Greek Texts & Translations

Concerning both the composite living creature and the bodily part of it, how a man should both guide and be guided by himself so as to live a most rational life, let our statement stand thus. But first and with special care we must make ready the part which is to be the guide to the best of our power, so that it may be as fair and good as possible for the work of guidance. Now to expound this subject alone in accurate detail would in itself be 89ea sufficient task. ^note But treating it merely as a side-issue, if we follow on the lines of our previous exposition, we may consider the matter and state our conclusions not inaptly in the following terms. We have frequently asserted ^note that there are housed within us in three regions three kinds of soul, and that each of these has its own motions; so now likewise we must repeat, as briefly as possible, that the kind which remains in idleness and stays with its own motions; in repose necessarily becomes weakest, whereas the kind which exercises itself becomes strongest; 90awherefore care must be taken that they have their motions relatively to one another in due proportion. And as regards the most lordly kind of our soul, we must conceive of it in this wise: we declare that God has given to each of us, as his daemon, ^note that kind of soul which is housed in the top of our body and which raises us—seeing that we are not an earthly but a heavenly plant up from earth towards our kindred in the heaven. And herein we speak most truly; for it is by suspending our head and root from that region whence the substance of our soul first came that the Divine Power 90bkeeps upright our whole body.

Whoso, then, indulges in lusts or in contentions and devotes himself overmuch thereto must of necessity be filled with opinions that are wholly mortal, and altogether, so far as it is possible to become mortal, fall not short of this in even a small degree, inasmuch as he has made great his mortal part. But he who has seriously devoted himself to learning and to true thoughts, and has exercised these qualities above all his others, 90cmust necessarily and inevitably think thoughts that are immortal and divine, if so be that he lays hold on truth, and in so far as it is possible for human nature to partake of immortality, ^note he must fall short thereof in no degree; and inasmuch as he is for ever tending his divine part and duly magnifying that daemon who dwells along with him, he must be supremely blessed. ^note And the way of tendance of every part by every man is one—namely, to supply each with its own congenial food and motion; and for the divine part within us the congenial motions 90dare the intellections and revolutions of the Universe. ^note These each one of us should follow, rectifying the revolutions within our head, which were distorted at our birth, by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the Universe, and thereby making the part that thinks like unto the object of its thought, in accordance with its original nature, and having achieved this likeness attain finally to that goal of life which is set before men by the gods as the most good both for the present and for the time to come.

90eAnd now the task prescribed for us at the beginning to give a description of the Universe up to the production of mankind, would appear to be wellnigh completed. For as regards the mode in which the rest of living creatures have been produced we must make but a brief statement, seeing that there is no need to speak at length; for by such brevity we will feel ourselves to be preserving a right proportion in our handling of these subjects. Wherefore let this matter be treated as follows.

According to the probable account, all those creatures generated as men who proved themselves cowardly and spent their lives in wrong-doing were transformed, 91aat their second incarnation, ^note into women. And it was for this reason that the gods at that time contrived the love of sexual intercourse by constructing an animate creature of one kind in us men, and of another kind in women; and they made these severally in the following fashion. From the passage of egress for the drink, where it receives and joins in discharging the fluid which has come through the lungs beneath the kidneys into the bladder and has been compressed by the air, they bored a hole into the condensed marrow which comes from the head down by the neck and along the spine 91bwhich marrow, in our previous account, ^note we termed “seed.” And the marrow, inasmuch as it is animate and has been granted an outlet, has endowed the part where its outlet lies with a love for generating by implanting therein a lively desire for emission. Wherefore in men the nature of the genital organs is disobedient and self-willed, like a creature that is deaf to reason, and it attempts to dominate all because of its frenzied lusts. 91cAnd in women again, owing to the same causes, whenever the matrix or womb, as it is called,—which is an indwelling creature desirous of child-bearing,—remains without fruit long beyond the due season, it is vexed and takes it ill; and by straying all ways through the body and blocking up the passages of the breath and preventing respiration it casts the body into the uttermost distress, and causes, moreover, all kinds of maladies; until the desire and love of the two sexes unite them. Then, culling as it were the fruit from trees,