REPUBLIC
Book X, end section

by Plato


This is not the story Alcinous heard, but the story of a brave man, Er, the son
of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. It came about that, after falling in
battle, his body was taken up on the tenth day, unchanged, and on the twelfth
day, when his body was stretched on the wood ready to be burned, he came back
to life, and he gave this account of what he had seen over there on the other
side. He said that when his soul went out of his body, he journeyed in company
with a great band of others till they came to a strange place, where two
openings side by side in the earth faced two others in the heavens. Between
them were judges who fixed on the just a sign of their reward in front and on
the backs of the unjust an account of their crimes, and the just they sent up
through the heaven on the right hand and the unjust down by the lower way on
the left. When Er came before them himself, they said that he was to be a
witness to men to report to them of that other world, and they ordered him to
watch and hear everything in that place. Then he saw the souls after judgement
going off by one of the openings of heaven and one of earth, while by the other
two openings other souls were coming back, dirty and covered with dust from
under earth, or clean and shining from heaven. They kept coming back as if from
a long journey, and gladly took up their places on the field as persons do at
some great festival. Friends welcomed one another, and those from within the
earth asked about the heaven, and in turn were questioned about the life under
earth. And these wept and cried out at the memory of all the things they had
seen and undergone in their journey down under the earth -- and it went on a
thousand years -- while those from the heaven talked of joys and visions of
things more beautiful than any words might picture. The full story, Glaucon,
would take us over-long, but this, Er said, was the substance. For every wrong
they had done to others, they made a payment ten times as great; and this was
measured in periods of a hundred years, for a human life was taken to be a
hundred years long, so that they had ten punishments for every crime; and again
those who had done good acts, and been just and holy men, had their reward in
the same measure. And there were rewards and punishments still greater for
those who were pious or impious to their parents or to the gods, or who put
themselves to death. He was within hearing when one was questioned by another,
'Where is Ardiaeos the Great?' Now this Ardiaeos had been ruler in a town of
Pamphylia a thousand years before that time, and had put to death his old
father and a brother older than himself, and had done numbers of other unholy
things. And the other answered, 'He has not come, and probably will never come.
For this was one of the fearful things we saw. When we were near the mouth, and
were able to come out, and all our other pains were ended, we suddenly saw him
with others, most of them tyrants, though some were private persons who had
done great wrongs. And when these were about to go up and out, the mouth would
not take them, but roared when any of those who were too evil to be reformed,
or who had not completed their punishment, attempted to come up. And then', he
said, 'violent men like fire to look at, who heard the Voice, would seize them
and take them off; and Ardiaeos and others they took and knotted with cords,
head and hand and foot, and dragged them by the wayside, combing them with
thorns, like wool, and saying to those who went by why this was and that they
were to be thrown into Tartarus.' And then, of all they had undergone this fear
was the worst for each -- that the mouth would roar when he attempted to go up,
and everyone went up most gladly when the Voice was quiet. These, said Er, were
among the pains and punishments, and there were rewards as great.

