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inferior to swans with respect to divination, who, when they perceive that they must needs die, though they have been used to sing before, sing then more than ever, rejoicing that they are about to depart to that deity whose servants they are.

But men, through their own fear of death, belie the swans too, and say that, they lamenting their death, sing their last song through grief, and they do not consider that no bird sings when it is hungry or cold, or is afflicted with any other pain, not even the nightingale, or swallow, or the hoopoes, which they say sing oO.

PHADO. 89 lamenting through grief. But neither do these birds appear to me to sing through sorrow, nor yet do swans; but in my opinion, belonging to Apollo, they are prophetic, and foreseeing the blessings of Hades, they sing and rejoice on that day more excellently than at any preceding time. 78.

But I too con- sider myself to be a fellow-servant of the swans, and sacred to the same god, and that I have received the power of divination from our common master no less than they, and that I do not depart from this life with less spirits than they.

On this ac- count, therefore, it is right that you should both speak and ask whatever you please, as long as the Athenian Eleven permit.” “You say well,” said Simmias, “and both I will tell you what are my doubts, and he in turn how far he does not assent to what has been said.

T*or it appears to me, Socrates, prob- ably as it does to you with respect to these matters, that to know them clearly in the present life is either impossible, or very difficult: on the other hand, however, not to test what has been said of them in every possible way, so as not to desist until on examining them in every point of view, one has ex- hausted every effort, is the part of a very weak man.

For we ought with respect to these things, either to learn from others how they stand, or to discover them for one’s-self, or, if both these are impossible, then, taking the best of human reasonings and that which is the most difficult to be confuted, and em- barking on this, as one who risks himself on a raft, so to sail through life, unless one could be carried more safely, and with less risk, on a surer Conveyance or some divine reason. 79.

I, therefore, shall not now be ashamed to question you, since you bid me do so, nor shall I blame myself hereafter, for uot having now told you what I think; for to me, Socrates, when I con- sider the matter, both with myself and with Cebes, what has been said does not appear to have been sufficiently proved.”

Then said Socrates, ‘“‘ Perhaps, my friend, you have the truth on your side; but tell me in what respect it was not sufficiently proved.” “In this,” he answered, “ because any one might use the same argument with respect to harmony, and a lyre, and its chords, that harmony is something invisible and incorporeal, very beautiful and divine, in a well-modulated lyre: but the lyre and its chords are bodies, and of corporeal form, com- pounded and earthly, and akin to that which is mortal, When 90 PHZDO. any one, then, has either broken the lyre, or cut or burst the chords, he might maintain from the same reasoning as yours, that it is necessary the harmony should still exist and not be destroyed; for there could be no possibility that the lyre should subsist any longer when the chords are burst, and that the chords which are of a mortal nature should subeist, but that the harmony, which is of the same nature and akin to that which is divine and immortal, should become extinct, and perish before that which is mortal; but he might say that the harmony must needs subsist somewhere, and that the wood and chords must decay, before it can undergo any change. 80.

For I think, Socrates, that you yourself have arrived at this conclu- sion, that we consider the soul to be pretty much of this kind, namely, that our body being compacted and held together by heat and cold, dryness and moisture, and other such qualities, our soul is the fusion and harmony of these, when they are well and duly combined with each other.