 
/ » na , / 
φόβων, ἔφη, πολλῶν καὶ παντοδαπῶν σφίσι γεγονότων 
- / \ 7 \ 
τοῦτον ὑπερβάλλειν τὸν φόβον, μὴ γένοιτο ἑκάστῳ TO 
7 
φθέγμα, ὅτε avaBaivor, καὶ ἀσμενέστατα ἕκαστον συγήσαντος 
τ / 
ἀναβῆναι. καὶ tas μὲν δὴ δίκας τε Kal τιμωρίας τοιαύτας 
/ 
τινὰς εἶναι, καὶ av τὰς εὐεργεσίας ταύταις ἀντιστρόφους" 
᾽ \ \ - ᾽ al a c , c ς / 
ἐπειδὴ δὲ τοῖς ἐν τῷ λειμῶνι ἑκάστοις ἑπτὰ ἡμέραι 
/ > / ᾽ an - lal , ’ 4 
γένοιντο, ἀναστάντας ἐντεῦθεν δεῖν τῇ ὀγδόῃ πορεύεσθαι, 
»" “ Μ 
καὶ ἀφικνεῖσθαι τεταρταίους ὅθεν καθορᾶν ἄνωθεν διὰ 
na “- a / 
παντὸς τοῦ οὐρανοῦ Kal γῆς τεταμένον φῶς εὐθύ, οἷον 
, ~ » / 
κίονα, μάλιστα τῇ ἴριδι προσφερῆ, λαμπρότερον δὲ καὶ 
, / 7 ε / 
καθαρώτερον. εἰς ὃ ἀφικέσθαι προελθόντας ἡμερησίαν ὁδόν, 


a \ ω lal > a 
ο καὶ ἰδεῖν αὐτόθι κατὰ μέσον τὸ φῶς ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τὰ 


| ταῦτα ὑπομένοιεν om. 


THE MYTH OF ER 139 


as even greater; for he said that he stood beside one of whom 
another inquired, Where Ardiaeus the Great was. Now this 
Ardiaeus had made himself King in a city of Pamphylha just a 
thousand years before that time, having slain the old man his 
father, and his elder brother, and having wrought many other 
evil deeds, as men tell. He said, then, that the one of whom 
inquiry was made answered saying, He is not come; nor will 
he ever come hither—for this, indeed, was one of the terrible 
things that we beheld when we were nigh unto the Mouth, 
and about to go up after all our sufferings; on the sudden we 
came in sight of him, and others, most of them kings, but 
there were also private men of those that had sinned greatly 
amongst them: these, thinking that they were already about 
to go up, the Mouth received not, but bellowed; for it 
belloweth as often as any one of those that are wicked beyond 
cure like unto these, or any one that hath not paid the full 
price of his sins, essayeth to go up. In that place he said 
men were standing by—savage men, as coals of fire to look 
upon—who, hearing and understanding the Voice of the Mouth, 
took hold of some in their arms and carried them away; but 
Ardiaeus and others they bound hand and foot and neck, and 
threw down, and flayed, and dragged to a place apart by the 
side of the way, and there carded them on thorns, signifying 
to all that passed by wherefore they were taken, and that 
they should be cast into Tartarus. Then, he said, there came 
upon him and his companions a fear greater than all the fears 
of every sort they had before; for each one of them feared lest 
the Voice should be for himself when he went up: and with 
great joy did each one go up when the Voice kept silence. 

“ Of such kind, then, were the judgments and the punish- 
ments; and there were blessings that answered unto them. 

“ Now, when both companies had been seven days in the 
Meadow, Er said that they were constrained, on the eighth 
day, to arise and journey thence, and came on the fourth day 
to a place whence they could behold a Straight Light ex- 
tended from above through the whole Heaven and Earth, as 
it were a pillar, for colour most like unto the rainbow, but 
brighter and purer. Unto which they came when they had 
gone forward a day’s journey, and there, at the middle part of 
the Light, beheld extended from the Heaven the ends of the 


140 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


a - A \ la \ lal 
ἄκρα αὐτοῦ τῶν δεσμῶν τεταμένα" εἶναι yap τοῦτο TO φῶς 
“- a lal / 
ξύνδεσμον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, οἷον τὰ ὑποζώματα τῶν τριήρων, 
aA \ \ Les ΝΜ 
οὕτω πᾶσαν ξυνέχον τὴν περιφοράν: ἐκ δὲ τῶν ἄκρων 
, ᾽ 
τεταμένον ᾿Ανώγκης ἄτρακτον, δι οὗ πάσας ἐπιστρέφεσθαι 
΄, Ν 
τὰς περιφοράς" οὗ τὴν μὲν ἠλακάτην τε καὶ τὸ ἄγκιστρον 
- ᾽ Ὁ, \ \ , \ » 7 
εἶναι ἐξ ἀδάμαντος, τὸν δὲ σφόνδυλον μικτὸν ἔκ τε τούτου 
a \ fal / / s 
Deal ἄλλων γενῶν. τὴν δὲ τοῦ σφονδύλου φύσιν εἶναι 
A 7 n n \ 
Tovavoe’ TO μὲν σχῆμα οἵαπερ ἡ τοῦ ἐνθάδε: νοῆσαι δὲ 
a 5 φ » / ; ae “ 4 x > > | ae 
δεῖ ἐξ ὧν ἔλεγε τοιόνδε αὐτὸν εἶναι, ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ ἐν ἑνὶ 
, , 4 \ ” 
μεγάλῳ σφονδύλῳ κοίλῳ καὶ ἐξεγχλυμμένῳ διαμπερὲς ἄλλος 
an / / e 
τοιοῦτος ἐλάττων ἐγκέοιτο ἁρμόττων, καθάπερ οἱ κάδοι οἱ 
> > / € / \ e/ \ / ” \ 
εἰς ἀλλήλους ἁρμόττοντες" καὶ οὕτω δὴ τρίτον ἄλλον καὶ 
‘ > \ s \ 
τέταρτον καὶ ἄλλους τέτταρας. ὀκτὼ γὰρ εἶναι τοὺς 
, / 4 
ξύμπαντας σφονδύλους, ἐν ἀλλήλοις ἐγκειμένους, κύκλους 
» Ν , / “ \ α. 5 4 
Ε ἄνωθεν τὰ χείλη φαίνοντας, νῶτον συνεχὲς ἑνὸς σφονδύλου 
Ν \ / 
ἀπεργαζομένους περὶ τὴν ἠλακάτην' ἐκείνην δὲ διὰ μέσου 
- / \ \ -»" ,ὔ 
τοῦ ὀγδόου διαμπερὲς ἐληλάσθαι. τὸν μὲν οὖν πρῶτόν τε 
/ \ fa) , 
καὶ ἐξωτάτω σφόνδυλον πλατύτατον τὸν TOD χείλους κύκλον 
5 a / \ \ a 
ἔχειν, Tov δὲ τοῦ ἕκτου δεύτερον, τρίτον δὲ τὸν τοῦ 
\ lal / / \ \ -“ 
τετάρτου, τέταρτον δὲ τὸν τοῦ ὀγδόου, πέμπτον δὲ τὸν τοῦ 
e ὉΠ “ \ \ a / “ \ \ lal 
ἑβδόμου, ἕκτον δὲ τὸν Tod πέμπτου, ἕβδομον δὲ τὸν τοῦ 
a / \ \ a 
τρίτου, ὄγδοον δὲ τὸν τοῦ SevTépov' καὶ τὸν μὲν τοῦ 
/ / Ν \ la id / / \ 
μεγίστου ποικίλον, τὸν δὲ τοῦ ἑβδόμου λαμπρότατον, τὸν 
- / "»“ fal / ΝΜ 
611 δὲ τοῦ ὀγδόου τὸ χρῶμα ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑβδόμου ἔχειν προσ- 
\ an / 
λάμποντος, τὸν δὲ Tod δευτέρου Kal πέμπτου παραπλήσια 
᾽ / / > , / \ / a 
ἀλλήλοις, EavOotepa ἐκείνων, τρίτον δὲ λευκότατον χρῶμα 
5) ΄ \ / \ 
ἔχειν, τέταρτον δὲ ὑπέρυθρον, δεύτερον δὲ λευκότητι τὸν 
e a \ \ / \ 
ἕκτον ὑπερβάλλειν. κυκλεῖσθαι δὲ δὴ στρεφόμενον τὸν 
ΝΜ “ Ν \ > \ / > \ A Ὁ 
ἄτρακτον ὅλον μὲν τὴν αὐτὴν φοράν, ἐν δὲ τῷ ὅλῳ 
Ν / \ / 
περιφερομένῳ τοὺς μὲν ἐντὸς ἑπτὰ κύκλους τὴν ἐναντίαν 
“᾿ς - / / \ 
TO ὅλῳ ἠρέμα περιφέρεσθαι, αὐτῶν δὲ τούτων τάχιστα μὲν 
hed \ v / \ \ ωῳ > / / 
Biévat τὸν ὄγδοον, δευτέρους δὲ Kal ἅμα ἀλλήλοις τὸν τε 
΄ \ “ \ / \ / Sy Ae 
ἕβδομον καὶ ἕκτον καὶ πέμπτον: τὸν τρίτον δὲ φορᾷ ἰέναι, 
΄ ᾽ / \ / 
ὡς σφίσι φαίνεσθαι, ἐπανακυκλούμενον τὸν τέταρτον" 
/ \ / 
τέταρτον δὲ τὸν τρίτον καὶ πέμπτον τὸν δεύτερον" 
/ \ ee > a κ ᾽ / / > i 
στρέφεσθαι δὲ αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς τῆς ᾿Ανάγκης γόνασιν. ἐπ 
‘ 5 4 > a » >? « / / 
δὲ τῶν κύκλων αὐτοῦ ἄνωθεν ἐφ᾽ ἑκάστου βεβηκέναι 
- \ / ta / 
Σειρῆνα συμπεριφερομένην, φωνὴν μίαν ἱεῖσαν, ἕνα τόνον" 
᾽ ε J \ » a / e , a ” 
ἐκ πασῶν δὲ ὀκτὼ οὐσῶν μίαν ἁρμονίαν ξυμφωνεῖν. ἄλλας 


THE MYTH OF ER 141 


bonds thereof: for this Light is that which bindeth the 
Heavens together; as the under-girths hold together ships 
so doth it hold together the whole round of Heaven; and 
from the ends extendeth the Spindle of Necessity, which 
causeth all the heavenly revolutions, whereof the shaft and 
hook are of adamant, and the whorl is of adamant and of 
other substances therewith. 

“ Now, the whorl is after this fashion. In shape it is as 
one of our whorls, but from what he said we must conceive of 
it as a great whorl, carved hollow through and through, where- 
in is set, fitting it, a smaller whorl of like kind, as caskets are 
set fitting into one another; and then in this a third whorl is 
set, and then a fourth, and then four others; for the whorls 
are together eight, set one within another, showing their lips 
as circles above, and making thus the even continued outside 
of one whorl round about the shaft; and the shaft is driven 
right through the middle of the eighth whorl. 

“The first and outermost whorl hath the circle of its lip 
the broadest; the circle of the sixth is second for breadth ; 
the circle of the fourth is third; the circle of the eighth is 
fourth; the circle of the seventh is fifth; the circle of the 
fifth is sixth; the circle of the third is seventh; the circle of 
the second is eighth. And the circle of the greatest is of 
many colours; the circle of the seventh is brightest; the 
circle of the eighth hath its colour from the seventh which 
shineth upon it; the circles of the second and fifth are lke 
unto each other, being ruddier than the rest; the third hath 
the whitest colour; the fourth is pale red; and the sixth is 
second for whiteness. 

“The spindle turneth round wholly with one motion; but 
of the whole that turneth round the seven circles within turn 
slowly contrary to the whole: and of these the eighth goeth 
swiftest ; next, and together, go the seventh and the sixth and 
the fifth; third in swiftness goeth the fourth; fourth, the 
third; and fifth, the second. 

“ And the whole spindle goeth round in the lap of Necessity. 

“ Aloft upon each of the circles of the spindle is mounted a 
Siren; which goeth round with her circle, uttering one note 
at one pitch; and the notes of all the eight together do make 
one melody. 


142 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


c δὲ καθημένας πέριξ δι ἴσου τρεῖς, ἐν θρόνῳ ἑκάστην, 


D 


θυγατέρας τῆς ᾿Ανάγκης, Μοίρας, λευχειμονούσας, στέμματα 
ἐπὶ τῶν κεφαλῶν ἐχούσας, Λάχεσίν τε καὶ Κλωθὼ καὶ 
ἼΛτροπον, ὑμνεῖν πρὸς τὴν τῶν Σειρήνων ἁρμονίαν, Λάχεσιν 
μὲν τὰ γεγονότα, Κλωθὼ δὲ τὰ ὄντα, ΓΑτροπον δὲ τὰ 
μέλλοντα. καὶ τὴν μὲν Κλωθὼ τῇ δεξιᾷ χειρὶ ἐφαπτομένην 
συνεπιστρέφειν τοῦ ἀτράκτου τὴν ἔξω περιφοράν, διαλεί- 
πουσαν χρόνον, τὴν δὲ "Ατροπον τῇ ἀριστερᾷ τὰς ἐντὸς 
αὖ ὡσαύτως: τὴν δὲ Λάχεσιν ἐν μέρει ἑκατέρας ἑκατέρᾳ τῇ 
χειρὶ ἐφάπτεσθαι. 

σφᾶς οὖν, ἐπειδὴ ἀφικέσθαι, εὐθὺς δεῖν ἰέναι πρὸς τὴν 
Λάχεσιν. προφήτην οὖν τινὰ σφᾶς πρῶτον μὲν ἐν τάξει 
διαστῆσαι, ἔπειτα λαβόντα ἐκ τῶν τῆς Λαχέσεως γονάτων 
κλήρους τε καὶ βίων παραδείγματα, ἀναβάντα ἐπί τι βῆμα 
ὑψηλὸν εἰπεῖν: ᾿Ανάγκης θυγατρὸς κόρης Λαχέσεως λόγος. 
Ψυχαὶ ἐφήμεροι, ἀρχὴ ἄλλης περιόδου θνητοῦ γένους 


Ἑ θανατηφόρου. οὐχ ὑμᾶς δαίμων λήξεται, ἀλλ᾽’ ὑμεῖς 


618 


/ Coe a Pe \ a e / 
δαίμονα αἱρήσεσθε. πρῶτος δ᾽ ὁ λαχὼν πρῶτος αἱρείσθω 
/ ? / > > / > \ \ > / 
βίον, ᾧ συνέσται ἐξ ἀνάγκης. ἀρετὴ δὲ ἀδέσποτον, ἣν 
ε \ b] / / \ » a “ “ 
τιμῶν καὶ ἀτιμάζων πλέον καὶ ἔλαττον αὐτῆς ἕκαστος ἕξει. 
r / an 
αἰτία ἑλομένου: θεὸς ἀναίτιος. Ταῦτα εἰπόντα ῥῖψαι ἐπὶ 
/ \ / \ \ ’ ig \ / “ 
πάντας τοὺς κλήρους, τὸν δὲ παρ᾽ αὑτὸν πεσόντα ἕκαστον 
ἀναιρεῖσθαι, πλὴν οὗ: δὲ οὐκ ἐᾶν: τῷ δὲ ἀνελομένῳ 
“-. et / r 
δῆλον εἶναι, ὁπόστος εἰλήχειν' μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο αὖθις τὰ 
- / \ / a a 
τῶν βίων παραδείγματα eis τὸ πρόσθεν σφῶν θεῖναι ἐπὶ 
A rn / 
τὴν γῆν, πολὺ πλείω τῶν παρόντων. εἶναι δὲ παντοδαπά" 
, \ , / \ \ \ \ > / 
ζώων τε yap πάντων βίους καὶ δὴ Kal τοὺς ἀνθρωπίνους 
ad / \ b] » -“ \ 
ἅπαντας. τυραννίδας τε yap ἐν αὐτοῖς εἶναι, τὰς μὲν 
διατελεῖς, τὰς δὲ καὶ μεταξὺ διαφθειρομένας καὶ εἰς πενίας 
\ 4 \ , / , > \ \ 
te καὶ φυγὰς καὶ εἰς πτωχείας τελευτώσας" εἶναι δὲ Kal 


δοκίμων ἀνδρῶν βίους, τοὺς μὲν ἐπὶ εἴδεσι καὶ κατὰ κάλλη 


THE MYTH OF ER 143 


“Round about are three others seated at equal distances 
apart, each upon a throne: these be the Daughters of Necessity, 
the Fates, Lachesis, and Clotho, and Atropos. They are 
clothed in white raiment and have garlands on their heads ; 
and they chant to the melody of the Sirens; Lachesis chanteth 
of the things that have been, and Clotho of the things that 
are, and Atropos of the things that shall be: and Clotho with 
her right hand ever and anon taketh hold of the outer round 
of the spindle, and helpeth to turn it; and Atropos with her 
left hand doeth the same with the inner rounds; and Lachesis 
with either hand taketh hold of outer and inner alternately.’ 

“ Now he said that when they were come, it behoved them 
straightway to go unto Lachesis. Wherefore a Prophet did 
first marshal them in order; and then having taken lots out 
of the lap of Lachesis and Ensamples of Lives, went up into a 
high pulpit and said: Thus saith Necessity’s Daughter, Maid 
Lachesis—Souls of a day, now beginneth another course of 
earthly life which bringeth death. For you your Angels will 
not cast lots, to get you, but each one of you shall choose his 
Angel. Let him to whom falleth the first turn, first choose 
the Life unto which he shall be bound of necessity. But 
Virtue hath no master. As a man honoureth her and dis- 
honoureth her, so shall he have more of her and less). He who 
hath chosen shall answer for it. God is not answerable. 

“Er said that when the Prophet had spoken these words, he 
threw the lots unto all, and each took up the lot which fell 
beside him, save only himself; for the Prophet suffered him 
not. 

“ Now when each had taken up his lot, it was plain what 
number he had gotten. Thereafter the Prophet laid on the 
ground before them the Ensamples of Lives, far more than for 
the persons there. Now these Ensamples were of all sorts: 
there were Lives of all kinds of creatures, and moreover of all 
conditions of men; for there were kingships among them, 
some that lasted for a whole lifetime, and some on the way 
to downfall, and ending with poverty and flight and beggary. 
Also there were Lives of men renowned, some of them for 


1 T.e., as Mr. Adam explains (note on 617 ©, D), she lays hold of outer (the 
circle of the Same) and inner (the circle of the Other) in turn, using her right 
hand for the former, and her left for the latter. 


144 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ \ Μ > / \ > 7 \ = > ὶ / 
Βκαὶ τὴν ἄλλην ἰσχύν TE καὶ ἀγωνίαν, τοὺς ἐπὶ γένεσι 


σ 


619 


- / 
Kal προγόνων ἀρεταῖς, καὶ ἀδοκίμων κατὰ ταὐτά, ὡσαύτως 
δὲ καὶ γυναικῶν: ψυχῆς δὲ τάξιν οὐκ ἐνεῖναι διὰ τὸ 
Μ 
ἀναγκαίως ἔχειν ἄλλον ἑλομένην βίον ἀλλοίαν γίγνεσθαι" 
[4 
τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα ἀλλήλοις τε καὶ πλούτοις καὶ πενίαις, τὰ δὲ 
/ \ \ ς / a \ \ \ fal 4 
νόσοις, τὰ δὲ ὑγιείαις μεμῖχθαι, τὰ δὲ Kal μεσοῦν τούτων. 
2 " / e a 
ἔνθα δή, ὡς ἔοικεν, ὦ φίλε Γλαύκων, ὁ πᾶς κίνδυνος 
> “ \ \ a / b / “ ad 
ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ διὰ ταῦτα μάλιστα ἐπιμελητέον, ὅπως ἕκαστος 
ς a lal A / ᾽ , 4 “- 
ἡμῶν τῶν ἄλλων μαθημάτων ἀμελήσας τούτου τοῦ μαθή- 
\ \ \ \ » i / ᾽ . 
ματος καὶ ἕξητητὴς καὶ μαθητὴς ἔσται, ἐάν ποθεν οἷός τ ἡ 
cal \ 3 a / > \ / \ \ 
μαθεῖν καὶ ἐξευρεῖν, τίς αὐτὸν ποιήσει δυνατὸν καὶ 
᾽ / / \ \ \ \ / 
ἐπιστήμονα, βίον Kal χρηστὸν καὶ πονηρὸν διαγιγνώσκοντα 
\ / > “ “ , ae lal e ~ 
τὸν βελτίω ἐκ τῶν δυνατῶν ἀεὶ πανταχοῦ αἱρεῖσθαι, 
\ “ \ 
ἀναλογιζόμενον πάντα τὰ νῦν δὴ ῥηθέντα καὶ ξυντιθέμενα 
/ \ \ / cal 
ἀλλήλοις καὶ διαιρούμενα πρὸς ἀρετὴν βίου πῶς ἔχει, Kal 
a ΄, 
εἰδέναι, τί κάλλος πενίᾳ ἢ πλούτῳ κραθὲν καὶ μετὰ ποίας 
\ A “ Ν x ᾽ Ν b 4 \ / 
Tivos ψυχῆς ἕξεως κακὸν ἢ ἀγαθὸν ἐργάζεται, καὶ τί 
> / \ / \ >’ a \ > \ \ > / 
εὐγένειαι καὶ δυσγένειαι Kal ἰδιωτεῖαι Kal ἀρχαὶ Kal ἰσχύες 
\ ᾽ / \ > / \ / \ / 
καὶ ἀσθένειαι καὶ εὐμαθίαι καὶ δυσμαθίαι καὶ πάντα τὰ 
an A 4 \ \ »Μ \ a“ > / 
τοιαῦτα τῶν φύσει περὶ ψυχὴν ὄντων Kal τῶν ἐπικτήτων 
,ὔ 7 \ ” >’ ’ “ > e / 
τί ξυγκεραννύμενα πρὸς ἄλληλα ἐργάζεται, ὥστε ἐξ ἁπάντων 
> lal \ s / e “ Ν \ 
αὐτῶν δυνατὸν εἶναι συλλογισάμενον αἱρεῖσθαι, πρὸς τὴν 
- - / / 
τῆς ψυχῆς φύσιν ἀποβλέποντα, Tov τε χείρω καὶ τὸν 
> / / / \ a ἃ » Ἢ bl a Μ > 
ἀμείνω βίον, χείρω μὲν καλοῦντα, ὃς αὐτὴν ἐκεῖσε ἄξει, εἰς 
\ > / / > / \ “ > \ / 
TO ἀδικωτέραν γίγνεσθαι, ἀμείνω δὲ ὅστις εἰς τὸ δικαιοτέραν, 
‘ ae s , dA ξ , 7 “ - / 
τὰ δὲ ἄλλα πάντα χαίρειν ἐᾶν: ἑωράκαμεν γάρ, ὅτι ζῶντί 
‘ “ 
τε καὶ τελευτήσαντι αὕτη κρατίστη αἵρεσις. ἀδαμαντίνως 
- / / , 
δὴ δεῖ ταύτην τὴν δόξαν ἔχοντα εἰς “Αἰδου ἰέναι, ὅπως ἂν 
εἰ 4 , - > / ΄ Ν 7 \ a /, 

ῃ καὶ ἐκεῖ ἀνέκπληκτος ὑπὸ πλούτων TE Kal τῶν τοιούτων 
- κ \ ᾽ \ , / \ ” / 
κακῶν, Kal μὴ ἐμπεσὼν εἰς τυραννίδας Kal ἄλλας τοιαύτας 

, / 
πράξεις πολλὰ μὲν ἐργάσηται καὶ ἀνήκεστα κακά, ἔτι δὲ 
= / / ᾽ \ A \ / > lal 7 
αὐτὸς μείζω πάθῃ, ἀλλὰ γνῷ τὸν μέσον ἀεὶ τῶν τοιούτων 


βίον αἱρεῖσθαι καὶ φεύγειν τὰ ὑπερβάλλοντα ἑκατέρωσε καὶ 


THE MYTH OF ER 145 


comeliness and beauty, or for strength and prowess, some for 
birth and the virtues of their forefathers; likewise also there 
were Lives of men of no such renown, There were also Lives 
of women. But conditions of the Soul were not amongst the 
Ensamples ; the reason whereof is this, that a Soul which hath 
chosen a certain Life is of necessity changed accordingly ; but 
all other things both good and evil were there mixed together 
—riches and poverty, and health and disease, and also states 
between these. 

“There, methinks, dear Glaucon, is man’s great peril. 
Wherefore let each one of us give heed to this chiefly, how 
that, taking no thought for the knowledge of other things, he 
shall seek after the knowledge of one thing, if peradventure 
he may learn and find out who it is that shall make him able 
and wise, so that he may discern the good Life from the evil, 
and, according to his ability, alway and everywhere choose 
the better Life, and reckoning how all the things that have 
been now said, both taken together and severally, concern the 
Virtuous Life, may understand what good or evil, for what 
state of the Soul, beauty joined with poverty or riches worketh, 
and what good or evil noble birth, and base birth, and private 
station, and rule in the city, and strength, and weakness, and 
quickness of wit, and slowness, and the other native qualities 
of the Soul like unto these, and the qualities which the Soul 
acquireth, do work, according as they are mixed variously with 
one another; to the end that, having taken count of all these, 
he may be able to choose, having regard to the nature of his 
Soul, between the worse and the better Life, calling that the 
worse which will lead his Soul to become more unrighteous, 
and calling that the better which will lead it to become more 
righteous. All else will he let go by; for we have seen and 
know that this is the best choice for a man, both whilst he 
liveth and when he is dead. With this doctrine, then, as hard 
as adamant within him, must he go unto Hades, so that there 
also he may not be amazed at riches and such like trumpery, 
and may not fall into the Life of a tyrant or of some other 
such evil-doer, and work iniquities many and without all 
remedy, and himself suffer still worse things; but rather may 
discern to choose alway the Life between such states, and 
eschew the extremes on either hand, both in this Life, as far 

L 


146 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


, a a / \ \ \ > al » 
ἐν τῷδε TO βίῳ κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν καὶ ἐν παντὶ τῷ ἔπειτα" 
“ > , , " 
Β οὕτω γὰρ εὐδαιμονέστατος γίγνεται ἄνθρωπος. 
Ui e lol 
καὶ δὴ οὖν καὶ τότε ὁ ἐκεῖθεν ἄγγελος ἤγγελλε τὸν 
\ 7 ef > a \ / > / \ A 
μὲν προφήτην οὕτως εἰπεῖν, Kal τελευταίῳ ἐπιόντι, ξὺν νῷ 
e / / fa) a / > / ᾽ / 
ἑλομένῳ, συντόνως ζῶντι κεῖται βίος ἀγαπητός, οὐ κακός. 
/ e Ν e / > / ͵ e ω 
μὴτε ὁ ἄρχων αἱρέσεως ἀμελείτω μὴτε 0 τελευτῶν 
? / > / \ a \ lal / ΝΜ 
ἀθυμείτω. εἰπόντος δὲ ταῦτα τὸν πρῶτον λαχόντα ἔφη 
»4.Χλ b , \ ,ὔ / ς ἡ \ ς \ 
εὐθὺς ἐπιόντα τὴν μεγίστην τυραννίδα ἑλέσθαι, Kal ὑπὸ 
> / \ / > / e lal > / 
ἀφροσύνης Te Kal λαιμαργίας οὐ πάντα ἱκανῶς ἀνασκεψά- 
> a al / 
σ μενον ἑλέσθαι, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸν λαθεῖν ἐνοῦσαν εἱμαρμένην, 
- ,ὔ \ \ 
παίδων αὑτοῦ βρώσεις Kal ἄλλα κακά' ἐπειδὴ δὲ κατὰ 
\ 
σχολὴν σκέψασθαι, κόπτεσθαί τε καὶ ὀδύρεσθαι τὴν 
/ n tal a 
αἵρεσιν, οὐκ ἐμμένοντα τοῖς προρρηθεῖσιν ὑπὸ τοῦ προ- 
“ > \ e \ > A ~ cal > \ / 
φήτου' ov yap ἑαυτὸν αἰτιᾶσθαι τῶν κακῶν, ἀλλὰ τύχην 
\ / \ / a > ᾽ ς a > \ 
τε καὶ δαίμονας καὶ πάντα μᾶλλον ἀνθ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ. εἶναι δὲ 
κ la nr / 
αὐτὸν τῶν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἡκόντων, ἐν τεταγμένῃ πολιτείᾳ 
> A / Bi B B / £0 ” > / > a 
ἐν τῷ προτέρῳ βίῳ βεβιωκότα, ἔθει ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας ἀρετῆς 
/ e \ Ἁ > “ » / > > ”~ 
Ὁ μετειληφότα. ὡς δὲ καὶ εἰπεῖν, οὐκ ἐλάττους εἶναι ἐν τοῖς 
τοιούτοις ἁλισκομένους τοὺς ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἥκοντας, ἅτε 
, > 7 a ’ ᾽ a a \ 4 Ψ 
πόνων ἀγυμνάστους" τῶν δ᾽ ἐκ τῆς γῆς τοὺς πολλούς, ἅτε 
» 7 / A e / > > 
αὐτούς τε πεπονηκότας ἄλλους TE ἑωρακότας, οὐκ ἐξ 
> n / n \ 
ἐπιδρομῆς τὰς αἱρέσεις ποιεῖσθαι. διὸ δὴ καὶ μεταβολὴν 
τῶν κακῶν καὶ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ταῖς πολλαῖς τῶν Ψυχῶν 
/ \ \ \ la) / 4 > \ » A 
γίγνεσθαι καὶ διὰ τὴν τοῦ κλήρου τύχην" ἐπεὶ εἴ τις ἀεί, 
’ lal an “ 
Ε ὁπότε εἰς τὸν ἐνθάδε βίον ἀφικνοῖτο, ὑγιῶς φιλοσοφοῖ καὶ 
ε “ > lal fal e / \ > / / 
ὁ κλῆρος αὐτῷ τῆς αἱρέσεως μὴ ἐν τελευταίοις πίπτοι, 
7 > aA > a ᾽ / » , > / 
κινδυνεύει ἐκ τῶν ἐκεῖθεν ἀπαγγελλομένων οὐ μόνον ἐνθάδε 
a \ ce rn 
εὐδαιμονεῖν av, ἀλλὰ Kal τὴν ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε καὶ δεῦρο 
/ ’ὔ » / 4 - 4 
πάλιν πορείαν οὐκ ἂν χθονίαν καὶ τραχεῖαν πορεύεσθαι, 
ἀλλὰ λείαν τε καὶ οὐρανίαν. ταύτην γὰρ δή, ἔφη, τὴν 
/ J / “ > a e -“ e \ e rn \ 
θέαν ἀξίαν εἶναι ἰδεῖν, ws ἕκασται ai ψυχαὶ ἡροῦντο τοὺς 
᾽ n / 
620 βίους: ἐλεεινήν τε yap ἰδεῖν εἶναι καὶ γελοίαν καὶ θαυμα- 


σίαν. κατὰ συνήθειαν γὰρ τοῦ προτέρου βίου τὰ πολλὰ 


αἱρεῖσθαι. ἰδεῖν μὲν γὰρ ψυχὴν ἔφη τήν ποτε ᾿Ορφέως 


THE MYTH OF ER 147 


as he is able, and in all the Life hereafter: for in this leth 
man’s chief happiness. 

“ Now the Messenger who brought this Tale from that place 
went on and said that the Prophet then spake thus :—Even 
for him whose turn cometh last, if he hath chosen with under- 
standing, there is prepared a Life, which, if only a man bear 
himself manfully, is tolerable, not wretched. Neither let him 
who cometh first be careless of his choice; nor let him who 
cometh at the end be downcast. 

“He said that when the Prophet had spoken these words, 
the one that had gotten the first place, as soon as he came 
forward, chose the greatest kingship there; and by reason of 
folly and greediness looked not well enough into all before he 
chose it,and marked not that therein it was appointed of Fate 
that he should eat his own children, and that other evils should 
befall him. When therefore he had looked at it at leisure, he 
began to beat his breast and bewail his choice, not abiding by 
the commandment of the Prophet; for he did not blame him- 
self for these evils, but Ill-Luck, and Gods, and any thing 
rather than himself. Now, he was of them that were come 
from Heaven, having spent his former life in a well-ordered 
city, and become virtuous through Custom without True 
Knowledge: they that were come from Heaven were not the 
least part, belike, of them that were caught thus; for they 
had not been exercised with labours; but most part of those 
from under the Earth, inasmuch as they themselves had 
endured labours, and had seen others enduring, made not 
their choice hastily. For this cause, as well as through the 
luck of the lot, a change of good and of evil befalleth most 
part of the Souls; for if any man, whenever he cometh into 
this life, seek alway with his whole heart after wisdom, and 
if the lot so fall that he is not of the last to choose, there is 
good hope, from what the Messenger said, not only that he 
will have happiness here, but also that the journey hence to 
that place and back again hither will not be under the ground 
and rough, but smooth and heavenly. 

“Truly it was a sight worth looking at, he said, to see how 
the Souls severally chose their lives—yea, a pitiful sight, and 
a laughable, and a wonderful; inasmuch as they chose mostly 
after the custom of their former life; for he told how he saw 


148 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


7 4 / / a 
γενομένην κύκνου βίον αἱρουμένην, μίσει τοῦ γυναικείου 
᾽ 
γένους διὰ τὸν ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων θάνατον οὐκ ἐθέλουσαν ἐν 
\ an / 6 ὃ a \ \ Θ » / 
γυναικὶ γεννηθεῖσαν γενέσθαι" ἰδεῖν δὲ τὴν Θαμύρου ἀηδόνος 
an / 
ἑλομένην" ἰδεῖν δὲ Kal κύκνον μεταβάλλοντα εἰς ἀνθρωπίνου 
Β βίου αἵρεσιν, καὶ ἄλλα ζῶα μουσικὰ ὡσαύτως. εἰκοστὴν 
a / 
δὲ λαχοῦσαν ψυχὴν ἑλέσθαι λέοντος βίον: εἶναι δὲ τὴν 
a 4 
Αἴαντος τοῦ Τελαμωνίου, φεύγουσαν ἄνθρωπον γενέσθαι, 
/ a a ee / \ ᾽ 4... -ὦ 4 
μεμνημένην τῆς τῶν ὅπλων κρίσεως. τὴν δ᾽ ἐπὶ τούτῳ 
᾿Αγαμέ . ἔχθρᾳ δὲ καὶ ταύ οὔ ἀνθρωπί 3 
γαμέμνονος" ἔχθρς αὶ ταύτην τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου γένους 
διὰ τὰ πάθη ἀετοῦ διαλλάξαι βίον. ἐν μέσοις δὲ λαχοῦσαν 
τὴν ᾿Αταλάντης ψυχήν, κατιδοῦσαν μεγάλας τιμὰς ἀθλητοῦ 
/ “ -“ 
ἀνδρός, οὐ δύνασθαι παρελθεῖν, ἀλλὰ λαβεῖν. μετὰ δὲ 
/ > a \ > la la) / > - 
Οσταύτην ἰδεῖν τὴν “Ered τοῦ ἸΠανοπέως εἰς τεχνικῆς 
Ν » A / / ᾽ : ¢ / DUA \ 
γυναικὸς ἰοῦσαν φύσιν" πόρρω δ ev ὑστάτοις ἰδεῖν τὴν 
κ κ / / ’ / \ / 
τοῦ γελωτοποιοῦ Θερσίτου πίθηκον ἐνδυομένην: κατὰ τύχην 
\ \ > / lal “ e / e / 
δὲ τὴν ᾽Οδυσσέως, λαχοῦσαν πασῶν ὑστάτην, αἱρησομένην 
- / 
ἰέναι: μνήμῃ δὲ τῶν προτέρων πόνων φιλοτιμίας λελωφη- 
a an - A / \ / > \ ν᾽ ’ 
κυῖαν ζητεῖν περιϊοῦσαν χρόνον πολὺν βίον ἀνδρὸς ἰδιώτου 
, a / 
ἀπράγμονος, Kal μόγις εὑρεῖν κείμενόν που Kal παρημελημένον 
Ὁ ὑπὸ τῶν ἄλλων, καὶ εἰπεῖν ἰδοῦσαν, ὅτι τὰ αὐτὰ ἂν ἔπραξε 
καὶ πρώτη λαχοῦσα, καὶ ἀσμένην ἑλέσθαι. καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἄλλων͵ 
, ” 
δὴ θηρίων ὡσαύτως eis ἀνθρώπους ἰέναι καὶ εἰς ἄλληλα, 
\ \ 7 > \ » ὰ δὲ δί > \ “ 
τὰ μὲν ἄδικα εἰς τὰ ἄγρια, τὰ δὲ δίκαια εἰς τὰ ἥμερα 
\ ᾽ 
μεταβάλλοντα, καὶ πάσας μίξεις μίγνυσθαι. ἐπειδὴ δ᾽ οὖν 
πάσας τὰς ψυχὰς τοὺς βίους ἡρῆσθαι, ὥσπερ ἔλαχον, ἐν 
΄ , \ \ A , ΣΝ " eile ὃ 
τάξει προσιέναι πρὸς τὴν Λάχεσιν" ἐκείνην ἑκάστῳ ὃν 
lal “ / 

Ε εἴλετο δαίμονα, τοῦτον φύλακα ξυμπέμπειν τοῦ βίου καὶ 
᾽ \ a] e / ὃ A \ Ν » \ 
ἀποπληρωτὴν τῶν αἱρεθέντων. ὃν πρῶτον μὲν ἄγειν αὐτὴν 
πρὸς τὴν Κλωθὼ ὑπὸ τὴν ἐκείνης χεῖρά τε καὶ ἐπιστροφὴν 
΄ ΄ / / “ \ Le 7 
τῆς τοῦ ἀτράκτου δίνης, κυροῦντα ἣν λαχὼν εἵλετο poipay: 

\ - ᾽ / 
ταύτης δ᾽ ἐφαψάμενον αὖθις ἐπὶ τὴν τῆς Ατρόπου ἄγειν 


΄ / ΄ - 
νῆσιν, ἀμετάστροφα τὰ ἐπικλωσθέντα ποιοῦντα" ἐντεῦθεν 


THE MYTH OF ER 149 


the Soul that had been Orpheus's choosing a swan’s Life, 
for that, hating womankind because women murdered him, it 
would not be born of a woman. Also he said that he saw the 
Soul of Thamyras when it had chosen the life of a nightingale ; 
and that he saw also a swan changing, and choosing the life of 
a man, and other musical creatures doing likewise. And the 
Soul which got the twentieth place chose the life of a lion : 
this was the Soul of Ajax, the son of Telamon, which eschewed 
becoming a man because it remembered the Judgment concern- 
ing the Arms. Next came the Soul of Agamemnon; which 
also, out of enmity towards mankind because that it went evil 
with him, took in exchange the life of an eagle. The Soul of 
Atalanta, which had gotten her place between the first and the 
last, perceiving the great honour which belongeth to the life of 
aman who contendeth at the Games, was not able to pass by 
but took it. After her he saw the Soul of Epeius, the son of 
Panopeus, passing into the nature of a spinster; and amongst 
the last he saw the Soul of Thersites the jester putting on an 
ape. Also it chanced that the Soul of Odysseus, which had 
gotten the last place of all, came forward to choose, and having 
abated all her ambition because she remembered her former 
labours, went about seeking for a long while, and after much 
ado, found the life of a quiet private man lying somewhere 
despised of the others, and when she saw it said—‘ Had I 
come first I would have donerthe same;’ and took it with 
great joy. 

“Beasts likewise were changed into men and into one 
another, the unjust into those that were savage, and the just 
into those that were tame: yea in everywise were they mixed 
together. 

“ Now when all the Souls had chosen their lives according 
to the place allotted unto each, they went forward, in order, 
unto Lachesis; and she sent the Angel, which each one had 
chosen, with him, to be the guardian of his life and to fulfil 
the things that he had chosen; and the Angel, bringing him 
first unto Clotho, taketh him beneath her hand and the 
revolution of the whirling spindle, and ratifieth the Portion 
which the man had chosen in his turn; then, from her 
presence, the Angel brought him unto Atropos where she 
span; so did he make the threads of the man’s life unalterable. 


150 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


621 δὲ δὴ ἀμεταστρεπτὶ ὑπὸ τὸν τῆς ᾿Ανάγκης ἰέναι θρόνον, 
καὶ δι᾿ ἐκείνου διεξελθόντα, ἐπειδὴ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι διῆλθον, 
πορεύεσθαι ἅπαντας εἰς τὸ τῆς Λήθης πεδίον διὰ καύματός 
τε καὶ πνίγους δεινοῦ: καὶ γὰρ εἶναι αὐτὸ κενὸν δένδρων 
τε καὶ ὅσα γῆ φύει. σκηνᾶσθαι οὖν σφᾶς ἤδη ἑσπέρας 
γιγνομένης παρὰ τὸν ᾿Αμέλητα ποταμόν, οὗ τὸ ὕδωρ 
ἀγγεῖον οὐδὲν στέγειν. μέτρον μὲν οὖν τι τοῦ ὕδατος 
πᾶσιν ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι πιεῖν, τοὺς δὲ φρονήσει μὴ σωζομέ- 

B vous πλέον πίνειν τοῦ μέτρου: τὸν δὲ ἀεὶ πιόντα πάντων 
ἐπιλανθάνεσθαι. ἐπειδὴ δὲ κοιμηθῆναι καὶ μέσας νύκτας 
γενέσθαι, βροντήν τε καὶ σεισμὸν γενέσθαι, καὶ ἐντεῦθεν 
ἐξαπίνης ἄλλον ἄλλῃ φέρεσθαι ἄνω εἰς τὴν γένεσιν, ἄτ- 
TovTas ὥσπερ ἀστέρας. αὐτὸς δὲ τοῦ μὲν ὕδατος κωλυθῆναι 
πιεῖν" ὅπῃ μέντοι καὶ ὅπως εἰς τὸ σῶμα ἀφίκοιτο, οὐκ 
εἰδέναι, ἀλλ’ ἐξαίφνης ἀναβλέψας ἰδεῖν ἕωθεν αὑτὸν 
κείμενον ἐπὶ τῇ πυρᾷ. Καὶ οὕτως, ὦ Γλαύκων, μῦθος 

Ο ἐσώθη καὶ οὐκ ἀπώλετο, καὶ ἡμᾶς ἂν σώσειεν, ἂν πειθώ- 
μεθα αὐτῷ, καὶ τὸν τῆς Λήθης ποταμὸν εὖ διαβησόμεθα 
καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν οὐ μιανθησόμεθα: ἀλλ᾽ ἂν ἐμοὶ πειθώμεθα, 
νομίζοντες ἀθάνατον ψυχὴν καὶ δυνατὴν πάντα μὲν κακὰ 
ἀνέχεσθαι, πάντα δὲ ἀγαθά, τῆς ἄνω ὁδοῦ ἀεὶ ἑξόμεθα καὶ 
δικαιοσύνην μετὰ φρονήσεως παντὶ τρόπῳ ἐπιτηδεύσομεν, 
ἵνα καὶ ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς φίλοι ὧμεν καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς, αὐτοῦ τε 

Ὁ μένοντες ἐνθάδε, καὶ ἐπειδὲν τὰ ἄθλα αὐτῆς κομιζώμεθα, 
ὥσπερ οἱ νικηφόροι περιαγειρόμενοι, καὶ ἐνθάδε καὶ ἐν τῇ 
χιλιετεῖ πορείᾳ, ἣν διεληλύθαμεν, εὖ πράττωμεν. 


THE MYTH OF ER 151 


“Thence, Er said, each man, without turning back, went 
straight on under the throne of Necessity, and when each, 
even unto the last, was come out through it, they all together 
journeyed to the Plain of Lethe, through terrible burning heat 
and frost; and this Plain is without trees or any herb that 
the earth bringeth forth. 

“ He said that they encamped, when it was already evening, 
beside the River of Forgetfulness, the water whereof no pitcher 
holdeth. Now, it was necessary that all should drink a certain 
measure of the water; but they that were not preserved by 
wisdom drank more than the measure; and as each man drank, 
he forgot all. Then he said that when they had fallen asleep 
and midnight was come, there was thunder and an earthquake, 
and of a sudden they flew up thence unto divers parts to be 
born in the flesh, shooting like meteors. But he himself was 
not suffered to drink of the water: yet by what means and 
how he came unto his body he knew not; but suddenly he 
opened his eyes, and lo! it was morning, and he was lying on 
the pyre. 

“Thus, O Glaucon, was the Tale preserved from perishing, 
and it will preserve us if we believe in it; so shall we pass 
over the River of Lethe safely, and keep our Souls undefiled. 

“This is my counsel: let us believe that the Soul is 
immortal, and able to bear all ill and all good, and let us 
always keep to the upward way, and practise justice in all 
things with understanding, that we may be friends both with 
ourselves and with the Gods, both whilst we sojourn here, and 
when we receive the prizes of our justice, like unto Conquerors 
at the Games which go about gathering their wages; and that 
both here, and in the journey of a thousand years of which I 
told, we may fare well.” 


152 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE ΜΎΤΗ oF ER 
I 


Let us begin with the geography and cosmography of the 
Myth. 

The Meadow of the Judgment-seat, between the two open- 
ings of Tartarus (in and out) on the one side, and the two 
corresponding openings of Heaven on the other side, is also 
the meeting-place of the Souls which return from their 
thousand years’ sojourn in Tartarus and Heaven. From the 
Meadow they journey, always above ground, till they come to 
a “rainbow-coloured light, straight like a pillar, extended 
from on high throughout the Heaven and the Earth.” This 
Light is the axis, I take it, on which the whole heavenly 
system revolves, the Earth fixed in the centre of the system 
being a globe on the line of the axis. The destination of the 
Pilgrim Souls is that part of the surface of the globe at 
which, in the hemisphere where they are, the axis enters on 
its imaginary course through the centre of the Earth, in order 
to come out again at the antipodal point in the other hemi- 
sphere. The Souls, arrived at the very point where, in the 
hemisphere where they are, the axis of the Cosmos enters the 
Earth, are in the place of all places where the Law which 
controls all things is intuitively plain—they see the Pillar 
of Light as the Spindle of Necessity. Then, suddenly, the 
outlook presented to us in the Myth changes like the scene 
ina dream. It is no longer such a view of the Cosmos from 
within as we bad, a moment ago, while we stood with the 
Pilgrims on the surface of the Earth, looking up at the Pillar 
of Light in the sky: we are now looking at the Cosmos from 
the outside, as if it were an orrery—a model of concentric 
cups or rings; and Necessity herself is holding the model in 
her lap, and the three Fates are seated round, and keep turn- 
ing the eight cups, on each of which, on its edge, a Siren is 
mounted who sings in tune with her sisters. But the Pilgrim 
Souls are standing near, looking on at this spectacle. They 
are on their way, we know, from the Meadow to the Plain of 
Lethe, both places on the surface of the Earth: it is on the 


THE MYTH OF ER 153 


Karth then, after all, that the throne is placed on which 
Necessity sits holding in her lap the model, which, like a 
true dream-thing, is both a little model and the great Cosmos 
itself.' In this place, in the presence of Necessity on her 
throne, the Pilgrim Souls are addressed by the Prophet from 
his pulpit; then choose, in the turns which the lots determine, 
lives of men or beasts scattered, it would seem, as little 
images at their feet;* then go before the three Fates, who 


1 Let me illustrate this characteristic of the ‘‘dream-thing” from the Dream 
in the Fifth Book of Wordsworth’s Prelude :— 


On poetry and geometric truth, 

And their high privilege of lasting life, 
From all internal injury exempt, 

I mused ; upon these chiefly: and at length, 
My senses yielding to the sultry air, 

Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream. 
I saw before me stretched a boundless plain 
Of sandy wilderness, all black and void, 
And as I looked around, distress and fear 
Came creeping over me, when at my side, 
Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared 
Upon a dromedary, mounted high. 

He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes : 
A lance he bore, and underneath one arm 

A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell 

Of a surpassing brightness... . 


* * * > * * 


. . » The Arab told me that the stone 

Was “ Euclid’s Elements’ ; and “This,” said he, 
**Ts something of more worth” ; and at the word 
Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape, 
In colour so resplendent, with command 

That I should hold it to my ear. I did so, 

And heard that instant in an unknown tongue, 
Which yet I understood, articulate sounds, 

A loud prophetic blast of harmony ; 

An Ode, in passion uttered... . 


ὲ * * * * * 


While this was uttering, strange as it may seem, 
I wondered not, although I plainly saw 

The one to be a stone, the other a shell ; 

Nor doubted once but that they both were books, 
Having a perfect faith in all that passed. 


2 | think that Plato may have borrowed his τὰ τῶν βίων παραδείγματα here from 
votive images of trades and callings, and of animals: ‘‘The Argive Heraeum,” 
says Mr. Rouse (Greek Votive Offerings, p. 298), ‘‘ yielded hundreds of animals 
in bronze and clay: bulls, cows, oxen and oxherds, goats, sheep, cocks, ducks, 
and other birds, including perhaps a swan.” These animals (to which may be 
added horses, pigs, doves), were, Mr. Rouse supposes, either sacrificial victims 
or first-fruits of hunting. Referring to human figures he says, p. 79, ‘‘It is at 
least probable that a successful huntsman, artist, craftsman, trader, would 
dedicate a figure, in character, as a thank-offering for success in his calling.” If 
I remember rightly, a little figure, recognised as that of a ‘‘ Philosopher,” was 
discovered in the tomb of ‘‘ Aristotle’ found near Chalcis some years ago. 


154 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


ratify the chosen doom of each; then pass severally under 
the throne of Necessity ; and thence travel together, through 
a hot dusty region, till they come to the Plain of Lethe, 
where no green thing grows, and to the River the water of 
which no pitcher can hold. When the Souls have drunk of 
this water—the foolish, too much—they fall asleep; but at 
midnight there is an earthquake and thunder, and suddenly, 
like meteors, they shoot up to be born again, in terrestrial 
bodies, in our part of the Earth. 

The account given by Plato here is strictly in accordance 
with the popular belief, which makes Lethe a river entirely 
above ground, never counts it among the rivers of Tartarus.' 
Virgil, in Aen. vi. 705, 714, may be thought to place it under 
ground; but his description suffers in clearness from com- 
pression; and it is not likely that he willingly deserts 
traditional authority in a matter of such importance as the 
position of Lethe. His véxwa, as a whole, is derived from a 
source (considered by Rohde and Dieterich to be the κατάβασις 
εἰς Aféov). common to himself with Pindar, Plato, Plutarch, 
Lucian, and (according to Dieterich, though here Rohde does 
not agree with him)? the writers of certain sepulchral inscrip- 
tions which I shall describe in the next section; and where 
Lethe appears in any of these authors, it never, I believe, 
appears as one of the infernal, or subterranean, rivers. 
Indeed, all reasonable doubt as to Virgil’s orthodoxy seems to 
be barred by his statement that the plain in which Souls 
about to be born again are gathered together near the banks 
of Lethe has its own sun (den. vi. 641). It is evidently 
above ground somewhere—the writer of the Azzochus would 
perhaps say in the antipodal hemisphere of the Earth. 


ro ty 


The object of this section is to point to a detail—the 
twin-streams, Eunoé and Lethe, of the Earthly Paradise (Purg. 
xxvili.)—in which Dante’s vision of Purgatory reproduces—I 


1 See Thiemann, Platonische Eschatologie, p. 18. 

* Dieterich, Nek. 128 f., 185, and Rohde, Psy. ii. 217. 

3. It ought to be mentioned that this section was written, and the substance 
of it read in the course of a public lecture, and also to a private society, before 
the appearance of Miss Harrison’s Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 
and her ‘‘ Query’ in The Classical Review, Feb. 1908, p. 58. 


THE MYTH OF ER 155 


think, independently—a distinctive feature of that Orphic 
ritual and mythology to which Plato is largely indebted for 
his account of the Soul's κάθαρσις as a process of forgetting 
and remembering—as a series of transmigrations through 
which the particulars of sense, the evils and sins of the flesh, 
are forgotten or left behind, and the universal /deas, long ob- 
scured, are, at last, so clearly remembered that they can never 
be forgotten any more, but become the everlasting possession 
of the Soul, finally disembodied and returned to its own star. 

It is easy to account, from the literary sources open to 
Dante, for the presence of rivers, and more particularly of 
Lethe, in his Earthly Paradise. On the one hand, the descrip- 
tion of Eden in Genesis would suggest the general idea of 
rivers girding the Earthly Paradise;* while, on the other 
hand, the proximity of Purgatory to the Earthly Paradise 
makes it natural that Lethe should be one of these rivers— 
that first reached by one coming up from Purgatory. The 
drinking of Lethe, according to Aen. vi. and the current 
mythology, is the act with which a period of purgatorial 
discipline is closed by those Souls which are about to pass 
again into the flesh. In placing the Earthly Paradise on the 
top of a lofty mountain Dante followed a prevalent medieval 
belief; and, although he seems to have drawn on his own 
imagination in placing Purgatory on the slopes of this 
mountain, it was natural, and in accordance with the current 
mythology, that he should place it there, close to the Earthly 
Paradise or Elysium; for the Lethe of Aen. vi. is evidently in 
the same region as Elysium,— 


Interea videt Aeneas in valle reducta 
Seclusum nemus et virgulta sonantia sylvis, 
Lethaeumque domos placidas qui praenatat amnem.? 


The presence, then, of Lethe, the purgatorial stream, in 
Dante’s Earthly Paradise is easily accounted for by reference 
to the mythological authorities open to him. But for the 
association of Eunoé, the stream of Memory, with Lethe, the 
stream of Forgetfulness, it does not seem possible to account 
in this way. The common mythology gives Lethe alone. It 

1 See Vernon’s Readings on the Purgatorio, ii. 285-293. Lethe girds the 


Earthly Paradise on the side of Earth, Eunoé on the side of Heaven. 
3 Virg. Aen. vi. 703. 


156 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


is not likely that Dante had heard of the twin streams—Lethe 
and Mnemosyne—of the Orphic cult; at any rate, in the 
absence of evidence that he had heard of them, it seems better 
to suppose that the very natural picture of a stream of Memory 
beside the stream of Forgetfulness occurred to him spon- 
taneously, as it had occurred to others, who, like himself, were 
deeply concerned to find expression for their hope of κάθαρσις. 
For the twin streams of the Orphie cult which resemble 

Dante’s Lethe and Eunoé so closely, we must turn to the 
sepulchral inscriptions mentioned at the end of the last 
section. These are certain directions for the ghostly journey 
to be made by initiated persons, written in hexameter verse 
on gold tablets found in graves at Thurii and Petelia in 
South Italy, and now preserved in the British Museum. 
These tablets were described by Comparetti in the Journal 
of Hellenic Studies, iii. p. 111 ff, and are printed by Kaibel 
in his Jnse. Gr. Sic. et It. p. 157. Kaibel assigns them to 
the third or fourth century B.c. I shall quote the one that 
was found at Petelia.’ It gives directions to an initiated 
person who hopes to get out of the Cycle of Incarnations— 
κύκλου T αὖ λῆξαι Kal ἀναπνεῦσαι KaxoTnTos*—having been 
completely purified. Such a person, the verses say, must 
avoid the fountain on the left hand with a white cypress 
growing near it, evidently the water of Lethe, although the 
tablet does not name it. It is to the right that the purified 
Soul of the μύστης must turn, to the cool water of Mnemosyne. 
The guardians of the well he must address in set form of words, 
thus—“ I am the child of Earth and Heaven: I am parched 
with thirst; I perish; give me cool water to drink from the 
well of Memory.” And the guardians will give him water 
to drink from the holy well, and he will be translated to 
dwell for ever with the Heroes :— 

εὑρήσεις δ᾽ ᾿Αἴδαο δόμων ἐπ᾽. ἀρίστερα κρήνην, 

παρ᾽ δ᾽ αὐτῇ λευκὴν ἑστηκυῖαν κυπάρισσον. 

ree τῆς οὐ μηδὲ σχεδὸν ἐμπελάσειας" 








1 For further description of the Petelia Tablet (in the Brit. Museum, Gold 
Ornament Room, Table. e-case H) and other Orphic golden tablets (6.9. the 
Eleuthernae Tablet from Orete, in the National Museum, Athens), the reader 
may consult Miss Harrison’s Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 
pp. 573 ff., with Appendix by Mr. G. G, A. Murray, pp. 660 ff. 

2. See Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 800, 


THE MYTH OF ER 15 


-. 


Γ 7 : 7 ~ 7 , . , 
εὑρήσεις ὃ ἑτέραν THS μνημοσύνηφ ἀπὸ λίμνης 
5 ” ΄ 7 oe ’ 7 

ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ προρέον' φύλακες δ᾽ ἐπίπροσθεν ἔασιν. 
εἰπεῖν" γῆς παῖς εἰμὶ καὶ οὐρανοῦ ἀστερύεντος, 
αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ γένος οὐράνιον" τόδε 8 ἴστε καὶ αὐτοί" 
δίψῃ δ᾽ εἰμὶ αὔη καὶ ἀπόλλυμαι, ἀλλὰ δότ' αἶψα 
ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ προρέον τῆς μνημοσύνης ἀπὸ λίμνης᾽ 

» 7 7 7 7 , + 7 
Kav[tol wo]e δώσουσι πιεῖν θείης ἀπὸ κρήνης, 

\ , , -“ » ” , 7 7 ᾿ 7 
καὶ τότ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ἄλλοισι μεθ᾽ ἡρώεσσιν ἀνάξει[ς ΐ 


The Myth of Er indeed differs from the Petelia Tablet in 
being concerned with those who must still drink of Lethe, 
and be born again in the flesh, not with those who have 
been thoroughly purified and drink of Mnemosyne, and so 
enter into the eternal peace of the disembodied state; yet 
there is a touch in the Platonic Myth which reminds us that 
the journey taken is the same as that which the Orphic 
μύστης had to take with the golden tablet in his hand. The 
journey to the plain of Lethe, according to the Platonic Myth, 
is through a dry, torrid region, and the temptation to drink 
too deeply of the water of Lethe is strong, and wisdom, in 
the imperfectly purified Soul, is needed in order to resist it. 
Similarly, the purified μύστης is warned by his tablet not 
to quench his burning thirst in Lethe, for the cool water 
of Mnemosyne is at hand. The drinking of Lethe is the 
act with which each successive period of the purgatorial 
discipline ends; the drinking of Mnemosyne is the act 
which completes the whole series of periods in the discipline. 
Both streams, or fountains, are in the place—above ground, 
not subterranean—to which Souls journey in order that from 
it they may be either translated to the True Heaven, or sent 
back to be born again in this world. Similarly Dante places 
these two streams side by side on the top of the Mount of 
Purgatory, Lethe running west and north on the left hand of 
one standing on the south side of their common source and 
looking north; Eunoé running east and north on his right 
hand. Dante, not having to set forth his doctrine of 
κάθαρσις in the form of a myth of metempsychosis, makes 
the purified Soul, before it passes from the Mount of 
Purgatory up into Heaven, drink only once of Lethe, at 
the completion of all its purgatorial stages, in order that it 
may forget its sins; and then of Eunoé, that it may retain 
the memory of its meritorious deeds (Purg. xxviii. 130). 


158 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Sins are wiped out after penance, and so fully pardoned, that 
the sinner does not even remember that he has sinned; but, 
on the other hand, he does not begin his heavenly existence 
as a tabula rasa—the continuity of his conscious life is pre- 
served by the memory he retains of his good actions. Here 
Dante sets forth the thought on which the Platonic doctrine 
of ἀνάμνησις rests. It is the flesh, with its sins, that the 
Philosopher in the Phaedrus forgets; but of the things of 
the mind—of truth and virtue—he gains always clearer and 
clearer memory, working out his purification as a devotee of 
the true “mysteries”—ovn πτεροῦται ἡ τοῦ φιλοσόφου 
διάνοια: πρὸς γὰρ ἐκείνοις ἀεί ἐστι μνήμῃ κατὰ δύναμιν, 
πρὸς οἷσπερ θεὸς ὧν θεῖός ἐστι' τοῖς δὲ δὴ τοιούτοις ἀνὴρ 
ὑπομνήμασιν ὀρθῶς χρώμενος, τελέους ἀεὶ τελετὰς τελούμενος, 
τέλεος ὄντως μόνος γίγνεται (Phaedrus, 249 c). The parallel 
between the philosopher who “always, as far as he can, 
cleaves in memory to those things by cleaving to which the 
Deity is divine,”' and the purified μύστης who finally drinks 
of the well of μνημοσύνη, is plainly in Plato’s mind here, as 
Dieterich (Nekyia, pp. 113, 122) and others have noticed.” 
Similarly, in the Phaedo, 114 c, he says οἱ φιλοσοφίᾳ ἱκανῶς 
καθηράμενοι ἄνευ σωμάτων ζῶσι, speaking of those who are 
translated from the Earthly to the Celestial Paradise, 1.6. 
from the True Surface of the Earth, or the Islands of the 
Blessed, to οἰκήσεις ἔτι τούτων καλλίους. 


1 See Thompson's note on the construction πρὸς ἐκείνοις. 

* Dieterich (Vek. p. 122) says: ‘‘Platons Mythen stimmen in allem, was 
die erhaltenen Reste zu kontroliren uns gestatten, zu den Tafelchen von Thurioi 
und Petelia: in diesen und in jenen der himmlische Ursprung der Seelen, der 
schmerzenvolle Kreislauf, das Abbiissen der Schuld wegen alter Siinden, das 
Eingehen in die Gefilde der Seligkeit (Persephone tritt allerdings bei Platon 
ginzlich zuriick); zur Rechten gehen wie in Platons Republik so nach den 
Inschriften die zu Belohnenden und zur Linke die Strafenden, links ist die 
Lethe in beiden Uberlieferungen. Sollten wir nun nicht die Anspielungen bei 
Platon verstehen von der μνήμη der seligen Philosophen-seelen, πρὸς yap ἐκείνοις 
del ἐστι μνήμῃ (Phaid. 249 c), und unmittelbar Ἢ Ἀπ δ αι die Bezeichnung der 
Lehre als τέλεοι τελεταὶ ἢ Es ist dasselbe, wenn von Pythagoras gesagt wird, er 
sei immer in Besitz der μνήμη gewesen (8, bes. Laert. Diog. viii. 4). Dort ist 
nur abstrakt gesagt, was der Quell der Mneme konkret, mythisch, und 
symbolisch sein soll. Die Wiedererinnerung an das, was die Seele einst sah 
in ihrer géttlichen Heimat, hilft sie erlésen ; wer sie empfangt, ist erldst. 
Sollte es noch zu kiihn sein, in jener offenbar viel alteren Vorstellung der 
unteritalischen Mysterien, die nun fiir uns erst um Platons Zeit oder etwas 
spaiter durch diese ‘l”ifelchen ans Licht treten, eine Quelle der platonischen 
Lehre von der ἀνάμνησις zu finden? Das kann hier nur angedeutet werden, 
sonst wiirde sich herausstellen, dass diese Mysterienlehre iiberhaupt von viel 
grosserem Einflusse auf die ganze Psychologie, ja die ganze Ideenlehre gewesen 


sind, als man hatte annehmen kénnen.” 


THE MYTH OF ER 159 


I may perhaps be allowed to notice here, in passing, a 
curious point of contact between Plato's representation of 
κάθαρσις as effected through a series of metempsychoses, and 
Dante’s representation of it as an ascent from terrace to 
terrace of the Mount of Purgatory. In the Myth of E 
Plato says that the Souls come to Lethe in the evening, and 
drink of the water, and fall asleep; and at midnight there 
is thunder and an earthquake, and they shoot up like meteors 
to be born again in the flesh. Similarly, Dante tells us 
(Purg. xx. and xxi.) that when a Soul passes to a higher 
terrace in the course of its purification, the Mount of Purgatory 
is shaken, and there isa great shout of the spirits praising 
God. The Soul of the poet Statius, which had just passed 
to a higher terrace, thus explains the matter to Dante (Pury. 
xxi. 58 ff.):—The Mountain, it says, 


Trembles when any spirit feels itself 
So purified, that it may rise, or move 
For rising ; and such loud acclaim ensues. 


* ol * » * 


And I, who in this punishment had lain 

Five hundred years and more, but now have felt 
Free wish for happier clime. Therefore thou felt’st 
The mountain tremble ; and the spirits devout 
Heard’st, over all its limits, utter praise 

To the Liege Lord, whom I entreat their joy 

To hasten.} 


The earthquake and sound of shouting which attended the 
passage of the Soul of Statius to a higher terrace are com- 
pared with the shaking of Delos when Latona “couched to 
bring forth the twin-born Eyes of Heaven,” and with “the 
song first heard in Bethlehem’s field.” An earthquake and 
a great sound—of thunder or shouting—are thus associated 
both by Plato and by Dante with the new birth. The ascent 
of Souls from terrace to terrace of the Mount of Purgatory 
is a series of spiritual new births, and answers in Dante to 
the series of re-incarnations in Plato’s mythological representa- 
tion of the doctrine of κάθαρσις. 

That the Orphic mythology of the two fountains of Lethe 
and Mnemosyne in the world of the departed—vouched for 


1 Purg. xxi. 58 ff., Cary’s Translation. 


160 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


by the gold tablet—originated in ritual practised by those who 
consulted oracles of the dead, is rendered probable by a 
passage in Pausanias ix. 39 (which Dante cannot be supposed 
to have known), in which the method of consulting Tro- 
phonius at Lebadeia is described. The priests of Trophonius, 
before they take the applicant to the μαντεῖον, lead him to 
certain fountains, Lethe and Mnemosyne, which are very close 
to each other—ai δὲ ἐγγύτατά εἰσιν ἀλλήλων. First, he 
must drink of Lethe that he may forget all that he thought 
of before; then he must drink of Mnemosyne that he may 
have power given him to remember what he sees when he 
goes down into the Cave of Trophonius. There is evidently 
a connection between the mythology of the Descent into 
Hades and the practice of consulting oracles of the dead like 
that of Trophonius. It is to consult his father Anchises that 
Aeneas goes down into Avernus; and even the inmates of 
Dante’s Jnferno (for instance, Farinata, Jnf. x.) have prophetic 
power. 

To summarise the results so far reached :—Dante was true 
to mythological data at his disposal in placing Lethe in, or 
near, Elysium or the Earthly Paradise, and making it a 
stream, not subterranean, but on the surface of the Earth; 
but there is no evidence to show that he had any knowledge 
of the Orphic mythology of the twin-streams as we have it 
in the Petelia inscription. Nor can we suppose that he knew 
of Pausanias’ (ix. 39) mention of the streams of Lethe and 
Mnemosyne at the entrance of the Cave of Trophonius.’ The 
safest course is to allow that Dante, taking the general idea 
of streams encircling the Earthly Paradise from Genesis, and 
the idea of Lethe as one of these streams from Aen. vi., may 
have hit, quite independently of mythological tradition, on the 
very natural idea of a stream of Memory to contrast with the 
stream of Oblivion, although his description of the attributes 
of Eunoé as stream of Memory certainly resembles Platonic 
and Neo-Platonic passages in which the process of κάθαρσις 
is identified with that of ἀνάμνησις. 


1 It is possible that he may have seen Pliny, H. V. xxxi. 15. For Dante’s 
acquaintance with Pliny, see Toynbee’s Dante Dictionary, art. ‘ Plinius,” and his 
Index of Authors quoted by Benvenuto da Imola in his Commentary on the D. C., 
published as Annual Report of the Dante Society (Cambridge, Mass.), 1900, 
art. ‘‘ Plinius,”’ 


THE MYTH OF ER 161 


With regard to the name Eunoé (not a name obviously 
appropriate to the stream of Memory) | have a suggestion 
to make, which, if it goes in the right direction at all, 
perhaps does not go very far. I offer it, however, for what 
it may be worth, as a contribution to a difficult subject. My 
suggestion is that Dante’s use of the name Eunot may have 
some connection with the idea of refrigerivm, which apparently 
found its way into Christian literature ' from the early Chris- 
tian epitaphs which reproduce the ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ of the pagan 
epitaphs. Thus, we have such pagan epitaphs as the follow- 
ing published by Kaibel, and referred to by Dieterich in his 
Nekyia and Rohde in his Psyche: ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ δοίη σοι 
ἄναξ ἐνέρων ᾿Αὐδωνεύς (Kaibel, 1 G., 1842)—etwiyer καὶ 
δοίη σοι ὁ "Ὅσιρις τὸ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ (Kaibel, 1 G., 1488)— 
D.M. [VLIA POLITICE DOESE OSIRIS TO PSYCRON 
HYDOR (inscription found in Via Nomentana, Rome; Kaibel, 
1. @. 1705; cf. Dieterich, Nek. p. 95); and such Christian 
epitaphs (quoted by Dieterich, Vek. p. 95, and Rohde, Psyche, 
li. 391) as in refrigerio et pace anima tua—Deus te refrigeret 
—spiritum tuum Dominus refrigeret. 

I suggest, then, that the name Eunot—edvora, benevolentia 
—was chosen by Dante, or rather by an unknown authority 
from whom he borrowed it, to indicate that a boon was 
graciously bestowed by God through the water of this stream 
—the boon of refrigerivm—rpvuypov ὕδωρ δοίη σοι ἄναξ 
ἐνέρων “AidSwvevs—Dominus te refrigeret. Dante's Eunoe 
would thus mean the Stream of the Loving-kindness and 
Grace of God. 

Considering the probable descent of the Christian ,e- 
Srigerium (the idea of which makes itself felt in the lines 
with which the Purgatorio ends), through epitaphs, from the 
Orphic ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ, I am inclined to think that it is to 
Christian epitaphs that we ought to go for the more 
immediate source of Dante’s Eunoe. If the word were found 
there in connection with refrigeriwum, we might infer with 
some confidence that it had occurred in Orphiec epitaphs.° 


* Tertullian, Apologeticus, XXXIX, , speaking of the Lord’s Supper, says, ‘‘ inopes 

eg nw relrigerio isto juvamus” ; and Dante, Par. xiv. 27, has ‘‘ Lo refrigerio 
ell’ eterna ploia.” 

2 In the ‘‘ Query” in the Classical Review, Feb. 1903, p. 58, referred to on 

p. 154 supra, Miss Harrison conjectured E[vvJoias in Kaibel, 7.6.5... 642. In 

a note on ‘‘ The Source of Dante’s Eunoé” in the Classical Review, March 1903, 


M 


162 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Ill 


Dante’s Mount of Purgatory has characteristics belonging 
to the Islands of the Blessed, or mansions ἐπὶ γῆς, to the 
Plain of Lethe, and to Tartarus, as these places are described 
in Plato’s Myths. The Earthly Paradise on the aethereal top 
of the Mount of Purgatory answers to the mansions ἐπὶ γῆς 
—‘“‘on the True Surface of the Earth.” Lethe, as well as 
Eunoé, is on the top of the Mount of Purgatory; and the 
disciplinary punishment undergone by those not incorrigibly 
wicked, in Plato’s Tartarus, answers in part to the penance 
undergone on the various cornices or terraces of Dante’s 
Purgatory. Looking at the composition of the Myth of Er as 
a whole, we may say that in this Myth we have the sketch 
of a Divina Commedia, complete with its three parts—Inferno, 
Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is painted with a few 
touches, where the torments of Ardiaeus are described. The 
Purgatorio is given in more detail, not only in the reference 
to what those who come out of Tartarus have suffered during 
their imprisonment, but also in the account of the march of 
these Souls to the throne of Necessity, and their choosing of 
new Lives, and further journey on to the water of Lethe: 


pp- 117, 118, in reply to Miss Harrison’s ‘‘ Query,” I wrote:—‘‘ Until Miss 
Harrison’s ΕΓ ὑν]οίας has been proved to belong to the original text of Kaibel, 
I.G.S.I. 642, and the reference in that inscription has been shown to belong 
certainly to the Orphic Κρήνη Μνημοσύνης, it will be enough to admit that an 
Orphic writer in the third century B.c. might very naturally speak of the 
φύλακες of the Well of Memory as εὖνοι towards those μύσται on whom they 
bestowed τὸ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ, or refrigeriwm, and that he might very naturally 
describe that well itself as Evvolas xpijvy—the Fountain of Loving-kindness.”’ 

Since writing the above I have been reminded by a reference in Dieterich’s 
Eine Mithrasliturgie (1903), p. 74, n. 1, that Plutarch, in his Js, δέ Osir. ch. 47, 
says that the Persian god Ormuzd made six gods, the first of whom is the God of 
εὔνοια---ὁ μὲν ᾿᾽Ωρομάζης ἐκ τοῦ καθαρωτάτου φάους ὁ δ᾽ ᾿Αρειμάνιος ἐκ τοῦ ζόφου 
γεγονὼς πολεμοῦσιν ἀλλήλοις" καὶ ὁ μὲν ἕξ θεοὺς ἐποίησε, τὸν μὲν πρῶτον εὐνοίας 
τὸν δὲ δεύτερον ἀληθείας, τὸν δὲ τρίτον εὐνομίας, τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν τὸν μὲν σοφίας, 
τὸν δὲ πλούτου, τὸν δὲ τῶν ἐπὶ τοῖς καλοῖς ἡδέων δημιουργόν: ὁ δὲ τούτους 
ὥσπερ ἀντιτέχνους ἴσους τὸν ἀριθμόν. Here, I take it, τὸν μὲν πρῶτον is the 
first counted from Ormuzd himself; so that the God of εὔνοια would be the last 
reached by the ascending Soul of the initiated person on its way up the Mithraic 
κλῖμαξ ἑπτάπυλος. It is a strange coincidence that the last stage in Dante’s 
κλῖμαξ of purification—the Mount of Purgatory—should also be Εὔνοια, having 
passed which his μύστης is 

Puro e disposto a salire alle stelle. 


Miss Harrison (Prolegomena, p. 584) refers to tomb-inscriptions with εὐνοίας 
καὶ μνήμης χάριν. This only means, I take it, ‘‘in affectionate remembrance,” 
and can hardly give the clue to the problem of Dante’s Eunoe= Mnemosyne. 


THE MYTH OF ER 163 


these experiences, leading up, as they do, to γένεσις in the 
flesh, are all parts of a purgatorial discipline. Lastly, we have 
the Paradiso of the Myth of Kr in the vision of the orrery— 
the little model of the great Universe, by means of which the 
astronomical theory of Plato’s age—essentially the same as 
that of Dante’s age—is illustrated and presented in a form 
which appeals to poetical fancy, and yet—so Plato thought— 
is scientifically correct. This ancient astronomy, first poetised 
by Plato, has indeed played a notable part in the history of 
poetry. Dante’s Paradiso is dominated by it—renders it into 
poetry, and yet leaves it “scientific”; and Milton, although he 
was acquainted with the Copernican system, adheres, in 
Paradise Lost, to the old astronomy with its concentric 
spheres revolving round the Earth." But when we say that 
Dante’s Paradiso—the noblest of all Eschatological Myths—is 
dominated by the ancient astronomy,—renders its theory of 
the heavens into poetry and still leaves it “ scientific,’—-we 
must not forget that the theory came down to Dante already 
touched into poetry by an influence not commonly considered 
poetical, to which, however, Dante’s rendering owes much of 
its poetical effect. I refer to the influence of Aristotle. He 
put poetry into astronomy when he explained the revolutions 
of the spheres as actuated by the attraction of God—the Best 
Beloved, Who draws all things unto Himself with strong 
desire (see Met. A 7; de Coelo, ii. 2; and Mr. A. J. Butler’s 
note, Zhe Paradise of Dante, p. 8). It is Aristotle who 
dictates the first line of the Paradiso— 


La gloria di Colui che tutto muove ; 3 


and it is with Aristotle’s doctrine—or poetry—that the 
Paradiso ends— 


Al? alta fantasia qui mancd possa : 
Ma gia volgeva il mio disiro e Ἶ velle, 
Si come ruota che igualmente ἃ mossa, 
L’ Amor che muove il Sole e I’ altre stelle.* 





1 See Masson’s Milton’s Poetical Works, vol. i. pp. 89 ff. 
2 His glory by whose might all things are moved. 
CaRY. 
3 Here vigour failed the towering fantasy ; 
But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel 
In even motion, by the Love impelled 
That moves the Sun in Heaven and all the Stars. 
CaRY. 


164 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


The Aristotelian doctrine—or poetry '—of these lines is set 
forth fully in the Convivio, 1. 44: 


There are nine moving heavens, and the order of their position 
is as follows: The first that is reckoned is that of the Moon; the 
second, that in which Mercury is; the third, Venus ; the fourth, the 
Sun; the fifth, Mars; the sixth, Jupiter; the seventh, Saturn ; 
the eighth is that of the Stars; the ninth is that which can only 
be perceived by the movement above mentioned, which is called 
the crystalline or diaphanous, or wholly transparent. But outside 
of these, Catholics suppose the Empyrean Heaven, which is as much 
as to say the Heaven of Flame, or the luminous ; and they suppose 
this to be immovable, since it has, in itself, in respect of every 
part, that which its matter requires. And this is the reason why 
the primum mobile has most rapid movement: because by reason of 
the fervent longing which every part of it has to be joined to 
every part of that most divine motionless Heaven, it revolves 
within that with so great desire that its velocity is, as it were, 
incomprehensible. And this motionless and peaceful Heaven is 
the place of that Supreme Deity which alone fully beholds itself. 
This is the place of the blessed spirits, according as Holy Church, 
which cannot lie, will have it; and this Aristotle, to whoso under- 
stands him aright, seems to mean, in the first book de Coelo.” 





This is μῦθος ---ἃβ truly μῦθος as the Spindle of Necessity 
in the Vision of Er; which Dante sufficiently recognises in 
Conv. ii. 3, where he says that although, as regards the truth 
of these things, little can be known, yet that little which 
human reason can know has more delectation than all the 
certainties of sense. 

To pass now to another point:—The νῶτον, or continuous 
surface formed by the edges or lips of the concentric whorls 
of the orrery (Rep. 616 £), has been identified by some with 
the νῶτον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ of Phaedrus, 247 c—the outside of 
the outermost sphere of the sensible Cosmos, on which the 
Chariot-Souls emerge in sight of the Super-sensible Forms. 
Hence, it is inferred, the place where the Souls of the Myth of 
Er are assembled before the throne of Necessity, and where 
they choose new Lives before they journey on to the Plain of 

1 Against the view here advanced—that Aristotle’s doctrine of God is “ poetry ” 
—the reader may consult an interesting article on ‘‘ The Conception of ἐνέργεια 


ἀκινησίας, by Mr. F. ©, 8, Schiller, in ind, Oct. 1900, republished in revised and 


expanded form, under the title of Activity and Substance, as Essay xii. in Mr. 
Schiller’s Humanism (1903). 


2 A. J. Butler’s Translation of Scartazzini’s Companion to Dante, p. 420. 


THE MYTH OF ER 165 


Lethe, is outside the sensible Cosmos,’ I do not think that 
this inference is certain, or even probable. It is a model of 
the Cosmos, I think——and an old-fashioned model, with rings 
instead of spheres *——not the outside of the actual Cosmos, that 
the Pilgrim Souls of the Republic see. In the vision of this 
model, or orrery, we have what is really a vision within the 
larger vision of the whole Myth of Er. The Pilgrim Souls 
are still somewhere in the sensible Cosmos—indeed, they are 
on the surface of the Earth somewhere. In this place, on the 
surface of the Karth, Necessity and the three Fates, and the 
rest of the pageant, appear to them, ἐν εἰδώλου εἴδει, as the 
Saints appear to Dante in the lower Spheres where they 
really are ποὺ Standing in this place, on the surface of the 
Earth—it may be on the antipodal surface of the Earth—the 
Pilgrim Souls see on the knees of Necessity the model of the 
Cosmos, with the lips of its rings making a continuous surface. 
It is true that in the Phaedrus Souls about to be born actually 
visit the νῶτον οὐρανοῦ, and see thence the ὑπερουράνιος 
τόπος, but in the Phaedrus these Souls have wings and can 
fly to the flammantia moenia mundi, whereas, in the Myth of 
Er the Souls plod on foot. This seems to me to make a great 
difference. In interpreting the details of a Platonic Myth we 
do well always to take account of the poet-philosopher’s power 
of exact visualisation, in respect of which he can be compared 
only with Dante. I think, therefore, that in the Myth of 


1 See R. L. Nettleship’s Philosophical Lectures and Remains, ii. 361, n. 3. 

2 Rep. 616 D: see Burnet, Larly Greek Philosophy, p. 202, and $78 generally. 
Σφόνδυλοι, Prof. Burnet points out, are not spheres, but rings, what Parmenides 
(adopting a Pythagorean idea) calls στέφαναι. According to the oPédvdvAor-scheme, 
the Earth and the Heavens are not spherical, but annular. As the astronomy 
accepted by Plato undoubtedly made the Earth spherical, in a spherical Cosmos 
(see Zeller’s Plato, Eng. Transl. p. 379), we must conclude that the system of rings 
or σφόνδυλοι, in Rep. 616, is that of a model only—either an old-fashioned 
Pythagorean one, or an up-to-date one, in which, however, only the half of 
each sphere was represented, so that the internal “‘works” might be seen. That 
astronomical models were in use we know from Zimaeus, 40 p, where the speaker 
says that without the aid of a model of the Heavens it would be useless to attempt 
to describe certain motions ; and cf. Fabricii Bibl. Gr. Liber iv. pp. 457 ff., on 
astronomical models in antiquity. 

With regard to the breadth of the rims of the σφόνδυλοι, see Mr. Adam’s note 
on 616 E, and Appendix vi. Although the view supported by the προτέρα 
kal ἀρχαιοτέρα γραφή mentioned by Proclus—that the breadth of the rims of the 
σφόνδυλοι is proportionate, but not equal, to the diameters of the planets—is 
plausible, it seems better to take it that the supposed distances of the orbits from 
each other are signified by the breadth of the rims. 

3 Par. iv. 34 ff. Cf. Odys. xi. 600, τὸν δὲ μετ᾽ εἰσενόησα βίην Ἡρακληείην 

| εἴδωλον, αὐτὸς δὲ μετ᾽ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι. 


166 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Er the Souls about to be born again do not actually visit the 
νῶτον οὐρανοῦ. 

Be this as it may, the region of the νῶτον οὐρανοῦ, as 
described in the Phaedrus, is either the actual abode, or in 
close touch with the stars (Zim. 42 B), which are the actual 
abodes, of the purified ones who have drunk of Mnemosyne, and 
“always remember ”—“ philosophers,” who have been trans- 
lated from the “ True Surface of the Earth,” as we read in the 
Phaedo (114 Cc): of φιλοσοφίᾳ ἱκανῶς καθηράμενοι ἄνευ τε 
σωμάτων ζῶσι τὸ παράπαν εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον καὶ εἰς 
οἰκήσεις ἔτι τούτων καλλίους ἀφικνοῦνται ἃς οὔτε ῥάδιον 
δηλῶσαι οὔτε ὁ χρόνος ἱκανὸς ἐν τῷ παρόντι. The abode of 
these purified ones,in or within sight of the super-sensible region, 
corresponds to the Empyrean or motionless Heaven of Dante, 
‘the tenth and outermost Heaven, in which the blessed really 
dwell, although they appear, ἐν εἰδώλου εἴδει, in all the nine 
moving Spheres to the poet as he ascends.’ 

I wish to conclude this section of my observations on the 
Myth of Er with a few words about the view maintained by 
Mr. Adam in his note on Rep. 617 B, 11 :- 


᾿Ανάγκης yovaorv.—Plato means us to imagine Necessity as 
seated in the centre of the Universe. The notion is probably 
Pythagorean ; for Parmenides, who attaches himself to the Pytha- 
goreans in this part of his system (Zeller,® i. p. 572), speaks of a 
central ᾿Ανάγκη as the cause of all movement and birth; see 
Diels, Dox. Gr. 335. 12 ff—rédv δὲ συμμιγῶν (80. στεφανῶν) τὴν 
μεσαιτάτην ἁπάσαις ToKéa πάσης κινήσεως Kal γενέσεως ὑπάρχειν, 
ἥντινα καὶ δαίμονα κυβερνῆτιν καὶ κλῃδοῦχον ἐπονομάζει δίκην καὶ 
ἀνάγκην; and Zeller, lc. p. 577, n. 3 (Zeller identifies this 
᾿Ανάγκη with the central fire of the Pythagoreans). The same 
school seem also to have held that ᾿Ανάγκη surrounds and holds 
the world together (Diels, l.c. 321), and Zeller thinks it is this 
external ᾿Ανάγκη of which Plato here avails himself (/.c. p. 434, 
n. 3). But it is quite clear that Plato’s ᾿Ανάγκη is in the middle. 


I agree with Mr. Adam in rejecting Zeller’s view that it is 
the external ᾿Ανάγκη of which Plato here avails himself, and 
in thinking that Plato’s ᾿Ανάγκη is in the middle. But in 


1 Par, iv. 28-39. The appearance of a certain Saint in a certain moving 
Sphere is a sign of his or her position in the graded hierarchy of the Empyrean, 
or Unmoved Heaven, in which all the Saints have their real abode. A Saint who 
appears to Dante in the Lunar Sphere, for example, has a lower position in the 
Empyrean than one who appears in the Sphere of Jupiter. 


THE MYTH OF ER 167 


what middle? Not in the Pythagorean middle of the Universe, 
which is not the Karth, but the Central Fire. The throne of 
᾿Ανάγκη is certainly placed by Plato either on or within the 
Earth, which is in the middle of his Universe. Mr. Adam, 
with, I venture to think, too much regard for ἀκριβολογία, 
maintains that it is within, not on the surface of, the Earth. 
“Tf the light is ‘straight like a pillar,” he writes (note on 
6168, 13), “and stretches ‘through all the Heaven and the 
Earth,’ it follows that as the Earth is in the middle of the 
Universe, the ‘middle of the light’ will be at the centre of the 
Karth. No other interpretation of κατὰ μέσον τὸ φῶς is 
either natural or easy. It would seem, therefore, that at the 
end of the fourth day after leaving the Meadow the Souls are 
at the central point both of the Universe and of the Earth, as 
is maintained by, among others, Schneider and Donaldson ; and 
this view is also in harmony with some of the most important 
features of the remaining part of the narrative.” 

My view is that the throne of Necessity is on the surface 
of the Earth, at that spot where the pillar of light—the axis 
on which the Cosmos revolves—was seen, by the Pilgrim Souls 
as they approached, to touch the ground—seen, with the 
accompanying knowledge (so characteristic of dream-experience ) 
that it goes through the Earth and comes out at the antipodal 
spot. I do not think that we ought to press the phrase κατὰ 
μέσον τὸ φῶς, as Mr. Adam does. Apart from the fact that 
the Pythagorean or Parmenidean central ᾿Ανάγκη was not in 
the centre of the Harth, the whole scenery of the Myth and 
its general fidelity to mythological tradition seem to me to be 
against putting Plato’s throne of Necessity, as Mr. Adam does, 
in the centre of the Earth. The Myth begins by telling us 
that the Souls came, some of them out of the Earth, some of 
them down from “ Heaven,” to the Meadow. The Meadow is 
certainly on the surface of the Earth. Their journey thence to 
the throne of Necessity is evidently on the surface of the 
Earth,—they have the sky above them; they see the pillar of 
light in the sky before them for a whole day, the fourth day 
of their march, as they approach it. There is no suggestion of 
their going down on that day into Tartarus in order to reach 
the “middle of the light” at the centre of the Earth. Those 
of them who came out of Tartarus are still out of it, and are 


108 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


not going back into it. And those who came out of the region 
described as οὐρανός, “ Heaven,” are still out of that region. 
Hence, if I am right in identifying the οὐρανός of the Rep. 
with the “True Surface of the Earth” of the Phaedo Myth, 
Mr. Adam cannot be right when he says, 616 B,11 (cf. 614 
c,n.), that “ Plato in all probability thinks of the λειμών as 
somewhere on the True Surface of the Earth described by him 
in the Myth in the Phaedo,and it is apparently along this 
surface that the Souls progress until they come in view of the 
light.” The True Surface of the Earth and Tartarus, accord- 
ing to my view, were both equally left when the λειμών was 
reached. The Souls are now journeying along the “ Third 
Way,’ which leads, under the open sky, by the throne of 
Necessity, and then by the River of Lethe, eis γένεσιν. The 
River of Lethe does not appear in the list of the subterranean 
or infernal rivers given in the Phaedo;' the mythological 
tradition (observed even by Dante, as we have seen) places it 
under the open sky—probably the sky of the wnder-world— 
the antipodal hemisphere of the Earth. And the φέρεσθαι 
ἄνω εἰς τὴν γένεσιν ἄττοντας ὥσπερ ἀστέρας (6218), from 
which Mr. Adam (citing den. vi. 748 ff.) infers “that the 
Souls, just before their re-incarnation, are underground,” seems 
to me, on the contrary, entirely in accordance with the view 
that, encamped near the River of Lethe, they are on the sur- 
face of the Earth, under the open sky, up into which they 
shoot in various directions like meteors,—surely an inappro- 
priate picture if they were down in a cavern somewhere at the 
centre of the Earth. 

The whole movement, in short, of the Myth of Er, from 
the meeting of the two companies of Souls at the Meadow 
onwards, is above ground, under the open sky. From afar 
they see a pillar of light reaching down through the sky to 


1 Olympiodorus, Schol. in Phaedonem, connects the list of infernal rivers with 
Orphic Patties παραδιδόμενοι τέσσαρες ποταμοὶ κατὰ τὴν ᾿Ορφέως παράδοσιν 
τοῖς ὑπογείοις ἀναλογοῦσι 5’ στοιχείοις τε καὶ κέντροις κατὰ δύο ἀντιθέσεις. ὁ 
μὲν γὰρ Πυριφλεγέθων τῷ πυρὶ καὶ τῇ ἀνατολῇ, ὁ δὲ Κωκυτὸς τῇ γῇ καὶ τῇ 
δύσει, ὁ δὲ ᾿Αχέρων ἀέρι τε καὶ μεσημβρίᾳ. τούτους μὲν ᾿Ορφεὺς οὕτω διέταξεν, 
αὐτὸς δὲ τὸν Ὠκεανὸν τῷ ὕδατι καὶ τῇ ἄρκτῳ mpocoxeot. Here the River of 
Lethe does not appear. 

Roscher (art. ‘‘ Lethe”) gives the following mentions of Lethe: Simonides, 
Epig. 184 (Bergk)—this is the first mention, but the authorship is doubtful ; 
Aristoph. Ranae, 186; Plato, Rep. 621; Plutarch, Cons. ad Apoll. ch. 15, in 
quotation from a dramatic writer; Virg. Aen. vi. 705, 715; Lucian, de Zuctu, 
§§ 2-9; Mort. Dial. 13. 6, 23. 2; Ovid, Ep. ex Pont. 2, 4, 23. 


THE MYTH OF ER 169 


the Earth; and, because Plato, the Dreamer of the Myth, 
recognises this pillar as the axis of the Cosmos—the cause of 
its necessary revolutions—lo! when the Souls are come to the 
foot of the pillar, it is no longer a pillar reaching down 
through the sky that they see, but Necessity herself sitting on 
Earth, on her throne, with a model of the Cosmos revolving in 
her lap. 

There is another point on which I feel obliged to 
differ from Mr. Adam. “It is clear,” he says (note on Step, 
616 c), “that the light not only passes through the centre of 
the Universe, but also, since it holds the heavens together like 
the undergirders of men-of-war, round the outer surface of the 
heavenly sphere "—.e. the ends of the light which passes round 
the outer surface are brought inside the sphere, and, being 
joined in the middle, form the pillar. This seems to me to 
make too much of the man-of-war, or trireme. It is enough 
to take Plato to say that the pillar (which alone is mentioned) 
holds the Universe together in its particular way, as the 
ὑποζώματα, in their particular way, hold the trireme together. 
And if there is a light passed round the outer surface of the 
Heaven, as well as one forming its axis, why do the Pilgrim 
Souls see only the latter? The Heavens are diaphanous. The 
Pilgrims ought, if Mr. Adam’s view is correct, to see not only 
the pillar of light rising vertically from the horizon at a certain 
fixed point towards which they journey, but also another band 
of light—that which surrounds the outside of the Universe— 
travelling round with the motion of the sphere of the fixed 
stars from East to West. | 


IV 


I shall now conclude what I have to say about the Myth 
of Er with a few words on the great philosophical question 
raised in it. I mean the question of How to reconcile Free 
Will with the Reign of Law. Both are affirmed in the Myth. 
The Pilgrim Souls are conducted to a spot at which they see, 
with their own eyes, the working of the Universal Law—they 
stand beside the axis on which the Cosmos revolves, and see 
clearly that the revolutions “cannot be otherwise.” They see 
that the axis of the Cosmos is the spindle of ᾿Ανάγκη :—and, 


1τὸ THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


behold! there sits ᾿Ανάγκη herself on her throne, and there are 
the three Fates, with solemn ritual, ordering the succession of 
events in time according to the law of ᾿Ανάγκη. Yet, within 
the very precincts of the court of ᾿Ανάγκη in which they 
stand, the Pilgrim Souls hear the Prophet telling them in the 
words of Lachesis, that “they are free to choose, and will be 
held responsible for their, choice.” Plato here presents the 
Idea of Freedom mythically under the form of a prenatal act 
of choice—the choice, it is to be carefully noted, not of par- 
ticular things, but of a Whole Life—the prenatal “choice” of 
that whole complex of circumstances in which particular things 
are chosen in this earthly life. Each Soul, according to its 
nature, clothes itself in certain circumstances —comes into, 
and goes through, this earthly life in circumstances which it 
has itself chosen—that is, in circumstances which are to be 
regarded not as forcing it, or dominating it mechanically 
from without, but as being the environment in which it 
exhibits its freedom or natural character as a living creature." 
Among the circumstances of a Life “chosen,” a fixed character 
of the Soul itself, we are told, is not included——~puyjs δὲ 
τάξιν οὐκ ἐνεῖναι (Rep. 618 B)—because the Soul is modified 
by the Life which it chooses. This means that the Soul, 
choosing the circumstances, or Life, chooses, or makes itself 
responsible for, its own character, as afterwards modified, and 
necessarily modified, by the circumstances, or Life. In other 
words, a man is responsible here on Earth for actions pro- 
ceeding from a connate character which is modified here in 
accordance with the circumstances of a general scheme of life 
made unalterable by Necessity and the Fates before he was 
born—aipeic@w βίον ᾧ σύνεσται ἐξ ἀνάγκης (Rep. 617 £). 

In presenting Moral Freedom under the Reign of Natural 
Law mythically, as Prenatal Choice made irrevocable by 
᾿Ανάγκη, Plato lays stress, as he does elsewhere, on the 
unbroken continuity of the responsible Self evolving its 
character in a series of life-changes. It is the choice made 
before the throne of ᾿Ανάγκη which dominates the behaviour 


1 It was chiefly in order to express this relation between living creature and 
environment that Leibniz formulated his theory of Pre-established Harmony. 
We may say of Leibniz’s theory what he says himself of Plato’s doctrine of 
dvduynois—that it is “myth’—‘‘toute fabuleuse” (Nowveaux Essais, Avant- 
propos, p. 196 b, ed. Erdmann), 


THE MYTH OF ER 171 


of the Soul in the bodily life on which it is about to enter; 
but the choice made before the throne of ᾿Ανάγκη depended 
itself on a disposition formed in a previous life; the man who 
chooses the life of a tyrant, and rues his choice as soon as he 
has made it, but too late, had been virtuous in a previous 
life, ἔθει ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας ---- ἷβ virtue had been merely 
“customary,” without foundation upon consciously realised 
principle (Zep. 619 6). Plato thus makes Freedom reside 
in esse, not in operari.! To be free is to be a continuously 
existing, self-affirming, environment-choosing personality, 
manifesting itself in actions which proceed, according to 
necessary law, from itself as placed once for all in the 
environment which it has chosen—its own natural environ- 
ment—the environment which is the counterpart of its own 
character. It is vain to look for freedom of the will in some 
power of the personality whereby it may interfere with the 
necessary law according to which character, as modified up to 
date, manifests itself in certain actions. Such a power, such 
a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae, would be inconsistent with 
the continuity, and therefore with the freedom and respon- 
sibility, of the Self. It is, in other words, the freedom of the 
“noumenal,” as distinguished from the “phenomenal” Self, 
which Plato presents as the “prenatal choice of a Life ”— 
mythically ; which is, indeed, the only way in which such a 
transcendental idea can be legitimately presented. αἱρείσθω 
βίον ᾧ σύνεσται ἐξ ἀνάγκης" ἡ δ᾽ ἀρετὴ ἀδέσποτον. A 
certain Life, with all its fortunes and all its influences on 
character, when once chosen, is chosen irrevocably.” But, 
none the less, it is a life of freedom, for “ Virtue is her own 
mistress.” In being conscious of Virtue—that is, of Self as 


1 For the distinction, see Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena, ii. § 117 ; 
Die Welt als Wille u. Vorstellung, vol. ii. pp. 364, 365 ; and Die Grundlage der 
Moral, §10. In the last of these passages Schopenhauer (explaining the dis- 
tinction between the ‘‘intelligible” and the ‘‘empirical” character, the latter of 
which is related to the former as operari is to esse—operari sequitur esse) quotes 
Porphyry (in Stobaeus, Eel. 8. §§ 37-40): τὸ yap ὅλον βούλημα τοιοῦτ᾽ ἔοικεν 
εἶναι τοῦ Πλάτωνος ἔχειν μὲν τὸ αὐτεξούσιον τὰς ψυχὰς πρὶν εἰς σώματα καὶ 
βίους διαφόρους ἐμπεσεῖν, εἰς τὸ ἢ τοῦτον τὸν βίον ἑλέσθαι ἢ ἄλλον. 

2 Hobbes’ “ Sovereign, once chosen, ever afterwards irremovable,” is a “ founda- 
tion-myth”; the social order which constrains individuals to conformity is 
accounted for ‘‘mythically” by a prehistoric act of choice exercised by indi- 
viduals. They willed themselves into the social order, and may not will them- 
ain out of it. A ‘‘ categorical imperative” is laid upon them to act as social 

eings. 


172 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


striving after the good or self-realisation—the Soul is conscious 
of its own freedom. This consciousness of “ freedom,” involved 
in the consciousness of “ Virtue,’ is better evidence for the 
reality of freedom than the inability of the logical faculty 
to understand freedom is against its reality. As Butler 
says, “The notion of necessity is not applicable to practical 
subjects, 7.e. with respect to them is as if it were not true. 
. . . Though it were admitted that this opinion of necessity 
were speculatively true, yet with regard to practice it is as if 
it were false.” ἢ 

One other point and I have done with the Myth of Er: 
The momentary prenatal act of choice which Plato describes 
in this Myth is the pattern of like acts which have to be 
performed in a man’s natural life. Great decisions have to be 
made in life, which, once made, are irrevocable, and dominate 
the man’s whole career and conduct afterwards.- The chief 
use of education is to prepare a man for these crises in his 
life, so that he may decide rightly. The preparation does 
not consist in a rehearsal, as it were, of the very thing to be 
done when the crisis comes,—for the nature of the crisis 
cannot be anticipated—but in a training of the will and 
judgment by which they become trustworthy in any difficulty 
which may be presented to them. The education given to 
the φύλακες of Plato’s Καλλίύπολιες is a training of this kind. 
Its aim is to cultivate faculties rather than to impart special 
knowledge. It is a “liberal education” suitable to free men 
of the governing class, as distinguished from technical instruc- 
tion by which workmen are fitted for the routine of which 
they are, so to speak, the slaves. 


1 Analogy, i. 6. 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 


WE have now done with the three purely Eschatological Myths, 
and enter on a series of Myths which are mainly Aetiological. 
We begin with the Myth of the Alternating World-periods in 
the Politicus. 

The Cosmos has alternating periods, according as God 
either goes round with and controls its revolution, or lets go 
the helm and retires to his watch-tower. When God lets go 
the helm, the Cosmos, being a ξῴῷον with its own σύμφυτος 
ἐπιθυμία, and subject, like all creatures, to εἱμαρμένη, begins 
to revolve in its own direction, which is opposite to God's 
direction. The change of direction—the least possible change 
if there is to be change at all—we must ascribe to the change- 
able nature of the material Cosmos, and not either to God, 
who is unchangeable, imparting now one motion and then its 
contrary, or to the agency of another God. When God, then, 
lets go the helm, the Cosmos begins of itself to revolve back- 
wards; and since all events on Earth are produced by the 
revolution of the Cosmos, the events which happened in one 
cosmic period are reproduced backwards in the next. Thus 
the dead of one period rise from their graves in the next as 
grey-haired men, who gradually become black-haired and 
beardless, till at last, as infants, they vanish away. This is 
the account of the fabled γηγενεῖς. They were men who died 
and were buried in the cosmic period immediately preceding 
that of Cronus—the Golden Age of Cronus, when the Earth 
brought forth food plenteously for all her children, and men 
and beasts, her common children, talked together, and δαίμονες, 
not mortal men, were kings (ef. Laws, 713). But at last the 
stock of earthen men ran out—ro γήϊνον ἤδη πᾶν ἀνήλωτο 

173 


174 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


γένος (Pol. 272 pD)—and the age of Cronus came to an end: 
God let go the helm, and the Cosmos changed the direction 
of its revolution, the change being accompanied by great 
earthquakes which destroyed all but a few men and animals. 
Then the Cosmos calmed down, and for a while, though re- 
volving in its own direction, not in God’s, yet remembered 
God, and fared well; but afterwards forgot him, and went 
from bad to worse; till God, of his goodness, saved struggling 
men, now no longer earth-born, from destruction by means of 
the fire of Prometheus and the arts of Athena and Hephaestus. 
In due time he will close the present period—that of Zeus— 
by again taking the helm of the Cosmos. Then will be the 
Resurrection of the Dead. Such, in brief, is the Myth of the 
Changing World-periods in the Politicus. 

Like the Myths already examined, this one deals with 
God’s government of man as a creature at once free to do 
good and evil, and determined by cosmic influences over 
which he—and even God the Creator himself, whether from 
lack or non-use of power hardly matters—have no control. 
The Myth differs from those which we have examined in not 
being told by Socrates himself. It is told by an Eleatic 
Stranger, who says that the younger Socrates, who is present 
with the elder, will appreciate a μῦθος, or story. Similarly, 
Protagoras prefaces the Myth which he tells (Prot. 820 0) 
by saying that it will suit Socrates and the others—younger 
men than himself. 

The Eleatic Stranger in the Politicus tells his Myth 
ostensibly in order to bring it home to the company that 
they have defined “kingship” too absolutely—as if the king 
were a god, and not a human being. Gods directly appointed 
by the great God were kings on this Earth in a former period; 
but in the period in which we now live men are the only 
kings. Kingship must now be conceived “naturalistically ” 
as a product of human society ; and human society itself, like 
the whole Cosmos of which it is a part, must be conceived 
“naturalistically ” as following its own intrinsic law without 
divine guidance ab extra. ‘To enforce a “ naturalistic” estimate 
of kingship is the ostensible object of the Myth; but it soars 
high, as we shall see, above the argument which it is ostensibly 
introduced to serve. 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 175 


CONTEXT 


The subject of the Politicus is the True Statesman, 

The best form of government, if we could get it, would be 
the rule of one eminently good and wise man, who knew and 
desired the Chief Good of his People, and possessed the art of 
securing it for them. His unlimited personal initiative would 
be far better than the best administration of “laws” made only 
because he could not be found, and because such rulers as were 
actually available could not be trusted with unlimited initiative. 

But before we try to determine exactly the nature of the 
True Statesman—the man whom we should like to make King, 
if we could find him; and before we try to define his Art, and 
distinguish it from all other arts—and we must try to do this, 
in order that we may get a standard by which to judge the 
work-a-day rulers, good and bad, whose administration of the 
“laws” we are obliged to accept as substitute for the personal 
initiative of the True Statesman,—before we try to formulate 
this standard, let us raise owr eyes to an even higher standard : 
God is the True Ruler of men; and in the Golden Age he 
ruled men, not through the instrumentality of human rulers, 
but Gods were his lieutenants on Earth, and lived among men, 
and were their Kings. 

It is with this Golden Age, and the great difference between 
it and the present age, and the cause of the difference, that 
the Myth told to the elder and the younger Socrates, and to 
Theodorus the mathematician, by the Stranger from Flea, is 
concerned. 


170 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Politicus, 268 κ--274 αὶ 


—_ a / a 
268 E EER. ᾿Αλλὰ δὴ τῷ μύθῳ μου πάνυ πρόσεχε τὸν νοῦν, 
καθάπερ οἱ παῖδες: πάντως οὐ πολλὰ ἐκφεύγεις παιδιᾶς ἔτη. 

NE, ΣΩ. Aéyous ἄν. 

EE. Ἦν τοίνυν καὶ ἔτι ἔσται τῶν πάλαι λεχθέντων 
πολλά τε ἄλλα καὶ δὴ καὶ τὸ περὶ τὴν ᾿Ατρέως τε καὶ 
Θυέστου λεχθεῖσαν ἔριν φάσμα. ἀκήκοας γάρ που καὶ 
> / ¢ / / 
ἀπομνημονεύεις ὅ φασι γενέσθαι τότε. 

NE. ΣΩ. To περὶ τῆς χρυσῆς ἀρνὸς ἴσως σημεῖον 

7 
φράζεις. 

269 EE. Οὐδαμῶς, ἀλλὰ τὸ περὶ τῆς μεταβολῆς δύσεώς τε 
καὶ ἀνατολῆς ἡλίου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἄστρων, ὡς ἄρα ὅθεν 
\ > / a bf fal / \ , 0. 7 
μὲν ἀνατέλλει νῦν, εἰς τοῦτον τότε τὸν τόπον ἐδύετο, 
᾿Ξ δα ἀν. a b) / / \ \ / ” e 
ἀνέτελλε δ᾽ ἐκ Tov ἐναντίου, τότε δὲ δὴ μαρτυρήσας apa ὁ 

θεὸς ᾿Ατρεῖ μετέβαλεν αὐτὸ ἐπὶ τὸ νῦν σχῆμα. 

NE. ΣΩ. Λέγεται γὰρ οὖν δὴ καὶ τοῦτο. 

EE. Καὶ μὴν αὖ καὶ τήν γε βασιλείαν, ἣν ἦρξε 

a / 
Κρόνος, πολλῶν ἀκηκόαμεν. 
Β NE, ΣΩ. Πλείστων μὲν οὖν. 

EE. Τί δέ; τὸ τοὺς ἔμπροσθεν φύεσθαι γηγενεῖς καὶ 
μὴ ἐξ ἀλλήλων γεννᾶσθαι ; 

NE. 202. Καὶ τοῦτο & τῶν πάλαι λεχθέντων. 

-- ω , Μ \ / b] > a 

BE. Ταῦτα τοίνυν ἔστε μὲν ξύμπαντα ἐκ ταὐτοῦ 

, \ \ , “ " \ , y 

πάθους, Kal πρὸς τούτοις ἕτερα μυρία Kal τούτων ἔτι 

/ _ a 

θαυμαστότερα, διὰ δὲ χρόνου πλῆθος τὰ μὲν αὐτῶν 

> / \ / yy \ “ ᾽ ᾽ 

ἀπέσβηκε, τὰ δὲ διεσπαρμένα εἴρηται χωρὶς ἕκαστα ἀπ 
᾽ nr 

σ ἀλλήλων. ὃ δ᾽ ἐστὶ πᾶσι τούτοις αἴτιον TO πάθος, οὐδεὶς 

εἴρηκε, νῦν δὲ δὴ λεκτέον: εἰς γὰρ τὴν τοῦ βασιλέως 
ἀπόδειξιν πρέψει ῥηθέν. 

NE, ΣΩ. Καάλλιστ᾽ εἶπες, καὶ λέγε μηδὲν ἐλλείπων. 


ΤῊΝ POLIJTICUS MYTH 177 


TRANSLATION 


Stranger. Here beginneth my wonderful Tale! Be as a 
child, and listen! for indeed not fur art thou gotten from the 
years of childish things. 

Socrates.’ Let us hear it. 

Stranger. Well, of those things which have been told from 
old time, there be many which came to pass, and shall yet 
again come to pass: whereof I count the Sign which appeared 
when that Strife the Old Story telleth of was between Atreus 
and Thyestes; for, methinks, thou hast heard what they say 
came then to pass, and rememberest it well. 

Socrates. Is it of the marvel of the Golden Lamb that thou 
speakest ἢ 

Stranger. Not of that, but of the change in the setting 
and rising of the sun and stars; for the story goes that in the 
quarter whence they now rise in that did they then set, rising 
from the opposite quarter; but that God, bearing witness for 
Atreus, changed them into the way which they now keep. 

Socrates. That story also I know. 

Stranger. And of the kingship of Cronus, too, have we 
heard many tell. 

Socrates. Yea, very many. 

Stranger. And, moreover, do they not tell of how men at 
first grew out of the earth, and were not begotten of their 
kind ? 

Socrates. That also is one of the old stories. 

Stranger. Well, of all these things one thing is cause; 
yea, of innumerable other things also which are more wonder- 
ful than these things; but by reason of length of time most 
are vanished, and of the rest mention is made separately of 
each, as of that which hath no fellowship with the other 
things. But of that which is the cause of all these things no 
man hath spoken. Let it therefore now be told; for when it 
hath been set forth, it will help to our proof concerning the 
King. 

Socrates. Good! Go on, and leave out nothing. 


} Socrates the Younger is the interlocutor throughout the whole passage 
translated. 


N 


D 


E 


270 


178 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


-- ᾽ / μ»μ Ν \ a ὃ \ \ ᾽ Ν e 
EE. ᾿Ακούοις av. τὸ yap πᾶν τόδε τοτὲ μὲν αὐτὸς ὁ 
\ a ’ \ a \ ’ > A 
θεὸς ξυμποδηγεῖ πορευόμενον καὶ συγκυκλεῖ, τοτὲ δ᾽ ἀνῆκεν, 
“ e / lal / ᾽ al / / 
ὅταν ai περίοδοι τοῦ προσήκοντος αὐτῷ μέτρον εἰλήφωσιν 
» , \ \ , ae ᾽ ᾽ , ΄ 
ἤδη χρόνου, τὸ δὲ πάλιν αὐτόματον εἰς τἀναντία περιά- 
a x Ν / \ ᾽ a / 
yetat, ζῶον ὃν καὶ φρόνησιν εἰληχὸς ἐκ τοῦ συναρμόσαντος 
>. ᾽ > , - \ > A \ ᾽ 7 >/ ὃ Ν 
αὐτὸ Kat ἀρχάς. τοῦτο δὲ αὐτῷ τὸ ἀνάπαλιν ἰέναι διὰ 
Τῶν > ᾽ / Μ / 
Tod) ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἔμφυτον γέγονεν. 
A 7 
NE. ΣΩ. Διὰ τὸ ποῖον δή; 
Ν \ \ > \ \ e / ” > \ \ > \ 
EE. To κατὰ ταὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχειν ἀεὶ καὶ ταὐτὸν 
a / , \ 
εἶναι τοῖς πάντων θειοτάτοις προσήκει μόνοις, σώματος δὲ 
΄ ? , A ΄ a \ ᾽ \ \ / 
φύσις ov ταύτης τῆς τάξεως. ὃν δὲ οὐρανὸν Kai κόσμον 
lo \ / \ lo 
ἐπωνομάκαμεν, πολλῶν μὲν καὶ μακαρίων Tapa τοῦ 
/ , >? \ 2 \ / , \ 
γεννήσαντος μετείληφεν, ἀτὰρ οὖν δὴ κεκοινώνηκέ ye Kal 
’ ev > A a ᾽ / / \ 
σώματος. ὅθεν αὐτῷ μεταβολῆς ἀμοίρῳ γίγνεσθαι διὰ 
\ > / \ / ’ \ ¢ / ᾽ 
παντὸς ἀδύνατον, κατὰ δύναμίν γε μὴν ὅ τι μάλιστα ἐν 
“ » “ \ ᾽ \ / \ al \ \ ᾽ 
τῷ αὐτῷ κατὰ ταὐτὰ μίαν φορὰν κινεῖται" διὸ τὴν ἀνα- 
> A “ / 
κύκλησιν εἴληχεν, O TL σμικροτάτην THs αὑτοῦ κινήσεως 
\ \ 
παράλλαξιν. αὐτὸ δὲ ἑαυτὸ στρέφειν ἀεὶ σχεδὸν οὐδενὶ 
\ \ “- - 7, - , . ,ὕ 
δυνατὸν πλὴν τῷ τῶν κινουμένων αὖ πάντων ἡγουμένῳ. 
~ \ / \ \ ” “ \ > / > 
κινεῖν δὲ τούτῳ τοτὲ μὲν ἄλλως, αὖθις δὲ ἐναντίως ov 
/ ᾽ / \ / \ / / > \ \ 
θέμις. ἐκ πάντων δὴ τούτων τὸν κόσμον μήτε αὐτὸν χρὴ 
/ / e \ δι δ 3 io “ a e \ an 
φάναι στρέφειν ἑαυτὸν ἀεί, μήτ᾽ αὖ ὅλον ἀεὶ ὑπὸ θεοῦ 
/ \ \ ᾽ ,ὔ , pg a / 
στρέφεσθαι διττὰς καὶ ἐναντίας περιαγωγάς, μήτ᾽ αὖ δύο 
\ ‘ a e aA ᾽ / / , / ᾽ ᾽ 
τινὲ θεὼ φρονοῦντε ἑαυτοῖς ἐναντία στρέφειν αὐτὸν, ἀλλ 
“ ΝΜ ᾽ 7 \ / / \ \ ᾿ ᾽ ” 
ὅπερ ἄρτι ἐρρήθη καὶ μόνον λοιπόν, τοτὲ μὲν ὑπ᾽ ἄλλης 
la / >. 27 \ -“ / ᾽ , 
συμποδηγεῖσθαι θείας αἰτίας, τὸ ζῆν πάλιν ἐπικτώμενον 
\ / > ’ J \ \ - 
καὶ λαμβάνοντα ἀθανασίαν ἐπισκευαστὴν παρὰ τοῦ 
- κ ᾽ ted , - ᾽ ξ - ’ \ 7 
δημιουργοῦ, τοτὲ δ᾽ ὅταν ἀνεθῇ, δι ἑαυτοῦ αὐτὸν ἰέναι, 
\ \ Ι] / A “ ᾽ ’ / 
κατὰ καιρὸν ἀφεθέντα τοιοῦτον, ὥστε ἀνάπαλιν πορεύ- 
’ \ / x 
εσθαι πολλὰς περιόδων μυριάδας διὰ TO μέγιστον ὃν 
᾿ al \ 
καὶ ἰσορροπώτατον ἐπὶ σμικροτάτου βαῖνον ποδὸς 


»" 
Leva, 


ΤῊΝ POLITICUS MYTH 179 


Stranger. Hearken! This Universe, for a certain space of 
time, God himself doth help to guide and propel in the circular 
motion thereof; and then, when the cycles of the time 
appointed unto it have accomplished their measure, he letteth 
it go. Then doth it begin to go round in the contrary direc- 
tion, of itself, being a living creature which hath gotten 
understanding from him who fashioned it in the beginning. 
This circuit in the contrary direction belongeth of necessity to 
the nature of the Universe because of this— 

Socrates. Because of what ? 

Stranger. Because that to be constant in the same state 
alway, and to be the same, belongeth only to those things 
which are the most divine of all; but the nature of Body is not 
of this order. Now, that which we call Heaven and Universe 
hath been made, through him who begat it, partaker of many 
blessed possessions; but, mark this well, Body also is of the 
portion thereof. Wherefore it is not possible that it should 
be wholly set free from change, albeit, as far as is possible, it 
revolveth in the same place, with one uniform motion: for 
this reason, when it changed, it took unto itself circular 
motion in the contrary direction, which is the smallest 
possible alteration of the motion which belongeth unto it. 
Now, to be constant alway in self-motion is, methinks, im- 
possible save only with him who ruleth all the things which 
are moved; and move them now in this direction and 
again in that he may not. From all this it followeth 
that we must not say that the Universe either of itself 
moveth itself alway, or again is alway wholly moved by 
God to revolve now in one direction and then in the contrary 
direction; nor must we say that there be two Gods which, 
being contrariously minded, do cause it so to revolve; but 
we must hold by that which was just now said and alone 
remaineth, to wit, that at one time it is holpen and guided by 
the power of God supervening, and hath more life added unto 
it, and receiveth immortality from the Creator afresh; and 
then, at another time, when it is let go, it moveth of it- 
self, having been so opportunely released that thereafter it 
journeyeth in the contrary direction throughout ages innumer- 
able, being so great of bulk, and so evenly balanced, and turn- 
ing on so fine a point. 


180 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


κ \ / a 
B NE. 52. Φαίνεται γοῦν δὴ καὶ para εἰκότως εἰρῆσθαι 
πάνθ᾽ ὅσα διελήλυθας. 
=E , ὃ) / \ / » A 
EE. Λογισάμενοι δὴ ἕξυννοήσωμεν τὸ πάθος ἐκ τῶν 
κ A ω » 
νῦν λεχθέντων, ὃ πάντων ἔφαμεν εἶναι τῶν θαυμαστῶν 
wv a? / 
αἴτιον. ἔστι yap οὖν δὴ τοῦτ᾽ αὐτό. 
NE, ΣΩ. Τὸ ποῖον ; 
\ la \ 5 »"» 
EE. To τὴν τοῦ παντὸς φορὰν τοτὲ μὲν ἐφ ἃ νῦν 
“ πον ,ὔ 
κυκλεῖται φέρεσθαι, τοτὲ δ᾽ ἐπὶ τἀναντία. 
NE, ΣΩ. Πῶς δή; 
/ \ \ a a an 
EE. Ταύτην τὴν μεταβολὴν ἡγεῖσθαι δεῖ τῶν περὶ τὸν 
Ν / “ ΄ s / 
Ο οὐρανὸν γιγνομένων τροπῶν πασῶν εἶναι μεγίστην καὶ 
/ 
τελεωτάτην τροπήν. 
NE, =. Ἔοικε γοῦν. 
’ 
ΞΕ. Μεγίστας τοίνυν καὶ μεταβολὰς χρὴ νομίζειν 
/ “- Ν Lal lal a 
γίγνεσθαι τότε τοῖς ἐντὸς ἡμῖν οἰκοῦσιν αὐτοῦ. 
γὼ > 
NE, ΣΩ. Καὶ τοῦτ᾽ εἰκός. 
\ \ / 
EE. MeraBoras δὲ μεγάλας καὶ πολλὰς Kal παντοίας 
/ @ 9 > Μ \ a , / Ld 
συμφερομένας ap οὐκ ἴσμεν τὴν τῶν ζώων φύσιν ὅτι yare- 
πῶς ἀνέχεται ; 
nw , 
NE, ΣΩ. Πῶς 8 οὔ; 
/ / 
EE. Φθοραὶ τοίνυν ἐξ ἀνάγκης τότε μέγισται ξυμβαί- 
»" / wn 
Dvovot. τῶν τε ἄλλων ζώων, Kal δὴ Kal τὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων 
, ? / , Ν δὲ , ” 
γένος ολίγον TL περιλείπεται. περὶ ὃὲ τούτους ἄλλα TE 
παθήματα πολλὰ καὶ θαυμαστὰ καὶ καινὰ ξυμπίπτει, 
/ lal a \ 
μέγιστον δὲ τόδε καὶ ξυνεπόμενον τῇ Tod παντὸς ἀνειλίξει, 
e ΄ “ a / ’ 
τότε ὅταν ἡ τῆς νῦν καθεστηκυίας ἐναντία γίγνηται 
τροπή. 
ΝΕ. ΣΩ. Τὸ ποῖον ; 
‘ μ᾿ "Ψ A a 
BE. Ἣν ἡλικίαν ἕκαστον εἶχε τῶν ζώων, αὕτη πρῶτον 
» , A ‘ 
ty ἔστη πάντων, καὶ ἐπαύσατο πᾶν ὅσον ἣν θνητὸν ἐπὶ 
μ 7) 
‘ / ᾿ὃ Lal / / δὲ / ᾽ \ 
τὸ γεραίτερον ἰδεῖν πορευόμενον, μεταβάλλον δὲ πάλιν ἐπὶ 
7 7 \ lol 
E τοὐναντίον οἷον νεώτερον καὶ ἁπαλώτερον ἐφύετο. καὶ τῶν 
Ἁ e ’ -" ’ 
μὲν πρεσβυτέρων ai λευκαὶ τρίχες ἐμελαίνοντο, τῶν ὃ αὖ 
᾽ , \ 
γενειώντων αἱ παρειαὶ λεαινόμεναι πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν παρελ- 
rn ᾿ , a“ 
θοῦσαν ὥραν ἕκαστον καθίστασαν, τῶν δὲ ἡβώντων τὰ 
, , / ᾽ ᾽ / 
σώματα λεαινόμενα Kal σμικρότερα καθ᾽ ἡμέραν Kal νύκτα 
‘ ; / / ᾽ \ an lol \ 
ἑκάστην γιγνόμενα πάλιν εἰς THY τοῦ νεογενοῦς παιδὸς 
\ \ \ re 
φύσιν ἀπήει, κατά τε THY ψυχὴν Kal κατὰ τὸ σῶμα 
᾽ , ᾽ ε » ’ »" \ 
ἀφομοιούμενα' τὸ δ᾽ ἐντεῦθεν ἤδη papawopeva κομιδῇ τὸ 
᾽ ᾿ ͵ ΄ δ᾽ ς ’ , 5 
πάμπαν ἐξηφανίζετο. τῶν av βιαίως τελευτώντων ἐν 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 181 


Socrates. All this, methinks, hath great likelihood. 

Stranger. Let us then reason with ourselves, and compre- 
hend from this that which, coming to pass, is, as we said, 
the cause of all these wonders. Well, it is this. 

Socrates. What? 

Stranger. The circulur motion of the Universe going as it 
now goeth, and then at another time going in the contrary 
direction. 

Socrates. How? 

Stranger. This alteration we must needs deem to be of 
all the changes which are accomplished in the Heaven the 
change which is greatest and most complete. 

Socrates. So it would seem. 

Stranger. And we must conclude that by reason of it the 
greatest changes are then accomplished for us who dwell 
within this Universe. 

Socrates. That also is likely. 

Stranger. Now, when changes many and great and of all 
sorts come to pass, is it not true that the nature of living 
creatures hardly endureth them ? 

Socrates. Yea, ’tis true. 

Stranger. So it is then, of necessity, that beasts do perish 
most, and of mankind only a little remnant is left; and unto 
these men do many things strange and new happen, but the 
strangest is that which attendeth the rolling back of the 
Universe when the motion contrary to this which is now 
established cometh to be. 

Socrates. What is that ? 

Stranger. Then cometh it to pass that the age of every 
creature, according as his time of life is, first standeth still, 
and mortals are all stayed in that course which maketh them 
look older and older: but presently they begin to go in the 
contrary direction—that is to say, they grow younger and more 
tender ; and the hoary locks of the old man become black, and 
the cheeks of the bearded man become smooth, and he is 
restored to the bygone springtime of his life; and the lad 
becometh smooth again, and smaller day after day and night 
after night, till he cometh back, soul and body, unto the 
nature and likeness of a new-born child; and thereafter he 
ever dwindleth away, and at the last utterly vanisheth. Like- 


271 


182 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


τῷ τότε χρόνῳ TO TOU νεκροῦ σῶμα ταὐτὰ ταῦτα πάσχον 
παθήματα διὰ τάχους ἄδηλον ἐν ὀλίγαις ἡμέραις διεφθεί- 
ρετο. 

NE. =. Γένεσις δὲ δὴ τίς τότ᾽ Fv, ὦ Eve, ζώων ; 
καὶ τίνα τρόπον ἐξ ἀλλήλων ἐγεννῶντο ; 

EE. Δῆλον, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὅτι τὸ μὲν ἐξ ἀλλήλων οὐκ 
ἣν ἐν τῇ τότε φύσει γεννώμενον, τὸ δὲ γηγενὲς εἶναί ποτε 
γένος λεχθέν, τοῦτ᾽ ἣν τὸ κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ἐκ γῆς 
πάλιν ἀναστρεφόμενον, ἀπεμνημονεύετο δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν ἡμετέρων 
προγόνων τῶν πρώτων, οἱ τελευτώσῃ μὲν τῇ προτέρᾳ 
περιφορᾷ τὸν ἑξῆς χρόνον ἐγειτόνουν, τῆσδε δὲ κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς 
ἐφύοντο’ τούτων γὰρ οὗτοι κήρυκες ἐγένονθ᾽ ἡμῖν τῶν 
λόγων, οἱ νῦν ὑπὸ πολλῶν οὐκ ὀρθῶς ἀπιστοῦνται. τὸ 
γὰρ ἐντεῦθεν, οἶμαι, χρὴ ξυννοεῖν. ἐχόμενον γάρ ἐστι τῷ 
τοὺς πρεσβύτας ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ παιδὸς ἰέναι φύσιν, ἐκ τῶν 
τετελευτηκότων αὖ, κειμένων δ᾽ ἐν γῇ, πάλιν ἐκεῖ ξυνιστα- 
μένους καὶ ἀναβιωσκομένους ἕπεσθαι τῇ τροπῇ συνανακυ- 
κλουμένους Σ εἰς τἀναντία τῆς γενέσεως, καὶ γηγενεῖς δὴ 
κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν λόγον ἐξ ἀνάγκης φυομένους οὕτως ἔχειν 
τοὔνομα καὶ τὸν λόγον, ὅσους μὴ θεὸς αὐτῶν εἰς ἄλλην 
μοῖραν ἐκόμισεν. 

NE. 20. Κομιδῇ μὲν οὖν τοῦτό γε ἕπεται τοῖς 
ἔμπροσθεν. ἀλλὰ δὴ τὸν βίον ὃν ἐπὶ τῆς Κρόνου φὴς 
εἶναι δυνάμεως, πότερον ἐν ἐκείναις ἣν ταῖς τροπαῖς ἢ ἐν 
ταῖσδε; τὴν μὲν γὰρ τῶν ἄστρων τε καὶ ἡλίου μεταβολὴν 
δῆλον ὡς ἐν ἑκατέραις ξυμπίπτει ταῖς τροπαῖς γίγνεσθαι. 

EE. Καλῶς τῷ λόγῳ ξυμπαρηκολούθηκας. ὃ δ᾽ ἤρου 
περὶ τοῦ πάντα αὐτόματα γίγνεσθαι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, ἥκιστα 
τῆς νῦν ἐστι καθεστηκυίας φορᾶς, ἀλλ᾽ hv καὶ τοῦτο τῆς 
ἔμπροσθεν. τότε γὰρ αὐτῆς πρῶτον τῆς κυκλήσεως ἦρχεν 
ἐπιμελούμενος ὅλης ὁ θεός: ὡς νῦν κατὰ τόπους, ταὐτὸν 
τοῦτο ὑπὸ θεῶν ἀρχόντων πάντῃ τὰ τοῦ κόσμου μέρη 
διειλημμένα. καὶ δὴ καὶ τὰ ζῶα κατὰ γένη καὶ ἀγέλας 
οἷον νομῆς θεῖοι διειλήφεσαν δαίμονες, αὐτάρκης εἰς πάντα 
ἕκαστος ἑκάστοις ὧν οἷς αὐτὸς ἔνεμεν, ὥστε οὔτ᾽ ἄγριον ἣν 
οὐδὲν οὔτε ἀλλήλων ἐδωδαί, πόλεμός τε οὐκ ἐνῆν οὐδὲ 
στάσις τὸ παράπαν' ἄλλα θ᾽, ὅσα τῆς τοιαύτης ἐστὶ 
κατακοσμήσεως ἑπόμενα, μυρί ἂν εἴη λέγειν. τὸ δ᾽ οὖν τῶν 


| ἑπόμενον. 2 συνανακυκλουμένης. 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 183 


wise the corpses of them that have died by violence at this 
time go through the same changes quickly, and in a few days 
are dissolved and gone clean out of sight. 

Socrates, But how were creatures then brought forth, 
and after what manner were they begotten of their kind 7 

Stranger. It is manifest, O Socrates, that none was then 
naturally begotten of his kind, but that the earth-born kind 
they tell of was that which came up again from the earth in 
those days, whereof our first forefathers had remembrance 
who lived in the time next after the end of the former 
Period, being born at the beginning of this present one. 
From their mouth hath word concerning these things 
come down unto us: which of many is ποῦ believed; 
but herein they err; for consider what followeth next :— 
After the old men who go back to childhood, there follow in 
their turn the men who are already dead and lying in their 
graves; these begin therein to be compacted anew out of their 
elements, and when his time cometh unto each of them in 
the cycle of generation whose motion is contrary to the former 
motion, he riseth from the dead. Thus were men, of necessity, 
earth-born in those days, and this name of earth-born which 
we have received is the true name of them all, save of those 
whom God translated to some other portion. 

Socrates. Yea, indeed, this followeth from that which 
went before. But tell me—the life thou sayest men led 
when Cronus reigned, was it in that Period or in this? 
For ‘tis plain that the change whereof thou speakest in the 
course of the stars and the sun falleth to happen in each. 

Stranger. Well hast thou followed the argument; and 
thy question is to be answered thus:—That the age when 
all things came forth spontaneous for the use of man con- 
grueth not with this present motion, but with that which 
was before; for then did God control with his providence the 
whole revolution, and all the parts of the Universe every- 
where were divided amongst gods appointed to rule over them, 
as now gods rule over certain places; and, moreover, living 
creatures, according to their kinds, were assigned unto angels, 
as flocks unto divine shepherds, each angel being wholly suffi- 
cient in all things for his own flock, so that there was then 
no savagery, no devouring of one another, no war or sedition 


184 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


, / 
ἀνθρώπων λεχθὲν αὐτομάτου πέρι βίου διὰ τὸ τοιόνδε 
v \ v bl] \ ᾽ \ ᾽ a ’ -»" 
εἴρηται. θεὸς ἔνεμεν αὐτοὺς αὐτὸς ἐπιστατῶν, καθάπερ νῦν 

- ΕΝ / ’ 
ἄνθρωποι, ζῶον ὃν ἕτερον θειότερον, ἄλλα γένη φαυλότερα 

c - / / \ ᾽ / Ὁ 4 > 3 
αὑτῶν νομεύουσι. νέμοντος δὲ ἐκείνου πολιτεῖαί τε οὐκ ἦσαν 

᾽ \ ’ὔ A \ / ᾽ fal \ ᾽ ’ 
272 οὐδὲ κτήσεις γυναικῶν καὶ παίδων: ἐκ γῆς γὰρ ἀνεβιώσκοντο 
\ 7 al / 

πάντες, οὐδὲν μεμνημένοι τῶν πρόσθεν: ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν 

a ΒΝ ὡς / \ \ ᾽ / 3 > f 
τοιαῦτα ἀπῆν πάντα, καρποὺς δὲ ἀφθόνους εἶχον ἀπὸ Te 

ral Μ 
δένδρων καὶ πολλῆς ὕλης ἄλλης, οὐχ ὑπὸ γεωργίας 

/ ? ᾽ ’ / ? / - a \ 
φυομένους, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτομάτης avadidovens τῆς γῆς. γυμνοὶ 
\ \ ” A \ \ δ oe \ \ 
δὲ Kai ἄστρωτοι θυραυλοῦντες Ta πολλὰ ἐνέμοντο: τὸ γὰρ 
a eon. ? a » ol \ \ ον . 
τῶν ὡρῶν αὐτοῖς ἄλυπον ἐκέκρατο, μαλακὰς δὲ εὐνὰς εἶχον 
, A / / με 
ἀναφυομένης ἐκ γῆς πόας apOovov. τὸν δὴ βίον, ὦ 

A / 7 , 
Β Σώκρατες, ἀκούεις μὲν τὸν τῶν ἐπὶ Κρόνου: τόνδε 8, 
A , > \ \ - Ν ’ἢ \ > \ v 
ὃν λόγος ἐπὶ Διὸς εἶναι, τὸν νυνί, παρὼν αὐτὸς ἤσθησαι. 
- ᾽ ᾽ - \ ? 7 @ ? A 7 / \ 
κρῖναι ὃ αὐτοῖν τὸν εὐδαιμονέστερον ap ἂν δύναιό τε Kal 
ἐθελήσειας ; 
NE, ΣΩ. Οὐδαμῶς. 
— lo / / 
EE. Βούλει δῆτα ἐγώ σοι τρόπον τινὰ διακρίνω ; 
NE. ΣΩ. Πάνυ μὲν οὗν. 
--- / a / 
BE. Ee μὲν τοίνυν of τρόφιμοι tod Κρόνου, παρούσης 
> a ev A A \ / \ \ \ 
αὕτοις οὕτω πολλῆς σχολῆς καὶ δυνάμεως πρὸς τὸ μὴ 
/ 
μόνον ἀνθρώποις ἀλλὰ καὶ θηρίοις διὰ λόγων δύνασθαι 
C ξυγγίγνεσθαι, κατεχρῶντο τούτοις ξύμπασιν ἐπὶ φιλοσοφίαν, 
μετά τε θηρίων καὶ μετ’ ἀλλήλων ὁμιλοῦντες, καὶ πυνθα- 
/ \ , / Μ / γ.39ϑ 4 
νόμενοι Tapa πάσης φύσεως εἴ Twa Tis ἰδίαν δύναμιν 
Μ Μ 7 A Μ ᾽ Ν 
ἔχουσα ἤσθετό τι διάφορον τῶν ἄλλων εἰς συναγυρμὸν 
fal ω / 
φρονήσεως, evKpiTov, OTL τῶν νῦν οἱ τότε μυρίῳ πρὸς 
> ,ὔ 7 > ‘ ᾽ 7 / “ ἈΝ 
εὐδαιμονίαν διέφερον. εἰ δὲ ἐμπιπλάμενοι σίτων ἅδην καὶ 
- / 
ποτῶν διελέγοντο πρὸς ἀλλήλους Kal τὰ θηρία μύθους, οἷα 
4 \ - \ ᾽ lol / \ lal “ 
Ὁ δὴ καὶ τὰ νῦν περὶ αὐτῶν λέγονται, καὶ τοῦτο, ὥς γε 
, 
κατὰ τὴν ἐμὴν δόξαν ἀποφήνασθαι, καὶ μάλ᾽ εὔκριτον. 