 Now when they had been in the green field seven days, they were forced to
journey on, and they came in four days to a place where they saw, stretching
from on high through the heaven and the earth, a straight line like a pillar,
and like the rainbow, but brighter and clearer. They came to this after another
day's journey, and there at the middle of the light they saw the ends of its
chains stretching from heaven; for this light was the band which keeps the
spinning heavens together, like the bands about a ship. And from the ends was
stretched the spindle of Necessity, on which all the circles turn. Its rod and
hook were made of steel, and the whorl upon it was made of steel and other
materials. And the form of the whorl was like those used on the earth: from his
account there seems to be one great hollow whorl, and another within it, like
boxes which go inside one another, and in the same way a third, a fourth, and
four others, for there were eight of the whorls in all, one within another,
their edges seeming like circles from the upper side, but together they form
the back of one solid whorl about the rod, which is fixed right through the
middle of the eighth. The first and outermost whorl has the widest edge, the
sixth has the second widest, then the fourth, then the eighth, then the
seventh, then the fifth, then the third, and the second has the narrowest edge.
The edge of the greatest whorl is of mixed colours; that of the seventh is
brightest; that of the eighth takes it colour from the seventh. shining upon
it. The colours of the second and fifth are like one another, being warmer than
the seventh and eighth. The third is whitest, the fourth is a little red, and
the sixth is the second whitest. The whole spindle turns one way, but within
the unit as it turns the seven inner circles turn gently in the opposite
direction, and of these seven the eighth moves most quickly, and after it the
seventh, sixth, and fifth move together, and more slowly turns the fourth as it
seemed, moving back upon itself, and then the third, and the fifth and slowest
motion is that of the second. And the spindle turns round upon the knees of
Necessity. On every one of its circles is a Siren, who travels round with the
circle, and cries out on one note, and the eight notes are joined in one
harmony. And round about are seated at equal distances the Fates, the daughters
of Necessity, Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos; who, clothed in white robes, with
flowers on their heads, keep harmony in their song with the music of the
Sirens. And the song of Lachesis is of the past; that of Clotho, of the
present; that of Atropos, of the future. And Clotho with her right hand helps
to turn the outer edge of the whorl, stopping from time to time, and Atropos
with her left hand turns the inner circles, while Lachesis in turn helps one or
the other.

Now, coming here, the souls were sent before Lachesis, and first a sort of
prophet placed them in order and, having taken from the knees of Lachesis
certain lots and designs of lives went up to a high pulpit and said, 'The word
of Lachesis. daughter of Necessity: Souls that live for a day, here is the
start of another round taking men back to death. Your daimon will not be given
you by chance but will be of your own choosing. Let him who gets the first lot
choose the life he wills, which then shall be his destiny. But Virtue is free;
a man will have more or less of her, as he honours her or not. He who chooses
is responsible, Heaven is guiltless.' Having said this, he cast the lots down
among them all, and every soul took up the lot that fell to him, all but Er,
who was ordered not to do so. After this the prophet placed designs of lives
before them on the earth, and they were far greater in number than the company.
They were of every sort, for there were lives of all sorts of animals and all
sorts of men, there were tyrannies among them, some unbroken till the end, and
others cut short and changing into poverty, beggardom and exile. And there were
lives of men noted for their beautiful forms and faces and strength as
athletes, or for their high birth and the virtues of their fathers, and lives
of the opposite sorts; and of women the same. But quality of soul was not fixed
in them, because a soul taking up a different life necessarily becomes
different. But all other things were mixed with one another, and with riches
and poverty, disease and strength, and the middle ways between them.

There my dear Glaucon, is the danger of dangers for every man. That is why
every one of us -- putting all other cares on one side -- has to look for the man
who will give him the power and the knowledge to separate the life which is
good from that which is bad, and always and everywhere to make the best
decision which conditions offer him. And let him take into account all the
things we have talked of, and see how the quality of his life will be changed
by their being present or not present in it. Let him judge the effects of high
and low birth, private station and office, of being strong or feeble, quick or
slow, and all such gifts of the soul, natural or gained by experience, when
mixed and joined with one another; so that by weighing all these things he will
be able to make a reasonable decision between better and worse lives, with his
eyes fixed on the innermost being of the soul, naming as worse a life which
will have a tendency to make it more unjust, and as better one which will make
it more just. But all other thoughts he will let be, for we have seen that this
is the choice of all choices, for life and for death. A man needs to take with
him to the house of death an adamantine faith in this, so that even there he
may not be dazzled by wealth and other waste, and jump into tyrannies and
suchlike crimes, and so do evil which can never be put right, and undergo still
greater himself; but may always be able to judge and take the life which is in
the middle way, and keep from excess in this direction or that, in this life so
far as may be and in the life to come; for this is man's greatest happiness.

