PATROCLEAS, PLUTARCH, TIMON, OLYMPICUS.

1. These and such like things, O Quintus! when Epicurus had spoken,

before any person could return an answer, while we were busy at the

farther end of the portico,[34] he flung away in great haste. However,

we could not but in some measure admire at the odd behavior of the man,

though without taking any farther notice of it in words; and therefore,

after we had gazed a while one upon another, we returned to walk as

we were singled out in company before. At this time Patrocleas first

breaking silence, How say ye, gentlemen? said he: if you think fitting,

why may not we discuss this question of the last proposer as well in

his absence as if he were present? To whom Timon replying, Surely, said

he, it would but ill become us, if at us he aimed upon his departure,

to neglect the arrow sticking in our sides. For Brasidas, as history

reports, drawing forth the javelin out of his own body, with the same

javelin not only wounded him that threw it, but slew him outright. But

as for ourselves, we surely have no need to revenge ourselves on them

that pelt us with absurd and fallacious reasonings; but it will be

sufficient that we shake them off before our opinion has taken hold of

them. Then, said I, which of his sayings is it that has given you the

greatest cause to be moved? For the man dragged into his discourse many

things confusedly, and nothing in order; but gleaning up and down from

this and the other place, as it were in the transports of his wrath and

scurrility, he then poured the whole in one torrent of abuse upon the

providence of God.

2. To which Patrocleas: The slowness of the Supreme Deity and his

procrastination in reference to the punishment of the wicked have long

perplexed my thoughts; but now, puzzled by these arguments which he

produces, I find myself as it were a stranger to the opinion, and newly

beginning again to learn. For a long time I could not with patience

hear that expression of Euripides,

Does he delay and slowly move;

’Tis but the nature of the Gods above.[35]

For indeed it becomes not the Supreme Deity to be remiss in any

thing, but more especially in the prosecution of the wicked, since

they themselves are no way negligent or dilatory in doing mischief,

but are always driven on by the most rapid impetuosities of their

passions to acts of injustice. For certainly, according to the saying

of Thucydides, that revenge which follows injury closest at the heels

presently puts a stop to the progress of such as make advantage of

successful wickedness.[36] Therefore there is no debt with so much

prejudice put off, as that of justice. For it weakens the hopes of the

person wronged and renders him comfortless and pensive, but heightens

the boldness and daring insolence of the oppressor; whereas, on the

other side, those punishments and chastisements that immediately

withstand presuming violence not only restrain the committing of future

outrages, but more especially bring along with them a particular

comfort and satisfaction to the sufferers. Which makes me no less

troubled at the saying of Bias, which frequently comes into my mind.

For thus he spake once to a notorious reprobate: It is not that I

doubt thou wilt suffer the just reward of thy wickedness, but I fear

that I myself shall not live to see it. For what did the punishment of

Aristocrates avail the Messenians who were killed before it came to

pass? He, having betrayed them at the battle of Taphrus yet remained

undetected for above twenty years together, and all that while reigned

king of the Arcadians, till at length, discovered and apprehended,

he received the merited recompense of his treachery. But alas! they

whom he had betrayed were all dead at the same time. Or when the

Orchomenians had lost their children, their friends, and familiar

acquaintance through the treachery of Lyciscus, what consolation was

it to them, that many years after a foul distemper seized the traitor,

and fed upon his body till it had consumed his putrefied flesh?—who,

as often as he dipped and bathed his feet in the river, with horrid

oaths and execrations prayed that his members might rot if he had been

guilty of treachery or any other villany. Nor was it possible even for

the children’s children of the Athenians who had been murdered long

before, to behold the bodies of those sacrilegious caitiffs torn out

of their graves and transported beyond the confines of their native

soil. Whence, in my opinion, Euripides absurdly makes use of these

expressions, to divert a man from wickedness:

If thou fear’st heav’n, thou fearest it in vain;

Justice is not so hasty, foolish man,

To pierce thy heart, or with contagious wound

Or thee or weaker mortals to confound;

But with slow pace and silent feet his doom

O’ertakes the sinner, when his time is come.

And I am apt to persuade myself that upon these and no other

considerations it is, that wicked men encourage and give themselves the

liberty to attempt and commit all manner of impieties, seeing that the

fruit which injustice yields is soon ripe, and offers itself early to

the gatherer’s hand, whereas punishment comes late, and lagging long

behind the pleasure of enjoyment.

3. After Patrocleas had thus discoursed, Olympicus taking him up,

There is this farther, said he, O Patrocleas! which thou shouldst have

taken notice of; for how great an inconveniency and absurdity arises

besides from these delays and procrastinations of divine justice! For

the slowness of its execution takes away the belief of providence; and

the wicked, perceiving that calamity does not presently follow at the

heels of every enormous crime, but a long time after, look upon their

calamity as a misfortune, and calling it chance, not punishment, are

nothing at all thereby reformed; troubled indeed they well may be at

the dire accident befallen them, but they never repent of the villanies

they have committed. For as, in the case of the horse, the lashing and

spurring that immediately pursue the transgression correct and reduce

him to his duty, but all the tugging at the bit and shouting which are

late and out of time seem to be inflicted for some other reason than

to teach or instruct, the animal being thereby put to pain without

understanding his error; in like manner, were the impieties of enormous

transgressors and heinous offenders singly scourged and repressed by

immediate severity, it would be most likely[37] to bring them to a

sense of their folly, humble them, and strike them with an awe of the

Divine Being, whom they find with a watchful eye beholding the actions

and passions of men, and feel to be no dilatory but a speedy avenger

of iniquity; whereas that remiss and slow-paced justice (as Euripides

describes it) that falls upon the wicked by accident, by reason of its

uncertainty, ill-timed delay, and disorderly motion, seems rather to

resemble chance than providence. So that I cannot conceive what benefit

there is in these millstones of the Gods which are said to grind so

late,[38] as thereby celestial punishment is obscured, and the awe of

evil doing rendered vain and despicable.

4. These things thus uttered, while I was in a deep meditation of what

he had said, Timon interposed. Is it your pleasure, said he, that I

shall give the finishing stroke to the difficulties of this knotty

question, or shall I first permit him to argue in opposition to what

has been propounded already? Nay then, said I, to what purpose is it to

let in a third wave to drown the argument, if one be not able to repel

or avoid the objections already made?

To begin therefore, as from the Vestal hearth, from that ancient

circumspection and reverence which our ancestors, being Academic

philosophers also, bare to the Supreme Godhead, we shall utterly

decline to speak of that mysterious Being as if we could presume to

utter positively any thing concerning it. For though it may be borne

withal, for men unskilled in music to talk at random of notes and

harmony, or for such as never experienced warfare to discourse of arms

and military affairs; yet it would be a bold and daring arrogance in

us, that are but mortal men, to dive too far into the incomprehensible

mysteries of Deities and Daemons,—just as if persons void of knowledge

should undertake to judge of the methods and reason of cunning artists

by slight opinions and probable conjectures of their own. And while one

that understands nothing of science finds it hard to give a reason why

the physician did not let blood before but afterwards, or why he did

not bathe his patient yesterday but to-day; it cannot be that it is

safe or easy for a mortal to speak otherwise of the Supreme Deity than

only this, that he alone it is who knows the most convenient time to

apply most proper corrosives for the cure of sin and impiety, and to

administer punishments as medicaments to every transgressor, yet being

not confined to an equal quality and measure common to all distempers,

nor to one and the same time. Now that the medicine of the soul which

is called justice is the most transcendent of all sciences, besides

ten thousand other witnesses, even Pindar himself testifies, where

he gives to God, the ruler and lord of all things, the title of the

most perfect artificer, as being the grand author and distributer of

Justice, to whom it properly belongs to determine at what time, in what

manner, and to what degree to punish every particular offender. And

Plato asserts that Minos, being the son of Jupiter, was the disciple

of his father to learn this science; intimating thereby that it is

impossible for any other than a scholar, bred up in the school of

equity, rightly to behave himself in the administration of justice, or

to make a true judgment of another whether he does well or no. For the

laws which are constituted by men do not always prescribe that which is

unquestionable and simply decent, or of which the reason is altogether

without exception perspicuous, in regard that some of their ordinances

seem to be on purpose ridiculously contrived; particularly those which

in Lacedaemon the Ephori ordain at their first entering into the

magistracy, that no man suffer the hair of his upper lip to grow, and

that they shall be obedient to the laws to the end they may not seem

grievous to them. So the Romans, when they asserted the freedom of

any one, cast a slender rod upon his body; and when they make their

last wills and testaments, some they leave to be their heirs, while to

others they sell their estates; which seems to be altogether contrary

to reason. But that of Solon is most absurd, who, when a city is up

in arms and all in sedition, brands with infamy the person who stands

neuter and adheres to neither party. And thus a man that apprehends

not the reason of the lawgiver, or the cause why such and such things

are so prescribed, might number up several absurdities of many laws.