ὅμως δ᾽ οὖν ταῦτα μὲν ἀφῶμεν, ἕως ἂν ἡμῖν μηνυτής τις 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 185 


at all; nay, time would fail to tell of all the consequences of 
that dispensation. 

Now, therefore, hearken, and I will declare the truth that 
is in the old Tale of the time when all things came forth 
spontaneous. God himself was then the Overseer and Shep- 
herd of men, even as now man, being as a god amongst the 
creatures which are beneath him, is the shepherd of their 
tribes. When God was our Shepherd there was no civil 
government, and men had not wives and children, but all came 
up into life again from the Earth, without remembrance of 
aught before. Instead of these things they had in abundance, 
from trees and other plants, fruits which the Earth without 
husbandry brought forth spontaneous. For the most part they 
lived without raiment and without couches, in the open air; 
for the seasons were tempered to do them no hurt; and soft 
beds had they in the grass which sprang abundantly from the 
Earth. 

Now have I told thee, Socrates, of the life which was when 
Cronus reigned ; as for the life which now is, which they say 
is under the rule of Zeus, thou art here thyself and knowest 
what it is. Canst thou, and wilt thou, determine which of 
these two lives is the happier ? 

Socrates. I cannot. 

Stranger. Shall I then determine this for thee after some 
sort ? 

Socrates. Prithee do. 

Stranger. Well then, if the nurslings of Cronus, having 
so great leisure and faculty of joining in discourse not only 
with men but with beasts, made use of their opportunity all 
for the getting of wisdom, conversing with beasts and one 
with another, and inquiring everywhere of Nature if haply any 
part thereof had some peculiar faculty, and perceived, better 
than another part, aught which might be of advantage for the 
ingathering of true knowledge,—if this, I say, was their manner 
of life, ‘twould be no hard matter to determine our question : 
they were a thousand times happier than we are. And even 
if, after they had eaten and drunken their fill, they passed the 
time telling tales one to another and to the beasts—such tales 
as even to this day are told of them,—’twould still, I declare, 
be easy to determine our question; nevertheless, let us put 


186 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


΄ - e / 

ἱκανὸς φανῇ, ποτέρως οἱ τότε Tas ἐπιθυμίας εἶχον περί τε 
᾽ lol \ a a / 7 o ’ oe \ 
ἐπιστημῶν καὶ τῆς τῶν λόγων χρείας" ov δ ἕνεκα τὸν 
εκ ᾽ / an / ‘/ \ \ lal > \ 
μῦθον ἠγείραμεν, τοῦτο λεκτέον, ἵνα TO μετὰ τοῦτο εἰς TO 

, , > \ \ 7, / / 

πρόσθεν περαίνωμεν. Enresdn yap πάντων τούτων χρόνος 


ἐτελεώθη καὶ μεταβολὴν ἔδει γίγνεσθαι καὶ δὴ καὶ τὸ 


Ju v -“ » / / / e / a a 
Ἑ γήϊνον ἤδη πᾶν ἀνήλωτο γένος, πάσας ἑκάστης τῆς ψυχῆς 


213 


σ 


Ν / 5» / e - ς / 
Tas γενέσεις ἀποδεδωκυίας, ὅσα ἣν ἑκάστῃ προσταχθέν, 
lal κ / \ n 
τοσαῦτα εἰς γῆν σπέρματα πεσούσης, τότε δὴ τοῦ παντὸς 
e \ / e ὃ / ” > / > \ 
ὁ μὲν κυβερνήτης, οἷον πηδαλίων οἴακος ἀφέμενος, εἰς τὴν 
e ia \ ’ / \ \ \ / , | ee 
αὑτοῦ περιωπὴν ἀπέστη, τὸν δὲ δὴ κόσμον πάλιν ἀνέ- 
- 7 \ 7, > , ͵΄ Ως 
στρεφεν εἱμαρμένη τε καὶ ξύμφυτος ἐπιθυμία. πάντες οὖν 
/ A / 
οἱ κατὰ τοὺς τόπους συνάρχοντες τῷ μεγίστῳ δαίμονι θεοί, 
ad \ / > , 5 >! / a / 
γνόντες ἤδη TO γιγνόμενον, ἀφίεσαν ad τὰ μέρη τοῦ κόσμου 
“- ς κα > / ς \ , \ 
τῆς αὑτῶν ἐπιμελείας. ὁ δὲ μεταστρεφόμενος καὶ Evp- 
/ ᾽ a \ a 3 / e \ e / 
βάλλων, ἀρχῆς τε Kal τελευτῆς ἐναντίαν ορμὴν ορμηθείς, 
σεισμὸν πολὺν ἐν ἑαυτῴ ποιῶν, ἄλλην αὖ φθορὰν ζώων 
.« 

, » / \ \ lal ’ ς lal 
παντοίων ἀπειργάσατο. μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα προελθόντος ἱκανοῦ 
/ / \ an SYA / \ nr 
χρόνου, θορύβων τε καὶ ταραχῆς ἤδη παυόμενος Kal τῶν 

A / b , "“ \ > / / 
σεισμῶν, γαλήνης ἐπιλαβόμενος εἴς τε τὸν εἰωθότα δρόμον 
τὸν ἑαυτοῦ κατακοσμούμενος ἤει, ἐπιμέλειαν καὶ κράτος 
> A A a \ a A 
ἔχων αὐτὸς τῶν ἐν αὑτῷ τε καὶ ἑαυτοῦ, THY τοῦ δημιουργοῦ 

\ \ > 4 \ > / ,’ 
καὶ πατρὸς ἀπομνημονεύων διδαχὴν εἰς δύναμιν. κατ 
ἀρχὰς μὲν οὖν ἀκριβέστερον ἀπετέλει, τελευτῶν δὲ ἀμβλύ- 
/ \ » al \ \ “ / 
τερον. τούτων δὲ αὐτῷ TO σωματοειδὲς τῆς συγκράσεως 
nw / “ 
αἴτιον, τὸ τῆς πάλαι ποτὲ φύσεως ξύντροφον, ὅτι πολλῆς 
cy / , / \ ᾽ Ν fal / > / 
ἣν μετέχον ἀταξίας πρὶν εἰς τὸν viv κόσμον ἀφικέσθαι. 
\ Ν \ a / , / \ 
παρὰ μὲν yap τοῦ συνθέντος πάντα καλὰ κέκτηται" Tapa 
\ a » “ Ὁ \ \ Μ) > > ~ 
δὲ τῆς ἔμπροσθεν ἕξεως, ὅσα χαλεπὰ καὶ ἄδικα ἐν ovpav@ 
/ ΄ b] > / > / Μ \ a , 
γίγνεται, ταῦτα ἐξ ἐκείνης αὐτὸς Te ἔχει καὶ τοῖς ζώοις 
, / \ \ = an / \ la 
ἐναπεργάζεται. μετὰ μὲν οὖν τοῦ κυβερνήτου τὰ ζῶα 
A “ Ν / 
τρέφων ἐν αὑτῷ σμικρὰ μὲν φλαῦρα, μεγάλα δὲ ἐνέτικτεν 


᾽ , , ‘ , / \ , , / VE 
ἀγαθά' χωριζόμενος δὲ ἐκείνου τὸν ἐγγύτατα χρόνον ἀεὶ 


ΤῊΝ POLITICUS MYTH 187 


it away, until some one shall appear who is able to show 
us credibly which way these ancients were inclined in regard 
of knowledge and discourse: meanwhile let us speak of that 
for the sake whereof this Tale was started, that the next part 
of our argument may go forward. 

When the time of all these men was fulfilled, and the 
change must needs come, and of the generation of them that 
arose out of the Earth there was none left, and every Soul had 
rendered her tale of births, according to the number of times 
appointed for her to fall and be sown upon the Earth, then 
did the Governor of the Universe let go, as it were, the tiller, 
and depart into his own watch-tower, and Fate and inborn 
Impulse began to cause the Universe to revolve backwards 
again, Straightway all the gods which, in their several 
places, bore rule together with the Great God, when they 
knew what was done, likewise left their provinces without 
oversight. Then was the Universe shaken as with a great 
earthquake through his depths by reason of the concussion of 
the reversed revolution and the strife betwixt the two con- 
trary motions whereof the one was ending and the other 
beginning; whereby was wrought a fresh destruction of 
living creatures of every kind. 

Thereafter, when the due time was accomplished, the 
Universe at last ceased from tumults and confusion and 
earthquakes, and coming into a calm, and being set in order for 
the course wherein it useth to go, therein went, itself having 
superintendency and dominion over itself and all that in it is, 
calling to mind alway, as it was able, the teaching of the 
Maker and Father of all. 

At first the things which it brought forth were more 
perfectly wrought, but at last more roughly: the cause 
whereof was the corporeal part which was mixed in the 
original nature of things, the which was full of confusion 
before that it came unto the present order. From Him who 
composed it the Universe hath all things fair and good; but 
from the former state thereof come all the things difficult and 
unrighteous which in itself it hath, and bringeth to pass in 
the creatures which it fashioneth. Therefore when it was with 
the Governor, the evil creatures it brought forth were few, 
and the good were in abundance; but when it was separated 


188 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


a » / / / / «/ \ lal 
τῆς ἀφέσεως κάλλιστα πάντα διάγει, προϊόντος δὲ τοῦ 
, \ / ᾽ , > ᾽ a 7 \ 
χρόνου Kal λήθης ἐγγιγνομένης ἐν αὐτῷ μᾶλλον Kal δυνα- 
7 \ A A ’ / / lol \ 
Ὁ στεύει TO τῆς παλαιᾶς ἀναρμοστίας πάθος, τελευτῶντος δὲ 
a A ’ 
ἐξανθεῖ τοῦ χρόνου καὶ σμικρὰ μὲν τἀγαθά, πολλὴν δὲ τὴν 
΄- bl / a ᾽ / δι᾿, a 
τῶν ἐναντίων κρᾶσιν ἐπεγκεραννύμενος ἐπὶ διαφθορᾶς 
/ e a > a \ A ᾽ e a \ \ 
κίνδυνον αὑτοῦ τε ἀφικνεῖται καὶ τῶν ἐν αὑτῷ. διὸ δὴ 
\ , 9 ww \ e / ᾽ / a > ᾽ / 
καὶ ToT ἤδη θεὸς ὁ κοσμήσας αὐτόν, καθορῶν ἐν ἀπορίαις 
Μ / “ \ \ e Ν fel \ 
ὄντα, κηδόμενος ἵνα μὴ χειμασθεὶς ὑπὸ ταραχῆς διαλυθεὶς 
᾽ \ a ’ / » Ν / 4 / 
εἰς τὸν τῆς ἀνομοιότητος ἄπειρον ὄντα τόπον δύῃ, πάλιν 
Μ > A A / / \ / \ 
ἔφεδρος αὐτοῦ τῶν πηδαλίων γιγνόμενος, τὰ νοσήσαντα Kal 
/ ᾽ a ’ id \ / / / 
Ἑ λυθέντα ἐν τῇ καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν προτέρᾳ περιόδῳ στρέψας 
a \ ᾽ “ ᾽ / > \ \ > / 
κοσμεῖ τε Kal ἐπανορθῶν ἀθάνατον αὐτὸν καὶ ἀγήρων 
> 7 - \ 2 / ΄ ΄, y \ ᾽ 
ἀπεργάζεται. τοῦτο μὲν οὖν τέλος ἁπάντων εἴρηται" τὸ ὃ 
᾽ \ \ - 7 ᾽ / ξ \ ΕἸ a / 
ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ βασιλέως ἀπόδειξιν ἱκανὸν ἐκ τοῦ πρόσθεν 
᾿ / -“" / / \ 3 - / 
ἁπτομένοις τοῦ λόγους στρεφθέντος yap αὖ τοῦ κόσμου 
\ >? \ \ -“ 7 tay \ 7 ΄ ’ὔ 4 , 
τὴν ἐπὶ τὴν νῦν γένεσιν ὁδὸν TO τῆς ἡλικίας αὖ πάλιν 
“/ Ν \ ’ , ᾽ ,ὔ a , \ \ 
ἴστατο Kal καινὰ τἀναντία ἀπεδίδου τοῖς τότε. Ta μὲν 
\ ¢ \ / ᾽ / / ’ / a , 
yap ὑπὸ σμικρότητος ὀλίγου δέοντα ἠφανίσθαι τῶν ζώων 
᾽ ’ \ ᾽ ᾽ A ~ , \ / / 
ηὐξάνετο, Ta δ᾽ ἐκ γῆς νεογενῆ σώματα πολιὰ φύντα πάλιν 
᾽ / ᾽ A U \ a / / / 
ἀποθνήσκοντα εἰς γῆν κατήει. Kal τἄλλά τε πάντα μετέ- 
> / \ a a a \ 
274 βαλλεν, ἀπομιμούμενα καὶ ξυνακολουθοῦντα Tw τοῦ παντὸς 
, \ \ ‘ ‘ a , \ ; ‘ 
παθήματι, Kal δὴ Kal TO τῆς κυήσεως καὶ γεννήσεως καὶ 
- / a lol ld , > / ᾽ \ 
τροφῆς μίμημα συνείπετο τοῖς πᾶσιν ὑπ ἀνάγκης. οὐ yap 
” “ ᾽ 7 A 
ἐξῆν ἔτ᾽ ἐν yn δι ἑτέρων συνιστάντων φύεσθαι ζῶον, ἀλλὰ 
7 A . - 
καθάπερ TM κόσμῳ προσετέτακτο αὐτοκράτορα εἶναι τῆς 
e a / “ \ \ ’ \ \ a / Ι] tal 
αὑτοῦ πορείας, οὕτω δὴ κατὰ ταὐτὰ καὶ τοῖς μέρεσιν αὐτοῖς 
» ‘ - ᾽ " Ud , ° / \ ~ \ 
δι᾿ αὑτῶν, καθ᾽ ὅσον οἷον +r ἣν, φύειν τε Kal γεννᾶν καὶ 
/ 7 ΄ Ν A . / ᾽ A Φ με 
τρέφειν προσετάττετο ὑπὸ τῆς ὁμοίας ἀγωγῆς. οὗ δὲ ἕνεκα 


BO λόγος ὥρμηκε πᾶς, ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ νῦν ἐσμεν ἤδη. περὶ μὲν 


ΤῊΝ POLITICUS MYTH 189 


from him, at first for a while after the separation it performed 
all things exceeding well; and then, as time went on, and 
forgetfulness grew more and more within it, discord, inherent 
from of old, gained ever greater mastery and at last burst 
forth; and things good that were produced being few, and the 
admixture of the opposite sort being great, the Universe came 
into danger of being destroyed together with all that was in it. 

Wherefore, when things were come to this pass, God, who 
fashioned this Order, perceiving that it was in distress, and 
careful lest, being tossed in the storm of so great a tumult, it 
should be loosed asunder and founder down into the measure- 
less deep of Confusion, again took up His post at the helm ; 
and having turned round that which was gone the way of 
disease and dissolution in the former Period when the 
Universe was left to itself, put all in order, and restored the 
Universe to the right way, and made it exempt from death 
and old age. 

Here endeth the Tale: now let us return, and take up 
the beginning thereof, which will suffice for our setting forth 
of “ The King.” 

When the Universe was turned back, and went the way 
of this present sort of generation, then again did man’s age 
first stand still, and thereafter straightway began to bring 
forth things new, in the order contrary to that of the former 
period; for those creatures which, by reason of their small- 
ness, were all but vanished away, began to grow bigger, and 
the bodies of men newly come forth from the Earth, which 
were born grey-headed, died again, and went down into the 
Earth; and all other things were likewise changed, according 
to the changed condition of the Universe, their Example and 
Controller; and among these things which were of necessity 
so changed were the Conception and Birth and Nourishment 
of living creatures; for no longer could a living creature 
grow in the Earth, compacted together out of his elements 
by others, but even as it was ordained unto the Universe to 
be master of his own path, so also was it ordained, by the like 
law, that the parts of the Whole, of themselves, as far as might 
be, should bring forth, and beget, and provide nourishment. 

Now, therefore, are we come whither our Whole Discourse 
was bound. 


190 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


yap τῶν ἄλλων θηρίων πολλὰ ἂν καὶ μακρὰ διεξελθεῖν 
γίγνοιτο, ἐξ ὧν ἕκαστα καὶ & ἃς αἰτίας μεταβέβληκε: 
\ \ ? ’ ’ \ a / 
περὶ δὲ ἀνθρώπων βραχύτερα Kai μᾶλλον προσήκοντα. 
- fa) A / 
τῆς yap τοῦ κεκτημένου Kal νέμοντος ἡμᾶς δαίμονος ἀπερη- 
/ a A 
μωθέντες ἐπιμελείας, τῶν πολλῶν αὖ θηρίων, ὅσα χαλεπὰ 
\ , - > , > \ q \s A » 
τὰς φύσεις ἦν, ἀπαγριωθέντων, αὐτοὶ δὲ ἀσθενεῖς ἄνθρωποι 
\ ? / / ,ὔ Oy ᾿ \ 7. 
καὶ ἀφύλακτοι γεγονότες, διηρπάζοντο ὑπ αὐτῶν, Kal ἔτ 
\ , 
ἀμήχανοι καὶ ἄτεχνοι κατὰ τοὺς πρώτους ἦσαν χρόνους, 
“ an \ > / -“ ᾽ 7 / \ 
ἅτε τῆς μὲν αὐτομάτης τροφῆς ἐπιλελοιπυίας, πορίζεσθαι δὲ 
\ / \ / 
οὐκ ἐπιστάμενοί πω διὰ TO μηδεμίαν αὐτοὺς χρείαν πρότερον 
᾽ / 
ἀναγκάζειν. ἐκ τούτων πάντων ἐν μεγάλαις ἦσαν ἀπορίαις. 
/ al A a 
ὅθεν δὴ τὰ πάλαι λεχθέντα παρὰ θεῶν δῶρα ἡμῖν dSedwpn- 
fol / A 
ται pet ἀναγκαίας διδαχῆς καὶ παιδεύσεως, πῦρ μὲν παρὰ 
/ 2 7 A 
Προμηθέως, τέχναι δὲ παρ᾽ Ἡφαίστου καὶ τῆς συντέχνου, 
/ \ 3 \ \ Ψψ \ ͵7 ᾽ e / 
σπέρματα δὲ av καὶ φυτὰ Tap addAwv: Kat πάνθ᾽, ὁπόσα 
/ 4 / 
τὸν ἀνθρώπινον βίον συγκατεσκεύακεν, ἐκ τούτων γέγονεν, 
b \ \ \ b] κ e b / an / la ? , 
ἐπειδὴ τὸ μὲν ἐκ θεῶν, ὅπερ ἐρρήθη νῦν δή, τῆς ἐπιμελείας 
> 7 > , x» e a \ ὧν / \ ‘ 
ἐπέλιπεν ἀνθρώπους, δι᾿ ἑαυτῶν δὲ ἔδει τήν τε διαγωγὴν Kal 
Ν ? / ’ \ Cis » 7 ¢ e , 
τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν αὐτοὺς αὑτῶν ἔχειν, καθάπερ ὅλος ὁ κόσμος, 
ρὔὕ;, / \ / \ "ὦ ’ - \ 
© ξυμμιμούμενοι καὶ ξυνεπόμενοι τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον νῦν μὲν 
ῳ / ae , ait, \ / \ ᾿ \ 
οὕτως, τότε δὲ ἐκείνως ζῶμέν τε Kal φυόμεθα. Kal TO μὲν 
ἊΝ κ / / ψὰ ΣΕ / \ ee. / 
δὴ τοῦ μύθου τέλος ἐχέτω, χρήσιμον δὲ αὐτὸν ποιησόμεθα 
πρὸς τὸ κατιδεῖν, ὅσον ἡμάρτομεν ἀποφηνάμενοι τὸν 


/ \ \ 2 a / / 
βασιλικὸν τε Kal πολιτικὸν ἐν τῷ πρόσθεν λόγῳ. 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 191 


As for the beasts of the field, to tell how and by what 
causes they were changed would be a long story; but our 
proper concern is man, and a shorter story will suffice. 

When we were bereft of the care of the god which had 
gotten us to keep and tend, then came it to pass, because 
the multitude of wild beasts, being fierce by nature, were 
become more savage, and we ourselves were become weak 
and defenceless, that we were harried by them; and, more- 
over, at first, we were helpless, and without the aid of the 
arts; for the food which grew spontaneous was now lacking, 
and we knew not yet how to provide food, because that 
aforetime need had not constrained us to make provision. 
By reason of all these things were men in sore straits: where- 
fore it came to pass that those Gifts from the Gods whereof 
the old stories tell were bestowed upon us, together with the 
teaching and training which were needful; to wit, fire from 
Prometheus, and the arts from Hephaestos and his mate; and 
seeds and herbs from others: yea, all things which have 
furnished man’s life were thus brought forth, ever since the 
time when the watch kept over us by the Gods, as I said 
just now, failed us, and it behoved us to spend our lives by 
ourselves, caring for ourselves; even as the whole Universe 
must care for itself; the which we imitating and following 
alway throughout all ages do live and grow up, now after this 
manner, and then again after that manner. 

Here endeth our Tale; the use whereof will be to make 
us see how wrongly we set forth the nature of the King and 
Statesman in our former Discourse. 


Before I go on to offer observations on the Politicus Myth, 
I will supplement the foregoing translation of it by giving a 
translation of the Myth of the Golden Age of Cronus as it 
appears also in the Laws, 


192 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Laws 7125-7144 


112 E ΑΘ. Ὄντως yap, ὦ ἄριστοι, πολιτειῶν μετέχετε: ἃς 
\ b] / lal » 3 ἢ “ \ » , 
δὲ ὠνομάκαμεν νῦν, οὐκ εἰσὶ πολιτεῖαι, πόλεων δὲ οἰκήσεις 
713 δεσποζομένων τε καὶ δουλευουσῶν μέρεσιν ἑαυτῶν τισί, τὸ 
ca / , ~ , 
tov δεσπότου δὲ ἑκάστη προσαγορεύεται κράτος. χρῆν ὃ, 
ν A , \ / Μ 2 / \ a 
εἴπερ τοῦ τοιούτου THY πόλιν ἔδει ἐπονομάζεσθαι, TO τοῦ 
>, ~ ~ \ “ " / / n v 
ἀληθῶς τῶν τὸν νοῦν ἐχόντων δεσπόζοντος θεοῦ ὄνομα 
λέγεσθαι. 
/ 
KA. Tis δ᾽ ὁ θεός ; 
ΑΘ. "Ap οὖν μύθῳ σμικρά γ᾽ ἔτι προσχρηστέον, εἰ 
/ > wn [οἱ Ν rn > , 
μέλλομεν ἐμμελῶς πως δηλῶσαι TO νῦν ἐρωτώμενον ; 
οὐκοῦν χρὴ ταύτῃ Spay ; 
ΚΛ. Πάνυ μὲν οὗν. 
lal ‘ \ / ? » 
ΑΘ. Τῶν γὰρ δὴ πόλεων, ὧν ἔμπροσθεν τὰς ξυνοική- 
, 4 / / , / , 

Β σεις διήλθομεν, ETL προτέρα τούτων πάμπολυ λέγεταί τις 
> / \ Μ ὦ 7 / 7 > / 
ἀρχή τε Kal οἴκησις γεγονέναι ἐπὶ Κρόνου μάλ᾽ εὐδαίμων, 
ἧς μίμημα ἔχουσά ἐστιν, ἥτις τῶν νῦν ἄριστα οἰκεῖται. 


* * * % ok * 


, , a ~ , 
713 ¢ φήμην τοίνυν παραδεδέγμεθα τῆς τῶν τότε μακαρίας 
“- ΄ » / \ > ,) 7 ᾽ - c \ 
ζωῆς, ws ἄφθονά τε καὶ αὐτόματα πάντ εἶχεν. ἡ δὲ 
’ , / ’ / , ¢ 7 ΕΣ 
τούτων αἰτία λέγεται τοιάδε τις" γιγνώσκων ὁ Κρόνος ἄρα, 
7 ΄ κ ’ ᾿ ’ ΄ 
καθάπερ ἡμεῖς διεληλύθαμεν, ὡς ἀνθρωπεία φύσις οὐδὲ μία 
ἱκανὴ τὰ ἀνθρώπινα διοικοῦσα αὐτοκράτωρ πάντα μὴ οὐχ 
“ , Ν » ’ “ a? - / 
ὕβρεώς τε καὶ ἀδικίας μεστοῦσθαι, ταῦτ᾽ οὖν διανοούμενος 
5 / / \ v a / ΄ lol > 
péediotn βασιλέας TE καὶ ἄρχοντας ταῖς πόλεσιν ἡμῶν οὐκ 
᾿ ; ᾽ id / 
ἀνθρώπους, ἀλλὰ γένους θειοτέρου τε καὶ ἀμείνονος, 


, ΄σ ΄ .“ “ A / \ * 
δαίμονας: οἷον viv ἡμεῖς δρῶμεν τοῖς ποιμνίοισι Kal ὅσων 


THE MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE 


Athenian Stranger. The cities whereof we just now spake 
are not polities, or true cities, but mere dwelling-places, the 
inhabitants whereof are slaves in subjection unto certain ones 
among themselves; and each one of these dwelling-places is 
called “the government of such and such,” after them that 
be masters therein: but, if it is meet that a city should be 
called after her masters, the True City will be called after 
God, who verily ruleth over men of understanding. 

Cleintas. And who is this God 7 

Ath. I must still, for a little while, use Fable for the 
more convenient answering of thy inquiry—what thinkest 
thou ? 

Cleinias. Yea—Fable. 

Ath. Before that those cities were, the inhabitation 
whereof we have set forth in the former part of this Dis- 
course—yea, very long time before these—it is told that there 
was a Government and Settlement when Cronus was King; 
whereof the blessedness was great, and whichsoever city is 
now ordered best is an image of that exemplar. 


* * ¥* * * * 


This, then, is the Tale which we have received concerning 
the blessed life of the men who lived in those days: It telleth 
that they had all things, without stint, spontaneous, and that 
the cause thereof was this: Cronus, saith the Tale, knowing 
that Human Nature could in no wise be left with sole 
authority in the administration of all things human and yet 
not become a vessel filled with insolency and injustice, took 
thought of the matter, and set over our cities, to be kings 
and rulers thereof, not men, but those of a more divine and 
excellent sort, to wit, Daemons; just as we ourselves do with 

193 0 


194 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


lal lal \ s lol 
ἥμεροί εἰσιν ἀγέλαι' ov βοῦς βοῶν οὐδὲ αἶγας αἰγῶν 
ν ΄ > lo / » \ e aA , > "»“" 
ἄρχοντας ποιοῦμεν αὐτοῖσί τινας, ἀλλὰ ἡμεῖς γ᾽ αὐτῶν 
, ” > / / ᾽ \ \ \ e \ 
δεσπόζξομεν, ἄμεινον ἐκείνων γένος. ταὐτὸν δὴ Kal ὁ θεὸς 
ἄρα [καὶ] φιλάνθρωπος ὧν τὸ γένος ἄμεινον ἡμῶν ἐφίστη 
τὸ τῶν δαιμό ὃ διὰ AF ὲ ὑτοῖς ᾧ ; 
μόνων, ὃ διὰ πολλῆς μὲν αὐτοῖς ῥᾳστώνης, 
- ᾽ ~ / al a 
Ἑ πολλῆς δ᾽ ἡμῖν ἐπιμελούμενον ἡμῶν, εἰρήνην τε καὶ αἰδῶ 
\ > / \ > , / / ? / 
καὶ εὐνομίαν καὶ ἀφθονίαν δίκης παρεχόμενον, ἀστασίαστα 
καὶ εὐδαίμονα τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀπειργάζετο γένη. λέγει 
\ \ a“ e ε , > / , e ad x 
δὴ καὶ νῦν οὗτος ὁ λόγος ἀληθείᾳ χρώμενος, ὡς ὅσων ἂν 
/ \ \ > / ” / > ΝΜ A“ 
πόλεων μὴ θεὸς ἀλλά τις ἄρχῃ θνητός, οὐκ ἔστι κακῶν 
a / a a al 
αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ πόνων ἀνάφυξις" ἀλλὰ μιμεῖσθαι δεῖν ἡμᾶς 
A \ a / / 
οἴεται πάσῃ μηχανῇ Tov ἐπὶ τοῦ Κρόνου λεγόμενον βίον, 
\ “ > ¢ κα > , » ΄ , 
καὶ ὅσον ἐν ἡμῖν ἀθανασίας ἔνεστι, τούτῳ πειθομένους 
/ ς Mow sg / > ae \ \ , ᾿Ξ 
714 δημοσίᾳ καὶ ἰδίᾳ τάς T οἰκήσεις καὶ τὰς πόλεις διοικεῖν, 


lal a / 
τὴν τοῦ vod διανομὴν ἐπονομάζοντας νόμον. 


THE POLITICUS ΜΥΤῊ 195 


our cattle and tlocks—for we set not oxen over oxen, or goats 
over goats, but we ourselves rule over them, being of a race 
more excellent than theirs. In like manner God, they say, 
of his loving-kindness toward men, set over us the race of 
Daemons, which is more excellent than ours; and they, to 
their own great content and to ours, caring for us, and 
providing for us peace, and modesty, and good government, 
and justice without stint, made the nations of mankind 
~ peaceable and happy. 

This Tale, then, hath in it truth, inasmuch as it signifieth 
that whichsoever city hath not God, but a mortal man, for 
ruler, hath no way of escape from evils and troubles: where- 
fore, according to the admonition of the Tale, must we by all 
means make our life like unto the life which was when 
Cronus was King; and in so far as that which is Immortal 
dwelleth in us, must we be obedient unto the voice thereof in 
all our doings private and public, and govern our households 
and cities according to Law, which, being interpreted, is the 
Award of Reason. 


! This Myth ought to be taken in close connection not only with the Politicus 
Myth, but with the Discourse of Diotima, in the Symposiwm, and the doctrine of 
Daemons set forth in that Discourse ; for which see pp. 434 ff. infra. 


190 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE Pozi7TIcuS MYTH 
I 


I cannot do better at the outset than refer the reader for 
the general characteristics of the Politicus Myth to Jowett’s 
Introduction to the Statesman (Dialogues of Plato), where his 
admirable remarks, indeed, leave little to be added. The 
philosophical import of the Myth, it will be gathered from 
Jowett’s remarks, consists in its presentation of the “ distinc- 
tions between God causing and permitting evil, and between 
his more or less immediate government of the world.” 
Interesting observations will also be found on the art with 
which Plato gives verisimilitude to his own Myth “ by adopt- 
ing received traditions (as the tradition about the sun having 
originally risen in the West and that about the ynyevets)— 
traditions of which he pretends to find an explanation in his © 
own larger conceptions.” We have had instances of this art 
in the Platonic Myths already examined, which we have found 
securing credit to themselves by explaining not only old 
traditional Myths, but the facts and doctrines of “ modern 
science”; and we have found the same art employed by 
Dante. 

Having referred to Jowett’s Introduction’ for a general 
view of this Myth, I will now add some observations on special 
points. 

The doctrine of periodical terrestrial “ catastrophes,” uni- 
versal or local, leaving on each occasion a few scattered 
survivors to build up society afresh, mythologically explained 
in the Politicus, was part of the “science” of Plato’s day,? and 
was afterwards a prominent tenet of the Peripatetics.® 

It was also “ scientific” in Plato’s day to explain at least 
the general course of terrestrial phenomena as caused by the 
motion of the Heavens. It is thus that the phenomena of 


11 would also refer to Grote’s Plato, ii. 480, note s—a long and instructive 
note ; and to Stallbaum’s Prolegomena to the Politicus. 

2 Laws, iii. 676 ff. 

3 See Newman's notes on Arist. Pol, ii. δ. 1269 a 5 and 6, 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 197 


γένεσις καὶ φθορά in this sublunary region are accounted for 
by Aristotle.’ 

Putting together the occurrence of terrestrial catastrophes 
(cf. Zim. 22 ff.) and the influence of the motion of the 
Heavens, both vouched for by “science,” Plato imagines the 
catastrophes as shocks produced by sudden changes in the 
direction of the motion. The western rising of the sun in the 
Atreus Myth may have suggested this explanation to him ; 
or he may have known the Egyptian tradition recorded 
by Herodotus (ii. 142), that during eleven thousand three 
hundred and forty years of Egyptian history the sun on four 
occasions altered his course, “twice rising where he now sets 
and twice setting where he now rises.” Although another 
rationale of the Egyptian tradition (or of Herodotus’s version 
of it) has been given,” I venture to suggest that whereas Kast 
is left and West is right as one faces the mid-day sun in the 
northern hemisphere, while East is right and West is left to 
the spectator in the southern hemisphere, the “Egyptian 
tradition ” was awkwardly built upon the tale of some traveller 
coming from south of the equator, who said truly that he had 
seen the sun rise on his right hand and set on his left. 


II 


Zeller (Plato, Eng. Transl. p. 383, n. 44) says, “ Of course 
(cf. Zim. 36 Ε, and elsewhere) Plato is not in earnest in 
supposing that God from time to time withdraws from the 
government of the world.” 

Since the supposition of God’s intermittent agency is made 
in a Myth, Plato is certainly not “in earnest” with it, in the 
sense of laying it down dogmatically as a scientific axiom. 
But is he more “in earnest” with the supposition of the 
continuous agency of God in the Zimaeus? That supposition 
is equally part of a Myth; Zimaeus ipse totus mythicus est.° 
The truth is that, however Plato represents God—and he 


“a — Gen. et Corr. ii. 10, 336 a 26, and ef. Zeller’s Aristotle, Eng. Transl. i. 
0 ff. 

2 See Rawlinson’s note ad Zoe. 

3 Couturat, de Platonis Mythis, p. 32. 


198 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


sometimes represents him in immense cosmic outlines, some- 
times on a smaller scale and more anthropomorphically—the 
representation is always for the imagination, mythical. And 
it ought not to be forgotten that the supposition of God’s 
intermittent agency is advanced in the Politicus in order to 
explain (mythologically, of course) the fact which Plato does 
not shut his eyes to even in the Z%imaeus, where he supposes 
(still in Myth) the continuity of God’s government—the fact 
of the existence of evil, both physical and moral, in a world 
supposed to be governed by God. In maintaining the exist- 
ence of evil Plato is certainly “in earnest.” 

It is worth noting that the representation given by the 
Politicus Myth of the opposition between God and Matter— 
good and evil—as an opposition of motions is common to the 
Myth with the astronomy of Plato’s day; but whereas the 
Politicus Myth makes motion in God’s direction alternate 
with motion in the world’s direction, astronomical theory 
makes the two motions go on for ever simultaneously, 1.6. 
the eternal motion of the whole Cosmos from East to West 
carries round the inner spheres, whose own motions take place 
from West to Kast. 

For a full discussion of the astronomy of the Politicus 
Myth I would refer the reader to Mr. Adam’s Republic, vol. 11. 
295 ff Mr. Adam’s view is that the two cycles (the motion 
in God’s direction, and that in the opposite direction) are of 
equal length, and that each of them represents a Great Year 
—the Great Year being 36,000 years. 


III 


Τὸ γήϊνον ἤδη πᾶν ἀνήλωτο γένος (Politicus, 272 Ὁ). 
The “ Resurrection” of the Politicus Myth and “ Metempsy- 
chosis” may be regarded as parallel products of imagination. 
Metempsychosis assumes a fixed number of souls created once 
for all and continuing always in existence. New souls are not 
created; the souls which animate the bodies of men in each 
successive generation are always souls which had been in- 
carnate in former generations. In Rep. 6114, Plato ex- 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 199 


pressly lays it down that the number of souls in existence is 
always the same without augmentation or diminution.’ This 
tenet involved in Metempsychosis Plato shares with the 
aborigines of Australia. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say :” 


The idea is firmly held that the child is not the direct result 
of intercourse®—that it may come without this, which merely, as it 
were, prepares the mother for the reception and birth of an already 
formed spirit child who inhabits one of the local totem centres... . 
In the native mind the value of the Churinga (stone or wooden 
objects lodged in a cave or other storehouse, near which women 
do not puss) lies in the fact that each one of them is intimately 
associated with, and is indeed the representative of, one of the 
Alcheringa ancestors, with the attributes of which it is endowed. 
When the spirit part has gone into a woman, and a child has, as a 
result, been born, then that living child is the re-incarnation of 
that particular spirit individual.‘ 


As Metempsychosis makes the same soul, so Resurrection 
makes the same body, serve more than one life. There is a 
store of old bodies, as there is of souls, upon which a new 
generation draws. The store of souls assumed by Metempsy- 
chosis is never exhausted, being recruited as fast as it is drawn 
upon; but the store of adult bodies in the “ Resurrection” of 
the Politicus Myth is at last exhausted, for each adult body, 
when in its turn it rises from the dead, grows smaller and 
smaller till it becomes the body of an infant and vanishes 
away. 

One might develop Plato’s myth, and say that it is these 
vanished infants which reappear after the manner of ordinary 


1 Cf. Rohde, Psyche, ii. 279. 

2 The Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 265. 

3 Cf. Myer and Nutt’s Voyage of Bran, ii. 82, on the widespread idea of con- 
ception, without male intervention, through swallowing a worm in a drink, or 
through some other means. 

4 Spencer and Gillen’s Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 138. Before 
going to press I have not had an opportunity of seeing Messrs. Spencer and 
Gillen’s new book, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, but 1 transcribe 
the following sentences froma notice of it in the Athenaeum (July 9, 1904) :— 
**These tribes believe that in every child the soul of a mythical Alcheringa 
ancestor of a given totem is re-incarnated. These totem souls haunt the places, 
marked by a tree or rock, where the ancestors ‘went into the ground.’ There 
the dying ancestors left stone amulets of a type familiar in Europe and America, 
styled chwringa. When a child is born his ancestral churinga is-sought, and 
often is found near the place where the totem spirit entered his mother.” Are 
the ‘articles belonging to the deceased,” referred to p. 450 infra, parallel to 
these Australian amulets ? 


900 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


birth, and grow back into adult size, when the revolution of 
the Cosmos is reversed, This would be in accordance with 
the belief, by no means confined to such primitive minds as 
those of the Australian aborigines, observed by Messrs. 
Spencer and Gillen, that intercourse is after all not the real 
cause of the birth of a child: that the child—hardly dis- 
tinguished as “soul” and “ body ”—is one who returns from 
the world of the departed and enters into the mother. The 
relationship between such a view of the nature of procreation 
and the custom of counting kinship through the mother, not 
through the father, is of course obvious. 

That the notion of Resurrection, then, recommends itself 
to the imagination in much the same way as the notion of 
Metempsychosis is what I wish to suggest to the student of 
the Politicus Myth. The two notions are closely allied and, 
indeed, tend to coalesce. The distinction between soul and 
body is a hard one for the imagination to maintain; thus it 
is very imperfectly maintained in the following instance: 
“The Jesuits relate that among the Hurons there were special 
ceremonies for little children who died at less than two 
months old; their bodies were not put in coffins in the 
cemeteries, but buried upon the pathway in order that they 
might enter into the body of some passing woman and so be 
born again;”?* and it is practically given up in the Christian 
Eschatology which insists on the ultimate union of the soul 
with its risen body. 


IV 


My remarks in this section will serve as introduction to 
the “ Creation Myths,” which we shall examine next. 

The Politicus Myth may be distinguished as Aetiological 
from the Eschatological Myths which we have examined 
in the Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic. The Eschatological 
Myths are concerned immediately with the Ideas of Reason. 
They set forth the Idea of Soul as subject of God’s govern- 


' J. E. King on “Infant Burial,” in Classical Review, Feb. 1908, p. 83. 
The souls of infants seem always to have caused difficulty ; see Rohde, Psyche, 
ii. 411-413, on ἄωροι, and Adam’s note on Rep. 615, τῶν δὲ εὐθὺς γενομένων καὶ 
ὀλίγον χρόνον βιούντων πέρι ἄλλα ἔλεγεν οὐκ ἄξια μνήμης. 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 201 


ment in the Cosmos, by depicting the future vicissitudes of 
the ψυχή, not, of course, without reference to its past out of 
which its future grows. The Aetiological Myth, on the other 
hand, may set forth either Ideas of Reason or Categories of 
the Understanding. ‘Thus the 7'imaeus (which is one great 
Aetiological Myth) sets forth the Ideas of Soul and Cosmos, 
by tracing their imaginatively constructed objects back to 
causes which are unfolded in an account of the Creation of the 
ψυχή and of the material world. The Phaedrus Myth, again, 
sets forth the Categories of the Understanding aetiologically, 
by showing that the ἃ priori conditions of our knowledge of 
sensible phenomena are abiding mental impressions caused by 
a prenatal vision of the Eternal Forms in the ὑπερουράνιος 
τόπος. There are other myths which cannot be called either 
Aetiological or Eschatological, but are merely Expository 
either of Ideas of Reason or of Categories of the Understanding 
—thus Diotima’s Myth is an imaginative exposition of the 
Idea of Soul as Love of Truth and Immortality, while 
the functions of the Understanding are described imagi- 
natively in the Zimaeus as revolutions like those of the 
Cosmos. 

The Politicus Myth, setting forth as it does the Idea of 
Soul as subject of God’s government in the Cosmos, is Aetio- 
logical in supplying a cause for the Evil which exists in the 
world and man’s life under God’s government. 

How does Plato think that we are helped out of the 
profound difficulty about the existence of Evil by an Aetio- 
logical Myth of Changing World-periods? The answer, if we 
could give it, would be a complete theory of the influence 
which Aetiological Myths exercise over the mind of man. 
Here is the greatest difficulty of morals ; and it is easily solved 
by a fantastic story of the origin of the thing which makes 
the difficulty ! 

Let me try to explain how Plato comes to attach such 
value to this Aetiological Myth. First, Plato thinks that the 
immensity of the difficulty is best illustrated in this way—as 
the tragic import of a great crisis on the stage or in real life 
is sometimes illustrated by the trifling comment or behaviour 
of some one present—it may be of a child. Plato thinks that 
his Myth, with its childish unconsciousness of difficulty, is 


202 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


valuable as enhancing our sense of the immensity of the diffi- 
culty, and so helping us to remove the difficulty—the very 
difficulty which it makes appear more immense. When we 
know the real cause of any particular difficulty of detail we 
have got a grip of it, as it were, and can generally overcome 
it. We can never get this sort of grip of the difficulty about 
the existence of Evil; for it is not a particular difficulty with 
a particular discoverable solution, but a universal difficulty— 
a contradiction inherent in the very nature of the system 
under which we live—it puzzles us, and paralyses us the more 
we try to remove it αἰτίας λογισμῴ----ὈΥ particular explana- 
tions, more nostro. But Plato’s Myth puts the difficulty once 
for all in its true place—exhibits it, in its immensity, as uni- 
versal ; and the moral is—You cannot solve it as you solve a 
particular difficulty. Do not try to do so. See how immense 
itis! “ Put it by "— 


The cloud of mortal destiny, 
Others will front it fearlessly — 
But who, like him, will put it by ? 


This is the first part of the answer which I venture 
to offer to the question, How does Plato think that 
we are helped out of a profound difficulty by a childish 
Myth ? 

The second part of the answer I venture to state as 
follows: It is very hard to “put it by ”—impossible unless 
one fancies—it is enough merely to fancy—that one has 
somehow, at least partly, solved the difficulty which one is 
asked to “put by.” An attempt to solve a fundamental or 
universal difficulty logically, by a thin process of reasoning, 
can only end in a sense of failure; but a childish Myth, touch- 
ing, as it is apt to do, a vast complex of latent sensibilities, 
may awaken a feeling of vague satisfaction. A childish Myth 
may thus, after all, seem to solve a fundamental difficulty, so 
far as to warrant one in “ putting it by ”—the one important 
thing being that we should “put it by,” and act, not think 
about it and hesitate. I suggest, then, that Plato’s love of 
the Aetiological Myth is due to the instinctive sympathy of 
his many-sided genius with this—shall I call it weakness ?— 
of human nature, which finds, amid doubts and difficulties, 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 203 


some satisfaction in fantastic explanation. Let me illustrate 
this weakness, with which I suggest that Plato is in artistic 
sympathy, by an instance of the use of the Aetiological Myth 
in Finnish mythology—by the Story of the Birth of Iron in 
the Kalewala. But first let me say a few words about the 
Kalewala by way of introduction to this story. 

The great Finnish Epic, the Kalewala, was pieced together 
about seventy years ago by Loénnrot out of Runes or Cantos 
which had been, as they still are, sung separately by the 
popular Laujola, or Minstrels. The Rune, or Canto, is the 
unit of Finnish poetry, and may be fairly described as an 
Aetiological Myth growing out of the magician’s charm- 
formula, 

The chief personages in the Kalewala are not national 
kings and warriors, as in other epics, but great magicians ; and 
the interest of the poem, or poems, is connected mainly with 
the manner in which these great magicians show their power 
over Nature, and Spirits,and Men. According to the Finnish 
belief, everything done in life, even the simplest thing done 
by the most ordinary person, has its appropriate charm- 
formula—is successfully done in virtue of the accompaniment 
of the suitable word or words—e.g. there is a word for success- 
fully laying the keel of a boat, and another for fixing the ribs, 
and so on. If ordinary acts depend on the utterance of the 
proper words, much more do the extraordinary acts of great 
magicians. Wiainimdinen, the chief magician-hero of the 
Kalewala Runes, when he was building his magic boat forgot 
three necessary words,and wandered over the whole Earth, and 
at last found his way into the World of the Dead, in his search 
for these lost words. Now these mighty words, which are the 
arms wielded by the magician-hero, are mighty in that they 
contain the cause of the thing on which he exercises his power. 
He is confronted with difficulties and dangers in his adventur- 
ous career, and it is by telling a difficult or dangerous thing 
its origin that he conquers it. If it is a wound to be cured 
it is the Birth of Iron that the magician must know and 
relate (Kal. ix. 29 ff). If it is a monstrous bear that he 
has to overcome he must first tell the story of the Origin of 
the Bear (Kal. xlvi. 355). If it is a disease that he has to 
exorcise, he can only do that by telling the disease its hidden 


204 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


name, and the place from which it came, and the way by 
which it came (Kal. xlv. 23). If it is a snake-bite to be 
healed, he must know the Ancestry of Snakes (Kal. xxvi. 695). 
Thus, out of the charm-formula of the magician-hero the Aetio- 
logical Myth arises—especially when the singer of the Rune, 
identifying himself, as he often does, with his magician-hero, 
uses the first person. 

The Kalewala is a loosely connected collection of Cantos, 
in which magicians are the heroes, and charms the weapons, 
the charms being words which reveal the nature and origin 
of the things or persons overcome—magic words which the 
Finnish Rune-singers expanded into elaborate Aetiological 
Myths. Among other races it is the prayer at the sacrifice 
or offering, as Comparetti’ observes, which is developed into 
the Hymn, and then into the Myth; it is only among the 
Finns that the charm-formula is so developed. Sorcery, not 
as elsewhere ritual and custom, is here the germ of the 
Aetiological Myth. 


THE STORY OF THE BirTH OF [RON ? 


Wainamdinen, with blood streaming from a wound in his knee 
made by his axe when he was building a boat, hurries from place 
to place in his sledge, asking if any one knows the mighty words 
which will heal the “Iron’s outrage.” No one knows them. At 
last he comes to a house in which there is a little grey-bearded 
old man by the fireside, who, in answer to Wainiméinen’s ques- 
tion, calls out to him as he sits in his sledge at the door: 
“Wilder streams, greater rivers than this have ere now been 
tamed by three words of the High Creator.” Wéiiniméinen rose 
out of his sledge and crossed the courtyard and entered the 
house. <A silver cup and a golden tankard were brought and 
soon were full of blood, and overflowing. The little old man 
cried out from the fireside: “Speak, who art thou amongst men, 
of what people and nation, that already seven great basins and 
eight tubs are filled with thy blood? ΑἸ] magic words I know, 


| Der Kalewala, oder die traditionelle Poesie der Finnen, Ὁ. 169 (German 
edition, 1892), 

2 I have translated this story (with considerable compression and omission) 
from the German version of the Kalewala by Hermann Paul, published at 
Helsingfors in 1885 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the first publi- 
cation of the Finnish Epic. 


ΤῊΝ POLITICUS MYTH 205 


save only that one word, which declareth how lron was fashioned 
how the rusty metal arose.” 

Then Wiiiniiméinen answered and said: “I myself know the 
source of Iron, and the first beginning of Steel. 

“Heaven is the primaeval mother, Water is the eldest child, 
Iron is the youngest of the brethren, Fire is the middle son. 

“Ukko, the Almighty Creator, the Ruler of the wide 
world, separated Heaven from Water, separated dry Land from 
Water, before that Iron grew up, before that the rusty metal 
arose. 

“The Creator of Heaven, Ukko, rubbed together his right 
hand and his left, and pressed his two hands together, and laid 
them both upon his knee; and straightway there came into being 
three fair women, lovely daughters of Nature, who caused Iron to 
come into being and the blue flashing Steel. 

“Lightly the fair women floated away by the edge of the 
clouds, and their swelling breasts were full of milk. The milk ran 
down over the earth continually, over the fields, over the fens, 
over the still waters and lakes. Black it flowed from the breasts 
of the eldest, white in bright drops it fell from the breasts of the 
second, red from the breasts of the youngest. She from whom 
the black drops fell caused the soft Iron to come forth, she from 
whom the white drops fell produced the glancing Steel, she from 
whom the red drops fell brought forth the brittle Iron. 

“ After a while Iron would a-wandering go, to visit his elder 
brother Fire. But Fire was evilly minded towards him, and 
blazed up, and would have consumed him; but Iron escaped out 
of the hands of his fierce brother, out of the mouth of the 
devouring Fire, and hid himself under the earth, in the bog, in 
the deep-hidden spring, on the wide expanse of the fen where 
the swans build their nests, on the ridge of the mighty cliff where 
the eagle watches over his brood. 

“So Iron lay deep in the moist fen, kept himself there for 
two years hidden ; yea, even in the third year lay quiet between 
the crooked trunks, under the rotten birch-leaves. 

“Yet could he not escape out of his brother’s hands; again 
must he return into the power of wicked Fire, and be forged into 
tools and weapons. 

“One day the Wolf ran over the fen, one day the Bear trotted 
growling over the moor. The footprints of the Wolf were plain, 
the Bear left his track behind; and lo! there the rusty Iron 
appeared, there the glancing Steel, in the broad footprints of the 
Wolf, in the Bear’s great track. 

“Tlmarinen, the cunning Smith, came into the world, was born 
on a coal-heap, grew up on the murky hill, with a hammer in his 
hand, and little tongs under his arm. In the night was he born, 


206 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


and on the morrow went forth to seek a smithy and a place for 
his bellows. He saw a piece of fenland, a wet morass; he went 
near to look at it; and there he built him his smithy and put up 
his bellows. 

“Soon he marked the footprints of the Wolf and the track of 
the Bear on the fen, and saw the rusty Iron, found the Steel, 
discovered in the Wolf's broad footprints, in the Bear’s great 
track. 

“Then spake the Smith: “Ὁ unhappy Iron! What is 
happened unto thee! What unworthy place is this that thou 
hast, under the Wolf’s heavy feet, in the track of the clumsy 
Bear ?’ 

“Thereafter he bethought him, and whispered to himself; 
‘What would come of it, if I cast the Iron into the Fire, into the 
sparkling glow ?’ 

“Then did the anguish of the fear of death take hold of the 
Iron, when it heard the terrible name of Fire. 

“But the Smith lifted up his voice, and said: ‘Fear not, 
poor Iron; Fire hurteth not his brother. If thou enterest into 
the smithy, and layest thyself down in the furnace, thou shalt 
rise up again more beautiful, thou shalt become a sharp sword for 
men, a useful instrument for women.’ 

“The Smith took the Iron, and cast it on the glowing hearth, 
and on the first day stirred up the flame, and yet again on the 
second day, and the third. Slowly the glowing Iron was melted, 
and boiled up in bubbles, and spread itself, like leavened dough, 
within the flames of the mighty Fire. | 

“Then cried the Iron in anguish: ‘O Smith, have com- 
passion upon me; take me out of the burning Fire, out of the hot 
flaming glow!’ 

“Then answered the Smith: ‘If I take thee now out of the 
Fire, thou mightest grow up to be evil, and all too dangerous ; 
thou mightest murder thy nearest-of-kin, regarding not thine own 
brother.’ 

“Then Iron lifted up his voice, and swore a great oath, and 
said: ‘There are still trees enough to fell, and stones enough to 
break ; never will I hurt my brother, or do harm unto my nearest- 
of-kin. Better and fairer and more honourable ’tis to live as 
companion and servant of man, to be his friend, the weapon of 
his hand, than to be the enemy of one’s kinsman, the destroyer of 
one’s brother.’ 

“Then took Ilmarinen the Smith, the famous Smith, the poor 
Iron out of the Fire, and laid it on the anvil, and hammered it 
till it was bent to use; and therefrom he made sharp tools, axes 
and swords, and implements of every sort. 

“Yet something was still lacking to the Iron, the Steel still 


ΤῊΝ POLITICUS MYTH 207 


needed something. The lron’s tongue lacked hardness, his mouth 
lacked the due sharpness, ‘The Iron could not be forged hard, 
unless Water wetted it. 

“The renowned Smith bethought him what he should do; 
and then he sprinkled a little ash upon Water, and dissolved it 
therein, and made a pungent bath, for to give hardness to the 
Tron and strength to the Steel. 

“Carefully did he prove the Water with his tongue, and then 
said: ‘The Water is not yet made fit to harden the rusty metal 
and the blue glancing Steel.’ 

“Behold a Bee came flying over the grass, sporting high and 
low on bright wings, flitting and humming round him. 

“Then spake the renowned Smith: ‘Here! Busy Bee! 
Bring me honey on thy wing, bring hither the noble juice, suck it 
from the cups of the flowers, to give the right hardness to the 
Iron, to give strength to the Steel.’ 

“ Hiisi’s evil bird, the Wasp, overheard the talk, as she 
peeped down from the roof. She gave heed secretly to all, she 
saw the rusty metal prepared, she saw the glancing Steel brought 
forth. 

“In haste away flew the Wasp from thence, and gathered 
together Hiisi’s horrors; she brought the black venom of the 
serpent, and the deadly poison of the adder, and the bitter froth 
of worms, and the corroding liquor of the toad, to give hardness to 
the Iron and strength to the Steel. 

“T]marinen, the cunning workman, the renowned Smith, thought 
that the Busy Bee had brought him honey, had given him the 
noble juice; and he said: ‘ Now is the bath right to harden the 
rusty metal, to give strength to the blue Steel.’ 

“Τὴ the bath he dipped the Iron, without heed he cast the metal 
therein, when he had drawn it out of the Fire, out of the glowing 
forge. 

“Then came it to pass that Iron was made hurtful, and did rend 
Honour even as a dog rendeth flesh, and broke the sacred oath 
which he sware, and murdered his own brother, and bit wounds into 
him with sharp mouth, and opened paths for the blood, and poured 
it out in foaming stream.” 

The little old man at the fireside cried aloud, and rocked his 
head to and fro, and sang: “ΟἿ, now I know the Beginning of Iron, 
now I know who drave it to evil. Woe unto thee, thou luckless 
Iron! woe unto thee, thou deceitful Steel! Poor metal, taken 
captive by witchcraft! Is it thence that thou art sprung? Is it 
for this reason that thou art become a terror and hast too great 
mastery ? 

** Who moved thee to wickedness, who drave thee to treason ἢ 
Was it thy Father or thy Mother? Was thy eldest Brother guilty 


208 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


of this? Was it thy youngest Sister, or some Friend, who coun- 
selled thee and turned thee to the evil deed ? 

“Neither Father nor Mother nor eldest Brother nor youngest 
Sister nor any Friend gave thee this counsel. Thyself hast thou 
done this wickedness, thyself hast thou accomplished the bloody 
deed. 

“Tron! Look at this wound! Heal the evil thou hast done ere 
I go in anger with complaint against thee to thy Mother. The 
sorrow of the old woman thy Mother is increased if her child 
turneth himself to evil and doeth wickedness. 

“Leave off, and run no more, thou foaming blood! hold in thy 
course, spout forth no more in long-curved bow, bespattering my 
head and breast! Stand like a wall immovable, like a fence, like 
the sedge by the water’s side, like the grass in the slimy fen! 
Stand like the rocks upon the firm earth, like the cliff in the raging 
storm ! 

“Tf thou heedest not these words, I will devise other means: 
hither do I call Hiisi’s Kettle to seethe the foaming blood therein, 
to make hot the red juice, so that not a drop shall flow away, so 
that the purple gore shall run down thereinto, and wet not the 
earth nor stream foaming over the ground. 

‘And if power be withheld from me myself to stay the endless 
flood, to become master of the wild stream, know that in Heaven 
there liveth a Father, a God dwelling above the clouds, who is the 
mightiest leech for the closing-up of bleeding wounds. 

“Ukko, High Creator, Everlasting God of Heaven, hear me 
when I call unto thee in time of need! Lay thy soothing hand, 
thy finger which bringeth healing, on the wound, and be as a sure 
lock to close it. 

“ Take,O Lord, a healing leaf, spread a water-lily leaf to cover the 
opening, stay the strong current of the blood, so that it stain not 
my cheeks nor stream over my garments.” 

Therewith the old man shut the mouth of the wound, stayed 
the swift course of the blood; then sent he his son into the smithy 
to prepare a salve of the finest threads of the grass, of a thousand 
herbs of the field, of the flowers whence honey, healing balm, 
droppeth. 

The boy brought the salve to his Father, saying: “ Here is 
strong healing salve, able to cement stones together into one 
rock.” 

The Father proved it with his tongue, and found it good ; 
and therewith he anointed the wounded man, saying: “ Not 
by my own power do I this, but only through the power of the 
Highest.” 

Then he bound up the wound with silken bands, saying: 
“May the silk of the Eternal Father, the bands of the Almighty 


THE POLITICUS MYTH 209 


Creator, bind up this wound. Be gracious, O Heavenly Father, 
look down and help, put an end unto the bitter anguish, heal this 
wound without the sharpness of pain,” 

Then did Wiiniméinen, on a sudden, feel that he was healed ; 
and soon thereafter the wound grew together, and was closed.' 


A Myth like this of the Birth of Iron, amplified, indeed, 
and embellished by poetical art, but originally inspired by the 
childish belief in the value of words which set forth the cause, 
helps us, I think, to understand Plato’s employment of the 
Aetiological Myth. Confronted by some profound difficulty, 
he lays it, or “ puts it by,” by means of a fanciful account of 
the origin of the state of things which presents the difficulty. 
He seems to feel that an Aetiological Myth is “a comfortable 
thing,”* and a charm to conjure with when one is hard 
pressed, 

The transition is easy from the point which we have now 
reached to Plato’s Creation Myths—his Aetiological Myths 
par excellence. These are the Z'imaeus (which is one great 
Myth) and the Myth of Prometheus and Epimetheus in the 
Protagoras (320 ὁ ff). 

In distinguishing these Myths as Aetiological from the 
strictly Eschatological Myths of the Phaedo, Gorgias, and the 
Republic, I do not ignore the eschatological prospect which is 
presented in them, especially in the Zimaeus; but aetiological 
retrospect is what is really characteristic of them. It is the 
origin of the Universe, and of Man, Soul and Body, not the 
future life of Man’s Soul, that these Myths are properly 
concerned with. They set forth the Ideas of Reason, Soul, 
Cosmos, and God, aetiologically in a Vision of Creation; and 
supply, moreover, a mythological deduction of Categories of the 
Understanding and Moral Virtues, which lies outside the scope 
of the strictly Eschatological Myths; 1.6. they deduce Categories 
and Virtues from their causes in the nature of God and the 
make of the Cosmos—they picture for the imagination the 
orderly constitution of nature as expressing the wisdom and 
goodness of God, and explain—always for the imagination— 
the harmony subsisting between that constitution and the 
faculties of the Soul, Thus in Zimaeus 40 E-42E the a 


1 Kalewala, Runes 8 and 9, vol. i. pp. 95-124, German version by Hermann 
Paul (Helsingfors, 1885). 
2 «* Prisms are also comfortable things’ (Bacon, Nat. Hist. cent. x. 960). 


Ρ 


210 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


priori conditions of thought, the modes in which the Under- 
standing brings order into the manifold of sense-experience, 
are set forth as due to impressions received by the Soul in its 
speculative journey round the Heavens, when it rode on its 
star-chariot, and saw the eternal laws of the Universe, and 
learned to move in orbits of rational thought, similar to those 
which rule the stars. 

It will be convenient to begin our study of the Creation 
Myths with the Protagoras Myth. It is on a small scale, and 
by looking at it first the eye of imagination may perhaps be 
prepared for the contemplation of the vast 7imaeus. Although 
it is only a small part of the 7imaeus that the limits of this 
work allow me to translate and comment on, I would ask the 
reader to regard the whole book as one great Myth in which 
the Ideas of Soul, Cosmos, and God are set forth in great 
shapes for our wonder—in which the relation of the Created 
Soul—World Soul and Human Soul—to the Creator, the 
relation of the Human Soul to the Human Body, the Origin 
of Evil, the Hope of Salvation, and other things which con- 
cern our peace, are made visible. The Zimaeus is a Myth, not 
a scientific treatise, although it was its fortune from the very 
first to be treated as if it were the latter. No other work of 
Plato’s was so much read and commented on in antiquity, and 
throughout the Middle Age, as the Zimaeus; and that chiefly 
because it was regarded as a compendium of natural science, 
all the more valuable because its “natural science” was not 
presented as something apart by itself, but “framed in a theo- 
logical setting.” Aristotle, of course, treats it aw pied de la 
lettre.’ With the Christian Platonists it took rank as a 
scientific and theological authority along with the Book of 
Genesis.” Dante’s references to Plato’s actual text are, I 
believe, all to passages contained in the Z'imaeus.® 


1 The reader may test the justice of this statement by referring to the 
passages quoted in the /ndex Arist. s.v. ‘‘Tiuaos Platonis dialogus’”’; and see 
Zeller, Plato, p. 344, Eng. Transl. 

2 “Numenius the Platonist speaks out plainly concerning his master: What 
is Plato but Moses Atticus?" (Henry More’s Conjectura Cabbalistica, Preface, p. 3 ; 
ed. 1662.) It was practically as author of the Timaeus that Plato was “ Moses 
Atticus.” Jowett (Dialogues of Plato, Introd. to Timaeus) has some interesting 
remarks on the text—‘‘ The influence which the Zimaeus has exercised upon 
posterity is partly due to a misunderstanding.” 

3 See Moore’s Studies in Dante, first series, pp. 156 ff., and Toynbee’s Dante 
Dictionary, arts. ‘‘ Platone” and “ Timeo?,” 







» | Mth pei Prtagera Myth is not 
i fa erates, and Protagoras, the speaker, like the 
Strang rin Ἴω Politicus, says that a Fable will come 
m himself, an older man addressing younger men— 
and thr pt 








THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 
CONTEXT 


THE scene of the Protagoras is the house of Callias, a 
wealthy Athenian gentleman, to which Socrates takes his friend 
Hippocrates, that he may introduce him to the celebrated teacher 
of Rhetoric—or the Art of getting on in Iife—Protagoras, who 
happens to be staying with Callias. Besides Protagoras they 
Jind two other Sophists of repute there, Hippias and Prodicus, 
also Critias and Alcibiades. Hippocrates wishes to become a 
pupil of Protagoras; and Socrates, after communicating his 
friend’s wish to the great man, asks him, “ What he will make 
of Hippocrates?” and Protagoras answers, “ A better and 
wiser man”—that is, he will teach him how to do the right 
thing always in private and public life. Socrates expresses 
doubt as to whether the science of right conduct, or virtue 
private and political—for that is what Protagoras professes to be 
able to teach—can really be taught. The Athenians, as a body, 
apparently do not think that it can be taught, for they do not 
demand it of their politicians; nor do the wisest and best 
citizens think that it can be taught, for they never attempt to 
empart it to their sons. 

The Myth (together with the Lecture of which ἐξ is a part) 
is the answer which Protagoras now gives to the difficulties 
raised by Socrates. The object of the Myth and Lecture is 
to show, that virtue—or rather, the virtues, for Protagoras 
enumerates five: wisdom, temperance, justice, holiness, cowrage 
—can be taught. 

When Protagoras has finished his Myth and Lecture, con- 
versation is resumed between him and Socrates, and results in 
making it plain that the five virtues must be reduced to one— 

212 







ῃ 1 Ἐ | 7 OTA ad γ0 RAS MYTH: 213 


ae ee 
rowli hie) ρων ἀμ 
he values of the various objects which conduct sets 


IE hae teen raph chest Gat Pretaporse tt dls 
00. sonclusion that virtue is knowledge, unless he would con- 
ict his own thesis that it can be taught; while Socrates, 
' γα that it is aie confirms that thesis, which — 


oe 
At 
τὴν". 











214 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Protagoras 320 c—323 A 


> \ 
320 C Hv γάρ ποτε χρόνος, ὅτε θεοὶ μὲν ἦσαν, θνητὰ δὲ 
/ 
ἢ γένη οὐκ Hv. ἐπειδὴ δὲ Kal τούτοις χρόνος ἦλθεν 
e / / “ ᾽ \ θ \ A Μ ὃ ᾽ “Ὁ 
εἱμαρμένος γενέσεως, τυποῦσιν αὐτὰ θεοὶ γῆς ἔνδον ἐκ γῆς 
καὶ πυρὸς μίξαντες καὶ τῶν ὅσα πυρὶ καὶ γῇ κεράννυται. 
A / 
ἐπειδὴ δ᾽ ἄγειν αὐτὰ πρὸς φῶς ἔμελλον, προσέταξαν 
al a a al / 
Προμηθεῖ καὶ ᾿Επιμηθεῖ κοσμῆσαί τε καὶ νεῖμαι δυνάμεις 
a ᾽ \ 
ἑκάστοις ws πρέπει. Προμηθέα δὲ παραιτεῖται ᾿Ἐ"πιμηθεὺς 
αὐτὸς νεῖμαι' Νείμαντος δ᾽ ἐμοῦ, ἔφη, ἐπίσκεψαι. καὶ οὕτω 
/ / / \ lal \ > \ »” / 
Ἑ πείσας νέμει. νέμων δὲ τοῖς μὲν ἰσχὺν ἄνευ τάχους 
a , \ 
προσῆπτε, τὰ δ᾽ ἀσθενέστερα τάχει ἐκόσμει: Ta δὲ ὥπλιξε, 
lal ᾽ a an 
τοῖς δ᾽ ἄοπλον διδοὺς φύσιν ἄλλην Tw αὐτοῖς ἐμηχανᾶτο 
A ’ 
δύναμιν εἰς σωτηρίαν. ἃ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν σμικρότητι ἤμπι- 
= 
σχε, πτηνὸν φυγὴν ἢ κατάγειον οἴκησιν ἔνεμεν: ἃ δὲ HdEE 
8321 μεγέθει, τῷδε αὐτῷ αὐτὰ ἔσωζε: καὶ τἄλλα οὕτως ἐπανισῶν 
a a / 
ἔνεμε. ταῦτα δὲ ἐμηχανᾶτο εὐλάβειαν ἔχων, μή τι γένος 
ἀϊστωθείη. ἐπειδὴ δὲ αὐτοῖς ἀλληλοφθοριῶν διαφυγὰς 
> / \ \ ᾽ \ “ > 7 > a 
ἐπήρκεσε, πρὸς τὰς ἐκ Διὸς ὥρας εὐμάρειαν ἐμηχανᾶτο 
> \ ᾽ \ fal \ \ -“ / 
ἀμφιεννὺς αὐτὰ πυκναῖς te θριξὶ Kal στερεοῖς δέρμασιν, 
ς΄ » - a a / \ 
ἱκανοῖς μὲν ἀμῦναι χειμῶνα, δυνατοῖς δὲ καὶ καύματα, Kal 
a fal \ 
εἰς εὐνὰς ἰοῦσιν ὅπως ὑπάρχοι τὰ αὐτὰ ταῦτα στρωμνὴ 
οἰκεία τε καὶ αὐτοφυὴς ἑκάστῳ: καὶ ὑπὸ ποδῶν τὰ μὲν 
e κ a / 
Βοπλαῖς, τὰ δὲ θριξὶ καὶ δέρμασι στερεοῖς Kal ἀναίμοις. 
nr / ra a 
τοὐντεῦθεν τροφὰς ἄλλοις ἄλλας ἐξεπόριζε, τοῖς μὲν ἐκ γῆς 
a / 
βοτάνην, ἄλλοις δὲ δένδρων καρπούς, τοῖς δὲ ῥίζας" ἔστι 
δ᾽ οἷς ἔδωκεν εἶναι τροφὴν ζώων ἄλλων βοράν. καὶ τοῖς 
Lol nw \ 
μὲν Odvyoyoviay προσῆψε, τοῖς δ᾽ ἀναλισκομένοις ὑπὸ 


΄ / / φὶ / “ \ 
τούτων πολυγονίαν, σωτηρίαν τῷ γένει πορίζων. ἅτε δὴ 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 215 


TRANSLATION 


Time was when there were Gods, but mortal creatures 
after their kind were not. Now when the appointed time 
came unto these also that they should be born, the gods 
fashioned them under the Earth, compounding them of earth, 
and of fire, and of whatsoever is made by the mingling of fire 
and earth. Now when they were ready to bring them to 
light, they gave commandment unto Prometheus and Epi- 
metheus to adorn them, and distribute unto each the powers 
that were meet. But Epimetheus entreated of Prometheus 
to let him distribute. “ When I have distributed,” quoth he, 
“do thou see whether it is done well.” 

So he prevailed with him, and distributed: and unto some 
he gave strength without swiftness, but the weaker he adorned 
with swiftness; unto others he gave weapons; and for those 
unto whom he gave not weapons he contrived other means 
of safety ; to wit, unto those of them which he clothed with 
smallness he appointed winged escape, or habitation under 
ground ; and unto those which he increased with bigness, the 
safety which cometh therefrom. After this fashion, then, did 
he distribute, ever making one gift equal unto another. These 
things he contrived, lest perchance any race should be cut off. 
But when he had furnished them with means for escaping 
destruction from one another, he contrived for them con- 
venient defence against the seasons of the year, clothing them 
with thick hairs and stout hides sufficient to keep off the cold 
of winter and the burning heat; the which might also be for 
couches proper and native unto each one of them, when they 
went to their lairs. Moreover, he shod some of them with 
hoofs, and others with hairs and thick skin without blood. 
After that he appointed unto them different kinds of food: 
unto some the herbs of the earth, unto others the fruits of 
the trees, unto others roots; and some there were unto which 
he appointed for food the flesh of other beasts. And he 
ordained that they should bring forth young, some few, and 
others, which were devoured of these, many, that their race 
might be preserved. 


210 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


οὖν ov πάνυ τι σοφὸς ὧν ὁ ᾿Ἐπιμηθεὺς ἔλαθεν αὑτὸν 

σ καταναλώσας τὰς δυνάμεις εἰς τὰ ἄλογα. λοιπὸν δὴ 
» / ΜΝ > A = \ > ’ / \ >’ , “ 
ἀκόσμητον ἔτι αὐτῷ ἣν τὸ ἀνθρώπων γένος, καὶ ἠπόρει ὅ 
τι χρήσαιτο. ἀποροῦντε δὲ αὐτῷ ἔρχεται Προμηθεὺς 
’ , \ , Ἢ ca \ \ » a 
ἐπισκεψόμενος τὴν νομὴν, Kal opa Ta μὲν ἄλλα ζῶα 
ἐμμελῶς πάντων ἔχοντα, τὸν δὲ ἄνθρωπον γυμνόν τε καὶ 

/ 
ἀνυπόδητον Kal ἄστρωτον καὶ ἄοπλον. ἤδη δὲ καὶ ἡ 
e / ς / n » @ Μ \ ” > / » 
εἱμαρμένη ἡμέρα παρῆν, ἐν ἣ ἔδει καὶ ἄνθρωπον ἐξιέναι ἐκ 
- > - > / S b] / e 4 4 
γῆς εἰς φῶς. ἀπορίᾳ οὖν ἐχόμενος ὁ Προμηθεύς, ἥντινα 
/ a > , Ὁ / € / 
σωτηρίαν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ εὕροι, κλέπτει Ἡφαίστου καὶ 
᾿Αθηνᾶς τὴν ἔντεχνον σοφίαν σὺν πυρί---ἀμήχανον γὰρ ἣν 
A 
ἄνευ πυρὸς αὐτὴν κτητήν τῳ ἢ χρησίμην γενέσθαι----, Kal 
οὕτω δ) ὃ - by θ , \ \ s \ \ Bi 
ἢ δωρεῖται ἀνθρώπῳ. τὴν μὲν οὖν περὶ τὸν βίον 
/ » 7 ¥ \ \ \ > 3 
σοφίαν ἄνθρωπος ταύτῃ ἔσχε, τὴν δὲ πολιτικὴν οὐκ εἶχεν" 
Ss \ \ A / A \ “ > \ \ > / 
ἣν yap παρὰ τῷ Διί: τῷ δὲ LpounOe? eis μὲν τὴν axpo- 
\ rn \ ” > / > , > r 
πολιν τὴν τοῦ Διὸς οἴκησιν οὐκέτι ἐνεχώρει εἰσελθεῖν. 
πρὸς δὲ καὶ αἱ Διὸς φυλακαὶ φοβεραὶ ἦσαν" εἰς δὲ τὸ τῆς 
> A \ « / yy \ / > φ > 

E A@nvas καὶ Ἡφαίστου οἴκημα τὸ κοινόν, ἐν ᾧ ἐφιλο- 

/ \ > / \ / / Μ 
τεχνείτην, λαθὼν εἰσέρχεται, καὶ κλέψας τὴν τε ἔμπυρον 
τέχνην τὴν τοῦ Ἡφαίστου καὶ τὴν ἄλλην τὴν τῆς ᾿Αθηνᾶς 
δίδωσιν ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ἐκ τούτου εὐπορία μὲν ἀνθρώπῳ τοῦ 

. ,’ >’ 

322 βίου γίγνεται, Ilpounbéa δὲ δὲ Επιμηθέα ὕστερον, ἧπερ 
λέγεται, κλοπῆς δίκη μετῆλθεν. 

> \ \ ¢ ” / / / an 
Ἐπειδὴ δὲ ὁ ἄνθρωπος θείας μετέσχε μοίρας, πρῶτον 
\ \ \ ΄σ on / , ’ \ , / 
μὲν διὰ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ συγγένειαν ζώων μόνον θεοὺς ἐνόμισε, 
\ > / / e / 7 > / lal 
Kai ἐπεχείρει βωμούς τε ἱδρύεσθαι καὶ ἀγάλματα θεῶν" 
ΝΜ \ \ > / \ / an 
ἔπειτα φωνὴν καὶ ὀνόματα ταχὺ διηρθρώσατο τῇ τέχνῃ, 
\ ᾽ , \ b] an \ e δέ \ a \ 
καὶ οἰκήσεις καὶ ἐσθῆτας Kal ὑποδέσεις Kal στρωμνὰς καὶ 
a ¢ » 
τὰς ἐκ γῆς τροφὰς εὕρετο. οὕτω δὴ παρεσκευασμένοι κατ 
’ 

Β ἀρχὰς ἄνθρωποι ὠκουν σποράδην, πόλεις δὲ οὐκ ἦσαν. 
ἀπώλλυντο οὖν ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων διὰ τὸ πανταχῇ αὐτῶν 
ἀσθενέστεροι εἶναι, καὶ ἡ δημιουργικὴ τέχνη αὐτοῖς πρὸς 
μὲν τροφὴν ἱκανὴ βοηθὸς ἣν, πρὸς δὲ τὸν τῶν θηρίων 

/ ? / \ \ / ” “. 
πόλεμον ἐνδεής" πολιτικὴν γὰρ τέχνην οὔπω εἶχον, ἧς 


μέρος πολεμική. ἐζήτουν δὴ ἀθροίζεσθαι καὶ σώξεσθαι 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 217 


Now, inasmuch as Epimetheus was not very wise, he un- 
Wittingly spent all the qualities he had upon the brutes; and 
lo! mankind was still left unto him unadorned, and he knew 
not what he should do concerning them. 

While he yet doubteth, Prometheus cometh unto him to 
look into his distribution; and perceiveth that all other 
creatures are duly furnished in all things, but that man is 
naked and without shoes or bed or weapons: and now was 
come the appointed day on the which man also should go 
forth from the earth into the light. 

Wherefore Prometheus, being brought to his wits’ end to 
devise any means of safety for man, stealeth the cunning 
workman’s wisdom of Hephaestus and Athena, together with 
fire—for without fire none can get this wisdom or use it; 
and this he giveth as a gift unto man. 

Thus did man get the mechanic wisdom needful for his 
bare life; but the wisdom which is needful for the life poli- 
tical he had not, for it was with Zeus; and unto Prometheus 
it was no longer permitted to enter into the citadel, the 
dwelling-place of Zeus; moreover, the guards of Zeus were 
terrible; but into the common dwelling of Athena and 
Hephaestus, wherein they plied their craft, he secretly entered, 
and stole the fiery art of Hephaestus, and also Athena’s art, 
and gave them unto man. Whence came convenient living 
unto man; but as for Prometheus, he was afterwards arraigned 
for theft because of Epimetheus, as the story telleth. 

Now man, having been made a partaker of the divine lot, 
by reason of his kinship with the Godhead, alone among living 
creatures believed in Gods, and began to take it in hand to 
set up altars unto them and make graven images of them. Then 
soon with cunning device did he frame articulate speech and 
names, and invented houses to dwell in, and raiment and shoes to 
put on,and beds for rest, and food from the fruits of the earth. 

Thus furnished, men at first dwelt scattered abroad, and 
there were no cities. Wherefore men were continually 
devoured by wild beasts, for they were altogether weaker than 
the beasts, and their craftsman’s art could help them to get 
food enough, but was not sufficient for their war with the 
wild beasts; for they had not yet the art political, whereof 
the art of warfare is a part. 


323 


218 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


/ a / 
κτίζοντες πόλεις. ὅτ᾽ οὖν ἀθροισθεῖεν, ἠδίκουν ἀλλήλους, 
“ > ΝΜ \ \ / “ / 
ἅτε οὐκ ἔχοντες τὴν πολιτικὴν τέχνην, ὥστε πάλιν σκεδαν- 
νύμενοι διεφθείροντο. Ζεὺς οὖν δείσας περὶ τῷ γένει ἡμῶν 

as ρ ᾿Ξ 5 ρ t ¥ ne id 
\ > / a ς “ / ” > ᾽ / 
μὴ ἀπόλοιτο πᾶν, Ἑρμῆν πέμπει ἄγοντα eis ἀνθρώπους 
INA \ , wy 3 / / \ \ 
αἰδῶ τε καὶ δίκην, iv εἶεν πόλεων κόσμοι Te Kal δεσμοὶ 
rd Ἢ > A 5 ὝἭ, a Ad / 5 / 
φιλίας συναγωγοί: ἐρωτᾷ οὖν “Ἑρμῆς Δία, τίνα οὖν τρόπον 
, , \ INA > , / ς e / 
Soin δίκην καὶ αἰδῶ ἀνθρώποις. πότερον ὡς ai τέχναι 
/ “ \ / / / \ » 
νενέμηνται, οὕτω Kal ταύτας νείμω; νενέμηνται δὲ ὧδε" εἷς 
» \ ~ \ e ” 
ἔχων ἰατρικὴν πολλοῖς ἱκανὸς ἰδιώταις, καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι 
᾽ὔ \ / \ \ IDA e “ > Lal 
δημιουργοί. καὶ δίκην δὴ καὶ αἰδῶ οὕτω θῶ ἐν τοῖς 
, ᾽ e 4 
ἀνθρώποις, ἢ ἐπὶ πάντας νείμω; ‘Eni πάντας, ἔφη ὁ Ζεύς, 
\ ΄ , ᾽ \ v 7 / > 
Kal πάντες μετεχόντων: οὐ γὰρ ἂν γένοιντο πόλεις, εἰ 
4ὼ 2 » κα / Ὁ » a \ , 
ολύγοι αὐτῶν μετέχοιεν ὥσπερ ἄλλων τεχνῶν. καὶ νόμον 
θὲ ᾽ ? a \ \ / ὃ a \ δί 
γε θὲς παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ τὸν μὴ δυνάμενον αἰδοῦς καὶ δίκης 
/ / . / / Ὁ 7 9 / 
μετέχειν κτείνειν ὡς νόσον πόλεως. Οὕτω δή, ὦ Σώκρατες, 
rn 7 a \ 
καὶ διὰ ταῦτα οἵ te ἄλλοι Kal οἱ ᾿Αθηναῖοι, ὅταν μὲν 
δ 4 a a > / DI ” \ a 
περὶ ἀρετῆς τεκτονικῆς ἢ λόγος ἢ ἄλλης τινὸς δημιουργικῆς, 
? / v a a \ 4 > \ nr 
ὀλίγοις οἴονται μετεῖναι συμβουλῆς, Kal ἐάν Tis ἐκτὸς ὧν 
a ~~ / / ᾽ ae 4 ς \ , BM 
τῶν ὀλίγων συμβουλεύῃ, οὐκ ἀνέχονται, ὡς σὺ φῇς" εἰκο- 
΄ 7 \ a 
τως, ws ἐγώ φημι' ὅταν δὲ εἰς συμβουλὴν πολιτικῆς 
> a v ἃ a \ / 7 7 \ 
ἀρετῆς ἴωσιν, ἣν δεῖ διὰ δικαιοσύνης πᾶσαν ἰέναι καὶ 
7 ᾽ / “ J \ > / e \ 
σωφροσύνης, εἰκότως ἅπαντος ἀνδρὸς ἀνέχονται, ὡς παντὶ 
lal A “Ὁ A \ 
προσῆκον ταύτης γε μετέχειν τῆς ἀρετῆς, ἢ μὴ εἶναι 


πόλεις. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 219 


Wherefore they sought to assemble themselves together, 
and save themselves by building cities. 

Now when they were assembled together, they wronged 
one another, because they had not the art political; so they 
were again scattered abroad, and were like to be destroyed. 

But Zeus, fearing lest our race should perish utterly, com- 
mandeth Hermes to go unto men bearing modesty and justice, 
for the ordering of cities, and to be bonds joining men to- 
gether in friendship. Hermes inquireth of Zeus how he shall 
give justice and modesty unto men. “ Are these,” quoth he, 
“to be distributed as the arts are distributed, the which are 
distributed after this wise—one man hath the art of physic, or 
some other art, and is sufficient unto many who have it not? 
Shall I distribute justice and modesty among men thus, or 
give them unto all?” “Unto all,” said Zeus, “and let all be 
partakers of them. For if few were partakers as of the arts, 
cities would not arise. Also make it a law from me, that he 
who cannot partake of modesty and justice shall be put to 
death, for he bringeth plague into the city. 

For this reason, O Socrates, the Athenians and others, when 
they consult about things which need the skill of the carpenter 
or other handicraftsman, think that few advisers are enough, and 
if any one who is not of those thrust himself forward to advise, 
they will have none of him. Thus do they, thou sayest. And 
I say tis but reasonable they should do this. But when they 
enter into counsel concerning those things that pertain unto 
virtue political, which must needs walk alway in the path of 
righteousness and temperance, then with reason do they bear 
with any man as a counsellor, considering that all men must 
partake of this virtue, else there could be no city. 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


bo 
bo 
Θ 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 
I 


Before calling attention to some important points in this 
Myth, I must allude to a view maintained by some critics— 
that it is not a Platonic Myth at all, but only a Sophistic 
Apologue, or Illustrative Story, like Prodicus’s Choice of 
Hercules. This view is stated, and objected to, by Grote in 
the following passage : '— 


The speech is censured by some critics as prolix. But to me it 
seems full of matter and argument, exceedingly free from super- 
fluous rhetoric. The fable with which it opens presents, of course, 
the poetical ornament which belongs to that manner of handling. 
It is, however, fully equal, in point of perspicuity as well as 
charm,—in my judgment, it is even superior,—to any fable in 
Plato. 

When the harangue, lecture, or sermon of Protagoras is con- 
cluded, Sokrates both expresses his profound admiration of it, and 
admits the conclusion—that virtue is teachable—to be made out, 
as well as it can be made out by any continuous exposition. 

Very different, indeed, is the sentiment of the principal Platonic 
commentators. Schleiermacher will not allow the mythus of 
Protagoras to be counted among the Platonic myths. He says 
that it is composed in the style of Protagoras, and perhaps copied 
from some real composition of that Sophist. He finds in it 
nothing but a “ grobmaterialistiche Denkungsart, die tiber die 
sinnliche Erfahrung nicht hinaus philosophirt” (Zinleitung zwm 
Protagoras, vol. i. pp. 233, 234). 

To the like purpose Ast (Plat. Leb. p. 71), who tells us that 
what is expressed in the mythus is, ‘‘ The vulgar and mean senti- 
ment and manner of thought of the Sophist ; for it deduces every- 
thing, both arts and the social union itself, from human wants and 
necessity.” Apparently these critics, when they treat this as a 
proof of meanness and vulgarity, have forgotten that the Platonic 
Sokrates himself does exactly the same thing in the Republic— 
deriving the entire social union from human necessities (Περί. 
ii. 369 C). 

K. F. Hermann is hardly less severe upon the Protagorean 
discourse (Gesch. und Syst. der Plat. Phil. p. 460). 

For my part, I take a view altogether opposed to these learned 
persons. I think the discourse one of the most striking and 


1 Plat, ii, pp. 46, 47. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 221 


instructive portions of the Platonic writings; and if I could 
believe that it was the composition of Protagoras himself, my 
estimation of him would be considerably raised, 

Steinhart pronounces a much more rational and equitable 
judgment than Ast and Schleiermacher upon the discourse of 
Protagoras (Hinleitung zum Protagoras, pp. 422, 423)." 


I entirely agree with Grote; and hope that I shall be 
able in the following observations to show reason for the 
opinion that this is not a mere illustrative story, designed to 
put popularly in a picture what might be put abstrusely, but a 
genuine Myth containing suggestions of the kind which must be 
put διὰ μυθολογίας or not at all. The mark of a true Myth, it 
must be remembered, is that it sets forth the ἃ priori elements 
in man’s experience. An Illustrative Story or Allegory, as 
such, merely makes easier and more pleasant the task of 
receiving and recalling a posteriori data. This is the broad 
distinction between Myth and Allegory—a distinction which 
we must not lose sight of, although we observe that Allegory 
in the hands of a man of genius, like Plato, or Dante, or 
Bunyan, always tends to become Myth; and that there are 
few Myths, as distinguished from Allegories, which are not 
built up of parts, some of which are Allegories. 

While contending strongly for the view that the discourse 
delivered by Protagoras is a true Myth, not an Allegory, I do 
not forget that it is delivered by Protagoras. But even 
this, I submit, is quite consistent with its being a Myth, and 
that, even if Stallbaum (Note on Protag. 320 0) is right in 
thinking that Plato is parodying Protagoras’s style and borrow- 
ing from his book περὶ τῆς ἐν ἀρχῆ καταστάσεως. The 
Timaeus, at any rate, is a Myth, although it is not spoken by 
Socrates and imitates a style very different from that of the 
Myths spoken by Socrates. If we are to take the concrete view 
necessary to the proper understanding of Plato’s Myths as they 
come up individually for critical judgment, we must allow for the 
dramatic circumstances of each case. The Myth told in the 
Symposium by Aristophanes, being told by Aristophanes, has 

1 Professor Campbell (Politicws, Introd. p. xxxii.) is apparently with the 
critics from whom Grote differs :—‘‘ The myth in the Protagoras . . . is meant to 
convey an idea which Socrates combats, and which Plato evidently does not fully 
accept. So also the elaborate myth of Aristophanes in the Sympostum contains 


a phase of.thought about the Origin of Love which is afterwards glanced at as 
an hypothesis of little value (Sympos. 205 E).” 


222 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


a comic vein; similarly, the Myth put into the mouth of Pro- 
tagoras is somewhat pompous and confused. None the less, 
these, I would contend, and the other non-Socratic Myths are 
true Platonic Myths. It is always Plato the Dramatist who, 
through the mouth of Aristophanes, or Protagoras, or the 
Eleatic Stranger, sets forth for the Imagination the Universal 
of which the Scientific Understanding can give no account. 


II 


The second observation I have to make on the Protagoras 
Myth is that it sets forth the distinction between the 
Mechanical and the Teleological explanations of the world 
and its parts—the distinction with which Kant is occupied 
in his Kritik der Urtheilskraft. According to Kant, the 
antinomy between these two explanations exists for the Deter- 
minant Judgment (the Judgment which, given the Universal, 
brings the Particular under it) but not for the Reflective 
Judgment (the Judgment which, given the Particular, finds a 
Universal by which to explain it). The Universal of Teleology 
—a σκοπός, or Purpose, to serve which all things in the 
world are designed by a Personal God—is a Principle, or 
Universal, which may be posited by the Reflective Judgment, 
without contradiction, by the side of the mechanical principle 
of explanation—indeed, must be posited, for without the guzd- 
ance it affords we could not understand the world at all; but, 
for all that, we are not warranted in assuming that it is a prin- 
ciple objectively existing and operative in the world. Natural 
objects which we can understand only as results of purpose 
may very well be due to mere mechanism. “ Purposiveness 
is a concept which has its origin solely in the Reflective 
Judgment” ;! 2e. it is a Universal which we think of, which 
we find useful; but it does not, therefore, exist independently 
of our thought, as a real cause. 


What? in the end does the most complete teleology prove ? 
Does it prove that there is such an Intelligent Being? No. It 
only proves that according to the constitution of our cognitive 


1 Bernard’s Transl. of the Kritik der Urtheilskraft (Critique of Judgment), 
p. 18. 
2 Bernard's Transl. of the Critique of Judgment, pp. 311, 312, and 260, 261. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 223 


faculties . . . we can form absolutely no concept of the possibility 
of such a world as this save by thinking a designedly working 
Supreme Cause thereof. . . . If we expressed ourselves dogmati- 
cally, we should say, ‘There is a God.” But all we are justified 
in saying is, ‘Things are so internally constituted as if there were 
a God”; ie we cannot otherwise think that purposivencss 
which must lie at the bottom of our cognition of the internal 
possibility of many natural things, than by representing it, and 
the world in general, as a product of an Intelligent Cause—a God. 
Now, if this proposition, based on an inevitably necessary maxim 
of our Judgment, is completely satisfactory, from every human 
point of view, for both the speculative and practical use of our 
Reason, 1 should like to know what we lose by not being able to 
prove it as also valid for higher beings, from objective grounds 
(which are unfortunately beyond our faculties). It is, indeed, 
quite certain that we cannot adequately cognise, much less 
explain, organised beings and their internal possibility, according 
to mere mechanical principles of nature; and, we can say boldly, 
it is alike certain that it is absurd for men to make any such 
attempt, or to hope that another Newton will arise in the future, 
who shall make comprehensible by us the production of a blade of 
grass according to natural laws which no design has ordered. We 
must absolutely deny this insight to men.'’ But then, how do we 
know that in nature, if we could penetrate to the principle by 
which it specifies the universal laws known to us, there cannot lie 
hidden (in its mere mechanism) a sufficient ground of the pos- 
sibility of organised beings, without supposing any design in their 
production? Would it not be judged by us presumptuous to say 
this ? 

Probabilities here are of no account, when we have to do with 
judgments of the Pure Reason; we cannot, therefore, judge 
objectively, either affirmatively or negatively, concerning the pro- 
position: Does a Being, acting according to design, lie at the 
basis of what we rightly call natural purposes, as the cause of the 
world, and consequently as its author? . . . The teleological act 
of judgment is rightly brought to bear, at least problematically, 
upon the investigation of nature, but only in order to bring it 
under principles of observation and inquiry according to the 
analogy with the causality of purpose, without any pretence to 
explain it thereby. It belongs, therefore, to the Reflective and not 
to the Determinant Judgment. The concept of combinations and 
forms of nature in accordance with purposes is then at least one 
principle more for bringing its phenomena under rules where the 
laws of simply mechanical causality do not suffice. For we bring 
in a teleological ground, when we attribute causality in respect of 


1 15 Kant right here? This is the great Question of Philosophy. 


224 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


an Object to the concept of an Object, as if it were to be found in 
nature (not in ourselves),! or rather when we represent to our- 
selves the possibility of the Object after the analogy of that 
causality which we experience in ourselves, and consequently 
think nature technically as through a special faculty. If, on the 
other hand, we did not ascribe to it such a method of action, its 
causality would have to be represented as blind mechanism. If, 
on the contrary, we supply to nature causes acting designedly, and 
consequently place at its basis teleology, not merely as a regulative 
principle for the mere judging of phenomena, to which nature can 
be thought as subject in its particular laws, but as a constitutive 
principle of the derivation of its products from their causes, then 
would the concept of a natural purpose no longer belong to the 
Reflective but to the Determinant Judgment. Then, in fact, it 
would not belong specially to the Judgment (like the concept of 
beauty regarded as formal subjective purposiveness), but as a 
rational concept it would introduce into a natural science a new 
causality, which we only borrow from ourselves and ascribe to 
other beings, without meaning to assume them to be of the same 
kind with ourselves. 


Now let us return to the Protagoras Myth, which I have 
said sets forth the distinction between the teleological and the 
mechanical methods of explaining the world and its parts. 

In the animals as equipped by Epimetheus, Afterthought, 
“who was not very wise,” the world and its parts are pre- 
sented as products of mere mechanism which are regarded by 
foolish Afterthought as due to his own design. The qualities 
with which Epimetheus equips the animals are only those by 
which they barely survive in their struggle for existence. An 
animal that is small and weak burrows in the earth, and 
survives. But to suppose that its power of burrowing was 
designed with a view to its survival is to forget that it was 
only Afterthought who conferred the power, not Forethought. 
To suppose design here is as unnecessary surely as it would 
be to suppose that gold ore was hidden in the quartz in order 
that men might have difficulty in finding it. As a matter of 
fact, small weak animals that burrow are not generally found 
by their enemies; as a matter of fact, animals with thick fur 
do not generally perish in a cold climate; as a matter of fact, 
swift animals are not generally caught; as a matter of fact, 


1 The proper understanding of the Doctrine of ἐδέαι seems to me to depend 
on the proper appreciation of the point here put by Kant. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 225 


prolific animals generally do not die off fast enough to become 
extinct. And yet Afterthought takes credit to himself for all 
this ! 

In such cases there is really no design—no Forethought, 
—merely the inevitable consequence of blind natural law ; 
and it is only foolish Afterthought who pretends that there 
is design—Afterthought who always begins to reflect after 
the fait accompli, Afterthought the Father, as Pindar 
says, of Pretence—rav "Eaimadéos . . . ὀψινόου θυγατέρα 
Πρόφασιν But the pretence of Epimetheus is found out. 
He has nothing left wherewith to equip Man. He can seem 
to “design” only where mechanism really does the work— 
really produces the results which he pretends to produce by 
his “design.” The various modes of structure and habit 
by which the lower animals correspond with their various 
environments (and the summary list of these modes given 
in the Myth shows that Plato has the eye of the true 
naturalist)—the various modes of animal correspondence—are 
indeed best accounted for mechanically, without any Epime- 
thean pretence of teleology. But when we pass from the 
ἀναγκαῖον of mere animal survival to the καλόν of human 
civilisation, we pass, Plato in this Myth seems to tell us, 
into another order of things. The mere survival of animals 
is not such a great thing that we must think of it as caused 
by Prometheus—as designed in the true sense; but the 
civilised life of Man is too beautiful and good a thing not to 
be designed in the true sense—not to be an end consciously 
aimed at by the Creator, who uses as his means the Art 
which Prometheus gave to a few, and the Virtue which 
Hermes placed within the reach of all. In short, Plato 
seems to say in this Myth that a teleological explanation 
of Man’s Place in the Cosmos is indispensable. But let us 
note that the teleological explanation which he offers is 
conveyed in Myth. Plato’s attitude here towards teleology 
is not different from Kant’s, if allowance be made for the 
difference between the mythical and the critical ways of 
expression. “Though not for the Determinant, yet for the 
Reflective Judgment,” says Kant,’ “we have sufficient ground 


1 Pindar, Pyth. v. 34. 
2 Bernard’s Transl. of the Crit. of Judgment p. 35. 


226 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


for judging man to be, not merely, like all organised beings, 
a natural purpose,, but also the ultimate purpose of nature 
here on earth.” It need hardly be said that the assumption 
or working hypothesis which Kant here makes on behalf of 
Man does not stand alone. If oaks could speak, they would 
say that the Oak is “the ultimate purpose of nature here on 
earth.” 


Ill 


My next observation is on the account given of the origin 
of Virtue—daperj—in the Protagoras Myth. 

The gift of Epimetheus is ¢vaws—bodily structure and 
function, with the instincts and habits thereon dependent, 
whereby the lower animals correspond accurately, but blindly, 
with a narrow immediate environment; the gift of Pro- 
metheus to Man, whose mere φύσις is not adequate to the 
wider environment into which his destiny advances him, is 
Art, τέχνη, which, though imparted to few, benefits the whole 
race by completing φύσις, to borrow the phrase in which 
Aristotle? expresses the close relation existing between 
Nature and Art, φύσις and τέχνη. Plato, too, wishes us to 
look at the relation as a close one; for in the Myth Pro- 
metheus takes up his brother’s unfinished work. But ἀρετή 
—morality (as distinguished, on the one hand, from φύσι----- 
natural constitution—the gift of Epimetheus to animals, and, 
on the other hand, from réyvy—aquired skill in some depart- 
ment—the gift of Prometheus to a few men)—dpery, as dis- 
tinguished from φύσις and τέχνη, is distributed by Hermes to 
all men. All men have implanted in them what may be 
called “an original moral sense,” which education appeals to 
and awakens. All men are capable of morality as they are 
capable of speech. Virtue is “ learnt” as one’s mother tongue 
is learnt, without any special instruction like that through 
which some particular art or craft is acquired by a person 
specially capable of acquiring it. Here the resemblance and 
difference between Virtue and Art—a subject approached by 


1 “An organised product of nature (a natural p pure is one in which every 
part is reciprocally purpose (end) and means.”  Bernard’s Transl. of Crit. of 
Judgment, p. 280 ; οἵ, Watson's Selections from Kant, p. 345. 

* Phys. ii. 8, 199 a 15: ὅλως δὲ ἡ τέχνη τὰ μὲν ἐπιτελεῖ ἃ ἡ φύσις ἀδυνατεῖ 
ἀπεργάσασθαι, τὰ δὲ μιμεῖται. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 227 


Plato from many sides-—is viewed from yet another side, in 
Myth, and, therefore, we may take it, with deep insight into 
its metaphysical import. Art, though it is the gift of Pro- 
metheus, and distinguishes Man, as working for consciously 
realised future ends, from the brutes, which, at most, live in 
a dream of the present, is still only “a completion of nature,” 
and Man does not yet live the true life of Man under the 
régime of Prometheus. The gift of Prometheus, indeed, came 
from Heaven, but it was stolen. The Godlike intelligence of 
Man employs itself in the pursuit of objects which, though 
really means under the providence of the Creator to the ultimate 
realisation of the true human life, are not yet regarded by 
Man himself as more than means to the convenient life of the 
dominant animal on earth. Man, having received the stolen 
gift, conquers the lower animals; yet still homo homini lupus. 
But the gift which makes him see, with the eye of justice 
and respect, his fellow-man as an End along with himself in 
a Kingdom of Ends—this gift was not stolen, but is of the 
Grace of God. It is given to all men, or at least is a 
ἕρμαιον Which all may hope in the course of life to find; and 
it is given in greater measure to some men than to others. 
Great teachers of the moral ideal arise, like great poets, 
specially inspired; and their power, whether manifested 
in the silent example of their lives, or in the prophetic 
utterance of Myth, is felt in its effects by all; but the secret 
of it is imcommunicable.! 

The gift of ἀρετή in greater measure is not, indeed, alluded 
to in the Protagoras Myth, but it is, after all, merely an 
eminent instance of the gift as described in that Myth. The 
gift of ἀρετή, whether in less or greater measure, is of the 
Grace of God. Such a doctrine is properly conveyed in Myth ; 
and the discourse of Protagoras in which it is conveyed is, I 
submit, a true Myth, because it sets forth the a prior?, not, as 
Schleiermacher and some other critics maintain, a mere 
Sophistic Apologue or Allegory illustrating and popularising 
a@ posterior. data. 

“As to the myth brought forward by Protagoras,” says 
Schleiermacher,” “ there is no need to number it as some have 


1 See Meno, 99, 100, 
2 Introduction to the Protagoras, p. 96, Dobson’s Transl. 


228 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


done, good-naturedly raising it to an exalted rank, among those 
of Plato’s own; on the contrary, if not the property of Prota- 
goras himself, as seems likely, though there is no evidence to 
confirm the supposition, yet the manner in which Plato applies 
it makes it much more probable that it is, at all events, com- 
posed in his spirit. For precisely as is natural to one of a 
coarsely materialistic mode of thinking, whose philosophy does 
not extend beyond immediate sensuous experience, the reason- 
ing principle in men is only viewed as a recompense for their 
deficient corporeal conformation, and the idea of right with 
the feeling of shame, as requisite for a sensuous existence, 
and as something not introduced into the minds of men until 
a later period.” 

“ Not introduced into the minds of men until a later 
period!” This objection appears to me to be founded on a 
misunderstanding of what a Myth is and does. It is of the 
very essence of a Myth to represent as having a history in 
time what in itself is out of time. The Soul, which is the 
Subject of all experience in time, is mythologically set forth 
as an Object or Thing whose creation, incarnation and earthly 
life, disembodied state and penance, re-incarnation and final 
purification or damnation, can be traced as events in time. 
How absurd to draw inferences from the chronology of such a 
history! It is not the historical question, When the mind 
received the idea of Virtue, whether later or sooner, that Plato 
is really concerned with; but the philosophical question, 
What is the true nature of Virtue—of the Virtuous Soul—of 
the Soul itself at its best? “The Soul to Plato,” as Hegel ' 
says, “is not a Zing the permanence or non-permanence of 
which we may discuss, but a Universal.” Yet in Myth this 
Universal is necessarily set forth as a Zhing permanent 
throughout a succession of changes in time. It is indeed no 
easy matter always to remember that a Myth is a Myth. 


IV 


A Myth may be told in painting, or embroidery, or sculp- 
ture, as well as in words; and I am going to conclude these 
remarks on the Protagoras Myth by asking the reader to look 


1 Gesch. der Phil. vol. xiv. p. 187 (1842). 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 229 


ab a sarcophagus in the Capitoline Museum on which the 
mystery of Man’s birth and life and death is rendered for the 
eye in a relief representing, naively enough, the history of the 
Butterfly-Soul and its Clay Body, the handiwork of Prometheus, ' 

There sits Prometheus with a basket of clay beside him ; 
on his knees a little human figure standing, which he supports 
with his left hand; while his right hand, holding the model- 
ling stick, is drawn back, its work finished. On the head 
of the little human figure Athena lightly sets a butterfly. 
Behind and above, Clotho spins the thread of life, and 
Lachesis draws the horoscope on a globe of the Heavens, It 
is morning, for Helios with his chariot and horses is rising 
on the left hand. Beneath him is seated Gaia with her horn 
of plenty; near him lies Oceanus with his rudder in his hand; 
while the Wind-God blows through his shell; and, half hidden 
among these elemental powers, Eros kisses Psyche. 

Now let us turn from the Morning and Day of the sculp- 
ured Myth, and look at its Evening and Night. On the right 
of the two central figures, Prometheus and Athena, close by 
Athena with her buttertly, stands Night, a tall draped woman, 
above whom is Selene in her car, with her veil making a 
erescent behind her in the wind as she rides. At the feet of 
Night lies a Youth, dead, with his butterfly-soul fluttering 
near. Death, with down-turned torch, is bending over the 
corpse, and Fate sits at its head unrolling a scroll on her 
knee; while the Soul of the Youth——now a little-winged 
human form,—led by Hermes, is already on its westward way 
to Hades. 

This is the front of the sarcophagus; and the two ends 
include the mystery of the front in a larger mystery. On the 
one end is Hephaestus at his forge, and the fire is burning 
which Prometheus stole. On the other end the sin is 
punished—Prometheus lies bound upon Caucasus, and the 
vulture sits over him; but Heracles, with his bow bent, is 
coming to deliver him. 

1 The version of the Myth presupposed by the Capitoline artist is plainly 
Neo-Platonic. In the Myth as Plato has it in the Protagoras, Prometheus does 
not make Man. On the Capitoline sarcophagus (No. 446 [13], described by 
Helbig, Fiihrer durch die offentl. Sammlungen klass. Alterth. in Rom., vol. 1. 
p. 341; and ef. Mitchell, History of Anc. Sculpture, p. 693), he does ; just as, in 


Plotinus, Znn. iv. 3. 13 (quoted p. 238 infra), he—not, as in Hesiod, 0. e¢ D. 
49 ff., Hephaestus—makes Pandora. 


230 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Vv 
(Eacursus on Allegory) 


The story of Prometheus, whether as told in the Prota- 
goras, or as represented on the Capitoline sarcophagus, is, 1 
am prepared to maintain, a genuine Myth—sets forth a 
mystery which the scientific understanding cannot fathom. 
At the same time, it is a Myth which evidently lends itself 
more easily than those which we have hitherto examined to 
allegorical interpretation, and, indeed, in Neo-Platonic hands 
became the subject of very beautiful allegorical interpretation. 
It would seem, then, that at the Protagoras Myth we have 
reached the stage in our review of the Platonic Myths at 
which some connected remarks may be offered on a point 
which has been already alluded to—the Difference between 
Myth and Allegory; and along with Allegory we may con- 
sider Parable. 

I remarked a little while ago that a composition which, 
as a whole, isa Myth, and not an Allegory, is often found to 
be built up of parts, some of which are Allegories. The 
Phaedrus Myth and the Divina Commedia are compositions of 
this build. This partly explains the circumstance that even 
the noblest Myths have so often fallen an easy prey to alle- 
gorical interpretation. Because the parts are plainly Alle- 
gories, it is supposed that the whole is an Allegory. And 
there are no limits to allegorical interpretation. Any Myth 
—nay, any true account of historical events or of natural 
phenomena—can be interpreted as an Allegory, setting forth 
any dogma, religious, philosophical, or scientific. 

The importance of the part played by the allegorical 
interpretation of Homer in the Greek philosophical schools, of 
the Old Testament History among the Alexandrine Jews and 
Christian Fathers, and of the Platonic Myths among the Neo- 
Platonists,' cannot easily be over-estimated by the historian of 

| ««The Myths were accepted by common consent as the text for the deepest 
"κων aaa of the later Platonic schools, and so have contributed, through 
them, more largely than any other part of Plato’s writings to the sum of 


common thoughts.”—Westcott’s Lssays in the History of Religious Thought in 
the West (‘The Myths of Plato”), p. 46. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 251 


philosophical and religious thought. As early as the time of 
Xenophanes! it was felt that the tendency of the popular 
mythology was immoral. “ Homer and Hesiod,” he says,“ have 
ascribed to the Gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace 
among men—thefts and adulteries,and deception of one another.” 
With this verdict Plato is in entire agreement (Rep. 378 D) ; 
but not with the method of allegorical interpretation (see 
Phaedrus, 229), which attempted to save both Homer and 
morality.” Plato, objecting to the allegorical interpretation 
of Myth on literary and philosophical grounds, as well as on 
the practical ground alleged in Rep. 578 p—that children 
cannot distinguish between allegorical and literal meaning,— 
banishes Homer from the educational curriculum, and in lieu 
of his stories, since children must begin with stories, sub- 
stitutes newly invented stories—moral tales, we may suppose, 
for he gives no specimens—in which Gods and human beings 
behave in a manner which can, and ought to, be imitated, 
just as the good people behave in some modern story-books for 
the young. 

But in his objection to the allegorisation of Homer Plato 
stands almost alone. The line generally taken by the Greeks 
after, as well as before, Plato’s time was that Homer is an 
inspired teacher, and must not be banished from the curri- 
culum. If we get beneath the literal meaning, we find him 
teaching the highest truth. The allegorical interpretation of 
Homer began doubtless in the spirit of apology for revered — 
scriptures found to conflict with modern notions; but it soon 
became an instrument of historical research and metaphysical 
speculation.* Few were content to confine themselves with 
Plutarch to the plain ethical lessons to be drawn from Homer 
and the poets as picturing human life and nature—to read, 
for example, the story of The Intrigue of Aphrodite and Ares, 
if not simply for the story, at any rate for nothing more 

1 He was alive in 479 B.c.; see Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 
ar On the allegorisation of Homer, beginning with Theagenes, see Lobeck, 
Aglaoph. pp. 155 ff.; the feeling which prompted it is expressed in the 
aphorism, Ὅμηρος yap ἠσέβησεν, εἰ μὴ ἠλληγόρησεν. 

3 —and perhaps also of literary embellishment. ‘‘Ion’s allusion to his embel- 
lishments of Homer, in which he declares himself to have surpassed Metrodorus 
of Lampsacus and Stesimbrotus of Thasos, seems to show that, like them, he 


belonged to the allegorical school of interpreters” (Jowett’s Introduction to 
the Jon). 


232 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


abstruse than the lesson that luxury leads to such intrigue.’ 
Such simple teaching did not satisfy either the historians or 
the philosophers. 


The Centaurs (Palaephatus tells us) were a body of young 
men from the village of Nephelé in Thessaly, who first trained 
and mounted horses for the purpose of repelling a herd of bulls 
belonging to Ixién, King of the Lapithae, which had run wild 
and done great damage ; they pursued these wild bulls on horse- 
back, and pierced them with their spears, thus acquiring both 
the name of Prickers (xévropes) and the imputed attribute of joint 
body with the horse. Aktaeédn was an Arcadian, who neglected 
the cultivation of his land for the pleasures of hunting, and was 
thus eaten up by the expense of his hounds. The dragon whom 
Kadmus killed at Thébes was in reality Drako, King of Thébes ; 
and the dragon’s teeth which he was said to have sown, and from 
whence sprung a crop of armed men, were in point of fact 
elephants’ teeth, which Kadmus as a rich Phoenician had brought 
over with him: the sons of Drako sold these elephants’ teeth and 
employed the proceeds to levy troops against Kadmus. Daedalus, 
instead of flying across the sea on wings, had escaped from Kréte 
in a swift sailing-boat under a violent storm; Kottus, Briareus, 
and Gygés were not persons with one hundred hands, but inhabit- 
ants of the village of Hekatoncheiria in Upper Macedonia, who 
warred with the inhabitants of Mount Olympus against the 
Titans ; Scylla, whom Odysseus so narrowly escaped, was a fast- 
sailing piratical vessel, as was also Pegasus, the alleged winged 
horse of Bellerophon.° 

1 Plutarch, de Audiendis Poetis, c. 4. The de Aud. Poet. is worth careful 
study in connection with the allegorisation of Homer, against which it is a 
protest. On the one hand, Poetry is to be read for the entertainment which 
may be derived from a ‘‘ good story” simply as a ‘‘ good story” ; thus Homer 


bids Odysseus look carefully at the things in Hades, in order that he may go 
and tell his wife about them— 


ἀλλὰ φόωσδε τάχιστα λιλαίεο, ταῦτα δὲ πάντα 
ἴσθ᾽, ἵνα καὶ μετόπισθε τεῇ εἴπησθα γυναικί. 


καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο χαριέντως Ὅμηρος εἰς τὴν νεκυίαν εἶπεν, ὡς γυναικὸς ἀκρόασιν οὖσαν 
διὰ δὴ τὸ μυθῶδες (c. 2). On the other hand, Poetry is to be read for the lessons 
in morality and worldly wisdom which may be learnt from the characters and 
conduct of the personages portrayed ; but let not the young think that these 
personages are abstract types—all-good or all-bad ; the poets draw for us real 
men, mixed of good and bad qualities. Poetry is μίμησις ἠθῶν καὶ βίων καὶ 
ἀνθρώπων ob τελείων οὐδὲ καθαρῶν. . . ἀλλὰ μεμιγμένων πάθεσι καὶ δόξαις 
Wevddor, διὰ δὲ εὐφυΐαν αὐτοὺς πολλάκις μετατιθέντων πρὸς τὸ κρεῖττον (c. 8). 
These are the advantages to be derived from Poetry. We must partake of it 
with caution, however, for it is like the polypus—pleasant to eat, but often gives 
bad dreams (c. 1). 

It ought to be noted that, where Egyptian Myths are concerned, Plutarch 
does not eschew the method of aliagcriosl interceahiaiaal but see remarks on 
de Is. et Osir. § 78, in Prof. Dill’s Roman Society in the Last Century of the 
Western Empire, pp. 76, 77. 

2 Grote’s Hist, of Greece, part i. ch. 16, vol. i. pp. 342, 343, edit. 1862. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 233 


While those interested in history adopted this method of 
“natural explanation”! in dealing with Myths, the philo- 
sophers adopted the method to which it is best to confine the 
description “ allegorical interpretation.” Homer's whole story, 
and the proper names which occur in it, have a hidden 
religious, philosophical, scientific meaning which it is the 
work of the method to unfold, by discovering analogies and 
etymologies. So far as etymologies were concerned, this 
method probably owed something to the lead given by Plato 
himself in the Cratylus; but while Plato’s etymologies are 
put forward playfully, and as it were διὰ μυθολογίας, the 
etymologies of the Stoics and other allegorisers of Myth seem 
to be seriously offered as the meanings which Homer really 
had in his mind when he used the names. “ Magnam suscepit 
molestiam,” says Cicero,’ “ et minime necessariam Zeno primus, 
post Cleanthes, deinde Chrysippus, commenticiarum fabularum 
reddere rationem, et vocabulorum cur quidque ita appellatum 
sit causas explicare.” Two examples of the Stoic method will 
be sufficient, with a general reference to Zeller’s Stoves, 
Epicureans, and Sceptics, pp. 334 ff (Eng. Transl.). 

The One God, of Many Names, πολυώνυμος, is called 
Zeus ἀπὸ τοῦ ζῆν : as manifested in air, is called Hera, from 
ἀήρ: as manifested in water, is called Poseidon, from πόσις: as 
manifested in aether, is called Athena, from αἰθήρ: and so on.° 

“Tf Hephaestus,” says Heraclitus the Stoic, “intended the 
shield of Achilles to be a representation of this world, what 
else is thereby meant but that, by the influence of primary 
fire, matter has been shaped into a world?” * 


1 See Zeller’s Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, p. 335, n. 1, Engl. Transl. 

2 Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. 24, 63. 

3 Diog. Laert. vii. 147. 

4 See Zeller’s Stoics, etc., Ὁ. 340, Eng. Transl. ‘‘The Stoics,” says Dr. Bigg 
(The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, p. 146), ‘“‘assure us that the heathen 
deities are but symbols of the forces of nature, and turn the hideous myths 
of Zeus or Dionysus into a manual of physical science.” 

On the general subject of the allegorisation of Homer, both before and after 
Plato’s time, the reader may consult, in addition to Lobeck, referred to above, 
Mr. Adam’s note on Rep. 378 pb, 24, with authorities cited there; Zeller’s 
Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, pp. 334 ff., Eng. Transl. ; Jowett’s Dialogues of 
Plato, Introd. to Rep. p. xxxviii. ; and Grote’s History of Greece, part i. ch. 16, 
from which I extract the following passage (vol. i. p. 344, edit. 1862) :— 
“ΤῸ remains that we should notice the manner in which the ancient myths 
were received and dealt with by the philosophers. The earliest expression 
which we hear, on the part of philosophy, is the severe censure bestowed upon 
them on ethical grounds by Xenophanes of Kolophén, and seemingly by some 
others of his contemporaries. It was apparently in reply to such charges, which 


234 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


The Jews, Palestinian and Alexandrine, before and after 
Philo’s time,’ following the lead given by the Greek inter- 
preters of Homer, applied the allegorical method to the Old 
Testament scriptures. One may estimate the length to which 
allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament was carried by 
θεραπευταί ” and others before Philo’s time from the circum- 
stance that even Philo himself was alarmed. The allegorising 
of the Law, he thought, makes for laxity in the observance of 
it.» The wise man will both seek out the hidden meaning, 
and observe the letter of the Law. He will allegorise without 
breaking with old custom.* But where the allegorisation, not 
of the Law, but of the History of the Old Testament scrip- 
tures, is concerned, Philo proceeds without fear. At once an 
ardent Platonist and a Hebrew of the Hebrews, he assumed 
the substantial accuracy of the narrative of events given in 
the Old Testament from the creation of the world downwards 
throughout the whole history of his Race; and, at the same 
time, he believed that the history of his Race was not mere 
history—it was philosophy, or rather theology, as well as 


did not admit of being directly rebutted, that Theagenés of Rhegium (about 
520 8.6.) first started the idea of a double meaning in the Homeric and Hesiodic 
narratives—an interior sense, different from that which the words in their 
obvious meaning bore, yet to a certain extent analogous, and discoverable 
by sagacious divination. Upon this principle he allegorised especially the battle 
of the Gods in the Jziad. In the succeeding century, Anaxagoras and Metro- 
dérus carried out the allegorical explanation more comprehensively and 
systematically ; the former representing the mythical personages as mere 
mental conceptions invested with name and gender, and illustrative of ethical 
precepts,—the latter connecting them with physical principles and phaenomena. 
Metrodérus resolved not only the persons of Zeus, Héré, and Athéné, but also 
those of Agamemnon, Achilles, and Hectér, into various elemental combinations 
and physical agencies, and treated the adventures ascribed to them as natural 
facts concealed under the veil of allegory. Empedocles, Prodicus, Antisthenes, 
Parmenides, Heracleides of Pontus, and, in a later age, Chrysippus and the 
Stoic philosophers generally, followed more or less the same principle of treating 
the popular Gods as allegorical personages ; while the expositors of Homer (such 
as Stesimbrotus, Glaucén, and others, even down to the Alexandrine age), 
though none of them proceeded to the same extreme length as Metrodérus, 
employed allegory pres αν other media of explanation for the purpose of 
solving difficulties, or eluding reproaches against the poet.” 

Grote, in a footnote (p. 345, n. 1) to the foregoing passage, calls attention 
to the ethical turn given to the stories of Circe, the Sirens, and Scylla, by 
Xenophon, Mem. i. 3, 7, and ii. 6, 11-31. 

1 The allegorising Jewish school began two hundred years before Philo (fl. 
A.D. 39); see Gfrorer, Urchristenthum, 1. 83. 

2 See Conybeare’s Philo, de Vita Contemplativa, p. 293: the θεραπευταί (also 
called ἱκέται, cudtores dewm—ascetic Jewish congregations or guilds) allegorised 
the Pentateuch. This was necessary in order to make Gentile converts, who 
looked for Plato in Moses. 

3 See Conybeare’s Philo, de Vita Cont. pp. 300, 301. 

4 See Gfrorer, Urchristenthum, i. 104. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 235 


history, The events recorded were not only true in fact; 
they constituted also a continuous revelation of hidden meaning. 
He looked at the history of his Race both as a chronicle of 
actual events, and as a great miracle-play in which dogma 
was put on the stage of this visible world. This double 
point of view is very difficult to enter into; but we must 
enter into it, so far, at least, as to treat it very seriously, if 
we are to understand the “tendency” of certain currents of 
religious and philosophical thought which have prevailed since 
his day, even down to the present time. Here is a passage 
from his book de Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini,’ in which the 
allegorical interpretation of “sacred history” reminds us of 
the method by which not only “sacred history” but tradi- 
tional dogma is, in our own day, being rewritten as 


“ philosophy ” :— 


For Abraham, coming with great haste and alacrity, com- 
mands Virtue, Sarah, to hasten and ferment three measures of meal, 
and to make cakes under the ashes, when God, attended by two 
Supreme Powers (ἡνίκα ὁ Θεὸς δορυφορούμενος ὑπὸ δυεῖν τῶν ἀνωτάτω 
δυνάμεων), Dominion and Goodness, Himself one in the middle, 
produced three images in the visual soul (ὁρατικῃ yYvyy), each of 
which it is impossible to measure (for His Powers also are not to 
be circumscribed), but they measure all things. His Goodness is 
the measure of the good, His Dominion the measure of things sub- 
ject ; and the Ruler Himself the measure of every thing corporeal 
and incorporeal. . . . It is good for these three measures to be 
fermented, as it were, and commingled in the soul, that being 
persuaded of the existence of a supreme God, who surpasses His 
Powers, and is either seen without them, or appears with them, 
it may receive impressions of His might and beneficence, and 
be initiated in the most perfect mysteries (τῶν τελείων μύστις 


γενομένη). 


In the Old Testament history, then, Philo recognises at 
once a higher, or mystic, and a historical, or literal, sense— 
ἡ δι’ ὑπονοίας ἀπόδοσις ---ἡ ἀλληγορία, and ἡ ῥητὴ 
διήγησις." The personages in the book of Genesis are at once 
historical, and τρόποι ψυχῆς. Adam is ἄνθρωπος γηγενής ; 
the fact of his existence is historical, but the details of his 
history are mythical, and must be interpreted allegorically : 


1 De Sacrif. Ab. et Caini, (15), 59, ed. Cohn, p. 173, Mangey. 
2 Gfrorer, o.c. i. 84. 


236 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


thus his rib is ~vOHdes—nobody can take it literally... Noah 
is justice, Enoch hope, Moses λόγος προφήτης. Similarly, 
Egypt is the body, Canaan piety.” Again—and here Philo’s 
Platonism prevails—it was not God, but the λόγος, who 
appeared in the burning bush.’ Spiritual men are satisfied, 
he says, with the truth that God exists; but the πολλοί need 
an anthropomorphic God. Moses gives God feet and hands, 
on account of the weak understanding of his readers. This 
is as it ought to be. Moses is like the physician who must 
keep his patient in ignorance of the truth. But for the 
educated reader such representations of God are dangerous. 
They lead to Atheism, and the only true method of dealing 
with them is that of Allegory.* The allegorical wisdom, 
the possession of the few wise, is compared by Philo to the 
Hellenic Mysteries: ταῦτα ὦ μύσται κεκαθαρμένοι τὰ ὦτα, 
ὡς ἱερὰ ὄντως μυστήρια παραδέχεσθε." Here, of course, 
Philo borrows directly from Plato,° who often compares 
Philosophy, especially when Myth is its vehicle, to initiation, 
as in Sympos. 2098, 210, and in Phaedrus, 249 c, 2508.’ 
But it is only a phrase that Philo borrows from Plato. 
What a Myth is Philo does not understand. A Myth is 
indeed a mystery and remains a mystery. Philo and his 
following are only concerned to make it something under- 
stood. 

For the employment of the method of allegorical interpre- 
tation by the Christian Fathers I cannot do better than 
refer the reader generally to Dr. Bigg’s Christian Platonists of 
Alexandria, especially to Lecture iv., and to Hatch’s Hibbert 
Lectures, 1888, Lecture iii., on Greek and Christian Exegesis. 
To these references I would add a quotation from Professor 
G. Adam Smith’s Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the 
Old Testament, pp. 226-228 :— 


The early fathers were interested in the Old Testament 
mainly for its types and predictions of Christ. The allegorical 
became the orthodox exegesis, and was at last reduced to a theory 


' Gfrorer, o.c. i. 98, 99. 2 Gfrorer, o.c. i. 88. 

3. Gfrorer, 0.c. 1. 87. 4 Gfrorer, ο.6. 1. 97. 

5 Philo, de cherubim, Mang. i. 147 ; Gfrorer, Urchristenthwm, i. 100. 

® As he does also at the end of the passage quoted above from the de Sacrif. 
Ab. et Cain. 

7 See Couturat, de Platonis Mythis, p. 55. 


ΤῊΝ PROTAGORAS MYTH 937 


by Origen, and elaborated into a system by the school which he 
founded. . . . When the heretics began to outdo the orthodox in 
allegorical exposition, the latter awoke to the dangers of the habit 
they had fostered, and loudly proclaimed the need of sobriety and 
reason in the pursuit of it. But the historical sense of the age 
was small, and till the close of the 4th century no exegete suc- 
ceeded in finding his feet on a sound historical basis. [Theodore 
of Mopsuestia (350-429) was the father of historical exegesis. | 
To Theodore the types and prophecies of the Old Testament had, 
besides their references to the future, a prior value in themselves 
and for the age in which they were delivered.' 


It is perhaps worth reminding the reader that the Christian 
Fathers had high authority for their allegorical interpretation 
of the Holy Scriptures. St. Paul (@al. iv. 22-26) had author- 
ised such interpretation :— 


It is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond- 
maid, the other by afreewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman 
was born after the flesh ; but he of the freewoman was by promise. 
Which things are an allegory (ἅτινά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα) : for 
these are the two covenants ; the one from the Mount Sinai, which 
gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount 
Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is 
in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is 
free, which is the mother of us all.” 


In the Philosophy of Plotinus and the Neo-Platonic 
School the allegorical interpretation of Myths—especially 
of those which describe and account for the Fall and 
Ascension of Souls after the manner of the Phaedrus Myth 
and the Discourse of Diotima—holds a position the import- 
ance of which it would be difficult for the student of the 
development of religious thought to exaggerate. No more 
can be attempted here than to give a general idea of the 


1 Chrysostom, in his ἑρμηνεία of Isaiah (vol. vi. p. 17, ed. Montfaucon), 
took the same line :—éyw δέ, he says, οὔτε ταύτην ἀτιμάζω τὴν ἐξήγησιν (the alle- 
gorical), καὶ τὴν ἑτέραν (the historical) ἀληθινεστέραν εἶναί φημι. Commenting 
on the new line of exegesis taken by Theodore and Chrysostom, Professor G. 
Adam Smith brings out its significance in one admirable sentence (p. 231) : 
** Recognise that the fundamental meaning of the prophecies must be that which 
they bore to the living generation to whom they were first addressed, and you 
are at once inspired by their message to the men of your own time.” 

2 Similarly in 1 Peter iii. Noah’s ark, wherein ‘‘eight souls were saved by 
water,” is allegorically interpreted as Baptism. In the Old Testament, Hosea 
(xii. 1-5) allegorises, according to the writer of art. ‘‘ Allegorical Interpretation ” 
in the Jewish Encycl. 


238 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Neo-Platonic method of dealing with these Myths; and 
perhaps the following specimens may be sufficient for this 
purpose. 

Plotinus (πη. iv. 3. 13), adhering to the Orphiec doctrine 
which Plato sets forth in the Phaedrus Myth, speaks of the 
Descent of Souls into the bodies prepared for them as taking 
place, for each Soul, at an appointed time :—xal ἄλλος ἄλλῃ 
χρόνος, οὗ παραγενομένου οἷον κήρυκος καλοῦντος κατίασι 
καὶ εἰσέδυ εἰς τὸ πρόσφορον σῶμα. Their descent, he says, 
is fated or determined by universal law; and yet it is free, 
for, in embodying themselves, Souls obey a universal law 
which is realised im themselves. They are free, as νοῦς, 
Intelligence, is free, for they obey the necessity which is that 
of their own nature:—xal ὁ μὲν πρὸ κόσμου νοῦς εἷμαρ- 
μένην ἔχει τὴν τοῦ μένειν ἐκεῖ ὁπόσον καὶ πέμπειν, καὶ 
τὸ καθέκαστον τῷ καθόλου ὑποπῖπτον νόμῳ πέμπεται" 
ἔγκειται γὰρ ἑκάστῳ τὸ καθόλου καὶ ὁ νόμος οὐκ ἔξωθεν 
τὴν ἰσχὺν εἰς τὸ τελεσθῆναι ἴσχει, ἀλλὰ δέδοται ἐν αὐτοῖς 
χρησομένοις εἶναι καὶ περιφέρουσιν αὐτόν. 


‘This Cosmos, then,” he continues, “having many Lights, and 
being illumined by Souls, receiveth beauty added unto beauty 
from the great Gods and from the Intelligences which bestow 
Souls. And this, methinks, is the meaning of that Myth which 
telleth how that, when Prometheus—that is Forethought—had 
fashioned a woman,! the other gods did thereafter adorn her: one 
gave unto this creature of earth and water human speech, and 
beauty as of a goddess; and Aphrodite gave unto her one gift, 
and the Graces another, and all the other gods added their several 
gifts ; and she was called Pandora, because that all gave unto her 
who was fashioned by the Forethought of Prometheus. But 
whereas Epimetheus, who is Afterthought, rejected this gift of 
Prometheus, the Myth thereby signifieth that the choice of that 
which partaketh more of the nature of the Intelligible is the better 
choice. Yea, the Maker is himself bound, for he hath contact of 
some sort with that which hath proceeded from him, and is there- 
fore constrained by bonds which are without. But whereas 
Heracles releaseth him from his bonds, the Myth signifieth that 
he hath in him a Power whereby he is yet able to attain unto 
deliverance from these bonds,” ” 


1 In Hesiod, 0. et D. 49 ff. Hephaestus, not Prometheus, makes Pandora ; 
and Prometheus warns his brother not to accept her, but he pays no heed to the 
warning, 

2 Plot. nn. iv. 3. 14; and see A. Ritter, die Psychologie des Plotin (1867), 
p. 42. Pandora is the World endowed by the Soul with ideal gifts. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 239 


Another Myth from which the Neo-Platonists drew largely 
was that of Narcissus! Their interpretation of this Myth 
hinges on the identification of the “ Mirror of Dionysus” with 
the “ Bowl of Dionysus.”* The Soul remains at peace in its 
heavenly home, till it sees its own image in the water of this 
mirror. It plunges into the water to embrace the image, and 
drinks forgetfulness of its heavenly estate :—iédovra γάρ, says 
Plotinus (nn. i. 6. 8), δεῖ τὰ ἐν σώμασι καλὰ μήτοι προσ- 
τρέχειν, ἀλλὰ γνόντα, ὥς εἰσιν εἰκόνες καὶ ἴχνη καὶ σκιαΐ, 
φεύγειν πρὸς ἐκεῖνο οὗ ταῦτα εἰκόνες. εἰ γάρ τις ἐπιδράμοι 
λαβεῖν βουλόμενος ὡς ἀληθινόν, οἷα εἰδώλου καλοῦ ἐφ᾽ 
ὕδατος ὀχουμένου, οὗ λαβεῖν βουληθείς, ὥς πού τις 
μῦθος, δοκῶ μοι, αἰνίττεται, δὺς εἰς τὸ κάτω τοῦ ῥεύματος 
ἀφανὴς ἐγένετο, τὸν αὐτὸν δὴ τρόπον ὁ ἐχόμενος τῶν καλῶν 
σωμάτων καὶ μὴ ἀφιείς, οὐ τῷ σώματι, τῇ δὲ ψυχῇ κατα- 
δύσεται εἰς σκοτεινὰ καὶ ἀτερπῆ τῷ VO βάθη, ἔνθα τυφλὸς 
ἐν ἅδου μένων καὶ ἐνταῦθα κἀκεῖ σκιαῖς σύνεσται. φεύ- 
γωμεν δὴ φίλην ἐς πατρίδα, ἀληθέστερον ἄν τις παρα- 
κελεύοιτος τίς οὖν ἡ φυγή; κιτιλ.: and again, in Lnn. iv. 
3. 12, he says—av@pwrav δὲ ψυχαὶ εἴδωλα αὑτῶν ἰδοῦσαι 
οἷον Διονύσου ἐν κατόπτρῳ ἐκεῖ ἐγένοντο ἄνωθεν ὁρμηθεῖσαι 
οὐκ ἀποτμηθεῖσαι οὐδ᾽ αὗται τῆς ἑαυτῶν ἀρχῆς τε καὶ νοῦ. 
οὐ γὰρ μετὰ νοῦ ἦλθον, ἀλλ᾽ ἔφθασαν μὲν μέχρι γῆς, 
κάρα δὲ αὐταῖς ἐστήρικται ὑπεράνω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. πλέον 
δὲ αὐταῖς κατελθεῖν συμβέβηκεν, ὅτι τὸ μέσον αὐταῖς ἡἠν- 
αγκάσθη φροντίδος δεομένου τοῦ εἰς ὃ ἔφθασαν φροντίσαι. 
Ζεὺς δὲ πατὴρ ἐλεήσας πονουμένας θνητὰ αὐτῶν τὰ δεσμὰ 
ποιῶν περὶ ἃ πονοῦνται δίδωσιν ἀναπαύλας ἐν χρόνοις 
ποιῶν σωμάτων ἐλευθέρας, iv ἔχοιεν ἐκεῖ καὶ αὗται 
γίνεσθαι, οὗπερ ἡ τοῦ παντὸς ψυχὴ ἀεὶ οὐδὲν τὰ τῇδε 
ἐπιστρεφομένη." Souls, then, descending, at their appointed 





1 See Ovid, Met. iii., and Pausanias, ix. 31, for this Myth. 

2 See Macrobius, in Somn. i. 12. 66: ‘‘ Hoc est quod Plato notavit in Phaedone 
animum in corpus trahi nova ebrietate trepidantem, volens novum potum materialis 
alluvionis intelligi, quo gravata deducitur. Arcani hujus indicium est Liberi 
Patris crater ille sidereus, et hoc est, quod veteres Lethaeum fluvium vocaverunt, 
ipsum autem Liberum Patrem Orphaici νοῦν ὑλικόν suspicantur intelligi.” Lobeck, 
who quotes this passage from Macrobius (Aglaoph. p. 736), criticises it as departing 
from the original conception of the κρατήρ, which is that of the bowl in which Plato’s 
Demiurgus mixes the ingredients, first of the World-Soul, and then of human souls. 

