'What you say is very likely.'
'Yes, and those who've preferred injustice, tyranny, and robbery will enter the forms of wolves and hawks and kites. Where else can we say that such souls will go?' 5
'Into such creatures, certainly,' said Cebes.
'And isn't the direction taken by the others as well obvious in each case, according to the affinities of their training?'
'Quite obvious, of course.'
'And aren't the happiest among these and the ones who enter the 10 best place, those who have practised popular and social goodness, b "temperance" and "justice" so-called, developed from habit and training, but devoid of philosophy and intelligence?'
'In what way are these happiest?'
'Because they're likely to go back into a race of tame and social 5
creatures similar to their kind, bees perhaps, or wasps or ants; and to return to the human race again, and be born from those kinds as decent men.'
'That's likely.'
10 'But the company of gods may not rightly be joined by one who c has not practised philosophy and departed in absolute purity, by any but the lover of knowledge. It's for these reasons, Simmias and Cebes, my friends, that true philosophers abstain from all bodily desires, and stand firm without surrendering to them; it's not for any fear of 5 poverty or loss of estate, as with most men who are lovers of riches; nor again do they abstain through dread of dishonour or ill-repute attaching to wickedness, like lovers of power and prestige.'
'No, that would ill become them, Socrates,' said Cebes. d 'Most certainly it would! And that, Cebes, is just why those who have any care for their own souls, and don't live fashioning the body,36 disregard all those people; they do not walk in the same paths as those who, in their view, don't know where they are 5 going; but they themselves believe that their actions must not oppose philosophy, or the release and purifying rite it affords, and they are turned to follow it, in the direction in which it guides them.'
'How so, Socrates?'
'I'll tell you. Lovers of knowledge recognize that when philosophy e takes their soul in hand, it has been literally bound and glued to the body, and is forced to view the things that are as if through a prison, rather than alone by itself; and that it is wallowing in utter 5 ignorance. Now philosophy discerns the cunning of the prison, sees how it is effected through desire, so that the captive himself may 83 co-operate most of all in his imprisonment.37 As I say, then, lovers of knowledge recognize that their soul is in that state when philosophy takes it in hand, gently reassures it and tries to release it, by showing that inquiry through the eyes is full of deceit, and deceitful 5 too is inquiry through the ears and other senses; and by persuading it to withdraw from these, so far as it need not use them, and by urging it to collect and gather itself together, and to trust none b other but itself, whenever, alone by itself, it thinks of any of the things that are, alone by itself, and not to regard as real what it observes by other means, and what varies in various things; that kind
of thing is sensible and seen, whereas the object of its own vision is intelligible and invisible. It is, then, just because it believes it should 5 not oppose this release that the soul of the true philosopher abstains from pleasures and desires and pains,38 so far as it can, reckoning that when one feels intense pleasure or fear, pain or desire, one incurs harm from them not merely to the extent that might be supposed— c by being ill, for example, or spending money to satisfy one's desires— but one incurs the greatest and most extreme of all evils, and does not take it into account.'
'And what is that, Socrates?' said Cebes.
'It's that the soul of every man, when intensely pleased or 5 pained at something, is forced at the same time to suppose that whatever most affects it in this way is most clear and most real, when it is not so; and such objects especially are things seen, aren't they?'
'Certainly.'
'Well, isn't it in this experience that soul is most thoroughly d bound fast by body?'
'How so?'
'Because each pleasure and pain fastens it to the body with a sort of rivet, pins it there, and makes it corporeal, so that it takes for real 5 whatever the body declares to be so. Since by sharing opinions and pleasures with the body, it is, I believe, forced to become of like character and nurture to it, and to be incapable of entering Hades in purity; but it must always exit contaminated by the body, and so 10 quickly fall back into another body, and grow in it as if sown there, e and so have no part in communion with the divine and pure and uniform.'
'What you say is perfectly true, Socrates,' said Cebes.
'It's for these reasons, then, Cebes, that those who deserve to be 5 called "lovers of knowledge" are orderly and brave; it's not for the reasons that count with most people;39 or do you think it is?'
'No, indeed I don't.' 84
'Indeed not; but the soul of a philosophic man would reason as we've said: it would not think that while philosophy should release it, yet on being released, it should of itself surrender to pleasures and pains, to bind it to the body once again, and should perform the 5
endless task of a Penelope working in reverse at a kind of web.40 Rather, securing rest from these feelings, by following reasoning and being ever within it, and by beholding what is true and divine and not the object of opinion, and being nurtured by it, it believes that it must live thus for as long as it lives, and that when it has died, it will enter that which is akin and of like nature to itself, and be rid of human ills. With that kind of nurture, surely, Simmias and Cebes, there's no danger of its fearing that on separation from the body it may be rent apart, blown away by winds, go flying off, and exist no longer anywhere at all.'
When Socrates had said this, there was silence for a long time. To judge from his appearance, Socrates himself was absorbed in the foregoing argument, and so were most of us; but Cebes and Simmias went on talking to each other in a low voice 41 When he noticed them, Socrates asked: 'What is it? Can it be that you find something lacking in what's been said? It certainly still leaves room for many misgivings and objections, if, that is, one's going to examine it adequately. If it's something else you're considering, never mind; but if you have some difficulty about these matters, don't hesitate to speak for yourselves and explain it, if you think what was said could be improved in any way;42 or again, enlist me too, if you think you'll get out of your difficulty any better with my help.'
Simmias replied: 'All right, Socrates, I'll tell you the truth. For some time each of us has had difficulties, and has been prompting and telling the other to question you, from eagerness to hear, but hesitating to make trouble, in case you should find it unwelcome in your present misfortune.'
When Socrates heard this, he chuckled and said: 'Dear me, Simmias! I'd certainly find it hard to convince other people that I don't regard my present lot as a misfortune, when I can't convince even you two, but you're afraid that I'm more ill-humoured now than in my earlier life; you must, it seems, think I have a poorer power of prophecy than the swans, who when they realize they must die, then sing more fully and sweetly than they've ever sung before, for joy that they are departing into the presence of the god whose servants they are. Though indeed mankind, because of their own
fear of death, malign the swans, and say that they sing their farewell song in distress, lamenting their death; they don't reflect that no 5 bird sings when it is hungry or cold or suffering any other distress, not even the nightingale herself, nor the swallow, nor the hoopoe, birds that are reputed to sing lamentations from distress. But, as I see it, neither they nor the swans sing in distress, but rather, I believe, b because, belonging as they do to Apollo, they are prophetic birds with foreknowledge of the blessings of Hades, and therefore sing and rejoice more greatly on that day than ever before. Now I hold that I myself am a fellow-servant of the swans, consecrated to the 5 same god, that I possess prophetic power from my master no less than theirs, and that I'm departing this life with as good a cheer as they do. No; so far as that goes, you should say and ask whatever you wish, for as long as eleven Athenian gentlemen allow.'