What wonder then, since the actions of men are so difficult to be

understood, if it be no less difficult to determine concerning the

Gods, wherefore they inflict their punishments upon sinners, sometimes

later, sometimes sooner.

5. Nor do I allege these things as a pretence to avoid the dispute,

but to secure the pardon which I beg, to the end that our discourse,

having a regard (as it were) to some port or refuge, may proceed the

more boldly in producing probable circumstances to clear the doubt. But

first consider this; that God, according to Plato, when he set himself

before the eyes of the whole world as the exemplar of all that was

good and holy, granted human virtue, by which man is in some measure

rendered like himself, unto those that are able to follow the Deity by

imitation. For universal Nature, being at first void of order, received

its first impulse to change and to be formed into a world, by being

made to resemble and (as it were) partake of that idea and virtue which

is in God. And the self-same Plato asserts, that Nature first kindled

the sense of seeing within us, to the end that the soul, by the sight

and admiration of the heavenly bodies, being accustomed to love and

embrace decency and order, might be induced to hate the disorderly

motions of wild and raving passions, and avoid levity and rashness and

dependence upon chance, as the original of all improbity and vice. For

there is no greater benefit that men can enjoy from God, than, by the

imitation and pursuit of those perfections and that sanctity which

is in him, to be excited to the study of virtue. Therefore God, with

forbearance and at leisure, inflicts his punishment upon the wicked;

not that he is afraid of committing an error or of repenting should he

accelerate his indignation; but to eradicate that brutish and eager

desire of revenge that reigns in human breasts, and to teach us that we

are not in the heat of fury, or when our anger heaving and palpitating

boils up above our understanding, to fall upon those who have done

us an injury, like those who seek to gratify a vehement thirst or

craving appetite, but that we should, in imitation of this mildness

and forbearance, wait with due composure of mind before we proceed to

chastisement or correction, till such sufficient time for consideration

is taken as shall allow the least possible room for repentance. For, as

Socrates observed, it is far the lesser mischief for a man distempered

with ebriety and gluttony to drink puddle-water, than, when the mind is

disturbed and over-charged with anger and fury, before it be settled

and become limpid again, for a man to seek the satiating his revenge

upon the body of his friend or kinsman. For it is not the revenge which

is the nearest to injury, as Thucydides says, but rather that which is

the most remote from it, that observes the most convenient opportunity.

For as anger, according to that of Melanthius,

Quite from the brain transplants the wit,

Vile acts designing to commit;

so reason does that which is just and moderate, laying passion and fury

aside. Whence it comes to pass that men, giving ear to human examples,

become more mansuete and gentle; as when they hear how Plato, holding

his cudgel over his page’s shoulders, as himself relates, paused a

good while, correcting his own anger; and how in like manner Archytas,

observing the sloth and wilful negligence of his servants in the

field, and perceiving his passion to rise at a more than usual rate,

did nothing at all; but as he went away, It is your good fortune, said

he, that ye have angered me. If then the sayings of men when called to

mind, and their actions being told, have such a power to mitigate the

roughness and vehemency of wrath, much more becomes it us, beholding

God, with whom there is neither dread nor repentance of any thing,

deferring nevertheless his punishments to future time and admitting

delay, to be cautious and circumspect in these matters, and to deem as

a divine part of virtue that mildness and long-suffering of which God

affords us an example, while by punishing he reforms some few, but by

slowly punishing he helpeth and admonisheth many.

6. In the second place, therefore, let us consider this, that human

punishments of injuries regard no more than that the party suffer in

his turn, and are satisfied when the offender has suffered according

to his merit; and farther they never proceed. Which is the reason that

they run after provocations, like dogs that bark in their fury, and

immediately pursue the injury as soon as committed. But probable it is

that God, whatever distempered soul it be which he prosecutes with his

divine justice, observes the motions and inclinations of it, whether

they be such as tend to repentance, and allows time for the reformation

of those whose wickedness is neither invincible nor incorrigible. For,

since he well knows what a proportion of virtue souls carry along

with them from himself when they come into the world, and how strong

and vigorous their innate and primitive good yet continues,—while

wickedness buds forth only preternaturally upon the corruption of bad

diet and evil conversation, and even then some souls recover again

to perfect cure or an indifferent habitude,—therefore he doth not

make haste to inflict his punishments alike upon all. But those that

are incurable he presently lops off and deprives of life, deeming it

altogether hurtful to others, but most baneful to themselves, to be

always wallowing in wickedness. But as for those who may probably be

thought to transgress rather out of ignorance of what is virtuous and

good, than through choice of what is foul and vicious, he grants them

time to turn; but if they remain obdurate, then likewise he inflicts

his punishments upon them; for he has no fear lest they should escape.

Now let us consider how oft the characters and lives of men are

changed; for which reason, the character is called τρόπος, as being

the _changeable_ part, and also ἦθος, since _custom_ (ἔθος) chiefly

prevails in it and rules with the greatest power when it has seized

upon it. Therefore I am of opinion, that the ancients reported Cecrops

to have had two bodies, not, as some believe, because of a good king he

became a merciless and dragon-like tyrant, but rather, on the contrary,

for that being at first both cruel and formidable, afterwards he

became a most mild and gentle prince. However, if this be uncertain,

yet we know both Gelo and Hiero the Sicilians, and Pisistratus the son

of Hippocrates, who, having obtained the sovereignty by violence and

wickedness, made a virtuous use of their power, and coming unjustly

to the throne, became moderate rulers and beneficial to the public.

For, by recommending wholesome laws and the exercise of useful tillage

to their subjects, they reduced them from idle scoffers and talkative

romancers to be modest citizens and industrious good husbands. And as

for Gelo, after he had been successful in his war and vanquished the

Carthaginians, he refused to grant them the peace which they sued for,

unless they would consent to have it inserted in their articles that

they would surcease from sacrificing their children to Saturn.

Over Megalopolis Lydiadas was tyrant; but then, even in the time

of his tyranny, changing his manners and maxims of government and

growing into a hatred of injustice, he restored to the citizens their

laws, and fighting for his country against his own and his subjects’

enemies, fell an illustrious victim for his country’s welfare. Now if

any one, bearing an antipathy to Miltiades or Cimon, had slain the one

tyrannizing in the Chersonese or the other committing incest with his

own sister, or had expelled Themistocles out of Athens at what time

he lay rioting and revelling in the market-place and affronting all

that came near him, according to the sentence afterwards pronounced

against Alcibiades, had we not lost Marathon, the Eurymedon, and lovely

Artemisium,

Where the Athenian youth

The famed foundations of their freedom laid?[39]

For great and lofty geniuses produce nothing that is mean and little;

the innate smartness of their parts will not endure the vigor and

activity of their spirits to grow lazy; but they are tossed to

and again, as with the waves, by the rolling motions of their own

inordinate desire, till at length they arrive to a stable and settled

constitution of manners. Therefore, as a person that is unskilful in

husbandry would by no means make choice of a piece of ground quite

overrun with brakes and weeds, abounding with wild beasts, running

streams, and mud; while, to him who hath learnt to understand the

nature of the earth, these are certain symptoms of the softness and

fertility of the soil; thus great geniuses many times produce many

absurd and vile enormities, of which we not enduring the rugged and

uneasy vexation, are presently for pruning and lopping off the lawless

transgressors. But the more prudent judge, who discerns the abounding

goodness and generosity covertly residing in those transcendent

geniuses, waits the co-operating age and season for reason and virtue

to exert themselves, and gathers the ripe fruit when Nature has matured

it. And thus much as to those particulars.