3 See Lobeck (Aglaoph. p. 555, for the place of the κάτοπτρον in the Zagreus 
Myth ; and Rohde (Psyche, ii. 117) for Zagreus as a type, along with Narcissus, 
of the passage of the Unity of the World-Principle into the multiplicity of 
sensible phenomena. 


240 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


times, come to the water which is the κάτοπτρον Διονύσου, 
and enamoured of their own images reflected therein—that 
is, of their mortal bodies—plunge into the water. This 
water is the water of oblivion, of λήθη, and they that drink 
of it go down into the σπήλαιον---- 8. cave of this world.’ 
The wise soul drinks moderately; for to drink deeply is to 
lose all ἀνάμνησις of the intelligible world. The wise soul is 
thus the “dry” soul—£np7 ψυχή, as the phrase of Heraclitus? 
seems to be understood by the Neo-Platonists who quote it.° 
The dry soul hearkens, in this life, to the genius who accom- 
panies her in her κάθοδος : but, over all the genii of particular 
souls, Eros rules as swmmus genius. Creuzer* mentions a 
picture in which Narcissus is represented as gazing at his 
own image in the water, and the Heavenly Eros as standing 
with a sad countenance behind him. “ Narcissus adolescens,” 
says Ficino,’ “id est, temerarii et imperiti hominis animus, sui 
vultum non aspicit; propriam sui substantiam et virtutem 
nequaquam animadvertit; sed ejus umbram in aqua pro- 
sequitur et amplecti conatur: id est, pulchritudinem in fragili 
corpore, et instar aquae fluentis, quae ipsius animi umbra est, 
admiratur.” 

The moral of the Narcissus Myth is: Free thyself by 
“ecstasy” from the life of flux and sensible appearances— 
escape from the Stream of Pleasure and the Flesh—) ῥευστὴ 
τοῦ ἐνύλου σώματος φύσις °—the Stream of Generation, which 
is the “ Mirror of Dionysus.” ἢ 

With the Myth of Narcissus thus allegorised, the Neo- 
Platonists brought the story of Odysseus into very close 
relation. Thus the passage quoted above from “nn. i. 6. 8, in 
which the immersion of the Soul in the Stream of Sense is 
described, is immediately followed by a passage in which the 
deliverance from that stream is compared to the flight of 


1 ψυχῇ καὶ δεσμὸς τὸ σῶμα Kal τάφος καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτῇ σπήλαιον καὶ ἄντρον, 
Plot. Znn. iv. 8. 3; and ef. iv. 8. 1, where the doctrine of the Fall or Incarna- 
tion of Souls, as set forth by Plato in the Phaedrus and Timaeus and by Em- 
pedocles, is reviewed. 

2 See Bywater’s Heracliti Eph. Reliquiae, \xxiv. lxxy. 

3 See Creuzer, Plotinus de Pulch. Ὁ. xxxvi. 

4 Plot. de Pulch. p. xiii. 

5 Ficinus, in Plat. Sympos. cap. 17, quoted by Creuzer, Plot. de Pulch. 

». Lxviii. 
oi See Creuzer, Plot. de Pulch. pp. ἵν]. lvii. 

7 I take it that the κάτοπτρον Διονύσου of the Neo-Platonists is due to ἃ 

‘conflation’ of the Narcissus Myth and the Zagreus-Dionysus Myth. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 241 


Odysseus from the enchantments of Circe and Calypso :— 
tis οὖν ἡ φυγή; καὶ πῶς dvakipeOa; οἷον ἀπὸ μάγου 
Κίρκης φησὶν ἢ Καλυψοῦς Ὀδυσσεὺς αἰνιττόμενος, δοκεῖ 
μοι, μεῖναι οὐκ ἀρεσθείς, καίτοι ἔχων ἡδονὰς δι’ ὀμμάτων 
καὶ κάλλει πολλῴ αἰσθητῴ συνών. πατρὶς δὴ ἡμῖν, ὅθεν 
παρήλθομεν, καὶ πατὴρ ἐκεῖ. τίς οὖν ὁ στόλος καὶ ἡ 
φυγή; οὐ ποσὶ δεῖ διανύσαι: πανταχοῦ γὰρ φέρουσι 
πόδες ἐπὶ γῆν ἄλλην ἀπ᾽ ἄλλης: οὐδέ σε δεῖ ἵππων 
ὄχημα ἤ τι θαλάττιον παρασκευάσαι, ἀλλὰ ταῦτα πάντα 
ἀφεῖναι δεῖ καὶ μὴ βλέπειν, ἀλλ᾽ οἷον μύσαντα ὄψιν ἄλλην 
ἀλλάξασθαι καὶ ἀνεγεῖραι, ἣν ἔχει μὲν πᾶς, χρῶνται δὲ 
ὀλίγοι. 

Similarly, Numenius (quoted by Porphyry, de Ant. Nymph. 
cap. 84) 1 makes Odysseus the image of νοῦς gradually, through 
various incarnations, freeing itself from the flesh—elxdva τοῦ 
διὰ τῆς ἐφεξῆς γενέσεως ἐρχομένου, καὶ οὕτως ἀποκαθ- 
ἱσταμένου εἰς τοὺς ἔξω παντὸς κλύδωνος καὶ θαλάσσης 
ἀπείρους. 

Again, a Pythagorean quoted by Stobaeus, He. Phys. i. 52, 
p. 1044, says,"Opunpos δὲ τὴν ἐν κύκλῳ περίοδον Kal περιφορὰν 
παλιγγενεσίας Κίρκην προσηγόρευκεν, Ἡλίου παῖδα: and 
Eustathius, on Od. i. 51, says, ὅτε τὴν Καλυψώ, εἰ μὲν 
βασίλισσα καὶ ἣν οἱ γεωγραφοῦντες παραδιδόασι, μικρὰ 
περιεργάζονται οἱ παλαιοί. μεταπλάττονται δὲ αὐτὴν τῇ 
ἀλληγορίᾳ εἰς τὸ καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς σῶμα, ὡς συγκαλύπτουσαν 
ἐντὸς δίκην ἐλύτρου τὸν ψυχικὸν μάργαρον: ἥτις καὶ αὐτὴ 
κατεῖχε τὸν φιλόσοφον ᾽Οδυσσέα, ὡς ἄνθρωπον ἐνδεδεμένον 
σαρκί. καὶ μυθικῶς εἰπεῖν, ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ νήσῳ ὄντα 
δενδρηέσση, ἥτις ὄμφαλός ἐστι θαλάσσης, τουτέστιν ἐν 
ὑγρῷ σώματι ὄντι, καὶ ὡς ἂν ὁ Ἰ]λάτων εἴπῃ, ἐπιρρύτῳ 
καὶ ἀπορρύτῳ (Timaeus, 43 A). . . . ᾿Ἑρμοῦ μέντοι, ὡς 
ἐν τοῖς μετὰ ταῦτα αἰνίξεται ὁ ποιητής, μεσιτεύοντος, 6 
ἐστε λόγου, γέγονε τῆς κατὰ τὴν φιλοσοφίαν ποθουμένης 
πατρίδος, ἤγουν τοῦ νοητοῦ κόσμου, ὅς ἐστι κατὰ τοὺς 
Πλατωνικοὺς ψυχῶν πατρὶς ἀληθής" ὁμοίως γέγονε καὶ τῆς 
Πηνελόπης, φιλοσοφίας, λυθεὶς καὶ ἀπαλλαγεὶς τῆς τοιαύτης 
Καλυψοῦς. With words to the same effect Apuleius closes 
his treatise de Deo Socratis :—“Nec aliud te in eodem Ulixe 
Homerus docet, qui semper ei comitem voluit esse prudentiam: 


1 See Creuzer, Plot. de Pulch. p. 1xxii. 
R 


242 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


quam poetico ritu Minervam nuncupavit. IRgitur, hac eadem 
comitante, omnia horrenda subiit, omnia adversa superavit. 
Quippe, ea adjutrice, Cyclopis specus introivit, sed egressus 
est: Solis boves vidit, sed abstinuit: ad Inferos demeavit, sed 
adscendit. Eadem sapientia comitante, Scyllam praeter 
navigavit, nec ereptus est: Charybdi conseptus est, nec 
retentus est: Circae poculum bibit, nec mutatus est: ad Loto- 
phagos accessit, nec remansit: Sirenas audiit, nec accessit.” Β 

Beautiful as the Neo-Platonic allegorisation often is, I 
venture to think that the less we associate it with our reading 
of Plato’s Myths the better. The Neo-Platonists did not 
understand the difference between Myth and Allegory. Alle- 
gory is Dogma in picture-writing; but Myth is not Dogma, 
and does not convey Dogma. Dogma is gained and main- 
tained by Dialectic, which, as Stallbaum says (note on Sep. 
614 8), “cannot be applied to the elucidation of the subjects 
with which Myth deals, any more than it can, at the other 
end of the series, be applied to the elucidation of the particulars 
of sense, as such.” 

For light in understanding Plato’s Myths, it is to the 
independent creations of other great μυθοποιοί, such as Dante, 
that we must go, not to the allegorical interpretations of the 
Neo-Platonists and their like.” 

What Plato himself thinks of allegorical interpretation 
we know from a passage near the beginning of the Phaedrus 
(229):—-In reply to the question of Phaedrus, whether he 
thinks that the story about Orithyia being snatched away by 
Boreas from the height overlooking the Ilissus is a true story, 
Socrates says, that if he took the learned line, he might 
answer, “ Yes, it may be true that once upon a time a girl 
called Orithyia was blown by the wind over the cliff and 
killed.” But such rationalism, imposing and ponderous, is 
surely not very happy as a method, for if you begin to employ 
it, where are you to stop? You will have to rationalise all 
the stories in Greek mythology, expending a great deal of 
matter-of-fact cleverness on an interminable task, and leaving 


1 Bacon’s allegorical interpretation of three myths—that of Pan, that of 
Perseus, and that of Dionysus—in his de Augmentis Scientiarwm, ii. cap. 18, is 
worth comparing with the Neo-Platonic examples given above, 

2 For Zeller’s ss of the Neo-Platonic interpretation of Diotima’s Myth 
in the Sympos. see his Plato, p. 194, n. 66 (Engl. Transl. ). 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 245 


no time for anything worth doing. As for himself, he declares 
that, not yet having satisfied the Delphie injunction, “ Know 
thyself,” he should be acting ridiculously if he spent his 
precious time over the interpretation of these stories: he is 
willing to receive them as they are told, and believe them 
just as other people believe them.! 

Dr. Westcott, in his charming and suggestive essay on 
“The Myths of Plato” (the first of his Zssays in the History of 
Religious Thought in the West), to which every student of the 
subject must feel himself under great obligation, contrasts 
Myth and Allegory in the following words :— 


In the allegory the thought is grasped first and by itself, and 
is then arranged in a particular dress. In the myth, thought and 
form come into being together: the thought is the vital principle 
which shapes the form; the form is the sensible image which 
displays the thought. The allegory is the conscious work of an 
individual fashioning the image of a truth which he has seized. 
The myth is the unconscious growth of a common mind, which 
witnesses to the fundamental laws by which its development is 
ruled. The meaning of an allegory is prior to the construction 
of the story: the meaning of a myth is first capable of being 
separated from the expression in an age long after that in which 
it had its origin. 


It will be understood that I do not agree with the sugges- 
tion contained in the last sentence. I do not recognise the 
competence of interpretation to separate the “ meaning” from 


1 Grote, Hist. of Greece, part i. ch. xvi. vol. i. pp. 362 ff. (ed. 1862), has re- 
marks of exceptional value on this passage, and generally on Plato’s attitude to the 
old mythology. ‘‘ Plato,” he says, ‘‘discountenances all attempts to transform 
the myths by interpretation into history or philosophy, indirectly recognising 
the generic difference between them. . . . He shares the current faith, without 
any suspicion or criticism, as to Orpheus, Palamedes, Daedalus, Amphion, 
Theseus, Achilles, Chiron, and other mythical personages; but what chiefly 
fills his mind is the inherited sentiment of deep reverence for these superhuman 
characters and for the age to which they belonged. . . . The more we examine 
this sentiment, both in the mind of Plato, as well as in that of the Greeks 
generally, the more shall we be convinced that it formed essentially and insepar- 
ably a portion of Hellenic religious faith. The myth both presupposes, and 
springs out of, a settled basis and a strong expansive force of religious, social, 
and patriotic feeling, operating upon a past which is little better than a blank as 
to positive knowledge. It resembles history, in so far as its form is narrative ; 
it resembles philosophy, in so far as it is occasionally illustrative ; but in its 
essence and substance, in the mental tendencies by which it is created, as well as 
in those by which it is judged and upheld, it is the popularised expression of the 
divine and heroic faith of the people.” See further, vol. i. pp. 370 ff., for a 
summary of Grote’s whole discussion of Greek Myths in part i. of his His¢. 
of Greece. Iam acquainted with no discussion of them which appears to me so 
informing and suggestive as Grote’s. 


344 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


the “expression” of a Myth. I hold that Myth has no 
dogmatic meaning behind its literal sense. Its “ meaning” 
is, first, its literal sense—the story which is told; and then, 
beyond this, the feeling which it calls up and regulates. The 
further one is removed from the age in which a Myth had its 
origin, the more difficult it must be to recover its “meaning ” 
of this second sort—that is, the feeling which it called up and 
regulated in its maker and his immediate audience. Our task 
is not the facile one of reading our own doctrines into a Myth 
which has come down to us, but the vastly difficult one of 
entering sympathetically into the life of a prophet in a bygone 
world, 

While the conversion of old narratives, mythical or 
historical, into Allegories has most often been the congenial 
work of prosaic persons, ἀγροίκῳ τινὶ σοφίᾳ χρώμενοι, it has 
sometimes been taken up by the great poets themselves with 
happy effect. Let me conclude this part of the subject with 
one instance of this—Dante’s beautiful allegorisation of the 
story of the three Marys at the Sepulchre :— 


Mark saith that Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of 
James, and Mary Salome went to find the Saviour at the 
Sepulchre and found Him not, but found a young man clothed 
in a white garment, who said unto them: “Ye seek the Saviour ; 
I say unto you that He is not here; but be not affrighted; go 
and tell His disciples and Peter, that He will go before them into 
Galilee ; and there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you.” 

By these three women are signified the three sects of the 
active life, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Peripatetics, which 
go unto the Sepulchre, to wit, this present World, which is the 
receptacle of corruptible things, and seek for the Saviour, to wit, 
beatitude, and find it not ; but they find a young man clothed in 
a white garment, who, according to the testimony of Matthew and 
also of the others, was the Angel of God; thus, Matthew saith, 
“The Angel of God descended from heaven, and came and rolled 
back the stone and sat upon it, and his countenance was like 
lightning, and his raiment like snow.” 

This Angel is the Nobility of our Human Nature which 
cometh, as it is said, from God, and speaketh in our Reason, and 
saith unto each of these sects—that is, unto every man who seeketh 
beatitude in the active life—“It is not here; but go and tell the 
disciples and Peter ”—that is, those who go about seeking it, and 
those who have erred from the right way, like Peter who had 
denied Him—‘ that He will go before them into Galilee ”—that 


ΤῊΝ PROTAGORAS MYTH 245 


is, that beatitude will go before them into Galilee—that is, into 
the life of Contemplation. Galilee signifieth whiteness; and as 
whiteness is more full of corporeal light than any other colour, 
so is Contemplation more full of spiritual light than any other 
thing here below. And he saith, “will go before”: he saith not, 
“shall be with you”; thus giving us to understand that God 
alway goeth before our Contemplation ; here can we never over- 
take Him who is our highest beatitude. And he saith, “ There 
shall ye see Him, as He said” —that is, there ye shall have of His 
joy, to wit, felicity, as it is promised unto you here—that is, as it 
is surely ordained that ye may possess it. 

Thus it appeareth that we can find our beatitude (which is 
this felicity of which we speak), first imperfect in the active life, 
that is, in the conduct of the moral virtues, and then perfect— 
after a certain fashion—in the conduct of the intellectual virtues.’ 


Hitherto we have considered the allegorical interpretation 
of narratives, mythical or historical, which the interpreters 
found ready to hand. Let us now pass to narratives 
deliberately constructed for the illustration of doctrine or 
the inculeation of moral conduct. When doctrine is illus- 
trated with more or less detail, such narratives are best 
called Allegories; when moral conduct is inculeated, Parables 
—that term being retained for little vignette-like stories 
which present some bit of conduct to be carefully noticed, 
imitated, or avoided. 

In Plato himself we have examples of deliberate allegorical 
composition in the Allegory of the “Cave” (Rep. 514 ff.), in 
that of the “ Disorderly Crew” (Rep. 488 a ff.), and in that 
of the “ Birdcage ” (Zheaet. 197). The “ Choice of Hercules,” 
composed by Prodicus (Xen. Mem. 11. 1. 21 ff), is another 
example ; the piece known as “Cebetis Tabula” is another; and 
the beautiful story of “Cupid and Psyche,” told by Apuleius 
(Met. iv. v. vi.),” is another. The story of Pandora also, as 


1 Conv. iv. 22. 

2 Mr. A. Lang, in his Introduction to William Adlington’s Translation of 
the Cupid and Psyche of Apuleius (1566), shows how dependent the maker of an 
allegorical story often is on Myth. The Allegory of ‘‘Cupid and Psyche” is 
composed on the framework of a Myth which explains a custom—the widely 
distributed custom according to which the bridegroom must, for some time after 
marriage, seek the bride secretly in the dark. See also Custom and Myth, 
pp. 64 ff Dr. Bigg (Neoplatonism, pp. 128-133) gives a charming epitome of 
the story, with its interpretation. Referring to Mr. Lang’s folk-lore, he says 
(p. 129), ‘‘ This artistic composition has very little indeed to do with Hottentots 
or Zulus. It is really a very elaborate piece of allegory, metaphysics without 
tears.” I agree with both Mr. Lang and Dr. Bigg. 


240 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


given by Hesiod (0.D. 49 ff), has much in it which must be 
ascribed to deliberate intention. The class of Parables, strictly 
so called, is represented by many of the Parables of the Old 
Testament and of the Gospels—by stories like “The Prodigal 
Son,” as distinguished from stories like “The Sower,’ which 
are really Allegories. 

There are also narratives with a purpose, which, like Zhe 
Pilgrim’s Progress, are at once Allegories and Parables as dis- 
tinguished from Allegories. What strikes one most in these 
narratives originally written to be Allegories or Parables is: How 
much more effective they are than old Myths tampered with 
by rationalism and converted into Allegories. These Allegories 
originally written to be Allegories, indeed, present doctrine 
often thinly disguised, but their makers have to exercise 
creative imagination, not merely scholastic ingenuity. The 
best of them are true Myths as well as Allegories, and appeal 
to us, at any rate, by their ἀνθρωπολογία, if not always by 
power of calling up Transcendental Feeling—a power which 
properly belongs to less consciously planned products of genius. 
Why is The Pilgrim’s Progress a Possession for Ever? Not 
because it is an ingenious Allegory setting forth doctrine 
rigorously held by its author; not because it has a good 
moral tendency, like Plato’s tales for children; but because it 
is a Myth—an interesting, touching, humorous, mysterious 
story about people—because its persons, albeit “allegorical,” 
are living men and women, sometimes, like Molicre’s or 
Shakespeare’s, active in the dramatic movement of the story, 
sometimes sketched as they stand, like the people in the 
Characters of Theophrastus. 


And I slept, and dreamed again, and saw the same two 
Pilgrims going down the Mountains along the High-way towards 
the City. Now a little below these Mountains, on the left hand, 
lieth the Country of Conceit; from which Country there comes 
into the way in which the Pilgrims walked, a little crooked Lane. 
Here, therefore, they met with a very brisk Lad, that came out 
of that Country. So Christian asked him From what parts he came, 
and whither he was going ? 

Ignor. Sir, I was born in the Country that lieth off there a 
little on the left hand, and I am going to the Celestial City. 

Chr. But how do you think to get in at the Gate, for you 
may find some difficulty there ? 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 247 


Ignor, As other good people do, said he. 

Chr. But what have you to shew at that Gate, that may 
cause that the Gate should be opened to you? 

Ignor. I know my Lord’s will, and I have been a good liver ; 
I pay every man his own; I pray, fast, pay tithes, and give alms, 
and have left my Country for whither I am going, 

Chr. But thou camest not in at the Wicket-Gate that is at 
the head of this way; thou camest in hither through that same 
crooked Lane, and therefore I fear, however thou mayest think of 
thyself, when the reckoning day shall come, thou wilt hear laid to 
thy charge that thou art a Thief and a Robber, instead of getting 
admittance into the City. 

Ignor, Gentlemen, ye be utter strangers to me, I know you 
not; be content to follow the Religion of your Country, and I 
will follow the Religion of mine. I hope all will be well. And 
as for the Gate that you talk of, all the world knows that that 
is a great way off of our Country. I cannot think that any man 
in all our parts doth so much as know the way to it, nor need 
they matter whether they do or no, since we have, as you see, a 
fine pleasant Green Lane, that comes down from our Country the 
next way into the way. 

When Christian saw that the man was wise in his own Conceit, 
he said to Hopeful whisperingly, There is more hopes of a fool than 
of him. And said, moreover, When he that is a fool walketh by the 
way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to everyone that he is a fool. 
What, shall we talk further with him, or outgo him at present 
and so leave him to think of what he hath heard already, and then 
stop again for him afterwards, and see if by degrees we can do 
any good of him ? 


* * * * * Ἕ 
So they both went on, and Ignorance he came after. 
* ¥ * * ¥ * 


I saw then in my Dream that Hopeful looked back and saw 
Ignorance, whom they had left behind, coming after. Look, said 
he to Christian, how far yonder youngster loitereth behind. 

Chr. Ay, ay, I see him; he careth not for our company. 

Hope. But I tro it would not have hurt him, had he kept 
pace with us hitherto. 

Chr. That’s true, but I warrant you he thinketh otherwise. 

Hope. That I think he doth, but, however, let us tarry for 
him. So they did. 

Then Christian said to him, Come away man, why do you stay 
so behind ? 

Ignor. I take my pleasure in walking alone, even more a 
great deal than in Company, unless I like it the better. 


248 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Then said Christian to Hopeful (but softly), Did I not tell you 
he cared not for our company? But, however, said he, come up, 
and let us talk away the time in this solitary place. Then 
directing his speech to Ignorance, he said, Come, how do you? 
How stands it between God and your Soul now ? 

Ignor. I hope well; for I am always full of good motions, 
that come into my mind to comfort me as I walk. 

Chr. What good motions? pray tell us. 

Ignor. Why, I think of God and Heaven. 

Chr. So do the Devils and damned Souls. 

Ignor. But I think of them and desire them. 

Chr. So do many that are never like to come there. The 
Soul of the Sluggard desires, and hath nothing. 

Ignor. But I think of them, and leave all for them. 

Chr. That I doubt, for leaving all is an hard matter—yea, a 
harder matter than many are aware of. But why, or by what, 
art thou persuaded that thou hast left all for God and Heaven. 

Ignor. My heart tells me so. 

Chr. The wise man says, He that trusts his own heart is a fool. 

Ignor. This is spoken of an evil heart, but mine is a 
good one. 

Chr. But how dost thou prove that ? 

Ignor. It comforts me in hopes of Heaven. 

Chr. That may be through its deceitfulness, for a man’s 
heart may minister comfort to him in the hopes of that thing 
for which he yet has no ground to hope. 

Ignor. But my heart and life agree together, and therefore 
my hope is well grounded. 

Chr. Who told thee that thy heart and life agree together ? 

Ignor. My heart tells me so. 

+ + + + Χ - 


Now while I was gazing upon all these things, 1 turned my 
head to look back, and saw Jgnorance come up to the River-side ; 
but he soon got over, and that without half that difficulty which 
the other two men met with. For it happened that there was 
then in that place one Vainhope, a Ferry-man, that with his Boat 
helped him over ; so he, as the other I saw, did ascend the Hill to 
come up to the Gate, only he came alone; neither did any man 
meet him with the least encouragement. When he was come up 
to the Gate, he looked up to the writing that was above, and then 
began to knock, supposing that entrance should have been quickly 
administered to him; but he was asked by the men that looked 
over the top of the Gate, Whence came you? and what would 
you have? He answered, I have eat and drank in the presence 
of the King, and he has taught in our Streets. Then they asked 
him for his Certificate, that they might go and shew it to the 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 249 


King. So he fumbled in his bosom for one, and found none. 
Then said they, Have you none? But the man answered never a 
word, So they told the King, but he would not come down to 
see him, but commanded the two Shining Ones that conducted 
Christian and Hopeful to the City, to go out and take /gnorance, 
and bind him hand and foot, and have him away. Then they 
took him up, and carried him through the air to the door that I 
saw in the side of the Hill, and put him in there. Then I saw 
that there was a way to Hell even from the Gates of Heaven, as 
well as from the City of Destruction. So I awoke, and behold it 
was a Dream. 


Now the day drew on that Christiana must be gone. So the 
Road was full of People to see her take her Journey. But behold 
all the Banks beyond the River were full of Horses and Chariots, 
which were come down from above to accompany her to the City 
Gate. So she came forth and entered the River, with a beckon 
of Farewell to those that followed her to the River-side. The 
last word she was heard to say here was, J come, Lord, to be with 
thee and bless thee. 

So her Children and Friends returned to their place, for that 
those that waited for Christiana had carried her out of their sight. 
So she went and called, and entered in at the Gate with all the 
Ceremonies of Joy that her Husband Christian had done before 
her. 

| * * * * * ἽΡ 


In process of time there came a Post to the Town again, and 
his business was with Mr. Ready-to-halt. So he enquired him out, 
and said to him, I am come to thee in the name of him whom 
thou hast loved and followed, tho’ upon Crutches; and my 
message is to tell thee that he expects thee at his Table to sup 
with him in his Kingdom the next day after Laster, wherefore 
prepare thyself for this Journey. 

Then he also gave him a Token that he was a true Messenger, 
saying, I have broken thy golden bowl, and loosed thy silver cord. 

After this Mr. Ready-to-halt called for his fellow Pilgrims, and 
told them, saying, Jam sent for, and God shall surely visit you 
also. So he desired Mr. Valiant to make his Will. And because 
he had nothing to bequeath to them that should survive him but 
his Crutches and his good Wishes, therefore thus he said, These 
Crutches I bequeath to my Son that shall tread in my steps, with a 
hundred warm wishes that he may prove better than I have done. 

Then he thanked Mr. Great-heart for his Conduct and Kind- 
ness, and so addressed himself to his Journey. When he came 
at the Brink of the River he said, Now J shall have no more need 
of these Crutches, since yonder are Chariots and Horses for me to ride 


250 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


on. The last words he was heard to say was, Welcome Life. So 
he went his way. 


The test, indeed, of a good Allegory is that it is also 
a good Myth, or story, for those who do not understand, or 
care for it, as a vehicle of doctrine. To this test the Parables 
spoken by Jesus appear to have been consciously accom- 
modated. He often spoke to the common people in Parables 
without interpreting them. These Parables were received by 
the common people as Myths; afterwards He interpreted 
them as Allegories to His disciples. Many of His Parables, 
indeed, as was suggested above, have πὸ interpretation. 
Stories like the Parables of the Prodigal Son, of the Rich 
Man who proposed to build barns, of Dives and Lazarus, of 
the Good Samaritan, are not Allegories to be interpreted— 
for they have no “other meaning,”’—but rather little dramas 
“which reduce to a single incident what is continually 
occurring in man’s experience.” ἢ 

And even those Parables which are Allegories and admit 
of detailed doctrinal interpretation, such as the Parable of 
the Sower, have an intrinsic value apart from the doctrine 
which they convey—the value of pictures in which common 
things stand rejlected—stand as images, or doubles, for our 
wonder, in another world, under another sky.” When one 
looks at Millet’s “Sower,’* it is easy to put oneself in the 
place of those who heard Parables gladly without asking for 
the interpretation of them. 

Let us now look at Plato’s two most elaborate “ Allegories ” 
—the “ Cave,” and the “ Disorderly Crew”; and let us remind 
ourselves of the features of the former* by first referring to 
Republic, 532 B, Cc, where a summary of the whole is given 
in one sentence :—) δέ ye, ἣν δ᾽ ἐγώ, λύσις τε ἀπὸ τῶν 
δεσμῶν καὶ μεταστροφὴ ἀπὸ τῶν σκιῶν ἐπὶ τὰ εἴδωλα 
καὶ τὸ φῶς καὶ ἐκ τοῦ καταγείου εἰς τὸν ἥλιον ἐπάνοδος, 
καὶ ἐκεῖ πρὸς μὲν τὰ ἕῷά τε καὶ φυτὰ καὶ τὸ τοῦ ἡλίου 

1 Réville, Prolégoménes de 1 Π δέ. des Religions (Engl. Transl. by Squire), 
.. 7 Seo Shelley’s poem, 7'he Recollection, quoted infra, p. 395, where I attempt 
to show that a charm like that belonging to reflected images, or doubles, of 
natural objects—as of trees (or of Narcissus himself) in a pool—enters into the 
effect produced by the word-pictures of Poetry. 


° In the gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 
4 Republic, 514 a ff. 


THE PROTAGORAS ΜΥΤῊ 251 


φῶς ἔτι ἀδυναμία βλέπειν, πρὸς δὲ τὰ ἐν ὕδασι φαντάσματα 
θεῖα καὶ σκιὰς τῶν ὄντων, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ εἰδώλων σκιὰς 60 
ἑτέρου τοιούτου φωτὸς ὡς πρὸς ἥλιον κρίνειν ἀποσκιαζο- 
μένας, πᾶσα αὕτη ἡ πραγματεία τῶν τεχνῶν, ἃς διήλθομεν, 
ταύτην ἔχει τὴν δύναμιν καὶ ἐπανωγωγὴν τοῦ βελτίστου ἐν 
ψυχῇ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ἀρίστου ἐν τοῖς οὖσι θέαν, ὥσπερ 
τότε τοῦ σαφεστάτου ἐν σώματι πρὸς τὴν τοῦ φανο- 
τάτου ἐν τῷ σωματοειδεῖ τε καὶ ὁρατῷ τόπῳ..--- There 
is a Cave in form of a long tunnel which, retaining 
throughout the dimensions of its entrance, runs down, with 
a steep decline, into the earth. Some way down, where the 
daylight at last fails, a great Fire is burning, and beyond the 
Fire there is a low wall built across the Cave at right angles 
to its direction. Over the top of this wall showmen hold up 
and move about little images of men and animals. The 
shadows of these images are thrown on the rock with which 
the Cave ends some way beyond.’ Facing this end-rock of the 
Cave and the shadows thus thrown on it are Prisoners bound 
so that they cannot turn round. These Prisoners, whose 
knowledge is confined to shadows of images, represent 
people who have nothing better than second-hand, hearsay 
knowledge of “particular facts.” But the “ Philosopher” 
comes down from the daylight into the Cave, and unbinds 
some of them, and “converts” them—turns them round, so 
that they see the showmen’s little images, the “ realities” of 
these shadows. These converted ones represent people who 
have direct, first-hand knowledge of “facts.” Some of these 
the Philosopher is able to lead up the steep floor of the Cave, 
past the Fire, which is the Visible Sun, and out into the 
daylight, which is the light of the Intelligible Sun, the Good, 
the source of existence and true knowledge. At first the 
released prisoners are so dazzled by the daylight that they 
cannot bear to look at the things illuminated by it—men, 
animals, trees—much less at the Sun itself, but can look only 
at shadows of men and animals and trees on the ground, or 
reflections of them in water. These shadows and reflections, 


1 In the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford there isa Javanese Wayang Kulit, 
used, in the Historical and Mythological Drama, for the production of shadow- 
representations. The shadows of puppets (made of leather) are thrown on a 
screen, the performer manipulating the puppets from behind, and working their 
arms by means of sticks. 


252 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


however, differ from the shadows seen on the end-rock of the 
Cave, in being shadows, not of images of real things, but of 
real things themselves—they represent the diagrams of 
geometry, and, generally, the symbols and concepts employed 
in the deductive sciences to express the principles or laws 
with which the inquiry is really concerned. In time, the 
eyes of the released prisoners become accustomed to the 
daylight, and men, animals, trees, the moon and stars, and, 
last of all, the Sun, can be looked at. We have now reached 
the end of all education—the direct apprehension of the ἐδέαε, 
or Principles, which severally, and as connected system, explain 
particulars, just as the living man once seen “explains” the 
showman’s image of him. 

I have called the “Cave” an Allegory. It certainly is 
an Allegory, and is offered as such together with its inter- 
pretation." But when a great poetic genius like Plato builds 
an Allegory, the edifice, while serving its immediate purpose 
as an Allegory, transcends that purpose. Plato sees the Cave 
and makes us see it, and there is much more to be seen there 
than the mere purpose of the Allegory requires. Perhaps 
Plato, when he was at Syracuse, saw such a gallery in the 
stone quarries (there are such galleries still to be seen in the 
Latomie at Syracuse) lighted up with a fire, and the miners— 
it may be slaves or convicts in chains—working at the far 
end with their backs to the fire, while their shadows and the 
shadows of people and things behind them flitted on the 
walls. Be this as it may, Plato’s Cave is a mysterious place. 
We enter it wondering, and soon forget, in our wonder, that 
there is “another meaning.” We acquiesce in what we see— 
the prisoners among the shadows, and the Redeemer coming 
down through the dimly-lighted gloom, like Orpheus,’ to lead 
them up into the daylight. The vision which Plato's 


1 See Couturat, de Plat. Myth. p. 51, who regards the ‘‘Cave” as an 
Allegory. Schwanitz, die Mythen des Plato, p. 9, on the other hand, calls the 
‘“Cave” a myth, and brings it into close comparison with the Prometheus-and- 
Epimetheus Myth in the Protagoras :—‘‘ Wenn in dem vorigen Bilde (the Cave) 
auf die verschiedene Erkenntniss der Menschen hingewiesen wurde, je nach dem 
sie der beschriinkenden Fesseln mehr oder weniger entledigt waren, so leitet der 
Mythus von Prometheus und Pandora die Wahrheit ein, dass von Gott Eins in 
aller Gemiither eingepriigt ist, an Einem alle Theil nehmen, an der sittlichen 
Scheu und dem Sinn fiir Gerechtigkeit, den gemeinsamen Binden wodurch 
Staaten zusammengehalten werden.” 

2 The book κατάβασις els “Αἰδου (see Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 373) may have been 
in Plato’s mind, 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 253 


“ Allegory” calls up is such as his great Myths call up; it is 
a vision which fills us with amazement, not a pictorial illus- 
tration which helps us to understand something.’ Its nearest 
parallel in literature is that vision which Dante on a sudden 
calls up before our eyes in /nferno, iv. 46-63 -— 


Dimmi, Maestro mio, dimmi, Signore, 
Commincia’ io, per voler esser certo 
Di quella fede che vince ogni errore ; 

Uscicci mai alcuno, o per suo merto, 

O per altrui, che poi fosse beato ? 

E quei, che intese il mio parlar coperto, 
Rispose ; Io era nuovo in questo stato, 
Quando ci vidi venire un possente 

Con segno di vittoria coronato. 

Trasseci |’ ombra del primo parente, 

D’ Abel suo figlio, e quella di Noe, 
Di Moise legista ὁ ubbidiente ; 

Abraam patriarcha, e David re, 

Israel con lo padre, e co’ suoi nati, 
E con Rachele, per cui tanto fe’, 

Ed altri molti; e fecegli beati : 

E vo’ che sappi che, dinanzi ad essi, 
Spiriti umani non eran salvati. 


The “Disorderly Crew” is also an Allegory and offered 
as such; but, like the “ Cave,” it has an interest independent 
of its “other meaning.” Without being, like the “Cave,” an 
impressive Myth as well as an Allegory, it is still, apart from 
its interpretation, a bit of highly interesting ἀνθρωπολογία. 
Plato makes the crew of a Greek trading vessel live and move 
before our eyes. And how like the ancient crew is to the 
modern one! Let me place Plato’s sketch of the Disorderly 
Crew and the brilliant description in Hothen of the “ politics ” 
of the Greek brigantine caught by a sudden squall side 
by side :-— 

“Tmagine,” says Socrates, “ἃ shipowner bigger and stronger 
than all the other men in the ship, but rather deaf, and rather 
short-sighted, and with a corresponding knowledge of seamanship ; 
and imagine a crew of sailors all at variance with one another 
about the steering of the ship, each thinking that he himself 
ought to steer, although not a man among them has ever learnt 
the art of steering a ship, or can point to anybody who ever 


1 This notwithstanding its close connection with the “ Divided Line,” Rep. 
509 p ff. 


254 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


taught him, or can mention a time during which he used to 
receive instruction: imagine them even asserting that the art 
cannot be taught at all, and ready to cut down anybody who says 
that it can, and themselves always mobbing the shipowner, their 
master, and entreating him, with every argument they can lay 
hold of, to let them have the tiller; sometimes, if one faction 
fails to move him, and another is more successful, the unsuccessful 
killing the successful or casting them out of the ship, and taking 
the fine old owner, and: drugging him, or making him drunk, or 
perhaps putting him in irons, and then taking themselves the 
command of the ship, and using the stores, and drinking and 
feasting, and sailing the ship as such revellers are likely to sail 
her; and, to put the finishing touch to our picture, imagine them 
praising—describing as a ‘true seaman,’ a ‘true pilot,’ a ‘man 
thoroughly qualified in navigation’—any one who is great 
in the art of capturing the owner by argument or force, and 
securing the command of the ship to themselves; and imagine 
these men finding fault with one who cannot do this, and saying 
that he is ‘of no use’—men who have no conception at all of 
what the true pilot must be—that one must make a study of the 
seasons, and the sky and the stars, and the winds and all things 
that belong to navigation, if one is to be really fit to take com- 
mand of a ship—men, I say, who have no conception whatever 
of this—men who think that there is no art of how a pilot shall 
steer whether some people wish him to steer or not—no art of 
steering as such—to be studied and learnt. With such a state of 
things as this on board, don’t you think that the truly qualified 
pilot is sure to be called a ‘star-gazer,’ a ‘mere theorist,’ and ‘ of 
no use to us,’ by sailors in a ship so appointed ?” 

“ Yes, indeed,” said Adeimantus. 

“Then,” said I, ‘I don’t think you want to have the simile 
analysed, in order to understand that it figures a city in its 
attitude to true Philosophers. You understand that?” 

** Yes,” said he.! 


I sailed (writes Kinglake)? from Smyrna in the Amphitrite, 
a Greek brigantine which was confidently said to be bound for the 
coast of Syria; but I knew that this announcement was not to be 
relied upon with positive certainty, for the Greek mariners are 
practically free from the stringency of ship’s papers, and where 
they will, there they go. 
* * ει * * * 
* * * * * * 


The crew receive no wages, but have all a share in the 
venture, and in general, I believe, they are the owners of the 


1 Rep. 488 a ff. 3. Eothen, ch. vi. 


THE PROTAGORAS MYTH 255 


whole freight; they choose a captain to whom they entrust just 
power enough to keep the vessel on her course in fine weather, 
but not quite enough for a gale of wind; they also elect a cook 
and a mate, 

yw Ἀ A * * 

* * * * * 


We were nearing the isle of Cyprus, when there arose half a 
gale of wind, with a heavy, chopping sea. My Greek seamen 
considered that the weather amounted, not to a half, but to an 
integral gale of wind at the very least; so they put up the helm, 
and scudded for twenty hours. When we neared the mainland of 
Anadoli, the gale ceased, and a favourable breeze springing up, 
soon brought us off Cyprus once more. Afterwards the wind 
changed again, but we were still able to lay our course by sailing 
close-hauled. 

We were at length in such a position, that by holding on our 
course for about half an hour, we should get under the lee of the 
island, and find ourselves in smooth water, but the wind had been 
gradually freshening ; it now blew hard, and there was a heavy 
sea running. 

As the grounds for alarm arose, the crew gathered together in 
one close group; they stood pale and grim under their hooded 
eapotes like monks awaiting a massacre, anxiously looking by 
turns along the pathway of the storm, and then upon each other, 
and then upon the eye of the Captain, who stood by the helms- 
man. Presently the Hydriot came aft, more moody than ever, 
the bearer of fierce remonstrance against the continuing of the 
struggle; he received a resolute answer, and still we held our 
course. Soon there came a heavy sea that caught the bow of the 
brigantine as she lay jammed in betwixt the waves; she bowed 
her head low under the waters, and shuddered through all her 
timbers, then gallantly stood up again over the striving sea with 
bowsprit entire. But where were the crew? It was a crew no 
longer, but rather a gathering of Greek citizens,—the shout of 
the seamen was changed for the murmuring of the people—the 
spirit of the old Demos was alive. The men came aft in a body, 
and loudly asked that the vessel should be put about, and that 
the storm be no longer tempted. Now, then, for speeches :—the 
Captain, his eyes flashing fire, his frame all quivering with emotion, 
—wielding his every limb, like another and a louder voice,—pours 
forth the eloquent torrent of his threats, and his reasons, his 
commands, and his prayers; he promises—he vows—he swears 
that there is safety in holding on—safety, if Greeks will be brave / 
The men hear and are moved, but the gale rouses itself once more, 
and again the raging sea comes trampling over the timbers that 
are the life of all. The fierce Hydriot advances one step nearer 


256 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


to the Captain, and the angry growl of the people goes floating 
down the wind; but they listen, they waver once more, and once 
more resolve, then waver again, thus doubtfully hanging between 
the terrors of the storm and the persuasion of glorious speech, as 
though it were the Athenian that talked, and Philip of Macedon 
that thundered on the weather bow. 

Brave thoughts winged on Grecian words gained their natural 
mastery over terror; the brigantine held on her course, and 
smooth water was reached at last. 


Let me close these remarks on the relationship between 
“Myth” and “Allegory” with a reference to “ Ritual,” in 
which the characteristics of both seem to be united. A 
“ritual performance” or “rite” is made up of “symbols.”? 
A symbol is a thing, or an act, taken to represent something 
else. That something else—generally something of great 
importance—may be a transaction (such as a sale of land, 
symbolised in the Roman law by the act of transferring a 
clod of earth), or a belief (such as the doctrine of baptismal 
regeneration, symbolised by sprinkling with water), or a 
concept (such as that of justice, symbolised by a figure 
holding an even balance), or a nation (symbolised by its flag). 
In most cases the symbol has some analogical resemblance, 
close or remote, to that which it represents; in some cases it 
is a badge which has for some other reason become attached. 
The habit of symbolic representation is one of the most 
primitive and persistent tendencies of human nature. It was 
present in the first efforts of language, and the highest flights 
of science are still entirely dependent on the development of 
it; while without the development of it in another direc- 
tion there could have been no poetry—the primrose would 
always have been but the yellow primrose; and even no 
courtesy of manners—everybody would always have called a 
spade a spade. 

Now, a ritual performance, or rite, is a composition made 
up of symbols so put together as to produce solemn feeling in 
those who celebrate and assist. This effect produced is a 
massive experience of the whole, and may be, indeed ordi- 
narily is, received without conscious attention to the signifi- 
cance of the separate parts—the symbols which together 


1 See Réville, Prolégomeénces de I’ Hist, des Religions, p. 125 (Eng. Translation 
by Squire). 


ΤῊΝ PROTAGORAS MYTH 257 


make the whole rite. The rite, if effectually received, is 
received devoutly as a Myth, not critically apprehended as an 
Allegory. In its origin and composition it is an Allegory— 
a mosaic of symbols; but as time goes on this is largely lost 
sight of; the corporate genius of the religious society to which 
it belongs transforms it for the devout into a Myth. Plato 
compares that enthusiastic Philosophy, of which Myth is 
the vehicle, to the Mysteries! The devout went to Eleusis, 
not to get doctrine out of allegorical representations, but to 
have their souls purified by the awe of the “ Blessed Sights ” 
presented in the acted Myth. 

The procession in Purgatorio, xxix., like Ezekiel’s visions, 
to which it is indebted, is an elaborately ordered series of 
symbolical creatures and objects; in the fresco on the left 
wall of the Spanish Chapel of 8. Maria Novella in Florence, 
every figure, either in itself, or in the position which it 
occupies in the group, is a symbol. It is true, of course, that 
to appreciate the beauty of either composition fully one must 
have at least a general acquaintance with the meaning of the 
symbols employed; yet finally it is as a great spectacle that 
the procession of the twenty-ninth Canto of the Purgatorio or 
the fresco in the Spanish Chapel appeals to one. Indeed, it is 
because it so appeals that one is anxious to spell out the 
symbolical meaning of its separate parts, so that, having spelt 
this patiently out, one may find one’s self all the more under 
the enchantment of the whole which transcends the sum of 
its parts so wondrously.” 

Similarly, to take a third instance, it is because the Story, 
in the Second Book of the Fairy Queen, of the Adventures at 
the Castle of Medina, is very readable as a story, and contains 
beautiful passages of poetry, that we are pleasurably interested 
in following its elaborate translation of the dry Aristotelian 
doctrine of “ Mean and Extremes” into pictures. 

I would add that the effect produced by ἃ great 
professedly allegorical composition like the procession in 
Purgatorio, xxix., or the Spanish Chapel fresco, is sometimes 
produced by a poem—sometimes even by a single line or 

stanza of poaty τοῊΣ which the poet’s art, instead of definitely 


1 See supra, p. 236 
? The symbolism of the fresco alluded to above is dealt with by Ruskin in 
his Mornings in Florence, iv. and v. 


5 


258 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


presenting, distantly suggests a system of symbols. A symbol 
or system of symbols definitely presented is often enough a 
mysterious thing; but a symbol or system of symbols distantly 
suggested “teases us out of thought,” and arouses in no ordi- 
nary degree that wonder, at we know not what, which enters 
into the effect produced by Poetry as such. 

I do not think that a better example of what may be called 
suppressed symbolism, and of its wonderful poetical effect, could 
be found than that afforded by Dante’s canzone beginning— 


Tre donne intorno al cor mi son venute 1— 


a poem on which Coleridge’s record of its effect upon himself 
is the best commentary. He begins” by describing it as “a 
poem of wild and interesting images, intended as an enigma, 
and to me an enigma it remains, spite of all my efforts.” 
Then, in an entry dated Ramsgate, Sept. 2, 1819, he writes: 
“T begin to understand the above poem (Tre donne intorno al 
cuor mi son venute, etc.), after an interval from 1805, during 
which no year passed in which I[ did not re-peruse, I might 
say, construe, parse, and spell it, twelve times at least—such 
a fascination had it, spite of its obscurity! It affords a good 
instance, by the bye, of that soul of universal significance in a 
true poet’s composition, in addition to the specific meaning.” 
1 Canzone xx. p. 170, Oxford Dante. 


2 Anima Poetae, from the unpublished notebooks of 8. Τί, Coleridge, edited 
by E. H. Coleridge, 1895, p. 293. 


ΤῊΝ TIMAELUS 
CONTEXT 


ΤῊΝ subject of the Timaeus is the Creation of the Universe 
(soul and body) and of Man (soul and body). The speaker vn 
whose mouth the whole Discourse, or Myth, treating of this 
subject is put is Timaeus, the great Pythagorean Philosopher of 
Loeri. in Italy. 

The Discourse, or Myth, is part of the general scheme which 
is worked out in the Trilogy consisting of the Republic, Timaeus, 
and Critias. 

The assumed chronological order of the pieces is Republic, 
Timaeus, Critias: Le. the Conversation at the house of Cephalus 
is repeated next day by Socrates to Timaeus, Critias, Hermocrates, 
and another—this is the Republic; the day after that again, 
Socrates, Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates meet, and the Con- 
versation and Discourse which constitute the Timaeus ave held, 
followed by the Myth related by Critias in the unfinished piece 
which bears his name. Thus we have first an account of Man’s 
education ; then an account of hiscreation ; and lastly the story 
of the Great War for which his education fits him. 

But, of course, the logical order is Timaeus, Republic, 
Critias :—God, because he is good, makes, in his own image, 
the Universe of which Man is part—-not, however, a mere part, 
but a part which, after a fashion, is equivalent to the whole, in 
so far as it adequately represents the whole—a microcosm in 
the macrocosm. Man, as microcosm, is an image of God as 
adequate as the great Cosmos itself is; and, like God whose 
wmage he 18, 18. a creator—makes in turn a Cosmos, the State. 
We have thus the analogy:—God : Cosmos :: Man : State. 
Upon God’s creation of the Cosmos, in the Timaeus, there 
follows, in order, Man’s creation of the State, in the Republic ; 
while the Critias comes last with the representation of the State 
performing the work for which it was created. 

259 


260 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Timaeus 29 p-92 ὁ 


29D Λέγωμεν δή, δι ἥντινα αἰτίαν γένεσιν καὶ τὸ πᾶν τόδε 

Ε ὁ ξυνιστὰς ξυνέστησεν. ἀγαθὸς ἣν, ἀγαθῷ δὲ οὐδεὶς περὶ 
8 \ > / » / / / , » Ν ΕΥ 
οὐδενὸς οὐδέποτε ἐγγίγνεται φθόνος: τούτου δ᾽ ἐκτὸς ὧν 
πάντα ὅ τι μάλιστα γενέσθαι ἐβουλήθη παραπλήσια ἑαυτῷ. 

* * * * ὃς * 
΄ \ - 

80 βουληθεὶς γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ἀγαθὰ μὲν πάντα, φλαῦρον δὲ 
Ν s \ / e \ A “ 9 ς U 
μηδὲν εἶναι κατὰ δύναμιν, οὕτω δὴ πᾶν, ὅσον ἦν ὁρατόν, 

/ / lal 
παραλαβὼν οὐχ ἡσυχίαν ἄγον, ἀλλὰ κινούμενον πλημμελῶς 
\ > / > 4 > \ vv ᾽ A > ’ 
καὶ ἀτάκτως, εἰς τάξιν αὐτὸ ἤγαγεν ἐκ τῆς ἀταξίας, 
᾿ 7 Ε] “ / / ” / \ yw? 
ἡγησάμενος ἐκεῖνο τούτου πάντως ἄμεινον. θέμις δὲ οὔτ 
, Lal / lal 
ἣν οὔτ᾽ ἔστι τῷ ἀρίστῳ δρᾶν ἄλλο πλὴν τὸ κάλλιστον. 
/ s ef b] a \ / e na »O\ 

B λογισάμενος οὖν εὕρισκεν ἐκ τῶν κατὰ φύσιν ὁρατῶν οὐδὲν 
> / ΄ an » ef er / » 7 
ἀνόητον τοῦ νοῦν ἔχοντος ὅλον ὅλου κάλλιον ἔσεσθαί ποτε 
v n » ς \ a 5 / / 
ἔργον, νοῦν δ᾽ αὖ χωρὶς ψυχῆς ἀδύνατον παραγενέσθαι τῳ. 

\ \ \ / = \ ~ 
διὰ δὴ τὸν λογισμὸν τόνδε νοῦν μὲν ἐν ψυχῇ, ψυχὴν δὲ ἐν 
, \ \ ~ , " -“ / 
σώματι ξυνιστὰς τὸ πᾶν ξυνετεκταίνετο, ὅπως 6 TL κάλλιστον 
» \ / Μ » ᾽ / ef s 
ein κατὰ φύσιν ἄριστον τε ἔργον ἀπειργασμένος. οὕτως οὖν 
, ΄ - / ’ , 
δὴ κατὰ λόγον τὸν εἰκότα δεῖ λέγειν τόνδε τὸν κόσμον 
A “ \ “ “~ 
ζῶον ἔμψυχον ἔννουν τε τῇ ἀληθείᾳ διὰ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ 
/ / / ᾽ e , - / 

C γενέσθαι πρόνοιαν. Τούτου δ᾽ ὑπάρχοντος αὖ τὰ τούτοις 
᾽ ca Ae / / a , | ee J « / e 
ἐφεξῆς ἡμῖν λεκτέον, τίνι τῶν ζώων αὐτὸν εἰς ὁμοιότητα ὁ 

\ / A \ 9 bd , ν , 

ξυνιστὰς ξυνέστησε. τῶν μὲν οὖν ἐν μέρους εἴδει πεφυκό- 

‘ , ’ - ‘ ; ‘ γα] ᾽ 

των μηδενὶ καταξιώσωμεν: ἀτελεῖ γὰρ ἐοικὸς οὐδέν ποτ 

, - 9 U - ω θ. ἃ 
ἂν γένοιτο καλόν: οὗ ὃ ἔστι τἄλλα ζῶα καθ᾽ ev καὶ κατὰ 
, ͵ ε , \ - A 

γένη μόρια, τούτῳ πάντων ὁμοιότατον αὐτὸν εἶναι τιθῶμεν. 

“~ / an “ \ 

τὰ yap δὴ νοητὰ ζῶα πάντα ἐκεῖνο ἐν ἑαυτῴ περιλαβὸν 
v , e / ¢ al μ ud 

ἔχει, καθάπερ ὅδε ὁ κόσμος ἡμᾶς ὅσα τε ἄλλα θρέμματα 


D / ‘ , a \ - , rrL \ 
ξυνέστηκεν ὁρατά. Tw yap τῶν νοουμένων καλλίστῳ καὶ 


ΤῊΝ TIMAEUS 261 


TRANSLATION 


Let the cause of the creation of this Universe be declared, 
to wit, that the Maker thereof was Good; with the Good there 
is no grudging of aught at any time: wherefore, being altogether 
without grudging, God wished all things to be made as like 
unto Himself as might be. 


a % ΕΣ , + . 


Now God, wishing that all things should be good so far 
as might be, and nothing evil, having received all that was 
Visible into His hands, and perceiving that it was not at rest 
but moved without measure and without order, took and 
brought it out of that disorder into order, thinking that this 
state was altogether better than that. For He Who is Best 
might not then—nor may He now—do aught save that which 
is most excellent. Wherefore He took thought and found out 
that, amongst those things which are by nature Visible, no 
work which is without Reason would ever, in the comparison, 
be fairer than that which hath Reason; and again, that 
Reason could not, without Soul, come and abide with any- 
thing. For this cause He put Reason in the Soul, and Soul 
in Body, when he fashioned the Universe; to the end that the 
creature of his workmanship might be the fairest by nature 
and the most excellent. 

Our discourse, then, following alway the way of likelihood, 
hath brought us thus far—that this Universe is a Living 
Creature, which hath in truth gotten Soul and Reason through 
the Providence of God. 

Next must we tell in the likeness of what Living Creature 
the Maker made it. Unto none of those creatures which are 
by nature Parts of the Whole let us compare it; for naught 
fair could ever come forth in the likeness of that which is 
imperfect ; but unto That whereof the living creatures, severally 
and according to their kinds, are parts must we deem it most 
like. Now That containeth in itself all Intelligible Creatures, 
even as this Universe containeth us and all his other nurslings 
which were created to be Visible: for unto That which is the 


31 


Β 


328 


σ 


33 


262 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ / , / » Ν e \ € an 
κατὰ πάντα τελέῳ μάλιστα αὐτὸν ὁ θεὸς ὁμοιῶσαι βουλη- 

\ a ἃ « / , »“᾿᾽΄ο΄Ὃτᾳ.ν > a \ , a 
θεὶς ζῶον ἕν ὁρατὸν, πάνθ ὅσα αὐτοῦ κατὰ φύσιν Evyyevi 

a 2 \ 4 ¢ a / , . > a Ψ 
ζῶα ἐντὸς ἔχον ἑαυτοῦ, ξυνέστησε. Πότερον οὖν ὀρθῶς ἕνα 

> \ 7, ἃ \ Ν b) / / φ 
ovpavov προσειρήκαμεν, ἢ πολλοὺς καὶ ἀπείρους λέγειν ἣν 
5 θό Ἂ “ Wy \ Ἀ (ὃ ὃ ὃ , 
ορθότερον ; ἕνα, εἴπερ κατὰ τὸ παράδειγμα δεδημιουργημένος 
” \ \ , , ε΄ Νὰ \ a ’ 
ἔσται. τὸ γὰρ περιέχον πάντα ὁπόσα νοητὰ ζῶα, μεθ 
Φ ἐν / > ” +; #7 / \ a ¢ s 
ἑτέρου δεύτερον οὐκ ἄν ποτ᾽ εἴη" πάλιν yap ἂν ἕτερον εἶναι 
Ἁ \ 2 / / A a / x ΝΜ > \ 
TO περὶ ἐκείνω δέοι ζῶον, οὗ μέρος ἂν εἴτην ἐκείνω, καὶ 
» ΕΝ Μ > / > > > / a / ΓΦ» x 
οὐκ ἂν €TL EKELVOLY, αλλ ἐκείνῳ TO περιέχοντι, τόδ᾽ ἂν 

, ¢ / \ 
ἀφωμοιωμένον λέγοιτο ὀρθότερον. iva οὖν τόδε κατὰ τὴν 

, " Ss “~ a , \ -“ Ε / 
μόνωσιν ὅμοιον ἢ Tw παντελεῖ Cow, διὰ ταῦτα οὔτε δύο 
" 5 > / 9 / e ΄“ , ΕῚ > ᾽ o 
OUT ἀπείρους ἐποίησεν ὁ ποιῶν κόσμους, GAA εἷς ὅδε 

\ >) Ν \ ” \ yw 9 » 
μονογενὴς οὐρανὸς γεγονὼς ἔστι τε καὶ ἔτ᾽ ἔσται. 
**k * ἐκ ΕἸ * 

\ \ lal Μ \ /, \ / 4 \ 
καὶ διὰ ταῦτα ἔκ τε δὴ τούτων Kal τοιούτων Kal τὸν 
5) \ / \ lal / a > / 3 
ἀριθμὸν τεττάρων τὸ τοῦ κόσμου σῶμα ἐγεννήθη δι 
> / e ΄ / 4 3 / “ > 
ἀναλογίας ὁμολογῆσαν, φιλίαν τε ἔσχεν ἐκ τούτων, WOT 
, a“ / / \ 
εἰς ταὐτὸν αὑτῷ ξυνελθὸν ἄλυτον ὑπό Tov ἄλλου πλὴν ὑπὸ 

“ »“" \ ‘ a Ὁ 
τοῦ ξυνδήσαντος γενέσθαι. Τῶν δὲ δὴ τεττάρων ἕν ὅλον 
“ » [ al / / ? \ Ν 
ἕκαστον εἴληφεν ἡ τοῦ κόσμου ξύστασις' ἐκ γὰρ πυρὸς 

Ν “ 4 \ ./ \ fol / > ἡ e 
παντὸς ὕδατός Te Kal ἀέρος καὶ γῆς ξυνέστησεν αὐτὸν ὁ 
ξυνιστάς, μέρος οὐδὲν οὐδενὸς οὐδὲ δύναμιν ἔξωθεν ὑπολι- 

, / / a \ “ ° Lcd / 
πών, τάδε διανοηθείς, πρῶτον μὲν ἵνα ὅλον 6 TL μάλιστα 

a , b / ‘al a ν Ν \ , Ψ 
ζῶον τέλεον ἐκ τελέων τῶν μερῶν εἴη, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ἕν, 
“ ᾿ a / ᾽ Μ 
ἅτε οὐχ ὑπολελειμμένων ἐξ ὧν ἄλλο τοιοῦτο γένοιτ᾽ ἄν, 
Μ ἄχ, , / \ ΝΜ “ A ¢ / / 
ἔτι δὲ ἵνα ἀγήρων Kal ἄνοσον ἢ, κατανοῶν, ὡς ξυνιστάμενά 


1 


, 4 \ \ ‘ 7 ᾽ “ / 
TW σωματι θερμὰ και ψυχρὰ καὶ πάνθ, ὅσα δυνάμεις 


' For ξυνιστάμενά τῳ read ξυστατῴῷ. 


ΤῊΝ 7T/MAEUS 263 


fairest of Things Intelligible and altogether perfect did God 
wish to liken it; wherefore made He it a Living Creature, 
One, Visible, having in itself all the Living Creatures which 
are by nature kin unto it. 

Have we rightly called the Heaven One? Or were it 
more right to say that there are Heavens many—nay, infinite 
in number ? 

One Visible Heaven there must be, if it is to be fashioned 
according to the pattern of That which, inasmuch as it con- 
taineth all Intelligible Creatures which are, could never be a 
second with another; for if it were a second with another, 
then must there be anotber Creature including these two, 
whereof they would be parts; and it would no longer be right 
to say that this Visible Universe was made after their likeness, 
but rather after the likeness of That which included them. 
Wherefore that this Universe might be One only, like unto 
the One only, All-perfect, Living Creature, the Maker made 
neither two Universes nor Universes infinite in number, but 
this One Only Begotten Heaven which was made, and is, and 
ever shall be. 


For this cause, and out of these elements, being of such 
sort and four in number, was the Body of the Universe 
brought forth at one with itself through the proportional dis- 
position of elements. Whence also it got Love, so that it 
was knit together with bonds which cannot be loosed, save by 
Him Who did bind. 

Now, the making of the Universe took up the whole of 
each of the four elements: for the Maker of the Universe 
made it of all the fire that was, and all the water, and all the 
air, and all the earth, and left not any part or virtue of any 
of these without; to the end, first, that it might be a Living 
Creature, Whole, so far as might be, and Perfect, with the parts 
thereof perfect; and secondly, that it might be One Only, 
since naught was left over of which another like unto this 
could be made; and thirdly, that it might be without old 
age or disease; for He knew that if things hot and cold, 
and all such as have strong powers, encompass the composite 


33 B 


34 


264 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


» \ » “-- , / 
ἰσχυρᾶς ἔχει, περιϊστάμενα ἔξωθεν, Kai προσπίπτοντα 
, , / \ / -" / ’ / / Lal 
ἀκαίρως, λύει καὶ νόσους γῆράς τε ἐπάγοντα φθίνειν ποιεῖ. 
* * Σ΄ * * * 
τ - δὲ "ὃ > 7 \ , \ \ , 
Σχῆμα ὃε ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ TO πρέπον καὶ TO EuvryyevEs. 
“~ \ \ / ᾽ a cal 
τῷ δὲ Ta πάντ᾽ ἐν αὑτῷ ζῶα περιέχειν μέλλοντι Sow 
‘ t © 
Ld bal wv lal \ \ ᾽ ς A / 
πρέπον av εἴη σχῆμα τὸ περιειληφὸς ἐν αὑτῷ πάντα, 
° / / \ \ / ? / / 
oToca σχήματα. διὸ καὶ σφαιροειδές, ἐκ μέσου πάντῃ 
Ν \ \ 4 ᾽ / \ ,’ \ ’ / 
πρὸς Tas τελευτᾶς ἴσον ἀπέχον, κυκλοτερὲς AUTO ἐτορνεύ- 
7 , e ’ ’ 4 a 
σατο, πάντων τελεώτατον ὁμοιότατον TE αὐτὸ ἑαυτῷ 
/ / / “ Ε] / “ 
σχημάτων, νομίσας μυρίῳ κάλλιον ὅμοιον ἀνομοίου. Δεῖον 
\ \ 7 An 7 ᾽ \ ᾽ rn An 
δὲ δὴ κύκλῳ πᾶν ἔξωθεν αὐτὸ ἀπηκριβοῦτο, πολλῶν χάριν. 
Ὺ ,ὕ Ν ᾿ cal > / e \ \ ’ \ e / 
ὀμμάτων Te yap ἐπεδεῖτο οὐδέν, ὁρατὸν γὰρ οὐδὲν ὑπελεί- 
4 θ »Ὸ» ᾽ a +O \ \ ’ , lal / 
πετὸ ἔξωθεν: οὐδ᾽ ἀκοῆς, οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀκουστόν: πνεῦμά τε 
᾽ > \ , > ΝΥ >>> a \ > \ 
οὐκ ἣν περιεστὸς δεόμενον ἀναπνοῆς. οὐδ᾽ αὖ τινὸς ἐπιδεὲς 
9 ᾽ 7 - ? \ \ > e \ \ / \ 
ἣν ὀργάνου σχεῖν, ᾧ τὴν μὲν εἰς ἑαυτὸ τροφὴν δέξοιτο, τὴν 
‘ , ; , ᾽ / , > “ \ 
δὲ πρότερον ἐξικμασμένην ἀποπέμψοι πάλιν: ἀπήει τε γὰρ 
οὐδὲν οὐδὲ ; ὑτῷ θέν: οὐδὲ γὰρ ἣ ITO Ya 
ὐ € προσῃειν αὐτῷ ποθέν: οὐδὲ yap ἣν. αὐτὸ γὰρ 
΄ a \ \ ΄ ~ / / \ / ’ 
ἑαυτῷ τροφὴν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ φθίσιν παρέχον Kal πάντα ἐν 
Ls a \ ΄ ’ e r , \ a ’ / / 
ἑαυτῷ καὶ Up ἑαυτοῦ πάσχον καὶ δρῶν ἐκ τέχνης γέγονεν" 
΄ / \ δ eae e \ ” a » » 
ἡγήσατο γὰρ αὐτὸ ὁ ξυνθεὶς αὔταρκες ὃν ἄμεινον ἔσεσθαι 
A * \ lal “ 
μᾶλλον ἢ προσδεὲς ἄλλων. χειρῶν δέ, αἷς οὔτε λαβεῖν 
» > ᾽ , , 8 , > v a 
οὔτε αὖ Twa ἀμύνασθαι χρεία τις HY, μάτην οὐκ weTo δεῖν 
, fn / > \ “- ᾽ Ν Ὁ A \ \ 
αὐτῷ προσάπτειν, οὐδὲ ποδῶν οὐδὲ ὅλως τῆς περὶ τὴν 
, ΄ , , \ ’ , ᾽ A \ a 
βάσιν ὑπηρεσίας. κίνησιν yap ἀπένειμεν αὐτῷ τὴν τοῦ 
, / A \ \ Ἁ 7 ’ 
σώματος οἰκείαν, τῶν ἑπτὰ τὴν περὶ νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν 
, a \ \ \ ᾽ \ ᾽ “ ᾿ - \ ᾽ 
μάλιστα οὖσαν. διὸ δὴ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ ἐν 
᾽ - 4 > 4 , , , ~ / 
ἑαυτῷ περιαγαγὼν αὐτὸ ἐποίησε κύκλῳ κινεῖσθαι στρεφό- 
᾿ , / » \ ᾽ \ 
μενον, tas δὲ ἕξ ἁπάσας κινήσεις ἀφεῖλε Kal ἀπλανὲς 
᾽ , ᾽ , διὰ ‘ ‘ ᾿ “,»ν 
ἀπειργάσατο ἐκείνων. ἐπὶ δὲ τὴν περιοδον ταύτην ἅτ 
γὼν - ᾿ ᾽ ‘ ‘ v 9 \ δ. 
οὐδὲν ποδῶν δέον ἀσκελὲς καὶ ἄπουν αὐτὸ ἐγέννησεν. 


Οὗτος δὴ πᾶς ὄντος ἀεὶ λογισμὸς θεοῦ περὶ τὸν ποτὲ 


THE 7T/MAEUS 265 


body from without, and strike against it unseasonably, they 
dissolve it and bring disease and old age upon it, and so 
cause it to decay. 


* » * * * > 


That shape likewise gave He unto it which is fit and 
proper. Inasmuch, then, as that shape which comprehendeth 
in itself all the shapes is fit for the Living Creature which 
should contain in itself all Living Creatures, for this cause did 
He turn it to be like a ball, round, with boundary at every 
point equally distant from centre. Thus gave He unto it that 
which of all shapes is the most perfect, and most like unto 
itself, deeming that which is like unto itself fairer by far than 
that which is unlike. Moreover, without He made it perfectly 
smooth all round, for reasons many :—eyes it needed not, 
because nothing visible was left remaining without; nor ears, 
because there was nothing without audible; nor was there air 
round about it that it should breathe; nor did it need to have 
any organ for the taking in of food, or for the putting out of 
that wherefrom the juices were already expressed ; for nothing 
went forth, and nothing came unto it from anywhere ;_ for 
without there was nothing. Yea, it was fashioned cunningly 
that it should afford nourishment unto itself, through the 
wasting of itself, and should receive and do all within itself 
and through itself; for He Who made it thought that if it 
were sufficient unto itself, it would be better than if it had 
need of other things added unto it. Wherefore, inasmuch as 
it needeth not hands for taking hold of aught or withstanding 
any adversary, He deemed it not meet to give unto it hands to 
no purpose, nor feet, nor any instrument of walking; for the 
motion that He allotted unto it was the motion proper unto 
such a body, to wit, that one of the Seven Motions which 
appertaineth most unto Reason and Understanding. Where- 
fore He turned it round and round, with the same quickness, in 
the same place, about itself; but the other motions, all save 
circular motion, He took away from it, and stablished it with- 
out their wanderings. Inasmuch, then, as for this revolution 
there was no need of feet, He created it without legs and 
feet. 

Thus did God, Who is alway, reason with Himself concern- 


266 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Β ἐσόμενον θεὸν λογισθεὶς λεῖον καὶ ὁμαλὸν πανταχῆ τε ἐκ 
/ »ν \ lad \ / , / / lol 
μέσου ἴσον καὶ OAOV καὶ τέλεον EK τελέων σωμάτων σῶμα 

> ΄ Ν \ > Ν , » fal ‘ \ / 
ἐποίησε. Ψυχὴν δὲ εἰς TO μέσον αὐτοῦ θεὶς διὰ παντός τε 
Ψ \ v Mv \ ‘al ᾽ lal / / 
ἔτεινε καὶ ἔτι ἔξωθεν τὸ σῶμα αὐτῇ περιεκάλυψε ταύτῃ, 
Ν , \ , / b \ “ , » 
καὶ κύκλῳ δὴ κύκλον στρεφόμενον οὐρανὸν ἕνα μόνον ἔρημον 
“ 3 > \ \ fu Ν ς΄ A / / 
κατέστησε, Ov ἀρετὴν δὲ αὐτὸν αὑτῷ δυνάμενον Evyyi- 
\ » Ν . / , / Ν Ν 
γνεσθαι καὶ οὐδενὸς ἑτέρου προσδεόμενον, γνώριμον δὲ καὶ 
, φ΄ na wey - A \ / \ a > ,ὔ 
φίλον ἱκανῶς αὐτὸν αὑτῷ. διὰ πάντα δὴ ταῦτα εὐδαίμονα 
Ν \ \ lal 
θεὸν αὐτὸν ἐγεννήσατο. Τὴν δὲ δὴ ψυχὴν οὐχ ὡς νῦν 
¢ ΄ » a , e/ ? / δι ‘ 
C ὑστέραν ἐπιχειροῦμεν λέγειν, οὕτως ἐμηχανήσατο Kal ὁ θεὸς 
/ » Ν Xx Μ ¥ - \ / 
νεωτέραν" ov yap av ἄρχεσθαι πρεσβύτερον ὑπὸ νεωτέρου 
/ ” 
EvvepEas εἴασεν" 
** * * * k * 
\ s , \ 39 3 / 
ψυχὴν σώματος, ws δεσπότιν καὶ ἄρξουσαν ἀρξομένου, 
/ > - \ a , rn > U 
36 ξυνεστήσατο ἐκ τῶνδέ Te Kal τοιῷδε τρόπῳ. τῆς ἀμερίστου 
ψ PN \ - κ > , ΒΨ, \ A s \ \ 
καὶ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἐχούσης οὐσίας καὶ τῆς av περὶ τὰ 
, , r / b] > a ᾽ / 
σώματα γιγνομένης μεριστῆς τρίτον ἐξ ἀμφοῖν ἐν μέσῳ 
, > , s > A / - / 1 
ξυνεκεράσατο οὐσίας εἶδος, τῆς τε ταὐτοῦ φύσεως αὖ πέρι 
Ἁ - / 
καὶ τῆς θατέρου. 
* * * * * ὃς 
4 / \ ᾽ Ν " / 5» ’ , 
καὶ τρία λαβὼν αὐτὰ ὄντα συνεκεράσατο εἰς μίαν πάντα 
᾽ , \ , / / Ss » » \ 
ἰδέαν, τὴν θατέρου φύσιν δύσμικτον οὖσαν εἰς ταὐτὸν 
, 7 \ \ \ fe > , \ > Le! 
B Evvappottwy Bia. μιγνὺς δὲ μετὰ τῆς οὐσίας Kal ἐκ τριῶν 
ποιησάμενος ἕν πάλιν ὅλον τοῦτο μοίρας ὅσας προσῆκε 
/ ΄ 7 \ Μ ᾽ fa \ / \ r 
διένειμεν, ἑκάστην δὲ ἔκ τε ταὐτοῦ καὶ θατέρου καὶ τῆς 
οὐσίας μεμιγμένην. 


Ἃ * * * * * 


1 αὖ πέρι om. 


THE 7/MARUS 267 


ing the god who should be, and made him to be smooth, and 
even, with boundary at every point at equal distance from 
the centre-—a Body whole and perfect, composite of bodies 
perfect. 

And in the midst thereof He put Soul, and spread it 
throughout the whole, and also wrapped the Body round 
about on the outside therewith; and made the Universe a 
revolving sphere, one only, and solitary, but, by reason of the 
virtue which belonged unto it, able to consort with itself, 
having need of no other, being itself acquaintance and friend 
unto itself in full measure. A god, then, in regard of all 
these things blessed, begat He it. 

But, albeit Soul cometh second in our discourse, yet was 
she not created by God younger than Body ; for of these twain 
which He joined together He would not have suffered the elder 
to be governed by the younger. 

* * * Ἃ Ἃ + 

The mistress and ruler of the Body did God fashion Soul, 
out of these elements, after this manner: betwixt that Sub- 
stance which is undivided and alway the same, and that which 
cometh into being and is divided in bodies, He made, by the 
mixing of them both, a third sort of Substance in the middle 
betwixt the Same and the Other. 

* μὴ ἮΝ * ΩΣ + 

These Substances, being three, He took and mixed all 
together, so that they became one Form; and the Nature of 
the Other, which was hard to mix, He joined by force unto 
the Same, and these He mingled with the Third Substance ; 
and of the three made one: then again divided this whole 
mass into as many parts as was meet, whereof each one was 
compounded of the Same and the Other and the Third 
Substance.! 

[35 B-36 D—These parts, all standing in specified 
numerical ratios to one another, are cut off in specified order, 
until the whole soul-mass is used up. They are pieced 
together in the order in which they are cut off, and make a 
soul-strip, as it were, which is then divided lengthwise into 
two equal bands, which are laid across each other like the 


1 “<The Third Substance” is ‘‘the Unity of Appereception ”— ‘‘ Self-Con- 
sciousness, ” 


268 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 
, ‘ 7 a a ‘ A 
36 D Ἐπεὶ δὲ κατὰ νοῦν τῷ ξυνιστάντι πᾶσα ἡ τῆς ψυχῆς 
/ ? / \ ω er \ \ ᾽ \ 
E ξύστασις ἐγεγένητο, μετὰ τοῦτο πᾶν TO σωματοειδὲς ἐντὸς 
» ~ > / \ / / \ / 
αὐτῆς ἐτεκταίνετο Kal μέσον μέσῃ ξυναγαγὼν προσήρμοττεν. 
e ᾽ ᾽ / \ \ ” ᾽ \ / 

ἡ δ᾽ ἐκ μέσου πρὸς Tov ἔσχατον οὐρανὸν πάντῃ διαπλα- 
an / A 
κεῖσα κύκλῳ τε αὐτὸν ἔξωθεν περικαλύψασα αὐτὴ ἐν αὑτῇ 
, , ) \ Μ ) 4 \ ΝΜ 
στρεφομένη θείαν ἀρχὴν ἤρξατο ἀπαύστου καὶ ἔμφρονος 
/ \ \ / / | \ A \ -“ 
βίον πρὸς τὸν ξύμπαντα χρόνον. καὶ τὸ μὲν δὴ σῶμα 
e \ > lal / > \ \ oJ / a \ 
ορατὸν οὐρανοῦ γέγονεν, αὐτὴ δὲ ἀόρατος μέν, λογισμοῦ δὲ 
/ \ e , \ A lal ᾽ , v 

81 μετέχουσα καὶ ἁρμονίας ψυχὴ τῶν νοητῶν ἀεί τε ὄντων, 
e \ A ᾽ , ᾽ / / A / Ὁ 
ὑπο τοῦ ἀρίστου ἀρίστη γενομένη τῶν γεννηθέντων. ἅτε 
9 ᾽ “" ᾽ a \ an / / ” ᾽ / 
οὖν ἐκ τῆς ταὐτοῦ καὶ τῆς θατέρου φύσεως ἔκ TE οὐσίας 

A a“ ω ‘ / a 
τριῶν τούτων συγκραθεῖσα μοιρῶν, Kal ava λόγον μερισθεῖσα 

\ al ᾽ / ᾽ / Ν e / -“ 
καὶ ξυνδεθεῖσα, αὐτή τε ἀνακυκλουμένη πρὸς αὑτήν, ὅταν 
> / \ » , ᾽ / \ -“΄ 
οὐσίαν σκεδαστὴν ἔχοντος τινος ἐφάπτηται καὶ ὅταν 
᾽ ’ / / \ / ον aA “ , Μ 
ἀμέριστον, λέγει κινουμένη διὰ πάσης ἑαυτῆς, ὅτῳ T ἄν τι 


\ “ bal 


\ ᾿ oa 
ταὐτὸν ἢ Kal ὅτου ἂν ἕτερον. 


ΤῊΝ 7T/MAEUS 269 


two strokes of the letter X, the point at which they cross 
being the middle of each, Kach of these crossed bands is 
then bent (say, up) into a hoop, so that its ends and the ends 
of the other band meet at the point, in the two circumfer- 
ences thus formed, which is opposite that at which the bands 
cross each other. “ Thus,’ as Mr. Archer-Hind says,’ “we 
have two circles bisecting each other, and, as the shape of X 
implies, inclined at an acute angle.” One of these hoops, 
called the outer, is the Circle of the Same, the inner is the 
Circle of the Other. The former revolves from left to right 
(from east to west), the latter from right to left. The Circle 
of the Same remains one and undivided, but the Circle of the 
Other is subdivided into seven concentric circles—those of the 
seven planets—each with its own proper motion.*] 

Now, when the making of the Soul had been fully aeccom- 
plished according to the good pleasure of her Maker, then did 
He fashion within her all that is corporeal, and draw these two, 
Soul and Corporeal Body, together, and join them middle to 
middle, and the Soul was inwoven everywhere from the 
middle of the Heaven even unto the borders thereof, and 
spread round the Heaven without, for a covering, and, turning 
round within herself, made beginning of her divine life of 
Reason, which continueth without end for evermore. 

The Body of the Heaven was created visible; but she, to 
wit, the Soul, invisible, and a partaker of Reason and Harmony ; 
being the most excellent of the things created, for that she 
was created by Him Who of Beings Intelligible and Eternal 
is the most excellent. 

Inasmuch, then, as she was compounded of the Same and 
of the Other and of Substance, these three, and was divided 
and bound together according to due proportions, and alway 
returneth unto herself, when she toucheth anything whose 
substance is scattered, or aught whose substance is undivided, 
she is moved throughout all her nature, and declareth where- 
with that thing is the same, and wherefrom it is different. 

* * ΩΣ * * * 


1 Timaeus, note on 36 c, p. 111. 

2 See de An. i. 406 Ὁ 25-407 Ὁ 18, where Aristotle summarises this account 
of the formation of the Soul, and criticises it in a manner which shows that he 
entirely misapprehends the Timaeus—fails to see that its ‘‘ doctrines” are con- 
veyed διὰ μυθολογίας, not διὰ διδαχῆς. In a Myth it is allowable to speak of the 
Soul as μέγεθος. 


270 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ \ = ’ ~ “ 

Cc ‘Os δὲ κινηθὲν αὐτὸ καὶ ζῶν ἐνόησε τῶν ἀϊδίων θεῶν 
4 v φ , , , , \ » 
γεγονὸς ἄγαλμα ὁ γεννήσας πατήρ, ἠγάσθη τε καὶ εὐφραν- 
4 v \ “ »" \ Ἁ ,ὔ , , 
θεὶς ἔτι δὴ μᾶλλον ὅμοιον πρὸς τὸ παράδειγμα ἐπενόησεν 
» 7 / 9° ᾽ \ / A ta’ 

Ὁ ἀπεργάσασθαι. καθάπερ οὖν αὐτὸ τυγχάνει ζῶον ἀΐδιον 
ὄν, καὶ τόδε τὸ πᾶν οὕτως εἰς δύναμιν ἐπεχείρησε τοιοῦτον 
, 7 ΄ \ ΚΣ “- , / , 4 ? 
ἀποτελεῖν. ἡ μὲν οὖν τοῦ ζώου φύσις ἐτύγχανεν οὖσα 
αἰώνιος. καὶ τοῦτο μὲν δὴ τῷ γεννητῷ παντελῶς προσά- 

/ / / »» 
Trew οὐκ ἦν δυνατὸν" εἰκὼ δ᾽ ἐπενόει κινητὸν τινα αἰῶνος 
- a "»" ’ tA 
ποιῆσαι, Kal διακοσμῶν ἅμα οὐρανὸν ποιεῖ μένοντος αἰῶνος 
, Be ᾽ > \ , A ῳ TF ᾽» ’ὔ -" ὃ δ) 
ἐν évl κατ᾽ ἀριθμὸν ἰοῦσαν αἰώνιον εἰκόνα, τοῦτον ὃν δὴ 
/ / a 
χρόνον ὠνομάκαμεν. ἡμέρας γὰρ καὶ νύκτας καὶ μῆνας καὶ 
7 > \ / o 
E ἐνιαυτούς, οὐκ ὄντας πρὶν οὐρανὸν γενέσθαι, τότε ἅμα 


᾽ , / \ / ’ a a 
EKELV@ ξυνισταμένῳ THV γεέενέεέσιν αὐτῶν μηχαναται. 
* * * * * a 


, + i > > A , “ “ / 

38 B Χρόνος δ᾽ οὖν pet οὐρανοῦ γέγονεν, iva ἅμα γεννηθέντες 
“ \ “~ ». / > A ’ \ 
ἅμα καὶ λυθῶσιν, ἄν ποτε λύσις Tis αὐτῶν γίγνηται, καὶ 

\ \ / lal / / | fet e e ui 
κατὰ τὸ παράδειγμα τῆς διαιωνίας φύσεως, iv’ ὡς ὁμοιό- 
» “ \ [4 . \ \ \ \ , 
στατος αὐτῷ κατὰ δύναμιν ἦ: τὸ μὲν γὰρ δὴ παράδευγμα 
/ IA , ᾽ Μ e ᾽ ° \ / \ oe 
πάντα αἰῶνά ἐστιν ὄν, ὁ δ᾽ av διὰ τέλους τὸν ἅπαντα 
/ ΄ \ vn \ ᾽ / ᾽ ° / \ 
χρόνον γεγονώς τε Kai ὧν καὶ ἐσόμενος. ἐξ οὖν λόγου καὶ 
~ / \ ’ ,ὔ A lol 
διανοίας θεοῦ τοιαύτης πρὸς χρόνου γένεσιν, ἵνα γεννηθῇ 
/ [4 \ / \ / ” ” , ’ 
χρόνος, ἥλιος καὶ σεληνὴ καὶ πέντε ἄλλα ἄστρα, ἐπίκλην 
» , > \ \ A 
ἔχοντα πλανηταί, εἰς διορισμὸν καὶ φυλακὴν ἀριθμῶν 
, \ 7 , , e 
χρόνου γέγονε. σώματα δὲ αὐτῶν ἑκάστων ποιήσας ὁ θεὸς 
» ᾽ ‘ , A - ; , 7 ‘ \ 
ἔθηκεν εἰς Tas περιφοράς, as ἡ θατέρου περίοδος Few, ἑπτὰ 
οὔσας ὄντα ἑπτά. 


% * * * x: ΕΣ 


39 E Kai τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ἤδη μέχρι χρόνου γενέσεως ἀπείρ- 
γαστο εἰς ὁμοιότητα ᾧπερ ἀπεικάζετο, τῷ δὲ μήπω τὰ 
πάντα ζῶα ἐντὸς αὑτοῦ γεγενημένα περιειληφέναι, ταύτῃ 
ἔτι εἶχεν ἀνομοίως. τοῦτο δὴ τὸ κατάλοιπον ἀπειργάξετο 
αὐτοῦ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ παραδείγματος ἀποτυπούμενος φύσιν. 


> 2 - ᾿ 7 bined "ἃ ν a , ” 
ἧπερ οὖν νοῦς ἐνούσας ἰδέας τῷ ὃ ἔστι ζῶον, οἷαί τε ἔνεισι 


THE 7/MALUS 271 


Now, when the Father Who begat this created image of 
the eternal gods saw that it moved and lived, He was glad ; 
and, being well pleased, took thought to make it even more 
like unto the pattern thereof. Inasmuch, then, as that 
pattern is an Eternal Being, even such, so far as might be, did 
He seek to make this Universe likewise. Now, the nature of 
the Being which is the pattern thereof is eternal. And this 
nature could not be joined in any wise unto the created thing : 
wherefore He took thought to make a Moving Image of 
Kternity ; and whilst He was ordering the Heaven, He made of 
Kternity which abideth in Unity an Image Eternal progressing 
according to Number, to wit, that which we have called by the 
name of Zime. For days and nights and months and years, 
which were not before the Heaven was created, He fashioned 
and brought forth together with the Heaven when He framed it. 


* * * + * * 


Time was created together with the Heaven, so that, having 
been created together, together they might be dissolved, if 
dissolution should ever befall them: and after the pattern of 
the Eternal Nature was it created, that it might be as like 
thereto as possible; for the pattern is existent throughout all 
Kternity, and the Image thereof was made, and is, and shall 
be continually, throughout all Time. Wherefore, according to 
this counsel of God for the creation of Time, the sun and the 
moon and the other five stars, which are surnamed planets, 
were created for the dividing and safeguarding of the numbers 
of Time. And God, when He had made the bodies of each of 
these, set them in the orbs wherein the circuit of the Other 
was moving, seven stars in seven orbs. 

¥* * ¥ x ¥ + 

Now, until Time was brought forth, all else had been 
fashioned in the likeness of That whereunto it was made like ; 
but inasmuch as all the kinds of living creatures, which the 
Universe should comprehend within itself, were not vet created, 
therein was it still unlike. 

This part, therefore, of the Universe which remained un- 
finished He now finished, moulding it to the nature of the 
pattern. All the Forms which Reason perceiveth to be present 
in the Intelligible Living Creature, these, after their kinds, 


272 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ ov - / \ ’ / A \ 
καὶ ὅσαι, καθορᾷ, τοιαύτας καὶ τοσαύτας διενοήθη δεῖν καὶ 
/ 7 Pian \ / / \ ᾽ / "»“- 
τόδε σχεῖν. εἰσὶ δὴ τέτταρες, μία μὲν οὐράνιον θεῶν 

/ ” \ \ \ > ’ ’ \ ΝΜ) 

40 γένος, ἄλλη δὲ πτηνὸν καὶ ἀεροπόρον, τρίτη δὲ ἔνυδρον 
« Ν \ \ A / lal \ Ss / 
εἶδος, πεζὸν δὲ καὶ χερσαῖον τέταρτον. τοῦ μὲν οὖν θείου 
\ ’ » / 5» \ , ’ “ “ , 
τὴν πλείστην ἰδέαν ἐκ πυρὸς ἀπήρξατο, ὅπως ὅ TL λαμπρό- 

’ a / v ad \ \ /, 
τατον ἰδεῖν τε κάλλιστον εἴη, TO δὲ παντὶ προσεικάζων 
v 5 , 7 , , \ a , / 
εὔκυκλον ἐποίει, τίθησί τε εἰς THY τοῦ κρατίστου φρόνησιν 
, / / ’ \ / 4 \ > U 
ἐκείνῳ ξυνεπόμενον, νείμας περὶ πάντα κύκλῳ TOV οὐρανόν, 
- “ 
κόσμον ἀληθινὸν αὐτῷ πεποικιλμένον εἶναι καθ᾽ ὅλον. 
/ \ / lol e / \ \ > > »" \ 
κινήσεις δὲ δύο προσῆψεν ἑκάστῳ, τὴν μὲν EV ταὐτῷ κατὰ 
> A Ἀ a > -“ ΨΌΝ \ > \ ΄ "»“" ,ὕὔ \ 

Β ταὐτὰ περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν ἀεὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ἑαυτῷ διανοουμένῳ, τὴν 
\ " Ν / ς \ a > cal \ e , »" 
δὲ εἰς τὸ πρόσθεν ὑπὸ τῆς ταὐτοῦ καὶ ὁμοίου περιφορᾶς 

/ Ν \ / / 5 ’ \ e , 7? 
κρατουμένῳ: τὰς δὲ πέντε κινήσεις ἀκίνητον Kal ἑστὸς, ἵν 
“ ΄, > κα “ , c ” > > 
6 τι μάλιστα αὐτῶν ἕκαστον γένοιτο ws ἄριστον. ἐξ ἧς 

\ a } ΟΥ̓ / wv 9 5 fal - ” an ΄ 
δὴ τῆς αἰτίας γέγονεν ὅσ᾽ ἀπλανῆ τῶν ἄστρων ζῶα θεῖα 
v \ 9 h \ \ tae. bd > a , ΙΑ, 
ὄντα καὶ ἀΐδια καὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἐν ταὐτῷ στρεφόμενα ἀεὶ 

, \ \ 4 \ / / » 

μένει' τὰ δὲ τρεπόμενα καὶ πλάνην τοιαύτην ἴσχοντα, 

, > - , > 7 ᾽ ᾽ an , ΄ 
καθάπερ ἐν τοῖς πρόσθεν ἐρρήθη, κατ ἐκεῖνα γέγονε. γῆν 

7 \ \ ς / ¢ , \ \ \ \ \ 
δέ, τροφὸν μὲν ἡμετέραν, εἱλλομένην δὲ περὶ τὸν διὰ παντὸς 
ἢ , 7 \ \ , \ 

C πόλον τεταμένον, φύλακα καὶ δημιουργὸν νυκτὸς τε Kal 
ς / > / / \ 4 lal “ 
ἡμέρας ἐμηχανήσατο, πρώτην καὶ πρεσβυτάτην θεῶν, ὅσοι 

la / 
ἐντὸς οὐρανοῦ γεγόνασι. 

* * *k * * * 

Ἑ Γῆς te καὶ Οὐρανοῦ παῖδες ‘Oxeavos te καὶ TnOds ἐγενέ- 

/ r / 
σθην, τούτων δὲ Φόρκυς Kpovos te καὶ ‘Péa καὶ ὅσοι μετὰ 
5 / eS / \ / 

41 τούτων, ἐκ δὲ Κρόνου καὶ Ῥέας Ζεὺς Ἥρα τε καὶ πάντες, 
“ v ’ \ / , a Μ , 
ὅσους ἴσμεν ἀδελφοὺς λεγομένους αὐτῶν, ETL TE τούτων 
» ; ᾽ . , . 
ἄλλους ἐκγόνους. ᾿Ἐπεὶ δ᾽ οὖν πάντες, ὅσοι τε περιπολοῦσι 

τ ᾽ / 
φανερῶς καὶ ὅσοι φαίνονται καθ᾽ ὅσον ἂν ἐθέλωσι, οἱ θεοὶ 
/ ν , \ \ > \ e , \ lal 
γένεσιν ἔσχον, λέγει δὴ πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὁ τόδε TO πᾶν 
/ (ὃ (~) \ fa A φ b] \ ὃ \ / 
γεννήσας tade* Θεοὶ θεῶν, ὧν ἐγὼ δημιουργὸς πατήρ Te 


v ΄ ’ la / \ 
ἔργων, ἃ δι’ ἐμοῦ γενόμενα ἄλυτα ἐμοῦ γε ἐθέλοντος. τὸ 


THE 7IMAEUS 273 


did He think it meet that this Universe also should contain. 
Now, these Forms are four: first, there is the heavenly race 
of the gods; then the race of winged fowls of the air; third, 
the kind that liveth in the water; and fourth, the kind that 
walketh on the dry land. 

The Form of the Godhead He consecrated and made for 
the most part of fire, that it might be brightest of all and 
fairest to look upon; and likening it unto the Universe He 
made it spherical, and set it in the Path of the Wisdom of the 
Highest to go therewith, and distributed it over all the spangled 
round of Heaven, to be a true adornment thereof. And unto 
every one of the divine stars He gave two motions—the one 
motion in the same place, and itself the same without changing, 
which is the motion of him who is true unto himself and 
thinketh alway the same thoughts concerning the same 
things; and the other motion forward, controlled by the 
revolution of the Same and the Like: but in respect of the 
other five motions He made it stand still. For this cause 
were those stars created which wander not, but, turning round 
with uniform motion, each one in his own place, therein alway 
abide, being living creatures divine and eternal. 

As for the stars which wander, they were created in the 
manner which hath been told. 

And Earth, our nursing mother, which is wrapped round 
about the line which extendeth from pole to pole, she was 
fashioned to be the guardian and maker of night and day, the 
first and eldest of the gods which were created within the 
Heaven. 

* * * ΩΣ * * 

Of Earth and Heaven were born Ocean and Tethys; of 
these were born Phorkys and Cronus and Rhea and their 
brethren ; and of Cronus and Rhea were born Zeus and Hera 
and their brethren, whose names are made mention of; and 
these, again, had children. 

Now, when all the gods were born—both gods visible in 
their heavenly courses, and gods which make themselves visible 
as it pleaseth them—then spake unto them the Begetter of 
this Universe, saying: Gods of gods whose Maker and Father 
I am, ye are the creatures of my handiwork, and without me 
are ye not loosed asunder; for verily that which is bound to- 

© 


274 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


κ U / \ an \ 
μὲν οὖν δὴ δεθὲν πᾶν λυτόν, TO γε μὴν καλῶς ἁρμοσθὲν 
/ / lal ᾽ A 
Bal ἔχον εὖ λύειν ἐθέλειν κακοῦ. δι ἃ Kal ἐπείπερ 
; > , \ > > \ »o? ΝΜ Ν / 
γεγένησθε, ἀθάνατοι μὲν οὐκ ἐστὲ οὐδ᾽ ἄλυτοι TO πάμπαν, 
/ \ / 
οὔ Te μὲν δὴ λυθήσεσθέ γε οὐδὲ τεύξεσθε θανάτου μοίρας, 
A > - / / ” r \ 7 
τῆς ἐμῆς βουλήσεως μείζονος ἔτι δεσμοῦ καὶ κυριωτέρου 
/ . 9 al la) 
λαχόντες ἐκείνων, ols ὅτ᾽ ἐγέίγνεσθε ξυνεδεῖσθε. νῦν οὖν ὃ 
/ \ al / 
λέγω πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐνδεικνύμενος, μάθετε. θνητὰ ἔτι γένη 
\ P ΣΟΥ , \ \ / > \ 
λοιπὰ τρί ἀγέννητα. τούτων δὲ μὴ γενομένων οὐρανὸς 
> \ 4 \ \ ¢ ἀν. ¢ a / ’ > isd 
ἀτελὴς ἔσται: τὰ yap ἅπαντ᾽ ἐν αὑτῷ γένη ζώων οὐχ ἕξει, 
7 ; e “- 3 ᾽ a) lo) 
C δεῖ δέ, εἰ μέλλει τέλεος ἱκανῶς εἶναι. Se ἐμοῦ δὲ ταῦτα 
/ \ / / a > / > ΝΜ 4 Ss 
γενόμενα καὶ βίου μετασχόντα θεοῖς ἰσάζοιτ᾽ ἄν. ἵνα οὖν 
͵ 3 , κι , " “ 5 , 
θνητά τε ἢ τό τε πᾶν τόδε ὄντως ἅπαν ἢ, τρέπεσθε κατὰ 
/ e lal ; (ee \ a] , / 4 \ 
φύσιν ὑμεῖς ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν ζώων δημιουργίαν, μιμούμενοι THY 
> \ / \ \ ς / / \ ’ [τ 
ἐμὴν δύναμιν περὶ τὴν ὑμετέραν γένεσιν. καὶ καθ ὅσον 
\ > fal ᾽ / e , s 7 a / 
μὲν αὐτῶν ἀθανάτοις ὁμώνυμον εἶναι προσήκει, θεῖον λεγό- 
΄ > > an a - om, / \ e lal 
μενον ἡγεμονοῦν τε ἐν αὐτοῖς τῶν ἀεὶ δίκῃ καὶ ὑμῖν 
b) / “ / Se / t Pa , 
ἐθελόντων ἕπεσθαι, σπείρας καὶ ὑπαρξάμενος ἐγὼ παραδώσω" 
\ \ \ ς a > / \ / > / 
D τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν ὑμεῖς, ἀθανάτῳ θνητὸν προσυφαίνοντες, ἀπεργά- 
an \ lal / / 
ἕεσθε ζῶα Kai yevvate τροφήν te διδόντες αὐξάνετε καὶ 
φθίνοντα πάλιν δέχεσθε. 
a? > \ / ᾽ \ \ / - 
Ταῦτ εἶπε, καὶ πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸν πρότερον κρατῆρα, ἐν 
? \ “ \ \ \ 5d \ a / 
ᾧ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ψυχὴν κεραννὺς ἔμισγε, TA TOV πρόσθεν 
᾽ / - / / 
ὑπόλοιπα κατεχεῖτο μίσγων τρόπον μέν τινα τὸν αὐτόν, 
» 7 δ᾽ > Ul \ ᾽ \ ς / > ,ὔ \ 
ἀκήρατα οὐκέτι κατὰ ταὐτὰ ὡσαύτως, ἀλλὰ δεύτερα καὶ 
/ / \ \ “ / a 
τρίτα. ξυστήσας δὲ τὸ πᾶν διεῖλε ψυχὰς ἰσαρίθμους τοῖς 
"» " , ᾽ vir ὦ ‘ “ \ ᾽ ΄ 
Ε ἄστροις, ἔνειμέ θ᾽ ἑκάστην πρὸς ἕκαστον, καὶ ἐμβιβάσας 
᾿ > v \ al \ / Μ ’ \ 
ὡς εἰς ὄχημα τὴν TOD παντὸς φύσιν ἔδειξε, νόμους τε τοὺς 
Ld / > » a “ / ’ὔ ν 
εἱμαρμένους εἶπεν αὐταῖς, ὅτι γένεσις πρώτη μὲν ἔσοιτο 
/ / a) “ / a ΄ ᾽ ᾽ lal / 
τεταγμένη μία πᾶσιν, ἵνα μή τις ἐλαττοῖτο ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, δέοι 


, 4 ; ; e149 
δὲ σπαρείσας αὐτὰς εἰς τὰ προσήκοντα ἑκάστοις ἕκαστα 


ΤῊΝ 7IMALUS 275 


gether can alway be loosed asunder; but none save an evil one 
would desire to loose asunder that whereof the parte are well 
joined together and the whole state is goodly. Wherefore, 
being creatures, ye are not altogether set apart from death so 
that ye cannot be loosed asunder: nevertheless, loosed asunder 
ye shall not be, nor shall ye partake of death, because that my 
will, which is your portion, is a greater bond and prevaileth 
more than all those bonds wherewith your parts were bound 
together when ye were created, 

Now give ear unto that which 1 declare unto you. Three 
mortal kinds are yet uncreated. If these be not brought 
forth, the Heaven will be imperfect; for it will not have in 
itself all the kinds of living creatures; yet must it have all, if 
it is to be fully perfect. But if these were brought into being 
by me, and by me made partakers of life, they would be 
equals to gods. Wherefore, to the end that they be mortal 
and that this Universe—this All, be truly All, turn ye, 
according to nature, to the making of living creatures, having 
the faculty, for an ensample, wherewith I created you. 

That part of them whereunto it belongeth to partake in 
the name of immortal—that part, to wit, which is called divine 
and is leader in them of those parts which alway do desire to 
follow after righteousness and after you—that part I, having 
sown to be a beginning, will deliver unto you. Thereafter do 
ye, weaving the mortal upon the immortal, fashion living 
creatures and beget them, and giving them nourishment in- 
crease them, and when they die receive them again. Thus He 
spake, and again He took the bowl wherein afore He compounded 
and mixed the elements of the Soul of the All, and into this 
bowl He poured that which was left over of the elements, mix- 
ing them as afore; yet now were they not so pure as at first, 
but second and third in quality. 

Then, when He had made of them one mixture, He took and 
divided Souls therefrom, as many as there are stars, and to each 
star he assigned a Soul, and caused each Soul to go up into her 
star as into a chariot, and showed unto her the nature of the 
All, and declared the laws thereof which are fixed and shall 
not be moved, to wit, that it was appointed that the first birth 
should be for all the same, so that no Soul should fare worse 
at His hands than another, and that all, having been cast as 


270 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


a ’ Ν a 
ὄργανα χρόνων φῦναι ζώων τὸ θεοσεβέστατον, διπλῆς δὲ 
ΝΜ “ > / : 4 \ a an Mv 
a2 οὔσης τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως τὸ κρεῖττον τοιοῦτον εἴη 

/ ἃ \ »)} / > / e / \ , 
γένος, ὃ Kal ἔπειτα κεκλήσοιτο ἀνήρ. ὁπότε δὴ σώμασιν 
> a > ᾽ / \ \ \ / \ ᾽ > / 
ἐμφυτευθεῖεν ἐξ ἀνάγκης, Kal TO μὲν προσίοι, TO δ᾽ ἀπίοι 
τοῦ σώματος αὐτῶν, πρῶτον μὲν αἴσθησιν ἀναγκαῖον εἴη 
, a > / / 4 / 
μίαν πᾶσιν ἐκ βιαίων παθημάτων ξύμφυτον γίγνεσθαι, 
7 \ ς a \ / / Μ Ν Ν 
δεύτερον δὲ ἡδονῇ καὶ λύπῃ μεμιγμένον ἔρωτα, πρὸς δὲ 
΄ 7 \ \ “ ς / > a \ e / 
Β τούτοις φόβον καὶ θυμὸν ὅσα τε ἑπόμενα αὐτοῖς Kal ὁπόσα 
? , / , ἣν > \ / ᾽ / 
ἐναντίως πέφυκε SuecTnKoTa’ ὧν εἰ μὲν κρατήσοιεν, ἐν δίκῃ 
/ / \ > / \ e \ @ \ 
βιώσοιντο, κρατηθέντες δὲ ἀδικίᾳ. καὶ ὁ μὲν εὖ τὸν προσ- 
7 ’ 7 / > \ - / \ 
ἤκοντα χρόνον βιούς, πάλιν εἰς THY τοῦ ξυννόμου πορευθεὶς 
οἴκησιν ἄστρου, βίον εὐδαίμονα καὶ συνήθη ἕξοι: σφαλεὶς 
δὲ τούτων εἰς γυναικὸς φύσιν ἐν τῇ δευτέρᾳ γενέσει μετα 
7 7 P? TF μέετα- 
a \ / / ’ / Μ / / a 
C βαλοῖ, μὴ παυόμενός τε ἐν τούτοις ETL κακίας, τρόπον ὃν 
e / an a / 
KQKUVOLTO, κατὰ τὴν ὁμοιότητα τῆς τοῦ τρόπου γενέσεως 
n / 
εἴς Twa τοιαύτην ἀεὶ μεταβαλοῖ θήρειον φύσιν, ἀλλάττων 
> ’ / / \ A » - e , 
Te οὐ πρότερον πόνων λήξοι, πρὶν τῇ ταὐτοῦ Kal ὁμοίου 


ag > e 


ὃ A E U \ λὺ v x \ 
περιόδῳ τῇ ἐν αὑτῷ ξυνεπιστόμενος τὸν πολὺν ὄχλον καὶ 
Ὁ / > \ \ e \ »/ \ a 
Ὁ ὕστερον προσφύντα ἐκ πυρὸς Kal ὕδατος Kal ἀέρος Kal γῆς, 

, / - 
θορυβώδη καὶ ἄλογον ὄντα, λόγῳ κρατήσας εἰς τὸ τῆς 
,ὔ / s 
πρώτης Kal ἀρίστης ἀφίκοιτο εἶδος ἕξεως. Διαθεσμοθετήσας 
a A ~ a , 
δὲ πάντα αὐτοῖς ταῦτα, ἵνα τῆς ἔπειτα εἴη κακίας ἑκάστων 
᾽ / Μ \ \ ,’ a \ ᾽ , / 
ἀναίτιος, ἔσπειρε τοὺς μὲν εἰς γῆν, τοὺς δ᾽ εἰς σελήνην, 
> / 
τοὺς δ᾽ εἰς τἄλλα ὅσα ὄργανα χρόνου. τὸ δὲ μετὰ τὸν 
’ la / / a ’ / / 
σπόρον τοῖς νέοις παρέδωκε θεοῖς σώματα πλάττειν θνητά, 
/ ᾽ / “ a = na ᾽ / / 
τό Te ἐπίλοιπον ὅσον ἔτει ἣν ψυχῆς ἀνθρωπίνης δέον 
na ’ / 
Ε προσγενέσθαι, τοῦτο καὶ πάνθ᾽ ὅσα ἀκόλουθα ἐκείνοις ἀπερ- 


γασαμένους ἄρχειν, καὶ κατὰ δύναμιν 6 τι κάλλιστα καὶ 


ΤῊΝ TIMALUS 277 


seed upon the Instruments of Time, each upon the Instrument 
suitable for her, must first be born in the flesh of that living 
creature which feareth God most; and, since human nature 
hath two kinds, in the flesh of that kind which is the better, 
which thereafter should be called Man. Therefore, whereas 
Souls of necessity should be implanted in Bodies, and of the 
Body there should be that which cometh and that which goeth, 
first must all Souls have implanted in them at their birth one 
sense collected from the passions which assault them; more- 
over, all must have born in them love made up of pleasure and 
pain, and in addition thereto fear and anger and all the other 
passions which do go together with these, and also as many as 
are by nature contrary to these—and if any man should hold 
these passions in subjection, his life would be righteous; but 
unrighteous, if he should be overcome of them ; and whosoever 
lived virtuously all the time appointed unto him should 
journey back to his kindred star and dwell there, and there 
should have a life blessed and conform unto his nature: but 
whosoever fell short of this, he in the second birth should pass 
into the nature of Woman; and if therein he refrained not 
from wickedness, then, according to the likeness of that wicked- 
ness whereunto he turned him, should he pass alway into the 
nature of some Beast, and should not be rid of the labour of 
these changes until, having closely followed the Circuit of the 
Same and the Like which is in himself, he should, by the 
might of reason, overcome all that unreasonable, tumultuous 
crowd which was afterward gathered about him from the ele- 
ments of fire and water and air and earth, and should come 
again unto his first and best estate. 

He having made all these ordinances for them, that He 
might be blameless as touching the wickedness which should 
be thereafter in each one of them, sowed some on the Earth 
and some on the Moon and some on the other Instruments of 
Time; and all that should come after the sowing He delivered 
unto the Young Gods, to wit, the moulding of mortal bodies and 
the fashioning of all parts (together with all their appurte- 
nances) that yet remained of man’s Soul which must be added 
thereto: all this did He deliver unto the Young Gods, that 
thereby they might have rule over the living creature which 
is mortal, and might guide it, after their ability, to walk in 


278 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


v \ \ a cal “ὔ \ a em Ὁ 
ἄριστα τὸ θνητὸν διακυβερνᾶν ζῶον, 6 Te μὴ κακῶν αὐτὸ 
e x / yy 
ἑαυτῷ γίγνοιτο αἴτιον. 
[ \ \ lal 
Kai ὁ μὲν δὴ ἅπαντα ταῦτα διατάξας ἔμενεν ἐν τῷ 
ξ a \ , ” 7 \ , ς “ 
ἑαυτοῦ κατὰ τρόπον ἤθει" μένοντος δὲ νοήσαντες οἱ παῖδες 
τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς διάταξιν ἐπείθοντο αὐτῇ, καὶ λαβόντες 
> / > \ “ ’ 4 \ / 
ἀθάνατον ἀρχὴν θνητοῦ ζώου, μιμούμενοι τὸν σφέτερον 
ὃ / \ \ A “ὃ \ »/ > \ lal 
ημιουργόν, πυρὸς Kat γῆς ὕδατός τε καὶ ἀέρος ἀπὸ τοῦ 
’ / / id > / / ’ 
48 κόσμου δανειζόμενοι μόρια ὡς ἀποδοθησόμενα πάλιν, εἰς 
al 
ταὐτὸν τὰ λαμβανόμενα συνεκόλλων, OV τοῖς ἀλύτοις οἷς 
/ lal / 
αὐτοὶ ξυνείχοντο δεσμοῖς, ἀλλὰ διὰ σμικρότητα ἀοράτοις 
an / / A > e / > / 
πυκνοῖς γόμφοις ξυντήκοντες, ἕν ἐξ ἁπάντων ἀπεργαζόμενοι 
lal Φ \ a > / - / δον 
σῶμα ἕκαστον, τὰς τῆς ἀθανάτου ψυχῆς περιόδους ἐνέδουν 
> > / a \ > / e > ᾽ \ 
εἰς ἐπίρρυτον σῶμα καὶ ἀπόρρυτον. ai δ᾽ εἰς ποταμὸν 
a mse a 
ἐνδεθεῖσαι πολὺν οὔτ᾽ ἐκράτουν οὔτ᾽ ἐκρατοῦντο, Bia δὲ 
\ a a 
Β ἐφέροντο καὶ ἔφερον, ὥστε TO μὲν ὅλον κινεῖσθαι ζῶον, 
> 4 \ “ / “ \ ᾽ / \ Δ 
ἀτάκτως μὴν ὅπῃ τύχοι προϊέναι καὶ ἀλόγως, τὰς ὲξ 
ς 7 / »” y \ \ , \ Μ 
ἁπάσας κινήσεις ἔχον' εἴς τε γὰρ τὸ πρόσθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν 
\ / > \ \ ᾽ \ / \ ” \ 
καὶ πάλιν εἰς δεξιὰ Kal ἀριστερὰ κάτω τε Kal ἄνω Kal 
7 \ \ Δ / f / lol 
πάντῃ κατὰ τοὺς ἕξ τόπους πλανώμενα προήειν. πολλοῦ 
» A / Δ ͵ ΄ a 
yap ὄντος τοῦ κατακλύζοντος καὶ ἀπορρέοντος κύματος, ὃ 
\ a / 
τὴν τροφὴν παρεῖχεν, ἔτε μείζω θόρυβον ἀπειργάζετο τὰ 
rn / / / 
στῶν προσπιπτόντων παθήματα ἑκάστοις, ὅτε πυρὶ προσ- 
/ \ an / y ᾽ / \ wn \ 
κρούσειε TO σῶμά τινος ἔξωθεν ἀλλοτρίῳ περιτυχὸν ἢ Kal 
lal - ΄ lal aX 0 / 58 / @ yy far 
στερεῷ γῆς ὑγροῖς τε ὀλισθήμασιν ὑδάτων, εἴτε ζάλῃ 
7 EB »/ / / 7 
πνευμάτων ὑπ ἀέρος φερομένων καταληφθείη, καὶ ὑπὸ 
7 7 ὃ \ a / e / > ὶ \ \ 
πάντων τούτων διὰ τοῦ σώματος αἱ κινήσεις ἐπὶ THY ψυχὴν 
/ / "“" \ \ Μ la 
φερόμεναι προσπίπτοιεν' αἱ δὴ καὶ ἔπειτα διὰ ταῦτα 
ἐκλήθησάν τε καὶ νῦν ἔτι αἰσθήσεις ξυνάπασαι κέκληνται. 
* ¥ x x x ve 


\ \ \ an / / la ᾽ ᾽ 7 
44 καὶ διὰ δὴ ταῦτα πάντα τὰ παθήματα νῦν κατ᾽ ἀρχάς τε 


THE TIMAKLUS 279 


the most honourable and perfect way, without evil, save that 
which it should itself bring upon itself, 

All these things did He ordain, and thereafter abode in 
His own proper nature. Therein He abode; and His sons, having 
comprehended their Father's ordinance, were obedient unto it, 
and having received the immortal beginning of the living 
creature which is mortal, they took their own Maker for an 
ensample, and borrowed from the Universe portions of fire 
and earth and water and air which should be restored again : 
these they took and cemented together, not with the bonds 
which cannot be loosed wherewith they themselves were held 
together; but with bolts innumerable, invisible by reason of 
smallness, they welded them, and out of them all fashioned 
one body for each living creature, binding the Circuits of 
Immortal Soul within Body that consisteth in perpetual 
influx and efflux. 

Now the Circuits of the Soul, having been bound within 
the River of the Body which floweth mightily, neither had 
the mastery over it, nor were they mastered, but were pushed 
about, and did push with violence, so that the whole creature 
was moved, and went hither and thither disorderly, by chance, 
without forethought, having all the six motions ; for forward and 
backward, and to the right and to the left, and down and up, 
did the creatures go, wandering towards all the six points; 
because that the flood was great which did swell up over them 
supplying their nourishment, and then again did flow away 
from them; and yet greater was the commotion that was 
made in them by the blows of those things which did strike 
against them—to wit, when the body of any living creature 
happened on something without, foreign from itself, and 
therewith had contact—with fire, or with solid earth, or 
smoothly sliding water, or if at any time it was overtaken by 
the blast of winds borne along in the air; and then the 
motions caused by all these were carried through the Body 
into the Soul and beat upon her. Wherefore were all these 
motions together called aesthéses and still are so called. 

ἋΣ * ΩΣ τον * * 

By reason of these assaults of the passions which are 

made upon her, the Soul now, as in the beginning, loseth 


1 Plato seems to derive αἴσθησις, ‘‘ sensation,” from ἀΐσσειν, ‘to rush violently.” 


280 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Β ἄνους ψυχὴ γίγνεται TO πρῶτον, ὅταν eis σῶμα ἐνδεθῇ 
5 XD YY p ; ἐς ἐνδεθῃ 
, \ ~ lol 
θνητόν: ὅταν δὲ τὸ τῆς αὔξης καὶ τροφῆς ἔλαττον ἐπίῃ 
a , / / 
ῥεῦμα, πάλιν δὲ ai περίοδοι. λαμβανόμεναι γαλήνης τὴν 
¢ - ον " \ a n > / A 
ἑαυτῶν ὁδὸν ἴωσι καὶ καθιστῶνται μᾶλλον ἐπιόντος τοῦ 
/ / ” \ \ /, / a 
χρόνου, τότε ἤδη πρὸς τὸ κατὰ φύσιν ἰόντων σχῆμα 
c / a , ς \ / / 
ἑκάστων τῶν κύκλων al περιφοραὶ κατευθυνόμεναι, TO TE 
\ \ \ U 
θάτερον καὶ τὸ ταὐτὸν προσαγορεύουσαι κατ᾽ ὀρθόν, ἔμφρονα 
\ » | oom” / > a Ὰ Φ \ 
TOV ἔχοντα αὐτὰς γιγνόμενον ἀποτελοῦσιν. ἂν μὲν οὖν δὴ 
\ e / 
σ καὶ ξυνεπιλαμβάνηταί τις ὀρθὴ τροφὴ παιδεύσεως, ὁλό- 
e / al \ / > \ / 
KANpos ὑγιής τε παντελῶς, τὴν μεγίστην ἀποφυγὼν νόσον, 
/ \ a 
γίγνεται." καταμελήσας δέ, χωλὴν τοῦ βίου διαπορευθεὶς 
/ ? \ » Se Ὑ 7 ? "* ὃ / ” a 
ζωήν, ἀτελὴς καὶ avovntos' eis “Avdov πάλιν ἔρχεται. ταῦτα 
\ 93 e / / \ \ lal lal / 
μὲν οὖν ὕστερά ποτε γίγνεται" περὶ δὲ τῶν νῦν προτεθέντων 
- al \ / 
δεῖ διελθεῖν ἀκριβέστερον. τὰ δὲ πρὸ τούτων, περὶ σωμά- 
\ / a / \ \ ol ὃ ᾽ “ 
των κατὰ μέρη τῆς γενέσεως καὶ περὶ ψυχῆς, δι’ ἅς τε 
| εν Ν ,ὔ / a A , | a 4 
αἰτίας Kal προνοίας γέγονε θεῶν, Tod μάλιστα εἰκότος 
\ a / 
Ὁ ἀντεχομένοις, οὕτω Kal κατὰ ταῦτα πορευομένοις διεξιτέον. 
Ν \ \ / / / ” \ lal \ 
Tas μὲν δὴ θείας περιόδους δύο οὔσας, TO τοῦ παντὸς 
a > 7 \ ἡ > \ A 
σχῆμα ἀπομιμησάμενοι περιφερὲς ὄν, εἰς σφαιροειδὲς σῶμα 
7 a A a \ > / ἃ / / 
ἐνέδησαν, τοῦτο ὃ νῦν κεφαλὴν ἐπονομάζομεν, ὃ θειότατόν 
lal lal lal ? an 
τ᾽ ἐστὶ καὶ τῶν ἐν ἡμῖν πάντων δεσποτοῦν. ᾧ Kal πᾶν 
\ lal / ς΄ / > a / / 
TO σῶμα παρέδοσαν ὑπηρεσίαν αὐτῷ ξυναθροίσαντες θεοί, 
n / 
κατανοήσαντες, OTL πασῶν ὅσαι κινήσεις ἔσοιντο μετέχοι" 
aA / lel 
iv οὖν μὴ κυλινδούμενον ἐπὶ γῆς ὕψη te καὶ βάθη 
\ > 4 > la \ \ ς / Μ 
Ἑ παντοδαπὰ ἐχούσης amopot τὰ μὲν ὑπερβαίνειν, ἔνθεν 
\ ᾽ / ” ᾽ > A a \ > / ἔδ 50 
δὲ ἐκβαίνειν, ὄχημ᾽ αὐτῷ τοῦτο Kal εὐπορίαν ἔδοσαν. ὅθεν 
\ an Ν a Μ ᾽ / a \ 
δὴ μῆκος TO σῶμα ἔσχεν, ἐκτατά τε κῶλα Kal καμπτὰ 
Μ / a) / lal » 
ἔφυσε, τέτταρα θεοῦ μηχανησαμένου πορεῖα, οἷς ἀντιλαμ- 
/ “ U / 
βανόμενον καὶ ἀπερειδόμενον διὰ πάντων ᾿τόπων πορεύεσθαι 
\ / \ “ 7 ‘ e / / 
45 δυνατὸν γέγονε τὴν τοῦ θειοτάτου καὶ ἱερωτάτου φέρον 
Μ ᾽ / ΄ A / \ * af , 
οἴκησιν ἐπάνωθεν ἡμῶν. σκέλη μὲν οὖν χεῖρές Te ταύτῃ 


1 ἀνόητος. 


THE 7T/MALUS 281 


understanding when she is first bound unto the mortal body ; 
but when the stream of growth and nourishment abateth of 
his influx, and the Circuits of the Soul are gotten into smooth 
waters, and go their own way, and are become more constant 
as time passeth on, then at last are they brought into the 
perfect form of the natural motion which is proper unto each 
of the Circles, and marking and naming the Other and the 
Same aright, they cause him who possesseth them to have 
understanding ; and if right teaching also take part in the 
work, he becometh whole and altogether sound, having escaped 
that disease which is the greatest of all; but if he give not 
heed unto this teaching, he journeyeth halt through this 
present life, and, without initiation, and without understanding, 
cometh again unto Hades. 

But these be things which come to pass afterward ; it 
behoves us rather to tell more exactly concerning the matter 
which now we have in hand, and concerning the matter 
which is precedent thereto, to wit, concerning the generation 
of the Body with the parts thereof, and concerning the Soul 
and the causes and purposes of the Gods by reason whereof 
she was generated. All these things, therefore, let us ex- 
pound, alway holding fast in our discourse unto that which 
seemeth most likely. 

The Young Gods, taking for a pattern the shape of the 
Universe which is a globe, bound the Divine Circles, which are 
twain, within this corporeal ball which we now call Head, which 
is the divinest of our parts, and hath lordship over them all. 
Unto the Head, to minister unto it, the Gods gave the whole 
Body which they had compacted together; for they perceived 
that unto the Head belonged all the motions which should be. 
Wherefore, that it might not go rolling upon the earth, which 
hath heights and depths of every sort, finding no way of 
getting over those or out of these, to this end gave they 
unto it the Body for a carriage, to make the way easy for it. 
Wherefore the Body got length, and put forth limbs which 
were able to be stretched out and to be bent, four in number ; 
for thus did the Gods devise means of going about, so that 
the Body, therewith taking hold and pushing off, could go 
through all places, bearing aloft the temple of that which in 
us is the most divine and the most holy. In this wise, then, 


282 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ la la lal > 7 
καὶ διὰ ταῦτα προσέφυ πᾶσι' τοῦ δ᾽ ὄπισθεν τὸ πρόσθεν 
, \ 5) , \ ’ \ \ 
τιμιώτερον καὶ ἀρχικώτερον νομίζοντες θεοὶ ταύτῃ TO πολὺ 
- , Ce ” 4 \ / ΝΜ \ 
τῆς πορείας ἡμῖν ἔδοσαν. ἔδει δὴ διωρισμένον ἔχειν καὶ 
> U a , \ / ΝΜ \ \ 
ἀνομοίον τοῦ σώματος τὸ πρόσθεν ἄνθρωπον. διὸ δὴ 

a \ \ \ a tel / [ / δ.» 

πρῶτον μὲν περὶ τὸ τῆς κεφαλῆς κύτος, ὑποθέντες αὐτόσε 
\ / " ΦΟΥ 7 7 a as 7 
τὸ πρόσωπον, ὄργανα ἐνέδησαν τούτῳ πάσῃ TH τῆς ψυχῆς 

Β ποῦν le \ ὃ (ξ 7 ε , as ae \ 

povoia, καὶ διετάξαντο μετέχον ἡγεμονίας τοῦτ᾽ εἶναι TO 
\ , / -" »-“ 
κατὰ φύσιν πρόσθεν. τῶν δὲ ὀργάνων πρῶτον μὲν φωσφόρα 
/ ” a > / Df a \ 
ξυνετεκτήναντο ὄμματα, τοιᾷδε ἐνδήσαντες aitia. τοῦ πυρὸς 
Ψ Ν \ / > ΝΜ \ \ / Le 4 
ὅσον τὸ μὲν κάειν οὐκ ἔσχε, τὸ δὲ παρέχειν φῶς ἥμερον, 
> a / / a ἵ / 
οἰκεῖον ἑκάστης ἡμέρας, σῶμα ἐμηχανήσαντο γίγνεσθαι. τὸ 
Ν > \ -“ \ xX / la) 
yap ἐντὸς ἡμῶν ἀδελφὸν ὃν τούτου πῦρ εἰλικρινὲς ἐποίησαν 
ὃ \ a ? / δ 27% al 1 / Ὁ / / 
la TOV ὀμμάτων ῥεῖν λεῖον Kal πυκνόν, ὅλον μέν, μάλιστα 
\ \ “ Ν 

Οδὲ τὸ μέσον ξυμπιλήσαντες τῶν ὀμμάτων, ὥστε τὸ μὲν 
» oe , / a \ lal \ / 
ἄλλο ὅσον παχύτερον στέγειν πᾶν, TO τοιοῦτον δὲ μόνον 

ϑ. κ᾿ \ al “ Ss \ 3 a \ 
αὐτὸ καθαρὸν διηθεῖν. ὅταν οὖν μεθημερινὸν ἡ φῶς περὶ 
\ an " δ, δα i gtk ᾽ 7 “ \ oe 
TO τῆς ὄψεως ῥεῦμα, TOT ἐκπῖπτον ὅμοιον πρὸς ὅμοιον, 
, rn \ / \ 
ξυμπαγὲς γενόμενον, ἕν σῶμα οἰκειωθὲν συνέστη κατὰ τὴν 
- ¢ / \ lal 
TOV ὀμμάτων εὐθυωρίαν, ὅπῃπερ ἀντερείδει TO προσπῖπτον 
a e \ 
ἔνδοθεν πρὸς ὃ τῶν ἔξω συνέπεσεν. ὁμοιοπαθὲς δὴ δι᾽ 
4 / κ / / 
ὁμοιότητα πᾶν γενόμενον, ὅτου τε ἂν αὐτὸ ποτε ἐφάπτηται 
/ / \ 

ἢ καὶ ὃ ἂν ἄλλο ἐκείνου, τούτων Tas κινήσεις διαδιδὸν εἰς 
“ \ cal / - a Μ / 
ἅπαν τὸ σῶμα μέχρι τῆς ψυχῆς αἴσθησιν παρέσχετο 

e κ / 4 a 
ταύτην, ἡ δὴ ὁρᾶν φαμέν. ἀπελθόντος δὲ εἰς νύκτα τοῦ 
nr \ > / \ 9.) > \ 
Evyyevods πυρὸς ἀποτέτμηται' πρὸς yap ἀνόμοιον ἐξιὸν 
rn / \ / A 
ἀλλοιοῦταί τε αὐτὸ Kal κατασβέννυται, ξυμφυὲς οὐκέτι τῷ 
’ Φ / “ la > μ 
πλησίον ἀέρι γιγνόμενον, ἅτε πῦρ οὐκ ἔχοντι. 
* * * * * * 
ΒΟ . 7 > \ a / \ φ 
a6C ταῦτ οὖν πάντα ἐστὶ τῶν ἕξυναιτίων, οἷς θεὸς ὑπηρε. 
a - \ lal » ’ \ \ ὃ \ ἰδέ 
τοῦσι χρῆται τὴν τοῦ ἀρίστου κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ἰδέαν 


ἢ ἀποτελῶν: δοξάζεται δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν πλείστων οὐ Evvaitia 


1 ῥεῖν, λεῖον. 


THE TIMALUS 283 


and for this end, were legs and hands put forth and added 
unto all men; and the Gods, thinking that that which is 
before is more honourable than that which is behind, and 
more able to lead, made man to go for the most part forward ; 
wherefore must he needs have the forepart of his body dis- 
tinct from the hind part and dissimilar. For this reason 
they first put the face on the forepart of the vessel of the 
Head, and fixed therein the instruments which should minister 
in every way unto the forethought of the Soul, having 
ordained that that which hath ability to lead should be that 
which is by nature before. First of these instruments they 
fashioned light-bringing eyes, and fixed them in, after this 
wise. Out of that fire which hath not the power of burning, 
but is able to give gentle light—that light, to wit, which 
belongeth to day—they contrived and made a body; for the 
pure fire, twin-born therewith, which is within us they did 
cause to flow through the eyes, having compressed their 
substance throughout, but most of all in the mid part thereof, 
so that it was made smooth and dense, and held in whatsoever 
in the light was thick, and let only the light itself strain 
through in a pure stream. When, therefore, the light of day 
is round about the visual stream, then doth the stream, going 
forth, like unto like, compactly join itself unto that stream 
without against the which the stream that cometh from within 
doth thrust itself, and these two being blended together make 
one body which is extended in a straight line from the eyes. 
The visual stream, then, since it is compact of parts altogether 
like, receiveth altogether like affections; and when it toucheth 
anything, and something else toucheth that, it passeth their 
motions on throughout the whole Body, until they come unto 
the Soul, and so it causeth that sense wherewith we say that 
we see. But when the kindred fire is gone away into night, 
then is the visual stream cut off; for, going forth into that 
which is unlike itself, it is changed and quenched, no longer 
becoming consubstantial with the air round about, because 
that the air hath in it no fire. 
* * * * * * 

Now these be all auxiliary causes which God maketh 
subservient unto His design of bringing the Idea of the Best 
into act, as far as is possible; but most men are of opinion 


284 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


ἀλλ᾽ αἴτια εἶναι τῶν πάντων, ψύχοντα Kal θερμαίνοντα 
πηγνύντα τε καὶ διαχέοντα καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα ἀπεργαζόμενα. 
λόγον δὲ οὐδένα οὐδὲ νοῦν εἰς οὐδὲν δυνατὰ ἔχειν ἐστί. 
- 4 wv ? » / ~ / / 
τῶν yap ὄντων ᾧ νοῦν μόνῳ κτᾶσθαι προσήκει, λεκτέον 
A δὲ »" A δὲ \ “ὃ \ A \ 
ψυχήν' τοῦτο δὲ ἀόρατον, πῦρ δὲ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ γῆ καὶ 


e “ 
ἀὴρ σώματα πάντα ὁρατὰ γέγονε. τὸν δὲ νοῦ καὶ ἐπιστή- 


» \ > / \ lel Γ᾽ / 5. 4 
Epuns ἐραστὴν ἀνάγκη Tas τῆς ἐμῴρονος φύσεως αἰτίας 


47 


, ἥ ¢ \ we? ” \ ‘ 
πρώτας μεταδιώκειν, ὅσαι δὲ ὑπ᾽ ἄλλων μὲν κινουμένων, 
“ > > > 7 4 7 / 
ἕτερα δ᾽ ἐξ ἀνάγκης κινούντων γίγνονται, δευτέρας. 

/ \ \ la) \ ee / \ > / 
ποιητέον δὴ κατὰ ταῦτα Kal ἡμῖν. λεκτέα μὲν ἀμφότερα 
\ “ > “ / \ \ ee rn la \ 
Ta TOV αἰτιῶν γένη, χωρὶς δὲ ὅσαι μετὰ νοῦ καλῶν καὶ 
᾽ a \ Ν “ἤ a / \ 
ἀγαθῶν Snutovpyoi Kat ὅσαι μονωθεῖσαι φρονήσεως τὸ 

\ ” ae. > , \ > a 
τυχὸν ἄτακτον ἑκάστοτε ἐξεργάζονται. Ta μὲν οὖν τῶν 
> / / Ν \ » \ / “A 
ὀμμάτων ξυμμεταίτια πρὸς τὸ ἔχειν τὴν δύναμιν, ἣν νῦν 

lal > 
εἴληχεν, εἰρήσθω: τὸ δὲ μέγιστον αὐτῶν εἰς ὠφέλειαν 
Μ 5. oe Ν ¥ Δ᾽ δὰ δὰ ’ \ A ς / 
ἔργον, dv ὃ θεὸς αὔθ ἡμῖν δεδώρηται, μετὰ τοῦτο ῥητέον. 
Μ \ \ \ | ed. / 3. ol / > / 
ὄψις δὴ κατὰ τὸν ἐμὸν λόγον αἰτία τῆς μεγίστης ὠφελείας 
/ Cc oA a - / \ a \ 
γέγονεν ἡμῖν, OTL τῶν νῦν λογων περὶ τοῦ παντὸς λεγο- 
/ > \ ” >’ / / ΝΜ / [4 / 
μένων οὐδεὶς av ποτε ἐρρήθη μήτε ἄστρα μήτε ἥλιον μήτε 
Ν / a / lal YER 
οὐρανὸν ἰδόντων. viv δ᾽ ἡμέρα τε καὶ νὺξ ὀφθεῖσαι paves 
\ > “ / / \ > / / 
τε Kal ἐνιαυτῶν περίοδοι μεμηχάνηνται μὲν ἀριθμὸν, χρόνου 
\ ΕΣ / »" lal \ / / μ 
δὲ ἔννοιαν περί τε τῆς τοῦ παντὸς φύσεως ζήτησιν ἔδοσαν" 
a \ 
ἐξ ὧν ἐπορισάμεθα φιλοσοφίας γένος, οὗ μεῖζον ἀγαθὸν 
| 4 wa” “' \ A a / \ > 
οὔτ ἦλθεν οὔθ᾽ ἥξει ποτὲ τῷ θνητᾷ γένει δωρηθὲν ἐκ 

ω ε / ° 
θεῶν. λέγω δὴ τοῦτο ὀμμάτων μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν. Tara 

΄ - e \ / 
δέ, ὅσα ἐλάττω, Ti ἂν ὑμνοῖμεν; ὧν ὁ μὴ φιλόσοφος 

a / 
τυφλωθεὶς ὀδυρόμενος ἂν Opnvot μάτην. ἀλλὰ τούτου 
΄ lal e - > Γ Ν ¢ A 
λεγέσθω παρ᾽ ἡμῶν αὕτη ἐπὶ ταῦτα αἰτία, θεὸν ἡμῖν 
Ὁ" 7 > a la a 
ἀνευρεῖν δωρήσασθαί τε ὄψιν, ἵνα τὰς ἐν οὐρανῷ τοῦ νοῦ 


κατιδόντες περιόδους χρησαίμεθα ἐπὶ τὰς περιφορὰς τὰς 


THE 7IMALUS 285 


that they are not auxiliary causes, but true causes which, by 
cooling and heating, and thickening and thinning, and the 
like, do produce all things. And yet these operations can in 
no wise have in them understanding or design of aught; for 
of things which be, unto one alone it belongeth to have 
understanding, and that one, let it be declared, is Soul; which 
is invisible; but Fire and Water and Earth and Air all are 
visible creatures. Wherefore the lover of understanding and 
knowledge must first follow after those causes which appertain 
unto the Intelligible World, and then, secondly, after those 
which are made manifest when one thing, being moved, 
moveth another thing of necessity. 

