[386d]
“
Lest unto men and immortals the homes of the dead be
uncovered
Horrible, noisome, dank, that the gods too hold in abhorrence,
”Hom. Il. 20.641
and:“
Ah me! so it is true that e'en in the dwellings of
Hades
Spirit there is and wraith, but within there is no understanding,
”Hom. Il. 10.4952 and this: “
Sole to have wisdom and wit, but the others are
shadowy phantoms,
”Hom. Il. 23.1033 and:“
Forth from his limbs unwilling his spirit flitted to
Hades,
Wailing its doom and its lustihood lost and the May of its
manhood,
”Hom. Il. 16.8564
2 The exclamation and inference (ῥά) of Achilles when the shade of Patroclus eludes his embrace in the dream. The text is endlessly quoted by writers on religious origins and dream and ghost theories of the origin of the belief in the soul.
3 Said of the prophet Teiresias. The preceding line is, “Unto him even in death was it granted by Persephoneia.” The line is quoted also in Meno 100 A.
4 Said of the death of Patroclus, and Hector, Hom. Il. 22.382; imitated in the last line of the Aeneid“Vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras.” Cf. Bacchyl. v. 153-4:πύματον δὲ πνέων δάκρυσα τλάμων ἀγλαὰν ἥβαν προλείπων.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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