7. Now to come to another part of our discourse, do you not believe

that some of the Greeks did very prudently to register that law

in Egypt among their own, whereby it is enacted that, if a woman

with child be sentenced to die, she shall be reprieved till she be

delivered? All the reason in the world, you will say. Then, say I,

though a man cannot bring forth children, yet if he be able, by the

assistance of Time, to reveal any hidden action or conspiracy, or to

discover some concealed mischief, or to be author of some wholesome

piece of advice,—or suppose that in time he may produce some necessary

and useful invention,—is it not better to delay the punishment and

expect the benefit, than hastily to rid him out of the world? It seems

so to me, said I. And truly you are in the right, replied Patrocleas,

for let us consider, had Dionysius at the beginning of his tyranny

suffered according to his merits, never would any of the Greeks have

re-inhabited Sicily, laid waste by the Carthaginians. Nor would the

Greeks have repossessed Apollonia, nor Anactorium, nor the peninsula

of the Leucadians, had not Periander’s execution been delayed for a

long time. And if I mistake not, it was to the delay of Cassander’s

punishment that the city of Thebes was beholden for her recovery

from desolation. But the most of those barbarians who assisted at

the sacrilegious plunder of this temple,[40] following Timoleon into

Sicily, after they had vanquished the Carthaginians and dissolved the

tyrannical government of that island, wicked as they were, came all to

a wicked end. So the Deity makes use of some wicked persons as common

executioners to punish the wickedness of others, and then destroys

those instruments of his wrath,—which I believe to be true of most

tyrants. For as the gall of a hyena and the rennet of a sea-calf—both

filthy monsters—contain something in them for the cure of diseases; so

when some people deserve a sharp and biting punishment, God, subjecting

them to the implacable severity of some certain tyrant or the cruel

oppression of some ruler, does not remove either the torment or the

trouble, till he has cured and purified the distempered nation. Such

a sort of physic was Phalaris to the Agrigentines, and Marius to the

Romans. And God expressly foretold the Sicyonians how much their

city stood in need of most severe chastisement, when, after they had

violently ravished out of the hands of the Cleonaeans Teletias, a

young lad who had been crowned at the Pythian games, they tore him

limb from limb, as their own fellow-citizen. Therefore Orthagoras the

tyrant, and after him Myro and Clisthenes, put an end to the luxury and

lasciviousness of the Sicyonians; but the Cleonaeans, not having the

good fortune to meet with the same cure, went all to wreck. To this

purpose, hear what Homer says:

From parent vile by far the better son

Did spring, whom various virtues did renown.[41]

And yet we do not find that ever the son of Copreus performed any

famous or memorable achievement; but the offspring of Sisyphus,

Autolycus, and Phlegyas flourished among the number of the most famous

and virtuous princes. Pericles at Athens descended from an accursed

family; and Pompey the Great at Rome was the son of Strabo, whose dead

body the Roman people, in the height of their hatred conceived against

him when alive, cast forth into the street and trampled in the dirt.

Where is the absurdity then,—as the husbandman never cuts away the

thorn till it injures the asparagus, or as the Libyans never burn the

stalks till they have gathered all the ladanum,—if God never extirpates

the evil and thorny root of a renowned and royal race before he has

gathered from it the mature and proper fruit? For it would have been

far better for the Phocians to have lost ten thousand of Iphitus’s

horses and oxen, or a far greater sum in gold and silver from the

temple of Delphi, than that Ulysses and Aesculapius should not have

been born, and those many others who, of wicked and vicious men, became

highly virtuous and beneficial to their country.

8. And should we not think it better to inflict deserved punishments in

due season and by convenient means, than hastily and rashly when a man

is in the heat and hurry of passion? Witness the example of Callippus,

who, having stabbed Dio under the pretence of being his friend, was

himself soon after slain by Dio’s intimates with the same dagger. Thus

again, when Mitius of Argos was slain in a city tumult, the brazen

statue which stood in the market-place, soon after, at the time of the

public shows, fell down upon the murderer’s head and killed him. What

befell Bessus the Paeonian, and Aristo the Oetaean, chief commander of

the foreign soldiers, I suppose you understood full well, Patrocleas.

Not I, by Jove, said he, but I desire to know. Well then, I say, this

Aristo, having with permission of the tyrants carried away the jewels

and ornaments belonging to Eriphyle, which lay deposited in this

temple, made a present of them to his wife. The punishment of this was

that the son, being highly incensed against his mother, for what reason

it matters not, set fire to his father’s house, and burned it to the

ground, with all the family that were in it.

As for Bessus, it seems he killed his own father, and the murder

lay concealed a long time. At length being invited to supper among

strangers, after he had so loosened a swallow’s nest with his spear

that it fell down, he killed all the young ones. Upon which, being

asked by the guests that were present, what injury the swallows had

done him that he should commit such an irregular act; Did you not

hear, said he, these cursed swallows, how they clamored and made a

noise, false witnesses as they were, that I had long ago killed my

father? This answer struck the rest of the guests with so much wonder,

that, after a due pondering upon his words, they made known the whole

story to the king. Upon which, the matter being dived into, Bessus was

brought to condign punishment.

9. These things I have alleged, as it was but reason, upon a

supposition that there is a forbearance of inflicting punishment upon

the wicked. As for what remains, it behooves us to listen to Hesiod,

where he asserts,—not like Plato, that punishment is a suffering which

accompanies injustice,—but that it is of the same age with it, and

arises from the same place and root. For, says he,

Bad counsel, so the Gods ordain,

Is most of all the adviser’s bane.

And in another place,

He that his neighbor’s harm contrives, his art

Contrives the mischief ’gainst his own false heart.[42]

It is reported that the cantharis fly, by a certain kind of

contrariety, carries within itself the cure of the wound which it

inflicts. On the other side wickedness, at the same time it is

committed, engendering its own vexation and torment, not at last,

but at the very instant of the injury offered, suffers the reward

of the injustice it has done. And as every malefactor who suffers

in his body bears his own cross to the place of his execution, so

are all the various torments of various wicked actions prepared by

wickedness herself. Such a diligent architectress of a miserable and

wretched life is wickedness, wherein shame is still accompanied with a

thousand terrors and commotions of the mind, incessant repentance, and

never-ceasing tumults of the spirits. However, there are some people

that differ little or nothing from children, who, many times beholding

malefactors upon the stage, in their gilded vestments and short purple

cloaks, dancing with crowns upon their heads, admire and look upon

them as the most happy persons in the world, till they see them gored

and lashed, and flames of fire curling from underneath their sumptuous

and gaudy garments. Thus there are many wicked men, surrounded with

numerous families, splendid in the pomp of magistracy, and illustrious

for the greatness of their power, whose punishments never display

themselves till those glorious persons come to be the public spectacles

of the people, either slain and lying weltering in their blood, or else

standing on the top of the rock, ready to be tumbled headlong down the

precipice; which indeed cannot so well be said to be a punishment, as

the consummation and perfection of punishment.