This, then, must we also do, speaking concerning both 
kinds, but making separation between those causes which 
with understanding are artificers of things fair and good, and 
those which without knowledge produce disorderly what 
chanceth at any time. Concerning the auxiliary causes 
which helped to give unto eyes that faculty which they now 
have, enough hath been said; now, therefore, let us declare 
that benefit wrought by eyes—great above all benefits—for 
whose sake God bestowed them upon us. 

Eyesight, methinks, hath been the cause unto us of the 
greatest benefit, inasmuch as no word of our present discourse 
concerning the Universe would have been spoken, if we had 
seen neither stars nor sun nor heavens: whereas now day and 
night and the months and the circuits of the years, passing 
before our eyes, have discovered unto us Number, and given 
unto us a notion of Time, and set us a-seeking to know the 
nature of the All: whence we have gotten us Philosophy, 
than which no greater good hath come, nor ever shall come, as 
gift from gods unto mortal kind. 

I say, then, that this is the greatest good from eyes; and 
the other benefits therefrom which are all less than this, 
wherefore should I recount them? Let the man who is 
without Philosophy break out into vain lamentations, because, 
forsooth, he is blind and hath not these small things: as for 
ourselves, we will declare the cause of vision in this wise and 
the chief end thereof :—God invented vision and gave it unto 
us for a gift, to the end that, having observed the Circuits of 
Intelligence in the Heaven, we might use them for the revolu- 


286 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


a val ΄ - / 
σ τῆς map ἡμῖν διανοήσεως, ξυγγενεῖς ἐκείναις οὔσας, ata- 
i : ἐκμαθό δὲ καὶ δ ἢ ὴ 
ράκτοις τεταραγμένας, ἐκμαθόντες δὲ καὶ λογισμῶν κατὰ 
7 5] / / / \ a - 
φύσιν ὀρθότητος μετασχόντες μιμούμενον. τὰς τοῦ θεοῦ 
/ > a » \ > cre / 
πάντως ἀπλανεῖς οὔσας Tas ἐν ἡμῖν πεπλανημένας κατα- 
/ a \ \ > A / / e B+ % 
στησαίμεθα. Φωνῆς te δὴ Kal ἀκοῆς πέρι πάλιν ὁ αὐτὸς 
/ ᾳ. αὶ > \ a > aA “ \ a a 
λόγος, ἐπὶ ταὐτὰ τῶν αὐτῶν ἕνεκα παρὰ θεῶν δεδωρῆσθαι. 
/ \ 9 3 5. ἃ a / \ / 
λόγος Te γὰρ ἐπ αὐτὰ ταῦτα τέτακται, τὴν μεγίστην 
/ nr » a ΄ 
ξυμβαλλόμενος εἰς αὐτὰ μοῖραν, ὅσον T αὖ μουσικῆς φωνῇ 
/ \ > \ 4 ς I > \ / ς \ 
Ὁ χρήσιμον, πρὸς ἀκοὴν ἕνεκα ἁρμονίας ἐστὶ δοθέν: ἡ δὲ 
ς / a 4 \ a > SLA. a a 
ἁρμονία, ξυγγενεῖς ἔχουσα φορὰς ταῖς ἐν ἡμῖν τῆς ψυχῆς 
, A \ a / / > 2s 1s \ 
περιόδοις, τῷ μετὰ νοῦ προσχρωμένῳ Μούσαις οὐκ ἐφ᾽ ἡδονὴν 
ν , 7) a 53 a / > ? ae \ 
ἄλογον, καθάπερ νῦν, εἶναι δοκεῖ χρήσιμος, ἀλλ ἐπὶ τὴν 
a > ἣν ioe > / n / > 
γεγονυῖαν ἐν ἡμῖν ἀνάρμοστον ψυχῆς περίοδον εἰς KaTa- 
, \ / 4 A / ς Ν al 
Koopnow Kal συμφωνίαν ἑαυτῇ σύμμαχος ὑπὸ Μουσῶν 
δέδ \ ς \ = ὃ \ \ ” ᾽ Φ δ Ν 
ἔδοται' καὶ ῥυθμὸς av διὰ τὴν ἄμετρον ἐν ἡμῖν καὶ 
/ 2 n / > a / Ψ > / 
E χαρίτων érided γιγνομένην ἐν τοῖς πλείστοις ἕξιν ἐπίκουρος 
ΣΝ Ἦν Vi ἘᾺΝΝ aA $M “0 " 
ἐπὶ ταὐτὰ ὑπὸ τῶν αὐτῶν ἐδόθη. 
/ a 
Ta μὲν οὖν παρεληλυθότα τῶν εἰρημένων, πλὴν 
βραχέων, ἐπιδέδεικται τὰ διὰ νοῦ δεδημιουργημένα" δεῖ δὲ 
ὶ τὰ δι ἀνάγκ όμενα τῴ λόγῳ θέσθ 
καὶ τὰ δι ἀνάγκης γιυγνόμεν ι ὄγῳ παραθέσθαι. 
7, \ 5 e a a / / > ᾽ ΄ 
48 μεμυγμένη γὰρ οὖν ἡ τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου γένεσις ἐξ ἀνάγκης 
Ἁ “ / > / lal \ 3 / ” 
τε καὶ νοῦ συστάσεως ἐγεννήθη: vod δὲ ἀνάγκης ἄρχοντος 
A / wy Ὰ fal / \ a + \ 
τῷ πείθειν αὐτὴν τῶν γιγνομένων τὰ πλεῖστα ἐπὶ TO 
, ” , \ Aan > ey ec 
βέλτιστον ἄγειν, ταύτῃ κατὰ ταῦτά τε δι᾿ ἀνάγκης ἡττω- 
͵ὔ ς \ nr ” e ᾽ > \ / 
μένης ὑπὸ πειθοῦς ἔμφρονος οὕτω Kat ἀρχὰς ξυνίστατο 
/ \ an y S Φ 4 \ a 4 > - 
τόδε τὸ πᾶν. εἴ τις οὖν 7) γέγονε, κατὰ ταῦτα ὄντως ἐρεῖ, 
7 \ \ A / εἰ » / / 
μικτέον Kal τὸ τῆς πλανωμένης εἶδος αἰτίας, f φέρειν 
πέφυκεν. ὧδε οὖν πάλιν ἀναχωρητέον, καὶ λαβοῦσιν 
ae, / , a > \ - ς , 
Β αὐτῶν τούτων προσήκουσαν ἑτέραν ἀρχὴν αὖθις αὖ, καθάπερ 
Η κι , a “ Ν , 7, > / eS 
περὶ τῶν τότε, νῦν οὕτω περὶ τούτων πάλιν ἀρκτέον ἀπ 


ἀρχῆς. τὴν δὴ πρὸ τῆς οὐρανοῦ γενέσεως πυρὸς ὕδατός 





᾿ 


ΤῊΝ 7/MAERUS 281 


tions of Thought in ourselves, which are kin, albeit perturbed, 
unto those unperturbed celestial courses ; and having throughly 
learnt and become partakers in the truth of the reasonings 
which are according to nature, might, by means of our imita- 
tion of the Circuits of God which are without error altogether, 
compose into order the circuits in ourselves which have erred. 

Concerning Sound and Hearing let the same thing be said 
—that they also have been bestowed by the Gods to the same 
end as Sight. For to this end also hath Speech been ordained, 
and maketh thereto the largest contribution ; and, moreover, 
all that part of Music which is for the service of the Voice and 
Hearing hath been given unto us for the sake of Harmony ; and 
Harmony, having her courses kin unto the revolutions in our 
Soul, hath been given by the Muses to be a helper unto the man 
who, with understanding, shall use their art, not for the getting 
of unreasonable pleasure—which is commonly esteemed the use 
of Music—but for the ordering of the circuit of our Soul which 
hath fallen out of harmony, and the bringing thereof into 
concord with itself; and Rhythm also, because that the state of 
most men is without measure and lacketh grace, hath been 
given unto us for the same end, to aid us, by the same 
Benefactors. 

Hitherto hath this discourse been for the most part con- 
cerning those things which are of the workmanship of Reason ; 
but now must it set by the side of these that which cometh 
to pass of Necessity; for, in truth, the generation of this 
Universe was a mixed generation, sprung from the concurrence 
of Necessity and Reason. 

Reason exercised authority over Necessity by persuading 
her to bring the most part of the things which were made unto 
the Best Issue. According to this scheme, in the beginning, 
was the Universe established through the instrumentality of 
Necessity working in obedience unto the admonition of Wisdom. 
If any man, therefore, would tell truly how this Universe is 
come into being, he must include the natural operation of the 
Cause Errant.’ Let us then turn back, and, having taken up 
this other proper principle of things created, begin again from 
the beginning, even as we began the former inquiry. 

Wherefore let us search out the natures of Fire and 


1 [ have adopted this translation of ἡ πλανωμένη αἰτία from Mr. Archer-Hind. 


288 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ y \ a , / δὶ “Οἱ, \ \ \ 
τε Kal ἀέρος Kal γῆς φύσιν θεατέον αὐτὴν καὶ τὰ πρὸ 


/ / 
τούτου πάθη. 


ΕΣ * * * * * 


“ Ss \ ’ > \ / la) > / »Μ 

69Β ὥσπερ οὖν καὶ κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς ἐλέχθη, ταῦτα ἀτάκτως ἔχοντα 
ς val \ \ \ \ 
ὁ θεὸς ἐν ἑκάστῳ τε αὐτῷ πρὸς αὑτὸ Kal πρὸς ἄλληλα 

\ Ψ Ν 
συμμετρίας ἐνεποίησεν, ὅσας τε καὶ ὅπῃ δυνατὸν ἣν 
᾽ / \ / 3 / \ ” 4 « 
ἀνάλογα καὶ σύμμετρα εἶναι. τότε γὰρ οὔτε τούτων ὅσον 
- > lal lal 

μὴ τύχῃ TL μετεῖχεν, οὔτε TO παράπαν ὀνομάσαι τῶν νῦν 
> / > / 3 >Q/ Φ rn \ e \ 
ὀνομαζομένων ἀξιόλογον ἦν οὐδέν, οἷον πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ 
yA an ΄σ -“ / 

Cel τι TOV ἄλλων, ἀλλὰ πάντα ταῦτα πρῶτον διεκόσμησεν, 
», > 2 ΄ A / / “- ἃ al Μ 
ἔπειτ᾽ ἐκ τούτων πᾶν τόδε ξυνεστήσατο, ζῶον ἕν ζῶα ἔχον 

\ / 2 ς A \ 2 / / \ A \ / 
τὰ πάντα ἐν αὑτῷ θνητὰ ἀθάνατά τε. καὶ τῶν μὲν θείων 
/ ἴω fal \ / ~ 
αὐτὸς γίγνεται δημιουργός, τῶν δὲ θνητῶν τὴν γένεσιν τοῖς 
A a / ¢e \ / 
ἑαυτοῦ γεννήμασι δημιουργεῖν προσέταξεν. οἱ δὲ μιμούμενοι, 
/ > \ na > / \ \ lal 
παραλαβόντες ἀρχὴν ψυχῆς ἀθάνατον, τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο 
a a / a a 
θνητὸν σῶμα αὐτῇ περιετόρνευσαν ὄχημά τε πᾶν TO σῶμα 
A a / \ 
ἔδοσαν ἄλλο τε εἶδος ἐν αὐτῷ ψυχῆς προσῳκοδόμουν τὸ 
"-" a / 
θνητόν, δεινὰ καὶ ἀναγκαῖα ἐν ἑαυτῷ παθήματα ἔχον, 
a \ ς / / a / ΝΜ 4 
Ὁ πρῶτον μὲν ἡδονήν, μέγιστον κακοῦ δέλεαρ, ἔπειτα λύπας, 
rn ’ 
ἀγαθῶν φυγάς, ἔτι δ᾽ αὖ θάρρος καὶ φόβον, ἄφρονε 
\ 4 / ,’ 
ξυμβούλω, θυμὸν δὲ δυσπαραμύθητον, ἐλπίδα δ᾽ εὐπαράγω- 
/ fol \ 
γον αἰσθήσει τε ἀλόγῳ Kal ἐπιχειρητῇ παντὸς ἔρωτι" 
> \ 
ξυγκερασάμενοί τ᾽ αὐτὰ ἀναγκαίως τὸ θνητὸν γένος 
, \ \ an \ / / \ an 
ξυνέθεσαν. καὶ διὰ ταῦτα δὴ σεβόμενοι μιαίνειν τὸ θεῖον, 
΄ rn / / 
6 τι μὴ πᾶσα tw ἀνάγκη, χωρὶς ἐκείνου κατοικίζουσιν εἰς 
a / \ 
Ε ἄλλην τοῦ σώματος οἴκησιν τὸ θνητόν, ἰσθμὸν Kal ὅρον 
/ "»" a \ lal / > / 
διοικοδομήσαντες τῆς Te κεφαλῆς καὶ τοῦ στήθους, αὐχένα 
\ / / y / ᾽ \ a / \ 
μεταξὺ τιθέντες, ἵνα εἴη χωρίς. ἐν δὴ τοῖς στήθεσι καὶ 
5 καλουμένῳ θώ ὁ τῆς ψυχῆς θνητὸν γένος ἐνέδου 
τῷ καλουμένῳ θώρακι τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς θνητὸν γένος ἐνέδουν. 
\ > \ \ \ Μ > na \ \ a >, / 
καὶ ἐπειδὴ TO μὲν ἄμεινον αὐτῆς, TO δὲ χεῖρον ἐπεφύκει, 
rn rn ΄ Ν / / 
70 διοικοδομοῦσι τοῦ θώρακος av τὸ κύτος, διορίζοντες οἷον 


a \ \ ᾽ a] y \ / 
γυναικῶν, τὴν δὲ ἀνδρῶν χωρὶς οἴκησιν, τὰς φρένας 





ΤῊΝ 7IMAEUS 289 


Water and Air and Karth, which were before the Heaven was 
brought forth; and also the state which was before these 
natures themselves were. 

* * 4 ᾿ % 

Χ ¥ * x ᾿ 

As was said at the beginning, these things, being without 
order, God took, and put into them all those measures of 
Proportion and Symmetry whereof they were capable, each 
one in respect of itself, and all in respect of one another. 
For before that there was nothing which partook of these 
measures save by chance; nor was there any of the things 
which now have names which was then worthy at all of 
being named, neither Fire nor Water nor any of the 
other Elements; but all these did He first set in order, 
and then out of them instituted this Universe, One Living 
Creature, which hath in itself all living creatures mortal and 
immortal. Of those which are divine He himself is the 
Maker; but the creation of those which are mortal He 
appointed unto His own offspring, to be their work; and they 
following His example, when they had received of Him the 
immortal principle of the Soul, thereafter fashioned round 
about her this mortal Body, and gave it all unto her to be 
her vehicle; and, moreover, they constructed another kind of 
Soul, and put it also into the Body, to wit the Mortal Soul 
which hath in itself passions terrible, of necessity inherent— 
first, Pleasure, evil’s best bait, then Pains that banish good 
things, also Confidence and Fear, two heedless counsellors, and 
Wrath hard to entreat, and Hope easily led astray. These 
did they mix with Sense that lacketh Reason, and Love that 
dareth all, and so builded the mortal kind of Soul. 

Wherefore, fearing to defile the divine more than was 
inevitable, they appoint a dwelling-place for the mortal apart 
therefrom, in another region of the body, having built an 
isthmus and boundary between the Head and the Breast, to 
wit, the Neck, set between them that they might be separate. 
In the Breast, then, or what is called the Chest, they enclosed 
the mortal kind of Soul; and inasmuch as one part thereof 
was by nature better, and the other part worse, they also 
built a wall of partition to divide the vessel of the Chest, as 
a house is divided into the women’s quarters and the men’s 

U 


290 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


, fal / \ / 
διάφραγμα εἰς TO μέσον αὐτῶν τιθέντες. TO μετέχον οὖν 
A A > / \ n , " / 

τῆς ψυχῆς ἀνδρείας καὶ θυμοῦ, φιλόνεικον ὄν, κατῴκισαν 
᾽ / A a \ a a \ > / 
ἐγγυτέρω τῆς κεφαλῆς μεταξὺ τῶν φρενῶν Te καὶ αὐχένος, 
i Ὁ λόγου κατήκοον ὃν κοινῇ μετ᾽ ἐκείνου Bia TO τῶ 
ἵνα τοῦ OY n 7 μ , τῶν 
> -" 7ὔ 7 ¢e | ee > a > / -" > 
ἐπιθυμιῶν κατέχοι γένος, OTOT ἐκ τῆς ἀκροπόλεως τῷ τ 


ἐπιτώγματι καὶ λόγῳ μηδαμῇ πείθεσθαι ἑκὸν ἐθέλοι. Τὴν 


B δὲ δὴ καρδίαν ἀρχὴν ἅμα τῶν φλεβῶν καὶ πηγὴν τοῦ 


11 


/ \ / \ / a / > 
περιφερομένου κατὰ πάντα Ta μέλη σφοδρῶς αἵματος εἰς 
\ \ ¥ / 4 Ὁ / \ 
τὴν δορυφορικὴν οἴκησιν κατέστησαν, ἵνα, ὅτε ζέσειε τὸ 
lal a / - / , σ΄ 16 
TOU θυμοῦ μένος, τοῦ λόγου παραγγείλαντος, ὡς TLS ἄδικος 
\ Loe / n » x / 2 \ a 
περὶ αὐτὰ γίγνεται πρᾶξις ἔξωθεν ἢ Kal τις ἀπὸ τῶν 
» > fa) 2 / \ / la a “ 
ἔνδοθεν ἐπιθυμιῶν, ὀξέως διὰ πάντων στενωπῶν πᾶν, ὅσον 
Ἂς a a / \ 
αἰσθητικὸν ἐν τῷ σώματι TOV TE παρακελεύσεων καὶ ἀπει- 
a > / / 3 / \ 4 / \ 
λῶν αἰσθανόμενον γίγνοιτο ἐπήκοον Kai ἕποιτο πάντη Kal 


Ν , ec > 3 al a ες “- 5. 
τὸ βέλτιστον οὕτως ἐν αὐτοῖς πᾶσιν ἡγεμονεῖν Ea. 


* * * * * ae 


Ν \ fal \ a “- 
Τὸ δὲ δὴ σίτων τε καὶ ποτῶν ἐπιθυμητικὸν τῆς ψυχῆς 
νι 2 + \ \ a , 7 / a 
καὶ ὅσων ἔνδειαν διὰ THY τοῦ σώματος ἴσχει φύσιν, τοῦτο 
> \ \ n a \ lal \ \ ’ \ 
εἰς Ta μεταξὺ τῶν τε φρενῶν καὶ τοῦ πρὸς τὸν ὀμφαλὸν 
δ / lal / 
ὅρου κατῴκισαν, οἷον φάτνην ἐν ἅπαντι τούτῳ τῷ τόπῳ 
a a a / \ 
τῇ τοῦ σώματος τροφῇ τεκτηνάμενοι' Kal κατέδησαν δὴ TO 
a > rn e / » / \ / 
τοιοῦτον ἐνταῦθα ws θρέμμα ἄγριον, τρέφειν δὲ ξυνημμένον 
> a »” / \ Ν ΝΜ / 7? 
ἀναγκαῖον, εἴπερ Te μέλλοι TO θνητὸν ἔσεσθαι γένος. ἵν 
/ \ rn 
οὖν ἀεὶ νεμόμενον πρὸς φάτνῃ καὶ 6 TL πορρωτάτω τοῦ 
al U / 
βουλευομένου κατοικοῦν, θόρυβον καὶ βοὴν ὡς ἐλαχίστην 
\ > / “ a A 
παρέχον, TO κράτιστον καθ᾽ ἡσυχίαν περὶ τοῦ πᾶσι κοινῇ 
a 4 fal an 
ξυμφέροντος ἐῷ βουλεύεσθαι, διὰ ταῦτα ἐνταῦθ᾽ ἔδοσαν 
> A \ 7 γι ἢ \ > + ς / \ ” 
αὐτῷ τὴν τάξιν. εἰδότες δὲ αὐτὸ ὡς λόγου μὲν οὔτε 
» ᾽ / \ \ al 
ξυνήσειν ἔμελλεν, εἴ TE TH Kal μεταλαμβάνοι τινὸς ad τῶν 
> / > 4 ᾽ a \ / a ” 
αἰσθήσεων, οὐκ ἔμφυτον αὐτῷ TO μέλειν τινῶν ἔσοιτο 
/ t \ \ > / \ / / \ 
λόγων, ὑπὸ δὲ εἰδώλων Kal φαντασμάτων νυκτός τε Kal 
᾽ ¢ / / / / \ \ 2 
μεθ᾽ ἡμέραν μάλιστα ψυχαγωγήσοιτο, τούτῳ δὴ θεὸς ἐπι- 


βουλεύσας αὐτῴ τὴν τοῦ ἥπατος ἰδέαν ξυνέστησ ὶ 
φ τὴ ἥ ΕΝ τησε καὶ 





ΤῊΝ 7TIMALUS 29] 


quarters ; so did they put the Midriff as a barrier betwixt these 
two parts. 

That part of the Soul, therefore, which partaketh of 
courage and spirit, loving strife, they established nearer unto 
the Head, betwixt the Midriff and the Neck, to the end that, 
being within hearing of the Reasoning Part, it might, to- 
gether with it, keep down the brood of appetites by force, 
when they would not obey the word of command from the 
castle; and the Heart, which is the knot of the veins and the 
fountain of the blood which floweth everywhere mightily 
through all the members, they set to be the guardhouse, so 
that when the fierceness of wrath boileth, what time Reason 
doth pass the word that some wickedness is being done around 
them without, or haply by the Appetites within, then the 
whole sensitive system of the Body, keenly apprehending 
through all the narrow passages thereof the exhortations and 
threats uttered, should become obedient and tractable alto- 
gether, and so should let the Best Part be the leader of 
them all, 

* * * * * * 

As for that part of the Soul which desireth meat and drink 
and the other things which it needeth by reason of the nature 
of the Body, this they established in the region which lieth 
between the Midriff and the borders of the Navel, having 
framed, as it were, a manger to extend throughout all this 
place for the nourishment of the Body. Here they bound this 
part of the Soul like a wild beast which nevertheless must 
be kept joined unto the rest and reared, if there was to be a 
mortal race at all. Accordingly, that, always feeding at the 
manger and dwelling as far as possible from the part which 
taketh counsel, it might raise as little tumult and uproar as 
possible, and let the Chief Part take counsel in peace concern- 
ing the common good, for this cause did they post it here. 
And knowing this concerning it that it would not be able to 
understand Reason, and that even if it attained somehow unto 
some empiric knowledge of reasonable truths, it was not of 
such a nature as to give heed thereto, but for the most part 
would follow the ghostly conduct of Images and Phantasms by 
night and by day, God sought out a device against this, and 
put the Liver close by the dwelling-place of the Appetitive 


292 THE MYTHS OF PLATO ; 


» > \ ] / / \ \ a \ 
Β ἔθηκεν εἰς τὴν ἐκείνου κατοίκησιν, πυκνὸν Kal λεῖον καὶ 
Ν \ \ / 
λαμπρὸν Kal γλυκὺ Kal πικρότητα ἔχον μηχανησάμενος, 
lal lal / fal na 
iva ἐν αὐτῷ τῶν διανοημάτων ἡ ἐκ τοῦ νοῦ φερομένη 
/ / / “-“ 
δύναμις, οἷον ἐν κατόπτρῳ δεχομένῳ τύπους καὶ κατιδεῖν 
v / lal \ / e / “ 
εἴδωλα παρέχοντι, φοβοῦ μὲν αὐτὸ, ὁπότε μέρει τῆς 
/ / n \ a lal 
πικρότητος χρωμένη ξυγγενεῖ χαλεπὴ προσενεχθεῖσα ἀπειλῇ 
- lal > / \ e 
κατὰ πᾶν ὑπομιγνῦσα ὀξέως τὸ ἧπαρ χολώδη χρώματα 
rn \ \ \ lal 
Céudaivor, ξυνάγουσά τε πᾶν ῥυσὸν καὶ τραχὺ ποιοῖ, λοβὸν 
/ \ \ 2 n 
δὲ καὶ δοχὰς πύλας τε Ta μὲν ἐξ ὀρθοῦ κατακάμπτουσα 
\ a \ δὲ > / / 7 / 
καὶ ξυσπῶσα, Ta δὲ ἐμφράττουσα συγκλείουσά τε, λύπας 
/ ed 9 / 
καὶ doas παρέχοι, Kal OT αὖ τἀναντία φάσματα ἀπο- 
a / / / n 
ζωγραφοῖ mpaotntos tis ἐκ διανοίας ἐπίπνοια, τῆς μὲν 
/ / a / a / 
πικρότητος ἡσυχίαν παρέχουσα TH μήτε κινεῖν μήτε προσ- 
7 fal ? / ς A / 2 7 rt \ 
ἄπτεσθαι τῆς ἐναντίας ἑαυτῇ φύσεως ἐθέλειν, γλυκύτητι δὲ 
ΩΝ a / \ \ / 
τῇ Kat ἐκεῖνο ξυμφύτῳ πρὸς αὐτὸ χρωμένη Kal πάντα 
> \ & lal > fa) \ ᾽ / ᾽ / 0 ’ὔ 
Ὁ ὀρθὰ καὶ λεῖα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐλεύθερα ἀπευθύνουσα ἵλεών τε 
/ ral Ἁ \ \ ra al 
Kal εὐήμερον ποιοῦ τὴν Tepl TO ἧπαρ Ψυχῆς μοῖραν 
/ " \ / 
κατῳκισμένην, EV TE TH νυκτὶ διαγωγὴν ἔχουσαν μετρίαν, 
> / / 
ντεία χρωμένην καθ᾽ ὕπνον, ἐπειδὴ λόγου Kal φρονήσεως 
᾿ / \ \ 
> an nm an > nn e 
οὐ μετεῖχε. μεμνημένοι yap τῆς τοῦ πατρὸς ἐπιστολῆς οἱ 
cal a \ \ / 
ξυνιστάντες ἡμᾶς, OTe TO θνητὸν ἐπέστελλε γένος ὡς 
/ ~ iy \ - 
ἄριστον εἰς δύναμιν ποιεῖν, οὕτω δὴ κατορθοῦντες καὶ τὸ 
ral “ “, 7 
Ἑ φαῦλον ἡμῶν, ἵνα ἀληθείας πῃ προσάπτοιτο, κατέστησαν 
Ν n 
ἐν τούτῳ TO μαντεῖον. 
k * * * * * 
“4 an an a 
89Ε καθάπερ εἴπομεν πολλάκις, OTL τρία τριχῇ ψυχῆς ἐν ἡμῖν 
/ 
εἴδη κατῴκισται, τυγχάνει δὲ ἕκαστον κινήσεις ἔχον, οὕτω 
\ ΄-“ \ 
κατὰ ταὐτὰ Kal νῦν ws διὰ βραχυτάτων ῥητέον, ὅτι TO 
la) / “ rn / 
μὲν αὐτῶν ἐν ἀργίᾳ διάγον καὶ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ κινήσεων 
, / > 
ἡσυχίαν ἄγον ἀσθενέστατον ἀνάγκη γίγνεσθαι, τὸ δ᾽ ἐν 
/ \ ΝΜ 
90 γυμνασίοις ἐρρωμενέστατον: διὸ φυλακτέον, ὅπως ἂν ἔχωσι 
\ / \ » 7 Ν \ A 
Tas κινήσεις πρὸς ἄλληλα συμμέτρους. τὸ δὲ περὶ τοῦ 
κυριωτάτου tap ἡμῖν ψυχῆς εἴδους διανοεῖσθαι δεῖ τῇδε, 
΄ ” ps / \ e / / a ἃ / 
ὡς dpa αὐτὸ δαίμονα θεὸς ἑκάστῳ δέδωκε, τοῦτο ὃ δή 
an nr 3 , A \ \ \ 
φαμεν οἰκεῖν μὲν ἡμῶν ἐπ ἄκρῳ τῷ σώματι, πρὸς δὲ τὴν 
᾽ > lal / ᾽ \ A ξ a v r v \ 
ἐν οὐρανῷ Evyyéverav ἀπὸ γῆς ἡμᾶς αἴρειν ws ὄντας φυτὸν 
> y > \ > / ᾽ / / > “Ὁ 
οὐκ eyyelov, ἀλλὰ οὐράνιον, ὀρθότατα λέγοντες " ἐκεῖθεν 
7 “ id / a a / Μ \ a \ 
Bydp, ὅθεν ἡ πρώτη τῆς ψυχῆς γένεσις ἔφυ, TO θεῖον τὴν 
΄ a > al al \ A 
κεφαλὴν καὶ ῥίζαν ἡμῶν ἀνακρεμαννὺν ὀρθοῖ πᾶν τὸ σῶμα. 
- Ν 2 \ \ > , ᾿ \ , 
τῷ μὲν οὖν περὶ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας ἢ περὶ φιλονεικίας τετεὺ 


' 





THE 7IMALUS 293 


Soul, having fashioned it close and smooth and shining and 
sweet and bitter too, so that the thoughts which come from 
the Intelligence, striking upon it as upon a mirror which 
receiveth impressions and causeth images to be seen, might 
fill the Appetitive Soul, at one time, with fear, ... at 
another time might make it mild and gentle, and give unto 
it a space of calm at night, wherein it should receive the 
Oracles of Dreams, meet for that which is without Reason and 
Understanding ; for they who made us were mindful of that 
which their Father spake, commanding them to make the 
mortal race as perfect as possible; therefore did they regulate 
even the base part of us after this wise, that it might lay 
hold of truth somehow, and therefore did they establish a 
Place of Oracles therein. 


Now, as touching the three sorts of Soul implanted in us, 
whereof we have: oft-times spoken, and the proper motions of 
each, let this be now said shortly, that any one of them 
which continueth in abeyance, having her motions stopped, 
must needs become weaker; but any one which exerciseth 
herself becometh stronger. Wherefore we must take heed 
that they all, in regard to one another, have their motions 
accomplished in due measure. 

But as touching that kind of Soul in us which hath 
most authority, let this be understood, that God hath given 
it unto each man to be his Genius, to wit, that Soul which, 
we say, dwelleth in the topmost part of the Body, and lifteth 
us up from Earth towards our birthplace in the Heaven, 
forasmuch as we are not earthly creatures but heavenly: this 
we say, and most truly say; for from that Place whence the 
Soul first sprang the Divine Principle suspendeth our head 
and root, and so causeth the whole Body to stand upright. 
Wherefore if any man have followed after the lusts of the 


294 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


; - cr / / \ / 
τακότι καὶ ταῦτα διαπονοῦντι σφόδρα πάντα τὰ δόγματα 
? / \ > / ὶ / θ᾽ “ 
ἀνάγκη θνητὰ ἐγγεγονέναι, καὶ παντάπασι κα ὅσον 

\ a / / 
μάλιστα δυνατὸν θνητῷ γίγνεσθαι, τούτου μηδὲ σμικρὸν 
[2 ἴω “A / 
ἐλλείπειν, ἅτε TO τοιοῦτον NYENKOTL: τῷ δὲ περὶ φιλομαθίαν 
.« 
\ \ \ ᾽ θ -» / > ὃ / \ al 
καὶ περὶ τὰς ἀληθεῖς φρονήσεις ἐσπουδακοτε Kai ταῦτα 
7 a ς a 7 - \ > / ‘ 
C μάλιστα TOV αὑτοῦ γεγυμνασμένῳ φρονεῖν μὲν ἀθάνατα Kai 
aA ΝΜ > / _ / “ ’ / , 
θεῖα, ἄνπερ ἀληθείας ἐφάπτηται, πᾶσα ἀνάγκη που, καθ 
Ψ > 5 A > , 7 > / > ͵ 
ὅσον δ᾽ αὖ μετασχεῖν ἀνθρωπίνη φύσις ἀθανασίας ἐνδέχεται, 
͵ \ / > / ef x 3 Ὁ / \ 
τούτου μηδὲν μέρος ἀπολείπειν, ἅτε δὲ ἀεὶ θεραπεύοντα τὸ 
A » , 4. ὦ, = , \ 
θεῖον ἔχοντά τε αὐτὸν εὖ κεκοσμημένον Tov δαίμονα 
΄, > ς fal / > 4 Ἂν ’ 
ύνοικον ἐν αὑτῷ διαφερόντως εὐδαίμονα εἶναι. θεραπεία 
ce 
\ \ \ / / \ > / « / \ \ 
δὲ 67 παντὶ πάντως pla, Tas οἰκείας ἑκάστῳ τροφὰς καὶ 
7 / A ’ a ὔ al > 
Ὁ κινήσεις ἀποδιδόναι. τῷ δ ἐν ἡμῖν θείῳ Evyyevets εἰσι 
/ e fal \ / \ / / 
κινήσεις al τοῦ παντὸς διανοήσεις Kal περιφοραί. ταύταις 
\ / va ‘ a \ \ \ / > al 
δὴ ξυνεπόμενον ἕκαστον δεῖ, Tas περὶ THY γένεσιν ἐν TH 
A lal / al \ 
κεφαλῇ διεφθαρμένας ἡμῶν περιόδους ἐξορθοῦντα διὰ τὸ 
ΩΝ \ \ / 
καταμανθάνειν Tas τοῦ παντὸς ἁρμονίας τε καὶ περιφοράς, 
rn rn rn \ \ 
τῷ KaTavoovpév@e TO κατανοοῦν ἐξομοιῶσαι κατὰ τὴν 
> / / « / Lis / ” n / 
ἀρχαίαν φύσιν, ὁμοιώσαντα δὲ τέλος ἔχειν τοῦ προτεθέντος 
2 / ς \ lal Sie ,ὔ / \ / 
ἀνθρώποις ὑπὸ θεῶν ἀρίστου βίου πρὸς τε τὸν παρόντα 
/ 
Kal τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον. 
lal n a / 
E Kai δὴ καὶ τὰ νῦν ἡμῖν ἐξ ἀρχῆς παραγγελθέντα 
-“ \ “ Ν / / > / 
διεξελθεῖν περὶ τοῦ παντὸς μέχρι γενέσεως ἀνθρωπίνης 
5 ΝΜ a Ga / 
σχεδὸν ἔοικε τέλος ἔχειν. τὰ yap ἄλλα ζῶα ἡἣ γέγονεν 
= \ / > / “ / > 7 / 
av, διὰ βραχέων ἐπιμνηστέον, 6 TL μὴ τις ἀνάγκη μηκύνειν" 
oad \ > / / ΩΝ ς A / \ \ 
οὕτω yap ἐμμετρότερός τις ἂν αὑτῷ δόξειε περὶ τοὺς 
7 / 53 acs 5 \ an »” / 
τούτων λόγους εἶναι. THO οὖν TO τοιοῦτον ἔστω λεγόμενον. 
“-“ a { \ / / 
Τῶν γενομένων ἀνδρῶν ὅσοι δειλοὶ καὶ τὸν βίον ἀδίκως 
n \ / \ ΠΥ a / > A 
διῆλθον, κατὰ λόγον τὸν εἰκότα γυναῖκες μετεφύοντο ἐν τῇ 

/ / 

δευτέρᾳ γενέσει. 
* * * * * * 


A \ co - / \ 
91D γυναῖκες μὲν οὖν καὶ τὸ θῆλυ πᾶν οὕτω γέγονε. To δὲ 


oe 


THE TIMALUS 295 


flesh, or after contention, and busied himself wholly therewith, 
all his thoughts within him must needs be mortal, and so far 
as it lieth in him to become mortal, he cannot fail at all of 
this; for this hath he fostered: but if any man have earnestly 
pursued learning and the knowledge of Truth, and have 
exercised most his faculty of thinking, he must needs have 
thoughts immortal and divine if he lay hold of Truth; and 
so far as Human Nature may have part in Immortality, he 
cannot fall short thereof at all: and inasmuch as he serveth 
the Divine Part, and hath the Genius which dwelleth in him 
ordered aright, he must needs be blessed exceedingly:’ and 
the service required of every man is the same alway—to wit, 
he must apportion unto each part the kind of nourishment 
and motion proper thereto. Now unto the Divine Part in us 
the motions which are kin are the Thoughts and Circuits of 
the All. These must every man follow, that he may regulate 
the Revolutions in his Head which were disturbed when the 
Soul was born in the flesh; and, by throughly learning the 
Harmonies and Circuits of the All, may make that which 
understandeth like unto that which is understood, even as it 
was in the beginning; and having made it like, may attain 
unto the perfection of that Best Life which is offered unto 
men by the Gods, for this present time and for the time 
hereafter. 

Now is the commandment which came unto us in the 
beginning, that we should declare the nature of the All, even 
unto the generation of Man, well-nigh brought to fulfilment ; 
for the way of the generation of the other living creatures 
we may tell shortly, if it so be that it needeth no long 
history. Thus methinks shall a man set proper bounds unto 
his discourse concerning them. 

Let this, then, be said, that of those which were born 
Men, it is most likely that as many as were cowardly, and 
passed their life in unrighteousness, were changed into 
Women when they were born the second time. 


* κω * ὩΣ * ἝἜ 


Thus were Women and the whole female sex brought forth. 


1 Cf. Arist. H. N. x. 7. 8.1177 Ὁ 26 ff., and Z. #. Θ 3. (H 15) 1249 Ὁ 20, where 
τὸν θεὸν θεραπεύειν καὶ θεωρεῖν seems to be an echo of the Gre δὲ dei θερα- 
mevovTa τὸ θεῖον, Tim. 90C. 


296 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


τῶν ὀρνέων φῦλον μετερρυθμίζετο, ἀντὶ τριχῶν πτερὰ vor, 


> a > 7 > nr / / \ “ 
eK τῶν ἀκάκων ἀνδρῶν, κούφων δέ, καὶ μετεωρολογικῶν 


Ε μέν, ἡγουμένων δὲ δι ὄψεως τὰς περὶ τούτων ἀποδείξεις 


92 


μ > \ 
βεβαιοτάτας εἶναι δι’ εὐήθειαν. To δ᾽ αὖ πεζὸν καὶ 
a / a ra / 
θηριῶδες γέγονεν ἐκ τῶν μηδὲν προσχρωμένων φιλοσοφίᾳ 
δὲ 1θ 7] an \ \ > \ 6 / δέ 
μηδὲ ἀθρούντων τῆς περὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν φύσεως πέρι μηδέν, 
a al val na / \ 
διὰ TO μηκέτι ταῖς ἐν TH κεφαλῇ χρῆσθαι περιόδοις, ἀλλὰ 
A \ \ 7 al - ς / “ / 
τοῖς περὶ Ta στήθη τῆς ψυχῆς ἡγεμόσιν ἕπεσθαι μέρεσιν. 
An / nr 
ἐκ τούτων οὖν τῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων τά Te ἐμπρόσθια κῶλα 
\ \ \ > n ς / id \ / » 
καὶ τὰς κεφαλὰς εἰς γῆν ἑλκόμενα ὑπὸ ξυγγενείας ἤρεισαν, 
7 
προμήκεις τε καὶ παντοίας ἔσχον τὰς κορυφάς, orn 
/ ξ Ν 5» 7 «ς / e / / 
συνεθλίφθησαν ὑπὸ ἀργίας ἑκάστων ai Tepipopal. τετρά- 
\ / > a 5 7] , 4 \ 7 
ποὺυν TE TO γένος αὐτῶν ἐκ ταύτης ἐφύετο Kal πολύπουν 
τῆς προφάσεως, θεοῦ βάσεις ὑποτιθέντος πλείους τοῖς 
rn lal an - > 
μᾶλλον ἄφροσιν, ὡς μᾶλλον ἐπὶ γῆν ἕλκοιντο. τοῖς ὃ 
n / -“ 
ἀφρονεστάτοις αὐτῶν τούτων καὶ παντάπασι πρὸς γῆν 
“ qn lal / 
πᾶν TO σῶμα κατατεινομένοις ὡς οὐδὲν ETL ποδῶν χρείας 
” ” > \ \ > 7 ᾿Ὶ \ a > / \ 
οὔσης, ἄποδα αὐτὰ Kal ἰλυσπώμενα ἐπὶ γῆς ἐγέννησαν. τὸ 
δὲ τέταρτον γένος ἔνυδρον γέγονεν ἐκ τῶν μάλιστα ἀνοητο- 
/ ἃ ᾽ lal a 
τάτων καὶ ἀμαθεστάτων, ods οὐδ᾽ ἀναπνοῆς καθαρᾶς ἔτι 
5» / e / id \ \ ς \ 
ἠξίωσαν ol μεταπλάττοντες, ὡς THY ψυχὴν ὑπὸ πλημμε- 
,ὔ > n \ 
λείας πάσης ἀκαθάρτως ἐχόντων, ἀλλ᾽ ἀντὶ λεπτῆς καὶ 
~ nm . | lal 
καθαρᾶς ἀναπνοῆς ἀέρος εἰς ὕδατος θολερὰν καὶ βαθεῖαν 
"᾿ > / “ > / » \ \ lal ’ / 
éwoav ἀνάπνευσιν: ὅθεν ἰχθύων ἔθνος καὶ τὸ τῶν ὀστρέων 
/ Ὁ » 7 / > , ᾽ / 
ξυναπάντων τε ὅσα ἔνυδρα γέγονε, δίκην ἀμαθίας ἐσχάτης 
/ / ral \ 
ἐσχάτας οἰκήσεις εἰληχότων. καὶ κατὰ ταῦτα δὴ πάντα 
/ ΄-“ lal / rn 
τότε καὶ νῦν διαμείβεται. τὰ ζῶα εἰς ἄλληλα, VOD Kal 
na / \ 
ἀνοίας ἀποβολῇ Kal κτήσει μεταβαλλόμενα. Kai δὴ καὶ 
/ \ a \ ral ” \ / ξ -" rn 
τέλος περὶ τοῦ παντὸς νῦν ἤδη τὸν λόγον ἡμῖν φῶμεν 
" al \ \ 
ἔχειν" θνητὰ yap καὶ ἀθάνατα ζῶα λαβὼν καὶ ξυμπληρω- 
Ν “ c / “ ΩΝ e \ \ e \ / 
θεὶς ὅδε ὁ κόσμος, οὕτω ζῶον ὁρατὸν τὰ ὁρατὰ περιέχον, 
" »" / \ ” 
εἰκὼν τοῦ ποιητοῦ, θεὸς αἰσθητός, μέγιστος Kal ἄριστος 
/ / \ / / > \ “΄ 
κάλλιστος TE καὶ τελεώτατος γέγονεν, εἷς ovpavos ὅδε 


μονογενὴς ὦν. 


οι εὐϑϑα»α 2) eS 





THE 7TIMALUS 297 


The tribe of Birds, putting forth feathers instead of hair, 
was the transformation of men that were guileless, but light- 
witted ; who were observers of the stars, but thought foolishly 
that the surest knowledge concerning them cometh through 
Sight. 

The tribe of Beasts which walk on the Earth sprang from 
those men who sought not Wisdom at all for an help, nor 
considered the nature of the Heaven at all, because that they 
no longer used the Revolutions in the Head, but followed the 
Parts of the Soul which are about the Breast, making them 
their guides. By reason of this manner of living their four 
limbs and their heads were drawn down unto kindred earth, 
and thereon did they rest them; and they got head-pieces of 
all sorts, oblong, according as the circuits of each, not being 
kept in use, were crushed in. For this cause their kind grew 
four-footed and many-footed, for God put more props under 
those which were more senseless, that they might be drawn 
the more toward the earth. But the most senseless of them 
all, which do stretch their whole body altogether upon the 
earth, since they had no longer any need of feet, the Gods 
made without feet, to crawl on the earth. 

The fourth kind was born, to live in the water, from 
those men who were the most lacking in Understanding and 
Knowledge; whom they who fashioned them afresh deemed 
not worthy any more even of pure air to breathe, because that 
they had made their Souls impure by all manner of wicked- 
ness: wherefore the Gods gave them not thin pure air to 
breathe, but thrust them down into the waters, to draw thick 
breath in the depths thereof. From these men is sprung the 
nation of Fishes, and of Oysters, and of all that live in the 
water, which have gotten for recompense of uttermost ignorance 
the uttermost habitations. 

* * * * ὩΣ * 

Now may we say that our discourse concerning the All 
is come to its ending. For this Universe, having taken unto 
itself Living Creatures mortal and immortal, and having been 
filled therewith, hath been brought forth a Creature Visible, 
containing the things which are visible; the Image of his 
Maker, a God Sensible, Greatest, Best, Fairest, and Most 
Perfect—this One Heaven Only Begotten. 


298 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE ΤΊΜΑΕΟΥΒ MYTH 
I 


It lies outside the scope of this work to select for 
separate comment even a few of the most important questions 
and topics contained in the vast Zimaeus, related as these 
are, not only to Plato’s Philosophy itself as a whole, but to 
subsequent Philosophy and Theology and Natural Science as 
influenced by this Dialogue, perhaps the most influential of 
all Plato’s Dialogues. 

I keep clear of the Zimaeus as an Essay on Physics and 
Physiology profoundly interesting to the student of the 
history of these branches. 

I do not wish to ransack it for its anticipations of later 
metaphysical doctrine, such as that of the subjectivity of 
space, which may, or may not, be taught in the passages 
treating of χώρα and the ὑποδοχή. 

I do not trouble myself or my readers with the lueubra- 
tions of Proclus and his like on it. 

I do not say a word about the theological doctrine which 
Christian exegesis has found in it in such abundant store. 

For these things the reader must turn to editions of the 
Timaeus, and Histories of Philosophy where the Zimaeus is 
discussed. 

Here we are concerned with it merely as one in the series 
of Plato’s Myths; and as most of the observations which 
have been made in connection with the other Myths already 
examined apply equally to this Myth, special observations 
on it need not be numerous or long. Indeed, the transla- 
tion which I have made, if read in the light of these former 
observations, almost explains itself. 

More might have been translated, for the whole Discourse 
delivered by Timaeus is a Myth; or other parts might have 
been substituted for some here translated. I had to use my 
judgment in choosing what to translate, as I could not trans- 
late the whole, and my judgment may have sometimes erred ; 
yet, after all, I venture to think that what I have translated 
presents the Zimaeus in the aspect in which it is the object 





ΤῊΝ 7IMALUS 299 


of this work to present it—as a great Myth in the series 
which we are reviewing. 

This Myth sets forth, in one vast composition, the three 
Ideas of Soul, Cosmos, and God: in one vast composition ; 
perhaps nowhere else in literature are they set forth so 
as to produce such a convincing sense of their organic inter- 
connection. And the impressiveness of this vast composition 
is wonderfully enhanced by the context in which it is framed. 
Indeed, what is new in the presentation of the Ideas of Soul, 
Cosmos, and God in the Zimaeus, as compared with other 
Platonic Myths in which they are presented, is derived from 
the context in which this Myth frames them. The Zimaeus, 
as we have seen, and shall see better when we reach the 
Critias, follows on after the Repudlic. It begins with a 
recapitulation of the first five books of the Republic, which 
Socrates offers in order that he may say: “Here you have 
the structure of the Perfect State set forth; now let us see 
that State exerting function in accordance with its structure. 
Its structure is that of a highly organised military system. 
Let us see it engaged in a great war.” In answer to this 
demand Critias introduces and outlines the Atlantis Myth 
(afterwards resumed in the unfinished Dialogue which bears 
his name), the History of the Great Antediluvian War in 
which Athens—representing the καλλίπολις of the Republic 
—maintains the civilisation of Hellas against the outer 
barbarian. That is the immediate context of the Discourse, 
or Myth, delivered by Timaeus. But the Myth breaks away 
from the sequence of that context in the most startling 
manner, and soars, on a sudden, above the mundane outlook 
of the first five books of the Republic and the History of the 
Great War, with which the company were up to the moment 
engaged, and constrains them to give all their thoughts to 
the world eternal. 

Two things Timaeus seems to tell them in this Myth. 

First, the State must be framed in the Cosmos. You 
cannot have any scientific knowledge of the Social Good till ᾿ 
you understand it as part of the Absolute Good realised in 
the Cosmos which is the Image of God. The knowledge of 
the ἐδέα τἀγαθοῦ which the Republic (in a passage subsequent 
to the books epitomised by Socrates in the Zimaeus) requires 


300 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


of the True Statesman is, indeed, nothing but the appre- 
hension of the Social Good as determined by the Cosmic 
Good. The method of the Republic was to write the goodness 
of the Individual large in the goodness of the State. But we 
must not stop here. The goodness of the State must be 
written large in that of the Universe: written, not, indeed, 
in characters which the scientific faculty can at last be sure 
that it has deciphered, but in the hieroglyphics, as it were, 
of a mysterious picture-writing which, although it does not 
further definite knowledge, inspires that Wonder which is the 
source of Philosophy, that Fear which is the beginning of 
Wisdom. 

But, secondly, Timaeus goes far beyond the mere recom- 
mendation of a study of Cosmology for the sake of the better 
realisation of the political end. He tells the company, in this 
Myth, that the political end is not the only end which man 
may propose to himself. The life of the State and of Man as 
member of the State, however it may be ennobled and made 
to seem more choice-worthy by being viewed as part of the 
blessed life of the One, Only Begotten, Living Creature which 
is the express image of God, is nevertheless an end in which 
it is impossible to acquiesce. The best-ordered State cannot 
escape the Decline and Fall which await all human institu- 
tions; and the life of the citizen is incomparably shorter than 
that of his earthly city. If Man is to have any abiding end 
it must be in a life of the Soul which lies beyond death, 
outside the κύκλος τῆς γενέσεως. 

To be remembered, and even to be worshipped, by future 
generations on earth is an “immortality” which can satisfy 
no man; and still less satisfying is the “immortality” of 
absorption in the Spirit of the Universe. The only im- 
mortality which can satisfy a man, if he can only believe in 
it, is a personal life after bodily death, or, it may be, after 
many bodily deaths, when he shall return to his “ native star,” 


' “In Plato the State, like everything else upon Earth, is essentially related 
to the other world, whence all truth and reality spring. This is the ultimate 
source of his political idealism. . . . The State, therefore, serves not only for 
moral education, but also as a preparation for the higher life of the disembodied 
spirit into which a beautiful glimpse is opened to us at the end of the Republic” 
(Zeller, Aristotle, ii. 212, Engl. Transl.; cf. Rohde, Psyche, ii. 293). The latter 
half of the Republic, as has been pointed out, is not before us in the 
Timaeus. 





THE TIMALUS 301 


and be there for ever what the grace of God and his own 
efforts after κάθαρσις have made him, 

This third sort of immortality obviously holds the field 
against the two other sorts mentioned ; for, first, it is worth 
believing, which the second sort, however easy to believe, is 
not; and, secondly, it is more worth believing than the first 
sort, because it is a true “immortality ’—a personal life for 
ever and ever,—whereas the first sort, consisting in the lapsing 
memory of the short-lived individuals of a Race itself destined 
in time to disappear from the earth, is not a true immortality, 
however comforting it may be to look forward to it as a brief 
period in the true immortality. Lastly, the third sort of 
immortality, being worth believing, is, in addition to that, 
easy to believe, because no evidence drawn from the Natural 
World can ever be conclusive against it. It is not like a 
miracle alleged to have occurred in the Natural World in 
opposition to the recognised Laws of that World. No objec- 
tive Law of Nature is violated by the personal immortality 
of the disembodied Soul. The evidence against it, as for it, 
is subjective only. Does belief in personal immortality com- 
fort men? If it does, they will be found believing—a few, 
fervently, the majority, perhaps, in passive fashion. 

So far I have tried to express the thought and feeling 
which seem to be in unison with the note of the Zimaeus 
Myth. But there is another type of thought and feeling, on 
this great subject, which we cannot ignore, although the 
Timaeus Myth ignores it entirely. We must remember that 
for the Buddhist East personal immortality has little or no 
attraction. Final sleep seems to be the ideal for a large 
portion of the human race. 

It would be foolish, then, to say that belief in personal 
immortality is at all a subjective necessity. All that we are 
entitled to say is that, as a matter of fact, this belief has 
prevailed among the races which hitherto have taken the 
lead in the world. Whether or no it is bound to remain 
prevalent it is impossible to say. The overworked and the 
indolent, in modern Europe, easily acquiesce in—nay, gladly 
embrace, the ideal of eternal sleep; and even for some 
energetic constructive minds the time comes when they 
simply wish to rest from their labours, contented to think, 


902 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


or hope, that the mundane system, political, industrial, or 
scientific, for which they have worked hard, will continue 
to prosper when they are gone. The ideal of work or duty 
done is the ideal which, in the West, now competes most 
seriously with the ideal of personal immortality :— 


5 A Ὁ ΄ , “ a 
ὦ ξεῖν ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε 
κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι. 


Π 
(Timaeus, 42, and 91 D ff.) 


The lower animals were created after (1) man, and (2) 
woman, to embody the Souls of human beings who had lived 
unrighteously. 

Here, as elsewhere in Plato.—in the Phaedrus Myth; in 
the Myth of Er; in Phaedo, 81, 82; in Laws, ix. 872 E— 
the raison détre of metempsychosis is κόλασις and κάθαρσις, 
Correction and Purification—its raison d’étre also in the 
Orphic teaching and in Buddhism. But we must not suppose 
that belief in metempsychosis is necessarily associated with 
the notions of κόλασις and κάθαρσις. Metempsychosis 
recommended itself to the imagination of man as Natural 
History long before it was used for an ethical purpose.’ The 
notion that there is a fixed number of souls always in exist- 
ence—perhaps a fixed number of bodies—and that all the 
people successively born on earth are dead people who return 
from the place of spirits or from their graves, by some law 
of nature in the presence of which sexual intercourse has 
quite a subordinate place, is a notion which prevails widely 
among primitive races, and is entertained merely as an item 
of Natural History—as a theory of generation, and has no 
ethical import. 

Now it seems to me that the difference between men and 
beasts which belief in metempsychosis as process of κόλασις 
and κάθαρσις makes little of, is one which belief in metem- 
psychosis as mode of generation is bound to regard as very 

' The ideas of retribution and purification seem to be entirely absent from 


Irish transmigration stories: see The Voyage of Bran, by Myer and Nutt, 
ii. 96. 





THE 7ΖΓᾺΑΙ ΟΝ 303 


real. It may conduce to the κάθαρσις of a man’s Soul that 
it should be incarnate afterwards in the body of a lion or 
a swan; but if mere generation is all that is effected by 
metempsychosis it is natural to suppose that the Souls 
re-incarnated in one generation of men are those which 
appeared on earth in a former generation of men, and will 
reappear in some future generation of men. Where a beast 
becomes a man or a man a beast, and the change is not con- 
ceived as promoting κάθαρσις, we have something exceptional— 
not a case of the normal metempsychosis by which the human 
race 1s propagated, but rather a case of metamorphosis due to 
some particular act of magic, lke Circe’s, or some other 
extraordinary cause like that which changed the daughters 
of Pandion, one into a nightingale, and the other into a 
swallow. The notion of a man’s being able to transform 
himself or another man into a beast by magic is as primitive 
and as deeply rooted as that of metempsychosis, but in itself 
has nothing in common with the notion of metempsychosis. 

I would therefore distinguish sharply between belief in 
the reappearance, in human bodies, of departed human souls— 
or perhaps I ought to say the reappearance of departed human 
beings, Soul and Body not being regarded as separate entities 
—the normal generative process by which the human race 
is maintained on earth, and belief in the sudden bodily trans- 
formation, by magic or other cause, of men into beasts and 
beasts into men—an exceptional occurrence. 

Having distinguished two beliefs which I think ought to 
be distinguished, I am ready to admit considerable “con- 
tamination” of each by the other, even before the advent of 
the notion of κάθαρσις as an end served by re-incarnation of 
human Souls, not only in human bodies, but also in the bodies 
of beasts. 

We see how natural it is that such “contamination ” 
should take place, if we consider the mental condition which 
expresses itself in the Beast-Fable. It is a state of chronic 
dream-consciousness. The Beast-Fable is a dream in which 
men and beasts talk and act together; in which the trans- 
formation of a man into a beast, or a beast into a man, is 
taken as a matter of course; in which beasts, in short, are 
at once men and beasts. 


904 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


The mental condition which expresses itself in the dream 
of the Beast-Fable easily lends itself to belief in bodily trans- 
formations of men into beasts, and beasts into men, effected 
supernaturally by magicians; or sometimes taking place 
naturally, so that one who was a man in a former generation 
is born again in this generation as a beast, and may reappear 
in a future generation as a man. MHere the originally in- 
dependent notions of metempsychosis and metamorphosis 
begin to “contaminate” each other. Metamorphosis, which 
is properly the supernatural bodily transformation of a man 
into a beast, or a beast into a man, appears as the re-birth, 
in due natural course, of a beast as a man, or a man as a 
beast: metamorphosis has insinuated itself into the place 
occupied by metempsychosis, and has become a sort of metem- 
psychosis ; while metempsychosis, originally a kind of re-birth 
of departed human beings as human beings, now includes the 
notion of departed human beings reappearing in new births 
as beasts, and of beasts as human beings.’ 

As soon as the notions of retribution and purification 
came to be connected with the notion of metempsychosis, the 
modification produced in that notion by the notion of magical 
metamorphosis would be greatly accentuated: to be born 
again as a beast would in many cases seem to be more 
appropriate, from the point of view of retribution and purifica- 
tion, than to be born again in the natural course as a 
human being. 


III 


Timaeus, 41 Ὁ, ξυστήσας τὸ πᾶν διεῖλε ψυχὰς ἰσαρίθ- 
μους τοῖς ἄστροις, ἔνειμέ θ᾽ ἑκάστην πρὸς ἕκαστον. 
Susemihl (Genet. Hntw. ii. 369) and Archer-Hind (7%m. 
ad loc.) think that the Creator assigned to the fixed stars, not 
already differentiated individual Souls, but masses of the, as 
yet, undifferentiated Soul-stuff which he had compounded in 
the bowl. Only when the time came that Souls should be 
1 The case of Tuan Mace Cairill, in Irish legend, may be quoted as illustrating 
the manner in which the ideas of metamorphosis, metempsychosis, and preg- 
nancy without male intervention, run into one another. Tuan became, in 
succession, a Stag, a Bear, an Eagle, and a Salmon. The Salmon was boiled and 


eaten by a woman, who thereupon conceived, and brought forth Tuan again in 
human form. See The Voyage of Bran, by Myer and Nutt, ii. 76. 





ΤῊΝ 7T/MAKRUS 305 


“sown” on the ὄργανα χρόνου, the planets and earth, were 
these masses of Soul-stuff in the fixed stars taken and differen- 
tiated into individual Souls, I agree with Zeller (Plato, 
pp. 390, 391, Engl. Transl.) in holding that the Souls are 
differentiated as individuals when they are assigned each one 
to its fixed star; and that it is these individual Souls which, 
on the completion of their speculative journey round the outer 
sphere of the Heaven, are transferred to the earth and planets 
in order to partake of their first birth, γένεσις πρώτη, in the 
flesh. 

Mr. Archer-Hind asks (note, ad loc.) what is the purpose 
of this distribution of (as he supposes) masses of undifferen- 
tiated Soul-stuff among the fixed stars; and finds the explana- 
tion in Phaedrus, 252 c, D, where different gods are assigned 
as patrons for persons of various temperament. If the reader 
will turn to the passage in the Phaedrus referred to by Mr. 
Archer-Hind, he will find that the patron gods, 1.6. stars, are 
not the fixed stars, but the planets, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun; 
and this is only in accordance with the prevailing belief—that 
it is from the planets that the varieties of temperament are, 
at least, chiefly derived. The purpose of the distribution of 
Souls (in my view, individual Souls, not masses of Soul-stuff) 
among the fixed stars is what Plato distinctly says it is—that 
these Souls may learn the Laws of the Universe—r7v τοῦ 


: \ / 
παντὸς φύσιν. 


THE PHAEHDRUS MYTH 
CONTEXT 


TuE subject of the Phaedrus is “ Rhetoric and Love.” 

Socrates and the young Phaedrus take a walk together out- 
side the Walls, and rest under a plane-tree by the bank of the 
Llissus. 

There Phaedrus reads to Socrates a rhetorical piece, which 
he has just heard delivered by Lysias, in praise of the non- 
lover as distinguished from the lover. 

Socrates does not think much of the performance, and 
delivers a better speech on the same subject—in dispraise of the 
lover and praise of the non-lover. 

When he has finished his speech, he rises to go away, but 
is stopped by his δαιμόνιον, or Familiar Spirit, and stays to 
deliver a Recantation of his blasphemous dispraise of Love. 

The sanity of the non-lover, on which he had enlarged, 
is indeed a paltry thing, he now says, as compared with the 
madness of the lover. Madness is the gift of God. There 
are four kinds of divine madness: the first is prophetic 
inspiration—as the name μαντική, derived from μανική, 
shows; the second is religious exaltation—the feeling of 
the μύστης, or initiated person; the third is poetic genius ; 
and the fourth is the Love by which the immortal Soul is 
winged for her flight to Heaven. 

The Myth describes the birth and growth of this Love, 
which it presents as the nisus of the Soul after the True, 


the Beautiful, and the Good—in one word, as Philosophy. 
306 










ΓΝ ee eee, | ee 
Sa Ἧ “οὐ ᾽ νὰ 


ΟΠ ΤῊΝ PHAEDRUS MYTH 307 


When the Myth is finished, conversation is resumed, and 
s to the subject of Rhetoric, or the Art of Public Speaking, 
hich is now discussed by Socrates with a deep sense of the 
yrtance of Truth. To be a really good speaker, a man must 
ων the Truth, and be able to recommend it to his audience. 
— Genwine Rhetoric is based on Philosophy ; and the highest kind 
Εν such Rhetoric, on that enthusiastic Philosophy which is the 
gift of Eros. Let Lysias keep this in mind. 





908 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Phaedrus, 246 a—257 A 


\ \ > > / > fal id na 
246 Περὶ μὲν οὖν ἀθανασίας αὐτῆς ἱκανῶς. 
a aA 2 
Περὶ δὲ τῆς ἰδέας αὐτῆς ὧδε λεκτέον: οἷον μέν ἐστι, 
/ ΄ ὑ / ὃ \ a / 2 \ 
πάντῃ πάντως θείας εἶναι καὶ μακρᾶς διηγήσεως, ᾧ δὲ 
Ν > ,ὔ \ / / 9 / 
ἔοικεν, ἀνθρωπίνης τε Kal ἐλάττονος. ταύτῃ οὖν λέγωμεν. 
\ / , / / 
᾿Εοικέτω δὴ ξυμφύτῳ δυνάμει ὑποπτέρου ζεύγους τε καὶ 
ἂν.» ἢ a \ ΠῚ ov \ ς 7, > , 
ἡνιόχου. θεῶν μὲν οὖν ἵπποι τε Kal ἡνίοχοι πάντες αὐτοί 
a \ a ΝΜ 
Β τε ἀγαθοὶ καὶ ἐξ ἀγαθῶν, τὸ δὲ τῶν ἄλλων μέμικται. καὶ 
a \ e fal ς »Μ 7 ς an 3 - 
πρῶτον μὲν ἡμῶν ὁ ἄρχων ἕξυνωρίδος ἡνιοχεῖ, εἶτα τῶν 
od ε \ > a / > \ \ > / e 
ἵππων ὁ μὲν αὐτῷ καλὸς τε κἀγαθὸς Kal ἐκ τοιούτων, ὁ 
δὲ ἐξ ἐναντίων τε καὶ ἐναντίος. χαλεπὴ δὴ καὶ δύσκολος 
> b / ς \ ς A ς / ΠῚ ὃ) 5 θ ,ὔ 
ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἡ περὶ ἡμᾶς ἡνιόχησις. ἢ δὴ οὖν θνητὸν τε 
Ν > / a b ΄ / > a a ς 
καὶ ἀθάνατον ζῶον ἐκλήθη, πειρατέον εἰπεῖν. πᾶσα ἡ 
\ \ ) - a b YA / \ > \ 
ψυχὴ παντὸς ἐπιμελεῖται τοῦ ἀψύχου, πάντα δὲ οὐρανὸν 
κ / ᾽ A / 
περιπολεῖ, ἄλλοτ᾽ ἐν ἄλλοις εἴδεσι γιγνομένη. τελέα μὲν 
5 5 ‘4 ὦ / A \ , \ 
Coty οὖσα Kal ἐπτερωμένη μετεωροπορεῖ Te Kal πάντα τὸν 
/ ὃ val δ δὲ 7 / σ΄ x 
κόσμον διοικεῖ: ἡ δὲ πτερορρυήσασα φέρεται, ἕως ἂν 
rn > / 2 - lal fun 
στερεοῦ τινος ἀντιλάβηται, οὗ κατοικισθεῖσα, σῶμα γήϊνον 
ral > \ ς \ ὃ an A ὃ \ \ > / δύ 
λαβοῦσα, αὐτὸ αὑτὸ δοκοῦν κινεῖν διὰ τὴν ἐκείνης δύναμιν, 
a \ / > / \ \ a) / / > 
ζῶον τὸ ξύμπαν ἐκλήθη, ψυχὴ καὶ σῶμα παγέν, θνητόν τ 
/ 
ἔσχεν ἐπωνυμίαν: ἀθάνατον δὲ οὐδ᾽ ἐξ ἑνὸς λόγου λελογι- 
/ > \ / ” 56 ¥ Δ᾽ e a / 
σμένου, ἀλλὰ πλάττομεν, οὔτε ἰδόντες OVO ἱκανῶς νοήσαντες 
/ “- Μ Ν / 7 
Ὁ [θεὸν] ἀθάνατόν te ζῶον, ἔχον μὲν ψυχήν, ἔχον δὲ σῶμα, 
/ rc / a 
τὸν ἀεὶ δὲ χρόνον ταῦτα ξυμπεφυκότα. ᾿Αλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν 


nr a / 4 ? / 
δή, ὅπῃ τῷ θεῴ φίλον, ταύτῃ ἐχέτω τε Kal λεγέσθω. τὴν 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 309 


TRANSLATION 


Concerning the Immortality of the Soul enough hath been 
spoken: now let it be told of what fashion she is, with 
this preface, to wit, that her fashion, as it truly is, only the 
tongue of a God, using long discourse, could declare; but 
what she is like unto, a Man may tell, speaking more shortly. 

Let it then be said of the Soul, that she is like unto a 
Power composite of two Winged Horses harnessed, and a 
Charioteer. 

All the Horses and Charioteers of the Gods are themselves 
good, and of good stock; but of the other Souls the goodness 
is mixed: for ‘tis a Yoke of Horses that the Charioteer 
of Man’s Soul driveth, and, moreover, of his Horses the one 
is well-favoured and good, and of good stock, the other of 
evil stock and himself evil. Wherefore a hard thing, and 
a contrarious, the driving of our Chariots must needs be. 

Now let it be told how it hath come to pass that of living 
creatures some are called mortal and some immortal. All 
that is called by the name of Sowl watcheth over all that is 
without Soul, and maketh circuit of the whole Heaven, and 
appeareth now in this shape now in that. If a Soul be per- 
fect, and keep her wings full of feathers, she flieth high and 
encompasseth the whole world with her government. But 
there be Souls that have shed their wings, and fall down 
headlong till they lay hold on that which is corporeal, and there 
they make their abode, having taken unto themselves earthly 
bodies. The earthly body, albeit without the power of the 
Soul it is not moved, seemeth to move itself; and the whole, 
compacted together of Soul and Body, is that which we call 
by the name of “living creature,” thereunto adding “ mortal.” 

Of that which is “immortal” we have no understanding ; 
but make for ourselves an image thereof; and God, whom we 
have not seen neither have rightly comprehended, we conceit 
as One who liveth and is immortal and hath Soul and 
Body ; and in him we say are these two joined together for 
evermore. 

Let these things and the telling of them be as it pleaseth 


310 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


- - lal fal ᾽ a “Ὁ 
δ᾽ αἰτίαν τῆς τῶν πτερῶν ἀποβολῆς, δι’ ἣν ψυχῆς ἀπορρεῖ, 
λάβωμεν. ἔστι δέ τις τοιάδε. 

Πέφυκεν ἡ πτεροῦ δύναμις τὸ ἐμβριθὲς ἄγειν ἄνω 
/ 5. 7 \ lal a / > lal / ,ὔ 
μετεωρίζουσα, ἡ τὸ τῶν θεῶν γένος οἰκεῖ. κεκοινώνηκε δέ 


™ μάλιστα τῶν περὶ τὸ σῶμα τοῦ θείου [ψυχή]. τὸ δὲ 


a / / > \ \ A “ “ ,ὔ 
E θεῖον καλὸν, σοφὸν, ἀγαθὸν καὶ πᾶν ὅ τι τοιοῦτον. τούτοις 


241 


\ / / \ " / \ A a 
δὴ τρέφεταί te καὶ αὔξεται μάλιστα τὸ THs ψυχῆς 
/ > a \ \ ον \ a > / / 
πτέρωμα, αἰσχρῷ δὲ Kal KaK@ Kal τοῖς ἐναντίοις φθίνει τε 
\ / e \ \ / e \ > > a \ 
καὶ διόλλυται" ὁ μὲν δὴ μέγας ἡγεμὼν ἐν ovpave Ζεὺς 
/ \ e a / a , 
ἐλαύνων πτηνὸν ἅρμα πρῶτος πορεύεται, διακοσμῶν πάντα 
\ > / a > Ψ \ a \ 
Kal ἐπιμελούμενος" τῷ δ᾽ ἕπεται στρατιὰ θεῶν τε Kal 
, \ 7 / / / \ £ / 
δαιμόνων κατὰ ἕνδεκα μέρη κεκοσμημένη. μένει yap “Eotia 
la , al a lal 
ἐν θεῶν οἴκῳ μόνη" τῶν δὲ ἄλλων ὅσοι ἐν τῷ τῶν δώδεκα 
> “ / \ ” ς ἴω \ / ἃ 
ἀριθμῷ τεταγμένοι θεοὶ ἄρχοντες ἡγοῦνται κατὰ τάξιν ἣν 
“ ’ / \ \ * \ / / \ 
ἕκαστος ἐτάχθη. πολλαὶ μὲν οὖν Kal μακάριαι θέαι τε Kal 
/ » \ > fa) A a / > / > / 
διέξοδοι ἐντὸς οὐρανοῦ, ἃς θεῶν γένος εὐδαιμόνων ἐπιστρέ- 
/ “ > “ Ν ς “ Ὁ \ e ~ A’ 
φεται, πράττων ἕκαστος αὐτῶν TO αὑτοῦ. ἕπεται δὲ ὁ ἀεὶ 
/ a 
ἐθέλων τε καὶ δυνάμενος" φθόνος yap ἔξω θείου χοροῦ 
“ ed \ \ \ a \ δ ἃ / » 
ἵσταται. ὅταν δὲ δὴ πρὸς δαῖτα καὶ ἐπὶ θοίνην ἴωσιν, 
ς Ν \ ς Pd ¢ al / \ Μ 
ἄκραν ὑπὸ τὴν ὑπουράνιον ἁψῖδα πορεύονται πρὸς ἄναντες 
” \ \ 3 ζω ? / > / δι ς ” 
ἤδη. τὰ μὲν οὖν θεῶν ὀχήματα ἰσορρόπως εὐήνια ὄντα 
/ e an 
ῥᾳδίως πορεύεται, Ta δὲ ἄλλα μόγις: βρίθει yap ὁ THs 
, “ / Ν εν \ fal we rad 
κάκης ἵππος μετέχων, ἐπὶ THY γῆν ῥέπων τε καὶ βαρύνων, 
ως \ λῶ 3 θ /, A ς / ” θ ὃ) ὀ 
© μὴ καλῶς ἣ τεθραμμένος τῶν ἡνιόχων. ἔνθα δὴ πόνος 
\ Bsc S ΝΜ A / e \ \ 
τε Kal ἀγὼν ἔσχατος ψυχῇ πρόκειται. αἱ μὲν yap 
> / 4 ς | an vn \ ” ; / Μ 
ἀθάνατοι καλούμεναι, ἡνίκ᾽ ἂν πρὸς ἄκρῳ γένωνται, ἔξω 
na ” , Cu. A a > a / / \ 
πορευθεῖσαι ἔστησαν ἐπὶ τῷ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ νώτῳ, στάσας δὲ 
> \ / ς / e \ A \ Μ lal 
αὐτὰς περιάγει ἡ περιφορά, ai δὲ θεωροῦσι τὰ ἔξω τοῦ 


οὐρανοῦ. 


THE PHAKFDRUS MYTH 411 


God; but of the falling off of the wings, and wherefore the 
Soul sheddeth them, let the cause be now discovered. It is 
after this wise. 

The nature of wings consisteth in the power of lifting that 
which is heavy up into the height where the generation of the 
Gods dwelleth; and unto wings, amongst the bodily parts, 
belongeth the largest portion of that which is of God. Now 
that which is of God hath beauty, and wisdom, and goodness, 
and all perfection; by these, therefore, the growth of the 
wings of the Soul is chiefly nourished and increased ; whereas 
by the things which are contrary to these, to wit, by all things 
hateful and evil, are her wings caused to pine away, and utterly 
destroyed. 

Zeus, the great Captain of the Host of Heaven, mounted 
upon his winged chariot, rideth first and disposeth and over- 
seeth all things. Him followeth the army of Gods and Daemons 
in eleven orders—for Hestia alone abideth in the House of 
the Gods; but all the other Gods which are of the number 
of the Twelve go forth and lead each one the order whereof 
he is appointed to be captain. 

Many holy sights there be for eye to behold of blessed 
Gods in their courses passing to and fro within the firmament 
of Heaven, each one doing his own business: and whosoever 
willeth, and is able, followeth; for Envy standeth afar from 
the Heavenly Choir. 

Now, as often as they go to eat at the banquet, their path 
is ever up by the steep way close under the roof of the Heaven. 
The Chariots of the Gods, going evenly and being alway 
obedient to the hand of the Charioteer, accomplish their 
journey easily; but the other Chariots hardly, with great 
labour, for the Horse which is by nature froward is as a weight, 
and ever inclineth towards the Earth, and, except the Charioteer 
hath brought him into subjection, draweth the Chariot down. 
Herein standeth the cause to the Soul of trouble and trial 
exceeding great and sore which are prepared for her. 

The Souls which are called immortal, when they are come 
to the top of the Heaven, journey out therefrom and stand 
upon the Roof thereof without, and standing are carried round 
by the circuit, and behold those things which are without the 
Heaven. 


312 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


/ / lal 
Tov δὲ ὑπερουράνιον τόπον οὔτε τις ὕμνησέ πω τῶν 

A \ x ot te / > es ” ᾿ -ἰν 
τῆδε ποιητὴς οὔτε ποθ ὑμνήσει κατ᾽ ἀξίαν. ἔχει δὲ ὧδε. 


/ a 
τολμητέον yap οὖν TO γε ἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν, ἄλλως TE Kal 


Ν > / / ς \ > ΄ / \ > / 
περὶ ἀληθείας λέγοντα. ἡ yap ἀχρώματος TE καὶ ἀσχημά- 
\ > \ > / x” 5 fel / 
τίιστος καὶ ἀναφὴς οὐσία ὄντως οὖσα ψυχῆς κυβερνήτῃ 
/ \ A \ ἃ \ a 3 a > / / 
μόνῳ θεατὴ νῷ" περὶ ἣν TO τῆς ἀληθοῦς ἐπιστήμης γένος 
al Μ Α, / ee 5 a / a \ 
D τοῦτον ἔχει τὸν τόπον. ἅτ᾽ οὖν θεοῦ διάνοια νῷ TE Kai 
» / > / / \ e / A Ὁ x 
ἐπιστήμῃ ἀκηράτῳ τρεφομένη, καὶ ἁπάσης Ψυχῆς, ὅση av 
a a / \ Ἃ 
μέλλῃ τὸ προσῆκον δέξασθαι, ἰδοῦσα διὰ χρόνου τὸ ὃν 
> Led \ la) > a / \ > Lal ῳ 
ἀγαπᾷ τε καὶ θεωροῦσα τἀληθῆ τρέφεται καὶ εὐπαθεῖ, ἕως 
Xx "A x ς \ > a / > δὲ A 
ἂν κύκλῳ ἡ περιφορὰ εἰς ταὐτὸν περιενέγκῃ. ἐν δὲ TH 
/ lol \ > \ / lal \ 
περιόδῳ καθορᾷ μὲν αὐτὴν δικαιοσύνην, καθορᾷ δὲ σωφρο- 
/ 6 A δὲ > f > εκ / / > 
σύνην, καθορᾷ δὲ ἐπιστήμην, οὐχ ἢ γένεσις πρόσεστιν, οὐ 
“ > / e / » e / = e e al an ” 
E% ἐστί που ἑτέρα ev ἑτέρῳ οὖσα ὧν ἡμεῖς viv ὄντων 
καλοῦμεν, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἐν TO ὅ ἐσ ὃν ὄντως ἐπιστή 
μεν, a τὴν ἐν τῷ ὅ ἐστιν ὃν ὄντως ἐπιστήμην 
Ss \ s e / \ ” ΝΜ / \ 
οὖσαν: Kal τἄλλα ὡσαύτως Ta ὄντα ὄντως θεασαμένη καὶ 
« A δῦ / > \ ” a > a »” 
ἑστιαθεῖσα, δῦσα πάλιν εἰς TO εἴσω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, οἴκαδε 
/ na e / \ \ 
ἦλθεν: ἐλθούσης δὲ αὐτῆς ὁ ἡνίοχος πρὸς τὴν φάτνην 
\ “ / / > / \ Ἄν ὦ > A 
τοὺς ἵππους στήσας παρέβαλεν ἀμβροσίαν τε καὶ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῇ 
/ 
νέκταρ ἐπότισε. 
a / e \ A 
248 Kai οὗτος μὲν θεῶν Bios. αἱ δὲ ἄλλαι ψυχαί, ἡ μὲν 
ΝΜ A € / \ ᾽ / e “ > \ ΝΜ 
ἄριστα θεῷ ἑπομένη καὶ εἰκασμένη ὑπερῆρεν εἰς τὸν ἔξω 
\ a ς / / \ / \ 
τόπον τὴν τοῦ ἡνιόχου κεφαλήν, Kal συμπεριηνέχθη τὴν 
/ / e \ a t/ \ / rn 
περιφοράν, θορυβουμένη ὑπὸ τῶν ἵππων Kal μόγις καθορῶσα 
/ 
Ta ὄντα' ἡ δὲ τοτὲ μὲν ἦρε, τοτὲ δὲ ἔδυ, βιαζομένων δὲ 
r » 
τῶν ἵππων τὰ μὲν εἶδε, τὰ δ᾽ ov. αἱ δὲ δὴ ἄλλαι 
/ \ e a ” “ > a \ 
γλιχόμεναι μὲν ἅπασαι τοῦ ἄνω ἕπονται, ἀδυνατοῦσαι δὲ 
a \ 
ὑποβρύχιαι ξυμπεριφέρονται, πατοῦσαι ἀλλήλας καὶ ἐπι- 


Β βάλλουσαι, ἑτέρα πρὸ τῆς ἑτέρας πειρωμένη γενέσθαι. 


ΤῊΝ ΗΑ MYTH 313 


Now, the Place which is above the Heaven no poet here 
hath ever praised, nor shall praise, worthily. The Place is 
after this wise: for he especially whose discourse is concerning 
Truth must make bold to say what is true concerning 1t. 

The Substance which Verily Is, which hath no colour and 
no shape, and hand cannot touch, is comprehended only by the 
Governor of the Soul, to wit, by Reason. Round about this 
Substance, in this Place, dwelleth True Knowledge. The Mind 
of God—yea, that Part wherewith every Soul seeketh after 
the food convenient for herself—is fed with Reason and True 
Knowledge undefiled. Wherefore beholding again at last That 
Which Is, it is satisfied, and the sight of That which is True 
feedeth it, and maketh it glad, until the circuit shall have 
brought the Soul round again unto the same Place. In the 
journey round the Soul beholdeth Justice Itself, she beholdeth 
Temperance Itself, she beholdeth True Knowledge: not that 
knowledge which is with generation, and differeth in respect 
unto different of those things concerning which we now say 
that “they are”; but the knowledge which standeth in That 
which Verily Is. The Soul, then, having beheld these and 
also all other things Which Verily Are, and having eaten 
of this feast, sinketh down again into the inward part of the 
Heaven and cometh home unto her House. And when she 
is come, the Charioteer maketh the Horses to stand at the 
manger, and casteth ambrosia before them, and thereafter 
giveth them nectar to drink. 

This is the life of the Gods. Of the other Souls, which- 
soever followeth God best, and is made most like unto Him, 
keepeth the head of her Charioteer lifted up into the Place 
without the firmament, and is carried round with the circuit 
thereof, being troubled by the Horses, and hardly beholding 
the Things Which Are; after her cometh the Soul which for 
a space keepeth the head of her Charioteer lifted up, and then 
again sinketh down, and because of the violence of the Horses, 
seeth some of the Things Which Are, but some she seeth not. 

Beside these there follow other Souls which all do strive 
after that which is above, but are not able to reach unto it, 
and are carried round sunken beneath the face of the Heaven, 
trampling upon one another, and running against one another, 
and pressing on for to outstrip one another, with mighty great 





314 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


/ / 
θόρυβος οὖν καὶ ἅμιλλα καὶ ἱδρὼς ἔσχατος γίγνεται. οὗ 
’ 7 
δὴ κακίᾳ ἡνιόχων πολλαὶ μὲν χωλεύονται, πολλαὶ δὲ 
val / 
πολλὰ πτερὰ Opavovtat: πᾶσαι δὲ πολὺν ἔχουσαι πόνον 
» “ a “ v / > / \ > lal 
ἀτελεῖς τῆς τοῦ ὄντος θέας ἀπέρχονται, καὶ ἀπελθοῦσαι 
A a lal > 
τοφρῇ δοξαστῇ χρῶνται. οὗ δ᾽ ἕνεχ᾽ ἡ πολλὴ σπουδὴ τὸ 
a \ / ων 
ἀληθείας ἰδεῖν πεδίον οὗ ἐστιν, ἥ τε δὴ προσήκουσα ψυχῆς 
a es \ > a > a x lal / 2 Ψ 
τῷ ἀρίστῳ νομὴ ἐκ τοῦ ἐκεῖ λειμῶνος τυγχάνει οὖσα, ἥ τε 
la - 7 / 
C TOU πτεροῦ φύσις, ᾧ ψυχὴ κουφίξεται, τούτῳ τρέφεται, 
/ \ a \ 
θεσμός te ᾿Αδραστείας ὅδε, ἥτις av ψυχὴ θεῷ ξυνοπαδὸς 
/ / A > lal , a ei. 7 
γενομένη κατίδῃ Te τῶν ἀληθῶν, μέχρι τε τῆς ἑτέρας 
/ ° ? / nv 2 a δύ a 4 
περιόδου εἶναι ἀπήμονα, κἂν ἀεὶ τοῦτο δύνηται ποιεῖν, ἀεὶ 
> lal εὐ \ 
ἀβλαβῆ εἶναι' ὅταν δὲ ἀδυνατήσασα ἐπισπέσθαι μὴ ἴδῃ, 
καί τινι συντυχίᾳ σαμένη λήθης τε καὶ κακίας πλη- 
χίᾳ χρησαμένη λήθη η 
na fal al / \ \ \ 
σθεῖσα βαρυνθῇ, βαρυνθεῖσα δὲ πτερορρυήσῃ τε καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν 
- / / / / \ rn > ὃ / 
Ὁ γῆν πέσῃ, τότε νόμος ταύτην μὴ φυτεῦσαι εἰς μηδεμίαν 
A / \ \ \ a 
θηρείαν φύσιν ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ γενέσει, ἀλλὰ τὴν μὲν πλεῖστα 
A \ / / nx 
ἰδοῦσαν εἰς γονὴν avdpos γενησομένου φιλοσόφου ἢ 
/ δ a \ ᾿] A“ \ δὲ ὃ / 
φιλοκάλου ἢ μουσικοῦ Tivos Kal ἐρωτικοῦ, τὴν δὲ δευτέραν 
/ a ’ fal / > 
εἰς βασιλέως ἐννόμου ἢ πολεμικοῦ Kal ἀρχικοῦ, τρίτην εἰς 
ἴω an “ / 
πολιτικοῦ ἤ τινος οἰκονομικοῦ ἢ χρηματιστικοῦ, τετάρτην 
> / rn A \ / Μ / 
εἰς φιλοπόνου γυμναστικοῦ ἢ περὶ σώματος ἴασίν τινα 
᾽ / / \ / ” \ 
ἐσομένου, πέμπτην μαντικὸν βίον ἤἢἤ τινα τελεστικὸν 
μ, Ν A \ / / » 

Ε ἕξουσαν: ἕκτῃ ποιητικὸὲ ἢ τῶν περὶ μίμησίν τις ἄλλος 
᾿ / / \ a / > / 
ἁρμόσει, ἑβδόμῃ Snustoupyixos ἢ γεωργικός, ὀγδόῃ σοφι- 

Ν δ / , / / ᾽ δὲ ΄ 
στικὸς ἢ δημοκοπικός, ἐννάτῃ τυραννικὸς. ἐν δὲ τούτοις 
Ψ Δ 4 νὰ / ὃ 7 > , , 
ἅπασιν ὃς μὲν ἂν δικαίως διαγάγῃ, ἀμείνονος μοίρας μετα- 


λαμβάνει, ὃς δ᾽ ἂν ἀδίκως, χείρονος. 


THE ΓΗ ΚΡ MYTH 315 


sound of tumult and sweat of the race; and here, by reason 
of the unskilfulness of the Charioteers, many Souls are maimed, 
and many have their wings broken; and all, greatly travailing, 
depart uninitiated, not having seen That Which Is, and turn 
them to the food of Opinion. 

Now these are the causes wherefore they so vehemently 
desire to see the Place where the Plain of Truth is: because 
the pasture convenient for the Best Part of the Soul groweth 
in the Meadow there, and the power of wings, whereby the 
Soul is lightly carried up, is nourished by that pasture; and 
because Adrasteia hath made a decree that the Soul which 
hath been the companion of God, and seen some of the Things 
Which Are, shall be without affliction all the time until another 
journey round the Heaven beginneth for her; and if she can 
alway behold Those Things she shall be without hurt alway: 
but when a Soul, having seen Those Things aforetime, is now 
not able to follow, and seeth them not, being overtaken by 
some evil chance, and filled with forgetfulness and wickedness, 
and made heavy so that she sheddeth the feathers of her 
wings and falleth unto the Earth, then the law is that she 
shall not be planted in the body of any Beast in the first 
generation: but the Soul which hath seen most shall pass into 
the seed of a man who shall become a Seeker after the True 
Wisdom, a Seeker after the True Beauty, a Friend of the 
Muses, a True Lover; the Soul which cometh second shall 
enter into the seed of a King who shall rule justly, or of a 
Warrior and Commander of the Host; the Soul which cometh 
third shall enter into the seed of a man who shall busy him- 
self with the affairs of a City, or with the stewardship of a 
household, or with merchandise; the Soul which is fourth 
shall enter into the seed of a man who shall endure hardness 
for the sake of the crown of victory, or shall be a healer of 
the diseases of the body; the Soul which is fifth shall have 
the life of a Prophet or Priest; unto the sixth shall belong 
the life of a Poet or some other of the tribe of Copiers; unto 
the seventh the life of a Workman or Husbandman; unto the 
eighth the life of a Sophist or Demagogue; unto the ninth 
the life of a Tyrant. Im all these lives, whosoever walketh 
righteously hath a better portion; whosoever walketh un- 
righteously, a worse. 


916 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


> \ \ \ > / τ Ὁ e \ e / ᾽ 
Εἰς μὲν γὰρ τὸ αὐτό, ὅθεν ἥκει ἡ ψυχὴ ἑκάστη, οὐκ 
τι n / la) \ 
ἀφικνεῖται ἐτῶν μυρίων: οὐ γὰρ πτεροῦται πρὸ τοσούτου 
/ rn / 
249 χρόνου, πλὴν ἡ τοῦ φιλοσοφήσαντος ἀδόλως ἢ παιδεραστή- 
\ ,ὔ & \ / / A 
σαντος μετὰ φιλοσοφίας. αὗται δὲ τρίτῃ περιόδῳ τῇ 
χιλιετεῖ, ἐὰν ἕλωνται τρὶς ἐφεξῆς τὸν βίον τοῦτον, οὕτω 
val a $Y 4 ᾽ / e \ ΝΜ 
πτερωθεῖσαι τρισχιλιοστῷ ETEL ἀπέρχονται. αἱ δὲ ἄλλαι, 
“ \ “ / / / ” 
ὅταν Tov πρῶτον βίον τελευτήσωσι, κρίσεως ἔτυχον. 
κριθεῖσαι δὲ αἱ μὲν εἰς τὰ ὑπὸ γῆς δικαιωτήρια ἐλθοῦσαι 
δί 5 / e δ᾽ > > lal / ς Ν an 
ίκην ἐκτίνουσιν, αἱ εἰς τοὐρανοῦ τινα τόπον ὑπὸ τῆς 
/ ~ 
B δίκης κουφισθεῖσαι διάγουσιν ἀξίως ov ἐν ἀνθρώπου εἴδει 
/ A A / / 
ἐβίωσαν Blov. τῴ δὲ χιλιοστῷ ἀμφότεραι ἀφικνούμεναι 
> \ / / \ “ἶ al / / e a 
ἐπὶ κληρωσίν τε Kai αἵρεσιν τοῦ δευτέρου βίου αἱροῦνται 
a x 
ov av ἐθέλῃ ἑκάστη. ἔνθα καὶ eis θηρίου βίον ἀνθρωπίνη 
\ > rn \ > / . ΝΜ 5 
Ψυχὴ ἀφικνεῖται, καὶ ἐκ θηρίου ὅς ποτε ἄνθρωπος ἦν 
/ > ” > \ 4 / > r \ 
πάλιν εἰς ἄνθρωπον. ov yap ye μήποτε ἰδοῦσα τὴν 
\ a a Μ 
ἀλήθειαν εἰς τόδε ἥξει τὸ σχῆμα. δεῖ γὰρ ἄνθρωπον 
, / ~ > > 
ξυνιέναι κατ᾽ εἶδος λεγόμενον, ἐκ πολλῶν ἰὸν αἰσθήσεων εἰς 
ἃ a / »" / ᾽ > / 
σὲν λογισμῷ ἕξυναιρούμενον.: τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν ἀνάμνησις 
᾿] / “ » “. ΄ lal ΄ \ an lol \ 
ἐκείνων, & TOT εἶδεν ἡμῶν ἡ ψυχὴ συμπορευθεῖσα θεῷ καὶ 
ς a A ἴω 4 / \ > / > \ x 
ὑπεριδοῦσα ἃ νῦν εἶναί φαμεν καὶ ἀνακύψασα eis τὸ ὃν 
Ν \ / “-“ an / 
ὄντως. διὸ δὴ δικαίως μόνη πτεροῦται ἡ τοῦ φιλοσόφου 
ὃ ΄ \ \ 2 / δου" ἃ / \ δύ 
ἰάνοια' πρὸς γὰρ ἐκείνοις ἀεί ἐστι μνήμῃ κατὰ δύναμιν, 
Ν al a \ / > \ 
πρὸς οἷσπερ θεὸς ὧν θεῖός ἐστι. τοῖς δὲ δὴ τοιούτοις ἀνὴρ 
΄ - \ / 
ὑπομνήμασιν ὀρθῶς χρώμενος, τελέους ἀεὶ τελετὰς τελού- 
/ ΝΜ / / > / \ A 
Ὁ μενος, τέλεος ὄντως μόνος γίγνεται. ἐξιστάμενος δὲ τῶν 
᾽ / 7 \ \ A , / 
ἀνθρωπίνων σπουδασμάτων καὶ πρὸς τῴ θείῳ γυγνόμενος, 
a \ e \ a “ ΄ a ᾽ / 
νουθετεῖται μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ὡς παρακινῶν, ἐνθουσιάζων 
δὲ λέληθε τοὺς πολλούς. 
» id n τ \ n / 
"Ἔστι δὴ οὖν δεῦρο ὁ πᾶς ἥκων λόγος περὶ τῆς τετάρ- 


τῆς μανίας, ἣν ὅταν τὸ τῇδέ τις ὁρῶν κάλλος, τοῦ ἀληθοῦς 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 317 


Now into the same Place from whence each Soul cometh 
she returneth not again until ten thousand years have been 
accomplished ; for sooner is no Soul fledged with wings, save 
the Soul of him who hath sought after True Wisdom without 
deceit, or hath loved his Comrade in the bonds of Wisdom. 
The Souls of such men, when the third course of a thousand 
years is finished, if they have chosen this life three times in 
order, being fledged with wings, do then depart. 

But the other Souls, when they have ended their first life, 
are brought before the judgment-seat; and when they have 
received sentence, some go to the prisons under the Earth, and 
there pay the penalty: and some by the sentence are exalted 
and go into a certain place of the Heavens, where they fare 
as beseemeth the life which they spent when they had Man’s 
form. But in the thousandth year both sorts, being come to 
the casting of lots and to the choosing of the second life, 
choose, every Soul, the life which pleaseth her. And now it 
cometh to pass that a Soul which was a Man’s goeth into the 
life of a Beast, and the Soul of a Beast which aforetime was 
a Man goeth again into a Man; for unto Man’s shape no Soul 
attaineth which never beheld the Truth; the cause whereof is 
this—Man must needs understand the Specific Form which 
proceedeth from the perceiving of many things, and is made 
one by Thought. This is the Recollection of Those Things 
which each Soul erewhile saw when she journeyed together 
with God, despising the things which we now say are, and 
holding herself up to look at That which Verily Is. Where- 
fore of right only the Mind of the Lover of Wisdom is winged; 
for he alway cleaveth in Memory, so far as he is able, unto 
Those Things by cleaving unto which God is verily God. The 
man, therefore, who useth these memorials aright, and is alway 
a partaker in the perfect mysteries, he alone becometh verily 
perfect ; but inasmuch as he escheweth the things which men 
do strive after, and giveth himself unto God, they that are of 
the world rebuke him, saying that he is beside himself; for 
they perceive not that he hath inspiration of God. 

It is come to pass, then, that this Discourse is now 
returned unto whence it came, to wit, unto the Fourth Sort 
of Madness: for when a man beholdeth the beauty which is 
here, and then calleth to mind the True Beauty, and getteth 


318 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 
ἀναμιμνησκόμενος, πτεροῦταί Te Kal ἀναπτερούμενος προθυ- 
μούμενος ἀναπτέσθαι, ἀδυνατῶν δέ, ὄρνιθος δίκην βλέπων 


” n / Ν 3 A >. 4 y” ς a) 
ἄνω, TOV κάτω δὲ ἀμελῶν, αἰτίαν ἔχει ὡς μανικῶς 


ὃ / ς » Ψ al lal > / et a 
E διακείμενος, ὡς apa αὕτη πασῶν τῶν ἐνθουσιάσεων ἀρίστη 


250 


τε καὶ ἐξ ἀρίστων τῷ τε ἔχοντι καὶ τῷ κοινωνοῦντι αὐτῆς 
,ὔ \ ε Α 7 A ¢e lal “-“ 
γίγνεται, καὶ ὅτι ταύτης μετέχων τῆς μανίας ὁ ἐρῶν τῶν 
n > \ a ’ sf Μ a \ 
καλῶν ἐραστὴς καλεῖται. καθάπερ yap εἴρηται, πᾶσα μὲν 
\ / 
ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ φύσει τεθέαται τὰ ὄντα, ἢ οὐκ ἂν ἦλθεν 
> / \ a > / > > A > a > 
εἰς τόδε TO ζῶον, ἀναμιμνήσκεσθαι δ᾽ ἐκ τῶνδε ἐκεῖνα οὐ 
er ς / 42) ew 4 io / > A » 4᾽ “Ὁ 
ῥάδιον ἁπάσῃ, οὔθ᾽ ὅσαι βραχέως εἶδον τότε τἀκεῖ, οὔθ᾽ αἱ 
κ lal » / 2 Ἢ , id lal δὲ ἃ 
δεῦρο πεσοῦσαι ἐδυστύχησαν, ὥστε ὑπὸ τινων ὁμιλιῶν ἐπὶ 
\ ” , 7 - , 5 ς a ” 
TO ἄδικον TpaTrouevat λήθην ὧν τότε εἶδον ἱερῶν ἔχειν. 
Ε] / \ / n \ Qn 7 ς n 7 
ὀλίγαι δὴ λείπονται, αἷς τὸ τῆς μνήμης ἱκανῶς πάρεστιν. 
Ka \ Ὁ a > a e / ” > / 
αὗται δὲ ὅταν τι τῶν ἐκεῖ ὁμοίωμα ἴδωσιν, ἐκπλήττονται 


\ > 7 Δ᾽ ς a / a Te. 4 \ / > a 
καὶ οὐκέθ᾽ αὑτῶν γίγνονται, ὃ δ᾽ ἔστι TO πάθος ἀγνοοῦσι 


a 4 ᾿ 
Β διὰ τὸ μὴ ἱκανῶς διαισθάνεσθαι. δικαιοσύνης μὲν οὖν καὶ 


© / / fal 
σωφροσύνης, καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τίμια ψυχαῖς, οὐκ ἔνεστι φέγγος 
»a\ > a a e , > \ » » al > 7 
οὐδὲν ἐν τοῖς τῇδε ὁμοιώμασιν, ἀλλὰ δι’ ἀμυδρῶν ὀργάνων 
/ ᾽ -“ \ ’ / ’ \ \ > / », ral \ 
μόγις αὐτῶν καὶ ὀλίγοι ἐπὶ Tas εἰκόνας ἰόντες θεῶνται TO 
ε΄ \ / a / 
τοῦ εἰκασθέντος γένος. κάλλος δὲ τότ᾽ ἣν ἰδεῖν λαμπρόν, 
A \ > / “ / ” \ / 
ὅτε σὺν εὐδαίμονν χορῷ μακαρίαν ὄψιν τε καὶ θέαν, 
\ rt ~ 
ἑπόμενοι μετὰ μὲν Διὸς ἡμεῖς, ἄλλοι δὲ μετ᾽ ἄλλου θεῶν, 


rn “ lal / / 
εἶδον τε Kal ἐτελοῦντο τῶν τελετῶν ἣν θέμις λέγειν 


/ A ᾽ / «ς \ > \ v 
C μακαριωτάτην, ἣν ὠργιάζομεν oAOKANPOL μὲν αὐτοὶ ὄντες 


a - εξ a / / 
καὶ ἀπαθεῖς κακῶν, ὅσα ἡμᾶς ἐν ὑστέρῳ χρόνῳ ὑπέμενεν, 
e , nr lel / 
ὁλόκληρα δὲ Kal ἁπλᾶ Kal ἀτρεμῆ καὶ εὐδαίμονα φάσματα 


/ A A \ 
μυούμενοί Te Kal ἐποπτεύοντες ἐν αὐγῇ καθαρᾷ, καθαροὶ 


THE ΠΑ MYTH 319 


wings and desireth with them to fly up, but is not able— 
looking up into the sky like a bird, and heeding not the things 
beneath—he is accounted as mad after the manner of the 
Fourth Sort of Madness; because that the spirit of his Mad- 
ness wherewith he is possessed is the best, proceeding from 
the best for him who hath it, and for him who partaketh of 
it; and because that he who loveth things beautiful with the 
spirit of this Madness upon him hath the name of Lover ; 
for, as hath been said, every Soul which is a Man’s hath of 
necessity seen the Things which Verily Are—else would it 
not have entered into this creature; but to call Those Things 
to mind, by means of these, is not easy for every Soul; 
neither for those Souls which saw the Things There for a little 
space, nor for those unto which, when they were fallen down 
to the Earth, evil happened, so that they are turned to 
iniquity by evil communications, and forget holy things 
which they saw aforetime. Verily few are they which 
are left having Memory present with them in sufficient 
measure. 

These, when they see any likeness of the Things There, 
are amazed and cannot contain themselves any more; but what 
it is that moveth them they know not, because that they 
perceive nothing clearly. 

Now of Justice and Temperance and all the other Precious 
Things of the Soul no glory at all shineth in the likenesses 
which are here; but using dull instincts and going unto 
images, hardly do a few men attain unto the sight of that 
One Thing whereof they are the images. Beauty Itself, 
shining brightly, it was given unto them then to behold when 
they were of the blessed choir and went—we in the train of 
Zeus, and other Souls led by other Gods—and saw that great 
and holy sight, and were made partakers of those Mysteries 
which it is meet to call the most holy: the which they did then 
celebrate, being themselves altogether fair and clean, and with- 
out taste of the miseries prepared for them in the time there- 
after, and being chosen to be eyewitnesses of visions which are 
altogether fair, which are true with all singleness, which are 
without variableness, which contain the fulness of joy. These 
are the Things which our Souls did then see in pure light, 
being themselves pure and without the mark of this which we 


D 


251 


320 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


ὄντες καὶ ἀσήμαντοι τούτου, ὃ viv σῶμα περιφέροντες 
᾽ , > / / / 
ὀνομάζομεν, ὀστρέου τρόπον δεδεσμευμένοι. 
Ταῦτα μὲν οὖν μνήμῃ κεχαρίσθω, δι’ ἣν πόθῳ τῶν τότε 
- / yy \ \ / -“ M 
νῦν μακρότερα εἴρηται. περὶ δὲ κάλλους, ὥσπερ εἴπομεν, 
rn , 
μετ᾽ ἐκείνων τε ἔλαμπεν ὄν, δεῦρό τε ἐλθόντες κατειλήφαμεν 
, \ \ A ᾽ / > 7 a e / 
αὐτὸ διὰ τῆς ἐναργεστάτης αἰσθήσεως τῶν ἡμετέρων 
στίλβον ἐναργέστατα. ὄψις γὰρ ἡμῖν ὀξυτάτη τῶν διὰ 
φι , » > 7 > , > Φ. ἃ 
τοῦ σώματος ἔρχεται αἰσθήσεων: ἡ φρόνησις οὐχ ὁρᾶται" 
δεινοὺς γὰρ ἂν παρεῖχεν ἔρωτας, εἴ τι τοιοῦτον ἑαυτῆς 
ἐναργὲς εἴδωλον παρείχετο εἰς ὄψιν ἰόν, καὶ τἄλλα ὅσα 
> / a \ 7 / / » a “ ᾽ 
épacta: νῦν δὲ κάλλος μόνον ταύτην ἔσχε μοῖραν, ὥστ 
> , 3 \ > , ε ‘ 2 ‘ 
ἐκφανέστατον εἶναι καὶ ἐρασμιώτατον. ὁ μὲν οὖν μὴ 
νεοτελὴς ἢ διεφθαρμένος οὐκ ὀξέως ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε φέρεται 
\ ᾽ \ \ / / > fal \ “ ᾽ ’ 
πρὸς αὐτὸ τὸ κάλλος, θεώμενος αὐτοῦ τὴν τῇδε ἐπωνυμίαν. 
ὥστ᾽ οὐ σέβεται προσορῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἡδονῇ παραδοὺς τετράποδος 
/ b] a \ ὃ “ \ ef 
νόμον βαίνειν ἐπιχειρεῖ καὶ παιδοσπορεῖν, καὶ ὕβρει προσ- 
ομιλῶν οὐ δέδοικεν οὐδ᾽ αἰσχύνεται παρὰ φύσιν ἡδονὴν 
, c \ ’ / e a / / “ 
διώκων. ὁ δὲ ἀρχιτελής, ὁ τῶν τότε πολυθεάμων, ὅταν 
\ , yy / * / ν 
θεοειδὲὲξ πρόσωπον ἴδῃ κάλλος εὖ μεμιμημένον, ἤ τινα 
, > / a \ Μ / lal ’ 
σώματος ἰδέαν, πρῶτον μὲν ἔφριξε, καί τι τῶν τότε 
fal “ \ 
ὑπῆλθεν αὐτὸν δειμάτων, εἶτα προσορῶν ὡς θεὸν σέβεται. 
“- / / / 
καὶ εἰ μὴ Sedivein τὴν THs σφόδρα μανίας δόξαν, θύοι ἂν 
᾿ - - - ’ , 
ὡς ἀγάλματι καὶ θεῷ τοῖς παιδικοῖς. ἰδόντα δὲ αὐτόν, 
“ 7 \ e \ ’ 
οἷον ἐκ τῆς φρίκης, μεταβολή τε καὶ ἱδρὼς καὶ θερμότης 
\ cn \ ᾽ \ 
ἀήθης λαμβάνει. δεξάμενος yap τοῦ κάλλους τὴν ἀπορροὴν 
- ? a a 7 
Sia τῶν ὀμμάτων ἐθερμάνθη, ἢ ἡ τοῦ πτεροῦ φύσις 
ἄρδεται. θερμανθέντος δὲ ἐτάκη τὰ περὶ τὴν ἔκφυσιν, ἃ 


πάλαι ὑπὸ σκληρότητος συμμεμυκότα εἶργε μὴ βλαστάνειν. 


THE ΜΑΙ ΚΝ. MYTH $21 


call body, and now carry about with us, as the fish carrieth 
the prison-house of his shell. 

Let these words, then, be offered for a thanksgiving to 
Memory, for whose sake we, as remembering our joys that are 
past, have lengthened this Discourse, 

Now, as touching Beauty :—-We beheld it shining, as hath 
been said, amongst those other Visions; and when we came 
hither, we apprehended it glittering most clearly, by means of 
that sense which in us is the most clear, to wit, eyesight, 
which is the keenest sense that the body conveyeth. But the 
eye seeth not Wisdom. O what marvellous love would Wisdom 
cause to spring up in the hearts of men, if she sent forth 
au Clear likeness of herself also, even as Beauty doth, and it 
entered into our eyes together with the likenesses of all the 
other Things which be worthy of Love! But only unto 
Beauty hath this portion been given. Wherefore Beauty is 
the most evident of all, and the best beloved. 

Now, he who hath not lately partaken of the heavenly 
Mysteries, or hath been corrupted, is not quickly carried hence 
to that Other Place and to Beauty Itself, when he seeth the 
things which here are called after the name thereof. Where- 
fore, looking upon these, he giveth them not reverence, but, 
delivering himself up to pleasure, after the manner of a beast 
he leapeth upon them, desiring to beget offspring according to 
the flesh, and feareth not to have his conversation in lascivious- 
ness, nor is ashamed of following after pleasure contrary to 
nature. But he who hath lately partaken, who hath beheld 
many of the Things There, when he seeth a face, or the figure 
of a person, made in the very likeness of Beauty, first his flesh 
trembleth, and awe of those things which he saw aforetime 
entereth into his heart; then he looketh, and worshippeth the 
Beautiful One as a God, and, were he not afraid that men 
should account him a maniac, would offer sacrifice to his 
Beloved, as to a graven image and a God. Then while he 
looketh, after the trembling, as it useth to happen, sweating 
and unwonted heat take hold of him, for he hath received the 
effluxion of beauty through his eyes, and is made hot, so that 
the wings in him are watered; for when he is made hot, the 
parts where the wings sprout are melted, which before were 
closed by reason of their hardness and hindered the feathers 

Y 


σ 


D 


E 


252 


322 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


bl / \ a a ” / \ Ὁ 4 
ἐπιρρυείσης δὲ τῆς τροφῆς @dncé τε Kal ὥρμησε φύεσθαι 
» Ν n e/ ε fa) a \ ς \ val \ ΕΝ 
ἀπὸ τῆς ῥίζης ὁ τοῦ πτεροῦ καυλὸς ὑπὸ πᾶν τὸ τῆς 
a 4 A \ 2 \ 4 / 
ψυχῆς εἶδος: πᾶσα yap ἣν τὸ πάλαι πτερωτή. 
al 4 “4 / A 
Zeit οὖν ἐν τούτῳ ὅλη καὶ ἀνακηκίει, καὶ ὅπερ TO τῶν 
> 4 / \ \ 3 ΘΩ͂ , “ 
ὀδοντοφυούντων πάθος περὶ τοὺς ὀδόντας γίγνεται, ὅταν 
” 7 αὐ \ > 7, \ \ - 
ἄρτι φύωσι, κνῆσίς τε καὶ ἀγανάκτησις περὶ τὰ οὗλα, 
> \ \ ld id “ mn > / / 
ταὐτὸν δὴ πέπονθεν ἡ τοῦ πτεροφυεῖν ἀρχομένου ψυχή" 
a \ > a \ , 4 \ / 
ζεῖ τε Kal ἀγανακτεῖ Kal γαργαλίζεται φύουσα τὰ πτερά. 
0 9S / \ \ lal \ n 
ὅταν μὲν οὖν βλέπουσα πρὸς TO τοῦ παιδὸς κάλλος, ἐκεῖθεν 
/ > / \ e/ ἃ \ \ a “ a 
μέρη ἐπιόντα καὶ ῥέοντα, ἃ δὴ διὰ ταῦτα ἵμερος καλεῖται, 
ὃ / \ “ € 7 ὃ / - \ θ / Ἃ, co 
εχομένη τὸν ἵμερον ἄρδηταί τε Kai θερμαίνηται, λωφᾷ τε 
- .] 7 \ / Ψ \ \ / \ 
τῆς ὀδύνης καὶ γέγηθεν: ὅταν δὲ χωρὶς γένηται καὶ 
> 7 \ a ὃ £06 / e \ \ e lel 
αὐχμήσῃ, τὰ τῶν διεξόδων στόματα, ἣ TO πτερὸν ὁρμᾷ, 
/ / > / \ / la) la 
συναυαινόμενα μύσαντα ἀποκλείει THY βλάστην τοῦ πτεροῦ. 
ς ἜΝ \ \ aA ee + ἃ 7 a ‘ 
ἡ δ᾽ ἐντὸς μετὰ τοῦ ἱμέρου ἀποκεκλῃμένη, πηδῶσα οἷον Ta 
/ A / > / ς / lal > ς / [4 
σφύζοντα, τῇ διεξόδῳ ἐγχρίει ἑκάστῃ τῇ καθ᾽ αὑτήν, ὥστε 
doa κεντουμένη κύκλῳ ἡ ψυχὴ οἰστρᾷ καὶ ὀδυνᾶται 
πᾶσ μένη oD» ἡ χὴ οἰστρέ ὀδυνᾶται. 
> = / lal “ / ᾽ / 
μνήμην ὃ av ἔχουσα Tov καλοῦ γέγηθεν. ἐκ δ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων 
μεμιγμένων ἀδημονεῖ τε τῇ ἀτοπίᾳ τοῦ πάθους καὶ 
> “ Led \ > \ δ ” \ / 
ἀποροῦσα λυττᾷ, καὶ ἐμμανὴς οὖσα οὔτε νυκτὸς δύναται 
/ 7 > / a A > a “ 
καθεύδειν οὔτε μεθ ἡμέραν, οὗ ἂν ἢ, μένειν, θεῖ δὲ ποθοῦσα 
e 5) \ a 
ὅπου ἂν οἴηται ὄψεσθαι τὸν ἔχοντα τὸ κάλλος. ἰδοῦσα 
\ \ >? / “ » \ \ / 
δὲ καὶ ἐποχετευσαμένη ἵμερον ἔλυσε μὲν τὰ τότε συμ- 
/ > \ \ A / \ ᾽ / 
πεφραγμένα, ἀναπνοὴν δὲ λαβοῦσα κέντρων τε Kal ὠδίνων 
ἔληξεν, ἡδονὴν δ᾽ αὖ ταύτην γλυκυτάτην ἐν τῷ παρόντι 
ἔληξεν, ἡδονὴ ν Ὑ nv ἐν τῷ παρ 
lal ὅ0 ὃ) « “ ? > > / ἠδέ 
καρποῦται. ὅθεν δὴ ἑκοῦσα εἶναι οὐκ ἀπολείπεται, οὐδέ 
cr nr \ / a 
τινα τοῦ καλοῦ περὶ πλείονος ποιεῖται, ἀλλὰ μητέρων TE 
rn 4 / 7 > 
καὶ ἀδελφῶν Kal ἑταίρων πάντων λέλησται, Kal οὐσίας δι 
/ ᾽ \ 
ἀμέλειαν ἀπολλυμένης παρ᾽ οὐδὲν τίθεται, νομίμων δὲ καὶ 
᾿ / \ nr > / / 
εὐσχημόνων, ols πρὸ τοῦ ἐκαλλωπίζετο, πάντων KaTa- 
7 ὃ / et / \ a ¢ nr bel 
φρονήσασα δουλεύειν ἑτοίμη καὶ κοιμᾶσθαι ὅπου ἂν ἐᾷ τις 


᾿ 7 a / 4 \ a / \ Ἀ 
ἐγγυτάτω τοῦ πόθου" πρὸς γὰρ τῷ σέβεσθαι τὸν τὸ 


THE ΠΑ δ᾽ MYTH 323 


from growing. When, therefore, the nourishment floweth unto 
them, the stalks of the feathers swell, and are moved for to 
grow from their roots under the whole surface of the Soul ; 
for aforetime the whole Soul was feathered. It cometh to 
pass then that the whole Soul doth boil and bubble; and as 
it happeneth unto those who are teething, when their teeth 
are lately begun to grow, that there is an itching in their 
gums and distress, even so doth it happen unto the Soul of 
him who beginneth to put forth wings; for his Soul boileth 
and is in distress and itcheth when she putteth forth her 
feathers. When, therefore, she looketh upon the beauty of her 
Beloved, parts (μέρη) come thence unto her in a stream (which 
for this cause are called ἵμερος); and she, receiving them, is 
watered and made hot, and ceaseth from her pain and rejoiceth. 
But when she is parted from her Beloved and waxeth dry, the 
mouths of the passages whereby the feathers shoot forth, being 
parched and closed up, hinder the sprouting of the feathers, 
which is shut in together with Desire, and leapeth as a man’s 
pulse, beating against each passage that withstandeth it, so 
that the whole Soul, being pricked on every side, is filled with 
frenzy and travaileth: but contrariwise, having memory of the 
Beautiful One, she rejoiceth ; so that this strange thing hap- 
peneth unto her—her pain is mingled with joy, and she is 
bewildered, and striveth to find a way, but findeth none; and, 
being filled with madness, she cannot sleep by night nor stay 
in one place by day, but runneth to and fro wistful, if per- 
chance she may behold the One who possesseth that Beauty. 
And, beholding, she draweth Desire from the channel thereof 
unto her, and the entrances which were shut are opened, and 
she taketh breath and ceaseth from her prickings and travail, 
and instead thereof reapeth the sweetest pleasure for the 
present time. Wherefore willingly she departeth not, esteem- 
ing no one more highly than the Beloved; but mother, and 
brethren, and all her friends, she forgetteth, and thinketh it 
of no account that her substance is wasted through neglectful- 
ness; and the things which are approved of men and of good 
report, wherein she did aforetime take pride, all these she 
now doth despise, and is willing to be a slave, and make her 
lodging wheresoever she may come nearest unto her Love; 
for she cometh not to worship only, but because she hath 


324 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ δ / lal , U 
κάλλος ἔχοντα ἰατρὸν εὕρηκε μόνον τῶν μεγίστων πόνων. 
an 2 lal / e / 
Β τοῦτο δὲ τὸ πάθος, ὦ παῖ καλέ, πρὸς ὃν δή μοι ὁ λόγος, 
\ al 
ἄνθρωποι μὲν "ἔρωτα ὀνομάζουσι, θεοὺ δὲ ὃ καλοῦσιν 
» / ΡΟ Ν / / A / 7 
ἀκούσας εἰκότως διὰ νεότητα γελάσει. λέγουσι δέ, οἶμαι, 
\ e a > A > / Ε] a / ” ᾽ \ 
tives ‘Ounpiddv ἐκ τῶν ἀποθέτων ἐπῶν δύο ἔπη εἰς τὸν 
᾽ Ν 
Ἔρωτα, ὧν τὸ ἕτερον ὑβριστικὸν πάνυ καὶ οὐ σφόδρα τι 
ΝΜ e “ \ 8 ἄ 
ἔμμετρον. ὑμνοῦσι δὲ ὧδε 
τὸν δ᾽ ἤτοι θνητοὶ μὲν "ἔρωτα καλοῦσι ποτηνόν, 
σ ἀθάνατοι δὲ Πτέρωτα διὰ πτερόφοιτον ἀνάγκην. 


“ 


/ \ \ / “ Ν 
τούτοις δὴ ἔξεστι μὲν πείθεσθαι, ἔξεστι δὲ μή" ὅμως δὲ ἥ 
> Se \ \ 7 A EA Ae Ὁ a 4 ” 
ye αἰτία καὶ TO πάθος τῶν ἐρώντων TOUT ἐκεῖνο τυγχάνει OV. 
- \ A «ς / 

Τῶν μὲν οὖν Διὸς ὀπαδῶν ὁ ληφθεὶς ἐμβριθέστερον 
δύ / \ nm / ” “ δὲ ast / 
ύναται φέρειν TO τοῦ πτερωνύμου ἄχθος: ὅσοι de “Apews 

/ \ 3 bd / / 4 δ Ὁ 
τε θεραπευταί, καὶ μετ᾽ ἐκείνου περιεπόλουν, ὅταν ὑπ 
» A an \ lal 
Ἔρωτος ἁλῶσι καί τι οἰηθῶσιν ἀδικεῖσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ 
» / \ \ Ψ 4 e 4 \ \ 
ἐρωμένου, povixol καὶ ἕτοιμοι καθιερεύειν αὑτούς τε καὶ τὰ 

/ \ « "] “ / a 4 S 
Ὁ παιδικά. καὶ οὕτω καθ᾽ ἕκαστον θεόν, ov ἕκαστος ἣν 
/ > lal lal \ / > \ 5 \ 
χορευτής, ἐκεῖνον τιμῶν TE Kal μιμούμενος εἰς TO δυνατὸν 
A ¢ vn > > Ἵ \ \ Ὁ , / 
ζῇ, ἕως av ἢ ἀδιάφθορος, Kal τὴν τῇδε πρώτην γένεσιν 
4 \ 4 A / / \ ᾽ / \ 
βιοτεύει: Kal τούτῳ τῷ τρόπῳ πρὸς TE τοὺς ἐρωμένους καὶ 
Ν \ ” e a \ / / φ 
πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ομιλεῖ τε καὶ προσφέρεται. τὸν τε οὖν 
Μ r nr \ / 5 / “ \ «ς 
ἔρωτα τῶν καλῶν πρὸς τρόπου ἐκλέγεται ἕκαστος, καὶ ὡς 
\ ee. > a ” ς A ΝΜ / / 
θεὸν αὐτὸν ἐκεῖνον ὄντα ἑαυτῴ οἷον ἄγαλμα τεκταίνεταί TE 
\ a e / \ ᾽ e \ 
Ε καὶ κατακοσμεῖ, ὡς τιμήσων Te Kal ὀργιάσων. οἱ μὲν δὴ 

/ ΕΣ rn \ \ 

οὖν Διὸς Awov τινα εἶναι ζητοῦσι τὴν ψυχὴν Tov ὑφ᾽ 
ς - ᾽ ͵ a - ᾽ / \ 
αὑτῶν ἐρώμενον. σκοποῦσιν οὖν, εἰ φιλόσοφος τε Kal 
᾿ \ \ / \ “ » \ ig / > r 

ἡγεμονικὸς τὴν φύσιν, Kal ὅταν αὐτὸν evpovTes ἐρασθῶσι, 


“ κ κ \ / 
πᾶν ποιοῦσιν, ὅπως τοιοῦτος ἔσται. ἐὰν οὖν μὴ πρότερον 


"»"ν ὰῶν 


ΤῊΝ PHAFDRUS MYTH 325 


found that the One who possesseth that Beauty is the sole 
physician of her greatest troubles, 

Now this affection, fair boy, unto whom my whole Dis- 
course is dedicate, men call Eros; but as touching the name 
which the Gods call it, when thou hearest it haply thou wilt 
laugh because it is new—-for some of the disciples of Homer, 


out of the Secret Verses, recite two verses unto Eros, whereof 


one is very impudent, and not good in metre. Now these are 
the verses of their hymn :— 


Men call him Eros by name, surnaming him Eros the Flyer ; 
Gods call him Pteros, because that he haunteth on Wings and compelleth.! 


These things, then, it is permitted to a man to believe, or 
believe not,as he is minded. Nevertheless, the case of those 
that be in love, and their state, is that which hath been said. 

Now, if it be one of the train of Zeus that is taken, he is 
able more stoutly to bear the burden of him whose name is 
Winged; but they who be servants of Ares, and made the 
circuit along with him, when they are taken by Eros, and 
think that they are injured in aught by the Beloved One, are 
ready to shed blood and make a sacrifice of themselves and the 
Beloved One. As each, then, was of the choir of a certain 
God, him he honoureth alway, and maketh his example accord- 
ing to his ability, so long as he is uncorrupt and liveth the 
life of the first birth here; and in this manner likewise he 
behaveth himself in his conversation toward the Beloved 
Ones and other men. 

It cometh to pass, then, that each man, according to his 
natural temper, chooseth his Beloved and maketh him his God, 
and fashioneth and adorneth him as a graven image, to honour 
him and celebrate mysteries before him. They, therefore, who 
are of the company of Zeus, seeking for a Beloved One like unto 
Zeus in soul, inquire whether some one be by nature a lover of 
True Wisdom and able to rule; and when they have found what 
they seek, and are fallen in love, they do all so that the Beloved 
One shall be altogether such as they seek, to wit, like unto 
Zeus. Then, indeed, if they have not already made a begin- 


1 —reading πτερόφοιτον ἀνάγκην. Some MSS. and Stobaeus read πτεροφύτορ᾽ 


ἀνάγκην, where the improperly lengthened v may be thought to justify the οὐ 
σφόδρα τι ἔμμετρον further. ᾿Αθάνατοι δὲ IIrépwra by itself, however, is bad 
enough. 


326 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Σ a a 3 / / ’ / , 
ἐμβεβῶσι τῷ ἐπιτηδεύματι, τότε ἐπιχειρήσαντες μανθάνουσι 
Ὁ ” / \ bd \ / > / 
τε ὅθεν av τι δύνωνται καὶ αὐτοὶ μετέρχονται. ἰἐχνεύοντες 
\ ᾽ e a > / \ na / “ 4 
δὲ παρ᾽ ἑαυτῶν ἀνευρίσκειν τὴν τοῦ σφετέρου θεοῦ φύσιν, 
᾽ Ἂ \ \ , > / \ \ \ 
253 εὐποροῦσι διὰ TO συντόνως ἠναγκάσθαι πρὸς τὸν θεὸν 
/ \ > , > n A / > nm 5 
βλέπειν, καὶ ἐφαπτόμενοι αὐτοῦ τῇ μνήμῃ ἐνθουσιῶντες ἐξ 
/ ο 
ἐκείνου λαμβάνουσι τὰ ἔθη καὶ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα, καθ᾽ ὅσον 
ὃ \ θ » » / an \ ͵ ὃ} Ν 
υνατὸν θεοῦ ἀνθρώπῳ μετασχεῖν. καὶ τούτων δὴ τὸν 
> / ᾽ / » an > Ὁ ΕΝ 5 Ν 
ἐρώμενον αἰτιώμενοι ETL τε μᾶλλον ἀγαπῶσι, κἂν ἐκ Διὸς 
De “ ς ,ὕ a. aN \ “- 5 7 \ 
ἀρύτωσιν ὥσπερ αἱ βάκχαι, ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ ἐρωμένου ψυχὴν 
9 “ al id \ id / lal / 
ἐπαντλοῦντες ποιοῦσιν ὡς δυνατὸν ὁμοιότατον τῷ σφετέρῳ 
A ¢/ \ n 
Βθεῴ. ὅσοι δ᾽ ad μεθ’ Ἥρας εἵποντο, βασιλικὸν ζητοῦσι, 
« 
\ ¢ / \ n / n \ > / e \ 
καὶ εὑρόντες περὶ τοῦτον πάντα δρῶσι τὰ αὐτά. οἱ δὲ 
/ / an na \ \ \ 
᾿Απολλωνὸς τε Kal ἑκάστου τῶν θεῶν οὕτω κατὰ τὸν θεὸν 
Ε ἴω Ν 7 A / \ Ψ 
ἰόντες ζητοῦσι τὸν σφέτερον παῖδα πεφυκέναι, καὶ ὅταν 
/ Vd > / \ \ ὃ \ (0 
κτήσωνται, μιμούμενοι αὐτοί τε καὶ τὰ παιδικὰ πείθοντες 
\ € / >? \ > / > / Ἁ 50.) ΝΜ 
καὶ ῥυθμίξοντες εἰς τὸ ἐκείνου ἐπιτήδευμα καὶ ἰδέαν ἄγουσιν, 
td / / > / 7 
ὅση ἑκάστῳ δύναμις, οὐ φθόνῳ οὐδ᾽ ἀνελευθέρῳ δυσμενείᾳ 
, Ν \ / > > > ς / e al \ 
χρώμενοι πρὸς TA παιδικά, ἀλλ᾽ εἰς ὁμοιότητα αὑτοῖς Kai 
a lal ἃ A a al / “ / / 
Οτῴ θεῷ, ὃν ἂν τιμῶσι, πᾶσαν πάντως 6 TL μάλιστα πειρώ- 
A e/ a / \ 5S a «ς 
μενοι ἄγειν οὕτω ποιοῦσι. προθυμία μὲν οὖν τῶν ὡς 
a , / 4 
ἀληθῶς ἐρώντων καὶ τελετή, ἐάν ye διαπράξωνται ὃ προ- 
a A / e/ / \ > Ἁ ς \ lal 
θυμοῦνται, ἣν λέγω, οὕτω καλή τε Kal εὐδαιμονικὴ ὑπὸ τοῦ 
> a ͵ , \ ε A 
du ἔρωτα μανέντος φίλου τῷ φιληθέντι γίγνεται, ἐὰν αἱρεθῆ. 
id lal / 
ἁλίσκεται δὲ δὴ ὁ αἱρεθεὶς τοιῷδε τρόπῳ. 
al a “ / Lal / 
Καθάπερ ἐν ἀρχῇ τοῦδε τοῦ μύθου τριχῇ διειλόμην 
\ / / \ \ 
Ὁ ψυχὴν ἑκάστην, ἱππομόρφω μὲν δύο τινὲ εἴδη, ἡνιοχικὸν δὲ 
16 / \ nr STA ξ an al / lal δὲ ὃ} 
εἶδος τρίτον, καὶ νῦν ἔτι ἡμῖν ταῦτα μενέτω. τῶν δὲ δὴ 
,ἷ ς / / e > \ \ ‘ fal 
ἵππων ὁ μέν, φαμέν, ἀγαθός, ὁ δ᾽ οὔ: ἀρετὴ δὲ τίς τοῦ 
> - Δ - , > , nr \ / e 
ἀγαθοῦ ἢ κακοῦ κακία, ov διείπομεν, viv δὲ λεκτέον. ὁ 
\ / > re > a / 7 XA / ὃ 
μὲν τοίνυν αὑτοῖν ἐν τῇ καλλίονι στάσεν WY τὸ TE εἰδος 


ὀρθὸς καὶ διηρθρωμένος, ὑψαύχην, ἐπίγρυπος, λευκὸς ἰδεῖν, 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 327 


ning of this endeavour, do they take the matter in hand, and 
both learn from whomsoever they are able to learn, and them- 
selves pursue the knowledge thereof; and questioning in their 
own souls to find therefrom the nature of their own God, they 
seek not in vain, because that they are constrained to look 
steadfastly upon their God, and by memory lay hold on him, 
and, being filled with his spirit, receive of him their habitudes 
and way of life, so far as man can partake of God. Whereof 
they account the Beloved One the cause, and therefore have 
they the more pleasure in him; and if the river, wherefrom 
even as Bacchae they draw their nourishment, flow from Zeus, 
then do they turn the waters thereof upon the Soul of the 
Beloved One, and make it as like unto their own God as is 
possible. 

He who was of the train of Hera seeketh after one who is 
Royal, and having found, doth in all things as the follower of 
Zeus doth. He who was of the train of Apollo or of any 
other God, observing the nature of his own God, seeketh to 
have a comrade of the like nature; and when he hath gotten 
such an one, he taketh the God for an example unto himself, and 
teaching and guiding, bringeth the Beloved One also unto the 
way and likeness of the God as far as can be, striving without 
envy or grudging or malice by all means to bring the Beloved 
One unto the full likeness of himself and of whichsoever God 
he himself honoureth. 

The Desire, then, of them that truly love, and their Initia- 
tion, if they accomplish that which they desire, is verily a fair 
and blessed boon bestowed, by the friend whom Love hath 
made mad, upon him whom he hath chosen for his friend, and 
caught. Now, it is after this wise that he is caught. Whereas 
at the beginning of this Tale we said that each Soul hath three 
parts—two thereof in the form of Horses, and the third part in 
the form of a Charioteer; so now we would have this remain 
as it was then told, and that one of the Horses is good and 
the other is not. But what is the virtue of the good Horse 
and the illness of the evil Horse we did not declare; now, 
therefore, must we tell it. 

That one of the two which hath the more honourable 
station, in form is straight and well-knit, with a high neck and 
an arched nose, in colour white, with black eyes, a lover of 


328 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


/ A \ \ ΄ 
μελανόμματος, τιμῆς ἐραστὴς μετὰ σωφροσύνης τε καὶ 
lo - ’ cal ” 
αἰδοῦς, καὶ ἀληθινῆς δόξης ἑταῖρος, ἄπληκτος κελεύματι 
/ / “-“ ς / “" 
Ἑ μόνον καὶ λόγῳ ἡνιοχεῖται' ὁ δ᾽ αὖ σκολιός, πολύς, εἰκῇ 
/ / 
συμπεφορημένος, Kpatepavynv, βραχυτράχηλος, σιμοπρόσ- 
e/ ee \ 
@T0S, μελάγχρως, γλαυκόμματος, ὕφαιμος, ὕβρεως καὶ 
> /, € a \ 9S / / 7 \ 
ἀλαζονείας ἑταῖρος, περὶ ὦτα λάσιος, κωφός, μάστιγι μετὰ 
/ / 
κέντρων μόγις ὑπείκων. 
"“O δ᾽ “5 e εἰ ἰν δὰ \ > \ ΝΜ a 
Tav οὖν ὁ ἡνίοχος ἰδὼν TO ἐρωτικὸν ὄμμα, πᾶσαν 
7 \ / A / 
αἰσθήσει διαθερμήνας τὴν ψυχήν, γαργαλισμοῦ τε Kal πόθου 
/ ς a e \ bf \ a ς / a “ 

254 κέντρων ὑποπλησθῇ, ὁ μὲν εὐπειθὴς τῷ ἡνιόχῳ τῶν ἵππων, 
5 \ / > na / e \ / \ 
ἀεί τε καὶ Tote αἰδοῖ βιαζόμενος, ἑαυτὸν κατέχει μὴ 

ῷ 
> δᾶ fal ΕΣ / Ε ς δὲ » Ul ς A ΝΜ 
ἐπιπηδᾶν τῷ ἐρωμένῳ' ὁ δὲ οὔτε κέντρων ἡνιοχικῶν οὔτε 
/ ” > / A \ / / \ / 
μάστιγος ἔτι ἐντρέπεται, σκιρτῶν δὲ Bia φέρεται, καὶ πάντα 
/ / A / / \ ς / > / 
πράγματα παρέχων τῷ σύζυγί τε Kal ἡνιόχῳ ἀναγκάζει 
7 Lal a A 

ἰέναι τε πρὸς Ta παιδικὰ Kal μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι τῆς τῶν 
> ὃ / / \ δὲ ᾽ > \ \ > / 
ἀφροδισίων χάριτος. τὼ δὲ Kat ἀρχὰς μὲν ἀντιτείνετον 
> a e \ 7 / > / 

B ἀγανακτοῦντε, ws δεινὰ καὶ παράνομα ἀναγκαζομένω" τελευ- 
κ 7 4 \ 3 / a / > / 
τῶντε δέ, ὅταν μηδὲν ἢ πέρας κακοῦ, πορεύεσθον ἀγομένω, 
" \ e / / \ / \ 
εἴξαντε Kal ομολογήσαντε ποιήσειν TO κελευόμενον. καὶ 
Ν 3 a ᾽ ΡΥ. \ 3 \ ΝΜ \ a 
πρὸς αὐτῷ τ᾽ ἐγένοντο καὶ εἶδον τὴν ὄψιν τὴν τῶν 

n > / 50. / \ fal e / ¢ / 
παιδικῶν ἀστράπτουσαν. ἰδόντος δὲ τοῦ ἡνιόχου ἡ μνήμη 
ἴω 4 / 
πρὸς τὴν τοῦ κάλλους φύσιν ἠνέχθη, καὶ πάλιν εἶδεν αὐτὴν 
“Ὁ / A fal 

μετὰ σωφροσύνης ἐν ἁγνῷ βάθρῳ βεβῶσαν. ἰδοῦσα δὲ 
ΝΜ / \ a Re A ς / \ ¢ ᾽ 7 
ἔδεισέ τε καὶ σεφθεῖσα ἀνέπεσεν ὑπτία, καὶ ἅμα ἠναγκάσθη 

> > / ς / \ ee Ὁ / “ ᾿ ἃ \ 

Ο εἰς τοὐπίσω ἑλκύσαι τὰς ἡνίας οὕτω σφόδρα, ὥστε ἐπὶ τὰ 
> / »” 7 \ ~ \ \ ς / \ \ \ 
ἰσχία ἄμφω καθίσαι τὼ ἵππω, τὸν μὲν ἑκόντα Sia TO μὴ 

\ ” / 
ἀντιτείνειν, τὸν δὲ ὑβριστὴν μάλα ἄκοντα. ἀπελθόντε δὲ 
> / c \ ee > / \ 7 ς a a 
ἀπωτέρω, ὁ μὲν ὑπ᾽ αἰσχύνης τε Kal θάμβους ἱδρῶτι πᾶσαν 

\ ¢ / / n > 4 \ lal 
ἔβρεξε τὴν ψυχήν, ὁ δέ, AnEas τῆς ὀδύνης, ἣν ὑπὸ τοῦ 
a “ / / / 
χαλινοῦ τε ἔσχε Kal τοῦ πτώματος, μόγις ἐξαναπνεύσας 
/ a / / / 
ἐλοιδόρησεν ὀργῇ, πολλὰ κακίζων Tov τε ἡνίοχον Kal τὸν 


c / ΄ 7 \ > / / \ / \ 
Ὁ ὁμόζυγα ὡς δειλίᾳ τε καὶ ἀνανδρίᾳ λιπόντε τὴν τάξιν καὶ 


err 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 329 


honour in all temperance and modesty, a friend of true glory, 
needing not the whip, being guided by the mere word of the 
Charioteer. But the other Horse is crooked, lumpish, ill-jointed, 
with a stiff neck, a short throat, a snub nose, in colour black, 
with grey eyes, sanguineous, a friend of lust and boastfulness, 
hairy about the ears, deaf, hardly submitting himself to the 
lash and the pricks. 