Moreover, the witness from the other side reported that the prophet then said:
'Even he who comes forward last, if he chooses wisely, and lives hard and
seriously, will get a good enough life, not an evil one. Let not the first make
his choice with care, or the last be downhearted. When the prophet had said
these things, the one who had the first number jumped at once for the greatest
tyranny, and in his foolish greed he took it without examination, not seeing
that he was fated by it to eat his own children, and other shocking things. And
when he read it through, he hammered his breast and lamented over his choice,
without recalling what the prophet had said. He did not look upon himself as
responsible, but cried out against chance and the gods and anything but
himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven, a man who had lived
under a well-ordered government, and so had gained some measure of virtue by
use, and not by philosophy. It seems that of those who were thus overtaken, not
a few came from heaven; they had not been schooled by trouble. For most of
those who came from under earth did not choose carelessly, for they had
undergone pain themselves, and had seen the pains of others. For which reason
as well as through the chances in the lots there was generally an exchange of
the good and bad. But if, whenever he comes back to the life of this earth, a
man loves wisdom and does not get one of the very last numbers, by this report
he will not only be happy here, but his journey back to this world will not be
rough and under the earth, but smooth and through the heavens. More than
strange it was, he said, how the different souls chose their lives -- sad and
absurd, and foolish, for their choice was guided for the most part by what they
were used to in their earlier lives. He saw the soul of Orpheus, he said,
choose the life of a swan, for he hated all women because of his death at their
hands, and was unwilling to have a woman give him birth. He saw the soul of
Thamyris choosing the life of a nightingale, and a swan changing over to the
life of man, and the same with other music-making animals. The soul which had
the twentieth number took the life of a lion ; it was the soul of Ajax, the son
of Telamon, which, remembering the decision as to the arms of Achilles, was
unwilling to become a man. The one after, the soul of Agamemnon, for the same
reason that its pains had made it hate all men, changed to the life of an
eagle. The soul of Atalanta gave one look at the great honours of an athlete's
life and grasped them at once, unable to go farther. After her, he said, he saw
the soul of Epeius, the son of Panopeus, taking on the nature of an expert
workwoman. Far off at the back the soul of the clown Thersites was putting on
the body of an ape. And it chanced that the soul of Odysseus had the last
number of all, and came to make its selection. From memory of the toils of its
last life, it had no longer any ambition, and went about everywhere in search
of the quiet life of a private person, and was a long time looking till it saw
it at last in some out-of-the-way place untouched by the others, and, on seeing
it, said that it would have done the same if it had had the first number, and
took it gladly. And in the same way with the rest: beasts changed into men and
into one another, the unjust into cruel beasts, the just to gentle ones, and
there were mixtures of all sorts. But now, when all the souls had chosen lives
in the order of their numbers, they were taken in turn before Lachesis. And she
sent with every one the daimon he had chosen to guide his life and see that all
came true. And this guide first took the soul to Clotho, under the twisting
motion of her hand, and so fixed the destiny he had chosen. After touching her,
the daimon took the soul to the turning hand of Atropos, that the threads might
never be untwisted. From there, the souls travelled without turning back under
the throne Of Necessity. When all had passed, they journeyed into the Levels of
Oblivion, through thick, painful heat, for there were no trees or plants; and
in the evening they stopped by the River of Unmindfulness whose water no vessel
may keep. They were all made to take a measure of the water; those who were not
saved by their good sense drank more than the measure, so that all memory of
everything went from them. And after they had gone to sleep and it was the
middle of the night, there was a sound of thunder and a shaking of the earth,
and they were suddenly sent away, one this way, one that, up to their birth,
like quickly moving stars. Er himself, he said, was kept from drinking the
water ; but he had no idea how and in what way he went back to his body. Only
he suddenly opened his eyes at dawn, and saw himself stretched on a funeral
pyre.

And so, Glaucon, the story was saved, and will save us, if we believe it; we
will pass safely across the River of Lethe, and keep our souls clean. If you
will be guided by me, we will believe that the soul lives forever, and is able
to undergo every measure of good and evil. We will keep ever to the upward
road, and follow justice and reason always and in every way, that we may be
friends to ourselves and to the gods, both while we are here and when, like
victors in the games, we have our reward. And so, here on earth and in that
journey of a thousand years, it will be well with us.