Moreover, as Herodicus the Selymbrian, falling into a consumption,

the most incurable of all diseases, was the first who intermixed the

gymnastic art with the science of physic (as Plato relates), and in

so doing did spin out in length a tedious time of dying, as well for

himself as for others laboring under the same distemper; in like manner

some wicked men who flatter themselves to have escaped the present

punishment, not after a longer time, but for a longer time, endure a

more lasting, not a slower punishment; not punished with old age, but

growing old under the tribulation of tormenting affliction. When I

speak of a long time I speak in reference to ourselves. For as to the

Gods, every distance and distinction of human life is nothing; and to

say “now, and not thirty years ago” is the same thing as to say that

such a malefactor should be tormented or hanged in the afternoon and

not in the morning;—more especially since a man is but shut up in this

life, like a close prisoner in a gaol, from whence it is impossible to

make an escape, while yet we feast and banquet, are full of business,

receive rewards and honors and sport. Though certainly these are but

like the sports of those that play at dice or draughts in the gaol,

while the rope all the while hangs over their heads.

10. So that what should hinder me from asserting, that they who are

condemned to die and shut up in prison are not truly punished till

the executioner has chopped off their heads, or that he who has drunk

hemlock, and then walks about and stays till a heaviness seizes his

limbs, has suffered no punishment before the extinction of his natural

heat and the coagulation of his blood deprive him of his senses,—that

is to say, if we deem the last moment of the punishment only to be

the punishment, and omit the commotions, terrors, apprehensions, and

embitterments of repentance, with which every malefactor and all

wicked men are teased upon the committing of any heinous crime? But

this is to deny the fish to be taken that has swallowed the hook,

before we see it boiled and cut into pieces by the cook; for every

offender is within the gripes of the law, so soon as he has committed

the crime and has swallowed the sweet bait of injustice, while his

conscience within, tearing and gnawing upon his vitals, allows him no

rest:

Like the swift tunny, frighted from his prey,

Rolling and plunging in the angered sea.

For the daring rashness and precipitate boldness of iniquity continue

violent and active till the fact be perpetrated; but then the passion,

like a surceasing tempest, growing slack and weak, surrenders itself to

superstitious fears and terrors. So that Stesichorus may seem to have

composed the dream of Clytemnestra, to set forth the event and truth of

things:

Then seemed a dragon to draw near,

With mattery blood all on his head besmeared;

Therefrom the king Plisthenides appeared.

For visions in dreams, noon-day apparitions, oracles, descents into

hell, and whatever objects else which may be thought to be transmitted

from heaven, raise continual tempests and horrors in the very souls

of the guilty. Thus it is reported that Apollodorus in a dream beheld

himself flayed by the Scythians and then boiled, and that his heart,

speaking to him out of the kettle, uttered these words, I am the cause

thou sufferest all this. And another time, that he saw his daughters

run about him, their bodies burning and all in a flame. Hipparchus

also, the son of Pisistratus, had a dream, that the Goddess Venus out

of a certain phial flung blood in his face. The favorites of Ptolemy,

surnamed the Thunderer, dreamed that they saw their master cited to the

judgment-seat by Seleucus, where wolves and vultures were his judges,

and then distributing great quantities of flesh among his enemies.

Pausanias, in the heat of his lust, sent for Cleonice, a free-born

virgin of Byzantium, with an intention to have enjoyed her all night;

but when she came, out of a strange sort of jealousy and perturbation

for which he could give no reason, he stabbed her. This murder was

attended with frightful visions; insomuch that his repose in the night

was not only interrupted with the appearance of her shape, but still he

thought he heard her uttering these lines:

To judgment-seat approach thou near, I say;

Wrong dealing is to men most hurtful aye.

After this the apparition still haunting him, he sailed to the oracle

of the dead in Heraclea, and by propitiations, charms, and dirges,

called up the ghost of the damsel; which, appearing before him, told

him in few words, that he should be free from all his affrights and

molestations upon his return to Lacedaemon; where he was no sooner

arrived, but he died.

11. Therefore, if nothing befalls the soul after the expiration of

this life, but death is the end of all reward and punishment, I might

infer from thence rather that the Deity is remiss and indulgent in

swiftly punishing the wicked and depriving them of life. For if a

man shall assert that in the space of this life the wicked are no

otherwise affected than by the convincement that crime is a fruitless

and barren thing, that produces nothing of good, nothing worthy of

esteem, from the many great and terrible combats and agonies of the

mind, the consideration of these things altogether subverts the soul.

As it is related that Lysimachus, being under the violent constraint

of a parching thirst, surrendered up his person and his dominions to

the Getae for a little drink; but after he had quenched his draught

and found himself a captive, Shame of this wickedness of mine, cried

he, that for so small a pleasure have lost so great a kingdom. But

it is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of

mortal passions. Yet when a man, either out of avarice, or ambition of

civil honor and power, or to gratify his venereal desires, commits any

enormous and heinous crime, after which, the thirst and rage of his

passion being allayed, he comes to set before his eyes the ignominious

and horrible passions tending to injustice still remaining, but sees

nothing useful, nothing necessary, nothing conducible to make his

life happy; may it not be probably conjectured that such a person is

frequently solicited by these reflections to consider how rashly,

either prompted by vain-glory, or for the sake of a lawless and barren

pleasure, he has overthrown the noblest and greatest maxims of justice

among men, and overflowed his life with shame and trouble? As Simonides

jesting was wont to say, that the chest which he kept for money he

found always full, but that which he kept for gratitude he found always

empty; thus wicked men, contemplating their own wickedness, find it

always void altogether and destitute of hope (since pleasure gives

but a short and empty delight), but ever weighed down with fears and

sorrows, ungrateful remembrances, suspicions of futurity, and distrusts

of present accidents. Thus we hear Ino complaining upon the theatre,

after her repentance of what she had done:

Dear women, tell me, with what face

Shall I return to dwell with Athamas,

As if it ne’er had been my luckless fate

The worst of foul misdeeds to perpetrate?[43]

Thus is it not reason to believe, that the soul of every wicked man

revolves and reasons within itself, how by burying in oblivion former

transgressions, and casting from itself the consciousness and the

guilt of hitherto committed crimes, to fit frail mortality under her

conduct for a new course of life? For there is nothing for a man to

confide in, nothing but what vanishes like smoke, nothing durable

or constant in whatever impiety proposes to itself,—unless, by Jove,

we will allow the unjust and vicious to be sage philosophers,—but

wherever eager avarice and voluptuousness, inexorable hatred, enmity,

and improbity associate together, there you shall also be sure to find

superstition nestling and herding with effeminacy and terror of death,

a swift change of the most violent passions, and an arrogant ambition

after undeserved honor. Such men as these stand in continual dread of

their contemners and backbiters, they fear their applauders, believing

themselves injured by their flatteries; and more especially, they are

at enmity with bad men, because they are so free to extol those that

seem good. However, that which hardens men to mischief soon cankers,

grows brittle, and shivers in pieces like bad iron. So that in process

of time, coming to understand themselves better and to be more sensible

of their miscarriages, they disdain, abhor, and utterly disclaim their

former course of life. And when we see how a wicked man who restores

a trust or becomes security for his friend, or ambitious of honor

contributes more largely to the benefits of his country, is immediately

in a condition of repentance and sorry for what he has just done, by

reason of the natural inclination of his mind to ramble and change;

and how some men, being clapped and hummed upon the theatre, presently

fall a weeping, their desire of glory relapsing into covetousness; we

surely cannot believe that those which sacrificed the lives of men to

the success of their tyrannies and conspiracies, as Apollodorus, or

plundered their friends of their treasure and deprived them of their

estates, as Glaucus the son of Epicydes, did not repent and abhor

themselves, or that they were not sorry for the perpetration of such

foul enormities. For my part, if it may be lawful for me to deliver

my opinion, I believe there is no occasion either for the Gods or

men to inflict their punishment upon the most wicked and sacrilegious

offenders; seeing that the course of their own lives is sufficient to

chastise their crimes, while they remain under the consternations and

torments attending their impiety.