Now when the Charioteer beholdeth the Vision of Love, 
and his whole Soul is warmed throughly by the sight, and he 
is altogether full of itchings and the prickings of desire, then 
that Horse which is obedient to the Charioteer, being con- 
strained then and alway by modesty, holdeth himself back 
from rushing upon the Beloved One; but the other Horse 
eareth no longer fer the Charioteer’s pricks nor for his whip, 
but pranceth, and with violence chargeth, and, striving with 
his fellow and with the Charioteer, compelleth them to go 
unto the Beloved One and make mention of the sweetness of 
carnal love. At first the twain resist, taking it ill that they 
are constrained unto wickedness; but at the last, since their 
evil state hath no ending, they go as the evil Horse leadeth, 
yielding themselves up, and consenting to do what he biddeth. 
Moreover, now are they come near, and see the countenance of 
the Beloved One gloriously shining. Which when the Charioteer 
seeth, his memory’is straightway carried back unto the Form 
of the Eternal Beauty. Her he again beholdeth standing girt 
with temperance upon her holy pedestal; and, beholding her, 
he is filled with fear and reverence, and falleth backward, and 
thereat must needs pull the reins back with force, so that he 
bringeth both the Horses down upon their haunches—the one 
willingly, because that he resisteth not, but the lascivious one 
against his will altogether. 

Now when the two Horses are come away a little further 
from the Beloved, the one, by reason of his shame and panic, 
wetteth all the Soul with sweat; and the other, having ceased 
from the pain which he had from the bit and from his falling 
down, hardly recovering breath, in anger upbraideth, and 
heapeth curses upon, the Charioteer and his fellow Horse, 
saying that, because of cowardice and weak-heartedness, they 
have left their place appointed unto them and the promise 
which they made. 


330 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


e ,ὔ \ 7 > »2 ἢ / 5 / 
ὁμολογίαν. Kal πάλιν οὐκ ἐθέλοντας προσιέναι ἀναγκάζων 
, κ / / 
μόγις συνεχώρησε, δεομένων εἰσαῦθις ὑπερβαλέσθαι. ἐλθὸν- 
\ lal / / - ’ a 

τος δὲ τοῦ συντεθέντος χρόνου, [οὗ] ἀμνημονεῖν προσποιου- 
/ ᾽ / / / > / 

μένω ἀναμιμνήσκων, βιαζόμενος, χρεμετίζων, ἕλκων ἠνάγκασεν 
“- A a A ; os," \ ᾽ \ / \ 

αὖὗ προσελθεῖν τοῖς παιδικοῖς ἐπὶ τοὺς αὐτοὺς λόγους. καὶ 
> \ > \ εν 5 / \ > / \ / > 

ἐπειδὴ ἐγγὺς ἦσαν, ἐγκύψας καὶ ἐκτείνας τὴν κέρκον ἐνδα- 


¢e 


\ \ \ ’ > / ¢ > ες Δ » 
κὼν τὸν χαλινὸν μετ᾽ ἀναιδείας ἕλκει. ὁ δ᾽ ἡνίοχος ἔτι 


Ἑ μᾶλλον ταὐτὸν πάθος παθών, ὥσπερ ἀπὸ ὕσπληγος ἀναπε- 


255 


B 


a fa) lal 7 a »O/ 
σών, ἔτι μᾶλλον τοῦ ὑβριστοῦ ἵππου ἐκ τῶν ὀδόντων Bia 
3 / / \ / / / “ 
ὀπίσω σπάσας τὸν χαλινὸν, THY τε κακήγορον γλῶτταν 
\ , 
καὶ τὰς γνάθους καθήμαξε καὶ τὰ σκέλη τε καὶ τὰ ἰσχία 
Ν \ na > / Ψ 7 yy “ \ > Ν 
πρὸς τὴν γῆν ἐρείσας ὀδύναις ἔδωκεν. ὅταν δὲ ταὐτὸν 
e \ a ς ΄ 
πολλάκις πάσχων ὁ πονηρὸς τῆς ὕβρεως λήξῃ, ταπεινωθεὶς 
od "ὃ a ἴω ς / ,ὔ \ Ψ ἴδ Ν 
ἕπεται ἤδη τῇ τοῦ ἡνιόχου προνοίᾳ, καὶ ὅταν ἴδῃ τὸν 
/ / ῳ / . 5 \ n 
καλόν, φόβῳ διόλλυται. ὥστε ξυμβαίνει tor ἤδη τὴν τοῦ 
5 a \ Lal “ > , ἢ a 
ἐραστοῦ ψυχὴν τοῖς παιδικοῖς αἰδουμένην τε καὶ δεδοικυῖαν 
ἕπεσθαι. 
cr / / / 
“Ate οὖν πᾶσαν θεραπείαν ws ἰσόθεος θεραπευόμενος 
> ς Ν / ~ os ve b] ᾿] > “ rn 
οὐχ ὑπὸ σχηματιζομένου τοῦ ἐρῶντος, ἀλλ᾽ ἀληθῶς τοῦτο 
/ ᾿ > \ bal / / >’ > \ ΝΜ 
πεπονθότος, καὶ αὐτὸς ὧν φύσει φίλος [εἰς ταὐτὸν ἄγει 
\ / A / 3\ ” \ » “Ὁ / ς \ 
τὴν φιλίαν] τῷ θεραπεύοντι, ἐὰν apa Kai ἐν τῷ πρόσθεν ὑπὸ 
rn ’ / 3 / 
ξυμφοιτητῶν ἤ τινων ἄλλων διαβεβλημένος ἢ, λεγόντων, 
r > \ 7 A / \ \ a > Ὁ Ἁ 
ὡς αἰσχρὸν ἐρῶντι πλησιάζειν, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἀπωθῇ τὸν 
> "-“ of \ Μ lal / [ id / \ \ 
ἐρῶντα, προϊόντος δὲ ἤδη Tod χρόνου ἥ τε ἡλικία Kal TO 
\ ” > \ ἐσθ > \ > e ri > \ 
χρεὼν ἤγαγεν εἰς TO προσέσθαι αὐτὸν εἰς ὁμιλίαν. οὐ γὰρ 
a \ \ 
δήποτε εἵμαρται κακὸν κακῷ φίλον οὐδ᾽ ἀγαθὸν μὴ φίλον 
, 6 co = / δὲ \ / \ e / 
ayalw εἰναι. προσεμένου ὃὲ καὶ AOYoY TE καὶ ομιλίαν 
/ ᾽ ͵ e ” / ‘a > lal 5 / 
δεξαμένου, ἐγγύθεν ἡ εὔνοια γιγνομένη τοῦ ἐρῶντος ἐκπλήττει 
/ τ ’ / 
Tov ἐρώμενον, διαισθανόμενον, ὅτε οὐδ᾽ οἱ ξύμπαντες ἄλλοι 


/ ‘ > 5 nr / > / / 
φίλοι τε Kal οἰκεῖοι μοῖραν φιλίας οὐδεμίαν παρέχονται 


THE ΗΑ ΠΝ MYTH 331 


Then again, when they are not willing to go near, he 
constraineth them, and hardly consenteth when they beseech 
that the matter may be deferred to some other time: and 
when the time agreed upon cometh, and the two make 
pretence of not remembering, he putteth them in mind, and 
pulleth them with force, neighing, and compelling them again 
to come near for to speak the same words unto the Beloved ; 
and when they are come near, he bendeth down his head, and 
stretcheth out his tail, and biteth the bit, and pulleth it 
shamelessly. But the Charioteer, being moved in his heart 
this second time as the first time, yea more exceedingly, 
falleth backward as it were from before the barrier at the 
starting place of the racecourse, and more violently doth draw 
the bit unto him from the teeth of the lascivious Horse, and 
maketh his cursing tongue and his jaws bloody, and presseth 
his legs and haunches to the earth, and delivereth him up to 
torment. 

Now when the evil Horse, having oft-times suffered the 
same correction, ceaseth from his wantonness, being humbled, 
he followeth the guidance of the Charioteer, and, whenever he 
seeth the Beautiful One, is brought to naught with terror. 
So it cometh to pass in the end that the Soul of the Lover 
followeth the Beloved One in reverence and fear. 

The Beloved then being served as a God with all service, 
by one who maketh not a pretence of love but loveth truly, 
and being by nature a friend unto him who serveth, even 
though in time past fellow disciples and others have made 
mischief with their tongues, saying that it is not seemly to come 
near unto a Lover, and though by reason of this the Beloved 
hath rejected the Lover, yet in process of time do ripeness 
of age and need of him cause the Beloved to receive the Lover 
into companionship ; for surely it hath never been ordained that 
evil shall be friend to evil, or good shall not be friend to good. 

When, therefore, the Beloved receiveth the Lover, and 
hath accepted his speech and companionship, then doth the 
good-will of the Lover drawing very nigh fill the Beloved with 
amazement; and lo! in comparison with this friend who hath 
in him the spirit of God, not even the whole company of 
other friends and kinsfolk provideth any portion at all of 
friendship ! 


332 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ \ “ a 
πρὸς τὸν ἔνθεον φίλον. ὅταν δὲ χρονίζῃ τοῦτο δρῶν καὶ 
/ \ a ΤῊ 4 / > a 
πλησιάζῃ μετὰ τοῦ ἅπτεσθαι ἔν τε γυμνασίοις Kal ἐν ταῖς 
» e , γε Ψ δ Ρ ς a AE / ᾽ / , a 
σ ἄλλαις ὁμιλίαις, TOT ἤδη ἡ TOD ῥεύματος ἐκείνου πηγή, ὃν 
\ / a / \ 
ἵμερον Leds Lavuundovs ἐρῶν ὠνόμασε, πολλὴ φερομένη 
\ \ > / ς Ν > > \ Μ ς ᾽ > 
πρὸς τὸν ἐραστήν, ἡ μὲν εἰς αὐτὸν ἔδυ, ἡ δ᾽ ἀπομεστου- 
ΝΜ > A \ Φ ‘a Μ > \ >’ \ / 
μένου ἔξω ἀπορρεῖ: καὶ οἷον πνεῦμα ἤ τις ἠχὼ ἀπὸ λείων 
a / 
Te Kal στερεῶν ἁλλομένη πάλιν ὅθεν ὡρμήθη φέρεται, οὕτω 
τὸ τοῦ κάλλους ῥεῦμα πάλιν εἰς τὸν καλὸν διὰ τῶν ὀμμά- 
7 φ / “ὃν \ \ »7 > , \ 
των Lov, ἢ πέφυκεν ἐπὶ THY ψυχὴν ἰέναι, ἀφικόμενον καὶ 
> fal \ ὃ 48 a “ Μ \ σ“ 
Ὁ ἀναπτερῶσαν τὰς διόδους τῶν πτερῶν ἄρδει τε καὶ ὥρμησε 
- \ Ν rn ᾽ / 93 \ ΝΜ 
πτεροφυεῖν τε, καὶ τὴν τοῦ ἐρωμένου av ψυχὴν ἔρωτος 
δι τ 5 οὖς \ 5 ¢ 7 b) a \ +m Ὁ 
ἐνέπλησεν. ἐρᾷ μὲν οὖν, ὅτου δέ, ἀπορεῖ" Kal οὔθ᾽ ὅ τι 
᾽ > 
πέπονθεν οἷδεν οὐδ ἔχει φράσαι, ἀλλ’ οἷον am ἄλλου 
/ a e 
ὀφθαλμίας ἀπολελαυκὼς πρόφασιν εἰπεῖν οὐκ ἔχει, ὥσπερ 
\ > / 2 A eed | € \ wig ae / \ 
δὲ ἐν κατόπτρῳ ἐν T@ ἐρῶντι ἑαυτὸν ὁρῶν λέληθε. καὶ 
ced \ > a lal 7 \ > \ ? / nq ᾽ / 
ὅταν μὲν ἐκεῖνος παρῇ, λήγει κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἐκείνῳ τῆς ὀδύνης" 
[τὰ ied A a 
ὅταν δὲ ἀπῇ, κατὰ ταὐτὰ αὖ ποθεῖ καὶ ποθεῖται, εἴδωλον 
Ἑ ἔρωτος ἀντέρωτα ἔχων' καλεῖ δὲ αὐτὸν καὶ οἴεται οὐκ 
a , 
ἔρωτα, ἀλλὰ φιλίαν εἶναι. ἐπιθυμεῖ δὲ ἐκείνῳ παραπλησίως 
> θ / de <A ¢ θ -“ a 
μέν, ἀσθενεστέρως δὲ ὁρᾶν, ἅπτεσθαι, φιλεῖν, συγκατακεῖ- 
/ al rn a 
σθαι. καὶ δή, οἷον εἰκός, ποιεῖ TO μετὰ τοῦτο ταχὺ ταῦτα. 
> Ss κ / a \ > a e > / “ 
ἐν οὖν τῇ συγκοιμήσει τοῦ μὲν ἐραστοῦ ὁ ἀκόλαστος ἵππος 
” “ / \ \ Ef \ ᾽ a > \ a 
ἔχει ὅ TL λέγει πρὸς τὸν ἡνίοχον, καὶ ἀξιοῖ ἀντὶ πολλῶν 
/ nr e al an 
256 πόνων σμικρὰ ἀπολαῦσαι' ὁ δὲ τῶν παιδικῶν ἔχει μὲν οὐδὲν 
᾽ a a \ \ > a ’ὔ \ > \ 
εἰπεῖν, σπαργῶν δὲ Kal ἀπορῶν περιβάλλει τὸν ἐραστὴν 
\ a / > ” > / Ψ 
καὶ φιλεῖ, ὡς σφόδρ εὔνουν ἀσπαζόμενος, ὅταν τε συγκατα- 
a “- / 
κέωνται, οἷός ἐστι μὴ ἂν ἀπαρνηθῆναι τὸ αὑτοῦ μέρος 
lo -" , A « \ ε / s 
χαρίσασθαι τῷ ἐρῶντι, εἰ δεηθείη τυχεῖν: ὁ δὲ ὁμόζυξ αὖ 
rn rn ᾽ lal / 
μετὰ τοῦ ἡνιόχου πρὸς ταῦτα μετ΄ αἰδοῦς καὶ λόγου 
ἀντιτείνει. 
᾽ “" / \ / 
Eav μὲν δὴ οὖν εἰς τεταγμένην τε δίαιταν καὶ φιλοσοφίαν 
/ \ / a , > / 7 \ \ 
νικήσῃ τὰ βελτίω τῆς διανοίας ἀγαγόντα, μακάριον μὲν καὶ 


΄ a \ PE \ 
B ὁμονοητικὸν τὸν ἐνθάδε βίον διάγουσιν, ἐγκρατεῖς αὑτῶν Kai 


THE ῬΑ MYTH 333 


Now when the Beloved continueth for awhile in this, and 
cometh near unto the Lover, touching him in the gymnasia 
and other places where they meet, then at last the fountain of 
that stream which Zeus, loving Ganymede, called by the name 
of Himeros, floweth mightily toward the Lover, and part 
thereof goeth down into him, and, when he is filled to over- 
flowing, the other part runneth out: and even as the wind, or 
a voice, leapeth back from the smooth rock and rusheth to the 
place whence it came, so doth the Stream of Beauty return 
unto the Beautiful One through the Eyes, which is the natural 
way unto the Soul; and when it is come thither, it giveth 
the Soul wings—it watereth the passages of the feathers, and 
causeth them to sprout; and the Soul of the Beloved also is 
filled with love. The Beloved loveth, but knoweth not whom, 
nor hath understanding of what hath come to pass, for to 
tell it; but is like unto a man who hath been smitten with 
disease of the eyes by another man, but cannot tell the cause 
thereof; or like unto one who seeth himself in a glass, and 
knoweth not that it is himself, so doth the Lover stand as a 
glass before the Beloved: and when the Lover is present, the 
Beloved ceaseth from the pain of Love, even as the Lover also 
ceaseth ; and when the Lover is absent, the Beloved longeth 
after him and is longed after, having Love-for-Love which is 
the Image of Love, yet calling and deeming it not Love but 
Friendship; and the Beloved desireth, even as the Lover 
desireth, but less vehemently, to see, to touch, to kiss, to 
embrace—and doeth this quickly thereafter, as is lke; con- 
cerning which the lascivious Horse of the Lover’s Soul hath 
somewhat to say unto the Charioteer, and demandeth of him 
a little enjoyment as the reward of many labours. But the 
Horse of the Beloved hath nothing to say, but being swollen 
with desire, and knowing not what he doeth, throweth his 
arms round the Lover and kisseth him, greeting him as a dear 
friend, and when, they are come close unto each other, is ready 
to grant unto him all that he asketh; while the fellow Horse, 
obedient unto the Charioteer in all modesty and reasonable- 
ness, withstandeth. Wherefore, if then the better parts of 
the mind prevail, and lead the Soul into a constant way of 
life and true wisdom, then are men, all the days of their life 
here, blessed and at peace with themselves, having the mastery 








σ 


257 


334 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


" » , \ > ; A > , 
κόσμιοι ὄντες, δουλωσάμενοι μὲν ᾧ κακία ψυχῆς ἐνεγίγνετο, 
, τ / , / / 
ἐλευθερώσαντες δὲ ᾧ ἀρετή" τελευτήσαντες δὲ δή, ὑπόπτεροι 
\ > \ / A a / a e 
καὶ ἐλαφροὶ γεγονότες, τῶν τριῶν παλαισμάτων τῶν ὡς 
ἀχηθῶς ᾿Ολυμπιακῶν ν νενικήκασιν, οὗ μεῖζον ἀγαθὸν οὔτε 

/ > / ” / / ὃ \ i 
σωφροσύνη ἀνθρωπίνη οὔτε θεία μανία δυνατὴ πορίσαι 
/ / 
ἀνθρώπῳ. ἐὰν δὲ δὴ διαίτῃ φορτικωτέρᾳ τε καὶ ἀφιλοσόφῳ, 
/ \ / | A ee b] / ΝΜ ΝΜ 
φιλοτίμῳ δὲ χρήσωνται τάχ av Tov ἐν μέθαις ἤ τινι ἄλλῃ 
> / \ b / ᾽ a ς / / \ \ 
ἀμελείᾳ τὼ ἀκολάστω αὐτοῖν ὑποζυγίω λαβόντε Tas ψυχὰς 
> 7 / > > / \ ς Ν lal a 
ἀφρούρους, Evvayayovte εἰς TavTov, THY ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν 
\ “ - 7 \ / \ 
μακαριστὴν αἵρεσιν εἱλέτην τε καὶ διεπράξαντο: καὶ 
διαπραξαμένω τὸ λοιπὸν ἤδ ὥνται μὲν αὐτῇ, σπανίᾳ δέ 
ρᾶξαμ On XP μ HE Z O€, 
ἅτε ov πάσῃ δεδογμένα τῇ διανοίᾳ πράττοντες. φίλω μὲν 
7 Pf at H 5 ἘΝ . μ 
e / / fal 
οὖν Kal τούτω, ἧττον δὲ ἐκείνων ἀλλήλοιν διά TE TOD 
» \ » / ὃ , Ν ,ὔ 
ἔρωτος καὶ ἔξω γενομένω διάγουσι, πίστεις τὰς μεγίστας 
ἡγουμένω ἀλλήλοιν δεδωκέναι τε καὶ δεδέχθαι, ἃς οὐ θεμιτὸν 
εἶναι λύσαντας εἰς ἔχθραν ποτὲ ἐλθεῖν. ἐν δὲ τῇ τελευτῇ 
Ν / e / δὲ al θ > / “ 
ἄπτερον, μέν, ὡρμηκότες δὲ πτεροῦσθαι ἐκβαίνουσι τοῦ 
/ e > \ 40 lel > ol / 
σώματος, ὥστε οὐ σμικρὸν ἄθλον τῆς ἐρωτικῆς μανίας 
/ ? \ / \ \ ΕΝ ἢ A / > 
φέρονται" εἰς yap σκότον Kal τὴν ὑπὸ γῆς πορείαν οὐ 
/ > \ Μ > a an / ” ral i / 
νόμος ἐστὶν ἔτι ἐλθεῖν τοῖς κατηργμένοις ἤδη τῆς ὑπουρανίου 
\ / nw "᾿ 
πορείας, ἀλλὰ φανὸν βίον διάγοντας εὐδαιμονεῖν μετ 
᾽ / / \ e / 4 / “ 
ἀλλήλων πορευομένους, καὶ ομοπτέρους ἔρωτος χάριν, ὅταν 
γένωνται, γενέσθαι. 

Ταῦτα τοσαῦτα, ὦ παῖ, καὶ θεῖα οὕτω σοι δωρήσεται ἡ 
> > a /, ς \ ᾽ \ a \ 2. ῖν ᾽ / 
map ἐραστοῦ φιλία. ἡ δὲ ἀπὸ Tod μὴ ἐρῶντος οἰκειότης, 
σωφροσύνῃ θνητῇ κεκραμένη, θνητά τε καὶ φειδωλὰ οἰκονο- 
a ᾽ / ig \ / > , ¢ > \ 
μοῦσα, ἀνελευθερίαν ὑπὸ πλήθους ἐπαινουμένην ὡς ἀρετὴν 
- “A la) / lal \ a 
τῇ φίλῃ ψυχῇ ἐντεκοῦσα, ἐννέα χιλιάδας ἐτῶν περὶ γῆν 


/ > \ \ e \ a Μ / 
κυλινδουμένην αὐτὴν Kal ὑπὸ γῆς ἄνουν παρέξει. 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 335 


over themselves, doing all things in order, having brought into 
bondage that part of the Soul wherein wickedness was found, 
and having made that part free wherein virtue dwelleth; and 
after this life is ended, they rise up lightly on their wings, 
having gained the victory in the first of the three falls at the True 
Olympic Games, than which victory no greater good can the 
Temperance of Man or the Madness from God bestow on Man. 

But if any take unto themselves a baser way of life, 
seeking not after true wisdom but after honour, perchance 
when two such are well drunken, or at any time take no heed 
unto themselves, their two licentious Horses, finding their 
Souls without watch set, and bringing them together, make 
choice of that which most men deem the greatest bliss, and 
straightway do enjoy it; and having once enjoyed it, they 
have commerce with it afterward alway, but sparingly, for 
they do that which is not approved of their entire mind. 

Now these two also are friends unto one another, but in 
less measure than those I before spake of, because they live 
for a while in the bonds of love, and then for a while out of 
them, and think that they have given and received the greatest 
pledges betwixt each other, the which it is never allowed to 
break and come to enmity one with another. When such do 
end their life here and go forth from the body, they are 
without wings, but have a vehement desire to get wings; 
which is no small recompense they receive for Madness of 
Love. Wherefore they are not compelled to go down unto 
the darkness and the journey under the Earth, seeing that 
they have already made a beginning of the heavenly journey ; 
but they pass their time in the light of day, and journey 
happily together Lover and Beloved, and when they get wings, 
of the same feather do they get them, for their Love’s sake. 

These are the gifts, dear boy—behold how many they are 
and how divine !—which the friendship that cometh from the 
Lover shall bestow on thee: but the conversation of him who 
is no Lover, being mingled with the temperance of this 
mortal life, and niggardly dispensing things mortal, begetteth 
in the Soul of his friend that Covetousness which the multi- 
tude praise as Virtue, and causeth her hereafter to wander, 
devoid of understanding, round about the Earth and under the 
Earth, for a thousand years nine times told. 


336 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 
I 


I think it necessary, at the outset of my observations on 
the Phaedrus Myth, to take notice—let it be brief—of the 
tolerant, nay sympathetic, way in which Plato speaks (256 c-z) 
of the ἐρωτικὴ μανία of those who are not “true lovers.” He 
speaks eloquently of it as a bond which unites aspiring souls 
in the after life. He speaks of those united by this bond as 
getting wings of the same feather in Heaven for their love’s sake. 
His language is as sympathetic as the language in which 
Dante expresses his own sympathy, and awakens ours, with a 
very different pair of winged lovers—Francesca and Paolo 
flying together like storm-driven birds in Hell! It is 
astounding that Plato should allow himself to speak in this 
way. The explanation offered by Thompson ? does not enable 
me to abate my astonishment :—The concluding portion of 
the Myth, he tells us, “ which stands more in need of apology,” 
ought to be considered in connection with the fact that the 
entire Discourse is intended as a pattern of philosophical 
Rhetoric, and is adapted, as all true Rhetoric must be, to the 
capacity of the hearer—in this case, of Phaedrus, who is some- 
what of a sensualist. It is still to me astounding that Plato 
—even as dramatist in sympathy with the sensualism of one 
of his dramatis personae, the youth to whom his “ Socrates ” 
addresses this Rhetorical Paradigm, if that is what the 
Phaedrus Myth is*—should have ventured to speak, as he 
does here, of what he indeed elsewhere* condemns as un- 
equivocally as Aristotle condemns it.° 

The reflection, in most cases a trite one, that even the 
best men are apt to become tolerant of the evil which pre- 
vails in the manners of their age, is hardly, in this case, a 
trite reflection, for it is such an oppressively sad one. 


1 Inferno, v. 

2 Phaedrus, p. 163. 

3 I entirely dissent from the view that this Myth is merely a pattern of 

hilosophical Rhetoric; and also from the consequential view (Thompson’s 

lnteetanaen to Phaedrus, p. xix.), that it is mostly ‘‘a deliberate allegory,”’ 
unlike, it is added, other Pistols Myths in which the sign and the thing 
signified are blended, and sometimes confused. See infra, p. 339. 

4 Laws, viii. 841 Ὁ. 

5 2. N. vii. 5. 3. 1148 Ὁ 29, 


THE ΠΑΝ δ MYTH 337 


II 


In passing to the Phaedrus Myth (with which the Meno 
Myth must be associated), we pass to a Myth in which the 
“ Deduction of the Categories of the Understanding ” occupies 
perhaps a more prominent place, by the side of the “ Repre- 
sentation of Ideas of Reason,” than has been assigned to it 
even in the Z7imaeus. 

The mythological treatment of Categories of the Under- 
standing stands on a different footing from that of “ Ideas 
of Reason” in this important respect, that it is not the only 
treatment of which these Categories are capable. The Ideas 
of Reason, Soul, Cosmos, and God, if represented at all, 
must be represented in Myth; and it is futile to attempt to 
extract the truth of fact, by a rationalising process, out of 
any representation of them, however convincing, as a repre- 
sentation, it may appear to our deepest instinct. On the 
other hand, Categories of the Understanding (eg. the notions 
of Substance and of Cause), though, as a priori conditions of 
sensible experience, they cannot be treated as if they were 
data of that experience, are yet fully realised, for what they 
are, in that experience, and only in it. Hence, while their 
@ priort character may be set forth in Myth, the fact that, 
unlike the Ideas of Reason, they are fully realised in sensible 
experience, makes them also capable of logical treatment. 
That they are capable of such treatment is obvious, when 
one considers the advance, sound and great as measured by 
influence in the physical sciences, which Logic has brought 
about in our interpretation of the Notion, or Category, of 
Cause, and that by discussions carried on quite apart from 
the question of whether the Notion is present ὦ priori, or is 
of α posteriort origin. We may say, however, that treatment 
of Categories of the Understanding tends to become less 
mythological and more logical as time goes on; but yet the 
mythological treatment of them can never become obsolete— 
it still remains the legitimate expression of a natural impulse, 
the power of which—for evil—Kant recognises in his Tran- 
scendental Dialectic. I call the mythological expression of 
this impulse legitimate, because it is mythological, and not 
pseudo-scientific. 

Z 


938 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


I take the Phaedrus Myth, along with the Meno Myth, 
as an example of the Mythological Deduction of Categories 
of the Understanding. The Eternal Forms seen by the Soul 
in its prenatal life, as “remembered” in this life when 
objects of sense present themselves, are Categories, although 
the list of them is redundant and defective if we look at it 
with Kant’s eyes, which I do not think we need do. 

But although the Phaedrus Myth deduces Categories, it 
represents Ideas as well. Plato, as I have been careful to 
point out, does not anywhere distinguish Categories and Ideas 
formally ; and the Phaedrus Myth, in particular, is one of the 
most complex, as well as comprehensive, in the whole list of 
the Platonic Myths. It deduces Categories, sets forth the 
Ideas of Soul, Cosmos, and God, is Aetiological and Eschato- 
logical, and, though a true Myth, is very largely composed 
of elements which are Allegories. Its complexity and com- 
prehensiveness are indeed so great that they have suggested 
the theory—that of Diiring,’ with which, however, I cannot 
agree—that the Myth is a Programme—a general view of a 
whole consistent Eschatological Doctrine, which is worked out 
in detail in the Gorgias, Phaedo, and Republic Myths.” In 
the Phaedrus Myth alone, Diiring maintains, we have a 
complete account of the whole History of the Soul—its 
condition before incarnation, the cause of its incarnation, and 
the stages of its life, incarnate, and disembodied, till it returns 
to its original disembodied state. All this, he argues, is so 
summarily sketched in the Phaedrus that we have to go to 
the other Dialogues mentioned, in order to understand some 
things in the Phaedrus rightly. In the Phaedrus Myth, in 
short, we have “eine compendiarische Darstellung einer in 
grosserer Ausfiirlichkeit vorschwebenden Conception.” The 
Phaedrus Myth thus dealing, for whatever reason, with 
everything that can be dealt with by a Myth, we shall do 
well not to separate its Deduction of Categories, or Doctrine 
of ἀνάμνησις, too sharply from the other elements of the 
composition. 


1 Die eschat. Myth. Platos, p. 476 (Archiv fiir Gesch. d. Philos, vi. (1893), 
pp. 475 ff.). 

2 Cf. Jowett and Campbell’s Republic, vol. iii. Ρ' 468. “The attempts of 
Numenius, Proclus, and others to connect the Myth of Er with those in Gorg., 
Phaed., Phaedr,, Tim., so as to get a complete and consistent view of Plato’s 
supra-mundane theories, only show the futility of such a method.” 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 339 


This Myth is part of the Discourse which Socrates 
delivers, by way of recantation, in praise of Love. The non- 
lover, indeed, is sane, but the madness of the lover is far 
better than the other’s sanity. Madness is the source of all 
that is good and great in human effort. There are four kinds 
of it'—(1) the Prophet’s madness; (2) the madness of the 
Initiated ; (3) the madness of the Poet; and (4) the madness 
of the True Lover who is the True Philosopher. It is the 
Transcendental History of the Soul as aspiring after this 
True Love that is the main burden of the Myth. And here 
let me say a few words, in passing, on the view maintained 
by Thompson in his Introduction to the Phaedrus (p. xix.),” 
that this Myth is, for the most part, “a deliberate Allegory.” 
With this view I cannot agree. It ignores the fact that 
a Myth is normally composed of elements which are Alle- 
gories. The Chariot, with the Charioteer and two Horses, 
is allegorical—it puts in pictorial form a result already 
obtained by Plato’s psychological analysis, which has dis- 
tinguished Reason, Spirit, and Appetite as “Parts of the 
Soul.” But if the Chariot itself is allegorical, its Path 
through the Heavens is mythic. Allegory employed as rough 
material for Myth is frequent in the work of the Great 
Masters, as notably in the greatest of all Myths—in the 
Divina Commedia. <A striking instance there is the Pro- 
cession, symbolic of the connection between the Old Dis- 
pensation and the New, which passes before the Poet in the 
Earthly Paradise (Purg. xxix. ff). The Visions of Ezekiel, 
to which Dante is here indebted for some of his imagery, may 
also be mentioned as instances of mythological compositions 
built largely out of elements which are allegories. It is 
enthusiasm and a living faith which, indeed, inspire the 
mythopoeic or prophetic architect to build at all; but his 
creative enthusiasm is often served by a curious diligence in 
the elaboration of the parts. 


Ill 


I have identified the prenatal impression produced in the 
Soul by the Eternal Forms seen in the Super-Celestial place 


1 Phaedrus, 244. 2 Alluded to supra, p. 336. 


940 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


with Categories, or a priori conditions of sensible experience, 
and regarded the “ recollection” in this life of these Forms 
seen in the prenatal life as equivalent to the effective opera- 
tion of a priort Categories, or functions of the Understanding, 
on the occasion of the presentation of objects of sense. I wish 
now to meet an objection which may be brought against this 
identification. Let us first look at the list of Eternal Forms 
given in the Myth (247 oc, and 250 B). They are αὐτὴ 
dixacocvyn—dJustice Itself; αὐτὴ cwppoovvyn—Temperance 
Itself; ἀληθὴς ἐπιστήμη----Τγτυθ Knowledge; αὐτὸ κάλλος---- 
Beauty Itself; and are described as ὄντα dvtws—really ex- 
istent, and ἀχρώματοί te καὶ ἀσχημάτιστοι Kal avadeis 
ovoia.—without colour, without shape, intangible. Now 
Justice Itself and Temperance Itself in this list cannot be 
called Categories of the Understanding. They would seem 
to correspond rather to “Categorical Imperative.” ᾿Αληθὴς 
ἐπιστήμη, on the other hand, does cover the ground occupied 
by Categories of the Understanding, if it does not cover more. 
᾿Ἐπιστήμη is distinguished in the Meno (97, 98), as know- 
ledge of the effect through its cause, from ὀρθὴ δόξα, empirical 
knowledge of the detached effect; and the recognition of 
necessary causal connection, thus identified with ἐπιστήμη, is 
expressly said (98 A) to be ἀνάμνησις. If we consider how 
close the Myth of ἀνάμνησις in the Meno (81 B) stands to 
the Phaedrus Myth, we are bound to conclude that the ἀληθὴς 
ἐπιστήμη, mentioned as one of the οὐσίαι seen by the Soul 
in the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος, covers the a priort Category of 
Cause, and, it is fair to add, the other Categories of the 
Understanding by the use of which, within the limits of 
possible experience, we ἰδ truth (ἐπιστήμη) is attained. 
Further, while the presence or ἀληθὴς ἐπιστήμη among the 
Eternal Essences or Forms entitles us to speak of a priori 
Categories as domiciled in the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος ἡ of the 
Phaedrus Myth, we need not quarrel with the presence of αὐτὴ 
δικαιοσύνη, αὐτὴ σωφροσύνη, and αὐτὸ κάλλος in a list of 
Categories ; the distinction between Categories of the Under- 
standing and Ideas of Reason, as I have pointed out, is not 
provided for in Plato’s philosophical language, and it is to 


! These are ‘‘Categories which are already in things,” to use Professor 
Pringle-Pattison’s expression (Scottish Philosophy, p. 140). 


ΡΝ. ΜΙ 


THE PHAERDRUS MYTH 341 


be noticed that, in describing these Eternal Essences or Forms 
of Justice, Temperance, and Beauty, he describes them as if 
they were Categories “empty without sense ”"—that is, empty 
except as “recollected” in this life on the occasion of the 
presence of objects of sense; just as in the parallel passage in 
the Meno (81 0), he speaks of the prenatal knowledge of 
ἀρετή as “ recollected” in this life. It will be fair, then, 1 
think, to call the list of Essences or Forms in the Phaedrus 
Myth a list of Categories of the Understanding (included 
under ἀληθὴς ἐπιστήμη), and of certain other a priori Forms 
described as if they were Categories. As in the 7imaeus, so 
in the Phaedrus Myth, the fact (ascertained, we may suppose, 
by Plato as by Kant through introspection) that man brings 
a priort principles to bear on his individual experience is 
explained by an Aetiological Myth telling how the Soul in 
its prenatal state goes round, so far as it is not hindered by 
earthward inclination, with the revolution of the outermost 
heavenly sphere, from the back, or convex surface, of which 
is seen the ὑπερουράνιος tomos—the πεδίον ἀληθείας, where 
the true food of the mind grows. The Eternal Truths which 
grow on this Plain are apprehended by the gods perfectly ; 
by other Souls, which are still within the κύκλος τῆς 
γενέσεως, only in an interrupted and partial view; but, 
we may suppose, in godlike manner by human Souls which 
have been finally purified and released from the flesh for ever. 
In proportion as a human Soul has “ recollection” of these 
truths while it is in the flesh, in that proportion is it purified. 
Among the Eternal Essences of the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος the 
αὐτὸ κάλλος is that which is most easily “remembered,” 
because it is more apparent in its visible copies than the 
other Essences are in theirs (Phaedrus, 250 D). The Eternal 
Beauty manifests itself to the eye in beautiful things more 
clearly than the Eternal Justice, for instance, manifests itself 
to the “moral sense” in actions, laws, and institutions. 
Ἔρως, awakened by the sight of “beautiful things,’ is the 
form taken by this “recollection” of the Eternal Beauty—an 
impulse, at once emotional and intellectual, of the whole man, 
by which he is carried on, through the apprehension of that 
Essential Principle which is most easily apprehended, to the 
apprehension also of the Essential Principles of Conduct and 


342 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Science. Hence ἔρως, ἀνάμνησις, and φιλοσοφία are practi- 
cally convertible terms," and mean amor intellectualis Dei. 
This enthusiastic love of the beautiful “intelligible world,” 
sharpening recollection till all forgetfulness is overcome, and 
the Soul is made perfectly pure, and is redeemed from the flesh 
for ever—this φιλοσοφία (to sum up all in a single word), being 
a nisus which engages the whole man in one concentrated 
endeavour, can only be felt and affirmed, cannot be explained. 
It is the very Life of the Subject of all experience, and 
cannot be treated as if it were an Object to be explained 
scientifically in its place among other Objects like itself. 

The Philosopher as conceived by Plato is an ardent Lover. 
He lives all his earthly life in a trembling hope, and, out 
of his hope, sees visions, and prophesies. 

Plato, keenly appreciating the power with which expres- 
sion of thought or feeling reacts on thought or feeling, spares 
no pains in showing how to give artistic form to Myth, the 
natural expression (if only as by-product) of the enthusiastic 
philosophic nisus after self-realisation or purification. This 
is the justification of the artistic Myth, for the construction 
of which Plato supples models—that it helps to moderate 
and refine and direct the aspirations, the hopes, the fears, the 
curiosity, of which Myth is the natural expression. It will 
be remembered what importance is attached, in the scheme of 
education sketched in the Republic, to “good form” in the 
mode of expressing not only literary meaning and musical 
feeling, but also athletic effort. The form of expression is, as 
it were, the vessel which contains and gives contour to the 
character which expresses itself. We must be careful to see 
that we have in our system of education good models of 
expression into which, as into moulds, young character may 
be poured. Apart from its bearing on education, the whole 
question of the reaction of expression on that which expresses 
itself is an interesting one, and may be studied in its biological 
rudiments in Darwin’s work on the Hxpression of the Emotions 
in Man and Animals. 

1 So Dante (Conv. iii. 12), says, ‘‘ Filosofia ὁ uno amoroso uso di Sapienza” : 
Amor is the Form, and Sapienza the Subject Matter of Filosofia (Conv. iii. 13, 
14). So also Wordsworth, substituting ‘‘ Poetry” for ‘‘ Philosophy ” (Pref. to 


Lyrical Ballads), “ Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is 
the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.” 


THE PHALDRUS MYTH 343 


I said that we should do well, considering the complexity 
of the Phaedrus Myth, not to detach its Deduction of Cate- 
gories or doctrine of ἀνάμνησις too much from the general 
context. The doctrine of ἀνάμνησις is treated by Plato, in 
the Phaedrus and Meno, as inseparable from the doctrine of 
the prenatal existence and immortality of the Soul, and is 
closely bound up with the Orphiec doctrine of κάθαρσις and 
his own version of it—the doctrine of philosophic ἔρως. It 
is impossible, then, to pledge Plato to belief in the literal truth 
of the doctrine of ἀνάμνησις, unless we are prepared to go 
with Zeller the length of thinking that he is in earnest in 
believing that the Soul actually existed as a separate person 
before it was born into this body, and will pass through a 
series of incarnations after the death of this body. “If it be 
impossible,” writes Zeller (Plato, pp. 404 ff, Eng. Tr.), “to 
imagine the soul as not living, this must equally hold good 
of the future and of the past; its existence can as little begin 
with this life as end with it. Strictly speaking, it can never 
have begun at all; for the soul being itself the source of all 
motion, from what could its motion have proceeded? Accord- 
ingly Plato hardly ever mentions immortality without alluding 
to pre-existence, and his expressions are as explicit and 
decided about the one as the other. In his opinion they 
stand or fall together, and he uses them alike to explain the 
facts of our spiritual life. We therefore cannot doubt that 
he was thoroughly in earnest in his assumption of a pre- 
existence. And that this pre-existence had no beginning is 
so often asserted by him?‘ that a mythical representation like 
that of the 7imaeus can hardly be allowed any weight to the 
contrary. We must, nevertheless, admit the possibility that in 
his later years he did not strictly abide by the consequences of 
his system, nor definitely propound to himself whether the soul 
had any historical beginning, or only sprang to its essential 
nature from some higher principle. 

“Tf the two poles of this ideal circle, Pre-existence and 
Immortality, be once established, there is no evading the 
doctrine of Recollection which les between them; and the 
notions of Transmigration and of future rewards and punish- 
ments appear, the more we consider them, to be seriously 


1 Phaedrus, 245 c, Ὁ; Meno, 864. 


344 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


meant. With regard to Recollection, Plato speaks in the 
above-cited passages so dogmatically and definitely, and the 
theory is so bound up with his whole system, that we must 
unconditionally reckon it among the doctrinal constituents of 
that system. The doctrine is an inference which could not 
well be escaped if once the pre-existence of the soul were 
admitted; for an existence of infinite duration must have left 
in the soul some traces which, though temporarily obscured in 
our consciousness, could not be for ever obliterated. But it is 
also in Plato’s opinion the only solution of a most important 
scientific question: the question as to the possibility of 
independent inquiry—of thought transcending sensuous per- 
ception. Our thought could not get beyond the Immediate 
and the Actual; we could not seek for what is as yet unknown 
to us, nor recognise in what we find the thing that we sought 
for, if we had not unconsciously possessed it before we recognised 
and were conscious of it... We could form no conception of 
Ideas, of the eternal essence of things which is hidden from 
our perception, if we had not attained to the intuition of 
these in a former existence.2 The attempt of a modern work 
to exclude the theory of Recollection from the essential 
doctrines of the Platonic system * is therefore entirely opposed 
to the teaching of Plato. The arguments for the truth and 
necessity of this doctrine are not indeed, from our point of 
view, difficult to refute; but it is obvious that from Plato’s 
they are seriously meant.” 

I venture to think that the doctrine of ἀνάμνησις, in 
itself, and in its setting, is not intended by Plato to be taken 
literally—that it is not Dogma but Myth. This view, for 
which I may appeal to the authority of Leibniz and Coleridge,‘ 


1 Meno, 80 Ὁ ff. 

2 Phaedo, 73 ὁ ff. and 76 pb. 

5 Teichmiiller, Studien zur Gesch. d. Begriffe, pp. 208 ff. 

4 Leibniz (Nowv. ss. Avant-propos) describes the Platonic doctrine of 
Reminiscence as toute fabuleuse ; and Coleridge (Biog. Lit. ch. 22), speaking of 
Wordsworth’s Ode on the Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Barly 
Childhood, says : ‘‘ The ode was intended for such readers as had been accustomed 
to watch the flux and reflux of their inmost nature, to venture at times into 
the twilight realms of consciousness, and to feel a deep interest in modes of 
inmost being, to which they know that the attributes of time and space are 
inapplicable and alien, but which yet cannot be conveyed, save in symbols of 
time and space. For such readers the sense is sufficiently plain, and they will be 
as little disposed to charge Mr. Wordsworth with believing the Platonic pre- 
existence in the ordinary interpretation of words, as I am to believe that Plato 
himself ever meant or taught it.” 


THE PHAREDRUS MYTH S45 


seems to me to be borne out by the passage in the Meno' 
dealing with ἀνάμνησις : ἀνάμνησις is presented there, in 
accordance with Orphic belief, as becoming clearer and clearer 
at each incarnation, till the soul at last attains to the blessed 
life of a δαίμων. Can it be maintained that Plato is in 
earnest with all the Orphic details of this passage ?—and, if 
not with all, with any? It is to be noted, too, that Socrates 
ends by recommending his tale about ἀνάμνησις entirely on 
practical grounds, as likely to make us more ready to take the 
trouble of seeking after knowledge. Here we are in this 
world, he says in effect, with mental faculties which perhaps 
deceive us. How are we to save ourselves from scepticism 
and accidie? Only by believing firmly that our mental 
faculties do not deceive us. Science cannot establish in us 
the belief that our mental faculties do not deceive us; for our 
mental faculties are the conditions of science. The surest 
way of getting to believe that our mental faculties do not 
deceive us is, of course, to use them: but if the absence of 
scientific proof of their trustworthiness should ever give us 
anxiety, the persuasiveness of a Myth may comfort us; that 
is, a Myth may put us in the mood of not arguing about our 
mental faculties, but believing in them. Meno, in argu- 
mentative mood, asks how it is possible to investigate a thing 
about which one knows absolutely nothing—in this case, 
Virtue, about which Socrates professes to know nothing 
himself, and has shown that Meno knows nothing. One’s 
investigation, Meno argues, having no object whatever before 
it, might hit by accident on some truth—but how is one to 
know that it is the truth one wants? To this Socrates 
replies: I understand your meaning, Meno. But don’t you 
see what a verbal sort of argument it is that you are intro- 
ducing? You mean “that one can’t investigate either what 
one knows or what one does not know; for what one knows 
one knows, and investigation is unnecessary; and what one 
does not know one does not know, and how can one investi- 
gate one knows not what ?” 

Meno. Exactly; and you think it is a good argument ? 

Socrates. No, I don’t. 

M. Why, pray ? 

1 Meno, 81. 


946 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


S. I will tell you. I have heard from men and women 
who are wise concerning divine things— 

What have you “heard ? 

S. A Tale, true I believe, and great and glorkoill 

Mt What was it? Who told you? 

S. Those priests and priestesses whose continual study it 
is to be able to give an account of the things which are their 
business ; and also Pindar, and many other divine poets. And 
their Tale is this— it is for you to consider whether you think 
it a true Tale: they say, “That the Soul of Man is immortal, 
and to-day she cometh to her End, which they call Death ; 
and then afterwards is she born again, but perisheth never. 
Wherefore it behoveth us to go through our lives observing 
religion alway: for the Souls of them from whom Persephone 
hath received the price of ancient Sin, she sendeth back to the 
light of the Sun above in the ninth year. These be they who 
become noble kings and men swift and strong and mighty in 
wisdom, and are called Blessed of them that come after unto all 
generations.” 

Since the Soul, then, Socrates continues, is immortal, and 
has often been incarnate, and has seen both the things here 
and the things in Hades, and all things, there is nothing which 
she has not learnt. No wonder, then, that she is able, of herself, 
to recall to memory what she formerly knew about Virtue or 
anything else; for, as Nature is all of one common stock and 
kind, and the Soul has learnt all things, there is no reason why, 
starting from her recollection of but one thing (this is what is 
ealled “ learning”), a man should not, of himself, discover all 
other things, if only he have good courage, and shirk not inquiry 





“remembering.” So, we must not be led away by your verbal 
argument. It would make us idle; for it is an argument that 
slack people like. But my account of the matter stirs people 
up to work and inquire. Believing it to be the true account, 
I am willing, along with you, to inquire what Virtue is.’ 

The practical lesson to be drawn from the Myth contained 
in this passage is indicated by Socrates a little further on :?— 
There are things, he says, in the Doctrine, or Myth, of 
Reminiscence on which it is hardly worth while to insist, if 


1 Meno, 80 p-81 Ε. 2 Meno, 86, B, ©. 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 347 


they are challenged; but there is one thing in its teaching 
which is worth maintaining against all comers—that, if we 
think that we ought to investigate what we do not know, we 
are better men, more courageous and less slothful, than if we 
think that what we do not know is something which it is 
neither possible to ascertain nor right to investigate. 

Zeller’s reason for maintaining that the doctrine of 
ἀνάμνησις, seb forth in this passage and in the Phaedrus 
Myth, is to be taken literally seems to be that the doctrine 
is propounded by Plato as the sole explanation of what he 
certainly accepted as a fact—the presence of an @ priori 
element in experience, and, moreover, is an explanation involvy- 
ing the doctrine of Ideas which, it is urged, Plato wishes to 
be taken literally. 

I do not think that because introspection makes Plato 
accept as a fact the presence of an a priori element in experi- 
ence, it follows that even the only “explanation” which 
occurs to him of the fact is regarded by him as “ scientific.” 
The “explanation” consists in the assumption of Eternal 
Ideas which are “recollected” from a prenatal experience on 
the occasion of the presentation, in this life, of sensible objects 
“resembling” them. I go the length of thinking that the 
Eternal Ideas, as assumed in this “ explanation,” are, like their 
domicile, the Plain of Truth, creations of mythology.’ It is 
because Aristotle either could not or would not see this, that 
his criticism of the doctrine of Ideas? is a coup mangué. 
Milton’s poem De Idea Platonica quemadmodum Aristoteles 
intellexit seems to me to express so happily the state of the 
case—that the doctrine of Eternal Ideas set forth by Plato in 
Myth is erroneously taken up by Aristotle as Dogma—that I 
venture to quote it here in full :°— 

1 This view of the Ideas as we have them in the Phaedrus Myth is, of course, 
quite consistent with an orthodox view of their place in Logic. In Logic the 
εἴδη are scientific points of view by means of which phenomena are brought into 
natural groups and explained in their causal context. Answering to these 
scientific points of view are objectively valid Laws of Nature. Couturat (de Plat. 
Mythis, p. 81), after pointing to certain differences in the accounts given in the 
Tim., Phaedo, Republ., and Sophistes, respectively, of the ἐδέαι, ends with the 
remark that we might complain of “‘inconsistency ὁ were it not that the whole 
doctrine of ἰδέαι is ‘‘ mythical.” This, I think, is going too far. It is interesting 
to note that Dante (Conv. ii. 5) draws a close parallel between the Platonic ἐδέαι 
and ‘‘Gods”: so faras the parallel goes, the former will belong to “ mythology” 


equally with the latter. 
2 Met. M. 3 Masson’s Poetical Works of John Milton, vol. iii. p. 76. 


348 


1 Prof. Masson (0.6. iii. 527) says: ‘‘ Jw is, of course, Plato; and here, it 
seems to me, Milton intimates at the close that he does not believe that the 
Aristotelian representation of Plato’s Idea, which he has been burlesquing in the 
poem, is a true rendering of Plato’s real meaning. 
really taught any such monstrosity, then, etc. 
the poem have missed its humorous character, and supposed Milton himself to be 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Dicite, sacrorum praesides nemorum deae, 
Tuque O noveni perbeata numinis 
Memoria mater, quaeque in immenso procul 
Antro recumbis otiosa Aeternitas, 
Monumenta servans, et ratas leges Jovis, 
Coelique fastos atque ephemeridas Detim, 
Quis ille primus cujus ex imagine 

Natura solers finxit humanum genus, 
Aeternus, incorruptus, aequaevus polo, 
Unusque et universus exemplar Dei ? 
Haud ille, Palladis gemellus innubae, 
Interna proles insidet menti Jovis ; 

Sed, quamlibet natura sit communior, 
Tamen seorsus extat ad morem unius, 

Et, mira! certo stringitur spatio loci: 
Seu sempiternus ille siderum comes 

Caeli pererrat ordines decemplicis, 
Citimumve terris incolit Lunae globum ; 
Sive, inter animas corpus adituras sedens, 
Obliviosas torpet ad Lethes aquas ; 

Sive in remota forte terrarum plaga 
Incedit ingens hominis archetypus gigas, 
Et diis tremendus erigit celsum caput, 
Atlante major portitore siderum. 

Non, cui profundum caecitas lumen dedit, 
Dircaeus augur vidit hune alto sinu ; 

Non hunc silenti nocte Pléiones nepos 
Vatum sagaci praepes ostendit choro ; 
Non hunce sacerdos novit Assyrius, licet 
Longos vetusti commemoret atavos Nini, 
Priscumque Belon, inclytumque Osiridem ; 
Non ille trino gloriosus nomine 

Ter magnus Hermes (ut sit arcani sciens) 
Talem reliquit Isidis cultoribus. 

At tu,! perenne ruris Academi decus, 
(Haec monstra si tu primus induxti scholis) 
Jam jam poetas, urbis exules tuae, 
Revocabis, ipse fabulator maximus ; 

Aut institutor ipse migrabis foras. 


To put the matter briefly: I regard the whole doctrine of 
ἀνάμνησις, and of idéac qua involved in that doctrine, as an 
Aetiological Myth—plausible, comforting, and encouraging— 


finding fault with Plato.” 


If it were so—if Plato had 
I rather think commentators on 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 349 


to explain the fact that Man finds himself in a World in 
which he can get on. The Myth is a protest against the 
Ignava Ratio of Meno and his like—the sophistry which 
excuses inactivity by proving, to the satisfaction of the inac- 
tive, that successful advance in knowledge and morality is 
impossible. 


IV 
Phaedrus, 248 ΙΕ 


The fact that the Philosopher and the Tyrant are respect- 
ively first and last in a list of nine can be explained only by 
reference to the importance attached by Plato to 9x9x9= 
729, which, in Republ. 587 Ρ, Ὲ (see Adam’s notes), marks the 
superiority of the Philosopher over the Tyrant in respect of 
Happiness. The number 729 had a great vogue in later 
times. Plutarch, in his de animae procreatione e Timaeo, 
ch. 31, makes it the number of the Sun, which we know from 
the de fac. in orbe lunae, ch. 28, stands for νοῦς : κατ᾽ αὐτὸν δὲ 
τὸν ἥλιον θ΄ καὶ κ' καὶ ψ'΄, ὅστις ἅμα τε τετράγωνός τε Kal 
κύβος ἐστί. It is also involved in the “mysterie of the 
Septenary, or number seven,” which is of two kinds—+ ἐντὸς 
δεκάδος ἑβδομάς, 1... the 7 which comes in the series 1, 2, 
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; and ἡ ἐκτὸς δεκάδος ἑβδομάς, which 
is the seventh term from unity in the series 1, 3, 9, 27, 81, 
243,729. This is both a square (= incorporeal substance) 
and a cube (=corporeal substance), i.e. 27 x 27 and 9x9 
x 9 both= 729. This is worked out by Philo in a passage 
of his Cosmopoeta Mosaica, quoted by Dr. Henry More in his 
Defence of the Moral Cabbala, ch. 11. p. 164 (ed. 1662); and 
More’s application is worth quoting: “Seven hundred and 
twenty-nine is made either by squaring of twenty-seven, or 
eubically multiplying of nine, and so is both cube and square, 
Corporeal, and Incorporeal. Whereby is intimated that the 
World shall not be reduced in the Seventh day to a mere 
Spiritual consistency, to an incorporeal condition, but that 
there shall be a cohabitation of the Spirit with Flesh in a 
mystical or moral sense, and that God will pitch his Tent 
amongst us. Then shall be settled everlasting Righteousness, 


350 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


and rooted in the Earth, so long as mankind shall inhabit 
upon the face thereof.” 

Again, Dante makes 9 the number of Beatrice. She was 
in her ninth year when he first saw her (Vita Nuova, 2); his 
first greeting he received from her nine years afterwards at 
the ninth hour of the day (V. ΔΝ, 3); and she departed this 
life on the ninth day of the ninth month of the year, 
according to the Syrian style (V. WV. 30):—* Questo numero,” 
he concludes (V. WV. 30), “fu ella medesima; per similitudine 
dico, e cid intendo cosi: Lo numero del tre é la radice del 
nove, perocche senza numero altro, per sé medesimo moltipli- 
cato, fa nove, siccome vedemo manifestamente che tre via tre 
fa nove. Dunque se il tre ὁ fattore per sé medesimo del nove, 
e lo fattore dei miracoli per sé medesimo é tre, cioé Padre, 
Figliuolo 6 Spirito Santo, li quali sono tre ed uno, questa donna 
fu accompagnata dal numero del nove a dare ad intendere, que 
ella era un nove, cioé un miracolo, la cui radice é solamente la 
mirabile Trinitade.” With this may be compared a passage in 
Convivio, iv. 24,in which Dante, referring to Cicero, de Senectute 
(§ 5), as authority, says that Plato died aged eighty-one (ef. 
Toynbee, Dante Dict., art. “Platone,” at the end, for a quotation 
from Seneca, Hp. 58, to the same effect); and adds: “e io 
credo che, se Cristo non fosse stato crucifisso, e fosse vivuto lo 
spazio che la sua vita potea secondo natura trapassare, egli 
sarebbe all’ ottantuno anno di mortale corpo in eternale 
trasmutato.” 


V 


The contrast between the celestial mise en scéne of the 
History of the Soul represented in the Phaedrus Myth, and 
the terrestrial scenery of the great Eschatological Myths in the 
Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic, is a point on which some re- 
marks may be offered. 

In the Phaedrus Myth we are mainly concerned with the Fall 
and Ascension of human Souls through the Heavenly Spheres 
intermediate between the Earth and the πεδίον ἀληθείας. 
teference to the Sublunary Region which includes Tartarus, 
the Plain of Lethe, and the Earthly Paradise (Islands of the 
Blessed, True Surface of the Earth, τὰ περὶ γῆν = οὐρανός), is 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 35] 


slight and distant. In the Phaedrus Myth we have light 
wings and a Paradiso; in the three other Myths mentioned, 
plodding feet and an Jnferno and a Purgatorio. 

This distinction answers to a real difference in the sources 
on which Plato drew for his History of the Soul. On the one 
hand, he was indebted to the Pythagorean Orphics, who put 
κάθαρσις in the forefront of their eschatology. On the other 
hand, he had at his disposal, for the selection of details, the 
less refined mythology of the κατάβασις εἰς “Acdov, as taught 
by the Priests denounced in the Republic.’ 

The eschatology of the Pythagorean Orphics may be 
broadly characterised as celestial and astronomical. The Soul 
falls from her native place in the Highest Heaven, through 
the Heavenly Spheres, to her first incarnation on Earth. By 
means of a series of sojourns in Hades, and re-incarnations on 
Earth (the details of which are mostly taken from the myth- 
ology of the κατάβασις εἰς “Acdov), she is purified from the 
taint of the flesh. Then, at last, she returns to her native 
place in the Highest Heaven, passing, in the upward flight of 
her chariot, through the Heavenly Spheres, as through Stations 
or Doors. 

The earliest example which has come down to us of this 
celestial eschatology is that which meets us in the passage 
with which Parmenides begins his Poem. Parmenides goes 
up in a chariot accompanied by the Daughters of the Sun; 
he rides through the Gate of Justice where the paths of Day 
and Night have their parting; and comes to the Region of 
Light, where Wisdom receives him.” 

In contrast to this celestial eschatology, the eschatology 
of the Priests denounced in the Republic may be described 
as terrestrial. All Souls go to a place on Earth, or under the 
Earth, to be judged, and the good are sent to the right to 
eternal feasting (μέθη αἰώνιος, Rep. 363 D), and the wicked 
to the left, to le for ever in the Pit of Slime. Of the true 
κάθαρσις effected by a secular process of penance and 
philosophic aspiration these Priests have no conception. The 


1 3630, D; 364B ff. 

2 See Burnet’s Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 183 ff.; and Dieterich, Fine 
Mithrasliturgie, p. 197. The passage does not express the views of Parmenides 
himself ; but is borrowed from the Pythagorean Orphics, probably for the mere 
purpose of decoration. The Soul-chariots of the Phaedrus Myth are derived from 
the same source. 


352 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


only κάθαρσις which comes within the range of their thought 
is that effected, once for all in this life, by ritual observance. 
The κάθαρσις thus effected in this life is all that is needed 
to bring the Soul to the very “earthly” Paradise of their 
eschatology. 

Although Plato leaves us in the Gorgias with only the 
Islands of the Blessed and the Pit of Tartarus of this 
terrestrial eschatology, he makes it plain in the Phaedo 
Myth, not to mention the Zimaeus and the Phaedrus Myth, 
that the ultimate destination of the virtuous Soul is not any 
Terrestrial Paradise of sensual delights (which might well be 
that secured by mere ritual purification), but a Celestial 
Paradise, to which the Pure Intelligence rises by its own 
strenuous effort, recalling to memory more and more clearly 
the Eternal Truth which it ardently loves. 

It was through what may be called its astronomical side, 
and not through that side which reflects the mythology of 
the κατάβασις εἰς “Ardov, that the Platonic eschatology 
influenced subsequent religious thought and practice. The 
doctrine of κάθαρσις effected by personal effort in a Cosmos 
governed by God, which, after all, is the great contribution 
made by Plato to the religious thought and practice of 
Europe, found its appropriate vehicle in the large astronomy 
which meets us in the 7imaeus and Phaedrus—an astronomy 
which was afterwards elaborated, with special reference to the 
aerial and aethereal habitats of Daemons and disembodied 
human Souls, by the Stoics no less than by the Platonists. 
Dieterich, in his Hine Mithrasliturgie (1903), mentions the 
Stoic Posidonius, Cicero’s teacher, as the writer who did most 
to unite the Pythagorean and Platonic tradition with the 
doctrines of the Stoa. As result of his accommodation of 
Platonic eschatology to Stoic doctrine, reference! to a sub- 
terranean Hades disappears, and the History of the Soul after 
Death is that of its ἀνάβασις from Earth to Air, from Air to 
Aether, and through the Spheres of the Planets to the Sphere 
of the Fixed Stars. The substitution of ἀνάβασις for κατά- 
βασις, even in the case of the Souls of the wicked, con- 
nects itself closely with the “ physical science” of the Stoics. 
In the Phaedrus Myth the Soul has wings and flies up; but 


1 Hine Mithrasliturgie, pp. 79 and 202. 


THE PHARDRUS MYTH 353 


the Stoics give a “scientific” reason for its ascent,—the 
“matter” of which it is made is so rare and light that it rises 
of necessity when it is separated from the terrestrial body. 
To Posidonius, and through him to Plato and the Pythagorean 
Orphics, Dieterich! carries back the eschatology of Cicero's 
Somnium Scipionis and T'usculanae Disputationes,? and of 
Seneca’s Letter to Marcia *—an eschatology in which the Soul 
is represented as ascending through Heavenly Stations; while 
the astronomy of the pseudo-Aristotelian περὶ κόσμου, ----ἃ 
work of the first century after Christ, translated in the 
second century by Apuleius,—he contends, is essentially that 
of Posidonius. The latest embodiment of the Type first 
made known to us in the Poem of Parmenides and the 
Phaedrus Myth is Dante’s Paradiso, the scheme of which 
is “The Ascension of a Purified Soul through the Moving 
Heavens into the Presence of God in the Unmoved Heaven.” 
Let us try to follow the line, or lines, along which the 
influence of the Phaedrus Myth (for the Poem of Parmenides 
searcely counts beside the Phaedrus Myth) was transmitted 
to the Paradiso. 

It was transmitted to the Paradiso along two main lines, 
The first passed through the Aristotelian Metaphysics and 
de Coelo—the influence thus transmitted showing itself in the 
definite astronomical framework of the Paradiso, and the 
notion of l’ Amor che move il Sole ὁ I’ altre Stelle. The 
second line (which I believe to be necessary, with the first, 
for the full explanation of the scheme, and more especially 
of the ἦθος, of the Paradiso) has two strands, one of which 
consists of the Somnium Scipionis, and its antecedents, chiefly 
Stoical; the other, of certain astronomical apocalypses, chiefly 
Christian—these apocalypses being closely related to certain 
sacramental rites, or mysteries, which embody the eschatology 
of the Phaedrus Myth. 

Let me enlarge a little on these two lines of influence; 
and, first, try to indicate how the Myth of the ὑπερουράνιος 
romos—the goal of all volition and _ intellection— passes 
through Aristotle into the Christian mythology of Dante. 

The νῶτον οὐρανοῦ of the Phaedrus Myth (247) is the 
convex surface of the eighth Sphere—the Sphere of the 
1 0.c. p. 201. ἈΠῸ 15. 19. 5 Ch. 25. 

2A 


354 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Fixed Stars, which includes, according to Plato’s astronomy, 
all the other Spheres, and carries them round with it in its 
revolution from east to west, while they have their own 
slower motions within from west to east.’ 

The gods, sitting in their chariots, are carried round on 
this outer Sphere, throughout its whole revolution, in full 
sight of the Eternal Region beyond, while human Souls, at 
least till they are perfectly purified, obtain only broken 
glimpses of it. We must suppose that it is in order to get 
a connected view of this Super-celestial Region that the 
newly created Souls in the Zimaeus (40 E-42 E) are sent, 
each in its star-chariot, on a journey round the Heavens. It 
is the invincible desire of seeing the Super-celestial Region 
which draws all Souls, divine and human, up to the νῶτον 
οὐρανοῦ, and obliges them to go round with the revolution of 


1 See Zimaeus, 36 B; Republic, 616 B ff.; and Boeckh, Commentatio altera de 
Platonico Systemate Coelestium Globorum, et de vera indole Astronomiae Phitlo- 
laicae (Heidelberg, 1810), p. 5. According to the system accepted by Plato as 
scientifically true, the Earth occupies the centre, round which the Heavens 
revolve; but the Earth does not revolve on its own axis; the εἱλλομένην of 
Tim. 408 means ‘‘wrapped, or globed round,” not ‘‘revolving” as Arist. de 
Coelo, ii. 293 b 30, falsely interprets. If Plato made the Earth revolve 
on its axis, that would neutralise the effect of the revolution of the Sphere 
of the Fixed Stars (Boeckh, o.c. p. 9). In the Phaedrus Myth, however, 
Boeckh (p. 28) is of opinion that Plato deserts the system which he accepts as 
scientifically true, and follows the Pythagoreans, who put ‘Eorla (Διὸς Φυλακή) 
in the centre of the Universe (see Burnet’s Karly Greek Philosophy, § 125, pp. 
319 ff.). The μένει yap Ἑστία ἐν θεῶν οἴκῳ μόνη of Phaedrus, 247 A, is in favour 
of Boeckh’s opinion ; but, apart from this one clause, there is nothing in the Myth 
to suggest that Plato does not think of the Earth as fixed in the midst of the 
Heavens. If he thought of the Earth as one of the planets revolving round a 
Pythagorean central fire, why does the Earth not appear with the other planets, 
in this Myth, as one of the planet-gods in the train of Zeus? ‘‘The planet- 
gods,” Plato in effect says, ‘‘after their journey come ‘home.’ Ἑστία, the 
‘hearth,’ is the ‘home’ to which they come.” This is a quite natural sequence 
of ideas; and I think it better to suppose that it passed through Plato’s mind, 
than to have recourse to the view that he abandoned the doctrine of the 
centrality of the Earth, without which, indeed, it would be very difficult to 
visualise the Fall and Ascension of human Souls—the main ‘‘ incident” of the 
Myth. The statement of Theophrastus recorded by Plutarch, that Plato in his 
later years regretted that he had made the Earth the centre in the Timaeus, is 
doubtless justly suspected by Zeller and other scholars: see Zeller’s Plato, 
p. 379, n. 37, Eng. Transl. 

I have spoken of the choir of Zeus as ‘* planet-gods”’ ; but, as there are seven 
planets and twelve gods—or eleven in the absence of Hestia—the expression 
is only approximately exact. Cf. Thompson’s Phaedrus, p. 159. 

For later developments of the geocentric system accepted by Plato, see Arist. 
Met. A, 1073 Ὁ 17 ff. (A is judged to be post-Aristotelian by Rose, de Arist. lib. 
ord. et auct. p. 242), where the system of Eudoxus with 27 spheres, that of 
Callippus with 34 spheres, and that of the writer himself with 56 spheres, are 
described. Of. Zeller’s Arist. i. 499-503, Engl. Transl. These spheres were 
added to explain the φαινόμενα. 


ΤῊΝ PHABEDRUS MYTH 355 


the o’pavos—moving in order to apprehend the whole extent 
of that which is unmoved. Human thought here on Earth is 
rational in so far as it reproduces, or “ imitates,” within the 
microcosm of the circular brain, the orbit in which the 
Heavenly Sphere moves in the presence of this Unmoved 
(Timaeus, 47 B). 

Aristotle, although he omits the mythology of Souls in 
their chariots, retains the motive of the Phaedrus Myth, and, 
indeed, much of its language,’ in his doctrine that the Outer 
Sphere—the Primum Mobile—is itself moved by the attrac- 
tion of something beyond which is unmoved; and this 
ultimate unmoved source of the heavenly motion he identifies 
with God, described as an immaterial, eternally active, Prin- 
ciple, final object at once of knowledge and desire, Who 
moves the Heavens as One Beloved moves a Lover—xuivet ὡς 
ἐρώμενον" Now this is Myth. God the Best Beloved, the 
Final Truth, takes, in Aristotle’s theory, the place of the πεδίον 
ἀληθείας which the Souls, in Plato’s Myth, eagerly seek to 
see. The language of the Aristotelian passage, too, is worthy 
of the dignity of the Myth. With all its technicalities the 
passage is a lofty hymn which has deeply influenced the 
religious imagination of all after ages. 

The ὑπερουράνιος τόπος, or πεδίον ἀληθείας, of the 
Phaedrus Myth—the God of Met. A, Who, unmoved (ἀκίνητον) 
object of volition (βουλητόν) and intellection (νοητόν), moves 
the Heavens—appears in the Christian doctrine, which Dante 
poetises, as the Quiet Heaven, the Empyrean, the unmoved 
dwelling-place of God and all the blessed spirits. This, in 
the mediaeval astronomy, is counted as the Tenth Heaven, for 
between it and the Eighth Sphere of the Platonico-Aristotelian 
system the Ninth Starless Sphere, the Crystalline Sphere, 
had been interpolated as primum mobile. Let us turn again 
to the passage in the Convivio (11. 4) in which Dante speaks 
of the Tenth Heaven, and read it afresh® in the light of what 
has been said about the πεδίον ἀληθείας and the Aristotelian 
God :— 

“There are nine Moving Heavens; and the order of 

1 Phaedrus, 245, is the source of the thought and phraseology of Arist. 
Met. A, 1072 a 23 ff. 


* See Arist. Met. A, 1072 a 21-1072 Ὁ 30. 
3 See p. 164 supra. 


356 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


their position is as follows: The first that is reckoned is that 
of the Moon; the second that in which Mercury is; the 
third Venus; the fourth the Sun; the fifth Mars; the sixth 
Jupiter; the seventh Saturn; the eighth is that of the Stars ; 
the ninth is that which can only be perceived by the move- 
ment above mentioned, which is called Crystalline, or dia- 
phanous, or wholly transparent. But outside of these 
Catholics suppose the Empyrean Heaven, which is as much 
as to say the Heaven of Flame, or the Luminous; and they 
suppose this to be immovable, since it has in itself, in respect 
of every part, that which its matter requires. And this is 
the reason why the primum mobile has most rapid movement : 
because by reason of the fervent longing which every part of 
it has to be joined to every part of that most divine Motion- 
less Heaven, it revolves within that with so great desire 
that its velocity is, as it were, incomprehensible. And this 
Motionless and Peaceful Heaven is the place of that Supreme 
Deity which alone fully beholds itself. This is the place of 
the blessed spirits, according as Holy Church, which cannot 
lie, will have it; and this Aristotle, to whoso understands 
him aright, seems to mean in the first book de Coelo.” 

In this doctrine of the Quiet Heaven, justly said to have 
the authority of Aristotle in its favour, we have the motive 
of the whole Myth of the Paradiso. The ascent of Dante, 
through the Nine Moving Spheres, to the Unmoved Heaven, 
his will and intellect moved at every stage by “the Love 
which moves the sun and other stars,’ is a Myth—how 
valuable in its regulative influence the world knows, and 
may yet know better—a Myth setting forth like the Myth 
of the Soul-Chariots, man’s personal effort to take his place 
in the Cosmos by “imitating” its eternal laws in his own 
thought and will, not content to look always down, like the 
brutes, at the things beneath him on the ground, but, first, 
lifting up his eyes to the Visible Gods—the stars in their 
orderly courses—and then thinking out the law of their order ; 
thus, as we read in the Zimaeus (47 A), realising the final 
cause of eyes, which is to awaken thought. The ultimate 
identity of Thought and Will as both drawn forth by the 
attraction of one Object—the Object, Plato would say, of 
“ Philosophy,” of “ Theology” Aristotle and Dante would say 


ΤῊΝ ΠΑΝ δ MYTH 357 


—is thus contained in the Myth of the Paradiso, as in the 
Phaedrus Myth. The associations of Dante’s Myth lie 
nearer to our modern life than those of Plato’s Myth, and 
we may be helped to appreciate the latter through the 
former. In both we have models of what a refined Myth 
ought to be. It ought to be based on old tradition, and yet 
must not fetter, but rather give new freedom to, present-day 
thinking. It is impossible to define, or even describe, the aid 
which a refined mythology, such as that of Dante, brings to 
a man’s life, for the aid which it brings is inseparable from 
the charm under which his personal study of it has at last 
brought him: χρὴ τὰ τοιαῦτα ὥσπερ ἐπάδειν ἑαυτῷ." 

The πεδίον ἀληθείας of the Phaedrus Myth, which thus 
answers to Aristotle’s κινοῦν οὐ κινούμενον, or God, and to 
Dante’s Unmoved Heaven, or Empyrean, the dwelling-place 
of God, holds an important position in the Neo-Platonic 
philosophy. The passage in which Plotinus describes it is 
one of the most highly-strung pieces of philosophical writing 
in the whole of his Hnneads, and need not be entered upon 
here;* but Plutarch’s description of it may be given. It 
occurs in his de defectu oraculorum,® where he records the 
doctrine of a “ Barbarian Stranger,’ who, rejecting alike the 
view of Plato, that there is only one Cosmus, and the view of 
others, that the number of Cosmi is infinite, and that of 
others still, that there are five of them, maintains that there 
are exactly 183 * of them, arranged in the figure of a triangle, 
the sides of which they form, touching one another—60 to 
each side, and one in each angle. These Cosmi move round 
along the sides of the triangle in procession, ἀτρέμα περιϊόντας 
ὥσπερ ἐν χορείᾳ ; and the area of the triangle which these 
moving Cosmi make is called the Plain of Truth, πεδίον 
ἀληθείας. In this Plain abide unmoved the rationes (λόγοι), 
formae (εἴδη), exemplaria (παραδείγματα), of all things which 
ever have, and ever shall, come into being; and round about 


1 Phaedo, 114 Ὁ. 

2 Enn. vi. 7. 13. Two sentences from it will show its character sufficiently :— 
ἐν αὑτῷ ὁ ἀληθινὸς νοῦς πέφυκε πλανᾶσθαι: πέφυκε δ᾽ ἐν οὐσίαις πλανᾶσθαι 
συνθεουσῶν τῶν οὐσιῶν ταῖς αὐτοῦ πλάναις. πανταχοῦ δ᾽ αὐτός ἐστι μένουσαν 
οὖν ἔχει τὴν πλάνην. ἡ δὲ πλάνη αὐτᾷ ἐν τῷ τῆς ἀληθείας πεδίῳ, οὗ οὐκ 
ἐκβαίνει. 

3 Ch. 22. 

“ Half of the number of the days in the year, as a friend suggests to me. 
Cf. the number of the βασιλεύς (729), Rep. 587 Ἑ. 


358 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


these Eternal Verities is spread Eternity (ai@v), which flows 
out as Time (ypovos) upon the moving Cosmi. Human Souls, 
if they live virtuously, have sight of these Eternal Verities 
once in ten thousand years. The holiest mysteries of this 
world are but a dream of that Perfect Revelation. 

“This Myth of the Barbarian Stranger,’ says the narrator 
of it in Plutarch’s Dialogue, “I listened to as though I were 
being initiated. The Stranger offered no demonstration or 
other evidence of the truth of it.” 

The Myth! is a good instance of the way in which the 
later Platonists used Plato’s suggestions—and, it must be 
added, Aristotle’s; for in the de Coelo,? αἰών, outside the 
οὐρανός, where there is neither τόπος, nor κενόν, nor χρόνος, 
nor μεταβολή, is identified with God, whose life is described 
as ἀπαθής, ἀρίστη, αὐταρκεστάτη. Platonists had, indeed, 
almost as rich a mine to work in Aristotle as they had in 
Plato himself.’ 

Before I leave the subject of the influence of the Phaedrus 
Myth as transmitted to Dante through the de Coelo and 
Metaphysics—it shows itself mainly in the definite astro- 
nomical framework of the Paradiso, and the notion of 


Τ᾽ Amor che move il Sole 6 I’ altre stelle— 


I may notice another notion very prominent in the Paradiso 
which seems to have taken form in the course of an evolution 
starting from the Phaedrus Myth, or the eschatology of which 
that Myth is the most eminent product. I refer to the 
notion that the various temperaments, or characters, are 
produced by the action of the stars, especially of the planets. 
This notion is deeply embedded in the structure of the 
Paradiso. The spirits whom Dante sees in the three lower 
spheres are seen by him there in human form because in their 
earthly lives they yielded to influences exerted by the Moon, 
by Mercury, and by Venus respectively—because they broke 

1 Referred to by Dr. Bigg, Neoplatonism, p. 121. 

2 i, 9, 279 a 16. 

3 The Axiochus (371 B) is quite un-Platonic, and indeed singular, in its view 
of the πεδίον ἀληθείας. The place where Minos and the other Judges of the 
Dead sit is called the πεδίον ἀληθείας, and is on the other side of Acheron and 
Cocytus, i.e. down in Tartarus ; whereas the λειμών of the Judgment-Seat in the 


Phaedo is on this side of these rivers, and in the Republic is certainly outside 
of Tartarus. 


THE PHAFDRUS MYTH 359 


vows, were ambitious, were guilty of unchastity. In the 
four upper planetary spheres likewise Dante sees spirits 
whose characters on Karth were such as their various planets 
determined ; these, however, being beyond the shadow of the 
Karth and its influence, are no longer in human form, but 
enclosed in an envelope of light—they are ardenti sole'— 
spherical, like the stars; for the sphere is the perfect form 
which the pure aethereal vehicle naturally takes. Now, if we 
turn from the Paradiso to the Phaedrus Myth we find that 
there Souls are χορευταί of, follow in the train of, various 
Planet-Gods, Zeus, Ares, and others, in their ascent to the 
Kmpyrean, or πεδίον ἀληθείας, and show corresponding tem- 
peraments of character when they are afterwards born in the 
flesh. 

This mythological explanation of the varieties of tem- 
perament may be compared with that offered by Macrobius 
in his Commentary on Cicero’s Somniwm Scipionis, which 1 
cannot do better than give in Professor Dill’s words : *— 


The Commentary on the Dream of Scipio enables one to 
understand how devout minds could even to the last remain 
attached to paganism. It presupposes rather than expounds the 
theology of Neoplatonism. Its chief motive is rather moral or 
devotional than speculative. The One, supreme, unapproachable, 
ineffable, residing in the highest heaven, is assumed as the source 
of mind and life, penetrating all things, from the star in the 
highest ether to the lowest form of animal existence. The 
Universe is God’s temple, filled with His presence. The unseen, 
inconceivable Author created from His essence pure mind, in the 
likeness of Himself. In contact with matter mind degenerates 
and becomes Soul. In the scale of being the moon marks the 
limit between the eternal and the perishable, and all below the 
moon is mortal and evanescent except the higher principle in 
man. Passing from the divine world through the gate of Cancer 
(cf. Plotin. Ennead, iv. 3. 15), mind descends gradually, in a fall 
from its original blessedness, through the seven spheres, and, in 
its passage, the divine and universal element assumes the various 
faculties which make up the composite nature of man. In Saturn 
it acquires the reasoning power, in Jupiter the practical and 
moral, in Mars the spirited, in Venus the sensual element. But 
in the process of descending into the body, the divine part suffers 
a sort of intoxication and oblivion of the world from which it 


1 Par. x. 76. 
2 Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, pp. 90, 91. 


360 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


comes, in some cases deeper than in others. Thus the diffusion 
of Soul among bodily forms is a kind of death; and the body is 
only a prison, or rather a tomb, which cannot be quitted save by 
a second death, the death to sin and earthly passion. 


Here, in the Commentary of Macrobius, two things kept 
separate in the Phaedrus Myth—the Fall of Souls to the Earth 
διὰ τὸ πτερορρυεῖν, and their membership of the retinue of 
particular gods—are combined. It is in its Fall that a Soul 
comes into touch with the gods; and derives, it would seem, 
a complex temperament from touch with them all in suc- 
cession.’ 

With regard to the cause of the Fall of Souls—the Neo- 
Platonic mythology, while retaining the πτερορρυεῖν explana- 
tion given in the Phaedrus, dwells more particularly on the 
ideas of illusion and intoxication. Souls remain at peace 
above till, like Narcissus, they see themselves reflected in the 
mirror of Dionysus:* this is the flowing stream of sense and 
generation, into which they plunge, mistaking the image for 
reality. With the idea of illusion thus illustrated, the idea of 
intoxication connects itself naturally. The stream of sense, the 
mirror of Dionysus, is the bowl of Dionysus. Plunging into 
it the Soul drinks forgetfulness of Eternal Truth, and the 
world into which it is born thereafter is the σπήλαιον λήθης. 
There are Souls which have not drunk so deeply as others of 
this cup. There are the “dry souls” of Heraclitus.’ They 
still retain some recollection of the disembodied state, and in 
this earthly life hearken to the good δαίμων who comes with 
them in their κάθοδος. The comparison of the body to a 


1 Macrobius, Somn, i. 12, 68. See Lobeck, Aglaoph. pp. 932 ff., where other 
writers are quoted for this view of the formation of human temperament. The 
seven planets likewise connect themselves with the seven days of the week, and 
the seven metals (ἑκάστῳ τῶν ἀστέρων ὕλη τις ἀνάγεται, ἡλίῳ μὲν ὁ χρυσός, 
σελήνῃ δὲ ἄργυρος, “Ape σίδηρος, Kpdvw μόλιβδος, Act ἤλεκτρος, Ἑρμῇ κασσίτερος, 
᾿Αφροδίτῃ χαλκός, Schol. on Pindar, 7ϑέδηι. v. 2); consequently the Mithraic 
stair, κλῖμαξ ἑπτάπυλος, represented the seven planetary head through which 
the Soul passes, by seven metals: the first step, that of Saturn, was of lead ; 
the second, that of Venus, of tin; the third, that of Jupiter, of brass; the 
fourth, that of Mercury, of iron, and so on, the days of the week being taken in 
backward order: see Lobeck, Ag/aoph. p. 934. Further, there are seven colours, 
seven strings, seven vowels, seven ages of a man’s life, as well as seven planets, 
seven days, and seven metals (cf. Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, pp. 186 ff.) ; also 
seven seals, some of them associated with differently coloured horses, and seven 
angels, in Rev, v.-viii. 

? Plotin. Ennead, iv. 8, 12, vol. i. p. 247, ed. Kirchhoff. 

3 Bywater, Heracliti Rel. p. 30. 


ΤῊΝ ΠΑ MYTH 361 


Heraclitean river, which occurs in 7'imaeus (43 A), doubtless 
contributed to this Neo-Platonic mythology of the Fall. 

The second line of influence connecting the Paradiso with 
the Phaedrus Myth has, as I said, two strands, the first of 
which consists of the Somniwm Scipionis and its antecedents, 
chiefly Stoical. The links between the Phaedrus Myth and 
Somnium Scipionis (which Dante undoubtedly knew)! are in- 
dicated by Dieterich in passages referred to above,’ and need 
not be specified here; but the second strand, consisting of the 
astronomical apocalypses, has scarcely received the attention 
which it deserves, and I venture to say something about it. 

It is remarkable how little Dante is indebted in the 
Paradiso to the Revelation of St. John. The seven references 
in the Paradiso to that Apocalypse noted by Dr. Moore (Studies 
in Dante, First Series, Index to Quotations, 1) concern details 
only. The Revelation of St. John has indeed nothing service- 
able for Dante’s purpose except details, for its scheme is quite 
different from that of the Paradiso. It is very doubtful if the 
writer knows anything of the astronomy of the eight Moving 
Heavens and the Unmoved Heaven ; at any rate, if he does, he 
makes no use of it; his scheme is not that of the Ascension of 
a Soul through Heaven after Heaven. The scene is always 
changing from Heaven to Earth, and to Hell; and the New 
Jerusalem, in the description of which the Vision culminates, 
descends out of the New Heaven, and is established upon the 
New Earth. It is to apocalypses of an entirely different type 
that the Paradiso is related—to apocalypses in which the 
whole mise en scene of the eschatological drama is astronomical, 
and the preoccupation of the writers is not, as that of the 
writer of the Revelation of St. John largely is, with the Reign 
of the Messiah on Earth over a chosen people, but with the 
κάθαρσις of the disembodied Soul of the individual. These 
“astronomical apocalypses,’ as we may call them—some of 
them of Jewish authorship (like the Book of the Secrets of 
Enoch, the “ Slavonic Enoch,”* which was written, before the 

1 See Tozer (An English Commentary on Dante's ‘‘ Divina Commedia’) on Par. 
xxii. 133 ff. ; and cf. Annual Report of the Dante Society (Cambridge, Mass. ), 1901 ; 
Index of Authors quoted by Benvenuto da Imola, by Paget Toynbee, art. 
‘* Macrobius.”’ 

2 Supra, pp. 352, 358. 


5 Translated from the Slavonic by W. R. Morfill, and edited with Introduc- 
tion, notes, and indices, by R. H. Charles, 1896. 


302 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


end of the second century B.c., at Alexandria, in the main in 
Greek, although portions of it reproduce a Hebrew original), 
the majority of them of Christian authorship—owe their astro- 
nomy mainly to Greek sources. It is true, of course, that the 
conception of Seven Heavens answering to the Seven Planets 
was familiar in the East before the Hellenistic period ;? but 
the remarkable prominence which the conception suddenly 
assumed in that period can only, I submit, be ascribed to 
direct Greek influence? The scheme of these apocalypses 
is always that of a Soul separated by ecstasy from its body, 
and, with some angel or daemon as guide or μυσταγωγός, 
rising from the Earth, through air to aether, and then from 
planetary sphere to planetary sphere, up to the Presence of 
God in, or beyond, the Seventh Heaven. Thus in the 
Ascension of Isaiah, Isaiah is conducted, through the seven 
planetary spheres, to the Presence of God the Father, and 
hears Him commissioning His Son to descend to the Earth. 
The descent of Christ through the spheres is then described ; 
and after an account of His life on Earth, and death, and 
resurrection, the Apocalypse closes with His Ascension through 
the Heavenly Spheres to the right hand of God. 

The persistence of this type—the “astronomical apoca- 
lypse ”—is as remarkable as its wide distribution. Appearing 
first among the Jews in the second century B.c., it is adopted 
by the Christians—Greek, Latin, Slavonic, and Ethiopian, and 
at last by Islam; for the Vision of Mahomet is one of the 
best examples of it. 

The Vision of Mahomet is the story of the Prophet's 
miraculous journey from Mecca to “the further temple” at 
Jerusalem, and his ascent thence,* through the Circles of 
Heaven, into the immediate Presence of God, far beyond where 
even Gabriel could ascend. I give the story (only briefly 
referred to in the Quran itself, ch. xvii. 1, but told in all the 


1 See Prof. Charles’s Introduction to The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, pp. 
xxi. ff. 
3 Dieterich (Zine Mithrasliturgie, p. 192) remarks that the conception of the 
ascension of the Soul through Heavenly Stations does not appear in Jewish 
literature till the Hellenistic period—in the Apocalypse of Enoch. 

8 Written in Greek, according to Prof. Charles (see his Ascension of Isaiah, 
1900, and his articles on Apocalyptic literature in the ποῖ, Brit. and Encl. 
Bib.), between a.p. 50 and 80, translated into Latin, Ethiopic, and Slavonic, 
and extant now in its entirety only in the Ethiopic version. 

* It is from the spot antipodal to Jerusalem that Dante ascends. 


THE 5. MYTH 363 


earliest Lives of the Prophet) in the words of Mr. P. de Lacy 
Johnstone (Muhammad and his Power, 1901, pp. 84 ff) -—— 


At the portal of the first heaven the angel knocked, and a 
voice from within inquired who sought admittance. Gabrie! 
answered, “It is 1, Gabriel.” But again the voice asked, “ Is there 
any with thee?” and he said, “Muhammad.” Again came the 
question, “ Hath he been called (to the office of prophet)?” and he 
answered, “ Yes.” Then was the gate opened, and they entered ; 
and Adam greeted Muhammad with the words, “ Welcome, pious 
son and pious Prophet!” Then Muhammad beheld, and saw two 
doors, the one on Adam’s right hand, and the other on his left. 
As oft as he looked towards the first he laughed with delight, and 
there issued therefrom a sweet savour; but as often as he turned 
to the other he wept, and from it came evil odours; and the 
Prophet marvelled, and asked of Gabriel what this should mean ; 
and it was told him that the one door led to Paradise, and the 
other to Hell, and that the Father of Mankind rejoiced over those 
who were saved, and wept over those of his children who were lost. 
Then they soared upward to the second Heaven, to which they 
entered after the same questions and answers as at the first; and 
there were two young men, John the Baptist and Jesus, and they 
greeted Muhammad, ‘“‘ Welcome, pious brother and pious Prophet!” 
Thence they passed to the third Heaven, to receive the same wel- 
come from Joseph, “ whose beauty excelled that of all other crea- 
tures as far as the light of the full moon surpasses that of the stars ” ; 
then to the fourth, where Enoch greeted them ; and the fifth, where 
Aaron welcomed them with the same words. In the sixth Heaven 
Moses welcomed him as his brother and a Prophet; but he wept 
as he soared above him—not for envy of Muhammad’s glory sur- 
passing his own, but to think that so few of his own nation were 
appointed to Paradise. From the Heaven of Moses the Archangel 
led Muhammad up to the seventh, where he showed him Abraham 
“his Father,’ who bade him ‘ Welcome, pious son and pious 
Prophet!” In this seventh Heaven the Prophet beheld the 
wondrous Tree, the abode of Gabriel, round which fly countless 
myriads of angels ; from its foot spring the two rivers of Paradise, 
and the two great rivers of Earth—Euphrates and the Nile; and 
“the light of God overspreads the whole Tree.” There, too, was 
the heavenly Kaaba, the original of the Meccan, and round it went, 
in adoring circuit, radiant armies of angels ; so vast indeed is their 
number that the same worshipping host never returns after once 
making the mystic round. Beyond the seventh Heaven Gabriel 
could only go with the Prophet, and that by special permission, as 
far as the first of the seventy veils of dazzling light (each 500 
years’ journey from the next) that shut in the Throne of God. As 


304 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


the Prophet passed each successive stage, the gracious Voice bade 
him “come nearer!” till at last he entered the immediate presence 
of God. There he was endowed with perfect wisdom and know- 
ledge, cheered with the promise that all who received his message 
should be taken into Paradise, and commanded to lay on his faith- 
ful followers the duty of praying fifty times in the day. The 
Prophet returned from God’s Presence Chamber to the lower 
heavens, and told Moses of the duty laid upon him. But by the 
old Lawgiver’s advice he time after time ventured back to plead 
with his Lord till the burden of the daily prayers was reduced to 
five—the perpetual ordinance of Islam. Then with lightning 
speed the Prophet was returned to his chamber at Mecca, and, for 
all the wondrous things he had seen, yet was the bed warm when 
he lay down again. 


There can be no doubt, of course, that the Vision of Mahomet 
was deliberately modelled on the Astronomical Apocalypse of 
which the Ascension of Isaiah may be taken as an example. 
Can there be any doubt that the same Type was before Dante’s 
mind when he wrote the Paradiso? It would be unreasonable 
to suppose that a Poem, which in ἦθος as well as in astro- 
nomical scheme so closely conforms to a Type of which the 
examples were so widely distributed, was written in ignorance 
of that Type. The Paradiso, as it stands, cannot be accounted 
for by the supposition that the Somnium Scipionis first 
suggested to the Christian Poet an astronomical scheme which 
he elaborated on lines laid down for him by Aristotle and 
Alfraganus, in whose works he happened to be learned and 
greatly interested. It was not, I take it, because he knew 
the Somnium Scipionis and was interested in the traditional 
astronomy that he adopted the astronomical scheme, but 
because he found that scheme in the Christian Apocalypse 
already consecrated to the subject with which his Poem is 
concerned (and the Somniwm Scipionis is not)—the κάθαρσις 
of a Soul.? 

Taking, then, the Astronomical Apocalypse of which the 


1 The Ascension of Isaiah, one of the most elaborately astronomical of the 
apocalypses, existed in a Latin version which Dante may well have known. It 
was printed at Venice in 1522, and contains—6-11—the ‘‘ascension”’ proper. 
See also Mr. M. R. James (7he Revelation of Peter, p. 40, and Texts and Studies, 
ii. 2, pp. 23 ff.) for the influence of the Apocalypse of Paul (a fourth or early fifth 
century work, which exhibits, with some confusion, the astronomical scheme 
which is so exactly followed in the Ascension of Isaiah) upon mediaeval visions 
and the Divina Commedia. 


ΤῊΝ PHAEDRUS MYTH 365 


Secrets of Enoch, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Vision of 
Mahomet are examples, as the Type on which Dante deliber- 
ately modelled the Paradiso, with the aid of the de Coelo, 
and Metaphysics, and Hlementa of Alfraganus, and Somniwm 
Scipionis (itself a divergent example of the same 'T'ype), let 
me try to indicate the connection of this Type with the 
eschatology of the Phaedrus Myth. 

The connection is to be found, I think, in the use made 
by sacramental ritual of the celestial mise en scéne adopted in 
the Phaedrus Myth for the representation of the Soul’s History 
—the sacramental ritual itself being the germ out of which 
the literary product—the Apocalypse—-grew. Fortunately 
Dieterich’s recent work, Line Mithrasliturgie (1903), enables 
us to form a clearer idea of the sacramental ritual referred to 
than was possible before. 

The “ Liturgy”! which Dieterich edits and comments on 
(whether a Mithras liturgy, as he holds, or belonging to some 
other ritual, as Cumont holds”) is the Order to be observed in 
a Sacramental Drama which conducts the μύστης through 
stages or stations of ritual performance representing the 
grades of the ascent of the disembodied Soul, through the 
Heavenly Spheres, up to the Presence of the Highest God 
beyond the Pole. What happens ritually here to the μύστης 
will be accomplished actually for his Soul after death. The 
ecstasy which the solemn sacrament procures and regulates 
through ascending grades of feeling is a preparation for, and a 
guarantee of, the actual ascension of the disembodied Soul. 

The Liturgy begins with a Prayer which the μύστης, still 


1 The Paris Papyrus 574, Supplément grec de la Bibliotheque Nationale, from 
the text of which Dieterich restores this Liturgy, was, according to him, written 
at the beginning of the fourth century after Christ (see 0.c. p. 43), not, however, 
in the interest of worship, but as a book of magic. A Greek Mithras liturgy 
composed in Egypt in the second century (see 0.6. pp. 45, 46) was transcribed 
in the fourth century, and ἄσημα ὀνόματα, ‘‘nonsense words,” interspersed 
through its text; and the farrago thus produced was to be recited as a spell, or 
series of spells. 

On the origin, nature, and remarkable spread of Mithras-worship the reader 
may consult Cumont’s Mystéres de Mithra (1902), with map. 

2 See especially M. Cumont’s elaborate criticism of Dieterich’s Mithrasliturgie, 
in the Revue de ὦ Instruction Publique en Belgique. The “‘ Liturgy,” according 
to M. Cumont, is a ‘‘magic-book” after all, reproducing the thoughts and even 
the style of the Hermetic treatises ; but the writer, to enhance the value of his 
work, instead of following the ordinary method and publishing it as a revelation 
of Isis to Horus or of Hermes to Tat, presents it as a communication received 
by himself from the great foreign god Mithras through the intermediation of an 
archangel. 


366 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


regarded as in the Sublunary Region, must recite. The 
Prayer recited, he rises, using set forms of words (some of 
them perhaps ἄσημα ὀνόματα) at each stage, from the element 
of Earth to that of Water; then to Fire (sublunary, not 
celestial), and then to Air. Then, next, he stands before 
Doors’ of Fire which admit to the aethereal world of the 
Gods—the Spheres of the Planets. Standing before these 
Doors, the μύστης says, “1 too am a star which goeth 
along with you, rising with his beams out of the depth: 
oxyoxerthouth ”—éya εἰμι σύμπλανος ὑμῖν ἀστὴρ Kal ἐκ τοῦ 
βάθους ἀναλάμπων οξυοξερθουθ At these words the Door- 
keeper, the Fire-God, opens the Doors, and the μύστης enters 
the Region of the Planets, where the Sun appears and goes 
before him to the Pole. Arrived there, he is in the Sphere of 
the Fixed Stars—represented by the seven τύχαι and the 
seven πολοκράτορες, probably the Seven Stars of the Little 
Bear and the Great Bear round the Pole. Beyond the Pole 
and Sphere of the Fixed Stars is the throne of the Highest 
God, who guides the Great Bear, ἄρκτος, which, in turn, 
moves the Sphere of the Fixed Stars in a direction opposite 
to that in which the Planets move. Into the presence of this 
Highest God the μύστης at last comes; and the Liturgy ends 
with his words of adoration—xupve, χαῖρε, δέσποτα ὕδατος, 
χαῖρε, κατάρχα γῆς, χαῖρε, δυνάστα πνεύματος. κύριε, πάλιν 
γενόμενος ἀπογίγνομαι---ἰ die, I am born again— adfepevos 
καὶ αὐξηθεὶς τελευτῶ, ἀπὸ γενέσεως ζῳογόνου γενόμενος εἰς 
ἀπογενεσίαν ἀναλυθεὶς πορεύομαι, ὡς σὺ ἔκτισας, ὡς σὺ 
ἐνομοθέτησας καὶ ἐποίησας μυστήριον.ὃ 

Here, then, in the “ Mithras liturgy” we have the order 
of a sacrament carried out on lines laid down in the Vision 
of Parmenides and the Phaedrus Myth,—the astronomical 
eschatology of these pieces is embodied in a ritual—the actual 
ascension of the disembodied Soul is prepared for, and indeed 
guaranteed, in this life, by means of a dramatic representation 
of it, in which the μύστης is the actor. Associated thus with 
a practical end of the highest importance—the salvation of 
the piorns—the astronomical scheme would be likely to hold 
the field against all rivals; and this is what it actually did. 


1 There are Doors also through which Parmenides passes in his ascension, 
2 Dieterich, o.c. p. 8. 8 Dieterich, ac, p. 14. 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 307 


The notion of ἀνάβασις so completely extruded that of 
κατάβασις, that we find even the Place of Torment localised 
somewhere in the air—as by Plutarch, in his de facie in orbe 
lunae* and his Aridaeus-Thespesius Myth;* in the latter the 
region just under the moon is designated as the furthest point 
reached by Orpheus when he went to seek Eurydice—the 
traditional 'Opdéws κατάβασις is actually transformed into an 
᾿Ορφέως ἀνάβασις. 

I cannot but think that the extraordinary popularity 
obtained by the Astronomical Apocalypse was due to the fact 
that behind it sacramental ritual originally stood. It is 
certainly remarkable that the Hellenistic and early Christian 
period, which produced the Astronomical Apocalypse, was also 
the age of innumerable Sacramental Cults. We can hardly 
have here a mere coincidence. The Apocalypse, I take it, was 
valued, at first, as setting forth, in interesting narrative, the 
ascension which the ritual symbolised and guaranteed: 
indeed, it was probably valued for something more than its 
interesting narrative—for some sacramental value which it 
derived from the parent ritual. We seem to have this 
mysterious “something more” even in Dante’s conception of 
his own Apocalypse. His Vision of Paradise is to him a 
saving sacrament of which he has partaken :— 

O Donna, in cui la mia speranza vige, 
E che soffristi per la mia salute, 

In Inferno lasciar le tue vestige ; 
Di tante cose, quante io ho vedute, 
Dal tuo podere e dalla tua bontate 
τς Riconosco la grazia e la virtute. 

Tu m’ hai di servo tratto a libertate 
Per tutte quelle vie, per tutt’ i modi, 
Che di cid fare avei la potestate. 

La tua magnificenza in me custodi, 


Si che l anima mia, che fatt’ hai sana, 
Piacente a te dal corpo si disnodi.% 


In his note on this passage Mr. Tozer* says: “ Dante’s 


1 Chapter 28. 

2 De sera numinis vindicta, chapter 22. In his Introduction to The Book of 
the Secrets of Enoch (pp. xxxiv. ff.), Prof. Charles remarks that ‘‘the presence of 
evil in heaven caused no offence in early Semitic thought.” In the northern 
region of the Third Heaven Enoch sees the place of the damned, and Mahomet 
sees it in the First Heaven. 

$ Par. xxxi. 79 ff. 

4 English Commentary on Dante's ‘‘ Divina Commedia,” pp. 615, 616. 


368 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


conversion and ultimate salvation were the primary object of 
his journey through the three realms of the spiritual world.” 

The close connection between sacramental ritual or initia- 
tion and apocalypse is very clearly brought out in the Myth 
with which Plutarch ends his de sera numinis vindicta—the 
Vision of Aridaeus-Thespesius just now alluded to. The hero 
of the Myth is a wicked man called Aridaeus, who, as the 
result of an accident to his head, lies unconscious for three 
days, during which time his Soul (the rational part of it, but 
not the irrational) visits the world of spirits in the air, where 
he receives a new name, Thespesius. With this new name he 
returns to this world, a new man, regenerate, and lives ever 
after in the practice of virtue and religion. This Myth 
is one of a well-marked class of eschatological visions, or 
apocalypses, which render, in literary form, the ritual observed 
at initiation—initiation being viewed as a Death, and a New 
Birth, warranting the imposition of a New Name. Like the 
initiatory ritual which it renders, this type of apocalyptic 
vision involves what may be figured as the Death of the 
pvotns—by ecstasy he passes into a state from which he 
returns to his ordinary life a new man. 

It is as a new man—as one filled with a joy which is not 
of this world—that Dante returns from the apocalyptic vision, 
or initiation, of the Paradiso— 


Credo ch’ io vidi, perché pit di largo, 
Dicendo questo, mi sento ch’ io σοάο. 


The Paradiso is the last of the descendants of the 
Phaedrus Myth; and reveals its parentage in nothing so 
clearly as in its character of being, for its author, and even 
for ourselves, a μυστήριον----ἃ solemn ritual at which one may 
assist, not merely an admirable piece of literary workmanship. 

Plutarch’s Aridaeus-Thespesius Myth? seems to me to be 
so important for the understanding of what I have called the 
celestial and astronomical mise en scéne given to eschatology 
by Plato in the Phaedrus Myth, and, after him, by philosophers 
of different schools, by religious societies, more especially in 
the order of their sacramental ritual, by the apocalyptic writers, 
Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan, and, lastly, by Dante in 


1 Par, xxxiii. 92, 93. 2 De sera numinis vindicta, ch. 22. 


THE ΠΑΡΗ͂Ν MYTH 569 


his Paradiso, that I shall give the reader the opportunity of 
perusing the passage in Philemon Holland’s version : ἢ - 


There was one Thespesius of the city of Soli in Cilicia, who 
having led his youthful days very loosely, within a small time 
had wasted and consumed all his goods, whereby he was fallen 
for a certain space to extreme want and necessity, which brought 
him also to a lewd life, insomuch as he proved a very bad man ; 
and repenting his former follies and dispense, began to make 
shifts, and seek all means to recover his state again . . . he for- 
bare no lewd, indirect, and shameful practices, so they turned to 
his gain and profit, and within a little while he gat together not 
great store of goods, but procured to himself a bad name of 
wicked dealing, much shame, and infamy. But the thing that 
made him famous, and so much spoken of, was the answer de- 
livered unto him from the Oracle of Amphilochus, for thither had 
he sent, as it should seem, to know whether he should live the 
rest of his life better than he had done before. Now the oracle 
returned this answer: That it would be better with him after he 
was dead ; which in some sort happened unto him not long after : 
For being fallen from an high place with his head forward, with- 
out any limb broken, or wound made; only with the fall the 
breath went out of his body, and there he lay for dead ; and three 
days after, preparation being made for his funerals, carried forth 
he was to be buried; but behold all on a sudden he revived, and 
quickly came to himself again ; whereupon there ensued such a 
change and alteration in his life, that it was wonderful ; for by the 
report and testimony of all the people of Cilicia, they never knew 
man of a better conscience in all his affairs and dealings, whiles he 
did negotiate and dwell among them; none more devout and re- 
ligious to God-ward, none more fast and sure to his friends, none 
bitterer to his enemies ; insomuch as they who were most inward 
with him, and had kept his company familiarly a long time, 
were very desirous and earnest with him, to know the cause of 
so strange and sudden alteration. . . . Thus he reported unto 
them and said : That when the spirit was out of his body, he fared 
at the first (as he thought himself) like unto a pilot, flung out of 
his ship, and plunged into the bottom of the sea ; so wonderfully 
was he astonished at this change; but afterwards, when as by 
little and little he was raised up again and recovered, so that he 
was ware that he drew his breath fully, and at liberty, he looked 
round about him, for his soul seemed as if it had been one eye 
fully open; but he beheld nothing that he was wont to view, only 

1 The Philosophie, commoniie called The Morals, written by the learned 
Philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea, translated out of Greeke into English, and 


conferred with the Latine translations and the French, by Philemon\ Holland of 
Coventrie, Doctor in Physicke. London, 1603. 


28 


370 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


he thought that he saw planets and other stars of an huge bigness, 
distant an infinite way asunder, and yet for number innumerable, 
casting from them a wonderful light, with a colour admirable, 
the same glittering and shining most resplendent, with a power and 
force incredible, in such sort, as the said soul being gently and easily 
carried, as in a chariot, with this splendour and radiant light, as 
it were upon the sea in a calm, went quickly whithersoever she 
would ; but letting pass a great number of things worthy there 
to be seen, he said that he beheld how the souls of those that were 
departed this life, as they rose up and ascended, resembled certain 
small fiery bubbles, and the air gave way and place unto them as 
they mounted on high; but anon when these bubbles by little 
and little brast insunder, the souls came forth of them, and appeared 
in the form and shape of men and women, very light and nimble, 
as discharged from all poise to bear them down: howbeit, they 
did not move and bestir themselves all alike and after one sort; 
for some leaped with a wonderful agility, and mounted directly 
and plumb upright; others turned round about together like 
unto bobbins or spindles, one while up and another while down, so 
as their motion was mixed and confused, and so linked together, 
that unneth for a good while and with much ado they could be 
stayed and severed asunder. As for these souls and spirits, many 
of them he knew not (as he said) who they were; but taking 
knowledge of two or three among them who had been of his old 
acquaintance, he pressed forward to approach near and to speak 
unto them: but they neither heard him speak, nor indeed were in 
their right senses; but being after a sort astonied and beside 
themselves, refused once to be either seen or felt, wandering and 
flying to and fro apart at the first ; but afterwards, encountering and 
meeting with a number of others disposed like unto themselves, 
they closed and clung unto them, and thus linked and coupled 
together, they moved here and there disorderly without discretion, 
and were carried every way to no purpose, uttering I wot not 
what voices, after a manner of yelling or a black-sanctus, not 
significant nor distinct, but as if they were cries mingled with 
lamentable plaints and dreadful fear. Yet there were others to 
be seen aloft in the uppermost region of the air, jocund, gay and 
pleasant, so kind also and courteous, that oftentimes they would 
seem to approach near one unto another, turning away from those 
other that were tumultuous and disorderly. . . . Among these (by 
his own saying) he had a sight of a soul belonging to a kinsman 
and familiar friend of his, and yet he knew him not certainly, for 
that he died whiles himself was a very child; howbeit, the said 
soul, coming toward him, saluted him in these terms: God save 
you, Thespesius: whereat he marvelled much, and said unto him: 
I am not Thespesius, but my name is Aridaeus: True, indeed 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTIL 371 


(quoth the other), before-time you were so called, but from hence- 
forth Thespesius shall be your name; for dead you are not yet, 
but, by the providence of God and permission of Destiny, you are 
hither come, with the intellectual part of the soul; and as for all 
the rest, you have left it behind, sticking fast as an anchor to your 
body: and that you may now know this and evermore hereafter, 
take this for a certain rule and token; That the spirits of those 
who are departed and dead indeed, yield no shadow from them ; 
they neither wink nor yet open their eyes. Thespesius, hearing 
these words, began to pluck up his spirits so much the more, for 
to consider and discourse with himself: looking therefore every 
way about him, he might perceive that there accompanied him a 
certain shadowy and dark lineature, whereas the other souls shone 
round about, and were clear and transparent within forth, how- 
beit not all alike; for some yielded from them pure colour, uni- 
form and equal, as doth the full moon when she is at the clearest ; 
others had (as it were) scales or cicatrices, dispersed here and 
there by certain distant spaces between ; some again were wonder- 
ful hideous and strange to see unto, all to be specked with black 
spots, like to serpents’ skins; and others had light scarifications 
and obscure risings upon their visage. Now this kinsman of 
Thespesius discoursed severally of each thing, saying: That 
Adrasteia the Daughter of Jupiter and Necessity was placed 
highest and above the rest, to punish and to be revenged 
of all sorts of crimes and heinous sins, and that of wicked and 
sinful wretches there was not one (great or small) who either by 
force or cunning could ever save himself and escape punishment: 
but of one kind of pain and punishment (for three sorts there be 
in all) belonged to this gaoler or executioner, and another to that ; 
for there is one which is quick and speedy called ou}, that is 
Penalty, and this taketh in hand the execution and chastisement 
of those who immediately in this life (whiles they are in their 
bodies) be punished by the body, after a mild and: gentle manner, 
leaving unpunished many light faults, which require some petty 
purgation ; but such as require more ado to have their vices and 
sins cured, God committeth them to be punished after death to a 
second tormentress, named Δίκη, that is to say, Revenge; mary those 
who are so laden with sins that they be altogether incurable, when 
Δίκη hath given over and thrust them from her, the third minis- 
tress of Adrasteia, which of all other is most cruel, and named 
Erinnys, runneth after, chasing and pursuing them as they wander 
and run up and down; these (I say), she courseth and hunteth 
with great misery and much dolor, until such time as she have 
overtaken them all and plunged them into a bottomless pit of 
darkness inenarrable and invisible. . . . Observe well (quoth he) 
and consider the diverse colours of these souls of all sorts; for 


372 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


this blackish and foul duskish hue is properly the tincture of 
avarice and niggardise ; that which is deep red and fiery betokeneth 
cruelty and malice; whereas if it stand much upon blue it is a 
sign that there intemperance and looseness in the use of pleasures 
hath remained a long time, and will be hardly scoured off, for that 
it is a vile vice: but the violet colour and sweetish withal pro- 
ceedeth from envy, a venomous and poisoned colour. ... But 
here it is a sign that the purification of the soul is fully finished, 
whenas all these tinctures are done away quite, whereby the soul 
may appear in her native hue, all fresh, neat, clear, and lightsome. 
. . . Now, of these souls some there be which after they have 
been well and thoroughly chastised, and that sundry times, recover 
in the end a decent habitude and disposition ; but others again 
are such as the vehemence of their ignorance, and the flatter- 
ing shew of pleasures and lustful desire, transporteth them 
into the bodies of brute beasts . . . they desire by the means of 
the body to enjoy the fruition of their appetite; forasmuch as 
here there is nothing at all but a bare shadow, and as one would 
say, a vain dream of pleasure which never cometh to perfection 
and fulness. When he had thus said, he brought and led me 
away most swiftly an infinite way ; howbeit, with ease and gently, 
upon the rays of the light, as if they had been wings, unto a certain 
place where there was a huge wide chink tending downward still, 
and thither being come, he perceived that he was forlorn and for- 
saken of that powerful spirit that conducted and brought him 
thither ; where he saw that other souls also were in the same case; 
for being gathered and flocked together like a sort of birds, they 
fly downward round about this gaping chawne, but enter into it 
directly they durst not ; now the said chink resembled for all the 
world within the caves of Bacchus, so tapissed and adorned they 
were with the verdure of great leaves and branches, together with 
all variety of gay flowers, from whence arose and breathed forth 
a sweet and mild exhalation, which yielded a delectable and 
pleasant savour, wonderful odoriferous, with a most temperate air, 
which no less affected them that smelled thereof than the scent of 
wine contenteth those who love to drink: in such sort as the 
souls, feeding and feasting themselves with these fragrant odours, 
were very cheerful, jocund and merry ; so as round about the said 
place there was nothing but pastime, joy, solace, mirth, laughing 
and singing, much after the manner of men that rejoice one with 
another, and take all the pleasure and delight that possibly they 
can. And he said, moreover, that Bacchus by that way mounted 
up into the society of the Gods, and afterwards conducted Semele; 
and withal, that it was called the place of Lethe, that is to say, 
Oblivion: whereupon he would not let Thespesius, though he 
were exceeding desirous, to stay there, but drew him away per- 


THE PHARDRUS MYTH 373 


force ; instructing him thus much and giving him to understand, 
that reason and the intelligible part of the mind is dissolved and, 
as it were, melted and moistened by this pleasure; but the un- 
reasonable part which savoureth of the body, being watered and 
incarnate therewith, reviveth the memory of the body ; and upon 
this remembrance, there groweth and ariseth a lust and con- 
cupiscence, which haleth and draweth unto generation (for so he 
called it), to wit, a consent of the soul thereto, weighed down and 
aggravated with over much moisture. Having therefore traversed 
another way as long as the other, he was ware that he saw a 
mighty standing bowl into which diverse rivers seemed to fall and 
discharge themselves, whereof one was whiter than the foam of the 
sea or driven snow, another of purple hue or scarlet colour, like to 
that which appeareth in the rainbow; as for others, they seemed 
afar off to have every one of them their distinct lustre and several 
tincture. But when they approached near unto them, the afore- 
said bowl, after that the air about was discussed and vanished 
away, and the different colours of those rivers no more seen, left 
the more flourishing colour, except only the white. Then he saw 
there three Daemons or Angels sitting together in triangular form, 
medling and mixing the rivers together with certain measures. 
And this guide of Thespesius’s soul said, moreover, that Orpheus 
came so far when he went after his wife ; but for that he kept not 
well in mind that which he there saw, he had sowen one false tale 
among men; to wit, that the oracle at Delphi was common to 
Apollo and the Night (for there was no commerce or fellowship 
at all between the Night and Apollo). But this oracle (quoth he) 
is common to the Moon and the Night, which hath no determinate 
and certain place upon the Earth, but is always errant and wander- 
ing among men by dreams and apparitions ; which is the reason 
that dreams compounded and mingled, as you see, of falsehood and 
truth, of variety and simplicity, are spread and scattered over 
the world. But as touching the oracle of Apollo, neither have 
you seen it (quoth he), nor ever shall be able to see; for the 
terrene substance or earthly part of the soul is not permitted to 
arise and mount up on high, but bendeth downward, being fastened 
unto the body. And with that he approached at once nearer, en- 
deavouring to shew him the shining light of the three-feet or three- 
footed stool, which (he said) from the bosom of the goddess Themis 
reached as far as to the Mount Parnassus. And having a great 
desire to see the same, yet he could not, his eyes were so dazzled 
with the brightness thereof; howhbeit, as he passed by, a loud 
and shrill voice he heard of a woman, who, among other things 
delivered in metre, uttered also, as it should seem by way of pro- 
phecy, the very time of his death: and the Daemon said it was 
the voice of Sibylla; for she, being carried round in the globe 


574 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


and face of the moon, did foretell and sing what was to come: but 
being desirous to hear more, he was repelled and driven by the 
violence of the moon, as it were with certain whirl-puffs, clean a 
contrary way; so he could hear and understand but few things, 
and those very short ; namely, the accident about the hill Vesuvius, 
and how Dicaearchia should be consumed and burnt by casual fire, 
as also a clause or piece of a verse, as touching the emperor who 
then reigned, to this effect :— 


A gracious prince he is, but yet must die, 
And empire leave, by force of malady. 


After this they passed on forward to see the pains and torments 
of those who were punished; and there at first they beheld all 
things most piteous and horrible to see to; for Thespesius, who 
doubted nothing less, met in that place with many of his friends, 
kinsfolk, and familiar companions, who were in torment, and 
suffering dolorous pains and infamous punishment they moaned 
themselves, lamenting and calling and crying unto him. At the 
last he had a sight of his own father rising out of a deep pit; full 
he was of pricks, gashes, and wounds, and stretching forth his 
hands unto him, was (mauger his heart) forced to break silence, 
yea, and compelled by those who had the charge and super- 
intendence of the said punishments, to confess with a loud and 
audible voice, that he had been a wicked murderer of certain 
strangers and guests whom he had lodged in his house; for 
perceiving that they had silver and gold about them, he had 
wrought their death by the means of poison; and albeit he had 
not been detected thereof in his lifetime, whiles he was upon the 
earth, yet here was he convicted and had sustained already part 
of his punishment, and expected to endure the rest afterwards. 
Now Thespesius durst not make suit nor intercede for his father, 
so affrighted he was and astonied; but desirous to withdraw 
himself and be gone, he lost sight of that courteous and kind 
guide of his which all this while had conducted him, and he saw 
him no more: but he might perceive other horrible and hideous 
spirits who enforced and constrained him to pass further, as if it 
were necessary that he should traverse still more ground: so he 
saw those who were notorious malefactors, in the view of every 
man (or who in this world had been chastised), how their shadow 
was here tormented with less pain, and nothing like to others, as 
having been feeble and imperfect in the reasonless part of the 
soul, and therefore subject to passions and affections ; but such as 
were disguised and cloaked with an outward appearance and 
reputation of virtue abroad, and yet had lived covertly and 
secretly at home in wickedness, certain that were about them 
forced some of them to turn the inside outward, and with much 


ΤῊΝ PHAEDRUS MYTH 375 


pain and grief to lay themselves open, to bend and bow, and 
discover their hypocritical hearts within, even against their own 
nature, like unto the scolopenders of the sea, when they have 
swallowed down an hook, are wont to turn themselves outward : 
but others they flayed and displayed, discovering plainly and 
openly how faulty, perverse, and vicious they had been within, 
as whose principal part of the reasonable soul vice had possessed. 
He said, moreover, that he saw other souls wound and interlaced 
one within another, two, three, and more together, like to vipers 
and other serpents, and these not forgetting their old grudge and 
malicious ranker one against another, or upon remembrance of 
losses and wrongs sustained by others, fell to gnawing and 
devouring each other. Also, that there were three parallel lakes 
ranged in equal distance one from the other; the one seething 
and boiling with gold, another of lead exceeding cold, and a 
third, most rough, consisting of iron: and that there were certain 
spirits called Daemons which had the overlooking and charge of 
them ; and these, like unto metal-founders, or smiths, with certain 
instruments either plunged in, or drew out, souls. As for those 
who were given to filthy lucre, and by reason of insatiable avarice 
committed wicked parts, those they let down into the lake of 
melted gold, and when they were once set on a light fire, and 
made transparent by the strength of those flames within the said 
lake, then plunged they were into the other of lead; where after 
they were congealed and hardened in manner of hail, they trans- 
ported them anew into the third lake of iron, where they became 
exceeding black and horrible, and being cracked and broken by 
reason of their dryness and hardness, they changed their form, 
and then at last (by his saying) they were thrown again into the 
foresaid lake of gold, suffering by the means of these changes and 
mutations intolerable pains. But those souls (quoth he) who 
made the greatest moan unto him, and seemed most miserably 
(of all others) to be tormented, were they who, thinking they 
were escaped and past their punishment, as who had suffered 
sufficiently for their deserts at the hands of vengeance, were taken 
again and put to fresh torments; and those they were for whose 
sins their children and others of their posterity suffered punish- 
ment: for whensoever one of the souls of their children or 
nephews in lineal descent either met with them, or were brought 
unto them, the same fell into a fit of anger, crying out upon 
them, shewing the marks of the torments and pains that it 
sustained, reproaching and hitting them in the teeth therefor ; 
but the other, making haste to fly and hide themselves, yet were 
not able so to do; for incontinently the tormentors followed after 
and pursued them, who brought them back again to their punish- 
ment, crying out and lamenting for nothing so much as that they 


376 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


did foresee the torment which they were to suffer, as having 
experience thereof already. Furthermore, he said that he saw 
some, and those in number many, either children or nephews, 
hanging together fast like bees or bats, murmuring and grumbling 
for anger, when they remembered and called to mind what 
sorrows and calamities they sustained for their sake. But the 
last thing that he saw were the souls of such as entered into 
a second life and new nativity, as being turned and transformed 
forcibly into other creatures of all sorts, by certain workmen 
appointed therefor, who, with tools for the purpose, and many a 
stroke, forged and framed some of their parts new, bent and 
wrested others, took away and abolished a third sort; and all, 
that they might sort and be suitable to other conditions and 
lives: among which he espied the soul of Nero afflicted already 
grievously enough otherwise, with many calamities, pierced 
thorough every part with spikes and nails red-hot with fire: 
and when the artisans aforesaid took it in hand to transform it 
into the shape of a viper, of which kind (as Pindarus saith) the 
young ones gnaweth through the bowels of the dam to come into 
the world, and to devour it, he said that all on a sudden there 
shone forth a great light out of which there was heard a voice 
giving commandment that they should metamorphose and trans- 
figure it into the form of another kind of beast more gentle and 
tame, forging a water-creature of it, chanting about standing 
lakes and marishes ; for that he had been in some sort punished 
already for the sins which he had committed, and besides, some 
good turn is due unto him from the gods, in that, of all his 
subjects, he had exempted from tax, tallage, and tribute the best 
nation and most beloved of the gods, to wit, the Greeks. Thus 
far forth, he said, he was only a spectator of these matters; but 
when he was upon his return, he abid all the pains in the world 
for very fear that he had; for there was a certain woman, for 
visage and stately bigness admirable, who took hold on him, and 
said: Come hither, that thou mayest keep in memory all that 
thou hast seen the better: wherewith she put forth unto him 
a little rod or wand all fiery, such as painters or enamellers use ; 
but there was another that stayed her: and then he might 
perceive himself to be blown by a strong and violent wind with 
a trunk or pipe, so that in the turning of an hand he was within 
his own body again, and so began to look up with his eyes 
in manner out of his grave and sepulchre. 


Let me now call the reader’s attention to some points 
which ought to be noticed in the foregoing Myth. 

The Myth, as I said, is one of a well-marked class of 
Eschatological Myths (to which the Timarehus Myth in 


THE PHARDRUS MYTH 377 


Plutarch’s de Genio Socratis also belongs) based on the ritual 
observed at Initiation, which, indeed, they merely transfer 
from the sanctuary in this world to the world of spirits, 
The apparent death of Aridaeus-Thespesius stands in the 
Myth for the ceremonial death which an initiated person 
suffers, who, in simulating actual death by falling into a 
trance, or even by allowing himself to be treated as a corpse, 
dies to sin in order to live henceforth a regenerate life in this 
world. The accident which brings on the state of apparent 
death is a literary device adopted in order to give veri- 
similitude to the idea that the Soul of Aridaeus-Thespesius 
actually visits the other world, and returns to this world to 
tell the tale. By this device the experiences of a newly 
initiated person returning to ordinary life a regenerate man 
are transformed into those which an actual revenant from 
beyond the grave would have to tell. The accident which 
befalls Aridaeus-Thespesius is, in fact, the mythological 
equivalent of the ἔκπληξις which confounds the candidate at 
the beginning of his Initiation—an ἔκπληξις comparable with 
the sharpness of death, and resulting in a trance, during 
which he is ceremonially a dead man. 


Pour acquérir une Ame nouvelle (says M. le Comte Goblet 
d’Alviella),! “il faut renoncer ἃ l’ancienne ; il faut d’abord mourir. 
Aussi la plupart des initiations impliquent-elles une mort 
apparente, soit qu’on soumette le néophyte ἃ une immolation 
simulée, soit qu’on lui impose un voyage au pays des défunts. 
Mourir, disait Plutarque, en jouant sur les mots, c’est étre 
initié: τελευτᾶν Ξε τελεῖσθαι. Réciproquement, pourrait-on ajouter, 
étre initié, cest mourir. Du moins c’est encourir une mort 
temporaire pour revivre dans les conditions différentes et meil- 
leures. En ce sens J'initiation est bien une ré-génération. 1] 
en était ainsi chez les anciens, aussi bien que parmi les peuplades 
non civilisées dont je viens de décrire les coutumes.” 

Nous voyons par le récit d’Apulée que l’initiation aux mystéres 
d'Isis était envisagée comme une mort volontaire conduisant ἃ 


1 Eleusinia (Paris, 1903), p. 63. 

2 o.c. p. 62: ‘‘ Dans certaines parties du Congo, les jeunes gens en Age de 
passer hommes feignent de tomber morts. Emportés par les féticheurs dans 
la forét, ils y passent plusieurs mois, parfois plusieurs années; puis ils ren- 
trent dans leur famille, mais ils doivent se comporter comme s’ils avaient tout 
oublié de leur vie antérieure, y compris le langage et l’habitude de se nourrir 
eux-mémes. On doit refaire leur éducation, comme s'il s’agissait de nouveau- 
nés.” Cf. W. H. Bentley, Life on the Congo (London, 1887), pp. 78 ff. 


378 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


une autre vie.! Les mystéres de Cybéle comprenaient le tauro- 
bole et le criobole, ou linitié, couché dans une fosse, recevait sur 
le corps le sang d’un taureau ou d’un bélier; dés ce moment il 
devenait tawrobolio criobolioque in aeternum renatus.2 Dans Inde, 
aujourd’hui encore, le jeune brahmane qui veut se fair initier 
ἃ la connaissance du Véda par un gourou doit se soumettre ἃ une 
cérémonie qui le fait prétendument repasser ἃ l'état d’embryon.® 
Enfin, au sein du Christianisme, le baptéme qui constitue la for- 
malité essentielle de l’entrée dans la communauté des fidéles a 
toujours été présenté comme un ensevelissement symbolique en 
vue d’une résurrection spirituelle* On lit sur larchitrave du 
baptistére du Latran, le plus ancien de la chrétienté actuelle, la 
devise suivante, qu’y avait fait graver, au V° siécle, le pape 
Xystus ili. :— 

Caelorum regnum sperate, hoc fonte renati ; 

Non recipit felix vita semel genitos. 


La prestation des voeux, dans certains ordres religieux, qui est 
une véritable initiation, comprend une célébration de loffice des 
morts sur le novice couché dans une biére ou étendu sous un 
suaire, entre quatre cierges. Aprés le chant du Miserere, il se 
reléve, fait le tour de l’assistance en recevant le baiser de paix 
et va communier entre les mains de l’abbé. De ce jour, il prend 
un nouveau nom qu'il gardera jusqu’é la mort.® 


1 Met. xi. 

2 Corp. Insc. Lat. vi. p. 97, No. 510. 

3 Sacred Books of the East, vol. xliv. pp. 86-90. Perhaps we may be allowed 
to bring into comparison with this custom another custom mentioned by Dr. 
Budge: speaking of a certain prehistoric form of burial in Egypt, he says 
(Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life, p. 162 ff.): ‘‘They are buried in the ante- 
natal position of a child, and we may perhaps be justified in seeing in this 
custom the symbol of a hope that as the child is born from this position into the 
world, so might the deceased be born into the life in the world beyond the 
grave. .. . The Egyptians continued to mummify their dead, not believing 
that their physical bodies would rise again, but because they wished the 
spiritual body to ‘sprout’ or ‘germinate’ from them, and if possible—at least 
it seems so—to be in the form of the physical body.” 

4 Rom. vi. 4, Coloss. ii. 12, ‘‘ Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye 
are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised 
him from the dead.” 

5 Ceremoniale benedictinum, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (Paris, 
Gaume, 1863), t. xix. pp. 184, 185. 

® See also Dieterich (Hine Mithrasliturgie, pp. 158-161, 166, 175), and 
authorities cited by him (e.g. Frazer, The Golden Bough, iii. 442 ff. ; Codrington, 
The Melanesians, 39), for the wide prevalence among primitive, as well as among 
civilised races, of this view of Initiation (whether Initiation at the age of 
a or at other times) asa Death (simulated by the novice) and a ew 

sirth, followed often by the imposition of a New Name. When ceremonial 
Death takes the form of actual unconsciousness, a stupefying drink is generally 
the agent employed. I would suggest that the drinking of the water of Lethe, 
in Greek mythology, by Souls about to be born again in the flesh, has its origin 
in this custom of administering a stupefying drink to the patients of initiatory 
rites, who ‘‘ die to live.” 
‘For all Greek mysteries,” says Mr. A. Lang (Homeric Hymns, p. 93), ‘‘a 


THE ΓΠΑ ΗΝ MYTH 379 


The Place of Lethe, in the Aridaeus-Thespesius Myth, is 
difficult to localise; but it is evidently a place Souls come 
to in their descent from the aethereal and aerial regions, lying 
somewhere between these regions and the Earth. The foliage 
and flowers of the place remind us of the Terrestrial Paradise, 
midway between Heaven and Earth, in which Dante places 
the Stream of Lethe. Plutarch’s whole description, however, 
reflects the doctrine, which we afterwards find in Plotinus 
and others of the Neo-Platonic school, of the Mirror and Bowl 
of Dionysus, and cannot properly be brought into line with 
such a description of the River of Lethe as we have in the 
Myth of Er. In one point, however, the two descriptions 
seem to be at one—the Place of Lethe is not subterranean. 

The Bowl, the Oracle of Night and the Moon, at which 
the three Daemons sit, mixing dreams, is, I think, the Moon, 
above which the Soul of Aridaeus-Thespesius cannot rise, 
because the irrational part of it is still in the body on Earth. 
As we learn from the de facie in orbe lunae,’ that part, as well 
as the rational part, rises, at the death of the body on Earth, 
up to the Moon; and it is only when the death of the 
irrational part has taken place on the Moon that the rational 
part can rise to its original home, the Sun. The rational 
part of the Soul of Aridaeus-Thespesius, then, comes near to, 
but may not pass, the Moon; and can only see from afar the 
glory of the true Delphi which is eternal in the Heavens— 
the Sun, the seat of Apollo, the home of Reason. Orpheus, 
when he went to seek Eurydice, came, Aridaeus-Thespesius is 
told, only as far as the Oracle of Dreams, i.e. the Moon. The 
celestial or astronomical eschatology, which, in Plutarch, has 
taken the place of the terrestrial, converts, we thus see, the 

, " , : > ΄, 9 
κατάβασις Opdéws into an ἀνάβασις." 
satisfactory savage analogy can be found. These spring straight from human 
nature ; from the desire to place customs, and duties, and taboos under divine 
protection ; from the need of strengthening them, and the influence of the 
elders, by mystic sanctions ; from the need of fortifying and trying the young 
by probations of strength, secrecy, and fortitude ; from the magical expulsion of 
hostile influences ; from the sympathetic magic of early agriculture ; from study 
of the processes of nature regarded as personal; and from guesses, surmises, 
visions, and dreams as to the fortunes of the wandering soul on its way to its 
final home.” 

