Page:The Republic of Plato (3rd ed.) (Lindsay, 1923).djvu/419

x armour. After him came the soul of Agamemnon. He also hated the human race by reason of his sufferings, took in exchange the life of an eagle. The soul of Atalanta obtained her choice somewhere in the middle, and catching sight of the great honours of a man who was an athlete could not pass them by, but made that her choice. After her he saw the soul of Epeus, son of Panopcus, passing into the nature of a working woman. Quite among the last he saw the soul of the ridiculous Thersites becoming a monkey. It so happened that the soul of Odysseus came forward to choose the very last of all. He remembered his former labours and had ceased from his ambition and so he spent a long time going round looking for the life of a private and obscure man, At last he found it lying about, ignored by every one else; and when he saw it he took it gladly, and said that he would have made the same choice if the lot had fallen to him first. Similarly all the other animals changed into men and into cach other, the unjust into fierce, and the just into tame animals, and there were all possible combinations.

“And when all the souls had chosen their lives they went unto Lachesis in the order of their choosing. And she gave cach the angel! he had chosen to be a guard throughout his life and to accomplish his choice. The angel first led the soul towards Clotho, passing it under her hand and under the sweep of the whirling spindle, so ratifying the fate which the man had chosen in his turn. He touched the spindle, and then led the soul on to where Atropos was spinning, so that the threads might be made unalterable. Thence the man went without turning under the throne of Necessity, and after coming out on the other side he first waited for the others to pass through, and then all proceeded through terrible burning heat to the plain of Lethe where grew no plants nor any trees. At last they encamped at evening by the river of Forgetfulness, whose water no pitcher may hold. All had to drink a certain measure of this water, but those who were not preserved by wisdom drank more than the measure. Each as he drank it forgot everything. “Then they went to sleep, and it was