12. And now consider whether my discourse have not enlarged itself

too far. To which Timon: Perhaps (said he) it may seem to have been

too long, if we consider what remains behind, and the length of time

required for the discussion of our other doubts. For now I am going

about to put forward the last question, like a new champion, since we

have contended already long enough upon the former. Now, as to what we

have further to say, we find that Euripides delivers his mind freely,

and censures the Gods for imputing the transgressions of forefathers

unto their offspring. And I am apt to believe that even they who are

most silent among us do the like. For if the offenders themselves have

already received their reward, then there is no reason why the innocent

should be punished, since it is not equal to punish even criminals

twice for the same fact. But if remiss and careless, the Gods, omitting

opportunely to inflict their penalties upon the wicked, send down

their tardy rigor on the blameless, they do not well to repair their

defective slowness by injustice. As it is reported of Aesop, that he

came upon a time to Delphi, having brought along with him a great

quantity of gold which Croesus had bestowed upon him, on purpose to

offer a most magnificent oblation to the Gods, and with a design

moreover to distribute among the priests and the people of Delphi four

minas apiece. But there happening some disgust and difference between

him and the Delphians, he performed his solemnity, but sent back his

money to Sardis, not deeming those ungrateful people worthy of his

bounty. Upon which the Delphians, laying their heads together, accused

him of sacrilege, and then threw him down headlong from a steep and

prodigious precipice, which is there, called Hyampia. Upon which it

is reported that the Deity, being highly incensed against them for

so horrid a murder, brought a famine upon the land, and infested the

people with noisome diseases of all sorts; insomuch that they were

constrained to make it their business to travel to all the general

assemblies and places of public concourse in Greece, making public

proclamation wherever they came, that, whoever they were that would

demand justice for the death of Aesop, they were prepared to give

him satisfaction and to undergo whatever penalty he should require.

Three generations afterwards came one Idmon, a Samian, no way of kin

or otherwise related to Aesop, but only descended from those who had

purchased Aesop in Samos; to whom the Delphians paid those forfeitures

which he demanded, and were delivered from all their pressing

calamities. And from hence (by report) it was, that the punishment of

sacrilegious persons was transferred from the rock Hyampia to that

other cliff which bears the name of Nauplia.

Neither is Alexander applauded by those who have the greatest esteem

for his memory (of which number are we ourselves), who utterly laid

waste the city of Branchidae, putting men, women, and children to the

sword, for that their ancestors had long before delivered up the temple

of Miletus. In like manner Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, when the

Corcyraeans requested to know the reason of him, why he depopulated

their island, deriding and scoffing at their demand, replied: For

no other reason, by Jove, but because your forefathers entertained

Ulysses. And when the islanders of Ithaca expostulated with him,

asking why his soldiers carried away their sheep; because, said he,

when your king came to our island, he put out the eyes of the shepherd

himself. And therefore do you not think Apollo more extravagant than

all these, for punishing so severely the Pheneatae by stopping up that

profound and spacious receptacle of all those floods that now cover

their country, upon a bare report that Hercules a thousand years ago

took away the prophetic tripod and carried it to Pheneus?—or when he

foretold to the Sybarites, that all their calamities should cease, upon

condition they appeased the wrath of Leucadian Juno by enduring three

ruinous calamities upon their country? Nor is it so long since, that

the Locrians surceased to send their virgins to Troy;

Who like the meanest slaves, exposed to scorn,

Barefoot, with limbs unclad, at earliest morn

Minerva’s temple sweep; yet all the while,

No privilege has age from weary toil.

Nor, when with years decrepit, can they claim

The thinnest veil to hide their aged shame;

and all this to punish the lasciviousness of Ajax.

Now where is the reason or justice of all this? Nor is the custom of

the Thracians to be approved, who to this day abuse their wives in

revenge of their cruelty to Orpheus. And with as little reason are

the Barbarians about the river Po to be extolled, who once a year put

themselves into mourning for the misfortune of Phaethon. And still more

ridiculous than all this it would certainly be, when all those people

that lived at the time took no notice of Phaethon’s mischance, that

they, who happened to be born five or ten generations after, should be

so idle as to take up the custom of going into black and bewailing his

downfall. However, in all these things there is nothing to be observed

but mere folly; nothing pernicious, nor any thing dangerous. But as for

the anger of the Gods, what reason can be given why their wrath should

stop and conceal itself upon a sudden, like some certain rivers, and

when all things seem to be forgot, should break forth upon others with

so much fury, as not to be atoned but with some remarkable calamities?

13. Upon that, so soon as he had done speaking, not a little afraid

lest, if he should begin again, he would run himself into many more and

greater absurdities, I asked: Do you believe, sir, all that you have

said to be true? Then he: Though all that I have alleged may not be

true, yet if only some part may be allowed for truth, do not you think

there is the same difficulty still remaining in the question? It may

be so, said I. And thus it is with those who labor under a vehement

burning fever; for, whether covered with one blanket or many, the heat

is still the same or very little different; yet for refreshment’s

sake it may be convenient sometimes to lighten the weight of the

clothes; and if the patient refuse your courtesy, to let him alone.

Yet I must tell you, the greatest part of these examples look like

fables and fiction. Call to mind therefore the feast called Theoxenia

lately celebrated, and that most noble portion which the public criers

proclaim to be received as their due by the offspring of Pindar; and

recollect with yourself, how majestic and grateful a mark of grandeur

you look upon that to be. Truly, said he, I judge there is no man

living who would not be sensible of the curiosity and elegancy of such

an honor, displaying antiquity void of tincture and false glitter,

after the Greek manner, unless he were such a brute that I may use the

words of Pindar himself:

Whose coal-black heart, from natural dross unpurged,

Had only by cold flames at first been forged.

Therefore I forbear, said I, to mention that proclamation not much

unlike to this, usually made in Sparta,—“After the Lesbian singer,”—in

honor and memory of the ancient Terpander. But you, on the other

side, deem yourself worthy to be preferred above all the rest of the

Boeotians, as being of the noble race of the Opheltiadae; and among

the Phocians you claim undoubted pre-eminence, for the sake of your

ancestor Daiphantus. And, for my part, I must acknowledge that you

were one of the first who assisted me, as my second, against the

Lycormaeans and Satilaeans, claiming the privilege of wearing crowns

and the honor due by the laws of Greece to the descendants from

Hercules; at what time I affirmed, that those honors and guerdons ought

more especially to be preserved inviolable to the immediate progeny of

Hercules, in regard that, though he were so great a benefactor to the

Greeks, yet in his lifetime he was not thought worthy of any reward

or return of gratitude. You recall to my remembrance, said he, a most

noble contest, and worthy the debate of philosophy itself. Dismiss

therefore, said I, that vehement humor of yours that excites you to

accuse the Gods, nor take it ill, if many times celestial punishment

discharges itself upon the offspring of the wicked and vicious; or else

be not too much overjoyed or too forward to applaud those honors which

are due to nobility of birth. For it becomes us, if we believe that the

reward of virtue ought to be extended to posterity, by the same reason

to take it for granted that punishment for impieties committed ought

not to be stayed and cease any sooner, but that it should run forward

at equal pace with the reward, which will in turn requite every man

with what is his due. And therefore they that with pleasure behold the

race of Cimon highly honored in Athens, but on the other side, fret and

fume at the exilement of the posterity of Lachares or Ariston, are too

remiss and oscitant, or rather too morose and over quarrelsome with the

Deity itself, one while accusing the Divinity if the posterity of an

unjust and wicked person seem to prosper in the world, another time no

less moody and finding fault if it fall out that the race of the wicked

come to be utterly destroyed and extirpated from the earth. And thus,

whether the children of the wicked or the children of the just fall

under affliction, the case is all one to them; the Gods must suffer

alike in their bad opinions.