1 Chapters 28-30. 
2 Mr. Arthur Fairbanks (Class. Rev. Nov. 1901), commenting on Soph. Ajaz, 


1192, and quoting Eur. He/. 1016, 1219, Frag. 971, Suppl. 1140, connects the 
ascension of Souls into the aether with the practice of cremation. 


380 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


The torments of Hell or Purgatory are described in the 
Aridaeus-Thespesius Myth with almost Dantesque power ; 
indeed, the three lakes and the treatment of Souls in them 
present a picture of terror which it would be hard to out- 
match in literature. But where is the place of these 
torments? Under the Earth? I think not. The following 
passage in the de facie in orbe lunae seems to me to be 
conclusive in favour of locating these torments in the lower 
region of the air: πᾶσαν ψυχήν, ἄνουν τε Kal σὺν νῷ, σώματος 
ἐκπεσοῦσαν, εἱμαρμένον ἐστὶ τῷ μεταξὺ γῆς καὶ σελήνης 
χωρίῳ πλανηθῆναι χρόνον οὐκ ἴσον: ἀλλ᾽ αἱ μὲν ἄδικοι καὶ 
ἀκόλαστοι δίκας τῶν ἀδικημάτων τίνουσι' τὰς δ᾽ ἐπιεικεῖς, 
ὅσον ἀφαγνεῦσαι καὶ ἀποπνεῦσαι ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος, ὥσπερ 
αἰτίου πονηροῦ, μιασμούς, ἐν τῷ πρᾳοτάτῳ τοῦ ἀέρος, ὃν 
λειμῶνας ἅδου καλοῦσι, δεῖ γίνεσθαι χρόνον τινὰ τεταγμένον. 
The conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing passage seems 
to be borne out by the passage at the beginning of the 
Aridaeus-Thespesius Myth, where Souls are seen ascending 
like bubbles—Souls of all sorts, good, bad, and indifferent, 
each sort distinguished by its own colour; and the gulf, or 
χάσμα, Which Timarchus sees in the de genio Socratis Myth, 
he sees when he is no longer within sight of the Earth: it 
is the place of torment—a seething abyss of air (1 think), 
on the surface of which half-submerged Souls are seen floating, 
like stars or will-o’-the-wisps.2 At the same time it must 
be admitted that Plutarch’s power of place-visualisation is 
not so clear and distinct as to leave one without doubt as to 
the locality of his Place of Torment—it may, after all, be 
subterranean, not aerial; I am inclined, however, to think 
that, following undoubted precedent,®? he makes it aerial— 
that he localises the whole eschatological drama— Inferno, 
Purgatorio, and Paradiso—in the air and aether. 

There is another point of interest which ought to be 
noticed in connection with the Aridaeus-Thespesius Myth 
—the remarkably developed power of colour-visualisation of 

1 Plutarch, de fac. in orbe lun. 28. * De gen. Soc. 22. 

* See Rohde, Psyche, ii. 319, n. 4, where the Stoical doctrine of the levity of 
the Soul is alluded to as incompatible with its κατάβασις, and Sext. adv. phys. 1, 
71, is quoted for this—xal yap οὐδὲ ras ψυχὰς ἔνεστιν ὑπονοῆσαι κάτω φερομένας. 
λεπτομερεῖς γὰρ οὖσαι els τοὺς ἄνω μᾶλλον τόπους κουφοφοροῦσι. See supra, 


Ρ. 367, n. 2, for the localisation of Hell in the Third Heaven by the writer of 
the Secrets of Enoch. 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 381 


which it affords evidence. Effects of light, lustre, and colour 
constantly appeal to us, But, on the other hand, the power 
of place-and-form-visualisation seems to be deficient, or, at 
any rate, not to be developed equally with that of colour- 
visualisation. Plutarch’s other great Eschatological Myth— 
that in the de genio Socratis—likewise affords evidence of 
highly developed power of colour-visualisation with, at any 
rate, comparatively little power of place-and-form-visualisa- 
tion! Highly developed power of visualising in both kinds 
—in both colour and form—is indeed a rare gift. Dante 
had it. Place and Form are as distinct in the Jnferno and 
Purgatorio as Light and Colour are glorious in the Paradiso. 
Plato visualises Place and Form with great distinctness, but 
not, I think, with Dante’s convincing distinctness; the 
Abstract Thinker competed, in Plato, with the Poet to a much 
greater extent than in Dante. In power of colour-visualisa- 
tion, however, Dante is greatly Plato’s superior; and com- 
paring Plato and Plutarch in this respect, I would say that 
the latter gives, at any rate, more evidence of the possession 
of the power than the former does. Against the remarkable 
colour effects of the Myths in the de genio Socratis and the 
de sera numinis vindicta, we can only set, from Plato’s Myths, 
some much more ordinary effects—that of the description, in 
the Phaedo Myth, of the party-coloured Earth seen from above, 
that of the colour of the Stygian Region in the same Myth, 
that of the rainbow-coloured pillar in the Myth of Er, and 
certain general effects of light conveyed by words here and 
there in the Phaedrus Myth. This is not the place to pursue 
the subject of the relation of highly developed power of 
colour-visualisation and highly developed power of form- 
visualisation to each other and to other faculties in the Man 
of Science and the Poet respectively. It is a subject which 
has special importance for the psychology of the poetical 
temperament, and deserves more attention, in that connection, 
than it has hitherto received; although invaluable service has 
already been done, in the way of laying the foundation from 
which any such special inquiry must start, by Mr. F. Galton 
in his Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development 
(1883), to which the reader is now referred. 


1 This Myth is given on pp. 441 ff. 


382 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


wok 


1 


ἡ ἀπὸ Μουσῶν κατοκωχή τε καὶ μανία 

It was maintained in the Introductory Part of this work 
that the Poet performs his essential function as Poet only in 
so far as he rouses Transcendental Feeling in his patient, 
and that he does so by inducing in him the state of dream- 
consciousness. It is characteristic of this state, as induced 
by the Poet, that it does not continue for any appreciable 
length of time, but takes the form of fitfully recurrent lapses 
in the midst of a waking consciousness, which it is also the 
Poet’s function—but only as skilled workman, not as inspired 
Poet—to furnish with suitable objects. As workman the 
Poet must have skill to tell a story, whether in narrative, 
or in dramatic or in lyrical form, whether true or fictitious, 
which shall be interesting to the waking consciousness as 
a story—which shall appeal powerfully to our natural love of 
“anthropology,” and to other common sentiments of the 
human breast. The interesting story, with its appeal to our 
common sentiments, constitutes, as it were, the Body of the 
poem, and bulks largely— 


She would na ha’e a Lowland Laird, 
Nor be an English Lady ; 

But she’s awa wi’ Duncan Graham, 
An’ he’s row’d her in his plaidie. 


This is “what the poem is about ”—its subject matter, its 
Body—and is always with us. But the Soul—the essential 
Poetry of a poem, is apprehended only at those moments 
when the common sentiments—-wonder, love, pity, dread, 
curiosity, amusement— roused by the workman’s artistic 
handling of the subject-matter, are satisfied fantastically, as 
in a dream, by some image presented or suggested, or by some 

1 Phaedrus, 245.4: τρίτη δὲ ἀπὸ Μουσῶν κατοκωχή τε καὶ μανία λαβοῦσα 
ἁπαλὴν καὶ ἄβατον ψυχὴν ἐγείρουσα καὶ ἐκβακχεύουσα κατά τε ᾧδὰς καὶ κατὰ 
τὴν ἄλλην ποίησιν μυρία τῶν παλαιῶν ἔργα κοσμοῦσα τοὺς ἐπιγιγνομένους 
παιδεύει. ὃς δ' ἂν ἄνευ μανίας Μουσῶν ἐπὶ ποιητικὰς θύρας ἀφίκηται, πεισθεὶς ὡς 
ἄρα ἐκ τέχνης ἱκανὸς ποιητὴς ἐσόμενος, ἀτελὴς αὐτός τε καὶ ἡ ποίησις ὑπὸ τῆς 
τῶν μαινομένων ἡ τοῦ σωφρανοῦντος ἠφανίσθη. 


* Plato’s Jon should be read in connection with this. It is a study of ‘‘ Poetic 
Inspiration,” 


THE PHALDRUS MYTH 383 


mysterious omen of word or phrase or cadence, It is in 
giving such satisfaction to natural sentiments which his art 
has aroused in his patient that the Poet shows his genius 
as distinguished from his art. His gift is a sort of μαντικὴ 
xa’ ὕπνον. In sleep some ordinary sensation of cold, or 
heat, or of some other kind, starts an explanatory pageant 
of dream-images. So in the Poet’s mind some common senti- 
ment, which he experiences more vividly than other men as 
he tells his story, expresses itself suddenly in some image or 
other representation ; and his reader, in whose mind he has 
already roused the same sentiment by his story, welcomes the 
image or other representation, as expressing the sentiment— 
as relieving the weight of it, as solving the mystery of 
it, as justifying it. It is in a dream, fantastically, that the 
relief, the solution, the justification, are found; for the Poet’s 
image, the product in him of the dream-consciousness, becomes 
in the Poet’s patient the producer of a state of consciousness 
like that which produced it in the Poet. The case is 
analogous to that of one mimicking or dwelling on the out- 
ward expression of a mental state in another, and having the 
state thereby produced by reaction in himself. 

The dream-state produced in the patient by the reaction 
on his consciousness of the imagery, and other dream-products, 
supplied by the genius of the Poet, though it lasts as dream- 
state but for a moment, yet leaves an effect behind which 
persists more or less sensibly throughout the waking con- 
sciousness which follows; and if the lapses into the dream- 
state induced by a poem are frequent, the effect, persisting in 
the waking consciousness which apprehends the subject-matter, 
becomes always more and more impressive. This effect may 
be described as a feeling of having lately been in some δαιμόνιος 
τόπος, where the true reasons of the things which happen in 
this world of ordinary experience are laid up; a Place in 
which one understood the significance of these things, although 
one cannot now explain what one then understood. In the 
Phaedrus Myth, where the Souls peep over the edge of the 
Cosmos for a moment into the πεδίον ἀληθείας beyond, and 
then sink down into the region of the sensible, this feeling of 
“having just now understood the true significance of things” 
is pictorially rendered. 


984 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


I venture to urge on those who discuss that vexed 
question—“ What is Poetic Truth?” the importance of not 
neglecting this “feeling of having just now understood the 
true significance of things “—a feeling which, of course, is 
experienced pretty generally, and quite apart from the in- 
fluence of Poetry, although in the case of those who come 
under that influence it is so elaborately procured and regu- 
lated as to become an important factor in their lives. When 
we are told by the exponents of “ Poetic Truth,” from Aristotle 
downwards, that it is the “ Universal,’—that “ Poetry sets 
forth the Universal,’—we are not asked to believe that there 
are Universals (in the plural) of Poetry like those of Science 
—principles supplhed by Poetry which explain particulars, or 
furnish some definite guidance in respect of them, as, eg., the 
Law of Gravitation “explains” the orbits of the planets, or 
even as the “Principles of Economics” furnish guidance in 
particular cases arising in the course of business. If, then, 
the exponents of “ Poetic Truth” do not claim for the “ Uni- 
versal” of Poetry that it provides any such explanation or 
guidance in detail, what do they understand it to be and do? 

It seems to me that their exposition amounts to this :— 
The Universal of Poetry is that which does for the details of 
the Poet’s interesting Story or Picture what “ Knowledge of 
the Good” does for the objects of Conduct: it is οἷον τὸ φῶς, 
as it were a Light, in which they are bathed and altered 
—an atmosphere of solemn elemental feeling through 
which we see the representations of Poetry, as we see the 
presentations of Social Life—dits claims and temptations— 
through the medium of the Sense of Duty, If this is 
what the doctrine of the “Universal of Poetry,” as ex- 
pounded by those who have written on the subject, amounts 
to, I am entirely in agreement with them. I am merely 
putting their doctrine in other words when I state my own 
view as follows :—The “ Universal of Poetry” is apprehended 
by us when, having entered at the beck of the Poet, our μυστα- 
ywyos, into the vast wonderland of the dream-consciousness, 
we presently return therefrom to the waking world of his 
interesting story, and see its particulars again with the eyes 
of revenants who now know their secret meaning—or rather, 
know that they have a secret meaning—that they represent, 


THE ΜΑ͂Σ MYTH 385 


here in the world of our ordinary observations and sentiments, 
the truth of a deeper order of reality. So, Plato’ will have 
his Guardians believe that the particular events of their lives 
here are but representative doubles of things which are accom- 
plished in a real life behind: the Guardians are to be told 
that “their youth was a dream ”——that they merely imagined 
that they were being educated here: in reality, all the while, 
it was elsewhere, in the womb of their Mother Earth, that 
they were being fashioned and nurtured. 

Let me not be misunderstood. I do not underrate the 
importance in Poetry of all that appeals to our love of 
“anthropology.” The Odyssey must be interesting as, say, the 
Voyages of Columbus are interesting; the Songs of Burns and 
Goethe must be interesting as the common sentiments and 
experiences which they set forth are interesting to us all in 
our own lives and the lives of our neighbours. Minute 
character-drawing, the picturesque portrayal of people as they 
strike the eye in their surroundings, dramatic representation 
of their doings and fortunes, and description of the natural 
world, especially as scene of man’s adventures and musings— 
all these, in their proper places, must be supplied by the Poet ; 
but they are what I have called the Body of Poetry—they 
constitute the material which the Soul of Poetry inspires. 
The material must, indeed, be interesting to the waking con- 
sciousness, if it is to be inspired; but it may well be interest- 
ing without being inspired. The inspiration, I have argued, 
if it comes, comes from the dream-consciousness. The Soul of 
Poetry is apprehended in its Body at the moment when we 
awake from the “ Poet’s Dream,” and on a sudden see the passing 
figures and events of his interesting story arrested in their 
temporal flight, like the “brede of marble men and maidens ἢ 
on the Grecian Urn, and standing still, swb specie aeternitatis, 
as emblems—of what ?—of Eternal Verities,the purport of which 
we cannot now recall; but we know that they are valid, and are 
laid up in that other world from which we are newly returned.” 

1 Republic, 414. 

2 See Plotinus, Znn. vi. 9. 9 and 10: speaking of the return from the ecstatic 
to ordinary, consciousness, he says—-dtc¢pacrov τὸ θέαμα (what was seen in the 
ecstatic state). πῶς yap ἂν ἀπαγγείλειέ τις ὡς ἕτερον οὐκ ἰδὼν ἐκεῖνο bre ἐθεᾶτο 
ἕτερον, ἀλλὰ ἕν πρὸς ἑαυτόν : and see infra, p. 387, where it is contended that the 


feeling of being ‘‘one with the world” is that experienced when great poetry 
exerts its influence most powerfully. 
20 


386 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


It may be objected that “Poetic Truth” is not rated 
highly enough when its “ Universal” is identified with a 
“vague feeling” of some inexplicable significance attaching to 
objects and sentiments, within the sphere of ordinary experi- 
ence, which are brought before us in the Poet’s story. The 
patent fact that Poetry “elevates” men’s lives may be urged 
against a view which reduces its “ Truth” to the low level, it 
may be thought, of a feeling of the “Irrational Part of the 
Soul.” I would meet this objection by referring to what I 
have said about the relation of the conscious Self of waking 
experience—the sensitive and rational Self—to the Self of 
the dream-consciousness, and of both to the unconscious Self 
of the “ Vegetative Part of the Soul,” in which they have 
their roots. The Vegetative Part, I argued, is the principle 
within us which inspires the conscious life with that which 
is the foundation of conduct, and (when we turn to specula- 
tion) the beginning and end of Metaphysics—that faith in 
reality and goodness in the strength of which we struggle on, 
seeking ever new experiences and adventures. J put no 
slight, therefore, upon the “ Universal of Poetry” if I ascribe 
it to the inspiration of this fundamental principle making 
itself felt in consciousness, not in the normal form of implicit 
belief in the Worth of Life, but less normally as the dream- 
intuition of a ground of that belief. The Metaphysician is 
too often found trying to set forth a ground which shall be 
plain to the Understanding, forgetting that 


Thou canst not prove the Nameless, 

Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in, 
For nothing worthy proving can be proven, 
Nor yet disproven. 


The Poet does better: he induces the dream-intuition of a 
ground, and leaves us with the wonder of the vision haunting 
our minds when we wake to pursue the details of his interest- 
ing story. 

But in what form, it will be asked, does this ground of 
our faith present itself to the dream-consciousness? It 
presents itself, I would answer, as “another world” one, 
unchanging, good, certified, by the testimony of one swift 
act of perfect intuition, to exist beyond, or rather within, the 


THE ΠΑΝ MYTH 387 


world of multiplicity and change and trouble which the senses 
and understanding present to us; and, recapitulating all that 
I have said in this section, and other parts of this work, I 
would describe the way in which the Poet brings us to this 
intuition as follows :— 

The Poet, by means of words, makes us, his patients, see 
those wondrous images of the familiar things of human life 
and experience which he himself sees.’ We dream his dream. 
But, in a moment, our dream is past, and we see, with the 
waking mind’s eye, the familiar things which, a moment 
before—or was it not ages ago ?’—were so wondrously trans- 
formed for the dreaming mind’s-eye. Henceforth all is 
changed. Whatever bit of interesting human life and ex- 
perience the Poet has taken for his “subject,’——be it the 
situation which appeals to tender sentiment in a love-song, 
-the action which appeals to pity, fear, grief, risibility, expect- 
ant curiosity, in a play, the world of nature which appeals to 
us as scene of man’s adventures and musings, in a poem of 
observation and reflection,— whatever be the interesting bit of 
human life and experience which the Poet has presented to 
us, it is now, for us also, no longer a mere particular experi- 
ence. We now see this bit of common experience in a setting 
of mysterious feeling. When we try to explain to ourselves 
what this mysterious feeling is which can so wondrously 
transfigure a bit of common experience, we are fain to borrow 
the language of logic, and speak of it as a “ Universal ”— 
“the particular,” we say, “is no longer a particular: it bears 
the image of the Universal, reflects the light of the Uni- 
versal.” But this so-called “ Universal” is no conceptual 
product of the logical understanding: the logical understand- 
ing, like the senses, regards the World as a number of more or 
less connected items external to itself; but this feeling which 
is come over us is the feeling of being one with the World. 
This feeling of being one with the World is the reflection, in 
consciousness, of the condition of that unconscious “ Vegetative 

1 «* Als die einfachste und richtigste Definition der Poesie méchte ich diese 
aufstellen, dass sie die Kunst ist, durch Worte die Einbildungskraft ins Spiel 
zu versetzen’’ (Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, ii. 484). 
Poesis est genus doctrinae, verbis plerumque adstrictum, rebus solutum et 
licentiosum ; itaque ad phantasiam refertur, quae iniqua et illicita prorsus 


rerum conjugia et divortia comminisci et machinari solet (Bacon, de Augm. 
Se. ii. cap. 13). 


388 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Soul” in us which is the foundation of our conscious life— 
which, by its continuous activity, sustains the broken activities 
of our conscious life, and correlates them, and inspires us with 
invincible faith in a real World, as part of which, or as one 
with which, it is good to live. This faith is the stuff out of 
which the Thinking Faculty, in course of time, constructs its 
preposterous “ontology,” or theory of a real World in which, 
and of which, it is good to be—a theory which consists in 
the production of ex post facto reasons for what Transcendental 
Feeling, representing, in consciousness, the condition of the 
unconscious “ Vegetative Soul” in us, lays down as a sure 
first principle,—that behind, or rather within, the temporal 
world of particular items presented to us in the life of the 
senses and understanding,—behind the world of “phenomena 
which we can never explain” and “ passions of which we have 
not yet formed clear and distinct ideas,” there is an eternal 
World—one, unchangeable good. This is the World which the 
“Vegetative Part of the Soul” puts its trust in; and the 
other “ Parts,’ sensitive and rational, follow its lead—with 
increasing hesitation and scepticism as “ higher” operations of 
consciousness come into play: but yet they follow— 


” ’ > > ~ Ν ’ > e , 
ἄγου δέ μ᾽ ὦ Zev καὶ σύ γ᾽ ἡ Πεπρωμένη 
ὅποι ποθ᾽ ὑμῖν εἰμι διατεταγμένος᾽ 

ΠῚ μή / > ” Ἂ \ ‘\ / 

ὡς ἕψομαί γ᾽ aoxvos: ἢν δὲ μὴ θέλω. 
κακὸς γενόμενος, οὐδὲν ἧττον ἕψομαι. 


To feel of a sudden that there is surely an eternal World 
behind, or within, the temporal world of particular items, is 
to experience the κάθαρσις which Poetry—one among other 
agencies—effects in us. 

I would conclude this Section with some remarks on 
the place of Metrical Form — melodious and rhythmic 
diction—and of Imagination, or Representation, respectively 
in Poetry. 

If the essential function of Poetry, as Poetry, is to rouse 
Transcendental Feeling by inducing lapses into the state of 
dream-consciousness, it is easy to see that metrical form is helpful 
towards the exercise of this function, Metrical form repre- 
sents song and dance, both natural expressions of, and both 
powerfully reacting on, those modes of what may be called 





THE ΠΑΝ MYTH 389 


Empirical ' Feeling which have been most influential in the 
development of man as social being—sympathy with kinsmen 
and associates, joy and sorrow, love and hatred, confidence and 
fear, experienced by each man in common with the other 
members of his tribe.” When we civilised men are subjected 
to the influence of metrical diction, we are visited, in our soli- 
tude, by faint shadows, as it were, of those actual feelings 
which social song and dance expressed and strengthened in 
primitive man, As experiencing these feelings in this shadowy 
form, we are, ipso facto, withdrawn from the current world of 
actual feelings, sense-impressions, and concepts of the under- 
standing, and carried away to the confines of the dream-world 
into which it is the peculiar office of the Poet to transport us, 
in order that we may see, just for a moment, the creations 
with which he has filled it, and then may return, surrounded 
by an atmosphere of Transcendental Feeling, to see, in the 
waking world of his interesting story, the doubles of these 
creations reflecting, each with its own specific tint, the solemn 
light of that feeling. But is metrical form absolutely necessary 
to the exercise of this peculiar office of Poetry ? For an answer 
to this question I go to a great poet, than whom there is none 
greater, I think, whether he be judged by power of rousing 
Transcendental Feeling or by mastery of the art of versifica- 
tion—to Coleridge. “The writings of Plato,” he says,’ “and 


11 venture to speak of ‘‘ Empirical Feeling”’ as distinguished from ‘‘ Tran- 
scendental Feeling.’’ Empirical Feeling has such modes as love, hate, fear, anger, 
surprise ; they are specifically marked off from one another, and are always 
experienced each in a set of circumstances, or in relation to some object, which 
is ΠΩΣ marked off from other sets of circumstances or other objects. These 
modes of feeling accordingly, like the objects which arouse them, come into con- 
sciousness, or supervene ; they are ἃ posteriori data of consciousness—empirically 
received. But Transcendental Feeling—Faith in the Worth of Life—is not a 
datum of conscious experience, like this or that mode of Empirical Feeling ; it 
does not merely supervene or come into consciousness ; it is already involved 
in consciousness ; it is the a priori condition of conscious activity ; if we had it 
not, we should not endure to live and seek after the @ posteriori data which make 
the content of life. 

2 **Circling in the common dance, moving and singing in the consent of com- 
mon labour, the makers of earliest poetry put into it those elements without which 
it cannot thrive now. . . . It is clear from the study of poetic beginnings that 
poetry in its larger sense is not a natural impulse of man, simply as man. His 
rhythmic and kindred instincts, latent in the solitary state, found free play only 
under communal conditions, and as powerful factors in the making of society.’"— 
Gummere, The Beginnings of Poetry (1901), p. 4738. I find much that I can 
agree with in Prof. Gummere’s book ; but I think that he (together with many 
others) is wrong in making metrical form essential to Poetry. 

3 Coleridge, Biogr. Lit. ch. xiv. 


390 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Bishop Taylor, and the Zheoria Sacra of Burnet, furnish 
undeniable proofs that poetry of the highest kind may exist 
without metre, and even without the contradistinguishing 
objects of a poem ;” and again,’ “ Metre in itself is simply a 
stimulant of the attention ... I write in metre, because 1 
am about to use a language different from that of prose.” The 
evidence of Wordsworth is to the same effect; but as he is not 
a great master of versification, as Coleridge is, his evidence 
may be thought, perhaps, to be less valuable :—“It has been 
shown that the language of Prose,” Wordsworth says in the 
Preface to the Second Edition of his Poems (including Lyrical 
Ballads), “may yet be well adapted to Poetry; and it was pre- 
viously asserted that a large portion of the language of every 
good poem can in no respect differ from that of good Prose. 
We will go farther. It may be safely affirmed that there 
neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the 
language of Prose and metrical composition. . . . I here use 
the word ‘Poetry’ (though against my own judgment) as 
opposed to the word Prose, and synonymous with metrical com- 
position. But much confusion has been introduced into criticism 
by this contradistinction of Poetry and Prose, instead of the 
more philosophical one of Poetry and Matter of Fact, or Science. 
The only strict antithesis to Prose is Metre; nor is this, in 
truth, a strict antithesis, because lines and passages of metre so 
naturally occur in writing prose, that it would be scarcely 
possible to avoid them, even were it desirable.” If this 
evidence, as coming from one who is no great master of versi- 
fication, be thought lightly of, it ought, on the other hand, to 
be remembered that Wordsworth is Coleridge’s peer in power 
of rousing Transcendental Feeling, and exercises this power 
often through the medium of studiously prosaic diction. His 
Poetry, therefore, is evidence, apart altogether from his critical 
opinion just quoted, in favour at least of the view that full 
poetic effect can be produced where the diction is hardly dis- 
tinguishable from that of prose. 

The view maintained by Coleridge and Wordsworth” is 
not, it would seem, orthodox. Recent critics of Poetry are 


1 Coleridge, o.c. ch. xviii. 
2 And Shelley, A Defence of Poctry: ‘‘The distinction between poets and 
prose writers is a vulgar error.” 


THE "ΗΑ MYTH 391 


generally in favour of the view that metrical form is an 
essential condition of the existence of “ Poetry.” ὦ 

Now, the difference between a great poet himself and 
critics of the ars poetica who are not, and do not pretend to 
be, great poets, or even poets at all, appears to me to be worth 
defining ; and I venture to define it as follows :-— 

A great poet, like Wordsworth or Coleridge, is so intent 
upon the End of Poetry that he uses the means with little 
thought of what they happen to be in themselves. Critics of 
Poetry, on the other hand, even when they are endowed with 
personal feeling for the End of Poetry, are apt, as critics, to 
take that End for granted, and devote their attention exclu- 
sively to the very interesting subject of the means whereby it 
is achieved. They assume that, of course, a great poet pro- 
duces “poetic effect”; but not cherishing that effect as a 
personal experience to be received with undiminished wonder 
and joy whenever they read his poetry, they are apt, in their 
capacity of critics, to lose clear sight of it, and then to mistake 
for part of it something entirely distinct from it—the mere 
aesthetic effect produced by the melody and rhythm un- 
doubtedly present in most cases where there is Poetry. This 
mistake, I venture to think, lurks in the following definition 
of “ Poetry,” which may be taken as expressing the view of a 
large, and in some respects, meritorious class of critics—-those 
who are impressed by the “ necessity of considering literature 
as material of science ” :—“ Poetry is literature, usually of a 
high degree of Human Interest, which, in addition to its 
Human Interest, has in it an added Aesthetic Interest,” 1.6. 
appeals to “an aesthetic sense of rhythm.”* Here it may be 
that “heagh Human Interest”—though said to be only 
“usually” present—stands for the End of Poetry as Words- 
worth and Coleridge understand it; but the attainment of 
this end is made entirely dependent on successful appeal to 

? A collection of opinions on this subject, I should think pretty nearly com- 
plete, and certainly somewhat embarrassiug by reason of the often very minute 
differences recorded, will be found in Professor Gummere’s work, The Beginnings 
of Poetry (1901); see also Professor Butcher’s Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and 
Fine Art, pp. 143-147, and Mr. Adam’s‘note on Republic, 601 8B, 9. Plato and 
Aristotle both make μῦθος the essential thing in Poetry: μέτρον is ancillary: see 
Phaedo, 61 8, and Poet. 1451 b 29, quoted by Mr. Adam. 

2 An Introduction to the Scientific Study of English Poetry, by Mark H. 


Liddell (1902), pp. 72 and 65. See also Gummere, o.c. ch. ii., ‘‘ Rhythm as the 
Essential Fact of Poetry.” 


392 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


the aesthetic sense of rhythm—metrical form is made absolutely 
necessary to the exercise of the essential function of Poetry. 
Indeed, so vital is the connection between “metre” and 
“poetry” conceived to be, that we are asked to regard the 
rhythmic structure of the diction as only the outer form of a 
“rhythmic structure of ideation”: there can be no Poetry 
where there is not only a rhythmic structure of diction, but a 
rhythmic structure of ideation." 

While maintaining that not only is “Verse Form 
Interest” "—successful appeal to the aesthetic sense of rhythm 
—no part of the true poetic effect, but that metrical form is 
not essential, even as means, to the production of true poetic 
effect, I, of course, am ready to admit that, when metrical 
form is absent, poetic effect is produced with greater difficulty 
than when that form is present; for the appeal made to the 
Self of the dream-consciousness is so much the weaker as 
being made solely through dream-scenery, without the aid of 
the nascent emotion accompanying the suggested Song and 
Dance. But dream-scenery suggested by the plainest prose is 
often, I submit, enough, by itself, to make the malzew in which 
it is possible to experience the true poetic effect. This could 
be illustrated abundantly from the Icelandic Sagas. On the 
other hand, it is often the case that the destruction of the 
metrical form, dream-scenery being left untouched, destroys 
that miliew: of this Plato gives us an amusing example in 
Republic, 393 καὶ ff, where liad, i. 17 ff., is turned into prose ; 
and, as Professor Gummere asks,” “ What would be left in prose, 
any prose, of Goethe’s Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh’?” Nothing 
of that particular poem certainly, the original diction of which 
is metrical. But, I submit, there are poems the original 
diction of which is not metrical. Because a poem, originally 
composed in metrical form, is spoilt as a poem by translation 
into prose, it does not follow that “prose” is impossible as the 
original form in which a poem may be composed. “ There is no 
valid test for the historian save this test of rhythm,” says Pro- 
fessor Gummere.* It is a rough test—convenient, I dare say, 
for the purpose of the historian ; but the philosophical student 
cannot accept it as having any value for his own purpose. 


1 Liddell, o.c. p. 145. 2 0.c p. 74. 
3 6,6. p. 49. 4 0.6. pp. 49, 50. 


THE PHARDRUS MYTH 393 


I would class metrical form, then, along with interesting 
story and skilful word-painting, as a part—an important, but 
not absolutely necessary part—-of the méiliew in which the 
genius of the Poet finds it possible to produce poetic effect in 
his patient; that effect itself, of course, being something 
essentially distinct from the interest felt in the story, from 
the specific emotions roused by its incidents and scenery, or 
from the πάθος caused (it may be, first of all in the vocal 
chords') by the rhythm and melody of the words, whether 
spoken or unspoken. In the miliew of imagery and emotion 
produced by the Poet’s story or description, especially when it 
is couched in melodious language,” the Poet’s patient is ready 
to experience, when the “ psychological moment” arrives, that 
sudden flash of Transcendental Feeling in which, I contend, 
the essence of poetical effect consists. 

I venture to think that the exaggerated importance attached 
to metrical form, regarded as an essential condition of poetic 
effect, has been responsible for the comparatively scanty atten- 
tion paid by recent writers on the nature of Poetry to the 
immensely important part played by Representation, simply 
as Representation, in the creation of what I have called the 
poetic mziew, to distinguish it from poetic effect. The Greek 
identification of ποίησις with μίμησις seems to me to have 
the root of the matter in it, if we understand by μίμησις the 
production of the poetic milieu, and take κάθαρσις (as it appears 
in Aristotle’s Poetics) to stand for the poetic effect—the fiash 
of Transcendental Feeling in that milieu. 

The Poetic malieu, as I have argued throughout this work, 
is a state of dream-consciousness—not, indeed, shut off, as in 
sleep, from the waking state, but concurrent with, or inserted 
into, it. As we read or listen to Poetry we are in a day- 
dream. We are, indeed, aware of the “real things” of this 
world round about us; and yet we are in another world, not 
of “real things,” but of representations, imitations, pictures, 


1 “T believe that with careful self-observation many men ‘with an ear for 
verse’ will recognise that the essential part of poetic excitation has lain in scarcely 
perceptible changes of tension in the muscles of the throat” (Myers, Human Per- 
sonality, i. 102). I confess that it is with much astonishment that I find Myers 
among those who make the sense of nascent melodious speech in the vocal chords 
the essential condition of experiencing poetic effect. 

2 Mr. W. B. Yeats in his book, The Idea of Good and Evil, p. 16, propounds 
the charming idea of ‘‘ poems spoken to a harp.” 


394 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


reflections. These reflections resemble the “real things ”— 
and yet, they are quite different from them—as different as 
the upside-down trees in the pool of water are different from 
the real trees of which they are reflections. The reflections 
of Poetry, like those of the pool, are in another world. What 
do they mean? ‘They are more beautiful than the “real 
things” of this world. The “real things” therefore cannot 
account for them. ‘They are copies surely of “ eternal things” 
existing somewhere. Where? Such is the reasoning, and 
such is the final ἀπορία, or impasse, of the dream-consciousness 
which the Poet can induce in his patient simply by means of 
Representation. Sometimes the patient does not get beyond 
the ἀπορία or impasse; sometimes—and this is to experience 
the true poetic effect—the impasse is opened for a moment, 
the ἀπορία is solved in a swift act of intuition—too swift, 
alas! for the truth revealed to be retained in the memory : 


Vedela tal, che, quando il mi ridice, 
Io non lo intendo, si parla sottile 
Al cor dolente, che lo fa parlare.? 


I have spoken of objects reflected in a pool of water. The 
feeling which such reflections cause is, I think, very nearly 
akin to that which poetic μίμησις causes. The phantasms of 
real things in water, in painting, in word-painting, lend 
themselves to the feeling that there is “another world.” 
They are seen in a strange light and atmosphere, and, as we 
look at them, the world of waking experience recedes, and 
we pass into dreamland—as we do sometimes on a still 
autumn evening when we see familiar houses and trees 
silhouetted against the pure sky, like things in a picture 
which we now look at for the first time with wonder and 
eerie surmise. 

Shelley’s rendering of the feeling produced by reflections in 
water is worth careful consideration as a great poet’s record 
of an experience which is closely related to, if not identical 
with, that produced by poetical “Imitation,” or “ Repre- 
sentation.” I close this section by quoting his lines? as an 
answer—not the less valuable because not intended by the 


1 Vita Nuova, Sonetto xxv. 
2 The Recollection. 


THE PHAEDRUS MYTH 395 


poet himself to be an answer—to the question, What is the 
end of Poetry, and how does Imitation subserve that end ἢ 


We paused beside the pools that lie 
Under the forest bough, 

Each seemed as ’twere a little sky 
Gulfed in a world below ; 

A firmament of purple light, 
Which in the dark earth lay, 

More boundless than the depth of night, 
And purer than the day— 

In which the lovely forests grew, 
As in the upper air, 

More perfect both in shape and hue 
Than any spreading there. 

There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, 
And through the dark-green wood 

The white sun twinkling like the dawn 
Out of a speckled cloud. 

Sweet views which in our world above 
Can never well be seen, 

Were imaged by the water’s love 
Of that fair forest green. 

And all was interfused beneath 
With an Elysian glow, 

An atmosphere without a breath, 
A softer day below. 





ΡῚ ὅγὺν ay] = 
ἂν "Δ΄ 1. 





»! 
τ. ~ 
Μ"' 
ΣᾺ | 
i¢ ᾿ 
᾿ _— ᾿ ᾿ 
"ἃς " a 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 
CONTEXT 


THE subject of the Symposium, like that of its companion 
Dialogue, the Phaedrus, is Love. 

The subject is treated, from various points of view, in 
speeches made, in succession, by those present at a Banquet 
in the house of Agathon the tragedian—by Phaedrus, by 
Pausanias, by Eryximachus, by Aristophanes, by Agathon 
himself, by Socrates reporting the Discourse of Diotima the 
Woman of Mantinea, and lastly by Alcibiades. 

Two of these speeches—that of Aristophanes, and that of 
DMotima, reported by Socrates—are Myths. 


397 


1896 


398 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Symposium 189 c—193 D. 


. \ rn ΝΜ \ a 
Eyol yap δοκοῦσιν ἄνθρωποι παντάπασι τὴν τοῦ ἔρωτος 
͵ > ? a > \ ᾽ / / ’ A 
δύναμιν οὐκ ἠσθῆσθαι, ἐπεὶ αἰσθανομενοί ye μέγιστ ἂν 
r e \ , \ \ a 
αὐτοῦ ἱερὰ κατασκευάσαι καὶ βωμοὺς καὶ θυσίας ἂν ποιεῖν 


/ “ lal / , 
μεγίστας, οὐχ ὥσπερ νῦν τούτων οὐδὲν γίγνεται περὶ αὐτόν, 


Ὁ δέον πάντων μάλιστα γίγνεσθαι. ἔστι γὰρ θεῶν φιλανθρω- 


190 


/ / / “ 
πότατος, ἐπίκουρός τε ὧν τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἰατρὸς τούτων, 
> 4 θέ , ὧν , A A > 6 , , 
ὧν ἰαθέντων μεγίστη εὐδαιμονία ἂν τῷ ἀνθρωπείῳ γένει 
\ 9 / nr / 
εἴη. ἐγὼ οὖν πειράσομαι ὑμῖν εἰσηγήσασθαι τὴν δύναμιν 
αὐτοῦ, ὑμεῖς δὲ τῶν ἄλλων διδάσκαλοι ἔσεσθε. δεῖ δὲ 
-“ ς an a \ > / / \ \ , 
πρῶτον ὑμᾶς μαθεῖν THY ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν καὶ τὰ παθήματα 
» rn «ς \ / ἡ “ / > cf 9 “ ἴω 
αὐτῆς. “H yap πάλαι ἡμῶν φύσις οὐχ αὕτη ἦν ἥπερ νῦν, 
, - Ν / a 
ἀλλ᾽ ἀλλοία. πρῶτον μὲν yap τρία ἣν τὰ γένη τὰ τῶν 
“ a / ” \ / 
ἀνθρώπων, οὐχ ὥσπερ νῦν δύο, ἄρρεν καὶ θήλυ, ἀλλὰ καὶ 
“ \ x / 4 a 
τρίτον προσῆν κοινὸν ὃν ἀμφοτέρων τούτων, οὗ νῦν ὄνομα 
λουπό ὑτὸ δὲ ἠφάνισται' ἀνδρόγυνον γὰρ ἕν τό ὲν ἢ 
ouTrov, αὐτὸ δὲ ἠφάνιστ, avopoy yap ἕν τότε μὲν ἣν 
\ 3 \ ” > > / \ fa Μ 
καὶ εἶδος καὶ ὄνομα ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων κοινὸν τοῦ τε ἄρρενος 
lal > 2 es > / 
καὶ θήλεος, νῦν δ᾽ οὐκ ἔστιν adr ἢ ἐν ὀνείδει ὄνομα κεί- 
” e/ 9S ς / lal > 0 / \ 3 
μενον. ἔπειτα ὅλον ἦν ἑκάστου τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τὸ εἶδος 
, la \ \ / 4 a \ 
στρογγύλον, νῶτον Kal πλευρὰς κύκλῳ ἔχον. χεῖρας δὲ 
\ a / \ / 
τέτταρας εἶχε, Kal σκέλη τὰ ἴσα ταῖς χερσί, καὶ πρόσωπα 
7 ἃ ὧν > 7] a Ὁ / \ ’ a 
δύο ἐπ αὐχένι κυκλοτερεῖ, ὁμοια πάντῃ" κεφαλὴν δ᾽ ἐπ 
a / / / 
ἀμφοτέροις τοῖς προσώποις ἐναντίοις κειμένοις μίαν, καὶ 
= / \ 3 a / \ 2 7 ς δ᾽. “Ἂν 
ὦτα τέτταρα, καὶ αἰδοῖα δύο, καὶ τἄλλα πάντα ὡς ἀπὸ 
/ » > / > / \ \ ᾽ \ “ 
τούτων ἄν τις εἰκάσειεν. ἐπορεύετο δὲ καὶ ὀρθὸν ὥσπερ 
- ΄ , / \ e / \ « 7 Cal 
νῦν, ὁποτέρωσε βουληθείη: καὶ ὁπότε ταχὺ ὁρμήσειε θεῖν, 
“ ς A > > \ \ , , 
ὥσπερ οἱ κυβιστῶντες εἰς ὀρθὸν τὰ σκέλη περιφερόμενοι 
" 7 » \ / i) a / > / 
κυβιστῶσι κύκλῳ, ὀκτὼ τότε οὖσι τοῖς μέλεσιν ἀπερειδόμενοι 
\ lol 
ταχὺ ἐφέροντο κύκλῳ. ἣν δὲ διὰ ταῦτα τρία τὰ γένη καὶ 
“ Ν ‘ a / \ ᾽ \ ¥ 
τοιαῦτα, OTL TO μὲν ἄρρεν ἣν τοῦ ἡλίου THY ἀρχὴν ἔκγονον, 
fal rn a / / fol / 
τὸ δὲ θῆλυ τῆς γῆς, TO δὲ ἀμφοτέρων μετέχον τῆς σελήνης, 
, , a \ Πα 
ὅτι καὶ ἡ σελήνη ἀμφοτέρων μετέχει. περιφερῆ δὲ δὴ ἦν 


΄ “Ὁ \ “ “Ὁ “ 
καὶ αὐτὰ καὶ ἡ πορεία αὐτῶν διὰ τὸ τοῖς γονεῦσιν ὅμοια 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 399 


TRANSLATION OF THE ΜΥΤῊ TOLD BY ARISTOPHANES 


Men, methinks, have altogether failed of apprehending the 
power of Love; for had they apprehended it, for him would 
they have builded the greatest temples and the greatest 
altars, and unto him would bring the greatest burnt offerings ; 
whereas now no such honours are paid unto him—honours 
meet for him above all other gods; for he is that one of them 
all who loveth men most; he is the helper of mankind, and 
our physician where healing bringeth the greatest happiness. 
I will therefore endeavour to instruct you in his power; and 
you shall teach others. 

First must be told what Human Nature is, and what are 
the affections thereof. 

Human Nature was not originally what it now is, but 
different; for, in the first place, there were three genders of 
mankind,—not as now, two—male and female, but a third in 
addition thereto—a common gender composite of the two. 
This gender itself is clean gone, and only the name thereof 
remaineth, Man-Woman, as a name of reproach. Secondly, 
the whole form of every human creature was round, whereof 
the back and sides made one circumference; and it had four 
hands, and likewise four legs; and two faces, altogether 
similar to each other, upon a round neck; and on the top 
of these faces, which were set opposite to each other, one 
head; and four ears; and there were two privy members; 
and all the other parts after the same manner; and these 
people walked upright, as men do now, whithersoever they 
would; and also, when they desired to go quickly, they 
rolled quickly round, pushing off with their eight lmbs, 
like tumblers who tumble over and over with their legs going 
round in the air. 

Now the genders were three, and of this sort, because the 
male gender was in the beginning sprung from the Sun, and 
the female gender from the Earth, and that which partook of 
both from the Moon—for the Moon partaketh of both Sun 
and Earth: so it came to pass that they themselves and their 
manner of progression were circular after the likeness of 


400 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 
εἶναι. ἣν οὖν τὴν ἰσχὺν δεινὰ Kal τὴν ῥώμην, καὶ τὰ 


φρονήματα μεγάλα εἶχον, ἐπεχείρησαν δὲ τοῖς θεοῖς, καὶ 


or 


λέγει Ὅμηρος περὶ ᾿Εφιάλτονυ τε καὶ "Ὥτου, περὶ ἐκείνων 


/ \ >’ \ > \ > / » nan al ec 
C λέγεται, TO εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνάβασιν ἐπιχειρεῖν ποίειν, ὡς 


191 


> / - al 
ἐπιθησομένων τοῖς θεοῖς. 
ς / ty \ 
O οὖν Ζεὺς καὶ of ἄλλοι θεοὶ ἐβουλεύοντο, 6 TL χρὴ 
fal / 7 
αὐτοὺς ποιῆσαι, καὶ ἠπόρουν: οὔτε γὰρ ὅπως ἀποκτείναιεν 
e 7, Ν / 
εἶχον Kal ὥσπερ τοὺς γίγαντας κεραυνώσαντες TO γένος 
> , e \ \ > a \ e \ \ \ n 
ἀφανίσαιεν--- αἱ τιμαὶ yap αὐτοῖς Kal ἱερὰ τὰ Tapa τῶν 
ἀνθρώπων ἠφανίζετο---οὔθ᾽ ὅπως ἐῴεν ἀσελγαίνειν oye 
ρώπων ἢ ς ἐφ γαίνειν. μόγις 
e / / e la » y 
δὴ ὁ Ζεὺς ἐννοήσας λέγει, ὅτε Δοκῶ μοι, ἔφη, ἔχειν 
/ ς Xx 27 ” \ / A 
μηχανήν, ὡς ἂν elev τε ἄνθρωποι Kai παύσαιντο τῆς 
> / > / / a \ \ > Ad 
ἀκολασίας ἀσθενέστεροι yevomevot. νῦν μὲν yap αὐτούς, 
» “ / Ψ \ Ὁ \ > / 
ἔφη, διατεμῶ δίχα ἕκαστον, καὶ ἅμα μὲν ἀσθενέστεροι 
» Ὁ \ , Ἐν \ \ / \ 
ἔσονται, ἅμα δὲ χρησιμώτεροι ἡμῖν διὰ τὸ πλείους τὸν 
ἀριθμὸν γεγονέναι" καὶ βαδιοῦνται ὀρθοὶ ἐπὶ δυοῖν σκελοῖν. 
Αἵ > ” “ > 7 Ν \ 24 ς / 
ἐὰν δ᾽ ἔτι δοκῶσιν ἀσελγαίνειν καὶ μὴ ἐθέλωσιν ἡσυχίαν 
” / 5 7 a / A 3) ADA? re / 
ἄγειν, πάλιν ad, ἔφη, τεμῶ δίχα, ὥστ᾽ ἐφ᾽ ἑνὸς πορεύσονται 
/ > / a) ᾿] \ ” \ > / 
σκέλους ἀσκωλίζοντες. Ταῦτα εἰπὼν ἔτεμνε τοὺς ἀνθρώπους 
/ ef e \ ” / \ / / 
δίχα, ὥσπερ οἱ τὰ ὄα τέμνοντες καὶ μέλλοντες ταριχεύειν, 
nN 4 e \ > \ a / “ Ν / \ 
ἢ ὥσπερ of Ta ὠὰ ταῖς θριξίν. ὅντινα δὲ τέμοι, τὸν 
; U / / le) 
Ἀπόλλω ἐκέλευε TO TE πρόσωπον μεταστρέφειν Kal TO TOU 
\ \ / Ὡ“ , an 
αὐχένος ἥμισυ πρὸς τὴν τομήν, wa θεώμενος τὴν αὑτοῦ 
A , " e A \ 5 5. 
τμῆσιν κοσμιώτερος εἴη ὁ ἄνθρωπος, καὶ τἄλλα ἰᾶσθαι 
oS: ff e \ / / / \ / 
ἐκέλευεν. ὁ δὲ TO TE πρόσωπον μετέστρεφε, καὶ συνέλκων 
/ \ / BS \ / a - 
πανταχόθεν τὸ δέρμα ἐπὶ THY γαστέρα viv καλουμένην, 
a \ / / ἃ / a > y 
ὥσπερ Ta σύσπαστα βαλάντια, ἕν στόμα ποιῶν ἀπέδει 
\ , \ / 4 \ \ > \ A \ 
κατὰ μέσην τὴν γαστέρα, ὃ δὴ τὸν ὀμφαλὸν καλοῦσι. καὶ 
᾽ \ \ 
Tas μὲν ἄλλας ῥυτίδας τὰς πολλὰς ἐξελέαινε καὶ τὰ στήθη 
a / 
SunpOpov, ἔχων τι τοιοῦτον ὄργανον, οἷον οἱ σκυτοτόμοι, 
\ ‘ / / “ A € / 
περὶ τὸν καλόποδα λεαίνοντες τὰς τῶν σκυτῶν ῥυτίδας" 
᾽ / \ / \ \ > \ \ / \ \ 
ὀλίγας δὲ κατέλιπε, τὰς περὶ αὐτὴν THY γαστέρα Kal τὸν 


ὀμφαλόν, μνημεῖον εἶναι τοῦ παλαιοῦ πάθους. ἐπειδὴ οὖν 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 401 


their parents: and they were terrible by reason of their 
strength and valour; and their hearts were proud, and they 
made assault upon the Gods; for that which Homer telleth 
concerning Kphialtes and Otus is told concerning them—that 
they essayed to go up into Heaven for to lay hands on the 
rods. 

Wherefore Zeus and the other Gods took counsel what 
they should do, and were in doubt; for they were not 
minded to slay them, as they slew the giants, with thunder- 
bolts, and to make men to cease utterly from the Earth, for 
then would the worship and the sacrifices which men render 
unto the Gods also cease; nor were they minded to let them 
go on in their iniquities. At last after a long while Zeus 
bethought him of this that followeth, and said: “I have 
found out a way, methinks, of keeping men alive, and yet 
making them weaker, so that they shall cease from their 
wickedness: I will cut each one of them in twain; and so 
shall they be made weaker, and also more serviceable for us, 
having been increased in number; and they shall walk 
upright on two legs; and if I see them again behaving 
themselves frowardly and not willing to live peaceably, 1 
will cut them yet again in twain,” he said, “so that they shall 
go hopping on one leg.” 

Having spoken thus, he straightway began to cut men in 
twain, as one cutteth apples for pickling, or eggs with hairs; 
and each one whom he cut in twain he delivered unto Apollo, 
and commanded him to turn round the face and half of the 
neck towards the cut, so that the fellow, beholding it, might 
behave himself more seemly ; likewise the other parts did he 
command Apollo to dress: and Apollo turned the face round, 
and pulled the skin together from all parts over that which 
is now called the belly, even as one draweth together a purse, 
and the one opening which was left he closed and made fast 
in the middle of the belly—this is that which they now call 
the navel; and smoothing out all the other wrinkles every- 
where, he fashioned the breasts with an instrument like unto 
that wherewith cobblers smooth out the wrinkles of the 
leather round the last ; but he left a few wrinkles about the 
belly itself and the navel, to be for a memorial of that which 
had been done of old. 

2D 


402 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


c / , > / rn “ \ e \ ς -“ 
ἡ φύσις δίχα ἐτμήθη, ποθοῦν ἕκαστον τὸ ἥμισυ τὸ αὑτοῦ 
, ΄, \ A , 
Evyner, καὶ περιβάλλοντες τὰς χεῖρας καὶ συμπλεκόμενοι 
> / > “ a 3 / e \ a 
ἀλλήλοις, ἐπιθυμοῦντες συμφῦναι, ἀπέθνησκον ὑπὸ τοῦ 

- an / / \ Ν / 
Β λιμοῦ Kal τῆς ἄλλης ἀργίας διὰ TO μηδὲν ἐθέλειν χωρὶς 
᾽ an « / a 
ἀλλήλων ποιεῖν. Kal ὁπότε TL ἀποθάνοι τῶν ἡμίσεων, TO 
\ » 
δὲ λειφθείη, TO λειφθὲν ἄλλο ἐζήτει καὶ συνεπλέκετο, εἴτε 
a / / / a \ a “ nr 
γυναικὸς τῆς ὅλης ἐντύχοι ἡμίσει, ὃ δὴ νῦν γυναῖκα καλοῦ- 
ΝΜ..." > / \ ο > / / \ « 
μεν, εἴτ᾽ ἀνδρός: καὶ οὕτως ἀπώλλυντο. ἐλεήσας δὲ ὁ 
\ » \ / \ 7 lal 
Ζεὺς ἄλλην μηχανὴν πορίζεται, καὶ μετατίθησιν αὐτῶν τὰ 
a / / fal \ 
αἰδοῖα εἰς TO πρόσθεν: τέως yap Kal ταῦτα ἐκτὸς εἶχον, 
\ ae 4 \ 7 > > ’ / > > > a 
C καὶ ἐγέννων καὶ ETLKTOV οὐκ εἰς ἀλλήλους, GAN εἰς γῆν, 
“ / Ζ 5 ¢ nm \ 
ὥσπερ οἱ τέττιγες. μετέθηκέ τε οὖν οὕτως αὐτῶν εἰς TO 
/ \ \ / \ / 2 2 / 2 7 
πρόσθεν καὶ διὰ τούτων τὴν γένεσιν ἐν ἀλλήλοις ἐποίησε, 
lal a / lal f “Ὁ 
διὰ τοῦ ἄρρενος ἐν τῷ θήλει, τῶνδε ἕνεκα, ἵνα ἐν τῇ 
“Ὁ « \ > ᾽ \ \ > / “A \ 
συμπλοκῇ ἅμα μὲν εἰ ἀνὴρ γυναικὶ ἐντύχοι, γεννῷεν καὶ 
/ \ / e > » / \ 
γίγνοιτο τὸ γένος, ἅμα δ᾽ εἰ καὶ ἄρρεν ἄρρενι, πλησμονὴ 
ἴω a / / 
γοῦν γίγνοιτο τῆς συνουσίας καὶ διαπαύοιντο καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ 
» / \ fal 7 / > na ” \ 
ἔργα τρέποιντο καὶ τοῦ ἄλλου βίου ἐπιμελοῖντο. "ἔστι δὴ 
Φ > / ε 4 4 > / - > , \ 
Dow ἐκ τόσου ὁ ἔρως ἔμφυτος ἀλλήλων τοῖς ἀνθρώποις Kal 
lal / \ an a ἃ 
τῆς ἀρχαίας φύσεως συναγωγεὺς καὶ ἐπιχειρῶν ποιῆσαι ν 
“ \ / \ / 
ἐκ δυοῖν καὶ ἰάσασθαι τὴν φύσιν τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην. 
“ 5 ς a > > /, / [τ 
ἕκαστος οὖν ἡμῶν ἐστιν ἀνθρώπου ξύμβολον, ἅτε 
/ “ ς fol ᾽ “." / Lal \ > Ἃ 
τετμημένος ὥσπερ αἱ ψῆτται, ἐξ ἑνὸς δύο. ζητεῖ δὴ ἀεὶ 
\ ς ἴω “ / Ὁ“ Ν S lal > “- 
τὸ αὑτοῦ ἕκαστος ξύμβολον. ὅσοι μὲν οὖν τῶν ἀνδρῶν 
a cr a \ / / - 
τοῦ κοινοῦ τμῆμά εἰσιν, ὃ δὴ τότε ἀνδρόγυνον ἐκαλεῖτο, 
/ / > \ e lal lal / -“ 
φιλογύναικές T εἰσὶ καὶ οἱ πολλοὶ τῶν μοιχῶν ἐκ τούτου τοῦ 
/ ld s an / / 
Ἑ γένους γεγόνασι, καὶ ὅσαι ad γυναῖκες φίλανδροί τε καὶ 
4 / “ / / ¢ an 
μοιχεύτριαι, ἐκ τούτου τοῦ γένους γίγνονται. ὅσαι δὲ τῶν 
»" \ Qn e nr 
γυναικῶν γυναικὸς τμῆμά εἰσιν, οὐ πάνυ αὗται τοῖς ἀνδράσι 
lt / a \ a 
τὸν νοῦν προσέχουσιν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον πρὸς Tas γυναῖκας 
e / a / 
τετραμμέναι εἰσί, Kal al ἑταιρίστριαι ἐκ τούτου τοῦ γένους 
΄ / ‘ol » 
γίγνονται. ὅσοι δὲ ἄρρενος τμῆμά εἰσι, τὰ ἄρρενα διώκουσι, 
καὶ τέως μὲν ἂν παῖδες wow, ἅτε τεμάχια ὄντα τοῦ 
rn ᾿ / 
ἄρρενος, φιλοῦσι τοὺς ἄνδρας καὶ χαίρουσι συγκατακείμενοι 
/ - / 

192) Kal συμπεπλεγμένοι τοῖς ἀνδράσι, καί εἰσιν οὗτοι βέλτιστοι 
r ,ὔ ef / 4 
τῶν παίδων Kal μειρακίων, ἅτε ἀνδρειότατοι ὄντες φύσει. 

\ / 
φασὶ δὲ δή τινες αὐτοὺς ἀναισχύντους εἶναι, ψευδόμενοι" 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 403 


Now when the original creature was cut in twain, the one 
half, longing for the other half, went to meet it, and they 
cast their arms around one another, and clung unto one another, 
eagerly desiring to be made one creature; and they began to 
die for lack of food and of all other things that a man must 
provide for himself; for neither would eat aught save together 
with the other: and when one of the halves died, and the 
other was left, that which was left went about seeking for 
another half, and when it happened upon the half of that 
which aforetime was a woman—this half we now call woman 
—or upon the half of that which was a man, joined itself 
unto it: and thus did they perish. Then Zeus had compas- 
sion upon them, and brought forth a new device :—He brought 
their privy parts round to the front—for before that time 
their privy parts were set in the outerpart of their bodies, 
and they had not intercourse one with another, but with the 
earth, as grasshoppers. So he changed them and caused them 
to have intercourse one with another, to the end that, if a 
man happened upon a woman, there might be propagation, 
and if male happened upon male, there might be satisfaction, 
and then an end made of it, both turning to other things and 
minding them. Of such oldness is the love of one another 
implanted in us, which bringeth us again into the primitive 
state, and endeavoureth of two to make one and to heal the 
division of Human Nature. Every human creature, then, is 
a counterpart, being a half cut flat like unto a flounder, and 
alway seeketh his own counterpart. 

They who are the halves of that composite nature which 
was then called Man-Woman are the kind whereof the most 
part of adulterers are; and of this sort likewise are women 
which lust for men and are adulteresses. But those women 
who are halves of the whole which was Woman take little 
heed of men, but rather turn them to companionship with 
women; and those males which are halves of the whole 
which was male, go after the male: while they are boys, 
inasmuch as they are slices of the male, they love men and 
take pleasure in companionship with men; these be of all 
boys and youths the best, inasmuch as they are by nature the 
most manly: some, indeed, say that they are without shame ; 
but herein they speak falsely; for it is not by reason of 


404 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


> \ e ,’ > / lal a ? , ΄ \ , 
οὐ yap ὑπ᾽ ἀναισχυντίας τοῦτο δρῶσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὸ θάρρους 
\ > Γι \ > ,ὔ Ν “ ς a ’ / 
καὶ ἀνδρείας Kal ἀρρενωπίας, TO ὅμοιον αὑτοῖς ἀσπαζόμενοι. 
7 \ / \ \ / / > , 
μέγα δὲ τεκμήριον: Kal yap τελεωθέντες μόνοι ἀποβαίνουσιν 
\ / e lal \ \ ΄ 
εἰς τὰ πολιτικὰ ἄνδρες οἱ τοιοῦτοι. ἐπειδὰν δὲ ἀνδρωθῶσι, 
ral \ \ 7 4 / 

Β παιδεραστοῦσι Kal πρὸς γάμους Kal παιδοποιίας οὐ προσ- 
/ \ lal 4 > \ ¢€ \ “ / > / 
ἔχουσι Tov νοῦν φύσει, ἀλλὰ ὑπο τοῦ νόμου ἀναγκάζονται" 

’ nan > n > / nm > / 
ἀλλ᾽ ἐξαρκεῖ αὐτοῖς pet ἀλλήλων καταζῆν ἀγάμοις. πάν- 
\ ς a / \ \ 
τως μὲν οὖν ὁ τοιοῦτος παιδεραστῆς τε Kal φιλεραστὴς 
/ > eee. \ \ > / Ὁ \ 9S \ 
γίγνεται, ἀεὶ TO Evuyyeves ἀσπαζόμενος. ὅταν μὲν οὖν καὶ 
A , 4 “a a / \ e \ \ 
αὐτῷ ἐκείνῳ ἐντύχῃ τῷ αὑτοῦ ἡμίσει καὶ ὁ παιδεραστὴς Kal 
Μ “ / ἝἜ \ / 

CadXos πᾶς, τότε Kat θαυμαστὰ ἐκπλήττονται φιλίᾳ TE καὶ 
> / \ »” > > / " »” > lal / 
οἰκειότητι καὶ ἔρωτι, οὐκ ἐθέλοντες, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, χωρίζε- 

/ \ \ / \ x fal 
σθαι ἀλλήλων οὐδὲ σμικρὸν χρόνον. καὶ οἱ διατελοῦντες 
> , \ / / > « > A , »"» 
μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων διὰ βίου οὗτοί εἰσιν, οἱ οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔχοιεν εἰπεῖν, 

/ / > > / / 
6 τι βούλονται σφίσι Tap ἀλλήλων γίγνεσθαι. οὐδὲ γὰρ 
a , ney. th ς A > / / ε ” 
ἂν δόξειε τοῦτ᾽ εἶναι ἡ τῶν ἀφροδισίων συνουσία, ὡς ἄρα 
/ / Ψ ey / \ Ὁ ιν / 
τούτου ἕνεκα ἕτερος ἑτέρῳ χαίρει ξυνὼν οὕτως ἐπὶ μεγάλης 
lal ᾽ / / / \ 7 

ἢ σπουδῆς: ἀλλ᾽ ἄλλο Tt βουλομένη ἑκατέρου ἡ ψυχὴ δήλη 
> / A > / > “ > \ / ἃ / 
ἐστίν, ὃ ov δύναται εἰπεῖν, ἀλλὰ μαντεύεται ὃ βούλεται 
καὶ αἰνίττεται. καὶ εἰ αὐτοῖς ἐν τῷ αὐτῴ κατακειμένοις 

cre , \ ΝΜ , / 

ἐπιστὰς ὁ “Ἥφαιστος, ἔχων τὰ ὄργανα, ἔροιτο: “Ti ἔσθ᾽ ὃ 

93 y oe a / 7 > 
βούλεσθε, ὦ ἄνθρωποι, ὑμῖν παρ ἀλλήλων γενέσθαι ;” καὶ 
>] >, ἴω > \ / ” cc? / wn 
εἰ ἀποροῦντας αὐτοὺς πάλιν ἔροιτο" Apa γε τοῦδε 
> a > lal > n / ῳ / ,’ ᾽ / 
ἐπιθυμεῖτε, ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ γενέσθαι ὅ TL μάλιστ᾽ ἀλλήλοις, 
σ / \ / \ > / 
ὥστε Kal νύκτα Kal ἡμέραν μὴ ἀπολείπεσθαι ἀλλήλων ; εἰ 
\ / 5] vad > , [ a fl \ - 

E γὰρ τούτου ἐπιθυμεῖτε, ἐθέλω ὑμᾶς συντῆξαι καὶ συμφῦσαι 
> > / σ Α͂ν δα “ / \ Ψ ἈΠ, ἃ 
εἰς το αὐτό, ὥστε δύ᾽ ὄντας ἕνα γεγονέναι καὶ ἕως T ἂν 

ε e ¢ bd “ > / nA \ > \ 
ζῆτε, ws ἕνα ὄντα, κοινῇ ἀμφοτέρους ζῆν, καὶ ἐπειδὰν 
> ΄ > a 2 > “ \ ὃ > \ 5 “ od 3 “ 
ἀποθάνητε, ἐκεῖ αὖὗ ἐν “Διδου ἀντὶ δυεῖν ἕνα εἶναι κοινῇ 
- > ᾽ δι σἂ ᾽ 7 3 δὰ ᾽ an ig a 
τεθνεῶτε: ἀλλ᾽ ὁρᾶτε, εἰ τούτου ἐρᾶτε καὶ ἐξαρκεῖ ὑμῖν, 
A ͵ / ” a > / ” 4 >O? A 
ἂν τούτου TUynTe*” ταῦτα ἀκούσας ἴσμεν ὅτε οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἷς 
> sy , / > be 
ἐξαρνηθείη οὐδ᾽ ἄλλο τι ἂν φανείη βουλόμενος, ἀλλ ἀτεχνῶς 
” > x > / a A , ” > , \ 
olor ἂν ἀκηκοέναι τοῦτο, ὃ πάλαι apa ἐπεθύμει, συνελθὼν 


a / ’ lal / lal 
καὶ συντακεὶς τῷ ἐρωμένῳ ἐκ δυεῖν els γενέσθαι. τοῦτο 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 405 


shamelessness that they do this, but by reason of the courage 
and manliness in them, which their countenance declareth. 
Wherefore do they greet joyfully that which is lke unto 
themselves: and that this 1 say concerning them is true, what 
followeth after showeth ; for afterward when these are grown 
up, they alone of all men advance to the conduct of politiques. 
Now when these are grown up to be men, they make youths 
their companions, and their nature inclineth them not to 
wedlock and the begetting of children; only the law con- 
straineth them thereto: for they are content to pass their 
lives with one another unwedded, being lovers one of another, 
and always greeting that nature which hath kinship with 
their own. When, therefore, one of these happeneth upon 
the very one who is his own other half, then are the two con- 
founded with a mighty great amazement of friendship and kin- 
ship and love, and will not-—nay, not for a moment—be parted 
from each other. These be they who all their life through are 
alway together, nor yet could tell what it is they wish to 
obtain of each other —for surely it is not satisfaction of 
sensual appetite that all this great endeavour is after: nay, 
plainly, it is something other that the Soul of each wisheth— 
something which she cannot tell, but, darkly divining, maketh 
her end. And if Hephaestus came and stood by the two 
with his tools in his hand, and asked of them saying, “ What 
is it, O men, that ye wish to obtain of each other?” and when 
they could not answer, asked of them again saying, “ Is it this 
that ye desire—to be so united unto each other that neither 
by night nor by day shall ye be parted from each other? If 
it is this that ye desire, I will melt and fuse you together so 
that, although ye are two, ye shall become one, and, as long 
as ye live, shall both live one common life, and when ye die, 
shall be one dead man yonder in Hades, instead of two dead 
men: see now, if it be for this ye are lovers, and if the 
getting of this is all your desire.” We know well that 
there is none who would say nay unto this, or show a wish 
for aught else; yea, rather, each one would think that this 
which was now promised was the very thing which he 
had alway, albeit unwittingly, desired—to be joined 
unto the beloved, and to be melted together with him, 
so that the twain should become one: the cause whereof 


406 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


/ > \ Μ Ὁ ς > / e a 9 e \ 
yap ἐστι TO αἴτιον, OTL ἡ ἀρχαία φύσις ἡμῶν ἣν αὕτη καὶ 
= - δ lal / 
ἣμεν ὅλοι: τοῦ ὅλου οὖν TH ἐπιθυμίᾳ καὶ διώξει ἔρως 

\ rn 
193 ὄνομα. καὶ πρὸ τοῦ, ὥσπερ λέγω, ἕν ἦμεν: νυνὶ δὲ διὰ 

\ / 7 a a 5 
τὴν ἀδικίαν διῳκίσθημεν ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, καθάπερ ᾿Αρκάδες 
ς Ν 7 / 9 ” 7\ \ / Ss 
ὑπὸ Λακεδαιμονίων. φόβος οὖν ἔστιν, ἐὰν μὴ κόσμιοι ὧμεν 

\ \ / ee \ \ 5 / δ 
πρὸς τοὺς θεούς, ὅπως μὴ καὶ αὖθις διασχισθησόμεθα, καὶ 
fa» Μ [4 e ? lal / \ \ 
περίϊμεν ἔχοντες ὥσπερ οἱ ἐν Tals στήλαις κατὰ γραφὴν 
/ / \ -“ / 
ἐκτετυπωμένοι SiaTreTpLTeVOL κατὰ τὰς ῥῖνας, γεγονότες 
7 , \ 
ὥσπερ λίσπαι. ἀλλὰ τούτων ἕνεκα πάντ᾽ ἄνδρα χρὴ 
Ψ ΄ ~ 7 \ \ 
Β ἅπαντα παρακελεύεσθαι εὐσεβεῖν περὶ θεούς, ἵνα τὰ μὲν 
> / ἴω \ /, e ον ΄ nr ς \ \ 
ἐκφύγωμεν, τῶν δὲ τύχωμεν, ὧν ὁ ᾿Ἔρως ἡμῖν ἡγεμὼν καὶ 
/ ἣν \ > / / / >> 4 
στρατηγός. ᾧ μηδεὶς ἐναντία πραττέτω" πράττει δ᾽ ἐναντία 
“ ΄ , / \ 
ὅστις θεοῖς ἀπεχθάνεται. φίλοι yap γενόμενοι καὶ διαλλα- 

/ ‘el ae ne 7 / + wy / a ὃ a 
γέντες τῴ θεῴ ἐξευρήσομέν τε καὶ ἐντευξόμεθα τοῖς παιδικοῖς 

- / ‘al ἃ a fa) a \ / 
τοῖς ἡμετέροις αὐτῶν, ὃ τῶν νῦν ὀλίγοι ποιοῦσι. Kal μή 

᾽ ral / / 
μοι ὑπολάβῃ Ἐρυξίμαχος κωμῳδῶν τὸν λόγον, ws Παυσανίαν 
\ ’ / / ” \ \ \ Φ / 
καὶ Αγάθωνα λέγω: ἴσως μὲν yap Kal οὗτοι τούτων 
/ \ / / 

Ο τυγχάνουσιν ὄντες Kai εἰσίν ἀμφότεροι τὴν φύσιν ἄρρενες, 
΄ \ 5 4 Pe / \ > a \ a 
λέγω δὲ οὖν ἔγωγε καθ᾽ ἁπάντων καὶ ἀνδρῶν καὶ γυναικῶν, 

μή . x - an \ / ” / > > / 
OTL οὕτως ἂν ἡμῶν TO γένος εὔδαιμον γένοιτο, εἰ ἐκτελέσαι- 
\ “ lal al “ / 
μεν τὸν ἔρωτα καὶ TOV παιδικῶν TOV αὑτοῦ ἕκαστος τύχοι 
> \ > / > \ / > \ “ »Μ 
εἰς τὴν ἀρχαίαν ἀπελθὼν φύσιν. εἰ δὲ τοῦτο ἄριστον, 
- la lal / \ / , 
ἀναγκαῖον καὶ τῶν νῦν παρόντων τὸ τούτου ἐγγυτάτω 
5 a ἀν. \ a a \ + 
ἄριστον εἶναι. τοῦτο δ᾽ ἐστὶ παιδικῶν τυχεῖν κατὰ νοῦν 
et a / \ \ A / 
Ὁ αὑτῴ πεφυκότων. ov δὴ Tov αἴτιον θεὸν ὑμνοῦντες δικαίως 
« 
A ς a ΜᾺ Δ »Μ) an / c na a 
ἂν ὑμνοῖμεν "ἔρωτα, ὃς ἔν τε τῷ παρόντι ἡμᾶς πλεῖστα 
“7 > \ a » \ > \ » >», ὃ 
ὀνίνησιν εἰς τὸ οἰκεῖον ἄγων, καὶ εἰς τὸ ἔπειτα ἐλπίδας 
/ an / \ \ » / 
μεγίστας παρέχεται, ἡμῶν παρεχομένων πρὸς θεοὺς εὐσέ- 
/ nn \ / Ἀ , / 
βειαν, καταστήσας ἡμᾶς εἰς τὴν ἀρχαίαν φύσιν Kal ἰασάμε.- 


/ a 
vos μακαρίους καὶ εὐδαίμονας ποιῆσαι. 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 407 


is this, that our original nature was such that we were 
One Whole. 

Love, then, is the name of our desire and pursuit of the 
Whole; and once, I say, we were one, but now for our 
wickedness God hath made us to dwell separate, even as the 
Arcadians who were made to dwell separate by the Lacedae- 
monians; and even yet are we in danger, if we are not 
obedient unto the Gods, to be again cut in twain, and made 
to go about as mere tallies, in the figure of those images 
which are graven in relief on tablets with their noses sawn 
through into halves. Wherefore let our exhortation unto every 
man be that he live in the fear of the gods, to the end that 
we may escape this, and obtain that unto which Love our 
Captain leadeth us. Him let no man withstand. Whoso is 
at enmity with the gods withstandeth him; but if we are 
become friends of God, and are reconciled unto him, then 
shall we find and meet each one of us his own True Love, 
which happeneth unto few in our time. 

Now I pray Eryximachus not to break a jest upon my 
discourse, as though Pausanias and Agathon were in my mind; 
for peradventure they too are of those I speak of, and are 
both by nature male: but, be that as it may, I speak con- 
cerning all men and women, and say that the state of 
mankind would become blessed if we all fulfilled our love, 
and each one of us happened upon his own True Love, and 
so returned unto his original nature. 

If this is best of all, it followeth of necessity that that 
which in our present life cometh nearest thereto is best—this 
is that each one of us should find the love which is naturally 
suitable to him; and the God we ought to praise for this 
is Love, who both at this present time bestoweth on us the 
greatest benefit, in that he leadeth us unto our own, and for 
the time to come giveth us promise of that which is best, 
if we render the observance to godward that is meet, to wit, 
the promise that he will restore us to our original nature, and 
heal us of our pain, and make us divinely blessed. 


408 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE MYTH TOLD BY 
ARISTOPHANES 


The Myth told by Aristophanes in the Symposium! differs 
from all other Platonic Myths in being conceived in a spirit, 
and told in a manner, reminding one of Rabelais or Swift. It 
explains the sentiment of love as due to the fact that ἕκαστος 
ἡμῶν ἐστιν ἀνθρώπου σύμβολον *—every human being is a 
tally: which came about in the following way :—Primitive 
man was round, and had four hands and four feet, and one 
head with two faces looking opposite ways. He could walk 
on his legs if he liked, but he could also roll over and over 
with great speed like a tumbler; which he did when he 
wanted to go fast.’ There were three genders at that time, 
corresponding to the Sun, the parent of the masculine gender, 
to the Earth, the parent of the feminine gender, and to the 
Moon, the parent of the common gender. These round people, 
children of round parents, being very swift and strong, attacked 
Zeus and the other gods. Instead of destroying prospective 
worshippers with thunderbolts, Zeus adopted the plan of 
doubling the number of the round people by cutting each one 
of them in two. This not only doubled the number of his pro- 
spective worshippers, but humbled them, for they had now to walk 
on two legs and could not roll; and he threatened, if they gave 
him any further trouble, to halve them again, and make them 
merely bas-reliefs, and leave them to hop about on one leg.* 

' 189 ἢ ff. = 191 'D. 

3’ Mr A. Β. Cook (Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak, in Class, Rev. July 1904, p. 326), 
speaking of the Sicilian triske/es as a survival of the Cyclops as primitively con- 
ceived,—i.e. conceived as (1) three-eyed, and (2) as a disc representing the solar 
orb,—remarks that ‘‘ Plato was ΠΥ thinking of the Empedoclean οὐλοφυεῖς 

. τύποι (251 K) when he spoke of Janiform beings with four arms and four 
legs which enabled them to revolve κύκλῳ (Symp. 189 BE; οἵ, Tim. 44 D).” 

* In Callaway’s Zulu Nursery Tales, i, 198-202, the story is told of a woman 
who is carried away by one-legged people. When they first saw her they said : 
‘**Oh, it would be a pretty thing—but, oh, the two legs!’ They said this 
because she had two legs and two hands; for they are like as if an ox of the 
white man is skinned and divided into two halves; the Amadhlungundhlebe 
were like one side, there not being another side.” In a note ad doc. (p. 199) 
Callaway refers to Pliny (H.N. vii. 2) for a nation of one-legged men—hominum 
genus qui monocoli vocarentur, singulis cruribus, mirae pernicitatis ad saltum ; 
and to Lane’s notes to the Introduction to the Arabian Nights, p. 33—‘‘ The 


Shikk is another demoniacal creature, having the form of half a human being, 
like a man divided longitudinally.” 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM ΜΥΤῊΒ 409 


Now Love is the remembrance of the original undivided 
state: it is the longing which one half has to be again united 
to its other half, so that the original Whole may be restored : 
every human being is a tally. 

It is difficult to think of this story’ as a Platonic Myth 
in the ordinary sense. Does it deduce any Category, or set 
forth any Regulative Principle? If it does, it is only as a 
satirical parody of the impressive Aetiological Myth. Love 
is a mysterious principle, Plato seems to say; but here is a 
Comic History of it which may help to make it less mysterious! 
And yet, after all, does the circumstance that one Aetiologica] 
Myth is comic, and another is serious and impressive, con- 
stitute a real difference? We have to remember, with regard 
to these comic or grotesque histories, that at one end of the 
list of them there are some of the earliest attempts at Myth 
or Story-telling made by the human race, and at the other 
end, some of the most effective expressions of the scorn and 
zeal and pity of civilised man. Zhe Life of Gargantua and 
Pantagruel and Gulliver's Travels show us how the comic or 
grotesque history, as well as the solemn Myth,—Myth of Er 
or Purgatorio,—may set forth the Universal. 

The place held in such a deeply religious system as the 
Orphic by a savage grotesque like the story of Zagreus 
enables us to understand how Plato—if only in a spirit of 
parody—could insert a story like that of the round people in 
a serious discussion of the nature of Love. 

Zagreus” was the son of Zeus and Persephone, and his 
father’s darling. But Hera was jealous, and incited the 
Titans to slay the child. They surprised him among his toys, 

1 Perhaps suggested by the πολλὰ μὲν ἀμφιπρόσωπα καὶ ἀμφίστερν᾽ ἐφύοντο 
Βουγενῇ ἀνδρόπρωρα of Empedocles. Professor Burnet’s illuminating account 
of the theory of ‘‘organic combinations” advanced by Empedocles is full of 
suggestion for the reader of the Myth told by Aristophanes in the Symposium : 
see especially section 94 of Early Greek Philosophy. 

2 For the story of Zagreus and its place in religious doctrine and practice, 
see Lobeck, Aglaoph. pp. 547 ff., Gardner’s New Chapters in Greek History, 
p. 396, and Jevons’ Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 355. Dr. Jevons 
sums up as follows: The Zagreus Myth, before Pythagoreanism affected the 
Orphie cult, had driven out all others, and was accepted as the orthodox 
explanation of the new worship, by which it was reconciled with the old 
customary religion. Pythagoreanism afterwards allegorised this Myth in the 
interest not of religion, but of a philosophical system. See also Olympiodorus 
ad Plat. Phaedonem, 70 c, Grote’s Hist. of Greece, parti. ch. i. (vol. i. p. 17, 


n. 1, ed. 1862), and Miss Harrison’s Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 
Introduction, p. xi. 


410 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


while he was wondering at the image of his own face in a 
mirror, and tore him to pieces and ate him, all save his heart, 
which Athena brought to Zeus, who gave it to Semele, and 
from her Zagreus was born again as Dionysus. The Titans 
Zeus in anger consumed with his lightning, and out of their 
ashes arose Man, whose nature thus unites in its composition 
an evil element—the flesh of the Titans,—and a good element 
—the flesh of Zagreus which they had eaten. 

Much was made of this Myth by Orphic and Neo- 
Platonic interpreters. The dismemberment (διαμελισμός) of 
Zagreus was symbolic of the resolution of the One unto the 
Many; his birth again as Dionysus, of the return from the 
Many to the One; while the moral of all was that by cere- 
monial rites and ecstasy we may overcome the Titanic element 
in us.} 

That Zagreus, the Horned Child, κερόεν βρέφος, as he is 
called, represented the bull which was torn to pieces and eaten 
in a savage rite, and that the Greek story which I have 
sketched was an Aetiological Myth to explain the rite, it 
is impossible to doubt. Out of this savage material were 
evolved the highly philosophical and moral results which I 
have indicated. This parallel I have brought in the hope 
of making Plato’s introduction of the Round People into 
his Philosophy of Love more intelligible. 

I said that the story of the Round People, told by 
Aristophanes, stands alone among the Platonic Myths in being 
conceived in a spirit and related in a manner which remind 
one of Rabelais or Swift. Let me cap it from Rabelais 
(iv. 57-61) :— 





Pantagruel? went ashore in an island, which, for situation and 
governor, may be said not to have its fellow. When you just 
come into it, you find it rugged, craggy, and barren, unpleasant 
to the eye, painful to the feet, and almost as inaccessible as the 
mountain of Dauphiné, which is somewhat like a toad-stool, and was 
never climbed, as any can remember, by any but Doyac, who had 
charge of King Charles the Eighth’s train of artillery. This same 
Doyac, with strange tools and engines, gained the mountain’s top, 
and there he found an old ram. It puzzled many a wise head to 
guess how it got thither. Some said that some eagle, or great 


1 See Rohde, Psyche, ii. 117 ff.; Lobeck, Aglaoph. 710 ff. 
? [ avail myself of the version of Urquhart and Motteux. 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 411 


horn-coot, having carried it thither while it was yet a lambkin, 
it had got away, and saved itself among the bushes, 

As for us, having with much toil and sweat overcome the 
difficult ways at the entrance, we found the top of the mountain 
so fertile, healthful, and pleasant, that I thought 1 was then in 
the true Garden of Eden, or earthly paradise, about whose 
situation our good theologues are in such a quandary, and keep 
such a pother. 

As for Pantagruel, he said that here was the seat of Areté— 
that is as much as to say, Virtue—described by Hesiod. This, 
however, with submission to better judgments. The ruler of this 
place was one Master Gaster, the first master of arts in the world. 
For, if you believe that fire is the great master of arts, as Tully 
writes, you very much wrong him and yourself: alas, Tully never 
believed this. On the other side, if you fancy Mercury to be the 
first inventor of arts, as our ancient Druids believed of old, you 
are mightily beside the mark. The satirist’s' sentence that affirms 
Master Gaster to be the master of all arts is true. With him 
peacefully resided old Goody Penia, alias Poverty, the mother of 
the ninety-nine Muses, on whom Porus, the lord of Plenty, 
formerly begot Love, that noble child, the mediator of heaven 
and earth, as Plato affirms zn Symposio. We were all obliged to 
pay our homage, and swear allegiance to that mighty sovereign ; 
for he is imperious, severe, blunt, hard, uneasy, inflexible; you 
cannot make him believe, represent to him, or persuade him 
anything. He does not hear. . . . He only speaks by signs. . . . 
What company soever he is in, none dispute with him for pre- 
cedence or superiority. . . . He held the first place at the Coun- 
cil of Basle; though some will tell you that the Council was 
tumultuous, by the contention and ambition of many for priority. 
Every one is busied, and labours to serve him; and, indeed, to 
make amends for this, he does this good to mankind, as to invent 
for them all arts, machines, trades, engines, and crafts; he even 
instructs brutes in arts which are against their nature, making 
poets of ravens, jackdaws, chattering jays, parrots, and starlings, 
and poetesses of magpies, teaching them to utter human language, 
speak, and sing. . . . At the court of that great master of 
ingenuity, Pantagruel observed two sorts of troublesome and too 
officious apparitors, whom he very much detested. The first were 
called Engastrimythes; the others Gastrolaters. . . . The first 
were soothsayers, enchanters, cheats, who gulled the mob, and 
seemed not to speak and give answers from the mouth, but from 
the belly. . . . In the holy decrees, 26, qu. 3, they are styled 


1 Persius, Prologus— 
Magister artis, ingenique largitor 
Venter. 


412 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Ventriloqui; and the same name is given them in Ionian by 
Hippocrates, in his fifth book of Hpzd., as men who spoke from 
the belly. Sophocles calls them Sternomantes. . . . As for the 
Gastrolaters, they stuck close to one another in knots and gangs. 
Some of them merry, wanton . . . others louring, grim, dogged, 
demure, and crabbed ; all idle, mortal foes to business, spending 
half their time in sleeping, and the rest in doing nothing, a rent- 
charge and dead unnecessary weight on the earth, as Hesiod saith ; 
afraid, as we judged, of offending or lessening their paunch. . . . 
Coming near the Gastrolaters, I saw they were followed by a 
great number of fat waiters and tenders, laden with baskets, 
dossers, hampers, dishes, wallets, pots, and kettles. . . . 

Those gastrolatrous hobgoblins being withdrawn, Pantagruel 
carefully minded the famous master of arts, Gaster. .. . From 
the beginning he invented the smith’s art, and husbandry to 
manure the ground, that it might yield him corn; he invented 
arms, and the art of war, to defend corn; physic and astronomy, 
with other parts of mathematics, which might be useful to keep 
corn a great number of years in safety from the injuries of the 
air, beasts, robbers, and purloiners ; he invented water, wind, and 
hand-mills, and a thousand other engines to grind corn, and to 
turn it into meal; leaven to make the dough ferment, and the use 
of salt to give it a savour, for he knew that nothing bred more 
diseases than heavy, unleavened, unsavoury bread. He found 
a way to get fire to bake it; hour-glasses, dials, and clocks to 
mark the time of its baking ; and as some countries wanted corn, 
he contrived means to convey it out of one country into another. 
. . . He invented mules. . . . He invented carts and waggons. 
.. . He devised boats, gallies, and ships. . . . Besides, seeing 
that, when he tilled the ground, some years the corn perished in 
it for want of rain in due season, in others rotted, or was drowned 
by its excess, . . . he found out a way to conjure the rain down © 
from heaven only with cutting a certain grass. . . . I took it to 
be the same as the plant, one of whose boughs being dipped by 
Jove’s priest in the Agrian fountain, on the Lycian mountain in 
Arcadia, in time of drought, raised vapours which gathered into 
clouds, and then dissolved into rain, that kindly moistened the 
whole country. Our master of arts was also said to have found 
a way to keep the rain up in the air, and make it fall into the 
sea... . And as in the fields, thieves and plunderers sometimes 
stole, and took by force the corn and bread which others had 
toiled to get, he invented the art of building towns, forts, and 
castles, to hoard and secure that staff of life. On the other hand, 
finding none in the fields, and hearing that it was hoarded up and 
secured in towns, forts, and castles, and watched with more care 
than ever were the golden pippins of the Hesperides, he turned 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 415 


engineer, and found ways to beat, storm, and demolish forts and 
castles, with machines and warlike thunderbolts, battering-rams, 
ballistas, and catapults, whose shapes were shown us, not over- 
well understood by our engineers, architects, and other disciples 
of Vitruvius, 


414 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Symposium 202 Ὁ--212 4 


> 3 e / 
202 D Ti οὖν av, ἔφην, εἴη ὁ "Ἔρως; θνητός; “Heiora γε. 
/ lal 
Ε᾽Αλλὰ τί μήν; “Ὥσπερ τὰ πρότερα, ἔφη, μεταξὺ θνητοῦ 
\ > / / 3 7 / / / Ss 
καὶ a0avatov. Ti οὖν, ὦ Διοτίμα; Aaipov μέγας, ὦ 
- ’ \ \ a \ ὃ t / > a 
Σώκρατες" καὶ yap πᾶν τὸ δαιμόνιον μεταξύ ἐστι θεοῦ τε 
\ lal / S , > / / »” « Qn 
καὶ θνητοῦ. Τίνα, ἣν δ᾽ ἐγώ, δύναμιν ἔχον; “Ἑρμηνεῦον 
\ “ lal \ ’ 5 7 \ > 7 
καὶ διαπορθμεῦον θεοῖς τὰ παρ᾽ ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀνθρώποις 
τὰ παρὰ θεῶν, τῶν μὲν τὰς δεήσεις καὶ θυσίας, τῶν τε 
\ 2 / \ > \ a A > / oo 
τὰς ἐπιτάξεις τε Kal ἀμοιβὰς τῶν θυσιῶν. ἐν μέσῳ δὲ ὃν 
> / “ [4 \ “Ὁ > Ν ς A / 
ἀμφοτέρων συμπληροῖ, ὥστε TO πᾶν αὐτὸ αὑτῷ ξυνδεδέσθαι. 
διὰ τούτου καὶ ἡ μαντικὴ πᾶσα χωρεῖ καὶ ἡ τῶν ἱερέων 
s al \ \ / \ \ \ \ \ 
τέχνη TOV τε περὶ Tas θυσίας καὶ Tas τελετὰς Kai τὰς 
> \ \ \ / “ \ / \ \ 
203 ἐπῳδὰς Kal τὴν μαντείαν πᾶσαν καὶ γοητείαν. θεὸς δὲ 
> , > / > \ \ / a ΄ > ς 
ἀνθρώπῳ οὐ μίγνυται, ἀλλὰ διὰ τούτου πᾶσά ἐστιν ἡ 
ὁμιλία καὶ ἡ διάλεκτος θεοῖς πρὸς ἀνθρώπους, καὶ 
ἐγρηγορόσι καὶ καθεύδουσι. καὶ ὁ μὲν περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα 
/ 
σοφὸς δαιμόνιος ἀνήρ, ὁ δὲ ἄλλο Te σοφὸς ὧν ἢ περὶ 
/ nN / a! / e \ ς ’ὔ 
τέχνας ἢ χειρουργίας Twas βάναυσος. οὗτοι δὴ οἱ δαίμονες 
\ \ / > e \ / b] \ \ e 
πολλοὶ Kal παντοδαποί εἰσιν, els δὲ τούτων ἐστὶ Kal ὁ 
"RH Il Ν δέ 9 δ᾽ . οἷν] / 2 \ \ / , 
pas. atpos δέ, ἣν ἐγώ, τίνος ἐστὶ καὶ μητρός ; 
Β Μακρότερον μέν, ἔφη, διηγήσασθαι. ὅμως δέ σοι ἐρῶ. ὅτε 
γὰρ ἐγένετο ἡ ᾿Αφροδίτη, εἱστιῶντο οἱ θεοί, οἵ τε ἄλλοι 
- / 
καὶ ὁ τῆς Μήτιδος υἱὸς Llopos. ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἐδείπνησαν, 
7 : \ > 7 ” > / ς / 
προσαιτήσουσα, οἷον δὴ εὐωχίας οὔσης, ἀφίκετο ἡ Llevia 
¢ / a 
Kal ἣν περὶ tas θύρας. ὁ οὖν Ἰ]όρος μεθυσθεὶς τοῦ 
Ν n an 
νέκταρος, οἶνος γὰρ οὔπω Hv, εἰς τὸν τοῦ Διὸς κῆπον 
εἰσελθὼν βεβαρημένος ηὗδεν. ἡ οὖν Llevia, ἐπιβουλεύουσα 
\ \ | ee > / / / > rn / 
διὰ τὴν αὑτῆς ἀπορίαν παιδίον ποιήσασθαι ἐκ ‘rod ἸΠόρου, 
/ / ᾽ > “A \ > / \ v \ 
C κατακλίνεταί Te Tap αὐτῷ Kal ἐκύησε τὸν "ἔρωτα. διὸ 
΄σ 3 / 
δὴ καὶ τῆς Adpoditns ἀκόλουθος καὶ θεράπων γέγονεν ὁ 
ΠΕΣ νυ." \ , - ᾿] / θ ’ὔ \ “ / 
ἔρως, γεννηθεὶς ἐν τοῖς ἐκείνης γενεθλίοις Kal ἅμα φύσει 


ἐραστὴξ ὧν περὶ τὸ καλόν, καὶ τῆς ᾿Αφροδίτης καλῆς 


να. ὡουδνα 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM ΜΥΤῊΒ 415 


TRANSLATION OF THE Discourse or DIOTIMA 


What then is Kros?—is he Mortal? Nay, Mortal he 
verily is not. What then is he? Betwixt Mortal and 
Immortal, she answered. What sayest thou, Diotima? He 
is a great Daemon, Socrates: for the whole tribe of Daemons 
is betwixt God and Mortal. And what is their office? said 
I. They are Interpreters, and carry up to the Gods the 
things which come from men, and unto men the things which 
come from the Gods—our prayers and burnt-offerings, and 
their commands and the recompenses of our burnt-offerings. 
The tribe of Daemons being in the midst betwixt these twain 
—the Godhead and Mankind—filleth up that distance, so 
that the Universe is held together in the bond of unity. 
Through the intermediation of these cometh all divination ; 
the art of priests cometh also through them, and of them 
that have to do with burnt-offerings and initiations and 
enchantments and every sort of soothsaying and witchery. 
The Godhead mingleth not with Mankind; but it is through 
the Daemons only that Gods converse with men, both when 
we are awake and when we are asleep: and he who hath the 
wisdom whereby he understandeth this work of the Daemons 
is ἃ man inspired, and he who hath any other wisdom 
whereby he excelleth in some art or craft is a mechanic. 
Now these Daemons are many and of all sorts: and one of 
them is Eros. And who is his Father, I said, and who is his 
Mother? That is a longer story, she said, but I will tell it 
unto thee. 

On the day that Aphrodite was born, the Gods made 
a feast, and with them sat Abundance the son of Prudence. 
When they had eaten, Poverty, perceiving that there was 
good cheer, came for to beg, and she stood at the door. Now 
Abundance, having made himself drunken with nectar—for 
there was no wine then,—entered into the Garden of Zeus, 
and being heavy with drink, slept; and Poverty, being minded 
by reason of her helplessness to have a child by Abundance, 
lay with him, and she conceived and bore Eros. Wherefore 
Kros became the companion and servant of Aphrodite; for 


204 


410 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


é ΝΥ , , εχ rN ts 
οὔσης. ἅτε οὖν ἸΙόρου καὶ Ilevias vios ὧν ὁ "ἔρως ἐν 
/ , / a Ν / : wy " \ 
τοιαύτῃ τύχῃ καθέστηκε. πρῶτον μὲν πένης ἀεί ἐστι, καὶ 
- a e / \ / e \ ” 
πολλοῦ δεῖ ἁπαλὸς τε Kal καλός, οἷον οἱ πολλοὶ οἴονται, 
» \ \ \ > \ \ > / \ ” 
αλλὰ σκληρὸς καὶ αὐὔχμηὴρος καὶ ἀνυπόδητος καὶ ἄοικος, 
\ aN N \ ” 2. ὧς 4 \ > e “-“ 
χαμαιπετὴς ἀεὶ ὧν καὶ ἄστρωτος, ἐπὶ θύραις καὶ ἐν ὁδοῖς 
ὑπταίθριος κοιμώμενος, τὴν TH τρὸς φύσιν ἔχων ἀεὶ ἐνδείᾳ 
ὑπαίθριος κοιμώμενος, τὴν τῆς μητρὸς x ‘ 
4 \ \ φ \ i. > / / b] A 
ξύνοικος. κατὰ δὲ αὖ τὸν πατέρα ἐπίβουλός ἐστι τοῖς 
a \ a ? - > a x 1 = \ / 
καλοῖς καὶ τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς, ἀνδρεῖος wv καὶ ἴτης Kal σύντονος, 
\ / » ME / / \ 
θηρευτὴς δεινός, ἀεί τινας πλέκων μηχανάς, καὶ φρονήσεως 
/ - \ Ν a / 
ἐπιθυμητής, Kal πόριμος, φιλοσοφῶν διὰ παντὸς τοῦ βίου, 
\ / Ν \ \ / \ Μ e 
dewvos γόης καὶ φαρμακεὺς καὶ σοφιστής" καὶ οὔτε ὡς 
/ \ fel 
ἀθάνατος πέφυκεν οὔτε ὡς θνητὸς, ἀλλὰ τοτὲ μὲν τῆς 
+ as, ς 7 / \ A Φ > / \ \ 
αὐτῆς ἡμέρας θάλλει Te καὶ ζῇ, ὅταν εὐπορήσῃ, τοτὲ δὲ 
> , , \ > 7, \ \ nr \ 
ἀποθνήσκει, πάλιν δὲ ἀναβιώσκεται διὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς 
/ \ \ / Se ς al “ ” > 7 
φύσιν. τὸ δὲ ποριζόμενον ἀεὶ ὑπεκρεῖ, ὥστε οὔτε ἀπορεῖ 
ν᾿ “-“ 
ἔρως ποτὲ οὔτε πλουτεῖ. σοφίας τε avd καὶ ἀμαθίας ἐν 
-" nr » 
μέσῳ ἐστίν. ἔχει γὰρ @be θεῶν οὐδεὶς φιλοσοφεῖ οὐδ 
᾽ a / / ᾽ ” 
ἐπιθυμεῖ σοφὸς γενέσθαι: ἔστι yap: οὐδ᾽ εἴ Tis ἄλλος 
/ lal ᾽ . lal fal 
σοφός, ov φιλοσοφεῖ. οὐδ᾽ αὖ οἱ ἀμαθεῖς φιλοσοφοῦσιν 
>>? > a \ , + ee \ re > 
οὐδ ἐπιθυμοῦσι σοφοὶ γενέσθαι’ αὐτὸ yap τοῦτό ἐστι 
/ \ \ \ / 
χαλεπὸν ἀμαθία, TO μὴ ὄντα καλὸν κἀγαθὸν μηδὲ φρόνιμον 
“ ς a s ᾿ / » > aA \ 57 
δοκεῖν αὑτῴ εἶναι ἱκανόν. οὔκουν ἐπιθυμεῖ ὁ μὴ οἰόμενος 
᾽ \ Φ Φ Nn \ v > A / > Μ 
ἐνδεὴς εἶναι οὗ ἂν μὴ οἴηται ἐπιδεῖσθαι. Τίνες οὖν, ἔφην 
rn / 
ἐγώ, ὦ Διοτίμα, of φιλοσοφοῦντες, εἰ μήτε of σοφοὶ μήτε 
rn - rn / 
οἱ ἀμαθεῖς; Δῆλον δή, ἔφη, τοῦτό γε ἤδη Kal παιδί, ὅτι 
¢ \ / , / ? Ss \ « ” 
οἱ μεταξὺ τούτων ἀμφοτέρων, ὧν αὖ καὶ ὁ Epos. ἔστι 
»" r v 
yap δὴ τῶν καλλίστων ἡ σοφία, “Epws δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἔρως περὶ 
/ , - / = 
τὸ καλόν, ὥστε ἀναγκαῖον “Epwta φιλόσοφον εἶναι, 
/ \ 5 - r \ re 
φιλόσοφον δὲ ὄντα μεταξὺ εἶναι σοφοῦ Kai ἀμαθοῦς. αἰτία 


-- ᾿ \ \ \ i‘ 
δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ τούτων ἡ γένεσις" πατρὸς μὲν yap σοφοῦ 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 417 


he was begotten on her birthday, and is, moreover, by nature 
a lover of Beauty and of Aphrodite the Beautiful. 

Inasmuch, then, as Eros is the son of Abundance and 
Poverty, his case standeth thus :—TFirst, he is poor alway ; and 
so far is he from being tender and fair, as most do opine, that 
he is rough and squalid, and he goeth barefoot and hath no 
house to dwell in, but lieth alway on the bare earth at doors 
and on the highways, sleeping under the open sky; for his 
mother’s nature he hath, and he dwelleth alway in company 
with want. But he hath also his Father’s nature, and ever 
plotteth against the fair and good; being a bold lad, and 
ever ready with bow strung, a mighty hunter, alway weaving 
devices, eagerly desiring knowledge, full of inventions, playing 
the philosopher all his life, a mighty charlatan and master of 
enchantments and subtle reasons. Inasmuch, then, as he hath 
the nature neither of Immortal nor of Mortal, he bloometh 
and liveth when that aboundeth unto him which his heart 
desireth, and, anon, the very same day he dieth; and then he 
cometh to life again, because of his Father’s nature: that 
which is continually supplied unto him in abundance runneth 
away continually, so that he is neither poor nor rich. More- 
over, he standeth in the midst betwixt Wisdom and Ignorance; 
for the matter standeth thus—No God is a Philosopher, to 
wit, one who desireth to become wise, for a God is already 
wise; and if there be any man who is wise, neither is he 
a Philosopher. Nor are the ignorant Philosophers; they 
desire not to become wise; for herein lieth the evil of 
Ignorance, that when a man is without Virtue and 
Wisdom, he nevertheless thinketh that he is sufficiently 
furnished therewith, and no man desireth that which he 
thinketh he lacketh not. 

Who, then, Diotima, said I, are the Philosophers, if neither 
the wise nor the ignorant are Philosophers ? 

A child could answer that, she said: They that are 
betwixt the two sorts, even as Eros himself is. For Wisdom 
indeed is of the number of those things which are the most 
beautiful; and Eros is desire that fluttereth about the Beautiful; 
wherefore it followeth that Eros is a Lover of Wisdom, a 
Philosopher, being betwixt the wise and the ignorant. 
Whereof his parentage is the cause also; for his Father 

2E 


418 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


> \ > / \ δὲ > n \ ? / ε Ν 
ἐστι καὶ εὐπόρου, μητρὸς δὲ οὐ σοφῆς καὶ ἀπόρου. ἡ μὲν 
/ lal , 45 , 
οὖν φύσις τοῦ δαίμονος, ὦ φίλε Σώκρατες, αὕτη" ὃν δὲ σὺ 
a7 » 5 \ »O\ 54 τὼ ΄ 
σ ὠήθης “Epwta εἶναι, θαυμαστὸν οὐδὲν ἔπαθες. φῳήθης δέ, 
΄ > \ aA / 2 ἂν \ / \ > [4 
ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ τεκμαιρομένῃ ἐξ ὧν σὺ λέγεις, τὸ ἐρώμενον 
v > b] \ a Ἂν \ “Ὁ ΄ 3 / 
ἔρωτα εἶναι, ov τὸ ἐρῶν. διὰ ταῦτά σοι, οἶμαι, πάγκαλος 
> / e » \ \ ” Ν > \ \ a yy 
ἐφαίνετο ὁ Epws. καὶ yap ἔστι TO ἐραστὸν τὸ τῷ ὄντι 
\ \ e \ \ / \ / \ / 
καλὸν καὶ ἁβρὸν Kal τέλεον Kal μακαριστόν: τὸ δέ γε 


a / / / 4 n 
ἐρῶν ἄλλην ἰδέαν τοιαύτην ἔχον, οἵαν ἐγὼ διῆλθον. 


206A "ἔστιν ἄρα ξυλλήβδην, ἔφη, ὁ ἔρως τοῦ τὸ ἀγαθὸν αὑτῷ 


> ᾽ 
εἶναι ἀεί. ᾿Αληθέστατα, ἔφην ἐγώ, λέγεις. 


/, \ 4 e , / ’ ω / 

B Ore δὴ τούτου ὁ ἔρως ἐστὶν ἀεί, 7 δ᾽ ἥ, τῶν τίνα 
/ / 9 -\ \ > ’, / ς \ \ ς 
τρόπον διωκόντων αὐτὸ καὶ ἐν τίνι πράξει ἡ σπουδὴ καὶ ἡ 
/ XxX -“ /, lal x \ 
σύντασις ἔρως ἂν καλοῖτο; τί τοῦτο τυγχάνει ὃν TO 

» » ? a > / ? x / ” ιν 5 
ἔργον ; ἔχεις εἰπεν; Ov pevt ἂν σέ, ἔφην ἐγώ, ὦ 


/ >? / > \ / \ 3 / \ \ > \ 
Διοτίμα, ἐθαύμαζον ἐπὶ σοφίᾳ καὶ ἐφοίτων Tapa σὲ αὐτὰ 
fal ’ > > / » a ” \ 
ταῦτα μαθησόμενοςς ᾿Αλλ ἐγώ σοι, ἔφη, ἐρῶ. ἔστι γὰρ 
a / “ \ \ lal \ \ 
τοῦτο τόκος ἐν καλῴ Kal κατὰ TO σῶμα Kal κατὰ τὴν 

͵ 7 5 Ν᾿. a “ \ / \ 
ψυχήν. Μαντείας, ἣν δ᾽ ἐγώ, δεῖται 6 τι ποτὲ λέγεις, Kal 
7 > ᾽ , , 9 + | / a rn 
Cov μανθάνω. ᾿Αλλ᾽ ἐγώ, ἢ δ᾽ ἥ, σαφέστερον ἐρῶ. κυοῦσι 
7 ” “ ἣν , ΄ ” \ \ \ a 
yap, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, πάντες ἄνθρωποι Kal κατὰ TO σῶμα 
\ \ \ / \ > δὰ » δ / / 
Kal κατὰ τὴν Ψυχὴν, καὶ ἐπειδὰν Ev τινι ἡλικίᾳ γένωνται, 
τίκτειν ἐπιθυμεῖ ἡμῶν ἡ φύσις. τίκτειν δὲ ἐν μὲν αἰσχρῷ 
ί μεῖ ἡμῶν ἡ ᾿ μὲν αἰσχρᾷ 
> ὃ / > de A +f a ς \ > ὃ \ \ \ 
ov δύναται, ἐν δὲ τῴ KANO. ἡ Yap ἀνδρὸς Kal γυναικὸς 
/ / ΝΜ \ κ - \ - \ 
συνουσία τόκος ἐστίν. ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο θεῖον TO πρᾶγμα, Kal 
lal > A ΝΜ “Ὁ , > 4 » ς 4 
τοῦτο ἐν θνητῷ ὄντι TO ζώῳ ἀθάνατον ἔνεστιν, ἡ κύησις 
/ lal » A / 4 
καὶ ἡ γέννησις. ταῦτα 8 ἐν TH ἀναρμόστῳ ἀδύνατον 
/ > / ᾽ > \ \ > \ \ a / 
Ὁ γενέσθαι. ἀνάρμοστον δ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ αἰσχρὸν παντὶ τῷ θείῳ, 
\ / a 8 ’ 
τὸ δὲ καλὸν ἁρμόττον. Μοῖρα οὖν καὶ Εἰλείθυια ἡ 
al / \ “ Φ \ 
καλλονή ἐστι TH γενέσει. Sia ταῦτα ὅταν μὲν καλῷ προσ- 
"» ξ΄ 7 \ , Ε 
πελάζη τὸ κυοῦν, ἵλεών τε γίγνεται καὶ εὐφραινόμενον 
- \ an “ \ ᾽ a 
διαχεῖται καὶ τίκτει TE καὶ γεννᾷ: ὅταν δὲ αἰσχρῷ, 


7 na / 
σκυθρωπόν τε Kal λυπούμενον συσπειρᾶται Kal ἀποτρέπεται 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 419 


is wise and rich, and his Mother is not wise and poor. 
This, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the Daemon Kros ; 
and I marvel not that thou thoughtest another was Eros 
—for thou thoughtest, as I judge from what thou sayest, 
that the Beloved, not That which Loveth, is Eros. For this 
cause, methinks, Eros seemed all beautiful in thine eyes, for 
tis the Beloved that is indeed fair and delicate and perfect, 
and worthy to be accounted happy; but as for That which 
Loveth, it is of another kind, such as I have declared. 
* * * * ΕΣ * 

The sum of the whole matter, she said, is this: That Love 
which is Eros is the desire of having the Good alway for his 
own. Most true, I said. Since this is what Love ever desir- 
eth, she said, how shall a man follow after this, and what shall 
he do that his diligence and endeavour in following after it 
may be rightly called Love? What is the very thing which 
he must bring to pass? Canst thou tell it? I cannot tell it, 
I said, else should I not be here drawn by thy wisdom, thy 
disciple come unto thee to learn this very thing. 

Then I will tell it unto thee, she said:—The bringing 
of somewhat to timely birth in Beauty, both according to the 
flesh and according to the spirit—that is the Work of Love. 
Thy meaning needeth a prophet for the interpretation thereof, 
I said: I understand it not. Well, I will make it plain, 
she said. 

All mankind, Socrates, do conceive according to the flesh 
and according to the spirit; and when we are come to the 
proper time of life, our nature desireth to bring forth: but 
it cannot bring forth in that which is deformed, only in that 
which is beautiful: and this work which it doeth when it 
conceiveth and begetteth is divine: this work is that which 
in the life of the mortal creature hath immortality; but it 
cannot be accomplished in aught that is unfit: now, that which 
is deformed is unfit for the divine; and the beautiful is fit: 
Beauty, therefore, is the Fate which ruleth nativities and the 
Divine Midwife. Wherefore, when that which hath conceived 
cometh nigh unto that which is beautiful, it is filled with soft 
delight, and being thereby relaxed bringeth forth and _ be- 
getteth ; but when it cometh nigh unto that which is 
deformed, it is drawn together with frowning and pain, and 


420 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


A ? \ / “ 
καὶ ἀνείλλεται καὶ οὐ γεννᾷ, ἀλλ᾽ ἴσχον τὸ κύημα χαλεπῶς 
/ “ \ A a / \ 7 A \ 
φέρει. ὅθεν δὴ τῷ KvOvYTL τε Kal ἤδη σπαργῶντι πολλὴ 
e / / \ \ \ \ \ / ’ a 
Ἑ ἡ πτοίησις γέγονε περὶ τὸ καλὸν διὰ TO μεγάλης ὠδῖνος 
> / \ 4 Ν / 5 , ” > lal 
ἀπολύειν τὸν ἔχοντα. ἔστι γάρ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἔφη, ov τοῦ 
al ς \ / lol / 
καλοῦ ὁ ἔρως, ὡς σὺ οἴει. ᾿Αλλὰ Ti μὴν; Τῆς γεννήσεως 
\ a / > A rs > 5 ae pe: 7, \ 
καὶ τοῦ τόκου ἐν TO καλῷ. Εἶεν, ἣν δ᾽ ἐγώ: Ἰ]άνυ μὲν 
- » “ \ 5 rn / [τ >’ / > 
οὖν, ἔφη. Ti δὴ οὖν τῆς γεννήσεως ; OTL ἀευγενές ἐστι 
\ ᾽ , ΄ A ς / > / \ 
901 καὶ ἀθάνατον ὡς θνητῷ ἡ σγέννησις. ἀθανασίας δὲ 
ἀναγκαῖον ἐπιθυμεῖν μετὰ ἀγαθοῦ ἐκ τῶν ὡμολογημένων, 
ἴω a lal 5 al 
εἴπερ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἑαυτῷ εἶναι ἀεὶ ἔρως ἐστίν. ἀναγκαῖον 
Ν > " a / \ a > / \ ” 
δὴ ἐκ τούτου τοῦ λόγου καὶ THs ἀθανασίας τὸν ἔρωτα 
εἶναι. 


* * * * * * 


e \ > > / ΝΜ Ν 7 vv \ 
2058: Οἱ μὲν οὖν ἐγκύμονες, ἔφη, κατὰ σώματα ὄντες πρὸς 
Taal an / / 
τὰς γυναῖκας μᾶλλον τρέπονται Kal ταύτῃ ἐρωτικοί εἶσι, 
/ / / / 
διὰ παιδογονίας ἀθανασίαν καὶ μνήμην καὶ εὐδαιμονίαν, ὡς 
n bd \ / / / 
οἴονται, αὑτοῖς εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον πάντα ποριζόμενοι" 
\ / > \ 5 t lal 
4209 οἱ δὲ κατὰ τὴν ψυχήν---εἰσὶ γὰρ οὖν, ἔφη, οὗ ἐν ταῖς 
lal a » a x > a 4 A a 
ψυχαῖς κυοῦσιν ἔτι μᾶλλον ἢ ἐν τοῖς σώμασιν, ἃ ψυχῇ 
»" \ tad / 
προσήκει Kal κυῆσαι καὶ κυεῖν. τί οὖν προσήκει ; 
/ / \ \ ” > / Φ / > \ e 
φρόνησίν te καὶ τὴν ἄλλην ἀρετήν: ὧν δή εἰσι Kal οἱ 
/ / \ “ lal 
ποιηταὶ πάντες γεννήτορες Kat τῶν δημιουργῶν ὅσοι 
\ Cy \ 
λέγονται evpeTiKol εἶνα. πολὺ δὲ μεγίστη, ἔφη, Kal 
7 rn / \ rn / 
καλλίστη τῆς φρονήσεως ἡ περὶ Tas τῶν πόλεών TE Kal 
WED. ἃ ͵ ᾿ δὲ " νὰ γώ ͵, \ 
οἰκήσεων διακοσμήσεις, ἣ δὴ ὄνομά ἐστι σωφροσύνη τε καὶ 
7 7 5S Ὁ >’ / > / 5 \ 
Β δικαιοσύνη. τούτων av ὅταν Tis ἐκ νέου ἐγκύμων ἡ τὴν 
\ a ” \ ¢ / a 4 7 / \ 
ψυχὴν θεῖος ὧν, Kal ἡκούσης τῆς ἡλικίας τίκτειν TE καὶ 
a ” ᾽ a a / 3 \ Φ \ 
γεννᾶν ἤδη ἐπιθυμεῖ. ζητεῖ δή, οἶμαι, καὶ οὗτος περιιὼν 
Ν λὸ > ee / ὁ ᾽ A \ , al ἠδέ 
τὸ καλὸν ἐν ᾧ ἂν γεννήσειεν'" ἐν τῷ γὰρ αἰσχρῷ οὐδέποτε 
, 5 , n 
γεννήσει. τά τε οὖν σώματα τὰ καλὰ μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ 
> \ > 7 “ A \ +. > 7 A a 
αἰσχρὰ ἀσπάζεται ate κυῶν, καὶ ἐὰν ἐντύχῃ ψυχῇ καλῇ 
καὶ γενναίᾳ καὶ εὐφυεῖ, πάνυ δὴ ἀσπάζεται τὸ Evvap- 
Y { ’ 1) μ 
/ r \ \ -“ 
φότερον, καὶ πρὸς τοῦτον τὸν ἄνθρωπον εὐθὺς εὐπορεῖ 


δι n \ \ \ > \ ” \ 
σ λόγων περι ἀρετῆς καὶ “περι οἷον XP” e€lval TOV ἄνδρα TOV 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 421 


turneth itself away, and is rolled up, and begetteth not, but 
holdeth in that which it hath conceived, and is in sore dis- 
tress. So it cometh to pass that when any one hath conceived, 
and is already big, he fluttereth alway with vehement desire 
around that which is beautiful, because the possession thereof 
easeth him of his sore travail: for, she said, Love is not ful- 
filled in the Beautiful as thou thinkest, Socrates. Wherein, 
then? In begetting and bringing forth in the Beautiful. 
So be it, said 1. Yea, she said, it is so; but wherefore in 
begetting? Because this is that which, in the Mortal, is 
Immortal from generation unto generation without end. 
Immortality, together with Good, Love must needs desire, 
according to our premises, for Love is desire of having Good 
alway for his own. This, then, followeth further from our 
argument, that Love aimeth at Immortality. 
* * * * * * 

They who conceive after the flesh, she said, turn them 
rather to the love of women, by the procreation of children 
laying up for themselves, as they think, immortality and 
remembrance and felicity for evermore: but they who conceive 
after the spirit—for, she said, there are who conceive in their 
souls more truly than others conceive in their bodies—these, 
she said, conceive that which is meet for the soul to conceive 
and to bear: and what is that? Wisdom and all Virtue; 
whereof all the poets are begetters, and every workman of whom 
we say that he is a cunning inventor: but the greatest by far, 
she said, and the fairest part of Wisdom is that which hath to 
do with the ordering of cities and households, which is called 
by the names of Temperance and Justice. The man who in his 
youth hath conceived these in his soul, being inspired of God, 
as soon as the time of life cometh, desireth to bring forth and 
beget: so he goeth about seeking the Beautiful wherein he 
may beget; for in the deformed he will never beget: and 
beautiful bodies rather than deformed he greeteth with wel- 
come, inasmuch as he hath conceived: and if he happen upon 
a beautiful soul of noble nature and excellent parts, in a beau- 
tiful body, he greeteth the twain—beautiful body and beautiful 
soul—with double welcome; and upon him who hath the 
twain he straightway, endeavouring to instruct, poureth out 
Speech in abundance concerning Virtue and what the Good 


422 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


> \ \ ἃ > / \ 5 a 4 « / 
ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἃ ἐπιτηδεύειν, Kal ἐπιχειρεῖ παιδεύειν. ἁπτό- 
7 5 “ -“ \ ¢ = ΕῚ an A ͵7 
μενος γάρ, οἶμαι, τοῦ καλοῦ καὶ ὁμιλῶν αὐτῷ, ἃ πάλαι 
A \ \ 
ἐκύει, τίκτει Kal γεννᾷ, Kal παρὼν Kal ἀπὼν μεμνημένος, 
\ \ \ / nr v5 3 / Φ Ἁ 
καὶ τὸ γεννηθὲν συνεκτρέφει κοινῇ μετ᾽ ἐκείνου, ὥστε πολὺ 
/ / a A / \ > / e rn 
μείζω κοινωνίαν τῆς TOV παίδων πρὸς ἀλλήλους οἱ τοιοῦτοι 
7 / 
ἴσχουσι καὶ φιλίαν βεβαιοτέραν, ate καλλιόνων καὶ 
> / / / \ a x / 
ἀθανατωτέρων παίδων κεκοινωνηκότεςς. καὶ πᾶς ἂν δέξαιτο 
ε A / a a / x \ 3 , 
Ὁ ἑαυτῷ τοιούτους παῖδας μᾶλλον γεγονέναι ἢ τοὺς ἀνθρωπί- 
/ / \ ς / \ 
vous, καὶ eis “Ὅμηρον ἀποβλέψας καὶ Ἡσίοδον καὶ τοὺς 
Μ \ \ a » a 
ἄλλους ποιητὰς τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ζηλῶν, ola ἔκγονα ἑαυτῶν 
/ A b] / » / / \ / 
καταλείπουσιν, ἃ ἐκείνοις ἀθάνατον κλέος Kal μνήμην 
/ > \ a ” > \ 4 54 “ 
παρέχεται αὐτὰ τοιαῦτα ὄντα: εἰ δὲ βούλει, ἔφη, οἵους 
lal ral 7 7 lal a 
Λυκοῦργος παῖδας κατελίπετο ἐν Λακεδαίμονι σωτῆρας τῆς 
lal na ¢ 
Λακεδαίμονος καὶ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν τῆς Ελλάδος. τίμιος δὲ 
> Cc oA \ τ 2 ὃ Ν \ a / Ζ \ 
Tap ὑμῖν καὶ Σόλων διὰ THY τῶν νόμων γέννησιν, καὶ 
al / / 
Ἑ ἄλλοι ἄλλοθι πολλαχοῦ ἄνδρες, Kat ἐν “Ελλησι καὶ ἐν 
/ / 
βαρβάροις, πολλὰ Kal καλὰ ἀποφηνάμενοι ἔργα, γεννή- 
/ > / e \ e \ \ ΝΜ / 
σαντες παντοίαν ἀρετήν: ὧν Kal ἱερὰ πολλὰ ἤδη γέγονε 
\ \ / a \ \ \ > / 
διὰ τοὺς τοιούτους παῖδας, dia δὲ τοὺς ἀνθρωπίνους 
5 / 
οὐδενός πω. 
a 5 \ 5 / 
Ταῦτα μὲν οὖν τὰ ἐρωτικὰ ἴσως, ὦ Σώκρατες, κἂν σὺ 
/ \ \ / \ » / e “ \ al 
210 μυηθείης" ta δὲ τέλεα Kal ἐποπτικά, ὧν ἕνεκα Kal ταῦτα 
» . > a / ᾽ 50. > / > x y 
ἔστιν, ἐάν τις ὀρθῶς μετίῃ, οὐκ old εἰ οἷός τ᾽ ἂν εἴης. 
rn > \ 7 \ 
ἐρὼ μὲν οὖν, ἔφη, ἐγὼ καὶ προθυμίας οὐδὲν ἀπολείψω" 
an 0 3 / “- “ 
πειρῶ δὲ ἕπεσθαι, ἂν οἷος τε ἧς. Δεῖ γάρ, ἔφη, τὸν 
, rn ./ > \ a \ a ” \ / ν 
ὀρθῶς ἰόντα ἐπὶ τοῦτο τὸ πρᾶγμα ἄρχεσθαι μὲν νέον ὄντα 
᾽] > \ \ / \ a / ὟΝ > a 
ἰέναι. ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ σώματα, Kal πρῶτον μέν, ἐὰν ὀρθῶς 
΄ “ id ς 7 em ’ \ / , A \ ᾿ al 
ἡγῆται ὁ ἡγούμενος, ἑνὸς αὐτὸν σώματος ἐρᾶν καὶ ἐνταῦθα 
al / / y \ > \ an 7 \ 
γεννᾶν λόγους καλούς, ἔπειτα δὲ αὐτὸν κατανοῆσαι, ὅτι TO 
/ \ ΒΝ e “ ’ a 3 ee ἘΝ , 
Β κάλλος TO ETL OTMOVY σώματι τῷ ἐπὶ ετέρῳ σώματι 
/ a \ > ’ 
ἀδελφόν ἐστι, καὶ εἰ δεῖ διώκειν τὸ ἐπ᾽ εἴδει καλόν, πολλὴ 
Μ \ » “ > \ ΄ “- \ ιν a an 
ἄνοια μὴ οὐχ ἕν τε Kal ταὐτὸν ἡγεῖσθαι TO ἐπὶ πᾶσι τοῖς 


rn ’ “ / 
σώμασι κάλλος: τοῦτο δ᾽ ἐννοήσαντα καταστῆναι πάντων 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 423 


Man ought to be and do; for, methinks, when he possesseth 
the Beautiful One and converseth with him, or being absent 
remembereth him, that is brought to birth which long-time 
before was conceived ; and that which is born these two together 
rear, so that they have a stronger bond betwixt them than 
children after the flesh, and a surer friendship than spouses, 
inasmuch as they have in common fairer and more immortal 
children. Who would not rather have born unto him such 
children than children after the flesh? Who, having con- 
sidered Homer and Hesiod and the other great poets, account- 
eth them not blessed, in that they have children which, being 
themselves immortal, bestow on their parents immortal fame 
and remembrance for evermore? as do also, she said, the chil- 
dren which Lycurgus left behind in Lacedaemon, saviours of 
Lacedaemon, yea of Greece ; and amongst you of Athens, she 
said, Solon is held in honour because of the laws which he 
begat ; and in many other places, both throughout Greece and 
amongst the barbarians, are men honoured for the fair works 
which they have brought to light, and the diverse virtues 
which they have begotten—yea, even worshipped, because of 
these their children; but because of children after the flesh 
hath no man been worshipped. 

Into these Lesser Mysteries of Eros, peradventure, mightest 
thou, even thou Socrates, be initiated; but his Greater Mys- 
teries of the End and the Perfect Vision, for whose sake, if 
any man shall pursue after them in the right way, these Lesser 
Mysteries are performed, I know not if thou art able to receive. 
Nevertheless, she said, I will do what in me lies to open them 
unto thee; do thou endeavour to follow if thou canst. 

He who would rightly approach this Initiation whereof I 
now speak must begin in his youth, and come near unto Beau- 
tiful Bodies: and first, if his leader lead him aright, he will 
be smitten with love of one of these, and will straightway of 
his love engender Beautiful Discourse. Thereafter he will 
perceive of himself without instruction that the Beauty which 
belongeth to any Corporeal Body is kin to the Beauty of 
another ; and that if the Specifick Beauty is that which must 
be sought after, ‘twould be foolishness to think that the Beauty 
which belongeth to all Bodies is not one and the same. When 
he hath comprehended this he must needs become the lover of 


424 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


a κ᾿ , > / ΟΝ \ \ / a 
τῶν καλῶν σωμάτων ἐραστήν, ἑνὸς δὲ TO σφόδρα τοῦτο 
/ \ / \ 
χαλάσαι καταφρονήσαντα Kal σμικρὸν ἡγησάμενον" μετὰ 
\ a \ > “-“ a / , ς / 
δὲ ταῦτα τὸ ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς κάλλος τιμιώτερον ἡγήσασθαι 
a > Ὁ , “ \ ἮΝ 3 \ x \ / 
τοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματι, ὥστε καὶ ἐὰν ἐπιεικὴς BY THY WuynyY 
\ a \ »” θ » ᾿] a ᾽ a \ os 
τις καὶ [ἐὰν] σμικρὸν ἄνθος ἔχῃ, ἐξαρκεῖν αὐτῷ Kal ἐρᾶν 
Ν / \ ,ὔ / / \ lal 
καὶ κήδεσθαι καὶ τίκτειν λόγους τοιούτους καὶ Enter, 
“ A / \ / “ > ” 5 
οἵτινες ποιήσουσι βελτίους τοὺς νέους, ἵνα ἀναγκασθῇ αὖ 
7 \ “ lal b / \ -“ / \ 
θεάσασθαι τὸ ἐν τοῖς ἐπιτηδεύμασι Kal τοῖς νόμοις καλὸν 
\ a » a Ὁ ca) δ Ὁ Ἃς ς A / > “ Ν 
καὶ τοῦτο ἰδεῖν, ὅτι πᾶν αὐτὸ αὑτῷ ξυγγενές ἐστιν, ἵνα τὸ 
\ \ r ἣν, e / “. Ν 

περὶ τὸ σῶμα καλὸν σμικρόν TL ἡγήσηται εἶναι" μετὰ δὲ 
\ > / ee" \ > / > a “ » Φ 
τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα ἐπὶ τὰς ἐπιστήμας ἀγαγεῖν, ἵνα ἴδῃ αὖ 


ἐπιστημῶν κάλλος, καὶ βλέπων πρὸς πολὺ ἤδη τὸ καλὸν 


, ; A ’ ᾿ ee na , 
Ρ μηκέτι τῷ Tap ἑνί, ὥσπερ οἰκέτης, ἀγαπῶν παιδαρίου 


211 


> 


κάλλος ἢ ἀνθρώπου τινὸς ἢ ἐπιτηδεύματος ἑνὸς δουλεύων 


> 


φαῦλος 7 Kal σμικρολόγος, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ TO πολὺ πέλαγος 


/ la) \ 


τετραμμένος TOD καλοῦ Kal θεωρῶν πολλοὺς Kal καλοὺς 
/ \ lal / \ / ᾽ 
λόγους καὶ μεγαλοπρεπεῖς τίκτῃ καὶ διανοήματα ἐν 
7 / fa) \ 
φιλοσοφίᾳ ἀφθόνῳ, ἕως ἂν ἐνταῦθα ῥωσθεὶς καὶ αὐξηθεὶς 
ὃ \ 5» / / / Ὁ“ > ~ 
κατίδῃ τινὰ ἐπιστήμην μίαν τοιαύτην, ἥ ἐστι καλοῦ 
τοιοῦδε' ἸΠειρῶ δέ ἔ ὃ ῦ σέ ; ‘6 
D ρῶ δέ μοι, ἔφη, τὸν νοῦν προσέχειν ὡς οἷόν 
7 
τε μάλιστα. 
Ὃ \ xX / " DO \ \ 53 \ ὃ 
ς γὰρ ἂν μέχρι ἐνταῦθα πρὸς τὰ ἐρωτικὰ παιδαγω- 
a / - >, r \ \ 
γηθῆ, θεώμενος ἐφεξῆς τε Kal ὀρθῶς Ta καλά, πρὸς τέλος 
"ὃ ὟΝ rn ᾽ al 5] / / / \ 
ἤδη ἰὼν τῶν ἐρωτικῶν ἐξαίφνης κατόψεταί τι θαυμαστὸν 
/ a a S / \ 
τὴν φύσιν καλόν, τοῦτο ἐκεῖνο, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὗ δὴ ἕνεκεν 
\ ΄ » 7 / = lal \ δ x 
καὶ of ἔμπροσθεν πάντες πόνοι ἦσαν, πρῶτον μὲν ἀεὶ ὃν 
\ ” ’ ” > AAV ” > / 
Kal οὔτε γιγνόμενον οὔτε ἀπολλύμενον, οὔτε αὐξανόμενον 
a 7 \ / A > / \ 
οὔτε φθῖνον, ἔπειτα ov TH μὲν καλόν, TH δ᾽ αἰσχρόν, οὐδὲ 
\ / \ δ᾽ ” ὑδὲ Ν \ \ / \ δὲ \ 
τοτὲ μέν, τοτὲ οὔ, οὐδὲ πρὸς μὲν τὸ καλόν, πρὸς δὲ τὸ 
, / >>? ΝΜ \ / ” \ > / σ“ 
αἰσχρόν, οὐδ᾽ ἔνθα μὲν καλόν, ἔνθα δὲ αἰσχρὸν, ὥς τισι 
> ’ ’ / 
μὲν ὃν καλόν, τισὶ δὲ αἰσχρόν. οὐδ᾽ αὖ φαντασθήσεται 
- / / \ r \ Μ 
αὐτῷ τὸ καλὸν οἷον πρόσωπόν τι οὐδὲ χεῖρες οὐδὲ ἄλλο 


7% \ Φ᾿ a / »>O/ / »O/ > / 
οὐδὲν ὧν σῶμα μετέχει, οὐδέ τις λόγος οὐδέ τις ἐπιστήμη 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 425 


all Beautiful Bodies, and his vehement love of the one Body 
he will remit, despising it now and thinking it a small thing. 
Thereafter cometh the time when he deemeth the Beauty that 
is in Souls more precious than the Beauty in the Body; so 
that if any one hath some goodness of Soul, but little comeli- 
ness of Body, such an one pleaseth him well, and he loveth 
him and careth for him, and in companionship with him 
bringeth to birth, and seeketh after, such Discourse as shall 
make young men better; seeking after this, he is constrained 
to survey that Beauty which is in Morals and Laws, and seeth 
clearly that it is all of one kindred. Apprehending this 
Beauty, he must needs deem the Beauty of the Body a small 
thing. 

After Morals, behold him next led up to Sciences, that he 
may see their Beauty; and looking at Beauty now widely ex- 
tended, may no longer be as a bondman, mean and paltry, 
enslaved unto the Beauty of one,—unto the Beauty of some 
boy, or man, or custom,—but having turned him unto the 
Great Sea of Beauty, and looking upon it, may bring forth 
many Arguments fair and high, many Thoughts out of the 
fulness of Philosophy, until, having been there strengthened 
and increased, he can discern that One Science which com- 
prehendeth that One Beauty. Now, I beseech thee, she 
said, hearken, as diligently as thou canst, to my words and 
understand them. 

