[621b]
And after they had fallen asleep
and it was the middle of the night, there was a sound of thunder and a
quaking of the earth, and they were suddenly wafted thence, one this way,
one that, upward to their birth like shooting stars.1 Er
himself, he said, was not allowed to drink of the water, yet how and in what
way he returned to the body he said he did not know, but suddenly recovering
his sight2 he saw himself
at dawn lying on the funeral pyre.—And so, Glaucon, the tale was
saved,3 as
the saying is, and was not lost.
1 In Tim. 41 D-E each soul is given a star as its vehicle. Cf. Aristoph.Peace 833 f.ὡς ἀστέρες γιγνόμεθ᾽ ὁταν τις ἀποθάνῃ . . . with the Platonic epigram to Ἄστηρ: . . νῦν δὲ θανὼν λάμπεις Ἕσπερος ἐν φθιμένοιςThere is an old superstition in European folklore to the effect that when a star falls a soul goes up to God. Cf. also Rohde, Psyche, ii.6 p. 131.
2 Cf. Phaedrus 243 Bἀνέβλεψεν.
3 Cf. Phileb. 14 A, Laws 645 B, Theaet. 164 D.
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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