14. These, said I, are the preliminaries, which I would have you make

use of against those choleric accusers and testy snarlers of whom I

have given you warning. But now to take in hand once more, as it were,

the first end of the bottom of thread, in this same dark discourse of

the Gods, wherein there are so many windings and turnings and gloomy

labyrinths, let us by degrees and with caution direct our steps to

what is most likely and probable. For, even in those things which fall

under our daily practice and management, we are many times at a loss

to determine the undoubted and unquestioned truth. For example, what

certain reason can be given for that custom amongst us, of ordering the

children of parents that die of a consumption or a dropsy to sit with

both their feet soaking in the water till the dead body be burnt? For

people believe, that thereby the disease is prevented from becoming

hereditary, and also that it is a charm to secure those children from

it as long as they live. Again, what should be the reason, that if a

goat take a piece of sea-holly in her mouth, the whole herd will stand

still till the goat-herd come and take it out? Other hidden properties

there are, which, by virtue of certain touches and transitions, pass

from some bodies into others with incredible swiftness and often to

incredible distances. But we are more apt to wonder at distances of

time than those of space. And yet there is more reason to wonder,

that Athens should be infected with an epidemic contagion taking its

rise in Ethiopia, that Pericles should die and Thucydides be smitten

with the infection, than that, upon the impiety of the Delphians and

Sybarites, delayed vengeance should at length overtake their posterity.

For these hidden powers and properties have their sacred connections

and correspondences between their utmost endings and their first

beginnings; of which although the causes be concealed from us, yet

silently they bring to pass their proper effects.

15. Not but that there is a reason ready at hand for the public

punishments showered down from heaven upon particular cities. For a

city is a kind of entire thing and continued body, a certain sort of

creature, never subject to the changes and alterations of age, nor

varying through process of time from one thing to another, but always

sympathizing and in unity with itself, and receiving the punishment

or reward of whatever it does or has ever acted in common, so long as

the community, which makes it a body and binds it together with the

mutual bands of human benefit, preserves its unity. For he that goes

about of one city to make many, and perhaps an infinite number, by

distinguishing the intervals of time, seems to be like a person who

would make several of one single man, because he is now grown elderly

who before was a young man, and before that a mere stripling. Or

rather, it resembles the method of disputing amongst the Epicharmians,

the first authors of that manner of arguing called the increaser.

For example: he that formerly ran in debt, although he never paid

it, owes nothing now, as being become another man; and he that was

invited yesterday to supper comes the next night an unbidden guest,

for that he is quite another person. And indeed the distinctions of

ages cause greater alterations in every one of us than commonly they

do in cities. For he that has seen Athens may know it again thirty

years after; the present manners, motions, pastimes, serious studies,

their familiarities and marks of their displeasure, little or nothing

differing from what formerly they were. But after a long absence there

is many a man who, meeting his own familiar friend, hardly knows him

again, by reason of the great alteration of his countenance and the

change of his manners, which are so easily subject to the alterations

of language, labor, and employment, all manner of accidents, and

mutation of laws, that even they who are most usually conversant with

him admire to see the strangeness and novelty of the change; and yet

the man is reputed still to be the same from his birth to his decease.

In the same manner does a city still remain the same; and for that

reason we think it but justice, that a city should as well be obnoxious

to the blame and reproach of its ancient inhabitants, as participate

the glory of their former puissance and renown; else we shall throw

every thing before we know it into the river of Heraclitus, into which

(he says) no one can step twice,[44] since Nature by her changes is

ever altering and transforming all things.

16. Now then, if a city be one entire and continued body, the same

opinion is to be conceived of a race of men, depending upon one and

the same beginning, and carrying along with it a certain power and

communion of qualities; in regard that what is begotten cannot be

thought to be severed from that which begets it, like a piece of

workmanship from the artificer; the one being begotten of the person,

the other framed by him. So that what is engendered is a part of the

original from whence it sprung, whether meriting honor or deserving

punishment. So that, were it not that I might be thought to be too

sportive in a serious discourse, I would affirm, that the Athenians

were more unjust to the statue of Cassander when they caused it to be

melted down and defaced, and that the Syracusans were more rigorous

to the dead carcass of Dionysius when they cast it forth of their own

confines, than if they had punished their posterity; for that the

statue did no way partake of the substance of Cassander, and the soul

of Dionysius was absolutely departed from the body deceased. Whereas

Nisaeus, Apollocrates, Antipater, Philip, and several others descended

from wicked parents, still retained the most principal part of those

who begot them, not lazily and sluggishly dormant, but that very part

by which they live, are nourished, act and move, and become rational

and sensible creatures. Neither is there any thing of absurdity,

if, being the offspring of such parents, they should retain many of

their bad qualities. In short, therefore, I affirm that, as it is in

the practice of physic, that whatever is wholesome and profitable is

likewise just, and as he would be accounted ridiculous that should

aver it to be an act of injustice to cauterize the thumb for the cure

of the sciatica, or when the liver is imposthumated, to scarify the

belly, or when the hoofs of laboring oxen are over tender, to anoint

the tips of their horns; in the same manner is he to be laughed at who

seeks for any other justice in the punishment of vice than the cure and

reformation of the offender, and who is angry when medicine is applied

to some parts for the cure of others, as when a chirurgeon opens a vein

to give his patient ease upon an inflammation of the eyes. For such

a one seems to look no farther than what he reaches by his senses,

forgetting that a schoolmaster, by chastising one, admonishes all the

rest of his scholars, and that a general, condemning only one in ten,

reduces all the rest to obedience. And thus there is not only a cure

and amendment of one part of the body by another; but many times the

very soul itself is inclined to vice or reformation, by the lewdness

or virtue of another, and indeed much more readily than one body is

affected by another. For, in the case of the body, as it seems natural,

the same affections and the same changes must always occur; while the

soul, being agitated by fancy and imagination, becomes better or worse,

as it is either daring and confident or timorous and mistrustful.

17. While I was yet speaking, Olympicus interrupting me said: You seem

by this discourse of yours to infer as if the soul were immortal,

which is a supposition of great consequence. It is very true, said

I, nor is it any more than what yourselves have granted already; in

regard the whole dispute has tended from the beginning to this, that

the supreme Deity overlooks us, and deals to every one of us according

to our deserts. To which the other: Do you then believe (said he) it

follows of necessity that, because the Deity observes our actions and

distributes to every one of us according to our merits, therefore our

souls should exist and be altogether incorruptible, or else for a

certain time survive the body after death? Not so fast, good sir, said

I. But can we think that God so little considers his own actions, or is

such a waster of his time in trifles, that, if we had nothing of divine

within us, nothing that in the least resembled his perfection, nothing

permanent and stable, but were only poor creatures, that (according to

Homer’s expression) faded and dropped like withered leaves, and in a

short time too, yet he should make so great account of us—like women

that bestow their pains in making little gardens, no less delightful to

them than the gardens of Adonis, in earthen pans and pots—as to create

us souls to blossom and flourish only for a day, in a soft and tender

body of flesh, without any firm and solid root of life, and then to be

blasted and extinguished in a moment upon every slight occasion? And

therefore, if you please, not concerning ourselves with other Deities,

let us go no farther than the God Apollo, whom here we call our own;

see whether it is likely that he, knowing that the souls of the

deceased vanish away like clouds and smoke, exhaling from our bodies

like a vapor, requires that so many propitiations and such great honors

be paid to the dead, and such veneration be given to the deceased,

merely to delude and cozen his believers. And therefore, for my part,

I will never deny the immortality of the soul, till somebody or other,

as they say Hercules did of old, shall be so daring as to come and take

away the prophetical tripod, and so quite ruin and destroy the oracle.

For as long as many oracles are uttered even in these our days by the

Delphic soothsayer, the same in substance which was formerly given to

Corax the Naxian, it is impious to declare that the human soul can die.