Whosoever hath been led by his preceptor thus far into 
the Mysteries of Eros, and hath surveyed beautiful things in 
the right order, when he cometh at last to the end of his 
Initiation, on a sudden shall behold a marvel, a Thing of 
Beauty, That Thing, Socrates, for whose sake all the former 
labours were endured—That Which Alway Is, without genera- 
tion or destruction, or increase or decrease; which is not, on 
this side, or at this time, beautiful, and on that side, or at that 
time, deformed ; in comparison with one thing, beautiful, and 
with another thing, deformed; in one place beautiful, and in 
another, deformed; beautiful in the eyes of one man, and in 
the eyes of another, deformed. Nor will the Thing of Beauty 
appear unto him as a countenance, or as hands, or as aught 
which Corporeal Body hath belonging unto it; nor as any 
Speech, or Science, nor as that which is somewhere in some 


426 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


, rn 


ὑδέ x ᾽ € / / φ: > / x ΕΥ > 
οὐδὲ που ov ἐν ἑτέρῳ τινί, οἷον ἐν Cow ἢ ἐν γῇ ἢ ἐν 
“A x ” \ A > \ > fa 
Βοὐρανῷ ἢ ἔν Tw ἄλλῳ, ἀλλὰ αὐτὸ καθ᾽ αὑτὸ μεθ᾽ αὑτοῦ 
\ aN v » δὲ A / \ ᾽ / / 
μονοειδὲς ἀεὶ ὄν, Ta δὲ ἄλλα πάντα καλὰ ἐκείνου μετέχοντα 
/ \ rn 7 nr ΝΜ. 
τρόπον τινὰ τοιοῦτον, οἷον γιγνομένων τε τῶν ἄλλων καὶ 
> / δὲ > a / / / EX. 
ἀπολλυμένων μηὸὲεν ἐκεῖνο μὴτε TL πλέον μὴτε ἔλαττον 
/ \ / / “ / > \ lal 
γίγνεσθαι μηδὲ πάσχειν μηδέν. ὅταν δή Tis ἀπὸ τῶνδε 
ὃ \ Ν 2 θῶ ὃ a ? \ > a \ Ν » 
ta τὸ ὀρθῶς παιδεραστεῖν ἐπανιὼν ἐκεῖνο τὸ καλὸν ἄρχη- 
“ \ / / lal / lal \ 
tat καθορᾶν, σχεδὸν ἄν τι ἅπτοιτο τοῦ τέλους. τοῦτο yap 
δή 2 \ > AG - % \ bd] \ 5. x ς > ” »” 
C07 ἐστι TO ορθως ETL TA ἐρωτικὰ ἱέναι ἢ UT ἄλλου ἄγε- 
/ lal rn lal / “ cal 
σθαι, ἀρχόμενον ἀπὸ τῶνδε τῶν καλῶν ἐκείνου ἕνεκα TOU 
a \ , 4 val , > \ 
καλοῦ ἀεὶ ἐπανιέναι, ὥσπερ ἐπαναβασμοῖς χρώμενον, ἀπὸ 
es ie N / \ > 4 fal ae" / \ \ , 
ἑνὸς ἐπὶ δύο καὶ ἀπὸ δυεῖν ἐπὶ πάντα Ta καλὰ σώματα, 
\ > \ al a / a \ \ > / 
καὶ ἀπὸ TOV καλῶν σωμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα, 
ἌΝ π᾿ 5 A > 7, 5. ἃ \ \ f 
Kal ἀπὸ TOV καλῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ μηθήματα, 
»Μ » ΕΝ 3 \ lal / ᾽ 9 > n \ 10 
ἔστ ἂν ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων ἐπ᾽ ἐκεῖνο TO μάθημα τελευ- 
/ 4 > > ” x ᾽ lal b] / a a 
TNO, ὁ ἐστιν οὐκ ἄλλου ἢ αὑτοῦ ἐκείνου τοῦ καλοῦ 
“- ral A / / 5 cal 
Ὁ μάθημα, Kal yuo αὐτὸ τελευτῶν ὃ ἔστι καλόν. ᾿Ενταῦθα 
lal / > \ / 
τοῦ βίου, ὦ φίλε Σώκρατες, ἔφη ἡ Μαντινικὴ ξένη, εἴπερ 
Ν / \ \ / a 
που ἄλλοθι, βιωτὸν ἀνθρώπῳ, θεωμένῳ αὐτὸ TO καλόν. ὃ 
»,2 ἴὃ > \ / \ ’ fal \ \ 
ἐάν ποτε ἴδῃς, οὐ κατὰ χρυσίον Te Kal ἐσθῆτα Kal τοὺς 
\ δά Ν , 56 J ἃ “A 
καλοὺς παῖδάς τε Kal νεανίσκους δόξει σοι εἶναι, ods νῦν 
a. / \ \ Y / 
ὁρῶν ἐκπέπληξαι καὶ ἕτοιμος εἶ Kal σὺ Kal ἄλλοι πολλοί, 
cs \ ὃ \ \ / oo’ > - ” 16 » 
ὁρῶντες τὰ παιδικὰ καὶ ξυνόντες ἀεὶ αὐτοῖς, εἴ πως οἷον τ 
/ / / / \ a / 
ἦν, μήτε ἐσθίειν μήτε πίνειν, ἀλλὰ θεᾶσθαι μόνον καὶ 
a / δῆ » 5. " / ee \ 
ξυνεῖναι. τί δῆτα, ἔφη, οἰόμεθα, εἴ Tw γένοιτο αὐτὸ TO 
a > / / \ \ > / 
Ε καλὸν ἰδεῖν εἰλικρινές, καθαρόν, ἄμικτον, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἀνάπλεων 
lal > θ / ‘ / \ ” XxX a 
σαρκῶν τε ἀνθρωπίνων καὶ χρωμάτων καὶ ἄλλης πολλῆς 
- \ a \ / 
φλυαρίας θνητῆς, ἀλλ᾿ αὐτὸ τὸ θεῖον καλὸν δύναιτο 
A b a / / 
μονοειδὲς κατιδεῖν ; ap οἴει, ἔφη, φαῦλον βίον γίγνεσθαι 
“ “Ὁ να “A / \ 
212 ἐκεῖσε βλέποντος ἀνθρώπου κἀκεῖνο ᾧ Set θεωμένου καὶ 
/ > a A > b 0 a ΝΜ Ὁ > Ne) > a 
Evvovtos αὐτῷ; ἢ οὐκ ἐνθυμεῖ, ἔφη, ὅτε ἐνταῦθα αὐτῷ 
΄σ [ὦ al e \ \ / / > 
μοναχοῦ γενήσεται, ὁρῶντι ᾧ ὁρατὸν τὸ καλόν, τίκτειν οὐκ 
a / ᾽ > 5 - 
εἴδωλα ἀρετῆς, ἅτε οὐκ εἰδώλου ἐφαπτομένῳ, ἀλλ᾽ ἀληθῆ, 
lal -“ 7 / \ , \ > lel \ 
ἅτε τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἐφαπτομένῳ, τεκόντι δὲ ἀρετὴν ἀληθῆ καὶ 
, - / / »” » 
θρεψαμένῳ ὑπάρχει θεοφιλεῖ γενέσθαι καί, εἴπερ τῳ ἄλλῳ 
’ 
ἀνθρώπων, ἀθανάτῳ καὶ ἐκείνῳ ; 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 427 


other thing, as in a living creature, or in earth, or in heaven, 
or in any other thing; but he shall see It as That which Is 
in Itself, with Itself, of one Form, Eternal; and all the other 
beautiful things he shall see as partaking of It after such 
manner that, while they come into being and perish, It be- 
cometh not a whit greater or less, nor suffereth any change at 
all, ’Tis when a man ascendeth from these beautiful things 
by the Right Way of Love, and beginneth to have sight of that 
Kternal Beauty,—’tis then, methinks, that he toucheth the goal. 
For this is the right Way to go into the Mysteries of Eros, or 
to be led by another—beginning from the beautiful things here, 
to mount up alway unto that Eternal Beauty, using these things 
as the steps of a ladder—ascending from one to two, and from 
two to all, Beautiful Bodies, and from Beautiful Bodies to 
Beautiful Customs, and from Beautiful Customs to Beautiful 
Doctrines, and from these till at last, being come unto that 
which is the Doctrine of the Eternal Beauty and of naught else 
beside, he apprehendeth what Beauty Itself is. “Tis then, dear 
Socrates, said the Woman of Mantinea, that life is worth living, 
and then only, when a man cometh to behold Beauty Itself; the 
which if thou hast once seen, thou wilt hold wealth, and fine 
raiment, and fair companions, as naught in comparison with it 
—yea, those fair companions whom thou now lookest upon 
with amazement, and art ready—thou and many others of thy 
like—to pass your lives with them, gazing upon them, and, if 
it were possible, neither eating nor drinking, but only behold- 
ing them and being with them alway. What thinkest thou, 
then, she said, if a man could see Beauty Itself, clear, pure, 
Separate, not gross with human flesh, and tainted with colours, 
and decked out with perishing gauds—what thinkest thou, if 
he could behold Beauty Itself, divine, uniform? Thinkest 
thou, she said, that it would be a paltry life for a man to live, 
looking unto that, beholding it with the faculty meet therefor, 
and being with it alway? Understandest thou not that thus 
only shall he be able, seeing with that whereby Beauty is seen, 
to bring forth, not Images of Virtue—for ’tis no Image that he 
layeth hold of,—but Things True—for he layeth hold of That 
which is True ; and when he hath brought forth True Virtue 
and nurtured her, understandest thou not that then he hath 
become above all men beloved of God, and himself immortal ! 


428 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE DISCOURSE OF DIOTIMA 
Z 


The Myth in which Diotima sets forth the parentage and 
nature of Eros differs in style from the Myth of the Round 
People told by Aristophanes, as widely as it is possible for one 
composition to differ from another. If the Myth of the Round 
People is so barbarously grotesque that one has difficulty in 
recognising it as a Platonic Myth, Diotima’s Myth is equally 
hard to bring under that designation, on account of the pre- 
valence of philosophical allegory in its style. It is, indeed, in 
its first part simply a philosophical allegory’ setting forth 
pictorially an analysis of Love into elements which are seen 
to be identical with those given by an analysis of Philosophy. 
"Eps is neither ἸΠόρος nor Πενία, but the child of these two; 
φιλοσοφία is neither ἀμαθία nor σοφία, but the outcome of 
both. This point, however, once reached by the way of alle- 
gory thinly disguising the results of previous analysis, Diotima’s 
Discourse henceforward assumes the character of true Myth, if 
not in its matter—for no further narrative is added—yet cer- 
tainly in its essential form: it becomes an imaginative develop- 
ment of the notion of φιλοσοφία: φιλοσοφία is set forth as 
the Desire of Immortality. Philosophy is not merely a System 
of Knowledge, but a Life, nay, the Life Eternal—the true Life 
of the immortal Soul. Diotima’s Discourse thus ends in the 
character of a true Myth, setting forth in impassioned imagina- 
tive language the Transcendental Idea of the Soul. It is out 
of the mood which expresses itself in, and is encouraged by, 
such impassioned imaginative language that prophetic visions 
arise, and great Myths about the Soul’s creation, wanderings, 
and goal. JDiotima’s Discourse in its latter, non-allegorical, 


1 Plotinus, nn, iii. 5, may be read for an elaborate interpretation of Diotima’s 
Allegory :—Zeus is νοῦς, Aphrodite is ψυχή, Poros is λόγος, Penia is ὕλη; and 
much more to the same effect. Cf. Cudworth, Intellectual System, vol. ii. p. 379 
(ed. Mosheim and Harrison). 

2 See Zeller’s Plato, pp. 191-196 (Eng. Tr.), for the connection made, in the 
Phaedrus and Symposium, between Eros and Philosophy ; and, especially p. 194, 
n. 66, for the meaning of Diotima’s Discourse, and a protest against the Neo- 
Platonic interpretation of its meaning adopted by Jahn in his Diss, Plat. 64 ff. 
and 249 ff, 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 429 


part we must regard as a true Myth—although it has no 
story, no pictures,—because we feel that it might at any 
moment break out into the language of prophetic vision. 

Its identification of Love and Philosophy is intended to 
bring home to the Imagination the great Platonic doctrine 
that Philosophy is Life. The outline, or ideal, presented here, 
without articulation, to the Imagination, is articulated, still 
for the Imagination, in the astronomical Eschatology of the 
Phaedrus Myth; and for the Understanding, in the account 
given in the Republic! of the Philosophic Nature and of the 
Education which it needs. <A vast non-articulated ideal, like 
that held up by Diotima in the latter part of her Discourse, 
lends itself easily to either kind of articulation—it may be 
articulated in an abstract way as a great system of laws, or 
pictorially, as a group of symbols making an Allegory which, 
because it is so vast, easily assumes the character of Myth. 
And Myth may be painted as well as spoken. As a scheme 
of education, articulating for the Imagination the Ideal of 
“Philosophy is Life,” the Spanish Chapel fresco, which has 
already” been instanced as a painted Myth, may well be 
placed beside the scheme set forth for the Understanding in 
the Republic. The details in the fresco are the result of 
minute analysis of the elements which constitute true educa- 
tion; but they are so presented to the eye as to reveal to its 
intuition the spiritual bond which unites them together in 
one meaning—in one λόγος τῆς μίξεως which transcends the 
parts. Faith, Hope, and Charity are hovering in the sky, and 
beneath them, also in the sky, are Courage, Temperance, Justice, 
Prudence. Beneath these are seated in a row ten Prophets 
and Apostles, with S. Thomas Aquinas on a throne in the 
middle. Beneath these again sit the Sciences Divine and 
Natural, fourteen of them; and beneath each Science sits her 
greatest earthly Teacher. 

The separate figures are symbols, and form groups which 


1 485 Bff. That the scheme of education in the Republic articulates for the 
Understanding an outline, or ideal, presented to the Imagination is plainly 
admitted. The scheme is called a Myth—as 3768, ἴθι οὖν, ὥσπερ ἐν μύθῳ 
μυθολογοῦντές Te Kal σχολὴν ἄγοντες λόγῳ παιδεύομεν τοὺς ἄνδρας : and 501k, 
ἡ πολιτεία ἣν μυθολογοῦμεν λόγῳ: and see Couturat, de Plat. Mythis, p. 50— 
‘**Respublica tota ex ipsius auctoris sententia mythica est: cf. Tim. 26 Ὁ, 
Remp. 420 c, 536 B, c, 376 D, 501 B, 443 B, c.” 

2 Supra, pp. 114 and 257. 


480 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


may be interpreted as Allegories, but the whole picture which 
contains them is a Myth. 

It is difficult, as I have pointed out before, to distinguish, 
in the work of a great creative artist, between Allegory and 
Myth. Allegory, consciously employed as such by a man of 
genius, always tends to pass into Myth. In dealing with 
this point I have said that Plato’s Cave, carefully constructed 
as it is in all its detail, like the Spanish Chapel fresco, to 
give a picture of results already in the possession of its 
author, is, beyond all that, a wonder for the eye of Imagina- 
tion to be grasped in one impression. Beneath the inter- 
pretation of the Allegory we are aware of the enigma of the 
Myth. Plato, we feel, had seen the whole before he began to 
articulate the parts. Perhaps, as I ventured to suppose, some 
weird scene in a Syracusan quarry gave the first suggestion. 

I said that, although the former part of Diotima’s Dis- 
course is an Allegory, the latter part has the true character- 
istic of the Myth, setting forth, without narrative or pictures 
indeed, but in impassioned imaginative language, the Tran- 
scendental Idea of the Soul. It is only by accident, we feel, 
that the Discourse does not break out into the language of 
prophetic vision. 

The Diotima of this Discourse may be taken as a study 
of the Prophetic Temperament. 

Let me try to bring out the essential nature of this 
temperament by making some passages in Spinoza’s Tractatus 
Theologico-Politicus do service as a commentary on Plato’s 
study. To appreciate the nature of the prophetic tempera- 
ment and the use of prophecy as determined by the great 
Jewish critic—he was one of the founders of biblical criticism 
—is, I think, to go far towards appreciating the function of 
Myth in Plato’s Philosophy. 

The passages to which I refer are in the first and 
second chapters of the 7'ractatus Theologico-Politicus. Spinoza 
begins by distinguishing teachers of natural science from 
prophets. Although natural science is divine, its teachers 
cannot be called prophets; for what the teachers of natural 
science impart as certain, other men receive as certain, and 
that not merely on authority but of their own knowledge. 
It is by the faculty of Imagination that prophets are dis- 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 431 


tinguished from teachers of natural science. By Imagination 
prophets perceive the revelations of God and transcend the 
limits of the Scientific Understanding. This is why they 
impart what they perceive almost always in parables, express- 
ing spiritual truths by means of sensible images; for this 
is the method which their faculty naturally prescribes. 
Prophets are not endowed with a more perfect Intelligence, 
but with a more vivid Imagination than other men.  Pro- 
phecy, as it depends on Imagination, does not per se involve 
certainty : prophets are not made certain of the revelation of 
God by the revelation itself, but by a sign. Thus Abraham 
(Genesis xv. 8), on hearing the promise of God, asked for a 
sign. He, indeed, believed God, and did not ask for a sign 
in order that he might believe God, but in order that he 
might know that the thing was actually promised to him by 
God.‘ Herein prophecy is inferior to natural knowledge, 
which needs no sign, but has its certainty in itself. The 
prophet’s certainty is not metaphysical but moral. The 
prophet may be recognised by three marks: (1) he imagines 
the things revealed as vividly as if they were objects of 
waking sense, (2) he needs a sign, and (3)—-and chiefly—he 
has a mind inclined to that which is just and good. Though 
this may seem to show that prophecy and revelation are un- 
certain, yet they have much that is certain; for God never 
deceives pious men, “ His Elect.” He uses them as instru- 
ments of His goodness, as he uses the wicked as instruments 
of His wrath. Now, since the signs are merely to persuade 
the prophet in a matter where the certainty is not meta- 
physical but moral, it follows that the signs are suited to the 
opinions and capacity of the prophet; and the revelation (1.6. 
the thing imagined) varies with the temperament (gay or sad), 
and the beliefs, of the prophet. The conclusion of all is that 
prophecy never adds to the knowledge of the prophet or of 
others, but leaves them in their preconceived opinions; so 
that, in merely speculative matters, we are not at all bound 
to believe prophets; but in matters which concern righteous- 
ness and moral character we are.” 


1 Similarly, miracles do not make us believe in the existence of God. We 
must believe in the existence of God before we can believe in the occurrence of 
miracles. 

2 Prophecy, says Professor P. Gardner (Jowett Lectures, 1901, p. 117), ‘is 


482 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


I offer no particular remarks on the foregoing passage, 
but merely recommend it to the attention of the reader, as 
defining the use of Prophecy in a manner similar to that in 
which I think the use of the Platonic Myth ought to be 
defined. 

With Spinoza’s view of the end of Prophecy, Henry More’s 
view of the end of Scripture has much in common. The in- 
terpretation of the literal text, he explains," must always 
depend on what we have learned from Philosophy, not from 
Scripture ; but the sole end of the Scripture is the furthering 
of the Holy Life. 

Similarly, John Smith says,’ “ Christ’s main scope was to 
promote an Holy Life as the best and most compendious way 
to a right Belief. He hangs all true acquaintance with 
Divinity upon the doing God’s will. If any man will do his 
will he shall know the doctrine, whether it be of God.” 

This view of the meaning of Prophecy, and generally of 
inspired scriptures, held by the Cambridge Platonists in in- 
dependent agreement with Spinoza, is one which finds much 
favour at the present day among those critical students of 
the Bible whose paramount interest is still in religion as a 
practical concern. Their teaching on the subject of “ inspira- 
tion” and “ divine revelation,” in my view, throws much light 
on the subject of this work. I would summarise my advice 
to those who wish to realise for themselves the function of 
the Platonic Myth as follows :—After reading Plato’s Myths, 
each one in its own context, seal the effect of the whole by 
reading the work of some other great master of Myth—best 
of all the Divina Commedia; then turn to the writings of 
those modern critics of the Bible whose paramount interest is 
still in religion as a practical concern. Were the student to 
undertake the last-mentioned part of this programme, he 
would probably find the word “inspiration” a difficulty. He 
would probably think that the use made of the word by the 


based on insight, and sees not future events but the tendency of existing forces, 
and looks beneath the surface of the present and sees its true inwardness... . 
The Jewish prophet dealt far less with the future than with the present. He 
was first al foremost a teacher of righteousness—one who explained the pur- 
poses of God and made his ways bare to man. He was, in fact, a preacher.” 

1 Appendix to the Defence of the Philosophick Cabbala, ch, xii., especially § 3, 
pp- 150, 151, ed. 1662. 

2 Select Discowrses (1660), p. 9 (ὙΠῸ True Way or Method of attaining 
Divine Knowledge’’), and ef. pp. 169 ff. (‘‘ Of Prophesie”’). 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 433 


critics is vague and uncertain, But let him remember that 
Plato's use of the corresponding ἔρως (especially where épws 
and φιλοσοφία are identified, as in Diotima’s Discourse) is 
equally vague. Precision is not to be looked for in the 
description of such a condition or gift. Indeed, Diotima’s 
φιλοσοφία is perhaps even more vague than the “ inspiration ” 
of these critics; for the former is the condition of an in- 
dividual, while the community rather than the individual is 
the recipient of the latter—‘“It is not the individual 80 
much as the society or community which is the recipient of 
divine inspiration,” says Professor P. Gardner,’ interpreting 
Ritschl. While the “inspiration” of the individual is an 
abnormal condition, difficult to describe psychologically, and 
still more difficult to estimate in respect of “value,” the 
“inspiration” received by a community is something which 
can be definitely reviewed, being the series of ideas of better- 
ment which spring up in the community one after another 
and actually determine its development. The historian may 
find it difficult to show how this idea or that arose; but he 
can generally describe the circumstances in which, having 
arisen, it “caught on” and became an effective factor in the 
development of the community. The “idea of emancipating 
slaves” may serve as an example of what is meant when the 
“inspiration received by a community” is spoken of; and a 
prophet is one who can put such an idea before his contem- 
poraries so vividly that it must perforce, sooner or later, 
realise itself in practice. When we look back over the past 
life of a nation we see how true it is that the grain of 
mustard seed becomes the great tree. How the seed came we 
seldom can tell; it isso small that we should not even have 
noticed it at all, unless the tree had grown out of it. We 
rather infer it from the tree; and if the tree is good we are 
apt to think of the seed as “divinely implanted” in some 
special way. What we can trace clearly to antecedents we 
do not regard with religious feeling; but when we come to 
some little inexplicable thing, which we recognise, after the 


1 Jowett Lectures, p. 270. Expressing his own view Professor Gardner says : 
“ΤῸ may be that in this matter Ritsch] goes too far, for, after all, it is only in 
the consciousness of individuals that divine inspiration can be realised ; religious 
utterances must come from individuals ; and the will of individuals must lead 
society in the right way: nevertheless there is profound and most important 
truth in the recognition of the divine mission of the society.” 

2F 


434 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


event, as source of great things, we say that it comes by 
divine dispensation—@eia μοίρᾳ. 

As the influence of the new biology makes itself more 
and more felt in the field of historical study, we may expect 
that the doctrine of “ inspiration received by the community ” 
will recommend itself more and more to religious minds, as a 
solution of the difficulty which few indeed are content to put 
by wholly—the difficulty of conceiving how the development 
of beautifully articulated organisms can take place along lines 
opened up by “accidental variations.” This difficulty the 
new biology has brought home to us thoroughly, by showing 
us how decisive is the part played in evolution by these 
“accidental variations” among the factors which maintain 
the moving equilibrium of life. The objections which stand 
in the way of accepting the alternative solution—Weismann’s 
theory, which explains “accidental variations” as provided for 
in the original germ-plasma—seem to be at least as formid- 
able as those which might be brought against the theory of 
“divine inspiration of which the community or race is the 
recipient.” 


ΤΊ 
EXCURSUS ON THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF DAEMONS 
(Symposium, 202 E) 


The doctrine, here enunciated, of δαίμονες who perform 
the office of interpreters and mediators between the Gods and 
Men, played a great part in the History of Religious Belief. 

In its original sense δαίμων is synonymous with θεός, 
and means simply “a divine immortal being.” But Hesiod’s 
δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ émvyPovior’ introduced a specification of the 
term. These δαίμονες ἐπιχθόνιοι are indeed “ divine immortal 
beings,” but they are not ἐπουράνιοι or Ὄλυμπον ἔχοντες, 
“divine immortal beings who dwell in Heaven”; they dwell 
in “the parts about the Earth,’* and more especially “in the 
Air.” They are, in fact, the disembodied spirits of the men of 
a long past age—the Golden Age. When these men died, 


1 0. et D. 108. 
? The region described as περὶ γῆν in Phaedrus, 257 A. 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 435 


their bodies were buried; but their immortal spirits remained 
in the neighbourhood of the Earth, and will ever remain 
there, to be the Guardians and Patrons of mortal men :-— 


χρύσεον μὲν πρώτιστα γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων 
ἀθάνατοι ποίησαν ᾿Ολύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχοντες, 

« ‘ ϑ > f 7 “ » ’ - , 
οἱ μὲν ἐπὶ Κρόνου ἦσαν, ὅτ᾽ οὐρανῷ ἐμβασίλευεν, 
« ΔΝ ‘ / ; o- κ᾿ ” 
ὡς δὲ θεοὶ ζώεσκον, ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες, 

’ ν / ‘4 due ’ sar “4Ὃὁ ’ 
νόσφιν ἄτερθε πόνων καὶ ὀϊζύος" οὐδέ τι δειλόν 
γῆρας ἐπῆν" αἰεὶ δὲ πόδας καὶ χεῖρας ὁμοῖοι 

,ὔ " , ’ “Ὁ " " ’ 
τέρποντ᾽ ἐν θαλίῃσι κακῶν ἔκτοσθεν ἁπάντων. 

ἴω ) ε “’ἤ 4 , 5 as , 
θνῆσκον δ᾽ ws ὕπνῳ δεδμημένοι" ἐσθλὰ δὲ πάντα 

- » , 
τοῖσιν env’ καρπὸν δ᾽ ἔφερε ζείδωρος ἄρουρα 

" ’ / ‘ ν Ls ΓΚ] » , 
αὐτομάτη πολλόν τε Kat ἄφθονον" οἱ δ᾽ ἐθελημοί 
ἥσυχοι ἔργα νέμοντο σὺν ἐσθλοῖσιν πολέεσσιν. 
αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ τοῦτο γένος κατὰ γαῖα κάλυψεν, 
οἱ μὲν δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ ἐπιχθόνιοι καλέονται, 
ἐσθλοί, ἀλεξίκακοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων, 

΄“" / * ” 
πλουτοδόται" καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήϊον exxov.! 


When the men of the Silver Age died, their spirits went 
under the Earth. They became ὑποχθόνιοι μάκαρες θνητοί * 
—a difficult phrase, on which Rohde may be consulted.® They 
too, although their works on Earth were displeasing to the 
Gods, receive honour and worship from men. 

The third age was that of the Copper Men. They did 
evil on Earth, and went down nameless to the black pit of 
Hades.* 

The fourth age was that of the Heroes— those who 
fought at Thebes and Troy. Some of them died; some of 
them were translated in the flesh to the Islands of the 
Blessed, where they enjoy everlasting felicity :-— 


τοὺς μὲν θανάτου τέλος ἀμφεκάλυψε, 

- ἊΝ δι 3 , ’ Ὁ ” > > / 
τοῖς δὲ δίχ᾽ ἀνθρώπων βίοτον καὶ ἠθὲ ὀπάσσας 
Ζεὺς Κρονίδης κατένασσε πατὴρ ἐς πείρατα γαίης" 
καὶ τοὶ μὲν ναίουσιν ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες 
» , , >> “ ΄ 
ἐν μακάρων νήσοισι, παρ᾽ ᾿ῶκεανὸν βαθυδίνην, 
ὄλβιοι ἥρωες: τοῖσιν μελιηδέα καρπόν 

\ ” barr / [ὃ ” 5 
τρὶς ἔτεος θάλλοντα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα. 


The fifth age is the present—that of the Men of Iron.° 
No one who reads the Cratylus, 397 pb ff, where the 


1 0. εἰ D. 97 ff. 70.4D.1 
3 Psyche, i. 99-102. 4 0. & D. 137 fff. 
5 0. et D. 150 ff. © 0.aD. 16 


436 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


etymology of δαίμονες is discussed and Hesiod’s verses about 
the δαίμονες ἐπιχθόνιοι are quoted, and the Laws, iv. 713, 
and Politicus, 272, where the Myth of the Golden Age of 
Cronus, when δαίμονες ruled over men, is told, can fail to see 
that the Hesiodic account of δαίμονες has a great hold on 
Plato’s imagination ; and it may be that even the φύλακες of 
the Republic—men with gold in their nature (as the ἐπίκουροι 
have silver, and the artisans and husbandmen have copper 
and iron)—are somehow, in Plato’s imagination, parallel to 
Hesiod’s φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων, the spirits of the men 
of the Golden Age." But we must not forget that there is a 
difference between Plato’s δαίμονες of the Laws and Politicus 
and of Diotima’s Discourse, and Hesiod’s δαέμονες, which is 
greater than the obvious resemblance. Hesiod’s δαίμονες 
ἐπιχθόνιοι are the spirits of deceased men—as are Pindar’s 
ἥρωες ἁγνοί (Meno, 81 c); but the δαίμονες of the Laws 
and Politicus, who rule over men in the Golden Age, are not 
spirits of deceased men, but beings of an entirely different 
order—Gods, who were created Gods, to whom provinces on 
Earth were assigned by the Supreme God—oi κατὰ τοὺς 
τόπους συνάρχοντες τῷ μεγίστῳ δαίμονι θεοί, as they are 
described in Politicus, 272; and in Diotima’s Discourse τὸ 
δαιμόνιον, headed by Eros, is clearly set forth as an order of 
divine beings essentially superhuman, not spirits of deceased 
men. They are, I take it, of the same rank as, indeed prob- 
ably identical with, the γεννητοὶ θεοί of the Zimaeus— 
created before men, to he managers of human affairs on behalf 
of the Supreme God.? In Rep. v. 468 &, on the other hand, 


1 This parallel is suggested by Mr. Adam ina note on Republic, 468 Ἐ, and 
worked out by Mr. F. M. Cornford in an interesting article on ‘‘ Plato and 
Orpheus” in The Classical Review, December 1903. 

2 Chalcidius, in his Commentary on the Timaeus, is at pains to show (cap. 
exxxy.) that the Platonic δαίμονες and the Souls of deceased men are two dis- 
tinct orders :—“ Plerique tamen ex Platonis magisterio, daemonas putant animas 
corporeo munere liberatas: laudabilium quoque virorum aethereos daemonas, 
improborum vero nocentes, easdemque animas anno demum millesimo terrenum 
corpus resumere. Kmpedoclesque non aliter longaevos daemonas fieri has animas 
putat. Pythagoras etiam in suis aureis versibus : 


Corpore deposito cum liber aethera perges, 
Evades hominem factus deus aetheris almi. 


Quibus Plato consentire minime videtur, cum in Politia tyranni animam facit 
excruciari post mortem ab ultoribus, ex quo apparet aliam esse animam, alium 
daemonem : siquidem quod cruciatur et item quod cruciat diversa necesse sit. 
Quodque opifex Deus ante daemonas instituit quam nostras animas creavit ; 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 437 


Plato’s use of the term δαίμονες is strictly Hesiodic—he is 
speaking not of such Gods at all, but of the spirits of deceased 
men of the Golden Class. As Mr. Adam, in his note on the 
passage, says, “ Plato compares his ‘ golden citizens’ with the 
heroes of the Hesiodic golden age. He would fain surround 
them with some of the romantic and religious sentiment 
that clung around the golden age of Greek poetry and 
legend.” 

The two doctrines of δαίμονες which we find in Plato— 
that enunciated in the Golden Age Myth and Diotima’s 
Discourse, and that adopted from Hesiod in Rep. v. 468 E— 
were both taken over by the Stoics, and accommodated to the 
tenets of their “ physical science.” 

According to the Stoics, the Soul, ψυχή, is material, 
σωματική, but its matter is rarer and finer (ἀραιότερον and 
Nemrouepéstepov—Chrysippus apud Plutarch de Stoic. Repugn. 
41) than that of the body. The Soul is, in fact, πνεῦμα 
ἔνθερμον, “ hot air, or breath.” ἢ 

When Souls leave their earthly bodies they do not immedi- 
ately perish. According to Cleanthes, they all retain their 
individuality until the Conflagration, μέχρι τῆς ἐκπυρώσεως: 
according to Chrysippus, only the Souls of Wise Men.2 At 
the Conflagration, however, all Souls perish as individuals— 
are dissolved back into the one substance, the elemental fire, 
God, whose ἀποσπάσματα, or sundered parts, they were during 
the term of their individual existence. 

When Souls leave their earthly bodies, they rise into the 
Air which occupies the space between the Earth and the Moon, 
τὸν ὑπὸ σελήνην τόπον δ That the dissolution of, at any 
rate, the majority of Souls inhabiting this aerial space takes 
place before the Conflagration is clearly the view of Marcus 
Aurelius in a curious passage (Comment. iv. 21), in which he 
meets the difficulty of the Air having room for so many 
separate beings. Room, he says, is always being made in the 


uodque has indigere auxilio daemonum, his voluerit illos praebere tutelam. 

oo ad tamen animas, quae vitam eximie per trinam incorporationem egerint, 
virtutis merito aereis, vel etiam aethereis, plagis consecrari putat, a necessitate 
incorporationis immunes.” The whole passage relating to Daemons in the Com- 
mentary of Chalcidius (cxxvi.-cxxxv.) is interesting. He compares the Daemons 
of Plato with the angels of the Hebrews. 

1 Diog. Laert. vii. 157. 2 δι 6 vii. 157. 

3 Posidonius, in Sext. Phys. i. 73. 


438 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Air for new-comers by the progressive dissolution of their 
predecessors, just as room in the Earth is always made for 
new bodies by the progressive dissolution of those earlier 
buried :---εἰ διαμένουσιν ai ψυχαί, πῶς αὐτὰς ἐξ ἀϊδίου 
χωρεῖ ὁ ἀήρ; πῶς δὲ ἡ γῆ χωρεῖ τὰ τῶν ἐκ τοσούτου 
αἰῶνος θαπτομένων σώματα; ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐνθάδε ἡ τούτων 
πρὸς ἥντινα ἐπιδιαμονὴν μεταβολὴ καὶ διάλυσις χώραν 
ἄλλοις νεκροῖς ποιεῖ, οὕτως αἱ εἰς τὸν ἀέρα μεθιστάμεναι 
ψυχαί, ἐπὶ ποσὸν συμμείνασαι, μεταβάλλουσι καὶ χέονται 
καὶ ἐξάπτονται, eis τὸν τῶν ὅλων σπερματικὸν λόγον 
ἀναλαμβανόμεναι, καὶ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον χώραν ταῖς 
προσσυνοικιζομέναις παρέχουσιν. 

It is probably to the Stoic Posidonius, whose astronomy 
has been mentioned as influential in the development of the 
theory and practice of Mithras-worship and similar sacra- 
mental cults,| that the idea of the Air as the habitat of the 
Souls of the deceased and also of δαίμονες ---- ἃπ order of 
beings distinct from that of human Souls—is chiefly indebted 
for its vogue. Posidonius wrote a treatise περὶ ἡρώων καὶ 
δαιμόνων, quoted by Macrobius (Sat. i. 23),? and Cicero (de 
Div. i. 64) quotes him as saying that the Air is full of Souls 
and Daemons.* That belief in Daemons—spirits which have 
never been incarnate in human bodies—is as consistent with 
the “ materialism” of the Stoics as belief in the continued 
existence of human Souls in the Air, is insisted upon by 
Zeller’ and, indeed, is obvious. 

So much for Stoical belief. But it was exactly the 
astronomy — Pythagorean and Platonic in its origin— 
popularised by the Stoic Posidonius, which seems to have 
suggested a mode of escape from the Stoical doctrine that 
the Soul, though subsisting for a longer or shorter time 
after the death of the body, yet is ultimately dissolved. 
Above the Air—the Stoical habitat of δαίμονες and Souls 
of deceased men, equally doomed to dissolution, according 
to the orthodox doctrine of the school—vthere is_ the 
Aether. Into this region Souls purified by Philosophy— 


1 See supra, pp. 352 ff. 

2 See Rohde, Psyche, ii. 320. 

* Stoics, Kpicureans, and Sceptics, p. 333, Engl. Transl. 

* IT use the term ‘‘aether” here in its proper sense, as the name of the 
element which contains the ‘‘ visible gods,” the stars. This element is sometimes, 
as in the Zpinomis, 984 (cf. Zeller, Plato, p. 615), called πῦρ, fire, while ‘‘aether” 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 439 


or, if may be, by sacramental observances——rise, and there, 
though united to God, retain their individuality for ever. 
This is the doctrine of the Somnium Seipionis — which 
probably owes its astronomy to Posidonius'—and of the 
Tuse. Disp. (i. 17, 18,19); it is the doctrine to which even 
the Stoic Seneca (ad Mare. 25. 1) seems to ineline, and it 
inspired those sacramental cults, Orphic, Mithraic, and 
Kgyptian, which became so important in the religious life 
of the first two centuries of the Christian era.” 

In this doctrine of Aether, the region of the heavenly 
spheres, as everlasting home of purified Souls, we have, of 
course, merely the mythology of the Zimaeus and Phaedrus 
framed in an astronomical setting somewhat more definite 
than that furnished by Plato himself. What it is important, 
however, to recognise is that this mythology, so framed, 


takes the place of what is properly called πῦρ, fire, in the list ‘fire, air, water, earth.” 
Bywater (Jowrn. of Phil. vol. i. pp. 37-39, on the Fragm. of Philolaus) quotes 
the de Coelo, i. 270 Ὁ, and the Meteor, 339 Ὁ, for ‘‘aether” above the four 
elements, and remarks that ‘‘the occurrence of this quinta essentia in the 
Platonic Hpinomis is one of the many indications of the late origin of that 
Dialogue.” 

1 See Rohde, Psyche, ii. 320, and Dieterich, Zine Mithrasliturgie, quoted supra, 

352. 

2 The following references to the Commentary of Hierocles (President of the 
School of Alexandria) on the Golden Hymn of the Pythagoreans may be taken 
to show how the astronomy of the 7'imaeus and Phaedrus influenced eschatology 
even in the fifth century of the Christian era. Hierocles (see Mullach’s 
Fragm. Phil. Graec. i. 478 ff.) is commenting on the lines— 


ἀλλ᾽ elpyou βρωτῶν, ὧν εἴπομεν, ἔν τε καθαρμοῖς, 
ἔν τε λύσει ψυχῆς κρίνων, καὶ φράζευ ἕκαστα, 
ἡνίοχον γνώμην στήσας καθύπερθεν ἀρίστην, 


and, after referring for ἡνίοχον to the Phaedrus Myth, and remarking that it 
embodies Pythagorean doctrine, says that, for the purification of the aethereal 
body—rpés τὴν κάθαρσιν τοῦ αὐγοειδοῦς ἡμῶν oduaros—we must put away the 
filth of the terrestrial body, and submit ourselves to purificatory observances, 
καθαρμοί, which he describes—by means of which we shall rise from the Place of 
Generation and Corruption, and be translated to τὸ ἠλύσιον πεδίον καὶ Αἰθέρα 
τὸν ἐλεύθερον. But as the terrestrial body must be shed on Earth, the συμφυές, 
i.e. the aerial body, must be shed in the aerial region immediately under the 
Moon (cf. Plut. de fac. in orbe lunae, 28, quoted p. 440 infra). Then the 
aethereal or astral body (τὸ ἀστροειδές, αὐγοειδές, φωτεινὸν σῶμα or ὄχημα) which 
is the immortal vehicle of the Soul, is free to ascend, with the Soul, into the 
Aether :—rotro δὲ γενόμενος ws οἷόν τε μετὰ τὴν κάθαρσιν, ὃ ἀεί εἰσιν οἱ μὴ els 
γένεσιν πίπτειν πεφυκότες, τοῖς μὲν γνώσεσιν ἑνοῦται τῷ παντί, καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν 
ἀνάγεται τὸν θεόν" σῶμα δὲ συμφυὲς ἔχων, τόπου δεῖται εἰς κατάταξιν ἀστροειδῇ, 
οἷον θέσιν ζητῶν. πρέποι δ᾽ ἂν τῷ τοιούτῳ σώματι τόπος ὁ ὑπὸ σελήνην 
προσεχῶς, ὡς ὑπερέχων μὲν τῶν φθαρτῶν σωμάτων, ὑποβεβηκὼς δὲ τῶν οὐρανίων, 
ὃν αἰθέρα ἐλεύθερον οἱ ἸΤυθαγόρειοι καλοῦσιν: αἰθέρα μέν, ὡς ἄῦλον καὶ ἀΐδιον 
σῶμα: ἐλεύθερον δέ, ὡς ὑλικῶν παθημάτων καθαρόν. τί οὖν ὁ ἐκεῖσε ἐλθὼν ἔσται, 
ἢ τοῦτο ὅ φησιν, ἔσσεαι ἀθάνατος θεός, ὡμοιωμένος τοῖς ἐν ἀρχῇ τῶν ἐπῶν 
λεχθεῖσιν ἀθανάτοις θεοῖς, οὐ φύσει ἀθάνατος θεός. 


440 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


appeared to Platonists to be ἃ sufficiently “up-to-date” 
refutation of the “ materialism” of the Stoics. The Soul, 
when perfectly purified, rises out of the Air into the Aether, 
returning to its original home, and there lives for ever and 
ever. Its perfect purification—effected by Philosophy, or 
ritual performances, or both—guarantees its immortality ; for 
its eternal intelligible essence—vods—stripped of perishing 
sensible vehicles, terrestrial—oapa—and aerial—yuyn— 
is alone left. Of this intelligible essence Aether is the 
vehicle. The aethereal region is full of fulgor vivi ὁ vincenti* 
—immortal spirits made pure by Philosophy, and suffering, 
and holy rites. This Platonist doctrine is set forth by 
Plutarch in his de genio Socratis, and in his de facie in 
orbe lunae. In a curious passage in the latter work (ch. 28) 
he tells us that reason—vods—has its home in the Sun. 
Thither the purified spirit returns, having shed its corporeal 
vehicle—copa—on Earth, and its aerial—yvy7—on the 
Moon. This is the order of purification. And the order of 
generation, he explains, is the contrary of that of purification : 
—Of the three parts which make up man, the Sun supplies 
νοῦς, the Moon ψυχή, the Earth σῶμα. Death on Earth 
makes the three two; death on the Moon makes the two 
one. Every Soul, whether rational or irrational,* must 
wander for a time in the region between the Earth and the 
Moon. In the lower parts of this region the unrighteous 
are punished and corrected, while the righteous tarry for an 
appointed time in its highest parts—in the region of the 
softest air, which is called the Meadow of Death—éy τῷ 
πρᾳοτάτῳ τοῦ ἀέρος ὃν λειμῶνας ἅδου καλοῦσι; then, 
being filled, like those initiated, with a strange joy, half 
amazement half hope, they aspire to the Moon. There, now 
styled δαίμονες by Plutarch,’ they have their abode, 
descending sometimes to Earth to help men—to assist at 
mysteries, to watch and punish crimes, to save in battle 
and at sea. The good among them (for some of them are 
wicked and become incarnate again in human bodies) are 
the Souls of those who lived on Earth in the reign of Cronus, 
and they are still worshipped in many places. When one 


1 Par. x, 64. 2 Plut. de fac, in orb, lun, 28. 
8. 0,6. 28. 4 o.c, 28. 5 o.c. 30. 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 441 


of these good Daemons at last loses his power on Karth and 
fails his worshippers, it is because his lunar death has taken 
place—his true Self, νοῦς, has at last been separated from 
the ψυχή, which remains, like a corpse, on the Moon. The 
separation of νοῦς from ψυχή is effected by the operation 
in him of Love of the Solar Image—droxpiverac δ᾽ ἔρωτι 
τῆς περὶ τὸν ἥλιον εἰκόνος, δι ἧς ἐπιλάμπει τὸ ἐφετὸν 
καὶ καλὸν καὶ θεῖον καὶ μακάριον, οὗ πᾶσα φύσις, ἄλλη 
δ᾽ ἄλλως, ὀρέγεται. .. λείπεται δὲ ἡ ψυχῆς φύσις ἐπὶ 
τῇ σελήνῃ, οἷον ἴχνη τινὰ βίου καὶ ὀνείρατα διαφυλάττουσα 

. αὐτὸς ἕκαστος ἡμῶν οὐ θυμός ἐστιν, οὐδὲ φόβος, οὐδ᾽ 
ἐπιθυμία, καθάπερ οὐδὲ σάρκες, οὐδὲ ὑγρότητες, GAN ᾧ 
διανοούμεθα καὶ φρονοῦμεν . . . τούτων δὲ ἡ σελήνη 
στοιχεῖόν ἐστιν, ἀναλύονται γὰρ εἰς ταύτην, ὥσπερ εἰς 
τὴν γῆν τὰ σώματα τῶν νεκρῶν. 

Plutarch’s other work, mentioned above, the de genio 
Socratis, is so important for the doctrine of Daemons, that 
it cannot be dismissed in a paragraph like that just devoted 
to the de facie in orbe lunae. On the whole, I think the 
best way of laying its contents before the reader is to let it 
speak for itself in the Myth of Timarchus, which indeed 
presents all that is essential to Plutarch’s daemonology. As 
in the case of the Aridaeus-Thespesius Myth, I avail myself 
here again of Philemon Holland’s version. 


There was one Timarchus of Chaeronea, who died very young, 
and requested earnestly of Socrates to be buried near unto 
Lamprocles, Socrates his son, who departed this life but few days 
before, being a dear friend of his, and of the same age. Now 
this young gentleman, being very desirous (as he was of a 
generous disposition, and had newly tasted the sweetness of 
Philosophy) to know what was the nature and power of Socrates’ 
familiar spirit, when he had imparted his mind and purpose 
unto me only and Cebes, went down into the cave or vault of 
Trophonius, after the usual sacrifices and accustomed compli- 
ments due to that oracle performed: where, having remained two 
nights and one day, inasmuch as many men were out of all hope 
that he ever would come forth again—yea, and his kinsfolk and 
friends bewailed the loss of him—one morning betimes issued 
forth very glad and jocund. ... He recounted unto us many 
wonders strange to be heard and seen: for he said that being 
descended into the place of the oracle, he first met with much 
darkness, and afterwards, when he had made his prayers, he lay 


442 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


a long time upon the ground, not knowing whether he was awake 
or dreamed. Howbeit, he thought that he heard a noise which 
lit upon his head and smote it, whereby the sutures or seams 
thereof were disjoined and opened, by which he yielded forth 
his soul; which, being thus separate, was very joyous, seeing 
itself mingled with a transparent and pure air... When he 
looked behind him he could see the Earth no more, but the Isles 
all bright and illuminate with a mild and delicate fire, and those 
exchanged their places one with another, and withal, received 
sundry colours, as it were diverse tinctures, according as in that 
variety of change the light did alter; and they all seemed unto 
him in number infinite and in quantity excessive: and albeit they 
were not of equal pourprise and extent, yet round they were 
all alike: also, by their motion, which was cireular, the sky 
resounded. . . Amid these Islands there seemed a sea or great 
lake diffused and spread, shining with diverse mixed colours upon 
a ground of grey or light blue. Moreover, of these Isles some 
few sailed, as one would say, and were carried a direct course 
down the water beyond the current; but others, and those in 
number many, went aside out of the channel, and were with 
such a violence drawn back that they seemed to be swallowed 
under the waves. ... And the same sea hath two mouths or 
entrances, whereby it receiveth two rivers of fire breaking 
into it, opposite one to the other, in such sort as the blueness 
thereof became whitish by reason that the greatest part was 
repelled and driven back. And these things he said he beheld 
with great delight. But when he came to look downward, he 
perceived a mighty huge hole or gulf all round, in manner of a 
hollow globe cut through the midst, exceeding deep and horrible 
to see to, full of much darkness, and the same not quiet and still, 
but turbulent and oftentimes boiling and walming upward, out 
of which there might be heard innumerable roarings and groanings 
of beasts, cries and wrawlings of an infinite number of children, 
with sundry plaints and lamentations of men and women together, 
besides many noises, tumults, clamours, and outcries of all sorts, 
and those not clear, but dull and dead, as being sent up from a 
great depth underneath. . . . One whom he saw not, said unto 
him: The division of Proserpina, you may see if you will, 
how it is bounded with Styx. Styx (quoth he) is the way 
which leadeth unto hell and the kingdom of Pluto, dividing two 
contrary natures of light and darkness with the head and top 
thereof ; for, as you see, it beginneth from the bottom of hell 
beneath, which it touches with the one extremity, and reacheth 
with the other to the light all about, and so limiteth the utmost 
part of the whole world, divided into four regiments. The first 
is that of life; the second of moving; the third of generation ; 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 443 


and the fourth of corruption. The first is coupled to the second 
by unity, in that which is not visible; the second to the third, 
by the mind or intelligence, in the sun; the third to the fourth, 
by nature, in the moon. And of every one of these copulations 
there is a Friend, or Destiny, the Daughter of Necessity, that 
keepeth the key. Of the first, she that is named Atropos, as one 
would say Inflexible ; of the second, Clotho—that is to say, the 
Spinster ; of the third in the moon, Lachesis—that is to say, Lot, 
about which is the bending of geniture or nativity. As for all 
the other Isles, they have gods within them; but the Moon, 
appertaining to the terrestrial Daemons, avoideth the confines of 
Styx, as being somewhat higher exalted, approaching once only 
in an hundred seventy seven second measures: and upon the 
approach of this precinct of Styx, the souls ery out for fear. And 
why? Hell catcheth and swalloweth many of them, as they 
glide and slip about it: and others the Moon receiveth and taketh 
up, swimming from beneath unto her; such, | mean, as upon 
whom the end of generation fell in good and opportune time, all 
save those which are impure and polluted: for them, with her 
fearful flashing and hideous roaring, she suffereth not to come 
near unto her; who, seeing that they have missed of their intent, 
bewail their woeful state, and be carried down again, as you see, 
to another generation and nativity. Why, quoth Timarchus, I 
see nothing but a number of stars leaping up and down about 
this huge and deep gulf, some drowned and swallowed up in it, 
others appearing again from below. These be (quoth he) the 
daemons that you see, though you know them not. And mark, 
withal, how this comes about. Every soul is endued with a 
portion of mind or understanding: but look how much thereof 
is mingled with flesh and with passions; being altered with 
pleasures and dolors, it becometh unreasonable. But every soul 
is not mixed after one sort . . . for some are wholly plunged 
within the body . . . others partly are mingled with the flesh, 
and in part leave out that which is most pure, and not drawn 
downward by the contagion of the gross part, but remaineth 
swimming and floating as it were aloft, touching the top or crown 
only of a man’s head, and is in manner of a cord hanging up 
aloft, just over the soul which is directly and plumb under, to 
uphold and raise it up, so far forth as it is obeisant thereto, and 
not over-ruled and swayed with passions and perturbations: for 
that which is plunged down within the body is called the soul; 
but that which is entire and uncorrupt the vulgar sort calleth the 
understanding, supposing it to be within them as in mirrors that 
which appeareth by way of reflection: but those that judge aright 
and according to the truth name it Daemon, as being clean 
without them. These stars, then, which you see as if they were 


444 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


extinct and put out, imagine and take them to be the souls which 
are totally drowned within bodies ; and such as seem to shine out 
again and to return lightsome from beneath, shaking from them 
a certain dark and foggy mist, esteem the same to be such souls 
as after death are retired and escaped out of the bodies; but 
those which are mounted on high and move to and fro in one 
uniform course throughout are the Daemons or spirits of men who 
are said to have intelligence and understanding. Endeavour now 
therefore and strain yourself to see the connection of each one, 
whereby it is linked and united to the soul. When I heard this 
I began to take more heed, and might see stars leaping and 
floating upon the water, some more, some less, like as we observe 
pieces of cork shewing in the sea where the fishers’ nets have been 
cast ; and some of them turned in manner of spindles or bobbins, 
as folk spin or twist therewith, yet drawing a troubled and 
unequal course and not able to direct and compose the motion 
straight. And the voice said that those which held on a right 
course and orderly motion were they whose souls were obeisant 
to the reins of reason . . . but they that eftsoons rise and fall up 
and down unequally and disorderly are those which strive against 
the yoke. . . . Of such as are obedient at the first, and presently 
from their very nativity hearken unto their proper Daemon, are 
all of the kind of prophets and diviners who have the gift to 
foretell things to come, likewise holy and devout men: of which 
number you have heard how the soul of Hermodorus the Clazo- 
menian was wont to abandon his body quite, and both by day and 
night to wander into many places ; and afterwards to return into 
it again. . . which it used so long, until his enemies, by the 
treachery of his wife, surprised his body one time, when the soul 
was gone out of it, and burnt it in his house. Howbeit, this was 
not true; for his soul never departed out of his body; but the 
same being always obedient unto his Daemon, and slacking the 
bond unto it, gave it means and liberty to run up and down, and 
to walk to and fro in many places, in such sort, as having seen 
and heard many things abroad, it would come and report the 
same unto him. But those that consumed his body as he lay 
asleep are tormented in Tartarus even at this day for it; which 
you shall know yourself, good young man, more certainly within 
these three months (quoth that voice): and for this time see you 
depart. When this voice had made an end of speaking, Timarchus, 
as he told the tale himself, turned about to see who it was that 
spake; but feeling a great pain again in his head, as if it had 
been violently pressed and crushed, he was deprived of all sense 
and understanding, and neither knew himself nor anything about 
him. But within a while after when he was come unto himself, 
he might see how he lay along at the entry of the foresaid cave 


THE TWO SYMPOSTUM MYTHS 445 


of Trophonius, like as he had himself at the beginning. And thus 
much concerning the fable of Timarehus; who being returned to 
Athens, in the third month after, just as the voice foretold him, 
he departed this life. 


The Aether, then, according to the Platonist belief which 
we are examining, is the birthplace of human Souls, and 
their final abode when they have completed the purification 
which guarantees immortality to them as Pure Intelligences, 
But the Air is, none the less, the habitat, and, it would appear, 
the permanent habitat, of another class of immortal spirits, 
δαίμονες, who never were incarnate in terrestrial bodies. 
These immortal δαίμονες occupy the Air, that they may be 
near to help men on Earth, and mediate between them and 
God, whose dwelling is in the aethereal region. It is in this 
interspace between the “visible Gods,” the Stars, and the 
Earth that the author of the Hpinomis' places the δαίμονες, 
whom he describes as interpreters between men and the 
Gods. He distinguishes three classes of such δαίμονες: 
first, those who live in the so-called Aether under the Fire 
or true Aether, .6.ὄ in the higher part of the space between 
the Earth and the Moon; secondly, those who inhabit the Air 
round the Earth—these two kinds of Daemons are invisible ; 
thirdly, Daemons whose vehicle is watery mist—these are 
sometimes visible.” 

It is in the same space between the Earth and the Moon 
that the Platonist Apuleius, writing in the second century 
after Christ, places the δαίμονες of Diotima’s Discourse, an 
order of divine mediators between God and men to which 
he conceives the δαιμόνιον of Socrates and the Guardian 
Angels of all other men as belonging. 


Atque (he says)® si Platonis vera sententia est, nunquam se 
Deum cum homine communicare, facilius me audierit lapis, quam 
Jupiter. Non usque adeo (responderit enim Plato pro sententia 
sua, mea vice), non usque adeo, inquit, sejunctos et alienatos a 
nobis deos praedico, ut ne vota quidem nostra ad illos arbitrer 
pervenire. Neque enim ipsos cura rerum humanarum, sed 
contrectatione sola removi. Caeterum sunt quaedam divinae 


1 According to Zeller (Plato, p. 561, Engl. Transl.), probably Philippus of 
Opus, one of Plato’s pupils. 

2 Epinomis, 984, 985; cf. Zeller, Plato (Engl. Transl.), Ρ. 615. 

3 Apuleius de Deo Socratis, vol. ii. p. 116, ed. Bétolaud. 


440 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


mediae potestates, inter summum aethera et infimas terras, in 
isto intersitae aeris spatio, per quas et desideria nostra et merita 
ad deos commeant; hos Graeci nomine δαίμονας nuncupant. 
Inter terricolas caelicolasque vectores, hine precum, inde donorum ; 
qui ultro citro portant, hine petitiones, inde suppetias, ceu 
quidam utriusque interpretes et salutigeri. Per hos eosdem, 
ut Plato in Symposio autumat, cuncta denunciata, et magorum 
varia miracula, omnesque praesagiorum species reguntur. Eorum 
quippe de numero praediti curant singula, proinde ut est eorum 
cuique tributa provincia: vel sommiis confirmandis, vel extis 
fissiculandis, vel praepetibus gubernandis, vel oscinibus erudiendis, 
vel vatibus inspirandis, vel fulminibus jaculandis, vel nubibus 
coruscandis, caeterisque adeo, per quae futura dinoscimus. Quae 
cuncta caelestium voluntate et numine et auctoritate, sed 
daemonum obsequio et opera et ministerio fieri arbitrandum 
est . . . Quid igitur! tanta vis aeris, quae ab humillimis lunae 
anfractibus, usque ad summum Olympi verticem interjacet ? 
Quid tandem? Vacabitne animalibus suis, atque erit ista naturae 
pars mortua ac debilis? . . . Flagitat ratio? debere propria enim 
animalia in aere intelligi; superest ut quae tandem et cujusmodi 
ea sint, disseramus. Igitur terrena nequaquam, devergant enim 
pondere; sed ne flammida, ne sursum versus calore rapiantur. 
Temperanda ergo nobis pro loci medietate media natura. 

mente formemus et gignamus animo id genus corporum texta, 
quae neque tam bruta quam terrea, neque tam levia quam 
aetherea, sed quodammodo utrimque sejugata. . .. Quod si 
nubes*® sublime volitant, quibus omnis et exortus est terrenus, 
et retro defluxus in terras est; quid tandem censes daemonum 
corpora, quae sunt concretu multo tanto subtiliori? Non enim 
sunt ex hac faeculenta nubecula, tumida caligine conglobata, 
sicuti nubium genus est; sed ex illo purissimo aeris liquido et 
sereno elemento coalita, eoque nemini hominum temere visibilia, 
nisi divinitus speciem sui offerant, quod nulla in illis terrena 
soliditas locum luminis occuparit, quae nostris oculis possit 
obsistere, qua soliditate necessario offensa acies immoretur; sed 
fila corporum possident rara, et splendida, et tenuia, usque adeo 
ut radios omnis nostri tuoris et raritate transmittant, et splendore 
reverberent, et subtilitate frustrentur. . . . Debet deus* nullam 
perpeti vel odii, vel amoris temporalem perfunctionem ; et idcirco 
nec indignatione nec misericordia contingi, nullo angore contrahi, 
nulla alacritate gestire ; sed ab omnibus animi passionibus liber, 
nec dolere unquam, nec aliquando laetari, nec aliquid repentinum 
velle vel nolle. Sed et haec cuncta, et id genus caetera, daemonum 
mediocritati rite congruunt. Sunt enim inter nos ac deos, ut loco 
regionis, ita ingenio mentis intersiti, habentes communem cum 


1 a0. p. 119, 2 δι p. 119. 8. oc, Ὁ, 121, 4 oc. p. 124, 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 447 


superis immortalitatem, cum inferis passionem. Nam, proinde ut 
nos, pati possunt omnia animorum placamenta vel incitamenta : 
ut et ira incitentur, et misericordia flectantur, et donis invitentur, 
et precibus leniantur, et contumeliis exasperentur, et honoribus 
mulceantur, aliisque omnibus ad similem nobis modum varientur. 
Quippe, ut finem comprehendam, daemones sunt genere animalia, 
ingenio rationabilia, animo passwwa, corpore aeria, tempore aeterna., 


These Daemons Apuleius distinguishes sharply,’ as never 
having been incarnate, from the lower sort of Daemons— 
Lemures, Lares, Larvae—spirits of deceased men. It is from 
the number of the Daemons who never were incarnate that 
the Guardian Spirit attached to each man at his birth comes, 


Ex hac sublimiori® daemonum copia Plato autumat, singulis 
hominibus in vita agenda testes et custodes singulos additos, qui 
nemini conspicui, semper adsint arbitri omnium non modo 
actorum, verum etiam cogitatorum. At ubi vita edita remean- 
dum est, eundem illum, qui nobis praeditus fuit, raptare illico et 
trahere veluti custodiam suam ad judicium, atque illic in causa 
dicunda assistere : si qua commentiatur, redarguere: si qua vera 
dicat, asseverare: prorsus illius testimonio ferri sententiam. 
Proinde vos omnes, qui hance Platonis divinam sententiam, me 
interprete, auscultatis, ita animos vestros ad quaecunque vel 
agenda, vel meditanda formate, ut sciatis, nihil homini prae istis 
custodibus, nec intra animum, nec foris, esse secreti, quin omnia 
curiose ille participet, omnia visat, omnia intelligat, in ipsis 
penitissimis mentibus vice conscientiae deversetur.* 


Maximus Tyrius, writing about the same time as Apuleius, 


1 9.6. Ὁ. 128. 2 oc. p. 129. 

3 <*To a mind carefully formed upon the basis of its natural conscience,” 
says Cardinal Newman (Grammar of Assent, ch. v.), ‘‘the world, both of nature 
and of man, does but give back a reflection of those truths about the One Living 
God which have been familiar to it from childhood. Good and evil meet us 
daily as we pass through life, and there are those who think it philosophical 
to act towards the manifestations of each with some sort of impartiality, as if 
evil had as much right to be there as good, or even better, as having more 
striking triumphs and a broader jurisdiction. And because the course of things 
is determined by fixed laws, they consider that those laws preclude the present 
agency of the Creator in the carrying out of particular issues. It is otherwise 
with the theology of the religious imagination. It has a living hold on truths 
which are really to be found in the world, though they are not upon the surface. 
It is able to pronounce by anticipation, what it takes a long argument to prove 
—that good is the rule, and evil the exception. It is able to assume that, 
uniform as are the laws of nature, they are consistent with a particular 
Providence. It interprets what it sees around it by this previous inward 
teaching, as the true key of that maze of vast complicated disorder ; and thus 
it gains a more and more consistent and luminous Vision of God from the most 
unpromising materials. Thus conscience is a connecting principle between the 
creature and his Creator ; and the firmest hold of theological truths is gained by 
habits of personal religion.” ; 


448 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


has remarks to the same effect in his Dissertation (26) on 
the δαιμόνιον of Socrates, which he describes as one of those 
ἀθάνατοι δεύτεροι who are posted between Gods and Men, in 
the space between Earth and Heaven—év μεθορίῳ γῆς καὶ 
οὐρανοῦ teTayuévo. —to be ministers of the Gods and 
guardians, ἐπιστάται, of men. The number of these medi- 
ators between Gods and Men is countless: he quotes Hesiod— 
τρὶς yap μύριοι εἰσὶν ἐπὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ 
ἀθάνατοι Ζηνὸς πρόπολοι 1— 

Some of them heal our diseases, others give counsel in 
difficulties, others reveal things hidden, others help men at 
their work or attend them on their journeys; some are with 
men in the town, others with men in the country; some are 
near to give aid at sea, others on land; one is at home in 
Socrates, another in Plato, another in Pythagoras—eiAnye 
δ᾽ ἄλλος ἄλλην ἑστίαν σώματος, ὁ μὲν Σωκράτην, ὁ δὲ 
Πλάτωνα... ὅσαι φύσεις ἀνδρῶν τοσαῦται καὶ δαιμόνων : 
and the unrighteous Soul is that which has no Guardian 
Daemon domestic within it—édav δέ που μοχθηρὰν δείξῃς 
ψυχήν, ἀνέστιος αὕτη Kal ἀνεπιστάτητος. 

The doctrine of the individual’s Guardian Daemon, set 
forth in the Phaedo Myth and the Myth of Er, and corrobo- 
rated from the personal experience of Socrates in the Apology,’ 
Republics and Theages,> seems, in the works of Apuleius and 
Maximus Tyrius just now quoted from, to amount very nearly 
to the identification of that Daemon with Moral Character 
or Conscience—an identification which, it is interesting to re- 
member, was made even before Plato’s time by Heraclitus,—7@os 
ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων, "----ἃπα meets us in the teaching of the Stoics, 
where, indeed, it seems to be only the legitimate consequence 
of the “ naturalism ” of the School, and does not surprise us, as 
it does in the teaching of Platonists: the following passage, for 
instance, in Arrian’s Dissertationes (i. 14), giving the words of 
Epictetus, merely states the doctrine known to moral theology 
as that of the “authority of conscience” :— 

1 0. et D, 288. 

2 This seems to have been the generally accepted view ; but Servius on Virg. 
Aen. vi. 743, records another view—that every man at birth has assigned to him 
two genii, a good and a bad. 


340 A. 4 496 o. 5 128} ff. 
6 Heracliti Eph. Reliquiae, Bywater, Fr. cxxi. 


THE TWO SYMPOSIUM MYTHS 449 


ἐπίτροπον ἑκάστῳ παρέστησεν ὁ Ζεὺς τὸν ἑκάστου δαίμονα, Kal 
παρέδωκε φυλάσσειν αὐτὸν αὐτῷ, καὶ τοῦτον ἀκοίμητον καὶ ἀπαρα- 
λόγιστον, rive γὰρ ἄλλῳ κρείττονε καὶ ἐπιμελεστέρῳ φύλακι 
παραδέδωκεν ἡμῶν ἕκαστον; wal? ὅταν κλείσητε τὰς θύρας καὶ 
σκότον ἔνδον ποιήσητε, μέμνησθε μηδέποτε λέγειν ὅτι μόνοι ἐστέ. 
οὐδὲ ἐστέ" ἀλλ᾽ ὁ θεὺς ἔνδον ἐστὶ καὶ ὁ ὑμέτερος δαίμων ἐστί. 


To the same effect Marcus Aurelius (Comment. v. 27) says:— 

συῶὼ δὲ θεοῖς ὃ συνεχῶς δεικνὺς αὐτοῖς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχὴν 
ἀρεσκομένην μὲν τοῖς ἀπονεμομένοις, ποιοῦσαν δὲ ὅσα βούλεται ὁ 
δαίμων ὃν ἑκάστῳ προστάτην καὶ ἡγεμόνα ὁ Ζεὺς ἔδωκεν, ἀπόσπασμα 
ἑαυτοῦ. οὗτος δέ ἐστιν ὁ ἑκάστου νοῦς καὶ λόγος. 

So much for the philosophical outcome of the doctrine of 
the δαίμων éxadorou—that part of the general doctrine of 
aerial δαίμονες which seems to have been more interesting 
than any other to Platonists and Stoies alike. 

But what, it may be asked, is the ultimate source of this 
belief in the δαίμων ἑκάστου out of which moral theology, by 
a rationalising process, has evolved “conscience,” or even 
“noumenal character.” ἢ 

I would suggest that, in order to approach the answer to 
this question, we first dismiss from our minds those aerial 
δαίμονες who never were incarnate (although it is to their 
order, according to Plato, that the δαίμονες attached to indi- 
viduals belong), and think only of the Hesiodic δαίμονες, the 
Souls of dead men, inhabiting the Air. The notion of δαίμονες 
who never were incarnate is subsequent to that of those who 
are Souls of dead men inhabiting the air, and came in, we may 
take it, only after the theological doctrine of the transcend- 
ence of One Supreme God had established itself. That 
theological doctrine required mediators between God and men, 
beings through whom the creative and regulative functions of 
God are exerted, while He Himself remains from everlasting 
to everlasting unmoved; and it was only logical to conceive 
these beings as Powers of the Godhead anterior in time and 
dignity to the Souls of men. 

The primitive doctrine of δαίμονες, with which the later 
one has less connection than might at first sight appear, is 
that of the presence on, under, or near the Earth of the Souls 
of dead ancestors; and it is still a widely spread belief that 
the company of these Souls is being continually drawn upon 

1 See Rohde, Psyche, ii. 317. 
2G 


450 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


to supply infants, as they are born, with Souls. No new Souls 
come into being; old Souls are always used. I have already 
adverted to this belief," and return to it here to suggest that 
it is the source of the doctrine of the δαίμων ἑκάστου or 
Guardian Spirit of the individual. Every new person born is 
at once himself and some deceased ancestor. He is essentially 
double. “In the Niger Delta,” says Mr. J. E. King, citing 
the authority of Miss Kingsley, “we are told that no one’s soul 
remains long below. The soul’s return to its own family ὃ. is 
ensured by special ju-jus. As the new babies arrive, they are 
shown a selection of small articles belonging to deceased 
members of the family. The child is identified by the article 
which first attracts its attention. ‘Why, he’s Uncle John; 
see! he knows his own pipe.’” 

I would suggest that in “Uncle John” we have the 
source out of which the notion of the Guardian Genius, the 
μυσταγωγὸς τοῦ βίου," was evolved. 

The Jewish doctrine of Angels-—on which the reader may 
consult the Jewish Encyclopaedia, article “ Angelology ”»—bears 
considerable resemblance to the Greek doctrine of δαίμονες as 
divine beings (not Souls of deceased men) intermediate between 
Godand men. Philo indeed goes the length of identifying the 
Jewish Angels with the δαίμονες of the Greek philosophers.° 

The Jewish, like the parallel Greek doctrine, seems to 
have been largely consequential on the doctrine of the tran- 
scendence of One Supreme God.° 


1 See supra, pp. 198 ff. and pp. 302 ff. 

2 ««Tnfant Burial,” Classical Rev. Feb.1903. Mr. King’s reference is to Miss 
Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa, p. 493. 

8. Cf. Olympiodorus on Phaedo 70 ο---ὅτι τὸ ζῶον καὶ τὸ τεθνεὼς ἐξ ἀλλήλων 
κατασκευάζει ἐκ τῆς μαρτυρίας τῶν παλαιῶν ποιητῶν τῶν ἀπὸ ᾿Ορῴφέως, φημί, 
λέγοντο---- 

οἱ δ᾽ αὐτοὶ πατέρες τε καὶ υἱέες ἐν μεγάροισιν 
ἠδ᾽ ἄλοχοι σεμναὶ κεδναί τε θύγατρε----- 


πανταχοῦ γὰρ ὁ IlAdrwy παρῳδεῖ τὰ τοῦ ᾿Ορφέως. 

“(uorum,” adds Lobeck (Aglaoph. p. 797), “haec sententia esse videtur : 
animis in corpora remigrantibus saepe fit, ut qui olim naturae et affinitatis 
vinculis conjuncti fuerant, postea aliquando in eandem domum recolligantur ad 
pristinam conditionem revoluti.” 

4 ἅπαντι δαίμων ἀνδρὶ συμπαραστατεῖ 
εὐθὺς γενομένῳ μυσταγωγὸς τοῦ Blov.—MENANDER. 


5 De Somniis, i. 22; and also calls them λόγοι (ο.6. i. 12-19), 

® See Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 1888, pp. 246, 247: ἰδέαι, λόγοι, δαίμονες, 
ἄγγελοι, are conceptions which easily pass into one another—a philosophical 
basis, he argues, for the theory of a transcendent God was afforded by the 
Platonic ἰδέαι and the Stoical λόγοι. 


GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON MYTHS 


WHICH SET FORTH THE NATION’S, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM 
THE INDIVIDUAL’sS, IDEALS AND CATEGORIES 


HITHERTO we have seen the Individual’s Ideals and Cate- 
gories set forth in Myth. Let us now conclude our review of 
the Platonic Myths by looking at two, in one of which—the 
Atlantis Myth'’—we have a Nation’s Ideal set forth—we 
assist at the spectacle of a Nation led on by a Vision of its 
Future; while in the other—the Myth of the Earth-Born, 
the Foundation-myth of the καλλίέπολις ὅ ---γχὸ have a 
Nation’s Categories deduced—the life of the “ social organism ἢ 
is exhibited as conditioned by its Past, as determined a priori 
by certain deep-cut characteristics. 

The Atlantis Myth is introduced in the TZimaeus as 
necessary to complete the ideal of the καλλίπολις, or Perfect 
State, presented in the Republic. The Yimaeus, we must 
remember, stands in very close artistic and philosophic con- 
nection with the Republic, and begins with a recapitulation of 
the first five books of the Republic. Having recapitulated, 
Socrates says that he wishes now to see the Constitution of 
their yesterday’s conversation exhibited im action; and it is 
to meet this wish that Critias tells the story of Atlantis— 
merely summarised in the Zimaeus, but afterwards begun on 
full scale in the Critias, unfortunately a fragment. 

There are two chief points to be noticed about the follow- 
ing on of the Atlantis Myth to complete the Republic :— 

(1) It is an imaginary Athens in the Atlantis Myth, which 
is the καλλίπολις of the Republic in action. Much has been 

1 Timaeus, 19 ff. (where it is sketched), and Critias (where it is begun on a 
large scale, but not finished). 
2 Republic, 414 8. 
451 


452 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


said and written about Plato’s dislike of Athenian democracy 
and admiration of Spartan institutions as shown in the 
Republic. The ideal city of the Republic has been epigram- 
matically described as “ a Dorian State and a Pythagorean 
Order.” But it is a glorified Athens, not Sparta, which 
represents Hellas against barbarism in the Myth told by 
Critias. “Athens, with all thy faults I love thee still,” is 
Plato’s deepest sentiment. 

(2) The action of the καλλίπολις is assumed without 
question to be war. The education of the Republic is the 
education of warriors, and the Myth of Atlantis is the History 
of a Great War which puts that education to practical test. 
Of all Utopias, Plato’s is the most militant. The Philosophers 
who rule are recruited from the Army. Only those who have 
first learnt, as patriotic soldiers, to reverence the ideal of 
Country one and indivisible, can afterwards comprehend that 
ideal intellectually in its contour and articulation—can take 
the “synoptic view” required in the Philosopher-King. 
Industrial people immersed in private affairs never rise, either 
as patriots or as statesmen, to the ideal of Country one and 
indivisible. A “Philosophie Banker,” as Grote was called, 
Plato could not have conceived. Civilisation, as its course is 
sketched in the Second Book of the Republie,, begins with 
the formation of an Army. The little rustic ὑγιὴς πόλις---- 
the City of Pigs—contented with mere comfort, can never 
become the home of civilisation. It is out of the unrest and 
lust of the φλεγμαίνουσα πόλις that civilisation is evolved; 
for in order to satisfy its lust it must go to war, and in order 
to wage war successfully it must have professional soldiers, 
who, if they are not to turn upon their fellow-citizens and 
rend them, must be trained in a certain manner. What, then, 
is to be the training of these soldiers? They were called 
into existence solely, it would appear, for the purpose of 
serving the evil policy of the φλεγμαίνουσα πόλις. But where 
is now the φλεγμαίνουσα rods? It is gone—only its soldiers 
remain ; and, by one of those dream-like transformations which 
mean so much in Plato’s Philosophy, its soldiers are changed 
into the Guardians of the καλλίπολις to be; and, without a 
word of explanation offered, a beginning is straightway made 


' Republic, 372, 373. 


GENERAL OBSERVATIONS 453 


of their training for the service of that city. And what does 
this dream-like transformation mean? That the highest good 
is won only in the struggle against difficulties into which evil 
passions have brought us— 


What we call sin 
I could believe a painful opening out 
Of paths for ampler virtue.! 


The contented life of the ὑγιὴς πόλις must be succeeded by 
the restless lustful life of the φλεγμαίνουσα πόλις, in order 
that upon the necessity of war the beauty of true civilisation 
may be grafted by discipline and education. 

The doctrine of the Republic, then, is that the leaders of 
civilisation are men who have been trained for war—o δέ γε 
ἡμέτερος φύλαξ πολεμικός Te Kal φιλόσοφος τυγχάνει ὦν." 
Here Plato seems to me to take hold of a fundamental prin- 
ciple in biology. Look at the races of living creatures: their 
specific beauty and intelligence have been developed on lines 
laid down by the necessity of defence and attack: victrix 
causa deis placuit. It does not astonish the reader of the 
Republic, then, to see the Myth of the καλλίέπολιες completed 
by the Atlantis Myth, in which the Military State, small 
and disciplined, overthrows the Commercial State, large and 
luxurious. The individual Soul may indeed pass out of the 
κύκλος γενέσεων and enter into peace—e venni dal martirio 
a questa pace;* but the State has no immortal destiny— it is 
of this world, and is always implicated in the struggle of the 
earthly life. Ἰ]ολεμοῦμεν ἵν᾿ εἰρήνην ἄγωμεν is not in 
Plato’s vein. Were war to cease in the world, what would 
become of the Platonic system of Education? Plato does not 
expect—and, more than that, does not wish—to see war cease. 
His ideal of earthly life is Hellas in arms against Barbarism. 
War began in ἐπιθυμία, in appetite; then it was waged to 
satisfy θυμός ----ἴον la gloire; and we ought to hope that the 
time will come when it will be waged only in the cause of 
Aoyos—to propagate an idea; but let us remember—this is 
Plato’s message to us, as I understand it—that the “idea” 
we fight for—our ἐν τούτῳ νικᾷς ----ἶἰδ a sign which shines only 


1 Clough, Dipsychus. 2 Republic, 525 B 3 Par, xv. 148. 


454 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


before the eyes of the militant, and would fade from the sky 
if we laid down our arms. 

The Atlantis Myth throws the future back into the past— 
it reflects, in the form of a History of Invaders coming from 
the West, Plato’s hope and fear as he looks towards the East. 
The shadow of Persian Invasion still darkened Greece. Plato, 
in the καλλίπολις of the Republic and the Atlantis Myth, sets 
forth his ideal of a glorified Athens which, under the spiritual 
leadership of the Delphian Apollo,’ shall undertake the politi- 
cal leadership of a united Hellas, in order to stem the onslaught 
of the Barbarian, and maintain the Hellenic ideal of “ culture” 
against the barbaric reality of “ material civilisation.” Thus, 
taken in connection with each other, as they certainly ought 
to be, the Republic and the Atlantis Myth set forth a dream 
of the future which takes rank beside Dante’s dream of Empire 
and Church in the de Monarchia. 

Plato’s dream was soon to come true, though not in the 
manner which any forecast of his could have anticipated ; for 
even Aristotle writes as if Alexander had not conquered Asia 
and opened a new epoch for Hellas and the world. “The 
history of Greece,” says Prof. Perey Gardner,’ “consists of 
two parts, in every respect contrasted the one with the other. 
The first recounts the stories of the Persian and Peloponnesian 
wars, and ends with the destruction of Thebes and the subju- 
gation of Athens and Sparta. The Hellas of which it speaks 
is a cluster of autonomous cities in the Peloponnesus, the 
Islands, and Northern Greece, together with their colonies 
scattered over the coasts of Italy, Sicily, Thrace, the Black 
Sea, Asia Minor, and Africa. These cities care only to be 
independent, or, at most, to lord it over one another. Their 
political institutions, their religious ceremonies, their customs, 
are civic and local. Language, commerce, a common Pantheon, 
and a common art and poetry are the ties that bind them 
together. In its second phase, Greek history begins with the 
expedition of Alexander. It reveals to us the Greek as every- 
where lord of the barbarian, as founding kingdoms and 
federal systems, as the instructor of all mankind in art and 
science, and the spreader of civil and civilised life over the 


1 Republic, 427 3, ©. 
4 New Chapters in Greek History, pp. 416-417, 


GENERAL OBSERVATIONS 455 


known world, In the first period of her history Greece is 
forming herself, in her second she is educating the world, 
We will venture to borrow from the Germans a convenient 
expression, and call the history of independent Greece the 
history of Hellas—that of imperial Greece the history of 
Hellenism.” 

The ideal, adumbrated in the Republic and the Atlantis 
Myth, of a Hellenic Empire, created and maintained by the 
joint forces of Athens and Delphi, is one between which and 
the ideal of personal salvation through union with God— 
ὁμοίωσις τῷ Oe@—there is a very real opposition. The more 
men live for the ideal of national greatness the less does the 
ideal of personal salvation concern them. Plato’s chief interest 
undoubtedly was in the ideal of personal salvation, which he 
derived mainly from the Orphic religion; and it was exactly 
this Orphic element in Platonism which constituted by far the 
most important part of its influence on subsequent philosophy, 
and, more especially, on the development of Christian doctrine 
and practice. The Heaven and Hell and Purgatory of Chris- 
tian eschatology come not, to any large extent, from Jewish 
sources, or from the teaching of the Gospels and Epistles, but 
mainly from the Apocalypses, which are thoroughly Orphic 
in matter and spirit." It is not to be supposed, of course, that 
the Apocalypses got their Orphism or “Sacramentalism ”— 
to use a term which covers the ground better—from Plato. 
They got it from the teaching of the Orphic and similar 
sacramental societies which existed throughout the world. 
But the direction given, at the beginning, to Christian thought 
and feeling, and, it is safe to add, to Christian practice, by the 
influence of these societies, produced a condition of religious 
belief which afterwards lent itself easily to the influence of 
the refined Orphism of the Platonists. 

Just as the ideal of national greatness on Earth, though 
we see it in the Repudlic and Atlantis Myth swimming into 
Plato’s ken, was of little account to him, and to those whom 
he influenced, beside the ideal of personal salvation through 
union with God,—so, in the development of Christianity, to 
which Platonism contributed so much, the materialistic Jewish 


1 See Gardner’s Exploratio Evangelica, p. 270, with reference to Dieterich’s 
analysis of the Apocalypse of Peter. 


456 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


conception of a reign of the Messiah on Earth, over a chosen 
people raised in their earthly bodies from the dead, gave place 
to the spiritual ideal of union with the Heavenly Christ be- 
ginning for each man now in this present life and continuing 
for ever—the ideal which St. Paul came at last to cherish, 
“having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is 
far better.” "ἢ 


1 Phil, i. 28 ; and see Gardner’s Exp. Ev. pp. 435-438. 


THE ATLANTIS MYTH 


CRITIAS begins by saying! that he heard the story, when he 
was a boy, from his grandfather Critias, who had heard it from 
his father Dropides, who got it from Solon. Solon brought 
it from Egypt, having got it from a priest of Neith—that is, 
of Athena—at Sais. Solon had been telling the priests of 
Neith some of the old Greek stories, especially that about the 
Flood which Deucalion and Pyrrha survived, when a very 
aged priest exclaimed, “You Greeks are always children ; 
there is not an old man among you!” meaning that the 
oldest Greek stories were but of yesterday. Deucalion’s Flood 
was not the only one; there were many Floods and other 
catastrophes before it, by which civilisations both in Greece 
and in other parts of the world were destroyed. But Egypt 
had been exempt from catastrophes, and her priests had 
made records, which were still preserved in continuous 
series, of all that had happened, not only in Egypt, but 
in other parts of the world, during the successive periods 
terminated by the various Floods and other catastrophes. 
Among these records was one relating to the Athens which 
flourished before the greatest of the Floods. This Athens, 
the aged priest told Solon, Athena founded nine thousand 
years before his time—one thousand years before she founded 
Sais; and the constitution of the antediluvian Athens was 
similar to that which the sister city of Sais still preserved, 
especially in the separation of the class of priests and the 
class of warriors from a third class, including the castes of 
artisans, shepherds, huntsmen, and husbandmen. He then 
went on to give the History of the Great War in which 
Athens, so constituted, was engaged with the people of the 


1 Timaeus, 20 Ε. 
457 


458 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Island of Atlantis, explaining that this island, which was 
larger than Libya and Asia together, lay in the Ocean outside, 
off the straits now called the Pillars of Hercules. Beyond 
this island there were other islands in the Atlantic Ocean, by 
means of which it was possible to pass to the Continent on 
the farther side of that Ocean, In the Island of Atlantis itself 
there was a mighty dynasty of Kings who ruled over that 
island, over many of the adjacent islands, over parts of the 
Transatlantic Continent, and over Libya as far as Egypt, and, 
on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, as far as Etruria. 
This mighty Power, collecting all its forces, was moving east- 
wards to add to its empire the remaining Mediterranean 
countries, Greece and Egypt, when Athens stood forth as 
their champion; and, now leading the other Greek States, 
now deserted by them, waged a glorious war against the in- 
vaders, and conquered them, and not only saved Greece and 
Egypt, but liberated the Western Mediterranean countries 
which had been enslaved. Then, sometime after, came the 
Deluge. Athens was overwhelmed, in a day and a night, by 
flood and earthquake; and the Island of Atlantis sank under 
the sea, leaving shoals which still render the navigation of the 
Ocean difficult in these parts. 

This is the Atlantis Myth as sketched by Critias in the 
Timaeus.' 

He then proposes to enter fully into its details, on the 
understanding that the citizens of the Ideal State constructed 
in the Republic are identified with the citizens of the ante- 
diluvian Athens; but first, Timaeus must give his promised 
account of the creation of the world and of man, so that, when 
all is said, we may have the full history of man—created in 
the Zimaeus, educated in the Republic, and acquitting himself 
nobly in the Atlantis Myth. 

The Critias,in which the Atlantis Myth was to have been 
told fully, is a fragment—a fragment, however, of considerable 
bulk; and I do not propose to translate it verbatim or to 
print the Greek text. A detailed account of its contents will 
serve our purpose sufficiently. 

The fragment begins by saying that, in the old time, the 
Earth was divided into provinces, each of which was directly 

1 21 a-25 p. 


THE ATLANTIS MYTH 459 


governed by a God, or Gods,’ Thus Athens was assigned to 
Hephaestus and Athena, brother and sister, and the Island of 
Atlantis to Poseidon. 

The Athens of Athena and Hephaestus was constituted 
according to the model set forth in the Republic. There were 
artisans and husbandmen, and a class of warriors originally 
set apart by certain “divine men.” The warriors dwelt to- 
gether, and had all things in common, being supported by the 
labour of the other citizens. Men and women alike practised 
the art of warfare. The territory of the city, co-extensive 
with Attica as it now is, was the most fertile in the world. 
What is now a mere skeleton of mountains and rocks was 
then filled in with rich soil, so that what are now mountains 
were then only hills; and Pnyx, Acropolis, and Lycabettus 
formed one almost level ridge of loam. On the top of this 
ridge, where the Acropolis now is, the warriors lived round 
the Temple of Athena and Hephaestus, their winter quarters 
towards the north, and their summer quarters towards the 
south. The number of these warriors, men and women, was 
always about twenty thousand. They were the guardians 
(φύλακες) of their own citizens, and the leaders (ἡγεμόνες) 
of the other Greeks their willing followers. Such were the 
ancient Athenians; and they were famous throughout Europe 
and Asia for the beauty of their bodies and the various virtues 
of their souls. 

To Poseidon the Island of Atlantis was allotted. Near the 
centre of the island there was a fertile plain, and near it a 
mountain. In this mountain dwelt the earth-born Evenor, 
who had a daughter Cleito. Her Poseidon loved, and enclosed 
the mountain in which she lived with concentric rings of sea 
and land, three of sea and two of land, so that it could not be 
approached, for at that time there were no ships. Being a 
god, he easily brought subterranean streams of water, one cold 
and the other hot, to this island-mountain, and made it fruit- 
ful. Here he begat ten sons; and he divided the whole island 
of Atlantis among them into ten parts. To the first-born, 
who was named Atlas, he gave the island-mountain and sur- 
rounding territory, and also made him King of the whole 
of Atlantis, his nine brethren being governors under him in 


1 Cf. Politicus, 271 Ὁ, and Laws, iv. 7198 ff. 


400 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


their several provinces. From Atlas were descended the 
Kings of Atlantis in long and unbroken line; and under them 
the island prospered greatly, receiving much through foreign 
trade, and itself producing much—metals, timber, spices, and 
all manner of food for man, and pasture for the elephants and 
other animals which abounded. Great works were also carried 
out by these Kings. . . . First they made a bridge across the 
rings of sea which enclosed the ancient metropolis, and began 
to build a palace on the island-mountain, to the size and 
adornment of which each generation added till it became a 
wonder. Then they dug a canal 50 stadia long, 300 feet 
broad, and 100 feet deep, making a waterway for the largest 
ships from the ocean to their metropolis, which thus became a 
seaport. They also cut passages for ships through the two 
rings of land, and spanned the passages by bridges under 
which ships could go. The first ring of land, like the outer- 
most ring of sea, was three stadia broad; the second ring of 
land, like the ring of sea which enclosed it, was two stadia 
broad; while the ring of water which immediately surrounded 
the island-mountain was one stade wide; the island-mountain 
itself being five stadia across. The island-mountain and its 
palace they surrounded with a wall; and another wall they 
built round the circuit of the mid ring of land; and a third 
wall round the circuit of the outer ring of land; and also a 
wall on either side of the great bridge leading from the coun- 
try without to that ring; and towers and gates they placed at 
the bridges which spanned the passages cut in both rings of 
land. The stone for the walls they quarried from the foot of 
the island-mountain and from both sides of the two rings of 
land, thus at the same time making cavities in the rock which 
served as covered docks. The stone was of three kinds—white, 
black, and red; and these three kinds, pieced together in one 
building, made it beautiful to behold. The outermost wall 
was coated with brass, laid on like ointment; the middle wall 
with tin, and the wall of the Acropolis itself with orichaleum 
glancing red like fire. Within the enclosure of the Acropolis 
was first the holy place of Cleito and Poseidon, in which no 
man might set foot—the spot where the ten sons were be- 
gotten. It was surrounded with a golden fence. Thither 
they brought the seasonable fruits of the earth, from each of 


THE ATLANTIS MYTH 461 


the ten provinces, as offerings to each of the ten sons. Then 
there was the Temple of Poseidon himself, in length a stade, 
in breadth three plethra, and of proportionate height, on the 
outside coated all over with silver except the pinnacles, which 
were coated with gold——a spectacle of barbaric splendour ; and 
within, the roof of ivory inlaid with gold and silver and 
orichaleum, and all other parts—walls, pillars, and floor— 
covered over with orichalcum—and images all golden; the 
God himself mounted on a chariot driving six winged horses, 
his head towering up to the roof of the temple, and round him 
in a ring a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins; and there 
were other images too, which had been put up by private 
persons within the temple; and outside, golden statues of the 
Kings and their wives, and many other statues presented by 
persons at home and in foreign countries belonging to the 
Atlantic Empire. There was also an altar in keeping with 
the temple, and there were magnificent palaces hard by. 

The numerous fountains of cold and hot water which 
Poseidon had caused to spring in his island-mountain were 
housed and made to serve as baths for the Kings, for private 
persons, for women, and for horses and other beasts of burden ; 
and the water not used in this way was conducted, some of it 
to the beautiful grove of Poseidon in the island-mountain, 
some of it by aqueducts across the bridges to the two rings of 
land, where also there were temples and gardens and gymnasia 
and race-courses for horses—especially in the outermost of the 
two rings, where there was a race-course a stade wide running 
right round the ring. Along this grand course were the 
quarters of the main body of the troops; a smaller number of 
trusted troops was quartered in the inner ring of land, and 
the most trusted of all in the Acropolis itself as bodyguard 
to the Kings. 

The docks close under the island-mountain and the two 
rings of land were full of war-ships and stores; and when you 
crossed these two rings and came to the outermost ring of sea, 
or harbour, you found it and the canal leading to the ocean 
full of merchant shipping. At the ocean-mouth of this canal 
the two semicircles met of a wall which ran always at a dis- 
tance of fifty stades from the outermost ring of sea, and en- 
closed a densely-populated area. 


462 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


So much for the royal city. Atlantis itself was a moun- 
tainous island, save for the plain in which the royal city 
stood. This plain was oblong, extending 3000 stades in one 
direction, and 2000 inland through the centre of the island. 
The mountains which enclosed it were great and beautiful, and 
sheltered it from the north wind. A fosse 10,000 stades long, 
one stade broad, and a hundred feet deep—a work, it may be 
thought, of superhuman magnitude—was carried round the 
whole oblong of the plain. The streams from the mountains 
poured into it, and it had an outlet into the ocean. From the 
furthest inland part of it parallel canals were cut through the 
plain at intervals of one hundred stades, and these were con- 
nected by cross canals. By means of this system of canals, 
timber and fruits were brought down to the city. There were 
two harvests, one after the winter rains, the other in summer, 
raised by irrigation from the canals. The plain was divided 
into 60,000 lots, each lot being a square with sides measuring 
ten stades. Over those fit for military service in each lot was 
set a Leader; and there were likewise Leaders of those who 
dwelt in the mountains and other parts of the country—a vast 
population—according to their settlements and villages. Each 
Leader was bound to supply a sixth part of the cost of a chariot 
of war—in this way 10,000 chariots were furnished; he was 
also bound to supply two horses with riders, and a light chariot 
for a pair of horses, with a shield-bearer to go on foot with it, 
and a driver to ride in it and drive the horses; each Leader 
was also bound to supply two heavy-armed soldiers, two archers, 
two slingers, and, as skirmishers, three stone-throwers and 
three men armed with javelins, also four sailors to help to man 
the fleet of 1200 war-ships. Such was the armament of the 
capital; and the nine provinces had also their own different 
armaments, but it would be tedious to describe these. 

In each of the nine provinces, as well as in the capital, its 
own King was supreme over the lives of the citizens and the 
administration of the laws; but the dealings of the ten 
governments with one another were determined by the Com- 
mandments of Poseidon, which were engraved by the first men 
on a Table of orichalcum, which was preserved in the Temple of 
Poseidon on the island-mountain. There, every fifth year and 
every sixth year alternately, a meeting was held for the dis- 


THE ATLANTIS MYTH 463 


cussion of affairs and the judgment of transgressions; and this 
is how they conducted their business:—There were sacred 
bulls, which were kept within the precincts of Poseidon. The 
Ten, who were left alone in the precincts, after they had prayed 
to the god that they might take that bull which should be an 
acceptable sacrifice to him, began to hunt the bulls, without 
weapons of iron, with staves and nooses; and when they had 
taken one of them they brought him to the Table of the Com- 
mandments, and there struck him on the head and shed his 
blood over the writing, and afterwards burnt his members, and 
mingled a bowl, casting into it clots of his blood, one clot for 
each of the Ten. Then they drew from the bowl in golden 
vials, and poured a libation on the fire, and swore that they 
would give judgments, and do all things, according to the 
Commandments of their Father Poseidon written on the Table. 
When they had drunken of the vials, and dedicated them in 
the Temple, they supped; and after supper, when it was dark 
and the sacrificial fire had died down, they put on azure robes 
exceeding beautiful, and sat down on the ground about the 
embers, all the lights in the Temple having been extinguished, 
and there, in the darkness of night, judged and were judged ; 
and when day dawned they wrote the judgments on a golden 
tablet, and laid it by, along with their robes, for a memorial. 
There were laws also regulating the behaviour of the Ten 
Kings towards one another. They were not to make war 
against one another; they were to aid any one of their 
number if his subjects rose against him in rebellion and tried 
to overthrow his dynasty; they were to take counsel together 
about war and other matters, always recognising the suze- 
rainty of the line of Atlas; and a majority of the Ten must 
agree before a King could put to death one of his kinsmen. 
For a long while the people of Atlantis preserved the 
divine nature that was in them, and obeyed the laws and loved 
the Gods, honouring virtue above gold and all other possessions, 
and using their wealth in temperance and brotherly love. But 
in course of time their divine nature, from admixture with 
human nature, became feeble, and they were corrupted by their 
prosperity, so that, in the end, their life, at the very time 
when it seemed most glorious, was indeed most debased, being 
filled with lust of wealth and power. Then Zeus, God of Gods, 


464 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


whose kingship is the rule of law, perceiving that a noble 
nation was in a wretched plight, and wishing to punish them 
that they might be reformed by chastisement, summoned all 
the Gods to an assembly in his most holy mansion, which, being 
situate in the centre of the Cosmos, beholds all things which 
partake of generation; and, when the Gods were assembled, 
spake unto them thus :— 


* τ * * ὩΣ * 


THE ATLANTIS MYTH 465 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY OF 
Tne ATLANTIS Myti 


Enough, I hope, has been said to indicate the importance 
of the Atlantis Myth as setting forth the ideal of Imperial] 
Hellas ; and now a few remarks may be added on the interest- 
ing, though comparatively unimportant, topics of its Geology 
and Geography. 

Mr. Arthur Platt, in a very instructive article on “ Plato 
and Geology,”! after quoting from the Critias (110 Ε) Plato's 
account of the antediluvian Attica as a rolling champaign very 
different from the broken rocky country of the present epoch, 
says: “ΤῸ put this into the language of modern geology we 
should say, ‘The whole of Attica has suffered great denuda- 
tion, withstood by the underlying hard rocks, which now 
accordingly stand out like the skeleton of the country.” Mr. 
Platt does well in claiming for Plato, on the strength of the 
Oritias, rank as an “original geologist.” “Sir Charles Lyell,” 
he says, “in his history of the progress of geology,’ has en- 
tirely omitted the name of Plato as an original geologist, and 
I am not aware that this omission has ever been corrected. 
Yet it is in reality a serious one. ... This statement of 
denudation by Plato is, I believe, the first ever made, certainly 
the first upon so grand a scale. It is true that Herodotus 
Gi. 10 ff), when he speaks of the formation of the Delta 
in Egypt, implies denudation of those districts which furnish 
the alluvium ... but he does not call attention to this 
necessary denudation, and does not seem to have appreciated 
its consequences, his mind being fixed solely on the formation 
of the new deposit. Plato therefore must have the credit of the 
first distinct enunciation of a most important geological doc- 
trine.” “The next question,’ Mr. Platt proceeds, “is: Is this 
doctrine, however true in general, true of Attica in particular?” 
and he quotes Lyell’s authority for an affirmative answer: “‘The 
whole fauna,’ says Lyell, speaking of the remains of Miocene 
age discovered by Gaudry in Attica, ‘attests the former ex- 
tension of a vast expanse of grassy plains, where we have 


1 Journal of Philology, vol. xviii. pp. 134-139 (1889). 
2 Principles of Geology, chap. ii. 
2H 


466 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


now the broken and mountainous country of Greece,—plains 
which were probably united with Asia Minor, spreading over 
the area where the deep Egean Sea and its numerous islands 
are now situated.’” Mr. Platt concludes his article with a 
quotation from Gaudry (Animauax Fossiles et Géologie de 
l’ Attique, 1802), in which that geologist gives his own per- 
sonal experience of the effect of short downpours of rain, in 
Attica and other parts of Greece, in carrying away vast quan- 
tities of soil. “A man accustomed to such débacles,’ remarks 
Mr. Platt, “might more easily talk of ‘one night’s rainfall ’ 
carrying off the whole surface of the Acropolis than could a 
dweller in our climate.” In “compelling nature to do all her 
work in a single night” Plato was doubtless wrong, as Mr. 
Platt insists, from the point of view of geology as reformed by 
Lyell ; at the same time, I would have the reader of the Critias 
bear in mind that the geology of that work is, after all, the 
geology of the Aetiological Myth, in which a result, which 
Plato, as scientific observer, may well have conceived as due to 
a secular process, was bound to be attributed to a “ catastrophe.” 

A few words now on the Geography of the Myth. I do 
not think that it is necessary to suppose, or that it is even 
likely, that Plato had any sailors’ stories of a great land beyond 
the Western Ocean on which to found his Myth. Nor can the 
ostensible source of the Myth—Egypt—have been the real 
source. Egyptologists know nothing of a lost Atlantis.” As 
for the interesting circumstance that recent Physical Geography 
assumes the former existence of a so-called “ Atlantis,” ἢ that, 
of course, is without bearing on the question of the source of 
Plato’s Myth. 

Atlantis, I take it, is a creation of Plato’s own imagina- 
tion *—a creation which he knows how to give verisimilitude 
to by connecting with the accepted “scientific” doctrine of 
terrestrial catastrophes (which we have already seen presented 
in the Politicws Myth), and also with what was believed, in 


1 Pages 450, 451. 

2 So Sander, At/antis, p. 11, on the authority of Brugsch. 

3 See H. J. Mackinder’s Britain and the British Seas, p. 98—‘‘a continental 
‘ Atlantis’ of which Greenland and the Scoto-Icelandic rise may be remnants” ; 
and see also pp. 100, 103, 149, 177, 179, 354, 355, 357. 

4 This, the only reasonable view, as it seems to me, is that of Jowett (Intro- 
duction to the Critias), Bunbury (History of Ancient Geography, i. 402), and 
Sander, Atlantis. 


THE ATLANTIS MYTH 467 


his day, to be a fact——the shallow muddy nature of the ocean 
outside the Pillars of Hercules. This supposed fact is recorded 
by Seylax, whose Περίπλους, or Cirewmnavigation, was written 
some time before the accession of Philip.' Seylax speaks of 
“many trading stations of the Carthaginians, and much mud, 
and high tides, and open seas, outside the Pillars of Hercules ” 
---ἀπὸ ‘Hpaxrelov στηλῶν τῶν ἐν τῇ Evpwrn ἐμπόρια πολλὰ 
Καρχηδονίων καὶ πηλὸς καὶ πλημμυρίδες καὶ πελάγη (Perip. 
§ 1). “It is evident,” says Bunbury, commenting on this 
passage,” “that these seas were never at this time visited by 
Greek traders, while the confused notions of the obstacles to 
their navigation, purposely diffused by the Carthaginians, were 
all. that had reached our author’s ears.” Similarly, in the 
Aristotelian Meteorologica, 1. 1. 354 a 22, we are told that 
the sea outside the Pillars is shallow and muddy, and windless 
--τὰ δ᾽ ἔξω στηλῶν βραχέα μὲν διὰ τὸν πηλόν, ἄπνοα δ᾽ 
ἐστὶν ὡς ἐν κοίλῳ τῆς θαλάττης ov’ons—which again shows, 
Bunbury remarks,® “how little it was known to the Greek 
mariners.” * 

The Island of Atlantis, then, is a creation of Plato’s 
imagination, rendered “probable” by the confirmation of 
“science” and “ observed facts ”"—a creation intended to con- 
trast with the καλλίπολις, the creation of the Republic— 
intended to stand as “the negative,” as Sander puts it,’ of the 
antediluvian Athens. The People of Poseidon (commerce) 
must yield to the People of Athena (wisdom) and Hephaestus 
(handicraft). Carthage, of course, may well have helped 
Plato to seize the type described in this selfish Commercial 
Atlantis, greedy of Empire—like England, as she appears to 
her rivals. 

While the attempt to trace Plato’s Atlantis to the tales of 
Phoenician or other navigators who had visited the American 
islands or continent is, I feel sure, as mistaken on the one 
side as the Neo-Platonic exegesis is on the other side, which 
interprets the Myth as an allegory of the struggle of matter 


1 Bunbury, o.c. i. 385-386. 2 0.c. i. p. 386. 3 o.c. i, 398. 

* The pseudo-Aristotelian de Mundo (see Rose de Ar. lib. ord. et auct. pp. 
90-100) ‘‘ bears,’ says Bunbury (i. 398), ‘‘the unquestionable stamp of a much 
more advanced stage of geographical knowledge than that of the age of 
Aristotle.”” See also Grote’s Hist. of Greece, ii. 462 (ed. 1862). 

5 F. Sander, Atlantis, p. 6. 


468 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


against form,’ yet it must be noted that the Platonic creation 
was not without practical influence on the age which produced 
Columbus. Plato was then for the first time being read in Greek 
by Western scholars,’ and his wonderful land across the ocean, 
so circumstantially described in the Critias, came to be talked 
about as a possibility at least. Maritime discovery soon con- 
verted the possibility into a reality; and Plato was very 
naturally credited with knowledge which a more critical 
scholarship than that of the Renaissance now sees that he 
could not have possessed. 

Before closing these observations I must notice a scholium 
on the opening sentences of the Republic which might be 
taken to imply that the war between Athens and Atlantis 
was a stock Athenian Myth. The scholium says that at the 
Little Panathenaea a peplus was woven, and embroidered with 
the War of Athens and Atlantis. Of course, it might be 
argued that this custom was subsequent to Plato’s time, and 
that the Myth on the peplus was taken from Plato; for Critias 
introduces his story as unheard before. This, however, is very 
unlikely. A popular ceremony can hardly have originated in 
that way. If the scholiast is right, it is pretty plain that the 
story of the War of Athens and Atlantis (in spite of what 
Callias says about its being hitherto unknown) was known at 
Athens long before Plato’s time. But the scholiast is not 


1 See Sander, o.c. p. 17. 

* The Atlantis Myth as it appears in the Critias was then being read in the 
West for the first time; but the 7imaeus, to 53 ©, was already known in the 
Latin version of Chalcidius (ci7c. Cent. V.). It is strange that Dante, who knew 
the Zimacus in this version (either directly, or as Mr. Toynbee, Dante Dict. art. 
‘*Timeo?,” thinks more probable, through Albertus Magnus and ὃ, Thomas 
Aquinas), nowhere mentions or refers to Atlantis. The land which Ulysses 
sights (nf. xxvi.) is the Mount of Purgatory in the Southern Hemisphere, not 
Fortunate Islands or an Atlantis in the Western Ocean. The commentary of 
Chalcidius does not touch the introductory part of the Timaeus, which is, how- 
ever, contained in the version ; and Dante’s references to the Timaeus (the only 
work of Plato of which he shows any special knowledge) are limited to topics 
occurring in the Discourse of the chief speaker, with which alone the commentary 
of Chalcidius deals. This seems to make for the view that Dante knew the 
Timaeus only through his own study of the commentary, or through the 
references of other writers to it and the corresponding part of the version, and 
that he had no first-hand acquaintance with the version itself as a whole. If he 
had read the first part of the version, it is difficult to understand his not having 
been struck by the Destruction of Atlantis, and his not having made use of an 
event so suitable for poetic treatment. 

3 τὰ δὲ μικρὰ Παναθήναια κατὰ τὸν Πειραιᾶ ἐτέλουν, ἐν ols καὶ πέπλος ἄλλος 
ἀνεῖτο τῇ θεῷ, καθ᾽ ὃν ἣν ἰδεῖν τοὺς ᾿Αθηναίους, τροφίμους ὄντας αὐτῆς, νικῶντας τὸν 
πρὸς ᾿Ατλαντίνους ré\enov.—Schol. on Republ. 327 a. 


THE ATLANTIS MYTH 469 


right. His note is founded on a stupid misunderstanding 
of a passage in the commentary of Proclus on the 7imaeus, 
where the remark is made that Callias has woven a Myth 
worthy of Athena, Proclus is evidently speaking metaphori- 
cally. There is no question of the Atlantis Myth being 
actually represented on a peplus.' 

So far as the Republic scholiast is concerned, then, we may 
adhere to our view that the Atlantis Myth is the product of 
_ Plato’s own imagination. 


1 See Sander, Atlantis, p. 13. 


Republic 414 B—415 D 


/ xX 9 Fe, 9 δ᾽ > , \ / lal 
414B Tis ἂν οὖν ἡμῖν, ἦν ἐγώ, μηχανὴ γένοιτο τῶν 
a a b / / @ \ A / 
ψευδῶν τῶν ἐν δέοντε γιγνομένων, ὧν δὴ νῦν ἐλέγομεν, 
al ἃ / lal / \ \ > \ 
Cyevvatov τι ἕν ψευδομένους πεῖσαι μάλιστα μὲν καὶ αὐτοὺς 
> / \ A / al 
τοὺς ἄρχοντας, εἰ δὲ μή, τὴν ἄλλην πόλιν; Ἰ]οῖὸν τι; 
/ / / 
ἔφη. Μηδὲν καινόν, ἣν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ἀλλὰ Φοινικικὸν τι, πρότε- 
\ ” a , A e \ 
pov μὲν ἤδη πολλαχοῦ γεγονὸς, ws φασιν οἱ ποιηταὶ καὶ 
,ὔ 34? ς n \ > \ >? 53 > / 
πεπείκασιν, ἐφ᾽ ἡμῶν δὲ οὐ γεγονὸς οὐδ᾽ οἶδα εἰ γενόμενον 
» a \ a a € 4 ΝΜ 5 lal 
ἄν, πεῖσαι δὲ συχνῆς πειθοῦς. “Os ἔοικας, ἔφη, ὀκνοῦντι 
“ / / 9S ᾽ / a 
λέγειν. Δόξω δέ σοι, ἣν δ᾽ ἐγώ, Kal μάλ᾽ εἰκότως ὀκνεῖν, 
> \ a ’ὔ 
D ἐπειδὰν εἴπω. Λέγ᾽, ἔφη, καὶ μὴ φοβοῦ. Λέγω δή" καίτοι 
> S e y / x / / 7, φ. A \ 
οὐκ οἶδα, ὁποίᾳ τόλμῃ ἢ ποίοις λόγοις χρώμενος ἐρῶ" Kal 
an \ ” 
ἐπιχειρήσω πρῶτον μὲν αὐτοὺς τοὺς ἄρχοντας πείθειν καὶ 
\ Ud » \ \ Ἁ »Μ / ¢ yw? 
TOUS στρατιωτας, ETTELTA δὲ Kal τὴν ἄλλὴν πόλιν, ὡς ap 
4 e a ᾽ \ > 7 / δ ἊΝ / “ > / 
ἃ ἡμεῖς αὐτοὺς ἐτρέφομέν τε Kal ἐπαιδεύομεν, ὥσπερ ὀνείρατα 
/ fal 
ἐδόκουν ταῦτα πάντα πάσχειν τε Kal γίγνεσθαι περὶ αὐτούς, 
/ al \ a \ / 
ἦσαν δὲ τότε TH ἀληθείᾳ ὑπὸ γῆς ἐντὸς πλαττόμενοι Kal 
/ “- 
τρεφόμενοι καὶ αὐτοὶ καὶ τὰ ὅπλα αὐτῶν καὶ ἡ ἄλλη 
\ / 2 \ \ A > / 
Ἑ σκευὴ δημιουργουμένη, ἐπειδὴ δὲ παντελῶς ἐξειργασμένοι 
rn \ / an fal lal 
ἦσαν, [καὶ] ἡ γῆ αὐτοὺς μήτηρ οὖσα ἀνῆκε, καὶ νῦν δεῖ 
΄ Ν \ r a ’ ᾽ ? , / / 
ὡς περὶ μητρὸς Kal τροφοῦ τῆς χώρας, ἐν ἡ εἰσί, βουλεύε- 
/ \ > / > / BA δι.» > \ yy ς \ 
σθαί τε Kal ἀμύνειν αὐτούς, ἐάν τις ἐπ᾽ αὐτὴν ἴῃ, Kal ὑπὲρ 
τῶν ἄλλων πολιτῶν ὡς ἀδελφῶν ὄντων καὶ γηγενῶν διανοεῖ- 
» Ν lal 
σθαι. Οὐκ eros, ἔφη, πάλαι ἠσχύνου τὸ ψεῦδος λέγειν. 
/ \ 
415 Πάνυ, ἣν δ᾽ ἐγώ, εἰκότως" ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως ἄκουε καὶ TO λοιπὸν 
al / \ a / 
τοῦ μύθου. ἐστὲ μὲν yap δὴ πάντες of ἐν TH πόλει ἀδελ- 
/ / \ “- e \ 
poi, ws φήσομεν πρὸς αὐτοὺς μυθολογοῦντες, GAN’ ὁ θεὸς 
΄σ \ a 
πλάττων, ὅσοι μὲν ὑμῶν ἱκανοὶ ἄρχειν, χρυσὸν ἐν TH γενέσει 
, , - \ , / ’ “ ᾽ ΝΥ 
ξυνέμιξεν αὐτοῖς, διὸ τιμιώτατοί εἰσιν" ὅσοι δ᾽ ἐπίκουροι, 
470 


THE MYTH OF THE EARTH-BORN 


WE must try, says Socrates, to invent a Noble Fiction for the 
good of the People which we have distributed into the three 
classes of Rulers, Soldiers, and Workmen—a Fiction which, 
if possible, we must get the Rulers themselves to believe, but, 
failing that, the other citizens. And let our Fiction eschew 
novelty: let it be framed after the pattern of those Founda- 
tion-Myths which the Poets have made familiar. I hardly 
know how to recommend my story to the belief, first of the 
Rulers, then of the Soldiers, and then of the other citizens— 
it will be difficult, indeed, to get them to believe it; yet, let 
me make the venture—and tell them that “All the things 
which they deemed were done unto them and came to pass 
in their life, when we were bringing them up and instructing 
them, were dreams, so to speak: all the while, in truth, ‘twas 
under the Earth, in her womb, that they were being fashioned 
and nourished, and their arms and all their accoutrement 
wrought. Then, when the making of them was fully accom- 
plished, the Earth, which is their Mother, sent them forth ; 
and now must they take good counsel concerning the Land 
wherein they are as concerning a Mother and Nurse, and 
must themselves defend her, if any come against her, and also 
have regard unto all their fellow-citizens, as unto brethren 
—children, along with themselves, of one Mother, even of 
Earth.” 

We shall further say to them in pursuance of our 
Myth :— 

“ All ye of this City are brethren: but God, when He 
fashioned you, mingled gold in the nature of those of you who 
were Able to Rule; wherefore are they the most precious: and 
silver in the nature of the Soldiers: and iron and copper in 

471 


472 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


\ a al lal 
ἄργυρον: σίδηρον δὲ Kal χαλκὸν τοῖς τε γεωργοῖς καὶ τοῖς 
" - “« 9 “ ” / \ \ 
ἄλλοις δημιουργοῖς. ἅτε οὖν ξυγγενεῖς ὄντες πάντες TO μὲν 

- - "»“" ᾽ »" 
πολὺ ὁμοίους ἂν ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς γεννῷτε, ἔστι δ᾽ ὅτε ἐκ χρυσοῦ 
a / a 
γεννηθείη ἂν ἀργυροῦν Kat ἐξ ἀργύρου χρυσοῦν ἔκγονον 
/ a 
καὶ τᾶλλα πάντα οὕτως ἐξ ἀλλήλων. τοῖς οὖν ἄρχουσι 
\ “- \ / / e / Ὁ Ν 
καὶ πρῶτον καὶ μάλιστα παραγγέλλει ὁ θεὸς, ὅπως μηδενὸς 
¢ / 
οὕτω φύλακες ἀγαθοὶ ἔσονται μηδ᾽ οὕτω σφόδρα φυλάξουσι 
a / rn an 
μηδὲν ὡς τοὺς ἐκγόνους, 6 TL αὐτοῖς τούτων ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς 
/ 
παραμέμικται, Kal ἐάν τε σφέτερος ἔκγονος ὑπόχαλκος ἢ 
/ \ 
ὑποσίδηρος γένηται, μηδενὶ τρόπῳ κατελεήσουσιν, ἀλλὰ τὴν 
a \ / Μ 
τῇ φύσει προσήκουσαν τιμὴν ἀποδόντες ὥσουσιν εἰς 
x / 
δημιουργοὺς ἢ εἰς γεωργούς, Kal ἂν αὖ ἐκ τούτων TIS 
/ A / 
ὑπόχρυσος ἢ ὑπάργυρος φυῇ, τιμήσαντες ἀνάξουσι τοὺς 
\ » / \ \ > >? / e lal ΝΜ 
μὲν εἰς φυλακήν, τοὺς δὲ εἰς ἐπικουρίαν, ὡς χρησμοῦ ὄντος 
a \ ε ς 
τότε τὴν πόλιν διαφθαρῆναι, ὅταν αὐτὴν ὁ σίδηρος ἢ ὁ 
fal 9S \ lal Lal 
χαλκὸς φυλάξῃ. τοῦτον οὖν τὸν μῦθον ὅπως ἂν πεισθεῖεν, 
»” \ / > lal » Ὁ , x > \ 
ἔχεις τινὰ μηχανήν; Οὐδαμῶς, ἔφη, ὅπως γ᾽ ἂν αὐτοὶ 
Φ “ / > x ς / tan \ e Μ Ψ » 
οὗτοι" ὅπως μέντ᾽ ἂν οἱ τούτων υἱεῖς καὶ οἱ ἔπειτα οἵ τ 
> fa ’ 
ἄλλοι ἄνθρωποι of ὕστερον. ᾿Αλλὰ Kal τοῦτο, ἣν δ᾽ ἐγώ, 
a A / / 
εὖ ἂν ἔχοι πρὸς TO μᾶλλον αὐτοὺς THs πόλεώς τε Kal 


ἀλλήλων κήδεσθαι: σχεδὸν γάρ τι μανθάνω ὃ λέγεις. 


THE MYTH OF THE EARTH-BORN 473 


the Husbandmen and Craftsmen. Now, albeit that, for the 
most part, ye will engender children like unto their parents, 
yet, inasmuch as ye are all of one kindred, it will sometimes 
come to pass that from gold silver will be brought forth, and 
from silver, golden offspring—yea, from any sort, any other. 
And this is the first and chiefest commandment which God 
giveth unto the Rulers, that they be Watchmen indeed, and 
watch naught else so diligently as the issue of children, to see 
which of these metals is mingled in their Souls: and if a child 
of theirs have aught of copper or iron in him, they shall in 
no wise have pity upon him, but shall award unto him the 
place meet for his nature, and thrust him forth unto the 
Craftsmen or Husbandmen; whereas, if there be any one born 
among these with gold or silver in him, they shall take account 
of this, and lead him up unto the place of the Watchmen, 
or unto the place of the Soldiers; for hath not the Oracle 
declared that the City will be destroyed in the day that Iron 
or Copper shall keep watch ?” 

This is the Myth. How are we to get them to believe 
it? The generation to whom it is first told cannot possibly 
believe it; but the next may, and the generations after. 
Thus the Public Good may be served, after all, by our Noble 
Fiction. 


474 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


NoTE ON THE ΜΎΤΗ OF THE EARTH-BORN 


The three metals of this Myth must be taken in connection 
with the doctrine of Hesiod (O.D. 97 ff.); for which the reader 
is referred to the section on Daemones among the Observations 
on the Discourse of Diotima." 

With regard to the fancy which inspires the Myth—the 
fancy that “our youth was a dream’”—I would only remark 
that Plato seems to me here to appeal to an experience which 
is by no means uncommon in childhood—to the feeling that 
the things here are doubles of things elsewhere. The produc- 
tion of this feeling in his adult patient has been dwelt on? as 
one of the chief means by which the Poet effects the purpose 
of his art. 


1 Pages 434 ff. supra. 2 Pages 34, 384 ff. supra. 


THE MYTHOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS OF THE 
CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 


THE purpose of this Concluding Part is to show that 
Alexandrine Platonism, indebted for its chief tenets to the 
mythology of the Z'imaeus, Phaedrus Myth, and Discourse of 
Diotima, has been, and still is, an important influence in 
Modern Philosophy. 

Our chief concern will be with the “ Cambridge Platonists ” 
of the seventeenth century ; but we shall keep a watchful eye 
throughout upon their successors, the English Idealists of the 
present day. 

Before we consider the central doctrine of the Cambridge 
Platonists and compare it with that of the English Idealists 
of the present day, we must try to realise the environment of 
the former. It was, in one word, “academic.” That, in the 
seventeenth century, meant “theological.” Their paramount 
interest was in Theology. They brought to the cultivation of 
Theology, first, classical, patristic, and rabbinical learning, and 
secondly, physical science, Cartesian—and Newtonian, if I may 
be allowed so to call the reformed science which was already 
all but ripe for Newton’s great discovery. 

With regard to their Learning:—It was that of the 
Renaissance, 1.6. Platonic, not Aristotelian. The learning of 
the medieval Church had been Aristotelian; and the great 
Myth of that Church, the Divina Commedia, sprang into life 
out of the ashes of Aristotelianism. Antagonism to the 
Roman Church had, doubtless, much to do with the Platonic 
revival, which spread from Italy. Ficino, the great Florentine 
Platonist, took the place of Thomas Aquinas, and is the 
authority the Cambridge Platonists are always found appeal- 
ing to. Their Platonism, moreover, was that of Plato the 

475 


470 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


mythologist, not that of Plato the dialectician ; that is, it was 
Alexandrine Platonism which attracted them, especially as 
its doctrine had been used by Philo to interpret the Old 
Testament, and by Origen and other Fathers to set forth 
the philosophy of the Christian mysteries, on lines common 
to them with Plotinus. 

Philo, whose method of exegesis has been referred to in 
the section on Allegory,’ never thought of doubting that 
Platonism and the Jewish Scriptures had real affinity to each 
other, and hardly perhaps asked himself how the affinity was 
to be accounted for; but the English Platonists, imitators of 
his exegetical method, felt themselves obliged to satisfy doubts 
and answer questions. To make good the applicability of the 
Platonic philosophy to the exegesis of the Holy Scriptures, 
they felt, with Aristobulus and Numenius, that it was 
important to be able to show that Plato was Moses Atticus. 
In the Preface to his Conjectura Cabbalistica, or a Conjectural 
Essay of interpreting the mind of Moses in the three first 
Chapters of Genesis, according to a threefold Cabbala, viz., 
literal, philosophical, mystical, or divinely moral (1662), Dr. 
Henry More writes (p. 3) :— 


Moses seems to have been aforehand, and prevented the subtilest 
and abstrusest inventions of the choicest philosophers that ever 
appeared after him to this very day. And further presumption 
of the truth of this Philosophical Cabbala is that the grand mysteries 
therein contained are most-what the same that those two eximious 
philosophers, Pythagoras and Plato, brought out of Egypt, and the 
parts of Asia, into Europe, and it is generally acknowledged by 
Christians that they both had their philosophy from Moses. And 
Numenius the Platonist speaks out plainly concerning his master : 
What is Plato but Moses Atticus? And for Pythagoras, it is a 
thing incredible that he and his followers should make such a 
deal of doe with the mystery of Numbers, had he not been 
favoured with a sight of Moses his creation of the world in six 
days, and had the Philosophick Cabbala thereof communicated to 
him, which mainly consists in Numbers. 


Again in the same work (ch. iii. § 3, p. 100) he writes :-— 


1 Pages 234 ff. supra. 

2 Aristobulus asserted the existence of a much older translation of the Law 
from which Plato and the Greeks stole their philosophy. Numenius is the 
author of the phrase Mwiiofs ἀττικίζων : see Dr. Bigg’s Christian Platonists of 
Alexandria, p. 6. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 477 


That Pythagoras was acquainted with the Mosaical or Jewish 
Philosophy, there is ample testimony of it in writers; as of 
Aristobulus an Egyptian Jew in Clemens Alexandrinus, and 
Josephus against Appion, S. Ambrose adds that he was a Jew 
himself. Clemens calls him τὸν ἐξ Ἑβραίων φιλόσοφον, the 
Hebrew Philosopher, 1 might cast hither the suffrages of Justin 
Martyr, Johannes Philoponus, Theodoret, Hermippus in Origen 
against Celsus, Porphyrius, and Clemens again, who writes that it 
was a common fame that Pythagoras was a disciple of the Prophet 
Ezekiel. And though he gives no belief to the report, yet that 
learned antiquary Mr. Selden seems inclinable enough to think it 
true... . Besides all these, Iamblichus also affirms that he lived 
at Sidon his native country, where he fell acquainted with the 
Prophets and Successors of one Mochus the Physiologer or Natural 
Philosopher —ovvéBarte τοῖς Μώχου τοῦ φυσιολόγου προφήταις 
ἀπογόνοις " which, as Mr Selden judiciously conjectures, is to be 
read τοῖς Μωσέως «.7.A. . . . Wherefore it is very plain that 
Pythagoras had his Philosophy from Moses . . . and now I have 
said this much of Pythagoras, there will be less need to insist 
upon Plato and Plotinus, their Philosophy being the same that 
Pythagoras’s was, and so alike applicable to Moses his text. 


So much, by way of specimen, to indicate the kind of 
evidence by which Plato is proved to be Moses Atticus. The 
proof, as managed by both More and Cudworth, calls into 
requisition a vast amount of uncritical learning. One has to 
read these learned lucubrations to estimate the revolution 
wrought by Bentley. 

One of the oddest results of the desire of the Cambridge 
Platonists to show the derivation of Pythagoreanism and 
Platonism from the Mosaic philosophy was the thesis main- 
tained by them that the Mosaic philosophy was an atomistic 
system—a system which Pythagoras and Plato borrowed and 
kept in comparative purity, but which Democritus (the 
Hobbes of antiquity—see Cudworth, Jntellectual System, vol. i. 
p- 276, ed. Mosheim and Harrison) corrupted into atheism. 
The true Mosaic atomism, or physical science, was of such a 
nature as to make it necessary to postulate God as source of 
motion; whereas Democritus and modern materialists explain 
everything by blind mechanical principles. But why this 
desire to make out the true philosophy—that of Moses and 
the Greeks who retained the Mosaic tradition—atomistic ? 
Because the Cartesian natural philosophy was “atomistic,” i.e. 


478 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


mathematical and mechanical. This was the natural philo- 
sophy in vogue—the natural philosophy which was reforming 
Physics and Astronomy, and was about to bring forth Newton. 
It need not surprise us, then, if we look at the matter atten- 
tively, that these alumni of Cambridge wished to show that 
Moses taught—allegorically, it is true—the Cartesian or 
mechanical philosophy. It was as if theologians of our own 
day were anxious to show that the account of the Creation in 
Genesis, or, if that would be too paradoxical, belief in a Special 
Providence, is compatible with Darwinism. It is true that 
More and Cudworth, especially the latter, are not entirely 
satisfied with the Cartesian theology, although they accept the 
Cartesian mathematical physics as giving a correct explanation 
of natural phenomena. It was indeed “atomism” in its 
genuine Mosaic form which Descartes revived, not the 
atheistic Democritean atomism; for he posits an “ Immaterial 
Substance”; but he leaves this Substance, as First Principle, 
too little to do. While recognising immaterial cogitative 
substance as distinct from extended material substance, he 
falls into the error of identifying cogitative substance entirely 
with consciousness, and for the “ plastic soul”—a spiritual or 
immaterial, though non-conscious, principle in Nature—he 
substitutes blind “ mechanism,” thus depriving theology of the 
argument from design. This is the gist of a remarkable 
criticism of Descartes which occurs in Cudworth’s Jntellectual 
System, vol. i. pp. 275, 276. It is well worth reading in 
connection with criticism of the same tendency to be met with 
in such modern books as Professor Ward’s Naturalism and 
Agnosticism. 

More, in a notable passage in the Preface General to his 
Collected Works (1662), speaks of Platonism as the soul, and 
Cartesianism as the body, of the philosophy which he applies 
to the interpretation of the Text of Moses. This philosophy 
is the old Jewish-Pythagorean Cabbala, which teaches the 
motion of the Earth and the Pre-existence of the Soul. The 
motion of the Earth as Mosaic doctrine he discusses in the 
sixth chapter of his Appendia to the Defence of the Philo- 
sophick Cabbala (p. 126), and the passage in which he deals 
with an objection against ascribing the doctrine to Moses may 
be noted as an instructive specimen of the method of these 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 479 


Cambridge Platonists. The objection—a sufficiently formid- 
able one on the face of it—is that the doctrine does not 
appear in the Mosaic writings. More takes up the bold 
position that, although the doctrine of “the motion of the 
Earth has been lost and appears not in the remains of the 
Jewish Cabbala, this can be no argument against its once 
having been a part thereof.” 


Though the fame of this part of the Cabbala (he says) be 
in a manner extinct among the Jews, yet that it was once the 
hidden doctrine of the learned of that nation seems to me 
sufficiently credible from what Plutarch writes of Numa Pompilius. 
For his so strictly prohibiting the use of images in divine worship 
is very apparently Mosaical . . . and Numa’s instructor is said to 
be not a Grecian but βάρβαρός τις βελτίων Πυθαγόρου, some 
Barbarian greater and better than Pythagoras himself; and 
where, I pray you, was such an one to be found, unless descended 
from the Jews? .. . It seems exceedingly probable from all these 
circumstances that Numa was both descended from the Jews and 
imbued with the Jewish religion and learning. What's this to 
the purpose ? or how does it prove the motion of the Earth once 
to have been part of the Judaical Tradition or Cabbala? Only 
thus much: that Numa. . . knowing there was no such august 
temple of God as the Universe itself, and that to all the inhabitants 
thereof it cannot but appear round from every prospect, and that 
in the midst there must be an ever-shining Fire, I mean the Sun ; 
in imitation hereof he built a round temple, which was called the 
temple of Vesta, concerning which Plutarch speaks plainly and 
apertly, “That Numa is reported to have built a round temple of 
Vesta for the custody of a fire in the midst thereof that was never 
to go out: not imitating herein the figure of the Earth, as if she 
was the Vesta, but of the Universe; in the midst whereof the 
Pythagoreans placed the Fire, and called it Vesta or Monas, and 
reckoned the Earth neither immovable, nor in the midst of the 
Mundane Compasse, but that it is carried about the Fire or Sun, 
and is none of the first and chief elements of the World.” What 
can be more plain than these testimonies ? 


The learning of the Cambridge Platonists, of which the 
above passage enables us to take the measure, is expended in 
two main directions, pointed out by Philo and by Plotinus 
respectively. Philo was their master in Scriptural exegesis 
—the exegesis by which dogma was established (although 
Plotinus, too, helped them here, especially with regard to the 
doctrine of the Trinity); but Plotinus was especially their 


480 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


master in what concerned devotional religion. It would be 
tedious to quote passages in which they employ Philo’s 
exegetical method (already illustrated in another part of this 
work) in order to establish dogma: it will be sufficient merely 
to mention More’s Philosophick Cabbala, ch. 1, his Defence of 
the Philosophick Cabbala, ch. 1, Cudworth’s Intellectual System 
of the Universe, vol. 11. p. 366 and p. 406 (ed. Mosheim and 
Harrison), and WNorris’s Reason and Religion (1689), pp. 
133, 134; but a few words respecting the aids to devotion 
which they derived from their Cabbala may not be out of 
place here. 

First, it is to be observed that ecstasy was the general 
form in which they tended to envisage religious devotion ; 
and here, doubtless, Plotinus was their model. The ecstasy 
of Plotinus is an obscure phenomenon, probably deserving the 
attention of the physiologist as well as of the theologian ;* it 
will be enough, by way of indicating its nature, to refer to 
Cudworth, who quotes” a well-known passage in Porphyry’s 
Life of his friend and master Plotinus :— 


And that we may here give a taste of the mystical theology and 
enthusiasm of these Platonists too, Porphyrius in his Life of 
Plotinus affirmeth, that both Plotinus and himself had sometimes 
experience of a kind of ecstatic union with the first of these three 
gods [Cudworth here refers to the Platonic Trinity], that which 
is above mind and understanding: ‘‘ Plotinus often endeavouring 
to raise up his mind to the first and highest God, that God some- 
times appeared to him, who hath neither form nor idea, but is 
placed above intellect, and all that is intelligible; to whom [ 
Porphyrius affirm myself to have been once united in the sixty- 
eighth year of my age.” And again afterwards: “ Plotinus’ chief 
aim and scope was to be united to and conjoined with the Supreme 
God, who is above all; which scope he attained unto four several 
times, whilst myself was with him, by a certain ineffable energy.” 
That is, Plotinus aimed at such a kind of rapturous and ecstatic 
union with the τὸ ἕν, and τἀγαθόν, “the first of the three highest 
gods” (called the One and the Good), as by himself is described 
towards the latter end of this last book (πη. vi. 9), where he 
calls it ἐπαφήν, and παρουσίαν ἐπιστήμης κρείττονα, and τὸ ἑαυτῶν 
κέντρον τῷ οἷον πάντων κέντρῳ συνάπτειν, “a kind of tactual 


' For modern cases I would refer to Professor James’s Varieties of Religious 
Experience (1902). 
2 Intell, System, ii. 315, 316. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 481 


union,” and “a certain presence better than knowledge,” and “ the 
joining of our own centre, as it were, with the centre of the 
universe,” 


This doctrine, or rather practice, of ecstasy, especially 
identified with the name of Plotinus, appeals strongly to the 
English Platonists, who understand it, however, not as a 
mysterious trance, but as a “ Holy Life,” ecstatic in the sense 
of being dead to the flesh and the vanities of the world. 
Death to the flesh and the world is secured by—nay consists 
in," Contemplation of the glorious and lovable nature of God. 
“The highest and last term of Contemplation,” says Norris,’ 
“is the Divine Essence. Whence it follows necessarily that 
the mind which sees the Divine Essence must be totally and 
thoroughly absolved from all commerce with the corporeal 
senses, either by Death or some ecstatical and rapturous 
Abstraction. So true is that which God said to Moses, Thou 
canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me, and 
live.” Similarly, John Smith, in his Discourse on “The true 
way or method of attaining Divine knowledge,” speaks of 
a good Life as the πρόληψις or Fundamental Principle of 
Divine Science: “If any man will do his will, he shall know 
the doctrine, whether it be of God.” 


“Were I indeed to define Divinity, I should rather call it a 
Divine Life, than a Divine Science ; it being something rather to be 
understood by a Spiritual Sensation, than by any verbal descrip- 
tion.”® , . . “Divinity is not so well perceived by a subtile wit, 
ὥσπερ αἰσθήσει κεκαθαρμένῃ, as by a purified sense, as Plotinus 
phraseth it.”* ... “The Platonists . . . thought the minds of 
men could never be purged enough from those earthly dregs of 
Sense and Passion, in which they were so much steeped, before 
they could be capable of their divine metaphysics; and therefore 
they so much solicit a χωρισμὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος, a separation 
from the Body, in all those who would καθαρῶς φιλοσοφεῖν, 
sincerely understand Divine Truth; for that was the scope of 
their Philosophy. This was also intimated by them in defining 
Philosophy to be μελέτη θανάτου, a meditation of Death; aiming 
herein at only a moral way of dying, by loosening the Soul from 


1 Cf. Aristotle, ΚΕ. N. x. 8. 8. 1178 Ὁ 32, εἴη ἂν ἡ εὐδαιμονία θεωρία τις. 

2 Reason and Religion (1689), p. 3. It is a book ‘‘of a devotional nature 
written for the use and benefit of the Learned Reader,” ‘‘ whose Heart may want 
as much to be inflamed as the other’s Head [7.e. the head of the unlearned 
person for whose use devotional books are mostly written] does to be instructed.” 

3 Smith’s Select Discourses (1660), p. 2. ‘oe Bp 10. 

21 


482 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


the Body and this Sensitive life . . . and therefore, besides those 
ἀρεταὶ καθαρτικαί by which the Souls of men were to be separated 
from Sensuality ... they devised a further way of separation 

. which was their JMJathemata, or mathematical contemplations 
. . . besides many other ways they had, whereby to rise out of 
this dark body; ἀναβάσεις ἐκ τοῦ σπηλαίου, several steps and 
ascents out of this miry cave of mortality, before they could set 
any sure footing with their intellectual part in the Land of Light 
and Immortal Being.”+ ‘‘The Priests of Mercury, as Plutarch 
tells us, in the eating of their holy things, were wont to cry out 
γλυκὺ ἡ ἀλήθεια, Sweet is Truth. But how sweet and delicious 
that Truth is which holy and heaven-born Souls feed upon in their 
mysterious converses with the Deity, who can tell but they that 
taste it? When Season once is raised by the mighty force of the 
Divine Spirit into a converse with God, it is turned into Sense : 
that which before was only Faith well built upon sure principles 
(for such our Science may be) now becomes Vision. We shall then 
converse with God rw vw, whereas before we conversed with him 
only τῇ διανοίᾳ, with our Discursive faculty, as the Platonists were 
wont to distinguish. Before we laid hold on him only λόγῳ 
ἀποδεικτικῴ, With a struggling, agonistical, and contentious Reason, 
hotly combating with difficulties and sharp contests of diverse 
opinions, and labouring in it self in its deductions of one thing 
from another; we shall then fasten our minds upon him λόγῳ 
ἀποφαντικῴῷ, With such a serene understanding, γαλήνῃ voepa, such 
an intellectual calmness and serenity as will present us with a 
blissful, steady, and invariable sight of him.” 3 


It may perhaps be thought that in the foregoing passage 
Smith oversteps a little the line which divides “ ecstasy ” as 
“Holy Life” from “ecstasy” as temporary state of exalted 
religious feeling; and perhaps in the following passage too, 
from his Discourse of the Immortality of the Soul, he may be 
thought to commit the same fault; yet the passage seems 
to me to contain what is so valuable for our understanding 
of the influence of Platonism—as mythological, rather than 
logical system—on present-day religious thought, that I 
venture to transcribe it, together with the notable quotation 
from Plotinus included in it :— 


Though in our contentious pursuits after science, we cast 
Wisdom, Power, Eternity, Goodness, and the like into several 


1 0.c. pp. 10, 11. 
2 o.c. pp. 16, 17. This and the foregoing quotations are all from the 
Discourse concerning the True Way or Method of attaining to Divine Knowledge. 





THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 483 


formalities, so that we may trace down Science in a constant chain 
of Deductions; yet in our naked Intuitions and Visions of them, 
we clearly discern that Goodness and Wisdom lodge together, 
Justice and Mercy kiss each other: and all these and whatsoever 
pieces else the cracked glasses of our Reasons may sometime 
break Divine and Intelligible Being into, are fast knit up together 
in the invincible bonds of Hternity. And in this sense is that 
notion of Proclus descanting upon Plato's riddle of the Soul ws 
γεννητὴ καὶ ἀγέννητος, as if it were generated and yet not generated, 
to be understood ; χρόνος ἅμα καὶ αἰὼν περὶ τὴν ψυχήν, the Soul 
partaking of Time in its broken and particular conceptions and 
apprehensions, and of Eternity in its Comprehensive and Stable 
Contemplations. I need not say that when the Soul is once got 
up to the top of this bright Olympus, it will then no more doubt 
of its own Immortality, or fear any Dissipation, or doubt whether 
any drowsy sleep shall hereafter seize upon it: no, it will then 
feel itself grasping fast and safely its own Immortality, and view 
itself in the Horizon of Eternity. In such sober kind of ecstasies 
did Plotinus find his own Soul separated from his body ... “I 
being often awakened into a sense of my self, and being 
sequestered from my body, and betaking myself from all things 
else into my self; what admirable beauty did I then behold.” .. . 
But here we must use some caution, lest we should arrogate too 
much to the power of our own Souls, which indeed cannot raise 
up themselves into that pure and steady contemplation of true 
Being; but will rather act with some multiplicity or ἑτερότης (as 
they speak) attending it. But thus much of its high original 
may appear to us, that it can correct itself for dividing and disjoin- 
ing therein, as knowing all to be every way one most entire and 
simple. . . . We shall add but this one thing further to clear the 
Soul’s Immortality, and it is indeed that which breeds a true sense 
of it—viz., True and real goodness. Our highest speculations of the 
Soul may beget a sufficient conviction thereof within us, but yet 
it is only True Goodness and Virtue in the Souls of men that can 
make them both know and love, believe and delight themselves in 
their own Immortality. Though every good man is not so logically 
subtile as to be able by fit mediums to demonstrate his own 
Immortality, yet he sees it in a higher light: his Soul being 
purged and enlightened by true Sanctity is more capable of those 
divine irradiations, whereby it feels itself in conjunction with 
God, and by a συναύγεια (as the Greeks speak), the Light of divine 
goodness mixing itself with the light of its own Reason, sees more 
clearly not only that it may, if it please the Supreme Deity, of 
its own nature exist eternally, but also that it shall doso.... 
It is indeed nothing else that makes men question the Immor- 
tality of their Souls, so much as their own base and earthly loves, 


484 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


which first makes them wish their Souls were not immortal, and 
then think they are not; which Plotinus hath well observed and 
accordingly hath soberly pursued this argument: ... “Let us 
now (saith he, nn. iv. 7. 10) consider a Soul, not such a one as 
is immersed into the Body . .. but such a one as hath cast 
away Concupiscence and Anger and other Passions. . . . Such 
a one as this will sufficiently manifest that all Vice is un- 
natural to the Soul, and something acquired only from abroad, 
and that the best Wisdom and all other Virtues lodge in a purged 
Soul, as being allied to it. If, therefore, such a Soul shall reflect 
upon itself, how shall it not appear to itself to be of such a kind 
of nature as Divine and Eternal Essences are? For Wisdom and 
true Virtue being Divine Effluxes can never enter into any 
unhallowed and mortal thing: it must, therefore, needs be Divine, 
seeing it is filled with a Divine nature διὰ συγγένειαν καὶ τὸ 
ὁμοούσιον, by its kindred and consanguinity therewith. . . . Con- 
template, therefore, the Soul of man, denuding it of all that which 
itself is not, or let him that does this, view his own Soul; then 
he will believe it to be immortal, when he shall behold it ἐν τῷ 
νοητῷ καὶ ἐν τῷ καθαρῷ, fixed in an Intelligible and pure nature ; 
he shall then behold his own intellect contemplating not any 
sensible thing, but eternal things, with that which is eternal, that 
is, with itself, looking into the intellectual world, being itself 
made all lucid, intellectual, and shining with Sun-beams of eternal 
Truth, borrowed from the First Good, which perpetually rayeth 
forth his Truth upon all intellectual beings. One thus qualified 
may seem without any arrogance to take up that saying of 
Empedocles, χαίρετ, ἐγὼ δ᾽ ὑμῖν θεὸς apBporos—Farewell all 
earthly allies, I am henceforth no mortal wight, but an immortal 
angel, ascending up into Divinity, and reflecting upon that likeness 
of it which I find in myself. When true Sanctity and Purity 
shall ground him in the knowledge of divine things, then shall the 
inward sciences that arise from the bottom of his own Soul display 
themselves; which, indeed, are the only true sciences; for the 
Soul runs not out of itself to behold Temperance and Justice 
abroad, but its own light sees them in the contemplation of its 
own being and that divine essence which was before enshrined 
within itself.” Ὁ 


So much for Smith’s presentation of the “Idea of Soul” ; 
it owes its main features to the doctrine of ἔρως and ἀνάμνησις 
set forth in the Phaedrus Myth; and the “regulative” value 
of the “Idea” is finely appreciated. The regulative value of 
the “ Idea of God” is as finely appreciated in the Discourse of 


1 6.6. pp. 99-105. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 485 


the Hwistence and Nature of God, where he says,’ “God is not 
better defined to us by our understandings than by our wills 
and affections,” and notes * the pre-eminence, in Platonism, of 
τὸ ἀγαθόν, which begets in us τὸ ἐρωτικὸν πάθος. Similarly, 
in his Discourse of the Jewish Notion of a Legal Righteousness, 
he contrasts the doctrine of Works set forth by the rabbinical 
writers with the Christian doctrine of Faith, and shows that 
the latter amounts to a doctrine of “divine grace and bounty 
as the only source of righteousness and happiness.” St. Paul’s 
doctrine of “Justification by Faith” is to be explained pla- 
tonically as ὁμοίωσις τῷ θεῷ. It is the justification of a sancti- 
fied nature—a nature which, by the grace of God, has been 
made a partaker of His life and strength. In Faith there is 
a true conjunction and union of the Souls of men with God, 
whereby they are made capable of true blessedness. “The Law 
is merely an external thing consisting in precepts which have 
only an outward administration” —it is the διακονία γράμματος 
καὶ θανάτου : but “the administration of the Gospel is intrin- 
sical and vital in living impressions upon the Souls of men” 
—it is the διακονία πνεύματος. “By which,” he argues in 
a significant passage, “the Apostle (2 Cor. iii. 6, 7) cannot 
mean the History of the Gospel, or those eredenda propounded 
to us to believe; for this would make the Gospel itself as 
much an external thing as the Law was, and according to the 
external administration as much a killing or dead letter as 
the Law was. . . . But, indeed, he means a vital eflua from God 
upon the Souls of men, whereby they are made partakers of 
Life and Strength from Him.” 


I doubt we are too nice Logicians sometimes in distinguishing 
between the Glory of God and our own Salvation. We cannot in a 
true sense seek our own Salvation more than the Glory of God, 
which triumphs most and discovers itself most effectually in the 
salvation of Souls; for indeed this salvation is nothing else but a 
true participation of the Divine Nature. Heaven is not a thing 
without us, nor is Happiness anything distinct from a true con- 
junction of the mind with God in a secret feeling of his goodness 
and reciprocation of affection to him, wherein the Divine Glory 
most unfolds itself. . . Τὸ love God above ourselves is not indeed 
so properly to love him above the salvation of owr Souls, as if these 


* ac, p 1387. 2 a.c. p. 139. 3 ac. p. 311. 4 ac p. 312. 


486 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


were distinct things ; but it is to love him above all our own sinful 
affections, and above our particular Beings. . . . We cannot be com- 
pletely blessed till the Jdea boni, or the Ipswm Bonum, which is 
God, exercise its sovereignty over all the faculties of our Souls, 
rendering them as like to itself as may consist with their proper 
capacity.! 

I have quoted Smith at considerable length, that the 
reader may appreciate the place of the Platonist doctrine, or 
rather ἄσκησις, of “ecstasy ” in the Life and Philosophy of the 
Cambridge school. It would be easy to quote similar passages 
from Cudworth, More, and Norris; but Smith seems to me to 
“keep his head” better than the others in the intoxicating 
Neo-Platonic atmosphere, and, moreover, to present “ ecstasy ” 
in a form which can be more easily recognised as connecting 
link between the doctrine of ἔρως and ἀνάμνησις set forth in 
the Phaedrus Myth and the doctrine of the “ Presence of the 
Eternal Consciousness in my Consciousness,” which meets us 
in the Epistemology and Ethics of T. H. Green and his school. 

Leaving the learning of the Cambridge Platonists, let us 
now look at their science. Their science was Cartesian—that 
is, it was physics and astronomy treated mathematically, 
according to mechanical principles, the application of which 
by Copernicus and Galileo, in the latter branch, had already 
overthrown the Aristotelian tradition, and produced an intellec- 
tual revolution, which can be compared only with that which 
Darwinism has produced in our own day. Natural science 
has always been influential in England in giving impulse to 
Philosophy, and even to Theology. Locke’s Essay was occa- 
sioned and inspired by the activity of the Royal Society ; 
Berkeley’s Idealism found expression in a monograph on the 
physiology of vision; and it was not by mere accident that 
the University of Newton was the alma mater of the English 
Platonists. 

They received the new astronomy with enthusiasm. They 
were inspired by it. Like Xenophanes, they looked up at the 
Heavens and said, “The One is God.”* “One great Order” 
and “Infinite Space” are the scientific ideas which dominate 


1 0.c, pp. 410, 411, from ‘ Discourse of the Excellency and Nobleness of 
True Religion,” 

2. Arist. Met. A 5, 986 Ὁ 24, els τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἀποβλέψας τὸ ὃν εἶναί φησι 
τὸν θεόν, 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 487 


Cudworth and his friends, and bring conviction to their belief 
—otherwise established by the authority of revelation and 
Platonic philosophy—in a “Governor of the Universe,” a 
“Perfect and Infinite Being,” a God who, in Plato’s moral 
phrase, is “'The Good,” and yet, in scientific sense, may not 
unfitly be conceived spatially—-as by Cudworth, in a strange 
passage : '|— 


It is certain that there can be no mode, accident, or affection 
of Nothing; and consequently, that nothing cannot be extended 
nor measurable, But if space be neither the extension of body, 
nor yet of substance incorporeal, then must it of necessity be the 
extension of nothing, and the affection of nothing; and nothing 
must be measurable by yards and poles. We conclude, therefore, 
that from this very hypothesis of the Democritic and Epicurean 
Atheists, that space is a nature distinct from body, and positively 
infinite, it follows undeniably that there must be some incorporeal 
substance whose affection its extension is, and because there can 
be nothing infinite but only the Deity, that it is the infinite exten- 
sion of an incorporeal Deity. 


To this strange passage let me append some stanzas from 
More’s Philosophickall Poems, which show how the Copernican 
astronomy impressed his imagination—how the centrality of 
the Platonic ἀγαθόν in the intelligible world seemed to him to 
be imaged by the centrality of the Sun in the visible world. 
He has been speaking of the “ stiff standers for ag’d Ptolemee,” 
and proceeds : °— 


But let them bark like band-dogs at the moon 

That mindless passeth on in silencie : 

Ill take my flight above this outward Sunne, 

Regardless of such fond malignitie, 

Lift my self up in the Theologie 

Of heavenly Plato. There 11 contemplate 

The Arch type of this Sunne, that bright Idee 

Of steddie Good, that doth his beams dilate 
Through all the worlds, all lives and beings propagate. 


One steddy Good, centre of Essences, 
Unmoved Monad, that Apollo hight, 
The Intellectual Sunne whose energies 
Are all things that appear in vital light, 


1 Intellectual System, vol. iii. p. 232 (ed. Mosheim and Harrison). 
2 Psychozoia, or Life of the Soul, pp. 157 ff. 


488 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Whose brightness passeth every creature’s sight. 
Yet round about him, stird with gentle fire, 

All things do dance ; their being, action, might, 
They thither do direct with strong desire, 


To embosom him with close embracements they aspire. 


Unseen, incomprehensible, He moves 

About himself each seeking entity 

That never yet shall find that which it loves. 
No finite thing shall reach infinity, 

No thing dispers’d comprehend that Unity ; 
Yet in their ranks they seemly foot it round, 
Trip it with joy at the world’s harmony, 
Struck with the pleasure of an amorous stound, 


So dance they with fair flowers from unknown root y-crowned. 


Still falling short they never fail to seek, 
Nor find they nothing by their diligence ; 
They find repast, their lively longings eek 
Rekindled still, by timely influence. 

Thus all things in distinct corewmference 
Move about Him that satisfies them all ; 
Nor be they thus stird up by wary sense 
Or foresight, or election rationall, 


But blindly reel about the Heart of Lives centrall. 


So doth the Earth, one of the erring seven, 
Wheel round the fixéd Sunne, that is the shade 
Of steddy Good, shining in this Out-heaven 

With the rest of those starres that God hath made 
Of baser matter, all which he array’d : 
With his far-shining light. They sing for joy, 
They frisque about in circulings unstay’d, 

Dance through the liquid air, and nimbly toy, 


While Sol keeps clear the sprite, consumes what may accloy. 


The centre of each severall World’s a Sunne 
With shining beams and kindly warming heat, 
About whose radiant crown the Planets runne, 
Like reeling moths around a candle light. 
These all together one World I conceit. 

And that even infinite such worlds there be, 
That unexhausted Good that God is hight 

A full sufficient reason is to me, 


Who simple Goodnesse make the highest Deity. 


The mathematical physics of Descartes and the Copernican 


astronomy were welcomed with joy by the Cambridge Platonists, 
as affording a far better “Argument from Design” for the 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 489 


existence of God than had been afforded by the Ptolemaic 
System, which, with its cumbrous commentary of Epicycles, 
called the mind away from the wisdom of the Creator to the 
ingenuity of man. The Copernican astronomy, by taking the 
fixed stars out of the solid sphere in which the Ptolemaic 
astronomy held them fast, and showing them to be central 
suns round which, as round the sun of our system, planets 
revolve in liquid aether, forces on us the thought that there is 
an infinity of such solar systems, or worlds, not a rounded-off 
universe, beyond whose jlammantia moenia there is mere 
nothingness. “The infinity of worlds” was accepted as proof 
of the existence of an infinite, omnipresent Deity, an Incor- 
poreal Principle—a circle “whose centre is everywhere, and 
circumference nowhere.” <A “finite universe” would be an 
argument for a “Corporeal Deity.” This is why the Cam- 
bridge Platonists are so anxious to show that the Pytha- 
goreans and Platonists held, with Moses, the doctrine of the 


motion of the Earth. “Modern Science” had convinced them 
that this was the only doctrine consistent with a spiritual 
philosophy. 


The profound theological influence which the vast prospect 
opened up by the reformed astronomy exercised over the minds 
of men in the seventeenth century cannot be better brought 
home to us than by a passage in which Newton himself puts 
his own theological belief on record : 7— 


The six Primary Planets revolve round the Sun in circles 
concentrical to the Sun, with the same direction of their motion, 
and very nearly in the same Plane. The moons (or secondary 
planets) revolve round the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, with the 
same direction of their motion, and very nearly in the plane of 
the orbs of the planets. And all these regular motions have not 
their rise from mechanical causes, seeing the comets are carried in 
orbs very eccentrical, and that very freely through all parts of 
the Heavens. ... This most elegant system of planets and 
comets could not be produced but by and under the Contrivance 
and Dominion of an Intelligent and powerful Being. And, if the 
fixed stars are the centres of such other systems, all these, being 
framed by the like counsel, will be subject to the dominion of 
One; especially seeing the Light of the fixed stars is of the same 

1 More’s Philosophickall Poems, notes, p. 409. 


2 Scholium generale at the end of the Principia. I avail myself of Maxwell’s 
translation in his edition of Cumberland’s Laws of Nature. 


490 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


nature with that of the Sun, and the Light of all these systems 
passes mutually from one to another. And He has placed the 
systems of the fixed stars at immense distances from one another, 
lest they should mutually rush upon one another by their gravity. 
He governs all things, not as the Soul of the World, but as the Lord 
of the Universe; and because of His dominion, He is wont to be 
called παντοκράτωρ, Universal Emperor. For God is a relative 
word, and hath a relation to servants ; and the Deity is the Empire 
of God, not over His own Body, as is the opinion of those who 
make Him the Soul of the World, but over His servants. The 
Supreme God is a Being, Eternal, Infinite, Absolutely Perfect ; 
but a Being, however Perfect, without Dominion, is not Lord God. 
. . . He governs all things, and knows all things which are done, 
or which can be done. He is not Eternity and Infinity, but He is 
Eternal and Infinite; He is not Duration and Space, but He 
endures and is present. He endures always, and is present every- 
where; and by existing always and everywhere, He constitutes 
Duration and Space, Eternity and Infinity. Whereas every 
particle of Space is always, and every indivisible moment of 
Duration is everywhere, certainly the Framer and Lord of the 
Universe shall not be never, nowhere. . . . We have not any notion 
of the Substance of God. We know Him only by His properties 
and attributes, and by the most wise and excellent structure of 
Things, and by Final Causes; but we adore and worship Him on 
account of His Dominion. For we worship Him as His servants ; 
and God without Dominion, Providence, and Final Causes, is 
nothing else but Fate and Nature. There arises no Variety in 
Things from blind metaphysical necessity, which is always and 
everywhere the same. All diversity in the Creatures could arise 
only from the Ideas and Will of a necessarily-existent Being. 
We speak, however, allegorically when we say that God sees, 
hears, speaks, laughs, loves, hates, despises, gives, receives, rejoices, 
is angry, fights, fabricates, builds, composes. For all speech con- 
cerning God is borrowed, by Analogy or some Resemblance, from 
human affairs. . . . So much concerning God, of Whom the Dis- 
course from Phenomena belongs to Experimental Philosophy. . . . 
The main business of Natural Philosophy is to argue from 
Phenomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes 
from Effects, till we come to the very First Cause, which certainly 
is not mechanical. 


Besides the better Argument from Design which the 
reformed astronomy seemed to offer, there was also the 
famous Cartesian argument from our Idea of a Perfect Being 
to his Existence. Cudworth' seems to feel the difficulties 

1 Intellectual System, vol. iii. pp. 38 ff. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 491 


connected with this argument, but is unwilling to declare 
himself against it. More,’ however, who is less critical, 
accepts it thankfully. I have already alluded to one serious 
objection which Cudworth has to offer to the Cartesian system 
—viz., that by substituting “mechanism” for the “ plastick 
soul,” it leaves the immaterial substance, theoretically retained, 
little, if anything, to do, and weakens immensely the value of 
the argument from Design in Nature.2 However, the general 
tendency of Cartesianism being favourable to religion, and 
opposed to Hobbes, Cudworth is satisfied with merely warning 
his readers against this particular flaw in the system. Holding 
as he does a brief for Descartes, he argues that “ mechanism,” 
in the Cartesian system, is so conceived as to necessitate the 
assumption of the existence of an immaterial substance as ἀρχὴ 
κινήσεως. He evidently attaches more value to this merit in 
Cartesianism than to its proof of the Existence of God from 
our Idea of him; and yet it is plainly not a very great merit 
after all, if we are left with data from which we are, indeed, 
compelled to infer an Immaterial Power or Force beyond dead 
matter, but cannot infer Wisdom controlling that Power or 
Force. We are not surprised, then, to find that Cudworth 
and his school, Cartesians though they profess to be, are 
very strenuous in maintaining the contrary of the Cartesian 
doctrine which makes True and False, Right and Wrong, 
depend entirely on the Will of God, and not rather on an 
“Eternal Nature of Things,” or “Law of the Ideal World,” 
logically distinct from, and prior to, the Will of God, in 
accordance with which, however, the Will of God is always 
exercised. Smith, indeed, the clearest head, I think, among 
the English Platonists, is so well aware of the difficulty of 
combining Cartesianism with Platonism that he touches but 
lightly on the arguments for the existence of God supplied by 
the former system, and dwells mainly on the evidence fur- 
nished by man’s moral nature and sanctified heart. “A Holy 
Life,’ he says, is the best and most compendious way to Right 
Belief.” Of the two witnesses spoken of by Kant—“ The 
starry Heaven above, and the Moral Law within ”—Smith 


1 An Antidote against Atheism, Book i. chaps. 7 and 8, pp. 20 ff. 
See p. 478 supra. 
3 The True Way or Method of attaining to Divine Knowledge, p. 9. 


492 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


chose the latter to found his theological belief upon—in this, 
perhaps, more philosophical than Cudworth and More, the 
greater lights of the school, who, without ignoring the “ argu- 
ment from the heart,’ are inclined rather to look to “ science ” 
—to “design in nature,” and to “ epistemology ”—for proof of 
the existence of God. 

For the Immortality of the Soul, the other cardinal 
doctrine of Theology and Morals, Cudworth and More are very 
busy in producing “scientific” evidence, and, on the whole, 
find it easy to press the science of their day into the service 
of the doctrine. 

The starting-point of their scientific argument is, that the 
Soul is an “incorporeal substance.” Systems of Philosophy, 
both ancient and modern, are distinguished as “ theistic” and 
“ atheistic,” according as they profess or deny the doctrine of 
“incorporeal substance.” The saving merit of Descartes, as we 
have seen, is that, after all, he recognises “incorporeal sub- 
stance.” On the other hand, Hobbes denies it. In the ninth 
chapter of the First Book of The Immortality of the Soul, 
More examines Hobbes’ disproof of Spirit or incorporeal 
substance. Hobbes’ argument is, “Every substance has 
dimensions; but a Spirit has no dimensions; therefore there 
is no spiritual substance.” “ Here,’ writes More} “I con- 
fidently deny the assumption. For it is not the character- 
istikall of a Lody to have dimensions, but to be impenetrable. 
All Substance has dimensions—that is, Length, Breadth, and 
Depth; but all has not «mpenetrability. See my letters to 
Monsieur Des Cartes.” This refutation of Hobbes falls back 
on the definitions of Spirit and of Body which More has given 
in an earlier part of the same treatise —Spirit is defined as 
“a Substance penetrable and indiscerpible” ; Body, as “ἃ Sub- 
stance impenetrable and discerpible.” This definition he 
amends in the chapter against Hobbes, putting it thus :— 
Spirit or Incorporeal is “ Extended Substance, with activity 
and indiscerpibility, leaving out impenetrability.” More thus 
plainly ranges himself with those who assumed an extended 
incorporeal substance; but, of course, there were many incor- 
porealists, among whom was Plotinus,® who regarded Spirit as 


1 Page 41. 2 Page 21. 
3 See Cudworth, Jntell. System, vol. iii. p. 386. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 493 


unextended, Cudworth compares the opposite views of these 
two classes of incorporealists at great length, and ends’ by 
leaving the question open, although one might gather that he 
inclines to the view favoured by More from his speaking of 
Space as incorporeal substance, with the attribute of exten- 
sion, and infinite ; and therefore as equivalent to God, who is 
the only infinite substance.’ 

But the “ incorporeal substance” of Descartes, though a 
good enough “ scientific” beginning for a doctrine of the 
Immortality of the Soul, is only a beginning; just as it is 
only a beginning for a “ scientific” proof of the existence of 
God. Cartesianism falls short, according to the Cambridge 
School, as we have seen, in ignoring the “ plastic principle,” 
or “soul of nature.” It leaves us between the horns of a 
dilemma: either mere mechanism, once started by God, pro- 
duces effects blindly; or God interferes personally in the 
smallest details. The plastic principle releases us from this 
dilemma. It may be described as an incorporeal substance, 
or principle, which, like Aristotle’s φύσις, works ἕνεκά tov 
without consciousness. To it God, who is Self-conscious Good- 
ness and Wisdom, delegates, as it were, the task of carrying on 
the operations of nature: these operations are therefore God’s 
operations, and His goodness and wisdom may be inferred from 
them; but we are not obliged to hold the ridiculous opinion 
that He produces them by immediate intervention. It is the 
plastic principle which, in the inorganic world, immediately 
determines, eg., the distances of the fixed stars from one 
another and the paths of their planets, and, in the organic 
world, appears as that “vegetative part of the Soul” which 
builds up the body terrestrial, aerial or aethereal, without 
which, as “ vehicle,” consciousness would be impossible in the 
case of finite spirits:* without this plastic, vehicle-building, 
principle there could be no “reproduction,” to use T. H. 
Green’s terms, of the “Eternal Consciousness.” JI have 
already, in an early part of this work,* had occasion to 
describe the use which More makes of the plastic principle 
in his account of the future existence of the Soul, and would 


1 0.6. iii. 398. 2 0.6. iii. 232. 

3 Cudworth thinks it ‘‘ probable” that no spirit except God can exist without 
a body of some kind (Jnéed7. System, vol. iii. p. 368). 

4 Pages 95 ff. 


494 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


only add here that Cudworth treats of the principle in his 
Intellectual System, vol. i. pp. 235-252 (ed. Mosheim and 
Harrison)—in a passage well worth the attention of any one 
interested in the point at issue between the “teleological” and 
the “mechanical” explanation of the world. The English 
Platonist of the seventeenth century, with his “ plastic soul,” 
makes out, I venture to think, as plausible a case for 
“teleology” as his successor, the English Idealist of the 
nineteenth or twentieth century, manages to do with his 
“spiritual principle.” The chief difference between the two 
advocates is that the former tells us frankly that his 
plastic soul is “unconscious,” while the latter leaves us in 
doubt whether his “spiritual principle” is “conscious” or 
“ unconscious.” 

Having attempted to describe—in mere outline—the 
learning and the science of the Cambridge Platonists, I now 
go on to compare their central doctrine with that of the 
English Idealists of the present day—the school of which 
T. H. Green may be taken as representative. The comparison 
will show, I think, that the central doctrine of these English 
Idealists, equally with that of the Cambridge Platonists, is to 
be traced to Plato—and to Plato the mythologist, rather than 
to Plato the dialectician. 

The central doctrine of the Cambridge Platonists is the 
Doctrine of Ideas as presented in the Phaedrus Myth—that 
is, presented to religious feeling as theory of the union of man 
with God in knowledge and conduct. In the Doctrine of 
Ideas, as it is presented to the scientific understanding in such 
contributions to Logic as Republic, 509 D ff, the Cambridge 
Platonists, like their Alexandrine predecessors, seem to take 
little interest. 

The Doctrine of Ideas as adopted by the Cambridge 
Platonists may be stated as follows :—Sensible things, which 
come into existence and perish, are but reflections, images, 
ectypes, of Eternal Essences, Archetypal Forms, or Ideas. These 
Ideas are the νοήματα, the “ Thoughts,” of God—the elements 
which constitute his Eternal Wisdom, σοφία, or λόγος. The 
Wisdom of God is that World of Ideas, that mundus arche- 
typus, according to the conception of which he created this 
visible world. Man attains to knowledge, ἐπιστήμη, only in 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 495 


so far as he apprehends these Eternal Thoughts of the Divine 
Wisdom—only in so far as, spurred to reflection by the stimuli 
of sense, he enters into communion with the Mind of God, 
“sees things in God.” This communion is possible only be- 
cause man’s spirit is of one kind with the spirit of God—7rob 
γὰρ γένος ἐσμέν. “ ΑἸ] minds partake of one original mind,” Ὁ 
are “reproductions of the Eternal Consciousness” *——find that 
its eternal Ideas are theirs too. Thus epistemology involves 
theology. The theory of knowledge involves the supposition 
of a “ universal consciousness,” or “ Wisdom of God,” as Eternal 
Subject of those εἴδη or “forms,” without the constructive 
activity of which in the mind of man his sensations would be 
“ blind.” 

From this sketch it may be seen that the doctrine of 
archetypal Ideas amounts, in the English Intellectualists, to a 
Theory of Knowledge, in which the ἃ priori element is recog- 
nised, as in the Kantian philosophy. Let me fill in my sketch 
by quoting some passages from More, Cudworth, Smith, Norris, 
and Berkeley. 

In his antidote against Atheism,’ More speaks of “ relative 
notions or ideas ”»—Cause and Effect, Whole and Part, Like 
and Unlike—in much the same way as Kant speaks of his 
“Categories of the Understanding.” These “relative ideas,” 
he says, “are no external Impresses upon the senses, but the 
Soul’s own active manner of conceiving those things which are 
discovered by the outward senses.” Again, in the Cabbala,* in a 
passage which carries us out of the “ Critique of Pure Reason ” 
into the “ Metaphysic of Morals,” he says: “The Soul of man 
is not merely passive as a piece of wood or stone, but is forth- 
with made active by being acted upon; and therefore if God 
in us rules, we rule with him; if he contend against sin in 
us, we also contend together with him against the same; if 
he see in us what is good or evil, we, ipso facto, see by him 
—In his light we see light; and so in the rest.” Again, in 
his Philosophickall Poems, the following curious passage occurs 
—a passage, I venture to think, of considerable philosophic 
import, on account of the wide view taken of innate ideas, or 
a priort forms: bodies, it is suggested, are shaped, as well as 


1 Cudworth, Jnt. System, iii. 62. 2 Green, Prolegomena to Ethics. 
3 Page 18, bk. i. ch. 6. + Page 154. 5 Page 238. 


490 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


conscious experience organised, according to a priori, constitu- 
tional forms :— 


If plantall souls in their own selves contain 

That vital formative fecundity, 

That they a tree with different colours stain, 

And diverse shapes, smoothnesse, asperity, 

Straightnesse, acutenesse, and rotoundity, 

A golden yellow, or a crimson red, 

A varnish’d green with such like gailantry ; 

How dull then is the sensitive ? how dead, 
If forms from its own centre it can never spread ? 


Again, an universal notion, 
What object ever did that form impresse 
Upon the soul? What makes us venture on 
So rash a matter, as e’er to confesse 
Ought generally true ? when neverthelesse 
We cannot e’er runne through all singulars. 
Wherefore in our own souls we do possesse 
Free forms and immateriall characters, 

Hence ’tis the soul so boldly generall truth declares. 

* * * * * * 

What body ever yet could figure show 
Perfectly, perfect, as rotundity, 
Exactly round, or blamelesse angularity ? 
Yet doth the soul of such like forms discourse, 
And finden fault at this deficiency, 
And rightly term this better and that worse ; 
Wherefore the measure is our own Idee, 
Which th’ humane Soul in her own self doth see. 
And sooth to sayen whenever she doth strive 
To find pure truth, her own profundity 
She enters, in her self doth deeply dive ; 

From thence attempts each essence rightly to descrive. 


The lines with which the last stanza ends find their com- 
mentary in a passage in Smith’s Discourse of the Immortality 
of the Soul, in which the κίνησις προβατική and the κίνησις 
κυκλική of the Soul are distinguished. By the former she goes 
forth and deals with material things; by the latter she reflects 
upon herself. What she finds by “reflection” he sets forth 
in his Discourse concerning the Ewistence and Nature of God.’ 


Plotinus hath well taught us, εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἐπιστρέφων, εἰς ἀρχὴν 
ἐπιστρέφει, He which reflects upon himself, reflects npon his own Origi- 
nall, and finds the clearest Impression of some Eternall Nature and 


1 Pages 65, 66. ® Pages 123, 124, 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 497 


Perfect Being stamp’d upon his own Soul, And therefore Plato 
seoms sometimes to reprove the ruder sort of men in his times for 
their contrivance of Pictures and Images to put themselves in 
mind of the Θεοί or Angelicall Beings, and exhorts them to look 
into their own Souls, which are the fairest Images, not onely of the 
lower Divine Natures, but of the Deity itself; God having so 
copied forth himself into the whole life and energy of man’s Soul, 
as that the lovely Characters of Divinity may be most easily seen 
and read of all men within themselves ; as they say Phidias the 
famous statuary, after he made the statue of Minerva with the 
greatest exquisiteness of art to be set up in the Acropolis at 
Athens, afterwards impressed his own Image so deeply in her 
buckler, ut nemo delere possit aut divellere, qui totam statuam non 
imminueret. And if we would know what the Impresse of Souls 
is, it is nothing but God himself, who could not write his own 
name so as that it might be read but onely in Rational] Natures. 
Neither could he make such without imparting such an Imitation 
of his own Eternall Understanding to them as might be a per- 
petual Memorial of himself within them. And whenever we look 
upon our own Soul in a right manner, we shall find an U/rim and 
Thummim there, by which we may ask counsel of God himself, 
who will have this alway born upon its breastplate. 


The passage which I shall quote from Cudworth is a 
criticism of Hobbes’ “atheistical” doctrine that “ knowledge 
and understanding being in us nothing else but a tumult in 
the mind raised by external things that press the organical 
parts of a man’s body, there is no such thing in God, nor can 
they be attributed to him, they being things which depend 
upon natural causes.” * To this Cudworth replies :—) 


There comes nothing to us from bodies without us but only 
local motion and pressure. Neither is sense itself the mere passion 
of those motions, but the perception of their passions in a way of 
fancy. But sensible things themselves (as, for example, light and 
colours) are not known or understood either by the passion or the 
fancy of sense, nor by anything merely foreign and adventitious, 
but by intelligible ideas exerted from the mind itself—that is, by 
something native and domestic to it. . . . Wherefore, besides the 
phantasms of singular bodies, or of sensible things existing without 
us (which are not mere passions neither), it is plain that our 
human mind hath other cogitations or conceptions in it—namely, 
the ideas of the intelligible natures and essences of things, which 
are universal, and by and under which it understands singulars 


1 Intell. System, iii. p. 60. 
2K 


498 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


. which universal objects of our mind, though they exist not 
as such anywhere without it, yet are they not therefore nothing, 
but have an intelligible entity for this very reason, because they 
are conceivable. . . . If, therefore, there be eternal intelligibles 
or ideas, and eternal truths and necessary existence do belong to 
them, then must there be an eternal mind necessarily existing, 
since these truths and intelligible essences of things cannot possibly 
be anywhere but in a mind. . . . There must be a mind senior to 
the world, and all sensible things, and such as at once compre- 
hends in it the ideas of all intelligibles, their necessary scheses 
and relations to one another, and all their immutable truths; a 
mind which doth not ὁτὲ μὲν νοεῖ, ὁτὲ δὲ οὐ νοεῖ (as Aristotle writeth 
it), sometimes understand, and sometimes not understand . . . but 
οὐσίᾳ ἐνέργεια, Such a mind as is essentially act and energy, and 
hath no defect in it. . . . Hence it is evident that there can be 
but one only original mind . . . all other minds whatsoever par- 
taking of one original mind, and being, as it were, stamped with 
the impression or signature of one and the same seal. From 
whence it cometh to pass that all minds, in the several places and 
ages of the world, have ideas or notions of things exactly alike, and 
truths indivisibly the same. Truths are not multiplied by the 
diversity of minds that apprehend them, because they are all but 
ectypal participations of one and the same original or archetypal 
mind and truth. As the same face may be reflected in several 
glasses, and the image of the same sun may be in a thousand eyes 
at once beholding it, and one and the same voice may be in a 
thousand ears listening to it, so when innumerable created minds 
have the same ideas of things, and understand the same truths, it 
is but one and the same eternal light that is reflected in them all 
(that light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the 
world), or the same voice of that one everlasting Word, that is 
never silent, re-echoed by them. . . . We conclude, therefore, 
that from the nature of mind and knowledge it is demonstrable 
that there can be but one original and self-existent Mind, or 
understanding Being, from which all other minds were derived.’ 


This is a passage, I venture to think, of first-rate histori- 
cal importance. It furnishes the link which connects the 
Epistemological Theism which we find in the writings of T. H. 
Green with the Mythology of the Zimaeus and Phaedrus. 

Norris’s discussion of the a priori in knowiedge has some 
points of special interest. Having shown, in the ordinary 
way, that there are eternal and necessary Truths, 2.e. eternal 
and necessary Propositions, he dwells on the point that the 


1 Intell. System, iii. pp, 62-72, 


i i) 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 499 


simple essences, the mutual relations or habitudes of which 
are set forth in these propositions, must be themselves eternal 
and necessary. “There can be no mutual habitudes or 
relations of things as to affirmation or negation,” he says," 
“without the reality of the things themselves.” The point 
here insisted on by Norris is one which the modern dictum, 
“Things are nothing except as determined by Relations,” is 
apt to make us lose sight of; and his remarks following seem 
to me to be worth attention :— 


Two circles touching one another inwardly cannot have the same 
common centre. This is a true Proposition. But I here demand, 
How can it possibly have this certain habitude of division or 
negation unless there be two such distinct simple Essences as 
Circle and Centre. Certainly there can be no reference or 
relation where there is nothing to support it... . If there can 
be no connexion or relation between things that are not, then also 
there can be no eternal connexion or relation between things that 
have not an efernal existence. . . . But there are such eternal 
habitudes and relations, therefore the simple Essences of things 
are also eternal. . . 1 know very well this is not according to 
the Decrees of the Peripatetic School, which has long since con- 
demned it as Heretical Doctrine, to say that the Essences of things 
do exist from eternity. . . . They tell us that the habitudes are 
not attributed absolutely to the simple Essences as in actual being, 
but only hypothetically—that whensoever they shall exist, they 
shall also carry such relations to one another. There is, says the 
Peripatetic, only a conditional connexion between the subject and 
the predicate, not an absolute position of either. This goes 
smoothly down with the young scholar at his Logic Lecture, and 
the Tutor applauds his distinction, and thinks he has thereby 
quitted his hands of a very dangerous heresie. But now to this 
I return answer . . . that these habitudes are not (as is supposed) 
only by way of hypothesis, but absolutely attributed to the 
simple Essences, as actually existing. For when I say, for 
instance, that every part of a circle is equally distant from the 
centre, this proposition does not hang in suspense, then to be 
actually verified when the things shall exist in Nature, but is at 
present actually true, as actually true as ever it will or can be; 
and consequently I may thence infer that the things themselves 
already are. There is no necessity, I confess, they should exist in 
Nature, which is all that the objection proves, but exist they must. 
For of nothing there can be no affection. . . . Having cleared our 
way by making it evident that the simple Essences of things are 


1 Reason and Religion, p. 73. 


500 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


eternal, the next thing that I consider is, that since they are not 
eternal in their natural subsistencies, they must be eternal in some 
other way of subsisting. And that must be in some understand- 
ing, or by way of ideal subsistence! For there are but two con- 
ceivable ways how anything may exist, either out of all under- 
standing, or within some understanding. If, therefore, the simple 
Essences of things are eternal, but not owt of all understanding, it 
remains they must have an eternal existence in some understand- 
ing. Which is what I call an ideal subsistence. There is, therefore, 
another way of existing besides that in Lerwm Natura, namely, 
in the Mundus Archetypus, or the Ideal World, where all the 
Rationes rerum, or simple Essences of things, have an eternal and 
immutable existence, before ever they enter upon the Stage of 
Nature. I further consider, that this understanding wherein the 
simple Essences of things have an eternal existence must be an 
eternal understanding. For an Essence can no more eternally 
exist in a temporary understanding than a body can be infinitely 
extended in a finite space. Now, this Eternal Understanding can 
be no other than the Understanding of God. The simple Essences 
of things, therefore, do eternally exist in the Understanding 
of God.? 


God, Norris goes on to argue, is a simple and uncom- 
pounded Being, and there is nothing in Him which is not 
Himself; accordingly, these Eternal Ideas, or Simple Essences 
of Things, are but the Divine Essence itself, considered “ as 
variously exhibitive of things, and as variously imitable or 
participable by them.”* “This Ideal World, this Essence of 
God considered as variously exhibitive and representative of 
things, is no other than the Divine λόγος, the Second Person 
of the ever Blessed Trinity.”* Descartes, it is argued,’ makes 
God, as conceptive, the cause of Truth—z.e. as pleased to 
conceive—e.g. a Triangle so and so—not as exhibitive of the 
Eternal Ideas. Here Descartes “ blunders horribly.” “I am 
for the dependence of Truth upon the Divine Intellect as well 
as he, but not so as to make it arbitrary and contingent, and 
consequently not upon the Divine Intellect as conceptive, but 
only as exhilitive. That is, that things are therefore true 
inasmuch as they are conformable to those standing and 


1 Norris here (Reason and Religion, p. 80) draws the distinction of which 
Lotze makes so much in his Logie (Book iii. ch. 2, The World of Ideas, pp. 
433 ff., English Transl.), between the Reality of Existence and the Reality of 
Validity. 2 Reason and Religion, pp. 74-81. 

3 ρ,6. pp. 81, 82. * 9.6. p. 85. 5 0,6. pp. 92, 93. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 501 


immutable Ideas which are in the mind of God as Exhibitive 
and representative of the whole Possibility of Being.” God 
is omniscient, as “comprehending within himself all the 
Ideas and Essences of things with all their possible references 
and respects, that is, all 7'ruth” '—a doctrine which seems to 
me to be exactly equivalent to T. H. Green’s doctrine of “ the 
Eternal Consciousness as subject of all Relations.” “ We see 
and know all things in God.”* This doctrine, Norris tells us, 
he thought out for himself, and afterwards found in Plotinus, 
Proclus, St. Augustine, Marsilius Ficinus, and especially in 
Malebranche, whose doctrine he then proceeds to state :°“—-We 
know objects by the mediation of “Ideas.” The “ Ideas” of 
things are in God. “God by his presence is intimately 
united to our minds, so that God may be said to be the Place 
of Spirits, as Space is the Place of Bodies.” Thus “ we see all 
things in God.”* This is the doctrine of Malebranche, 
accepted by Norris—a doctrine which labours under the 
ambiguity attaching to its use of the term “Idea,” which 
means both a mental image derived from a sensible object, and 
an eternal ἐδέα in the Platonic acceptation. But we need not 
go into this difficulty in Malebranche’s doctrine; it is enough 
here to notice that Norris understands the doctrine as 
genuinely Platonic. Plato’s definition of knowledge as a 
“Participation of Ideas” amounts, he says, to “seeing all 
things in God.” 


“Tf we did not some way or other see God, we should see nothing 
at all; even as if we did not love God, that is, if God did not con- 
tinually impress upon us the love of good in general, we should 
love nothing at all: for since this Love is the same with our Will, 
we cannot love or will anything without him, since we cannot love 
particular goods but by determining towards those goods that 
motion of Love which God gives us towards himself.”® ‘All our 
Illumination proceeds from the Divine λόγος, the substantial 
Wisdom of God. But St. John speaks more plainly: This is the 
true light which enlightens every man that comes into the world. Now, 
true Light is here the same as only Light, and implies that all other 
pretended lights are false ones. Again, says our Lord, J am the 
Light of the World. And, I am the way, the truth, and the life. 
And again says our Lord in his Prayer, Sanctifie them through 


πος Dy 202. 2 0.c. p. 185 3 o.c. pp. 187-194, 
oe 05: 5 oc. p. 207. δ᾽ o.c. Ὁ. 200. 


502 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


thy truth; thy word is truth: which is not meant of the written 
word, but of the Substantial and Eternal Word, as appears from 
the context. Lastly, the Apostle says expressly of this Divine 
Word, that he is made unto us Wisdom. Which is exactly accord- 
ing to our hypothesis that we see all things in the Ideal World, 
or Divine λόγος. .. . All our Light and Hlumination proceeds 
wholly from him who at first said let there be light. We see so 
much of Zruth as we see of God. The Ideas which are in God are 
the very Ideas which we see. The Divine λόγος is our Wisdom, as 
well as the Wisdom of his Father. So absolutely necessary is 
the Doctrine of Ideas, when rightly stated, to the explaining the 
Mode both of Divine and Human knowledge; without which 1 
shall venture to affirm that they can neither of them be explained 
or understood.” ἢ 


Dominus Illuminatio Mea: “The Platonic Philosophers 
do wonderfully refine upon Light, and soar very high,” as 
Berkeley writes in Siris*—himself, at last, a professed ad- 
herent of the school of Cudworth :— 


As understanding perceiveth not, that is, doth not hear, or 
see, or feel, so sense knoweth not; and although the mind may 
use both sense and fancy as means whereby to arrive at know- 
ledge, yet sense or soul, so far forth as sensitive, knoweth nothing. 
For as it is rightly observed in the Theaetetus of Plato, science 
consists not in the passive perceptions, but in the reasoning upon 
them, τῷ περὶ ἐκείνων συλλογισμῷ. 


So much for the epistemology, strictly so called, of the 
Cambridge Platonists. It is a theory of the communion of 
man with God, derived from the doctrine of ἐδέαι as set forth 
“mythologically ” in the Zimaeus, Phaedrus, and Symposium. 

It is easy to see how this epistemology explains the 
function ascribed by the school to Reason, as Moral Faculty— 
as recognising and imposing Obligation. Morality is the 
Rational Life—the Life regulated by the consciousness of 
Self, not as passive in the midst of the flux of vanishing 
sensibles, but as actively displaying its own spiritual nature 
and kinship with God by communicating in His eternal and 
immutable nature. Its rational communion in his nature is 
not an outward act, like looking at a picture which one may 
turn away from when one pleases: it is an inward act 


"1 0c. pp. 222-224. * § 210. 3. Siris, § 305. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 505 


of reflection—xiynow Kued\cxy—revealing one's own per- 
manent nature—permanent, in that it “mirrors” or “ repro- 
duces” God’s nature; it is an inward act revealing one’s 
own permanent nature, which one cannot—-even when it 
would please one to do so—turn one’s back upon. The 
object of Reason, with which Reason is itself identical, is the 
whole man, regarded sub specie aeternitatis, seen in God, seen 
in his own proper place in the Cosmos. This object cannot 
be set aside, as the object of a passing inclination may be set 
aside. This is how “ Reason imposes Obligation.” Nor does 
the physical organism of plant or animal differ in this respect 
from the moral nature, if we consider the matter philosophi- 
cally. It obliges those functions and acts which are in accord- 
ance with its particular Type, its particular Type being a 
“mode” of the Universe. 

“ Reason,” then, as it is understood by the Platonists, 
being the consciousness of Self as creature made after the 
image of God—as mirror of the aeternae rationes rerum which 
constitute the Divine Sapientia,—* Reason,” being this, needs 
not to have its dictates enforced by any alien power: in being 
promulgated they are carried out. The moral life is, on its 
plane, as inevitable as the physical life. All living creatures 
strive after that good which is competent to their several types 
in the places which they hold in the great system of the 
Universe. “There is nothing,” says Norris,’ “in nature more 
necessary—no, nor so necessary and invincible, as that motion 
whereby we are carried forth to good in general. Here the 
Soul must not pretend to the least shadow of Liberty, having 
no more command over this motion than she has over the 
motion of the Sun.” “God is that which we directly and 
properly love (or desire), and created goods, or particular 
goods, are only so far loved as they resemble and participate 
of the nature of that universal good.” “If we did not love 
God . . . we should love nothing at all. . . . This Love is 
the same with our Will.”* We are reminded of Aristotle’s 
τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν θεῖον, that answering nisus or love in us, and in all 
living creatures, which is awakened by God, who, himself 
unmoved, moves all things by the attraction of loveliness—a 
doctrine glossed by Plotinus, where he says that the Principle 


1 Reason and Religion, pp. 237, 238. 2 0.c. p. 200. 


504 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


of Organic Life is Love contemplating the Ideal Forms, and, 
by its mere act of silent contemplation, producing embodi- 
ments of them—rxal οἱ ἔρωτες ἰδόντων καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ εἶδος 
σπευδόντων. ἢ 

That “ Reason,” in the epistemology and moral theology 
of our Platonists, is consciousness of the Whole—of God-in- 
Man and Man-in-God—is a point which it is important to 
keep steadily in view, not only if we would understand what 
is meant by “obligation,” but also if we would get behind 
phrases to real meaning, when we are told that the “ Truths 
apprehended by Reason” are “eternal and immutable,” that 
is, “necessary,” being at once the contents of the Divine 
Wisdom and the conditions of human knowledge. No 
“Truth,” taken by itself, can be apprehended as “ necessary ” ; 
it can only be accepted as a ὑπόθεσις. The “necessity” of a 
“Truth” is apparent only to a synoptic gaze, which takes in 
the whole order of which the “Truth” is a part. The whole 
is first acquiesced in as ἀρχὴ ἀνυπόθετος, and then we 
see that its parts severally “cannot be otherwise.” This 
is the gist of the passage at the end of the Sixth Book 
of the Republic, where the function of Reason in Dialectic 
is set forth, A “Truth” is seen to be “necessary” 
when it is seen to be involved in the “whole”; and the 
progress of knowledge is a process of integration by which 
disjecta membra of experience are pieced together into a con- 
sistent whole, and their natures seen to be such as “ cannot be 
otherwise.” But this process would be impossible unless the 
Rational Soul came to her task of integration with a native 
idea of the “ whole.” This native idea is not something which 
is a mere part of her. It is herself—the unity of her self- 
hood of which she is conscious. As her knowledge advances— 
that is, as she brings more and more data into clearly-seen 
relation with her own “ self-centrality,” as More phrases it, she 
herself spreads from her centre, becoming more and more 
“adequate” to the objective world, more and more assimilated 
to God. This growth of the Rational Soul in “ Likeness to 
God ”—in “ correspondence with environment ”—expresses the 
law of her inmost being, commanding categorically: Live thy 
Life. 


1 Κη. iii. 8. 7. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 505 


“Reason,” then, according to the Platonic school, is 
“organism.” How shallow the criticism which finds fault 
with them for giving us, in Reason, a principle which is not a 
principle of action, and carries with it no consciousness of 
obligation! As if organism, with its invincible Wille zum 
Leben, did not move, and oblige, to action | 

The central doctrine of the English Platonists, which I am 
trying to set forth, gives an important place to the discussion 
of the relation of God’s “ Will” to his “ Wisdom and Good- 
ness.” By the “ Wisdom and Goodness” of God they under- 
stand the perfect order of that mundus archetypus, or system 
of ἐδέαι, or νοήματα, dwelling from all eternity in the Divine 
Intellect; by the “Will” of God, the going forth of his 
Power in the production and preservation of this visible world 
and all that is in it. They maintain, against Descartes and 
others,’ that God’s “ Will” did not make, and cannot alter, 
the contents of the intelligible world, which have natures 
“essential,” not “arbitrary.” God’s “ Will” is ruled by his 
“Wisdom and Goodness ”—that is, his “ Will” expresses his 
essential nature. He cannot make right wrong, or true false, 
by arbitrary act of Will. 


If God do all things simply at his pleasure ? 
Because he will, and not because it’s good, 
So that his actions will have no set measure ; 
Is Ὁ possible it should be understood 
What he intends? I feel that he is loved 
Of my dear soul, and know that I have borne 
Much for his sake ; yet is it not hence proved 
That I shall live, though I do sigh and mourn 
To find his face ; his creature’s wish he’ll slight and scorn, 


Nor of well-being, nor subsistency 

Of our poor souls, when they do hence depart, 

Can any be assured, if liberty 

We give to such odde thoughts, that thus pervert 

The laws of God, and rashly do assert 

That Will rules God, but Good rules not God’s Will. 

What e’er from right, love, equity, doth start, 

For ought we know then God may act’that ill, 
Only to show his might, and his free mind fulfill. 


1 E.g. Occam (as quoted by Maxwell in his edition of Cumberland’s Laws of 
Nature, p. 80)—*‘ nullus est actus malus, nisi quatenus a Deo prohibitus est, et 
qui non potest fieri bonus, si a Deo praecipiatur, et e converso.” 

2 More, Phil. Poems, p. 179. 


506 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


To the same effect, Cudworth :'—~ 


Plotinus writeth, ποιεῖ τὸ θεῖον ὡς πέφυκε, πέφυκε δὲ κατὰ τὴν 
αὐτοῦ οὐσίαν, ἣ τὸ καλὸν ἐν ταῖς ἐνεργείαις αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ δίκαιον 
συνεκφέρει, εἰ γὰρ μὴ ἐκεῖ ταῦτα, ποῦ ἂν εἴη; ‘The Deity acteth 
according to its own nature and essence; and its nature and 
essence displayeth goodness and justice: for if these things 
be not there, where should they else be found?” And 
again, elsewhere: θεὸς ὅπερ ἐχρῆν εἶναι, ov τοίνυν οὕτω 
συνέβη, ἀλλ᾽ ἔδει οὕτω: τὸ δ᾽ ἔδει τοῦτο ἀρχὴ τῶν ὅσα ἔδει: 
“God is essentially that which ought to be: and therefore he did 
not happen to be such as he is: and this first ought to be is the 
principle of all things whatsoever that ought to be.” Wherefore 
the Deity is not to be conceived as mere arbitrariness, humour, or 
irrational will and appetite omnipotent (which would, indeed, be 
but omnipotent chance), but as an overflowing fountain of love 
and goodness, justly and wisely dispensing itself, and omnipotently 
reaching all things. The will of God is goodness, justice, and 
wisdom ; or decorousness, and ought itself, willing; so that the 
τὸ βέλτιστον, that which is absolutely the best, is νόμος ἀπαράβατος, 
“an indispensable law to it, because its very essence.” God is 
μέτρον πάντων, an “impartial balance” lying even, equal, and 
indifferent, to all things, and weighing out heaven and earth, and 
all the things therein, in the most just and exact proportions, and 
not a grain too much or too little of anything. Nor is the Deity 
therefore bound or obliged to do the best, in any way of servility 
(as men fondly imagine this to be contrary to his liberty), much 
less by the law and command of any superior (which is a contra- 
diction), but only by the perfection of its own nature, which it 
cannot possibly deviate from, no more than ungod itself. 


Now, we must not regard this question of the relation of 
the “ Will” to the “ Wisdom and Goodness” of God as one of 
those bygone questions of scholasticism with which we need 
no longer, in our day, trouble ourselves. It is a present-day 
question—indeed, a perennial question. It raises the whole 
issue of Pessimism against Optimism. 

Pessimism will never infect the bulk of mankind—those 
who do not reflect, but push their way on, and lead ambitious, 
industrious lives; but reflective idle people—a growing number 
in the modern world—it is likely to infect more and more. 
It is likely to get hold of literature, and even of philosophy, to 
a greater extent. The number is steadily growing of those 
who are educated in book-learning, and can make a living by 


' Intell. System, iii. 463, 464. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 507 


supplying idle readers with reflections on life embodied in the 
novel and other forms of “light reading.” Pessimism suits 
well with the mood which such writers have to cater for—the 
mood of habitual lookers-on at life; but those whose energetic 
temperament moves them to put their hand to things and try 
to get them done are not troubled with the suspicion that all 
their work is vanity. 

Τὺ was a profound insight which caused Plato to debar 
from philosophy all those who were not likely to have an 
opportunity of taking an active part in affairs." It is Plato, 
of all the Greeks the most enthusiastically possessed by the 
idea of Greek civilisation as an influence to be propagated in 
the world,—it is Plato, with his firm practical hold of the 
belief that Life is worth living—-who stands out, in the His- 
tory of Philosophy, as the opponent of individualism, whether 
hedonistic or pessimistic. The individualists of his day, the 
Sophists, whom he opposes expressly or by implication through- 
out the whole range of his writings, were men for the most 
part without close political ties, aliens in the cities where they 
taught, who cultivated philosophy without patriotism and 
religion. It was from them that the doctrine od φύσει τὰ 
δίκαια, ἀλλὰ νόμῳ μόνον cCame—a doctrine which answers to 
the view combated by the Cambridge Platonists, that Right 
and Wrong, True and False, are creatures of God’s arbitrary 
Will. If this is true, the “ virtuously happy, or holy, life” is 
not worth pursuing; chance is lord of all, and strenuous effort 
on our part is labour lost. This was how the Cambridge 
Platonists argued. In our own day, Pessimism is most often 
disappointed Hedonism. But it may well come from any cause 
which damps the energies of men: thus, the doctrine of 
Determinism may produce it by persuading us that our actions 
are all determined beforehand by the εἱμαρμένη of the Uni- 
verse, and that we are but the passive spectators even of our 
own actions. Without denying that εἱμαρμένη, in the sense 
of law universal, determines our actions, I would submit that 
the doctrine is too abstract to be of practical consequence. It 
takes us back to the axioma maxime generale—the Universe 
—and omits the immediate antecedent—the concrete character 
of the individual who performs the actions. It is this im- 


1 Republic, 473 v. 


508 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


mediate antecedent, however, which one who wishes to take a 
scientific view of the actions must chiefly consider—the Uni- 
verse, or chain of remote antecedents, may “go without 
saying ”; and, above all, it is this immediate antecedent on 
which the agent himself must fix his attention ; he must “look 
to himself,’ as the phrase is, not to “ the Universe,” if he is to 
do anything worth doing. The abstract doctrine of Deter- 
minism, by calling attention away too much from the im- 
mediate antecedent of actions—the concrete agent himself— 
is at once unscientific and practically harmful, tending to 
paralyse the energy of the agent whose actions it seeks to 
account for. The agent must “believe in himself” if actions 
are to be done; and he cannot believe in himself unless he 
believes in a system of things which is suitable to him, in 
which he can get on—a friendly, not an alien world. These 
two beliefs go together—belief in Self, and belief in a Friendly 
World. They are the two faces of the same coin. And this 
is the great truth signified by the doctrine of Reflection—xivnors 
κυκλική---οϑοῦ forth by the Cambridge Platonists—their doc- 
trine that the Soul’s reflection upon herself reveals to her that 
system of Eternal Truths which are at once the principles of 
human knowledge and conduct, and the Thoughts of God in 
accordance with which his Will is determined to do every- 
thing for the Best. The only sovereign antidote against 
Pessimism is a belief (tacit, or expressed— better, perhaps, tacit) 
of this sort. But such belief, it must be remembered, rests 
not on speculative grounds, but is the birth of conduct. It 
is the possession of those only who are σπουδαῖοι----ἶπι earnest 
about the practical life. The issue between “ Mechanism ” and 
“ Teleology ”—for that, again, is the issue involved in the ques- 
tion about the relation of God’s “ Will” to his “Wisdom and 
Goodness ”»—is not one to be settled by logical thinkers, but 
by moral agents. Logical thinkers, it seems to me, must decide 
in favour of “Mechanism”; moral agents will always decide 
in favour of “Teleology.” And they are right, because 
“Teleology” is the working hypothesis of Life, whereas the 
doctrine of “ Mechanism” damps the vis viva on which Life, 
including the logical understanding itself, depends for its con- 
tinuance. 

The central doctrine of the Cambridge Platonists receives 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 509 


considerable illumination from their treatment of the famous 
maxim, identified chiefly with the name of Descartes, “ Clear 
and distinct ideas must be true.” The maxim, of course, 
can be traced back to Plato himself, who, at the end of the 
Sixth Book of the Republic, makes σαφήνεια the test of 
ἀλήθειας It is a maxim which undoubtedly lends itself to 
abuse, if not limited, as it is carefully limited by Plato in the 
passage just mentioned, as referring only to “ideas” in the 
sense of “categories” or “notions”—organie conditions of 
experience—and not also to “ideas” in the more ordinary sense 
—of “impressions,” or data of experience. Kant’s final proof of 
the apriority of his Categories of the Understanding is that 
“we cannot think them away ”—their opposites are inconceiv- 
able—they belong to the structure of the mind—are not data 
received by it. Similarly, the Cambridge Platonists accept as 
principles of knowledge and conduct those Ideas which the κίνη- 
σις κυκλική, Or Reflection of the Soul upon herself as mirror 
of the Divine Wisdom, sees clearly and distinctly. Such are 
the “relative ideas” (as More calls them), Cause and Effect, 
Whole and Part, etc., and the Ideas of God and of Immor- 
tality. The truth of such “ Ideas” is simply “ their clear in- 
telligibility.” Their truth needs no other witness. It is in 
order to maintain this view of the self-evident truth of these 
“Ideas” or “ Categories” that Cudworth submits to a search- 
ing criticism Descartes’ doctrine, that we fall back upon the 
supposition of the “ Veracity of God” as ground of our belief 
that our clear and distinct ideas do not deceive us. Against 
this doctrine he argues that not even God could make clear 
and distinct “Ideas,” in the sense of νοήματα, Categories, or 
principles of knowledge, false: they are essentially true; and 
their clear intelligibility is alone sufficient warrant of their 
truth, or objective validity. Our very “Idea” of a Perfect, 
and therefore Veracious, God is itself one of these νοήματα, 
the truth of which is warranted by their “ clear intelligibility.” 
The passage’ in which Cudworth makes this point against 
Descartes is, indeed, a notable passage in the History of the 
“Theory of Knowledge,” and merits close comparison with 
Kant’s 7’ranscendental Analytic :— 


1 Intell. System, iti. 31-35. 


510 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


It hath been asserted by a late eminent philosopher that there 
is no possible certainty to be had of anything, before we be certain 
of the existence of a God essentially good ; because we can never 
otherwise free our minds from the importunity of that suspicion 
which with irresistible force may assault them; that ourselves 
might possibly be so made, either by chance or fate, or by the 
pleasure of some evil demon, or at least of an arbitrary omnipo- 
tent Deity, as that we should be deceived in all our most clear 
and evident perceptions, and, therefore, in geometrical theorems 
themselves, and even in our common notions. But when we are 
once assured of the existence of such a God as is essentially good, 
—who, therefore, neither will nor can deceive,—then, and not 
before, will this suspicion utterly vanish, and ourselves become 
certain that our faculties of reason and understanding are not 
false and imposturous, but rightly made. . . . Now, though there 
be a plausibility of piety in this doctrine . . . yet does that very 
supposition that our understanding faculties might possibly be so 
made as to deceive us in all our clearest perceptions, render it 
utterly impossible ever to arrive to any certainty concerning the 
existence of a God essentially good; forasmuch as this cannot 
be any otherwise proved than by the use of our faculties of under- 
standing, reason, and discourse. For to say that the truth of our 
understanding faculties is put out of all doubt and question as 
soon as ever we are assured of the existence of a God essentially 
good, who therefore cannot deceive ; whilst the existence of a God 
is in the meantime itself no otherwise proved than by our under- 
standing faculties; that is at once to prove the truth of God’s 
existence from our faculties of reason and understanding, and 
again to prove the truth of those faculties from the existence of a 
God essentially good: this, I say, is plainly to move round in a 
circle, and to prove nothing at all . . . so that if we will pretend 
to any certainty at all concerning the existence of a God, we must 
of necessity explode this new-supplied hypothesis of the possibility 
of our understandings being so made as to deceive us in all our 
clearest perceptions. . . . In the first place, therefore, we affirm 
that no power, how great soever, and therefore not omnipotence 
itself, can make anything to be indifferently either true or false. 
.. . Truth is not factitious; it is a thing which cannot be arbi- 
trarily made, but is. The divine will and omnipotence itself hath 
no imperium upon the divine understanding; for if God under- 
stood only by will, he could not understand at all. In the next 
place, we add that, though the truth of singular contingent pro- 
positions depends upon the things themselves existing without, as 
the measure and archetype thereof, yet as to the universal and 
abstract theorems of science, the terms whereof are those reasons 
of things which exist nowhere but only in the mind itself (whose 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 511 


noemata and ideas they are), the measure and rule of truth con- 
cerning them can be no foreign or extraneous thing without the 
mind, but must be native and domestic to it, or contained within 
the mind itself, and therefore can be nothing but its clear and dis- 
tinct perception. In these intelligible ideas of the mind whatsoever 
is clearly perceived to be is; or, which is all one, is true... . 
The very essence of truth here is this clear perceptibility, or in- 
telligibility. . . . The upshot of all this is, that since no power, 
how great soever, can make anything indifferently to be true, and 
since the essence of truth in universal abstract things is nothing 
but clear perceptibility, it follows that omnipotence cannot make 
anything that is false to be clearly perceived to be, or create such 
minds and understanding faculties as shall have as clear concep- 
tion of falsehoods—that is, of nonentities—as they have of truths 
or entities. For example, no rational understanding being that 
knows what a part is, and what a whole, what a cause, and what 
an effect, could possibly be so made as clearly to conceive the part 
to be greater than the whole, or the effect to be before the cause, 
or the like. . . . Conception and knowledge are hereby made to 
be the measure of all power, even omnipotence or infinite power 
being determined thereby ; from whence it follows that power hath 
no dominion over understanding, truth, and knowledge.’ 


We see, then, that the Epistemology of the Cambridge 
Platonists involves a Theory of God, according to which the 
Divine Will is subordinate to the Divine Wisdom and Goodness. 
A God merely all-powerful would be one of whom, and of 
whose world, knowledge would be impossible. We have a 
“clear and distinct idea” of a wise and good God, and in the 
light of this “idea” see the truth and do the right. 

This Platonic doctrine seems to me to contain all that is 
important in Kant’s doctrine of the regulative value of the 
Idea of God. The Idea of God, Kant tells us, has no object 
in a possible experience. It lies deeper in human nature than 
the scientific understanding. Together with the Idea of Soul 
and the Idea of Cosmos, it has its seat in Reason; which 

1 Compare Spinoza, Eth. ii. 43. schol.: ‘“‘Veram habere ideam nihil aliud 
significat quam perfecte sive optime rem cognoscere ; nec sane aliquis de hac re 
dubitare potest, nisi putet, ideam quid mutum instar picturae in tabula, et non 
modum cogitandi esse, nempe ipsum intelligere . . . quid idea vera clarius et 
certius dari potest quod norma sit veritatis. Sane sicut lux se ipsam et tenebras 
manifestat, sic veritas norma sui et falsi est.” And again (de Jntellectus Emen- 
datione, vi. ὃ 33): ‘‘ Modus quo sentimus essentiam formalem est ipsa certitudo. 
Unde patet quod ad certitudinem veritatis nullo alio signo sit opus quam veram 
habere ideam.” And (o.c. ix. § 71): ‘‘ Forma verae cogitationis in eadem ipsa 


cogitatione sine relatione ad alias debet esse sita ; nec objectum tanquam causam 
agnoscit, sed ab ipsa intellectus potentia et natura pendere debet.” 


512 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


must not be regarded as a “ faculty” co-ordinate with other 
“ faculties,” but as the whole man—the indivisible organism 
in which “ faculties” inhere. The Idea of God, then, having 
its seat in Reason, is an attitude of the whole man. An 
“Tdea” which has no object in a possible experience, if 
expressed in language at all, must be expressed in figurative 
language; so, I need not apologise for using a figure here to 
help me, and least of all for using the figure of Light, on which 
“the Platonists do wonderfully refine, and soar very high.” 
The “ Idea of God” is*like the influence of Light, which draws 
living creatures out of the prison of darkness into the freedom 
of its borders. It is not a particular impression, nor yet one 
of the Categories in which impressions are received, but the 
Good Hope which urges on the living creature to go forth 
and meet the impressions of experience and organise his life 
in the world which they constitute. 

It is in feeling the stimulus of this Good Hope that man 
feels the obligation of the “Categorical Imperative.” When 
I say that the doctrine of the “ Categorical Imperative.” is deeply 
embedded in the philosophy of the Cambridge Platonists, | am 
not trying to get them credit for great originality in their 
anticipation of a doctrine which has been too much identified 
with the name of Kant. Every system of Ethics, worthy to 
be called a system at all, takes us down to the bed-rock of the 
“ Categorical Imperative.” But what I do wish to claim for the 
Cambridge Platonists is that they lay the bed-rock very bare. 


The first original obligation (says Cudworth)' is not from 
will, but nature. Did obligation to the things of natural justice, 
as many suppose, arise from the will and positive command of 
God, only by reason of punishments threatened and rewards 
promised, the consequence of this would be that no man was 
good and just but only by accident, and for the sake of something 
else ; whereas the goodness of justice or righteousness is intrinsical 
to the thing itself, and this is that which obligeth (and not any- 
thing foreign to it), it being a different species of good from that 
of appetite or private utility, which every man may dispense 
withal. 


Again, in Smith’s Discourse of Legal Righteousness and of 
the Righteousness of Faith, the Gospel, as distinguished from 


' Intell, System, iii. 512. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 513 


the Law, is presented as involving the obligation of a “ Cate- 
gorical Imperative ” ;— 


The Righteousness of the Gospel transcends that of the Law 
in that it hath indeed a true command over the inward man, which it 
acts and informs; whereas the Law by its menaces and punish. 
ments could only compel men to an external observance of it in the 
outward man; as the Schoolmen have well observed, Lex vetus 
ligat manum, Lex nova ligat animum. 


Again, Maxwell,’ criticising the view which he ascribes 
(erroneously) to Cumberland, that the obligation of the 
Law of Nature is not in itself, but in its external sanction, 
says :— 


Although Sin and Punishment are closely connected, yet the 
obligation of it may not be done (non licet) is distinct from the 
obligation of not with impunity (non impune), as Sin and Punishment 
are of distinct consideration. But a man is bound, both when he 
cannot do a thing without sin, and when he cannot do a thing 
without punishment. But because the obligation of non licet is ante- 
cedent to the obligation of non impune, the Precept to the Sanction, 
and the Sin is made by the Law, the Law hath so much obligation 
as to make the Sin, before the Penalty is enacted; therefore the 
Law has an obligation antecedently to the Sanction of it. 


Maxwell’s view of Cumberland—that he leaves the Law 
of Nature with no obligation save that derived from self- 
interest—I consider entirely mistaken ; Cumberland is really 
at one with Maxwell and the whole Platonist school in holding 
that the moral agent, the subject of obligation, is conscious of 
obligation in being conscious of the identity of the Law of 
Righteousness in himself with the Law which rules the Divine 
Nature. The moral agent is obliged, not because God arbi- 
trarily commands him, and will punish disobedience, but 
because he is conscious of a Law so august that even God is 
ruled by it. In Kant this consciousness which the moral 
agent has of God ruled by the Law of Righteousness is 
attenuated down to a consciousness of the “ universality ” of the 
Law. Thus the English statement of the doctrine of “ obliga- 
tion” enables us to see the theological basis concealed under 
Kant’s superstructure; but, at the same time, shows us how 


1 Τὴ his edition of Cumberland’s Laws of Nature, Appendix, p. 56 (1727). 
21, 


δ14 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Kant may be successfully defended against the criticism of 
which Schopenhauer’s attack, in the Grundlage der Moral, may 
be taken as a specimen—the criticism which urges that the 
Imperative is, after all, not “categorical,” but “hypothetical ” 
—has an external sanction, the penalty which attaches to 
disobeying God’s command. The Platonic doctrine of the 
relation between the Divine Will and the Divine Wisdom 
and Goodness, and of man’s participation in the mundus 
archetypus constituted by that Wisdom and Goodness—the 
doctrine of the “presence of the Eternal Consciousness in 
man’s consciousness ”—explains and justifies Kant’s use of the 
epithet “categorical,” and turns the edge of Schopenhauer’s 
criticism, which proceeds on the assumption that the Deity, 
who undoubtedly stands behind the Kantian moral Imperative, 
is effective as mere Power threatening punishment, not rather 
as Wisdom-and-Goodness drawing the minds and hearts of all 
men unto it. In an amusing passage,” Schopenhauer compares 
Kant to a man who dances the whole evening, at a ball, 
with a masked lady, who turns out, in the end, to be his own 
wife. That lady is Theology. But Schopenhauer takes for 
granted that she is the juridical theology modelled after the 
Roman Civil Law; whereas, if we compare Kant with his 
next of kin, the English Platonists, we see that his masked 
theology is the theology of Platonism—a theology as 
different from the other as the Hellenic genius is different 
from the Roman. I submit that the “ Categorical Imperative ” 
is best understood in close connection with the Greek moral 
notions of the ἀγαθόν and the καλόν. Moral obligation is not 
essentially pressure brought to bear on the unwilling, but is 
rather the nisus of a nature eagerly seeking its appointed 
place in the Cosmos, and, in its efforts, experiencing, by anti- 
cipation, the joy of success. Virtue grows up like a flower to 
the light, joyfully realising its own nature as part of universal 
nature. This is, indeed, the way in which Maxwell wishes us 
to understand “ obligation ”—not juridically, but, if I may foist 
the term on him, biologically. Having quoted Shaftesbury at 
length, as holding the doctrine of the intrinsic obligation of 
the Law of Virtue—“ That the excellence of the Object, not the 
Reward or Punishment, should be our motive,”’—he states his 


1 Pages 120 ff. 3. 0.6. p. 169. 


THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 51D 


own view thus:! “The Good in Morality, the Good of Virtue, 
is the καλὸν καὶ ἀγαθόν, the Beauteous-Beneficial Life and 
Practice.” This Greek standard he afterwards explains, in a 
way which reminds one of Kant, as “impartiality between 
man and man.” “ We should do all things,” he says,’ “ no 
otherwise than as if Justice itself did them.” Maxwell’s 
criticism of Cumberland—that he makes the ultimate motive 
the self-interest secured by obedience to the Law of Nature—is, 
as I have said, mistaken; but it is interesting on account of 
its similarity to the criticism which Schopenhauer brings 
against Kant. Both critics are, I think, misled by the sup- 
position that their respective authors are juridical and not 
Platonist theologians. That juridical theology influenced both 
Cumberland and Kant is, of course, indisputable; but it is a 
grave error, on the part of the critics, to mistake an influence, 
which made itself felt in the details of the superstructure, for 
the theological foundation of the building. We may grant 
to Schopenhauer that theology stands masked behind Kant’s 
doctrine of the Categorical Imperative. But our study of the 
English Intellectualists—Kant’s next of kin—enables us to 
recognise that theology as the Platonist theology of the com- 
munion of man’s mind with God’s mind rather than that of 
obedience to God as a superior who issues commands armed 
with sanctions—the theology of the Freedom of the Gospel, 
as Smith puts it, rather than that of the Bondage of 
the Law. 

I think I have now said enough to explain the central 
doctrine of Cudworth and his school in its relationship to the 
“mythology” of Plato on the one side and to the “ formalism ” 
of Kant and of T. H. Green on the other side. Let me add 
the observation that Cudworth and his school can hardly be 
said to make the Theory of Morals an independent subject. 
They make it merely an illustration of their Theory of Know- 
ledge. Moral good is simply an <¢ntelligibile, on the same 
footing as the other ἰδέαι, or Eternal Reasons, required by the 
epistemology of the school. Cudworth’s Hternal and Immutable 
Morality has much more to say about mathematical Truth than 
about Right and Wrong. “Obligation” is treated merely as a 


1 Maxwell's γρβερβρθῤρὰ of the Law μῇ Nature, p. 68 (Appendix to his edition of 
Cumberland). ce. p. 85. 


516 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


case of “clear intelligibility,” and the perception of it assimi- 
lated to the self-evidence of mathematical principles. Duty is 
clearly perceived by Reflection, just as Triangularity is. This 
characteristic of the System of Cudworth and his associates— 
that their Theory of Morals is but a corollary—and is carefully 
kept in the subordinate position of a mere corollary—of the 
Theory of Knowledge, is also a characteristic of the English 
System which, in our own day, represents that of the Cam- 
bridge Platonists. T. H. Green’s Moral Theory is closely 
bound up with, and indeed, except so far as “ contaminated ” 
by utilitarianism, identical with, his epistemology—an epistem- 
ology which, as I have tried to indicate, has close affinity with 
that of Cudworth and his associates, inasmuch as it includes, 
as theirs does, a proof of the existence of God—is theology, or 
epistemology, indifferently. Green’s Prolegomena and Cud- 
worth’s Eternal and Immutable Morality are books which 
should be read in connection; and, in reading them together, 
let the reader take as his guide the thought that the theology 
of Green, as well as that of Cudworth, is ecstatic, not juridical. 
The critic’s problem in interpreting the Philosophy of Green 
is that of interpreting a product of the Renaissance—of the 
revival of, Christian Platonism—lI had almost said a late-born 
product of the Renaissance; but the Renaissance, after all, is 
not circumscribed by dates—it is always with us as a reno- 
vating principle, as a vivid spirit craving for the freedom of 
personal experience. 

Platonism is a temper as well as a doctrine; and in 
Cudworth and his associates, as in their Alexandrine pre- 
decessors, it is even more a temper than a doctrine—an 
enthusiastic mystical temper, always longing passionately for 
intuition, always ready to accept the clearness of passionate 
intuition as Standard of Truth in Divine Things: “ Nature 
itself plainly intimates to us,” says Cudworth,’ that there is 
some such absolutely perfect Being, which, though not incon- 
ceivable, yet is incomprehensible to our finite understandings, 
by certain passions which it hath implanted in us, that 
otherwise would want an object to display themselves upon ; 
namely, those of devout veneration, adoration, and admiration, 
together with a kind of ecstasy and pleasing horror; which, 


1 Intell. System, ii. p. 519. 





THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 517 


in the silent language of nature, seem to speak thus much to 
us that there is some object in the world, so much bigger and 
vaster than our mind and thoughts, that it is the very same 
to them that the ocean is to narrow vessels; so that when 
they have taken into themselves as much as they can by con- 
templation, and filled up all their capacity, there is still an 
immensity of it left without which cannot enter in for want 
of room to receive it, and therefore must be apprehended after 
some other strange and more mysterious manner, namely, by 
their being, as it were, plunged into it, and swallowed up or 
lost in it.” Similarly, More appeals’ to the natural remorse 
of conscience, to good hope, and to reverence and worship, as 
proofs of the existence of God; presenting the faculty of 
“Divine Sagacity ”—the birth of a “Holy Life ”—as “ ante- 
cedaneous to Reason "---ἅπλωσον σεαυτόν, simplify thyself, he 
says, and walk by the “easie Sagacity,” “the simple light of 
the Divine Love”; while Norris lays it down*® that “the 
mind which sees the Divine Essence must be totally and 
thoroughly absolved from all commerce with the corporeal 
senses, either by Death, or some ecstatical and rapturous 
abstraction”; and Smith rests his belief in God and Immor- 
tality far more on the certitude of the Heart than of the 
Head. To these devout Platonists God and Immortality are 
simply wants—wants of the practical volitional part of us, 
for the sake of which, after all, the thinking part thinks. <A 
God fashioned logically, in such a way as to satisfy the think- 
ing part alone—that is, fashioned by the thinking part 
making its own satisfaction its end—will be a God who does 
not satisfy the volitional part, and consequently cannot, in the 
long run, be maintained. We have much to learn from the 
Platonists who, by laying stress on the mere want of a God, 
suggest that the logical faculty ought not to be allowed to 
have the last word in theology.* 

That Platonism is a temper is brought home to us by 
nothing in the History of Philosophy more clearly than by 
the development of Berkeley's mind. His early thought 


1 Antidote against Atheism, book i. ch. 10. p. 29. 

2 Defence of the Moral Cabbala, ch. 1, p. 155. 

3 Reason and Religion, p. 3. 

* I would refer, in this connection, to a remarkable Essay on ‘‘ Reflex Action 
and Theism,”’ by Professor W. James, in his volume, The Will to Believe. 


518 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


moved on lines laid down by Locke. In the New Theory of 
Vision (1709) and Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), 
works of his early manhood, he appears as the mid-link 
between Locke and Hume in the sensationalistic succession. 
His interest, at this period, is mainly scientific, although there 
is a theological reference even in this early work which 
distinguishes it from the work of either Locke or Hume. 
Experience, though interpreted according to the principles of 
the Lockian Critique, is yet “the Language of God ”—Male- 
branche’s doctrine of “seeing all things in God” doubtless 
influences him. In Zhe New Theory and The Principles 
Berkeley may be said to adopt sensationalistic doctrine en 
Platonicien. But see how this Platonist temper, showing 
itself even in works written chiefly under the influence of 
Locke, hurries the man away from science into action, rouses 
him into sympathy — always, be it noted, practical and 
statesmanlike—with the miseries of the Irish people, carries 
him across the Atlantic on his enthusiastic mission to found a 
college which should be the centre of evangelical work among 
the American aborigines. The scheme failed; he returned, 
disappointed, but not disillusioned, to devote the remainder of 
his life to the advocacy of philanthropic schemes—and to 
write that wonderful Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections 
and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water, in which 
the practical Platonism of his nature, pent up, as age and a 
fatal disorder condemned him to greater retirement, found 
natural relief in dogmatic expression. It is in Siris that 
Berkeley appears as the latest adherent of the school of Cud- 
worth and More But what, it may be well asked, is the 
connection between Tar-water (which Berkeley recommends as 
a panacea) and Platonism? The answer is, that tar, the exuda- 
tion of the pine, is the purest vehicle of that “invisible fire or 
Spirit of the universe” by the agency of which all things live: 
the introduction of an additional amount of this vital cosmic 
principle into the human system by means of a decoction of tar 
has the effect of heightening the bodily powers and expelling 
all diseases. That there is such a vital principle of the Universe 
is shown to be the only hypothesis consistent with that Platonism 
which—to adopt More’s phrase with a slight alteration—is “ the 
soul of the Philosophy of which ‘ modern science’ is the body.” 








THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS 519 


Let me close this work with two quotations from Siris— 
eloquent utterances of the Platonist temper :-— 


It might very well be thought serious trifling to tell my 
readers, that the greatest men had ever a high esteem for Plato ; 
whose writings are the touchstone of a hasty and shallow mind ; 
whose philosophy has been the admiration of ages; which 
supplied patriots, magistrates, and law-givers, to the most flourish- 
ing states, as well as fathers to the Church, and doctors to the 
schools. Albeit in these days, the depths of that old learning are 
rarely fathomed, and yet it were happy for these lands, if our 
young nobility and gentry, instead of modern maxims, would 
imbibe the notions of the great men of antiquity. . . . It may be 
modestly presumed there are not many among us, even of those 
who are called the better sort, who have more sense, virtue, and 
love of their country than Cicero, who, in a letter to Atticus, 
could not forbear exclaiming, Ὁ Socrates et Socratict viri / munquam 
vobis gratiam referam. Would to God many of our countrymen 
had the same obligations to those Socratic writers! Certainly 
where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is 
best learnt from the writings of Plato. . . . Proclus, in the first 
book of his commentary on the Theology of Plato, observes that, 
as in the mysteries, those who are initiated, at first meet with 
manifold and multiform gods, but being entered and thoroughly 
initiated, they receive the divine illumination, and participate in 
the very Deity; in like manner, if the Soul looks abroad, she 
beholds the shadows and images of things; but returning into 
herself she unravels and beholds her own essence: at first she 
seemeth only to behold herself, but having penetrated further she 
discovers the mind. And again, still further advancing into the 
innermost Sanctuary of the Soul she contemplates the θεῶν γένος. 
And this, he saith, is the most excellent of all human acts, in the 
silence and repose of the faculties of the Soul to tend upwards to 
the very Divinity ; to approach and be clearly joined with that 
which is ineffable and superior to all beings. When come so high 
as the first principle she ends her journey and rests.? 

- + * ~ + - 

Whatever the world thinks, he who hath not much meditated 
upon God, the Human Mind, and the Summum Bonum, may 
possibly make a thriving earthworm, but will most indubitably 
make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman.” 


1 Siris, §§ 332, 333. 2 0.c. § 350. 


οὐ 





INDEX 


Adam, Mr., on Plato’s attitude to doctrine | Allegory of Castle of Medina, Spenser's, 


of Immortality of the Soul, 71 

on circle of the Same and the Other, 
148 

on the position of the Throne of 
᾿Ανάγκη in the Myth of Er, 166, 167 

on the Pillar of Light in the Myth 
of Er, 169 

on the astronomy of the Politicus 
Myth, and the Great Year, 198 

on ἄωροι, 200 

on allegorisation of Homer, 233 

on the φύλακες of the Repudlic and the 
Hesiodic Daemons, 436 

Adam Smith, Dr. G., on allegorical inter- 

pretation, 236, 237 


257 
in Purgatorio, xxix., 257 
of the Cave, Plato's, 250 ff. 
of the Disorderly Crew, Plato's, 253 ff. 
᾿Ανάβασις, takes the place of κατάβασις 
in eschatology, 352, 353, 367 
Stoical doctrine of the levity of the 
Soul contributed to, 380 
᾿Ανάμνησις, doctrine of, 843 ff. 
᾿Ανάμνησις, ἔρως, φιλοσοφία, 341 ff. 
᾿Ανάμνησις, Platonic, Dieterich on, 158 
compared with Dante’s mythology of 
Lethe and Eunoé, 158 
Angels, Jewish doctrine of, and Greek 
doctrine of Daemons, 450 


Aeschylus, attitude of, to doctrine of | Apocalypse of Paul, Dr. M. R. James on, 


Immortality of the Soul, 63, 64 
Aesop’s Fables, at once African Beast- 
tales and Parables, 16 
Agyrtae, 70 
Αἰθήρ, in EHpinomis, de Coelo, Meteorol., 
438, 439 
Albertus, on the Earthly Paradise, 105 
Alfraganus, Dante’s use of, 365 
Allegorical interpretation, Dr. G. Adam 
Smith on, 236, 237 
Dr. Bigg on, 236 
Hatch on, 236 
of Myths, by Plotinus and Neo-Plato- 
nists, 237 ff. 
St. Paul authorises, 237 
Chrysostom’s opinion of, 237 
of Myths, Plato’s judgment on, 20, 242 
of Myths, Grote on, 232, 234, 243 
Neo-Platonic, Zeller’s opinion of, 242 
Dante’s, 244 
Allegorical tales deliberately made, 16 
Allegorisation of Homer, 231 ff. 
by the Stoics, 233, 234 
Plutarch on, 231, 232 
by Stoics, Cicero on, 233 
Mr. Adam on, 233 
Allegorisation of Old Testament, Philo’s, 
234 ff. 
by Christian Fathers, 236, 237 


521 


364 
Apocalypse, the astronomical, 361 ff. 
relation of, to Sacramental Cults, 
365-8 
Apuleius, his interpretation of the Ulysses 
Myth, 241, 242 
demonology of, 445 ff. 
Aquinas, St. Thomas, on the Earthly 
Paradise, 104 
Archer-Hind, Mr., his Timaeus quoted, 
269 
Aristippus, Henricus, translated Phaedo 
and Meno in 1156, 102 
Aristotle and Eudemus echo Timaeus, 90 
c, 295 
Aristotle, misapprehends the Timaeus, 269 
his God, 355 
poetised astronomy, 163, 164 
his poetised astronomy, influence of, 
on Dante, 163, 164 
his supposed tomb near Chalcis, 153 
Plato’s καλλίπολις misunderstood by, 
58 
gives up ideas of a Personal God and 
of Personal Immortality of the Soul, 
53 
Aristotelian astronomy, 354 
Astronomy, part played by, in Poetry, 
163 


ak 2 


522 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Atlantis Myth and maritime discovery, ; Callaway, on one-legged people ; οἵ, Myth 


468 
Axiochus, the, date and characteristics of, 
110 
places the world of the departed in the 
southern hemisphere of the earth, 
110 
singular in its localisation of the πεδίον 
ἀληθείας, 358 


Bacon, his allegorical interpretation of 
Myths, 242 
his definition of Poetry, 387 
Bacon, Roger, on the Earthly Paradise, 105 
Berkeley, his Siris characterised and 
quoted, 518, 519 
as Platonist, 517 ff.{ 

Bernard, his translation of Kant’s Kritik 
d. Urtheilskraft quoted, 222 ff. 
Bigg, Dr., on allegorisation of Homer by 

the Stoics, 233 
on allegorical interpretation, 236: 
on Myth of Cupid and Psyche, 245 
Boeckh, referred to for Plato’s astronomy, 
354 
Book of the Dead, 130 
Bosanquet, Prof. B., on “ present” as “ ex- 
tended time,” 56 
Bran, The Voyage of, referred to for 
connection between notions of metem- 
psychosis, metamorphosis, and preg- 


nancy without male intervention, 
304 
Brownell, C. L., quoted for Japanese 


story of origin of tea, 14 
Brunetto Latini, on the infernal rivers, 
103 
Buddhism, attitude of, to belief in Im- 
mortality, 301 
Budge, Dr., on Book of the Dead, 66 
on a prehistoric form of burial in 
Egypt, 378 
Bunbury, on the geography of the Atlantis 
Myth, 466 ff. 
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory 
and also a myth, 16, 246 
Burnet, Prof., on the σφόνδυλοι of the 
orrery in Myth of Er, 165 
referred to on Plato’s astronomy, 354 
on the Poem of Parmenides, 351 
on the monsters and “organic com- 
binations’’ of Empedocles, 409 
Bury, Prof., on spread of Orphic cult, 66 
Butcher, Prof., his Aristotle's Theory of 
Poetry and Fine Art referred to, 391 
Butler, on Necessity and Freedom, 172 
Bywater, Prof., on the Epinomis, 439 


Caird, Dr. E., on Kant’s Ideas of Reason, 
quoted, 48 

Callaway, Nursery Tales of the Zulus, 
quoted, 8-10 


told by Aristophanes in Symposium, 
408 
Cambridge Platonists, their learning, 
475 ff. 
influenced in two directions, by Philo 
and by Plotinus respectively, 479 ff. 
maintain that Moses taught the motion 
of the Earth, 478, 489 
their enthusiasm for the new astronomy, 
486 ff. 
their science, 486 ff. 
their central doctrine, the Doctrine of 
Ideas as theory of union of man 
with God in knowledge and conduct, 
494, 495 
go back to Plato the mythologist rather 
than to Plato the dialectician, 494 
their epistemology, 502 
their epistemology, derived from the 
doctrine of ἐδέαι “‘mythologically” set 
forth, explains their theory of Reason 
as Moral Faculty, 503 ff. 
their discussion of the relation of God’s 
‘* Will” to his “ Wisdom and Good- 
ness,” 505 ff. 
their doctrine of Categorical Imperative, 
512 ff. 
enable us to connect the ‘formalism ” 
of Kant and Green with the “ myth- 
ology” of the Phaedrus and Sym- 
posium, 515 
Campbell, Prof., on Protagoras Myth, 
221 
Carus, his Gesch. d. Zoologie referred to, 17 
Catastrophes, doctrine of, in Plato and 
the Peripatetics, 196 
Categorical Imperative, doctrine of, in 
Cambridge Platonists, 512 ff. 
Kant’s doctrine of, criticised by 
Schopenhauer, 514 
Categories of the Understanding and 
Moral Virtues, Plato’s mythological 
** deduction” of, 50 
Categories of the Understanding, mytho- 
logical deduction of, 337 ff. 
the Forms seen in the Super-celestial 
Place explained as, 339 ff. 
Cave, Plato’s Allegory of, 250 ff. 
an allegory and also a myth, 16 
its meaning, 56 
Schwanitz on, 252 
Couturat on, 252 
Cebetis Tabula, 245 
Chalcidius, translated the Timaeus, 102 
quoted on Daemons, 436 
his version of the Timaeus, how far 
used by Dante, 468 
Charles, Prof. R. H., his editions of 
Secrets of Enoch and Ascension of 
Isaiah, referred to, 361, 362 
Choice of Hercules, 2, 245 


INDEX 


Chureh, Dean, on The Letter to Kan 
Grande, 18 

Cicero, eschatology of hia Somnium 
Scipionia and Tuse, Diep. 353 

Circe and Calypso Myths, Neo-Platonic 
interpretation of, 240 ff. 

Claudian, on the Earthly Paradise, 105 

“Olear and Distinct Ideas,” 509 

Clough, quoted to illustrate doctrine of 
κόλασις and κάθαρσις in Gorgias, 
126 

Coelo, de, influence of, in the Paradiso, 
353 


Coleridge, on “ poetic faith,” 6 
on deep sky akin to feeling, 22 
quoted for the statement that a poem 
ought not to be all poetry, 34 
on Plato's doctrine of the pre-existence 
of the Soul, 61 
on Wordsworth’s Ode on Intimations 
of Immortality, 61 
his Anima Poetae quoted, 258 
on Dante's Canzone xx., 258 
regards the Platonic doctrine of Pre- 
existence as mythical, 344 
holds that Poetry may exist without 
metre, 389, 390 
Comparetti, on gold tablets of Thurii and 
Petelia, 130, 156 
on the Aalewala, 204 
Conscience, Cardinal Newman on, as con- 
necting principle between creature 
and Creator, 447 
Guardian Daemon as, 447, 448 
Conybeare, Mr., his Philo, de Vita Con- 
templativa, referred to, 234 
Cook, Mr. A. B., on the Sicilian triskeles, 
and the Myth told by Aristophanes 
in Symposium, 408 
Cornford, Mr. F. M., on the φύλακες of 
the Republic and the Hesiodic 
Daemons, 436 
Courthope, Mr., his definition of Poetry 
quoted, 36 
Couturat, on doctrine of Immortality of 
the Soul as held by Plato, 61, 70 
Timaeus totus mythicus est, 197 
on the Cave, 252 
holds that the whole doctrine of ἐδέαι 
is mythical, 348 
Cratylus, the, on the Philosopher Death, 
127, 128 
on the Sirens, 128 
Creuzer, Plotinus de Pulchritudine, quoted, 
240, 241 
Cudworth, his criticism of Descartes com- 
pared with criticism of the same 
tendency in Prof. Ward's Naturalism 
and Agnosticism, 477, 478 
conceives God spatially, 487 
supplies the link between the epistemo- 
logical theism of Green and the 


523 


mythology of the Timaews and 
Phaedrua, 498 
Cudworth, his eriticiam of the sensational. 
iam of Hobbes, 497, 498 
his criticiam of Descartes, 509 ff, 
Cultus Myth, a variety of the Aetiological 
Story, illustrated, 13 
Cumberland, criticised by Maxwell, 513 ff. 
Cumont, his Mystéres de Mithra, 365 
his criticism of Dieterich’s Mithras- 
liturgie, 365 
Cupid and Psyche, Myth of, Mr, A. Lang 
on, 245 
Dr. Bigg on, 245 


Daemon, Guardian, doctrine of, connected 
with belief in re-incarnation of Souls 
of ancestors, 449, 450 

as Conscience, 447, 448 

Daemon, the, of Socrates, 445, 448; ef. 
2, 3 

Daemons, doctrine of, 434 ff. 

two kinds of, recognised by Plato, 436 ff. 

Dante, Lelter to Kan Grande, quoted for 
distinction between literal and alle- 
gorical truth, 18-19 

Convivio, quoted for literal, allegoric, 
moral, and anagogic interpretation, 
19-20 

his ‘‘ personal religion,” 19 

expresses Transcendental Feeling in last 
canto of Par. and 25th sonnet of 
V. N., 23 

V. N. sonnet 24, quoted for effect 
produced similar to that produced 
by Plato’s Eschatological Myths, 26 

V. Δι sonnet 11, quoted to illustrate 
the ‘‘magic” of certain kinds of 
Poetry, 38 

Hell, Mount of Purgatory, and Earthly 
Paradise, compared with the Tartarus 
and True Surface of the Earth in the 
Phaedo, 101 ff. 

Quaestio de Aqua et Terra, 102 

the tears of this world flow in the 
rivers of his Hell, 103 

singular in locating Purgatory on the 
slopes of the Mountain of the Earthly 
Paradise, 104 

Mount of Purgatory sighted by Ulysses, 
104 

his use of the teleological geography of 
Orosius, 105, 106 

his mythological explanation of the 
distribution of plants, 106, 107 

the human race created to make good 
the loss of the fallen angels, 106 

‘“the seven P’s,” 130 

the three parts ot his 1). C. correspond 
to the ‘‘ Three Ways,” 132 

Lethe and Eunoé, 154 ff. 

Earthly Paradise, 154 ff. 


524 


Dante, his mythology of Lethe and Eunoé 
compared with the Platonic ἀνά- 
μνησις, 158 

κάθαρσις by gradual ascent of Mount of 
Purgatory takes the place of κάθ- 
apois by metempsychosis, 159 

appearance of Saints in the moving 
Spheres, 165 

and the Timaeus, 210 

his allegorisation of the story of the 
three Marys, 244 

Inferno, iv. 46-48, and Plato’s Cave, 
253 

Coleridge on, 258 

“* suppressed” symbolism in, 258 

Procession in Purg. xxix. ff., 339 

on relation of Philosophy to Science, 
342 

compares the Platonic ἐδέαι to “ Gods,” 
347 

on the number of Beatrice, 350 

Paradiso, latest example of the astro- 
nomical apocalypse, 353 

Convivio, quoted for his astronomical 
system, 164, 355 ff. 

on influence of Planets in producing 
temperaments, 358, 359 

regards his vision of Paradiso as having 
sacramental value, 367 

theory in the de Monarchia compared 
with that of the Republic and Atlantis 
Myth, 454 

his knowledge of the Timaeus through 
the version and commentary of 
Chalcidius, 468 

Darwin, on the feebleness of imagination 
in the lower animals, 4 

his Expression of the Emotions in Man 
and Animals referred to, 342 

Dead, Book of the, Egyptian, 66 

Delphi, place assigned to, by the side of 
the Platonic State, 58 

Descartes, criticised by Cambridge Pla- 
tonists, as ignoring the ‘‘ plastic 
principle,” 478, 493 

criticised by Cudworth, 478, 491, 498, 
509 ff. 

Dialogue, the Platonic, two elements in 
—Argumentative Conversation and 
Myth, 1 

Dieterich, on Orphic 
Aldov, 66, 154 

on refrigerium, 161 

on Mithraic κλῖμαξ ἑπτάπυλος, 162 

his Mithrasliturgie referred to for 
influence of Posidonius, 352 

his Mithrasliturqie, 365 ff. 

Dill, Professor, referred to for mixture 
of Science and Myth in Macrobius, 
101 

on Plutarch’s allegorisation of Egyptian 
Myths, 232 


κατάβασις els 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Dill, Professor, quoted on Macrobius’ Com- 
mentary on the Somniwm Scipionis,359 

Disorderly Crew, Plato’s Allegory of, 
253 ff. 

Dramatists, the Athenian, their attitude 
to the doctrine of the Immortality 
of the Soul, 62 ff. 

take the Family, rather than the In- 
dividual, as the moral unit, 63 

Dream-consciousness, induced by Poetry, 
382 ff. 

“Dream-thing,” the, illustrated from 
Wordsworth’s Prelude, 153 

Dream-world, the, of the primitive story- 
teller characterised, 5 

Diiring, holds that the Phaedrus Myth is 
a “ Programme,” 338 


Earth, rotundity of, recognised by Plato 
in Phaedo, 94 
central position of, in Phaedo, 94 
Earthly Paradise, the, 103 ff. 
of Dante and medieval belief, 104 ff. 
Dante’s, 154 ff. 

Earthquake and thunder accompany new 
birth in Myth of Er and Dante, 
Purgatorio, xxi., 159 

Ecstasy, Plotinus quoted on, 385 

as understood by Cambridge Platonists, 
480 ff. 

‘‘ Empirical” distinguished from ‘ Tran- 
scendental”’ Feeling, 389 

Enoch, Secrets of, referred to, 361 ff. 

Eothen, Kinglake’s, quoted to illustrate 
allegory of Disorderly Crew, 254 ff. 

Epictetus on Guardian Daemon as Con- 
science, 448, 449 

Epimetheus, contrasted with Prometheus, 
225 ff. 

Epinomis, demonology of, 445 

Er, Myth of, place of, in the Republic, 64, 
72, 73 

great philosophical question raised in, 
169 ff. 

Evvolas θεός in Mithraic doctrine, 162 

Evil, origin of, mythically explained in 
Politicus Myth, 197, 198 

presence of, in Heaven, 367 

Exeter Book, the, on the Earthly Paradise, 
105 

Expression, importance attached by Plato 
to, as reacting on that which is ex- 
pressed, 113 

reaction of, on that which is expressed, 
342 
Eyes, the final cause of, 356 


Fairbanks, Mr. A., on cremation and 
ἀνάβασις, 379 

Fall, the, of Souls as conceived by the 
Neo-Platonists, 360 

Ficino, on the Narcissus Myth, 240 


INDEX 


Prof., on Book of the; Gummere, Prof., makes metrical form 


Flinders Petrie, 
66 
referred to for Book of the Dead, 180 


Galton, Mr, F., on power of visualisation, 
381 
Gardner, Prof. P., on (hiasi, 71 
on the story of Zagreus, 409 
on Prophecy, 431 
on new epoch opened for Hellas by 
Alexander, 454 
on Apocalypses, 455 
Gebhart (/'/talie mystique), on Dante's 
* personal religion,” 19 
Gems, mythological theory of origin of, 
in Phaedo, 94, 95 
Dante on origin of virtues of, 95 
Geology of Attica in Atlantis Myth, 
465 ff. 
Gfrérer (Urchristenthum), on Philo’s al- 
legorical method, 234 ff, 
Ghosts, H. More on, 96 
Gildersleeve, Prof., on Pindar, 
75, 68 
Glaucon in Rep. 608 τ, attitude of, to 
doctrine of Immortality of the Soul, 


Οἱ. ii. 


64 
Goblet d’Alviella, on connection between 
Egyptian and Greek guide-books for 
the use of the dead, 66 
on Initiation as Death and Re- birth, 
377 ff. 
God, a Personal, isa Part, not the Whole, 
53 
Goethe, quoted to illustrate the “ magic” 
of certain kinds of Poetry, 37 
Gollancz, his edition of the Lxeter Book, 
105 
Good, the, not one of the objects of 
Knowledge, but its condition, 59, 
οἵ, 44 
Gray, Sir George, his version of Maori 
story of Children of Heaven and 
Earth, quoted, 11-13 
Green, T. H., his doctrine of “the Presence 
of the Eternal Consciousness in my 
Consciousness,” its Platonic proven- 
ance, 486, 493 ff. 
his Eternal Consciousness compared 
with the Ideal World of Cambridge 
Platonists, 501 
his Philosophy a revival of Christian 
Platonism, 516 
Grote, on the Cultus Myth, 13 
on doctrine of Immortality of the Soul 
as held by Plato, 61 
on thiasi, 71 
on the general characteristics of the 
Politicus Myth, 196 
on the Protagoras Myth, 220 
on allegorical interpretation, 243 
on story of Zagreus, 409 


-- -- τ -.--ς-ς-ςςςςς-ς-ς-ς--Ἐς SES a 


δ2ῦ 


ewontial to Poetry, 591 


Hades, Voyage of Odysseus to, of Orphic 
origin, 66 
Harrison, Misa, on the Cultus Myth, 14 
on the Sirens, 127 
her Prolegomena to Study of (Creek 
Religion referred to, 154 
on Dante's Eunos, 161 
on story of Zagreus, 409 
Hatch, on allegorical interpretation, 236 
on Angels and Daemons, 450 
Heavens, motion of, determines sublun- 
ary events, 196 
motion of, in the Politicus Myth, and 
in the accepted astronomy, 198 
Hegel, his view of the δαιμόνιον of 
Socrates, 3 
on doctrine of Immortality of the Soul 
as held by Plato, 61 
on the Soul as Universal, 228 
Helbig, on Prometheus sarcophagus in 
Capitol, 229 
Heraclitus, his ξηρὴ ψυχή as understood 
by Neo-Platonists, 240, 360 
Hesiod on the Five Ages, 434, 435 
his Daemons, 434, 435 
Hierocles, on bodies terrestrial, aerial, and 
astral, 439 
History, relation of mythology to, accord- 
ing to Plato, 94 
Hobbes, his Social Covenant a “ founda- 
tion-myth,” 171 
his disproof of Spirit or Incorporeal 
Substance criticised by More, 492 
his sensationalism criticised by Cud- 
worth, 497, 498 
Holland, Philemon, his version of Plut- 
arch’s Moralia, 369, 441 
‘Trrepoupdvios τόπος of Phaedrus and the 
Aristotelian God compared, 355 


Idealists, modern English, go back to 
Plato the mythologist rather than to 
Plato the dialectician, 494 

their central doctrine that of the 
Cambridge Platonists—the Doctrine of 
Ideas as theory of union of Man with 
God in knowledge and conduct, 495 

Ideas, Doctrine of, how far mythical ? 
347 ff. 

as adopted by Cambridge Platonists 
and modern English Idealists, 494 

** Ideas of Reason,’’ Soul, Cosmos, and God, 
set forth by Plato in Myth, not 
scientifically, 49 

mythological representation of, 337 ff. 

Imagination, rather than Reason, dis- 

tinguishes man from brute, 4 
part played by, in the development of 
human thought, 4-6 


520 


Immisch referred to for medieval transla- 
tion of the Phaedo, 102 

Immortality of the Soul, attitude of 
Simonides, Tyrtaeus, Attic Orators, 
Dramatists, Aristotle, the Athenian 
Public, to doctrine of, 61 ff. 

Plato’s doctrine of, according to Hegel, 
Zeller, Grote, Coleridge, Thiemann, 
Couturat, Jowett, Adam, 61, 62, 
70, 71 

personal, presented by Plato in Myth, 53 

agnosticism regarding, in the Athens of 
Plato’s day, 61 ff. 

conceived by Plato eminently in Myth, 
61, 73, 74 

Plato’s doctrine of, according to Jowett, 
70 

three sorts of, distinguished, 300 ff. 

attitude of Buddhism to belief in, 301 

**Tmperial Hellas,’ ideal of, in Plato, 
454 ff. 

ideal of, how far it competes with that 
of Personal Salvation in Plato, 455, 
456 

Initiation, as ceremonial Death and Re- 
birth, 368, 377, 378 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Kant, his distinction between Categories 
of the Understanding and Ideas of 
Reason not explicit in Plato’s mind, 
but sometimes implicitly recognised 
by him, 45 

his distinction between Categories of 
the Understanding and Ideas of 
Reason explained, 45 ff. 

in charging Plato with “transcendental 
use, or rather misuse, of the Categories 
of the Understanding,” ignores the 
function of Myth in the Platonic 
philosophy, 72. 

his Critique of Judgment quoted, 222 ff. 

on distinction between the Teleological 
and the Mechanical explanations of 
the world, 222 ff. 

his theology that of the Platonist, 514 

Κατάβασις els” Acdov, Dieterich on, 154 

Rohde on, 154 

Lobeck on, 252 

the, eschatology of, 351 ff. 

Κάθαρσις, poetic, 393 

King, Mr. J. E., on infant burial, 200, 450 

Kingsley, Miss, on re-incarnation of souls 
of deceased relatives, 450 


Ton, Plato’s, a study of “Poetic Inspira- Knowledge, Theory of, common to Cam- 


tion,” 382 
Isaiah, Ascension of, referred to, 362 
Islands of the Blessed, 107 ff. 
in the Platonic Myths, 108, 109 
in Greek and Celtic mythology, 108 


bridge Platonists and modern English 
Idealists, 495 


| Kiihner, on the δαίμονιον of Socrates, 3 


Land, Prof. J. P. N., on Physiologus, 17 


in Gorgias, identical with “True Surface ; Lang, Mr. A., on Myth of Uranus and 


of the Earth” in Phaedo, and 
** Heaven” in Myth of Er, 107-110 


Jackson, Dr. 
Socrates, 3 
James, Dr. M. R., on Apocalypse of Paul, 
364 
James, Prof. W., on teleology, 52 
his Varieties of Religious Experience 
referred to, 480 
his essay on ‘‘Reflex Action and 
Theism ” referred to, 517 
Jevons, Dr., on thiasi, 71 
on the story of Zagreus, 409 
Johnstone, Mr. P. de L., his Muhammad 
and his Power quoted, 363 
Jowett, on Imagination and Reason, 4 
on Plato's attitude to doctrine of Im- 
mortality of the Soul, 70 
on the general characteristics of the 
Politicus Myth, 196 


H., on the δαιμόνιον of 


Kaibel, on gold tablets found at Thurii 
and Petelia, 156 
Kalewala, the, described, 203, 204 
story of the Birth of Iron, in the, 204 ff. 
German version of, by H. Paul, 204 
Καλλίπολις, Plato's, not an isolated munici- 
pality, but an Empire-city, 58 


Cronus, 11 

on Myth of Cupid and Psyche, 245 

on savage analogies for Greek mysteries, 
378 


Leibniz, his “ Pre-established Harmony” 
and “ Prenatal Choice” in Myth of 
Er compared, 170 
describes the doctrine of ἀνάμνησις as 
mythical, 344 
Lelewel, referred to for position of Earthly 
Paradise, 104 
Lélut, on the δαιμόνιον of Socrates, 3 
Lethe, the River of, its locality discussed, 
154 
Thiemann on locality of, 154 
not one of the infernal rivers, 154, 168 
its locality in the Aeneid, 154, 155 
and Mnemosyne in the Orphic cult, 
156 ff. 
topography of, in Myth of Er, and 
Petelia Tablet compared, 157 
drinking of, precedes re-incarnation, 


157 
and Mnemosyneat Oracle of Trophonius, 
160 
Roscher on references to, 168 
Liddell, Professor Mark H., makes 


metrical form essential to Poetry, 
391, 392 


INDEX 


Lie, the, in the Soul, what? δά 


527 


Millet’s “Sower,” 250 


Lobeck, Aglaophamus on the “ἢ Cycle of | Milton, adheres to old astronomy in 


Incarnationas,"”’ 156 
on the allegorisation of Homer, 231 
on story of Zagreus, 409 
on re-incarnation of souls of deceased 
relatives, 450 
Lotze, his distinction between the Reality 
of Existence and the Reality of 
Validity, appears in Norris, 500 
Love song, the “ magic” of, 37 
Lucian on the Stoic ‘Steep Hill of 
Virtue,’ 104 
Lucifer, the Fall of, how made use of by 
Dante, 106 


Mackinder, Mr. H. J., on “ Atlantis,” 
466 
Macrobius, on the Bowl of Dionysus, 239 
his Commentary on the Somnium 
Scipionis compared with the Phae- 
drus Myth, 360 
on influence of Planets in producing 
temperaments, 359, 360 
Madness, four kinds of, distiguished in 
Phaedrus, 306, 339 
**Magic” of certain kinds of Poetry dis- 
cussed and illustrated, 36, 38 
Mahomet, Vision of, quoted, 363 
Malebranche, his doctrine of “seeing all 
all things in God” adopted by 
Norris, 501 
Make-believe and Belief, 6, 7 
Mann, Max Friedr., his Bestiaire Divin 
referred to, 17 
Maoris, their Story of the Children of 
Heaven and Earth quoted, 11-13 
Marcus Aurelius on the aerial habitat of 
souls, 437, 438 
on Guardian Daemon as Conscience, 
449 
Masson, Professor, on Milton’s De Jded 
Platonicd, 348 
Maximus Tyrius, demonology of, 447, 
448 
Maxwell, his criticism of Cumberland, 


his theory of obligation, 514, 515 
Meadow (λειμών), the, of the Judgment- 
Seat, position of, 152 “Ὁ 
Mechanism and Teleology, 508 
Metempsychosis, and Resurrection, 198 ff. 
not necessarily connected with notions | 
of Retribution and Purification, 
302 ff. 
relation of, to metamorphosis, and to 
me i without male intervention, 
302 ff. 


Meteorologica, geography of, 467 





Paradise Loat, 163 
his Poom De JdeA PlatonicA quemad- 
modum Aristoteles intellexit, quoted, 
847 {, 
Mirror and Bow! of Dionysus, Neo- Platonic 
interpretation of, 239-40 
Mitchell, Mra., on Prometheus sarcopha- 
gus in Capitol, 229 
Mithras cult, the κλῖμαξ ἑπτάπυλοιε of, 
162 
Mithrasliturgie, Dieterich's, 365 ff. 
Mnemosyne, drinking of, precedes final 
disembodiment of purified soul, 157 
Models, astronomical, in antiquity, 165 
Moore, Dr. E., on authenticity of the 
Quaestio de Aqua e Terra, 102 
on the geography of Orosius, 105 
on references in Paradiso to Revelation 
of St. John, 361 
More, H., on the Plastic Principle in 
Nature, 95 ff. 
on vehicles, terrestrial, 
aethereal, 96 
on the Millennium, 97 
a soul must have a vehicle of some 
kind, 97 
on the effect upon terrestrial and aerial 
bodies of the Fire of the Last Day, 
97, 98 
on sunspots, 98 
one of his ‘‘ Myths” quoted, 98 ff. 
indebtedness of his mythology of aerial 
daemons to that of the Platonists 
and Stoies, 99 
his belief in witchcraft, 100 
on the number 729, 349 
his view of the end of the Scripture, 
432 
his Philosophickal Poems quoted, 487 ff., 
496, 505 
criticises Hobbes’s disproof of Incor- 
poreal Substance, 492 
Morfill, Professor, his translation of Secrets 
of Enoch referred to, 361 
Moses Atticus, Plato as, 476 
Mundo, de, astronomy of, 353 
geography of, 467 
Murray, Mr. G. G. A., on Brit. Mus. Gold 
Tablets, 156 
Myer and Nutt’s Voyage of Bran, on 
conception without male intervention, 
199 
Myers, F. W. H., on the δαιμόνιον of 
Socrates, 3 
makes changes in tension of muscles of 
the throat essential part of poetic 
excitation, 393 


aerial, and 


Metre and Representation, the place of Mysteries, stronghold in Greece of doctrine 


each in Poetry, 388 ff. 
Millennium, the, H. More on, 97 


of Immortality, 65 
Mysticism, Goethe's definition of, 70 


528 THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Myth, the eschatological, characterised, 
14 


interpretation of, must be psychological, 
16 
the vehicle of exposition chosen by 
Plato, when he deals with the 
a priori conditions of conduct and 
science, 49 
education of children to begin with, 
according to Plato, 53 ff. 
Plato brings, into conformity with 
science as far as possible, 94 
not to be taken literally, according to 
Plato, but to be ‘sung over oneself” 
till the charm of it touches the 
heart, 113 
aetiological, value attached to, by 
Plato, 201 ff. 
aetiological, in the Kalewala, 203, 204 
its two “ meanings,” 244 
the Phaedo, motif of, Moral Responsi- 
bility, 114 
the Gorgias, Moral Responsibility the 
motif of, 126 
the Gorgias, its theory of κόλασις and 
κάθαρσι----οἵ Punishment and Pardon, 
126, 127 
the Gorgias, its rendering of the wonder 
and reverence with which man re- 
gards Death, 127, 128 
the Gorgias, on the infinite difference 
between vice with large and vice 
with small opportunity, 129 ff. 
distinguished from Allegory and Parable, 
15 
Myth and Allegory, Westcott on, 243 
difference between illustrated from 
Spanish chapel fresco, 429 
Myth and Ritual compared, 58 
Myths, introduction of, perhaps suggested 
to Plato by certain passages in the 
conversation of Socrates, 2 
Plato’s, appeal to that part of the 
soul which expresses itself, not in 
theoretic, but in value-judgments, 
or rather, value-feelings, 21 
Plato’s, effect produced by, compared 
with that produced by contemplation 
of Nature, 22 
Plato’s, effect produced by, compared 
with that produced by Poetry 
generally, 22 ff. 
Plato’s, described as Dreams expressive 
of Transcendental Feeling, 42 
allegorical interpretation of, 
judgment on, 242 
allegorical interpretation of, Bacon’s, 
242 


Plato’s 


Narcissus Myth, Neo-Platonic allegorisa- 
tion of, 239, 240 
“ Necessary ” Truth, what? 504 


Necessity, the throne of, in the Myth of 
Er, where? 153, 165 ff. 
Nettleship, R. L., on the lack of organic 
connection in latter half of Rep. x., 
73 
on the νῶτον οὐρανοῦ, 165 
Newman, Cardinal, on Conscience as 
connecting principle between creature 
and Creator, 447 
Newton, his Principia quoted for his 
theological belief, 489 ff. 
Norris, his Reason and Religion referred 
to, 480, 481, 498 ff 
on ecstasy and the holy life, 481 
on the a priori in knowledge, 499 
distinguishes, as Lotze does, between 
Reality of Existence and of Validity, 
500 
his Ideal World compared with T. H. 
Green’s Eternal Consciousness, 501 
adopts Malebranche’s doctrine of “See- 
ing all things in God,” 501 
on moral obligation, 503 
Number 729, 349, 350 
7, instances given of its importance, 360 


Obligation, how Reason imposes, accord- 
ing to Platonism, 503 

Old Testament, Philo’s allegorisation of, 
234 ff. 

Olympiodorus on the infernal rivers, 168 

Optimism and Pessimism, 506 ff. 

Orators, Attic, their attitude to the 
doctrine of the Immortality of the 
Soul, 61 ff. 

Orosius and the doctrine of one continu- 
ous οἰκουμένη, 105 

Orphic cult, spread of, 65 ff. 

Plato’s attitude to, 66 ff. 

Philosophy described by Plato in terms 
of, 69 

Lethe and Mnemosyne in, 156 ff. 

Orphic κατάβασις els “Acdov, 66 

Orphic priests, as distinguished from 
Orphic doctrine, Plato’s attitude to, 
70 

Orrery, the, in the Myth of Er, 165 


Pandora Myth, in Hesiod, 238 

Parable, Reville on, 250 

Parables, the, of the New Testament, 250 

Paradiso, the, latest example of the 
** Astronomical Apocalypse,” 364 

Parmenides, the celestial eschatology of 
the opening lines of his Poem, 351 

Paul, H., his version of the Kalewala, 204 

Pausanias on Lethe and Mnemosyne at 
oracle of Trophonius, 160 


| Πεδίον ἀληθείας, the, 355 fi. 


Plotinus on, 357 
Plutarch on, 357, 358 
the Awxiochus on, 358 


INDEX 


Personal God, idea of, presented by Plato 
in Myth, 58 
Pessimism and Optimism, 506 ff, 
Phaedo, hydrostatics of, criticised by 
Aristotle, 102 
medieval translation of, 102 
Phaedrus Myth, the, celestial or astro- 
nomical mise en scéne of ita eschat- 
ology, 350 ἢ, 
Philo, his allegorical interpretation of the 
Old Testament, 18, 254 ff. 
on the number 729, 349 
on Jewish Angels and Greek Daemons, 
450 
influence of, on Cambridge Platonists, 
480 
daa ~ ag as Life and Immortality, 428, 
42 


Physiologus described and quoted, 17 
Pilgrim's Progress, at once an Allegory 
and a Myth, 246 
quoted, 246 ἢ, 
Pillar of Light, the, in the Myth of Er, 
discussed, 152, 167 ff. 
Pindar, his eschatology, 66 ff. 
Plato's debt to, 68 
Pitra, on Physiologus, referred to, 17 
Planets, influence of, in producing tem- 
peraments, 358 ff. 
Plastic Principle, the, ignored by Des- 
cartes, 478, 493 
explains, for Cambridge Platonists, the 
existence of ‘vehicles’ without 
which the ‘‘ Eternal Consciousness” 
could not “reproduce ” itself, 493 
of Cambridge Platonists compared with 
the “Spiritual Principle” of modern 
English Idealists, 494 
Plato, as Moses Atticus, 210 
his attitude to Teleology, 224 ff. 
his attitude to the allegorisation of 
Myths, 231 
his astronomy, 354 
Platonism, as temper, 
Berkeley's life, 517 ff. 
. A, on Plato and Geology, 


illustrated by 


of Trophonius, 160 
Plotinus, attitude of to the “‘ Problem of 

the Universe,” 45 

his allegorisation of the Myth of Pro- 
metheus and Pandora, 238 

his allegorisation of Narcissus Myth, 
239 

quoted on mirror and bowl of Dionysus, 
360 

his interpretation of Diotima’s allegory, 
428 

influence of, on Cambridge Platonists, 
480 ff. 

on θεωρία and ἔρως (directed to ἐδέαι) 


529 


as constituting the Principle of Life, 
503, 604 
Plutarch, on the justice of punishing 
children for sins of fathers, 63 
on allegorisation of Homer, 231, 232 
his Aridaeus-Theapesiua Myth, given, 
and commented on, 369 ff, 
his power of colour-vieualisation, 381 
on νοῦς, ψυχή, and σῶμα supplied by 
Sun, Moon, and Earth respectively, 
440, 441 
his daemonology, 441 #ff. 
his Timarchus Myth given, 441 ff. 
* Poetic Truth,’ what ? 384 ff. 
Poetry, chief end of, production and 
regulation of Transcendental Feeling, 
33 ff. 
its effect identical with that produced 
by other Fine Arts, and sometimes 
even with that produced by con- 
templation of Nature and Human 
Life, and by the memories of Child- 
hood and Youth, 35 
a Theory of, 382 ff. 
Posidonius, influence of, on development 
of astronomical eschatology, 352 
on aerial daemons, 438 
Postgate, Mr. J. P., 
128 
Pre-existence and ἀνάμνησις, Zeller on, 
343 ff. 
Pringle-Pattison, Professor A. S., referred 
to, 52 
on “Categories in Things,” 340 
“Problem of the Universe,” relation of 
Thought and Transcendental Feeling 
respectively to, 44, 45 
attitude of Plotinus to, 45 
Prometheus, contrasted with Epimetheus, 
225 ff. 
Prometheus Myth, on Capitoline Sar- 
cophagus, 228 ff. 
various versions of, 229 
lends itself easily to allegorisation, 
230 
allegorised by Plotinus, 238 
Prophecy, Professor P. Gardner on, 431, 
433 
Prophetic Temperament, the, Diotima a 
study of, 430 ff. 
Spinoza on, 430, 431 
Purgatory, Dante’s Mount of, and the 
Stoic “Steep hill of Virtue” com- 
pared, 104 


on the Sirens, 


Rabelais, quoted in comparison with the 
Myth told by Aristophanes in Sym- 
postum, 410 fff. 

Rashdall, Dr., referred to for medieval 
translation of the Phaedo, 102 

Refrigerium, doctrine of, taken in con- 
nection with Dante’s Eunoé, 161 


530 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


Religious Consciousness, the, demands a| Shelley, Adonais quoted for effect pro- 


Personal God, 51 
how opposed to the Scientific Under- 
standing, 52 ff. 
Renan, on Spanish Chapel fresco, 114 
Representation and Metre, the place of 
each in Poetry, 388 ff. 
Resurrection, doctrine of, 198 ff 
Revelation of St. John, not an “ Astro- 
nomical Apocalypse,” 361 
Dante little indebted to, 361 
Reville, on the profound philosophy of 
Myths, 16 
on Rite and Myth, 58 
on Ritual, 256 
Ritschl, his view of Inspiration, 433 
Ritual, compared with Myth, 58 
with Myth and Allegory, 256 ff. 
Robertson-Smith, on relation of Myth to 
Ritual, 14 
Rohde, on Greek agnosticism regarding 
Immortality of the Soul, 62 
on Orphic rites, 65 
on Pindar’s eschatology, 67 
on κατάβασις els “Acdov, 154 
on refrigerium, 161 
on ἄωροι, 200 
Roscher, on Lethe, 168 
Round People, the, of Aristophanes, com- 
pared with the Sicilian triskeles, 408 
compared with Zulu and Arabian one- 
legged people, 408 
compared with the monsters of Em- 
pedocles, 408, 409 
Rouse, Mr., on votive figures, 153 
Ruskin, on Spanish Chapel fresco, 114, 
257 


Sander, on Geography of Atlantis Myth, 
466 


Scartazzini, on Dante’s Purgatory and 
Earthly Paradise, 104 
Schiller, Mr. F. C.8., on ἐνέργια ἀκινησίας, 
164 
Schleiermacher, on the Protagoras Myth, 
220, 227 fff. 
Schmidt, on Dante’s Quaestio de Aqua et 
Terra, 103 
referred to for position of the Earthly 
Paradise, 104 
Schopenhauer, his Freedom in esse com- 
pared with Prenatal Choice in Myth 
of Er, 171 
his definition of Poetry, 387 
his criticism of Kant’s Categorical Im- 
perative, 514 
Schwanitz, on Allegory of the Cave, 252 
Scylax, his περίπλους referred to, 467 
Seneca’s Letter to Marcia, eschatology of, 
353 
Sensitive Soul, supervenes upon the 
Vegetative, 40 


duced similar to that produced by 
Plato’s Eschatological Myths, 27 ff. 
on distinction between poetry and 
prose, 390 
γα τάων. The Recollection, quoted, 
Simonides, his attitude to doctrine of 
Immortality of the Soul, 62 
Sirens, the, associated with Death, 127 
Miss Harrison on, 127 
Mr. J. P. Postgate on, 128 
Smith, John, his view of the relation 
between a Holy Life and a Right 
Belief, 432 
on ecstasy and the Holy Life, 481 
differs from Cudworth and More in 
relying less on “Science” than on 
‘“‘moral feeling” for proof of the 
existence of God, 491, 492 
distinguishes κίνησις προβατική and 
κίνησις κυκλική, 496 
Socrates, his “‘mesmeric ” influence, 2 
his Daemon, 2, 3 
Somnium Scipionis probably owes its 
astronomy to Posidonius, 439 
astronomical eschatology of, 353 
Sophists, the—their use of Allegories or 
Illustrative Fables, 1 
Soul, the Idea of, as represented in 
Plato’s Eschatological Myths, 60 ff. 
Soul-stuff, in Timaeus, 304 f. 
Souls, number of, fixed, 198, 199 
Spanish Chapel, fresco referred to, 114 
referred to to illustrate difference 
between Myth and Allegory, 429 
Spencer and Gillen on Souls of ancestors 
entering into women, 199 
Spenser, the human race created to make 
good the loss of the fallen angels, 106 
his allegory of Castle of Medina, 257 
Spinoza, his view that religion is a matter 
of piety rather than of dogmatic 
truth, 59 
on the Prophetic Temperament, 430, 
431 
Springs, hot and cold, origin of, in 
Phaedo, 94 . 
Stallbaum, on the general characteristics 
of the Politicus Myth, 196 
on Protagoras Myth, 221 
on Myth and Dialectic, 242 
Stevenson, R. L., his Woodman quoted, 
40 
Stoics, the, their doctrine of ovyxard- 
θεσις, 63 
their allegorisation of Homer, 233, 234 
their doctrine of aerial habitat of 
daemons and souls of the dead, 
437 ff. 
Story-telling, love of, importance of for 
the development of man, 5 


INDEX 


531 


Btory- tolling, ΥΩ ‘about people and | Toynbee, Dr, on Dante's soquaintance 


animals,” 6 ff 
Stories, dintinguished as Simply Anthropo- 
logical and Zoological, Aetiological, 
and Eschatological, 8 ff. 
Simply Anthropological and Zoological, 
illustrated, 8 ff, 
Actiological, illustrated, 10-14 
and magic, 1 
various classes of, 10 
Cosmological, a variety of the actio- 
logical story, 10-13 
Sun, western rising of, in Atreus Myth, 
19 


rising where he now sets, and setting 

where he now rises, in Egyptian 
story, 197 

Symbolism, “suppressed,” illustrated from 
Dante, 258 


Tablets, attached to Souls by Judges of 
the Dead, 180 
gold, of Thurii and Petelia, 130, 156 ff. 
Tablet, Petelia, quoted, 156 
Tannery, on Orphic rites, 65 
Tartarus, has entrance and exit separate 
in Phaedo and Myth of Er, 112 
Teleology, attitude of the religious con- 
sciousness and the scientific under- 
standing respectively to, 52 
Plato's attitude to, 224 ff. 
and Mechanism, 508 
Teleological and mechanical explanations 
of the World, distinction between, 
set forth in Protagoras Myth, 222 ff. 
Theodore of Mopsuestia, his exegesis, 237 
Thiasi, and personal, as distinguished 
from official, religion, 71 
Thiemann, on doctrine of Immorality of 
the Soul as held by Plato, 60 
on locality of Lethe, 154 
Thomas the Rhymer, Ballad of, quoted 
for rivers of blood in Elf-land, 103 
referred to for the ‘*Three Ways,” 
131 
Thompson, regards the Phaedrus Myth 
as a Rhetorical Paradigm, 336 
regards the Phaedrus Myth as an 
allegory, 386, 339 
Three Ways, the, Ballad of Thomas the 
Rhymer referred to for, 131 
the three parts of Dante’s 7). C. corre- 
spond to, 132 
Tides of Atlantic Ocean, origin of, in 
Phaedo, 94 
Timaeus, the only work of Plato which 
Dante knew directly, 102 
reputation of, in antiquity and the 
middle age, 210 
one of a Trilogy, 259, 299 


with Pliny, 160 

referred to for Dante's knowledge of 
Macrobius, 361 

on Dante's knowledge of the version of 
the Timaeus made by Chaleidius, 
468 

Tozer, Mr., quoted for Dante's know- 

ledge of Somnium Seipionia, 361 

on Par. xxxi., 79 Η,, 867 

Transcendental Feeling, production and 

regulation of, the end of Poetry, 
22, 33 

expressed by Daunte, last Canto of Par., 
and V. Δι, Sonnet xxv., 23, 38 

Poets quoted to illustrate means em- 
ployed for production of, 23-33 

means employed by Poetry to produce 
the dream-consciousness in which it 
arises, 33 ff, 

in a nascent form accounts for the 
“magic " of certain kinds of Poetry, 36 

explained genetically, 39 ff. 

two phases of, 41 

Imagination the Interpreter of, 42 

its relation to Sense and Understanding, 


Consciousness aware of “the Good” in, 
44; cf. 59 

the beginning and end of Metaphysics, 
44 


Consciousness comes nearest to the 
object of Metaphysics, Ultimate 
Reality, in, 44 

“Transcendental,” as distinguished from 
“Empirical” Feeling, 389 

Tylor, Prof., on the state of the imagina- 
tion among ancient and savage 
peoples, 7 


Universal, the, of Poetry, 384 ff. 


‘Vegetative Part of the Soul,” funda- 
mental, and source of that implicit 
Faith in the Value of Life on which 
Conduct and Science rest, 39 

and “ Universal of Poetry,” 386 

Vehicles, terrestrial, aerial, and aethereal, 

H. More on, 96 
aerial, of Soulsin Purgatory, Dante on, 
97 

Vernon, on Lethe aud Eunoé, 155 

Virgil, where does he localise the River 
of Lethe ? 155 

Visualisation, colour- and form-, power 
of, possessed by Plato, Plutarch, and 
Dante, 380, 381 

Volcanic action, explained in Phaedo, 94 

Volquardsen, his view of the δαιμόνιον of 
Socrates, 3 


Toynbee, Dr., on Dante’s acquaintance | Votive figures and the βίων παραδείγ- 


with Claudian, 105 


para of the Myth of Er, 153 


532 


Wallace, W., on Kant’s Ideas of Reason, 
quoted, 46-7 


THE MYTHS OF PLATO 


was a boy”’ quoted to illustrate the 
nature of “ poetic effect,” 35 


Walt Whitman’s Memories of President | Wordsworth, on relation of Poetry to 


Lincoln, quoted for effect produced 
similar to that produced by Plato’s 
Eschatological Myths, 31 ff. 

War, Plato’s view of, 452, 455 

Ward, Prof., his Naturalism and Agnos- 
ticism referred to, 478 

Weismann, Prof., referred to, 434 

Westcott, Bishop, on Aeschylus’ view of 
the Condition of the Dead, 63 


Science, 342 
on place of metre in Poetry, 390 


Xenophanes, on the immorality of Homer 
and Hesiod, 231 


Yeats, Mr. W. B., referred to for the idea 
of ‘poems spoken to a harp,” 393 


on influence of Plato’s Myths through | Zagreus Myth, 239 | 


later Platonic schools, 230 
on Myth and Allegory, 243 


compared with that told by Aristo- 
phanes in Symposium, 409 ff. 


Wilamowitz - Méllendorff, on Voyage of | Zeller, on the δαιμόνιον of Socrates, ὃ 


Odysseus to Hades, as Orphic epi- 
sode in Odyssey, 66 
Witchcraft, Cudworth’s belief in, 100 
Smith’s belief in, 100 
H. More’s belief in, 100 
Wordsworth, his lines beginning ‘‘ There ! 


THE 


on doctrine of Immortality of the Soul 
as held by Plato, 60, 70 ᾿ 

on allegorisation of Homer by the 
Stoics, 233 

on Neo-Platonic allegorisation, 242 

on Pre-existence and ἀνάμνησις, 343 ff. 


END 


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Γ Ι͂ Ἢ ἢ 
vi κ ὰ ἣ ‘ ν᾿ 
. ὲ ͵ 4 " er ay. a a! Ἶ Γ 
+ - ᾿ Pra ‘ bi « ‘ ν 
Ψ . ¥ ) ᾿ : + 4 pets " t+ Ape 47 ™ A 7 
| a’ ἃ » ’ Pes ‘ ne ΙΝ ᾿» a 
Beet a ze St ἘΦ te 
͵ ἵ } ~ ἡ “ἢ if 
Fas RORY VEN Se ais RN ie hee 
ΝΛ ia BX ae Pil ou) ἮΨ ( Υ, hh ie ‘thes ν᾿" νἃ. 
ὁ φ ἢ ᾿ ὲ Δ" a4 4 A hd. oe ἐν ae 
M ΝΑ 4 Ve tidey an 4 δε ἀν νυ δὰ Wiel ΟΣ, Ron Ges ἀντ δὰ aS ; +e 
1“ Vi 4 ney as oN μι δ) Ἂν ) ΟΝ You or a ie ery sec is ; b+ : Ν 
Po a * ae Ρ Ὁ ἷ i i) ΜΟῚ ἂν ν ὃ ᾿ Ν TREY { ised 4 : Ζ ᾽ν: 
‘a Fou bi "y 6. a ΝΎ Be ΩΝ ἐν, Γ᾿ i > + γ ΜΠ ΩΝ a Fah Oe γὴν. = δ “ΝΣ 





᾿ ε ὮΝ MY ep) nT a Af, 
dae NT SAIC eg fo pas 
BRAD Ree ean RAE Nt ΤΣ 
ar δ, ᾿ ΩΝ eee ΤΥ ot “sty 
oul ae VJ 
* As ae | i. 
᾿ » yh ‘¥ ΓΝ hy ᾿ Als 


esi ᾿ 4 ise 


ὶ ἱ ! ἢ dye) ea, ἡ νυ" 


Β Plat 
355 ᾿ 
1905 11 


5464 ῈἙΕ. 


(Laks 


we eo ee
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