Then Patrocleas: What oracle was this? Who was that same Corax? For

both the answer itself and the person whom you mention are strangers

to my remembrance. Certainly, said I, that cannot be; only it was my

error which occasioned your ignorance, in making use of the addition

to the name instead of the name itself. For it was Calondas, who slew

Archilochus in fight, and who was surnamed Corax. He was thereupon

ejected by the Pythian priestess, as one who had slain a person

devoted to the Muses; but afterwards, humbling himself in prayers and

supplications, intermixed with undeniable excuses of the fact, was

enjoined by the oracle to repair to the habitation of Tettix, there

to expiate his crime by appeasing the ghost of Archilochus. That

place was called Taenarus; for there it was, as the report goes, that

Tettix the Cretan, coming with a navy, landed, built a city not far

from the Psychopompaeum (or place where ghosts are conjured up), and

stored it with inhabitants. In like manner, when the Spartans were

commanded by the oracle to atone the ghost of Pausanias, they sent for

several exorcisers and conjurers out of Italy, who by virtue of their

sacrifices chased the apparition out of the temple.

18. Therefore, said I, there is one and the same reason to confirm

the providence of God and the immortality of the soul; neither is it

possible to admit the one, if you deny the other. Now then, the soul

surviving after the decease of the body, the inference is the stronger

that it partakes of punishment and reward. For during this mortal life

the soul is in continual combat like a wrestler; but after all those

conflicts are at an end, she then receives according to her merits.

But what the punishments and what the rewards of past transgressions

or just and laudable actions are to be while the soul is thus alone by

itself, is nothing at all to us that are alive; for either they are

altogether concealed from our knowledge, or else we give but little

credit to them. But those punishments that reach succeeding posterity,

being conspicuous to all that are living at the same time, restrain

and curb the inclinations of many wicked persons. Now I have a story

that I lately heard, which I might relate to show that there is no

punishment more grievous or that touches more to the quick, than

for a man to behold his children born of his body suffering for his

crimes; and that, if the soul of a wicked and lawless criminal were

to look back to earth and behold, not his statues overturned and his

dignities reversed, but his own children, his friends, or his nearest

kindred ruined and overwhelmed with calamity, such a person, were he to

return to life again, would rather choose the refusal of all Jupiter’s

honors than abandon himself a second time to his wonted injustice and

extravagant desires. This story, I say, I could relate, but that I fear

lest you should censure it for a fable. And therefore I deem it much

the better way to keep close to what is probable and consentaneous

to reason. By no means, replied Olympicus; but proceed, and gratify

us with your story also, since it was so kindly offered. Thereupon,

when the rest of the company likewise made me the same request, Permit

me, said I, in the first place, to pursue the rational part of my

discourse, and then, according as it shall seem proper and convenient,

if it be a fable, you shall have it as cheap as I heard it.

19. Bion was of opinion that God, in punishing the children of the

wicked for the sins of their fathers, seems more irregular than a

physician that should administer physic to a son or a grandchild, to

cure the distemper of a father or a grandfather. But this comparison

does not run cleverly; since the amplification of the similitude

agrees only in some things, but in others is altogether defective.

For if one man be cured of a disease by physic, the same medicine

will not cure another; nor was it ever known that any person troubled

with sore eyes or laboring under a fever was ever restored to perfect

health by seeing another in the same condition anointed or plastered.

But the punishments or executions of malefactors are done publicly in

the face of the world, to the end that, justice appearing to be the

effect of prudence and reason, some may be restrained by the correction

inflicted upon others. So that Bion never rightly apprehended where

the comparison answered to our question. For oftentimes it happens,

that a man comes to be haunted with a troublesome though not incurable

disease, and through sloth and intemperance increases his distemper,

and weakens his body to that degree that he occasions his own death.

After this, it is true, the son does not fall sick; only he has

received from his father’s seed such a habit of body as makes him

liable to the same disease; which a good physician or a tender friend

or a skilful apothecary or a careful master observing confines him to

a strict and spare diet, restrains him from all manner of superfluity,

keeps him from all the temptations of delicious fare, wine, and

women, and making use of wholesome and proper physic, together with

convenient exercise, dissipates and extirpates the original cause of

a distemper at the beginning, before it grows to a head and gets a

masterless dominion over the body. And is it not our usual practice

thus to admonish those that are born of diseased parents, to take

timely care of themselves, and not to neglect the malady, but to

expel the original nourishment of the inbred evil, as being then

easily movable and apt for expulsion? It is very true, cried they.

Therefore, said I, we cannot be said to do an absurd thing, but what

is absolutely necessary,—nor that which is ridiculous, but what is

altogether useful,—while we prescribe to the children of the epileptic,

the hypochondriacal, and those that are subject to the gout, such

exercises, diet, and remedies as are proper, not so much because they

are at that time troubled with the distemper, as to prevent the malady.

For a man begotten by an unsound body does not therefore deserve

punishment, but rather the preservation of proper physic and good

regimen; which if any one call the punishment of fear or effeminacy,

because the person is debarred his pleasures and put to some sort of

pain by cupping and blistering, we mind not what he says. If then it

be of such importance to preserve, by physic and other proper means,

the vitiated offspring of another body, foul and corrupted; ought we to

suffer the hereditary resemblances of a wicked nature to sprout up and

bud in the youthful character, and to wait till they are diffused into

all the affections of the mind, and bring forth and ripen the malignant

fruit of a mischievous disposition? For such is the expression of

Pindar.

20. Or can you believe but that in this particular God is wiser than

Hesiod, admonishing and exhorting us in this manner:[45]

Nor mind the pleasures of the genial bed,

Returning from th’ interment of the dead;

But propagate the race, when heavenly food

And feasting with the Gods have warmed the blood,

intimating thereby, that a man was never to attempt the work of

generation but in the height of a jocund and merry humor, and when he

found himself as it were dissolved into jollity; as if from procreation

proceeded the impressions not only of vice or virtue, but of sorrow

and joy, and of all other qualities and affections whatever. However,

it is not the work of human wisdom (as Hesiod supposes) but of divine

providence, to foresee the sympathies and differences of men’s

natures, before the malignant infection of their unruly passions come

to exert itself, by hurrying their unadvised youth into a thousand

villanous miscarriages. For though the cubs of bears and whelps of

wolves and apes immediately discover their several inbred qualities

and natural conditions without any disguise or artificial concealment,

man is nevertheless a creature more refined, who, many times curbed

by the shame of transgressing common customs, universal opinion, or

the law, conceals the evil that is within him, and imitates only what

is laudable and honest. So that he may be thought to have altogether

cleansed and rinsed away the stains and imperfections of his vicious

disposition, and so cunningly for a long time to have kept his natural

corruption wrapped up under the covering of craft and dissimulation,

that we are scarce sensible of the fallacy till we feel the stripes

or sting of his injustice; believing men to be only then unjust, when

they offer wrong to ourselves; lascivious, when we see them abandoning

themselves to their lusts; and cowards, when we see them turning their

backs upon the enemy; just as if any man should be so idle as to

believe a scorpion had no sting until he felt it, or that a viper had

no venom until it bit him,—which is a silly conceit. For there is no

man that only then becomes wicked when he appears to be so; but, having

the seeds and principles of iniquity within him long before, the thief

steals when he meets with a fit opportunity, and the tyrant violates

the law when he finds himself surrounded with sufficient power. But

neither is the nature and disposition of any man concealed from God,

as taking upon him with more exactness to scrutinize the soul than the

body; nor does he tarry till actual violence or lewdness be committed,

to punish the hands of the wrong-doer, the tongue of the profane, or

the transgressing members of the lascivious and obscene. For he does

not exercise his vengeance on the unjust for any wrong that he has

received by his injustice, nor is he angry with the highway robber for

any violence done to himself, nor does he abominate the adulterer for

defiling his bed; but many times, by way of cure and reformation, he

chastises the adulterer, the covetous miser, and the wronger of his

neighbors, as physicians endeavor to subdue an epilepsy by preventing

the coming of the fits.

21. What shall I say? But even a little before we were offended at

the Gods protracting and delaying the punishments of the wicked, and

now we are as much displeased that they do not curb and chastise the

depravities of an evil disposition before the fact committed; not

considering that many times a mischief contrived for future execution

may prove more dreadful than a fact already committed, and that dormant

villany may be more dangerous than open and apparent iniquity; not

being able to apprehend the reason wherefore it is better to bear with

the unjust actions of some men, and to prevent the meditating and

contrivance of mischief in others. As, in truth, we do not rightly

comprehend why some remedies and physical drugs are no way convenient

for those that labor under a real disease, yet wholesome and profitable

for those that are seemingly in health, but yet perhaps in a worse

condition than they who are sick. Whence it comes to pass, that the

Gods do not always turn the transgressions of parents upon their

children; but if a virtuous son happen to be the offspring of a wicked

father,—as often it falls out that a sane child is born of one that is

unsound and crazy,—such a one is exempted from the punishment which

threatens the whole descent, as having been adopted into a virtuous

family. But for a young man that treads in the footsteps of a criminal

race, it is but just that he should succeed to the punishment of his

ancestor’s iniquity, as one of the debts attached to his inheritance.

For neither was Antigonus punished for the crimes of Demetrius; nor

(among the ancient heroes) Phyleus for the transgressions of Augeas,

nor Nestor for the impiety of Neleus; in regard that, though their

parents were wicked, yet they were virtuous themselves. But as for

those whose nature has embraced and espoused the vices of their

parentage, them holy vengeance prosecutes, pursuing the likeness

and resemblance of sin. For as the warts and moles and freckles of

parents, not seen upon the children of their own begetting, many times

afterwards appear again upon the children of their sons and daughters;

and as the Grecian woman that brought forth a blackamore infant, for

which she was accused of adultery, proved herself, upon diligent

inquiry, to be the offspring of an Ethiopian after four generations;

and as among the children of Pytho the Nisibian,—said to be descended

from the Sparti, that were the progeny of those men that sprung from

the teeth of Cadmus’s dragon,—the youngest of his sons, who lately

died, was born with the print of a spear upon his body, the usual mark

of that ancient line, which, not having been seen for many revolutions

of years before, started up again, as it were, out of the deep, and

showed itself the renewed testimonial of the infant’s race; so many

times it happens that the first descents and eldest races hide and

drown the passions and affections of the mind peculiar to the family,

which afterward bud forth again, and display the natural propensity of

the succeeding progeny to vice or virtue.

22. Having thus concluded, I held my peace; when Olympicus smiling

said: We forbear as yet to give you our approbation, that we may not

seem to have forgot the fable; not but that we believe your discourse

to have been sufficiently made out by demonstration, only we reserve

our opinion till we shall have heard the relation of that likewise.

Upon which, I began again after this manner: There was one Thespesius

of Soli, the friend and familiar acquaintance of that Protogenes who

for some time conversed among us. This gentleman, in his youth leading

a debauched and intemperate life, in a short time spent his patrimony,

and then for some years became very wicked; but afterwards repenting

of his former follies and extravagancies, and pursuing the recovery of

his lost estate by all manner of tricks and shifts, did as is usual

with dissolute and lascivious youth, who when they have wives of their

own never mind them at all, but when they have dismissed them, and find

them married to others that watch them with a more vigilant affection,

endeavor to corrupt and vitiate them by all the unjust and wicked

provocations imaginable. In this humor, abstaining from nothing that

was lewd and illegal, so it tended to his gain and profit, he got no

great matter of wealth, but procured to himself a world of infamy by

his unjust and knavish dealing with all sorts of people. Yet nothing

made him more the talk of the country, than the answer which was

brought him back from the oracle of Amphilochus. For thither it seems

he sent, to inquire of the Deity whether he should live any better the

remaining part of his life. To which the oracle returned, that it would

be better with him after he was dead. And indeed, not long after, in

some measure it so fell out; for he happened to fall from a certain

precipice upon his neck, and though he received no wound nor broke any

limb, yet the force of the fall beat the breath out of his body. Three

days after, being carried forth to be buried, as they were just ready

to let him down into the grave, of a sudden he came to himself, and

recovering his strength, so altered the whole course of his life, that

it was almost incredible to all that knew him. For by the report of

the Cilicians, there never was in that age a juster person in common

dealings between man and man, more devout and religious as to divine

worship, more an enemy to the wicked, nor more constant and faithful

to his friends; which was the reason that they who were more conversant

with him were desirous to hear from himself the cause of so great an

alteration, not believing that so great a reformation could proceed

from bare chance; though it was true that it did so, as he himself

related to Protogenes and others of his choicest friends.

For when his sense first left his body, it seemed to him as if he had

been some pilot flung from the helm by the force of a storm into the

midst of the sea. Afterwards, rising up again above water by degrees,

so soon as he thought he had fully recovered his breath, he looked

about him every way, as if one eye of his soul had been open. But he

beheld nothing of those things which he was wont formerly to see, only

he saw stars of a vast magnitude, at an immense distance one from the

other, and sending forth a light most wonderful for the brightness of

its color, which shot itself out in length with an incredible force;

on which the soul riding, as it were in a chariot, was most swiftly,

yet as gently and smoothly, dandled from one place to another. But

omitting the greatest part of the sights which he beheld, he saw, as he

said, the souls of such as were newly departed, as they mounted from

below, resembling little fiery bubbles, to which the air gave way.

Which bubbles afterwards breaking insensibly and by degrees, the soul

came forth in the shapes of men and women, light and nimble, as being

discharged of all their earthly substance. However, they differed in

their motion; for some of them leaped forth with a wonderful swiftness,

and mounted up in a direct line; others like so many spindles of

spinning-wheels turned round and round, sometimes whisking upwards,

sometimes darting downwards, with a confused and mixed agitation, that

could hardly be stopped in a very long time.

Of these souls he knew not who the most part were; only perceiving two

or three of his acquaintance, he endeavored to approach and discourse

them. But they neither heard him speak, neither indeed did they seem to

be in their right mind, fluttering and out of their senses, avoiding

either to be seen or felt; they frisked up and down at first, alone and

apart by themselves, till meeting at length with others in the same

condition, they clung together; but still their motions were with the

same giddiness and uncertainty as before, without steerage or purpose;

and they sent forth inarticulate sounds, like the cries of soldiers

in combat, intermixed with the doleful yells of fear and lamentation.

Others there were that towered aloft in the upper region of the air,

and these looked gay and pleasant, and frequently accosted each other

with kindness and respect; but they shunned those troubled souls, and

seemed to show discontent by crowding together, and joy and pleasure

by expanding and separating from each other. One of these, said he,

being the soul of a certain kinsman,—which, because the person died

when he was but very young, he did not very well know,—drew near him,

and saluted him by the name of Thespesius; at which being in a kind

of amazement, and saying his name was not Thespesius but Aridaeus,

the spirit replied, ’twas true that formerly he was so called, but

that from thenceforth he must be Thespesius, that is to say “divine.”

For thou art not in the number of the dead as yet, it said, but by a

certain destiny and permission of the Gods, thou art come hither only

with thy intellectual faculty, having left the rest of thy soul, like

an anchor, in thy body. And that thou mayst be assured of this, observe

it for a certain rule, both now and hereafter, that the souls of the

deceased neither cast any shadow, neither do they open and shut their

eyelids. Thespesius having heard this discourse, was so much the more

encouraged to make use of his own reason; and therefore looking round

about to prove the truth of what had been told him, he could perceive

that there followed him a kind of obscure and shadowlike line, whereas

those other souls shone like a round body of perfect light, and were

transparent within. And yet there was a very great difference between

them too; for that some yielded a smooth, even, and contiguous lustre,

all of one color, like the full-moon in her brightest splendor; others

were marked with long scales or slender streaks; others were all

over spotted and very ugly to look upon, as being covered with black

speckles like the skins of vipers; and others were marked by faint

scratches.

Moreover, this kinsman of Thespesius (for nothing hinders but that we

may call the souls by the names of the persons which they enlivened),

proceeding to give a relation of several other things, informed his

friend how that Adrastea, the daughter of Jupiter and Necessity, was

seated in the highest place of all, to punish all manner of crimes and

enormities; and that in the whole number of the wicked and ungodly,

there never was any one, whether great or little, high or low, rich or

poor, that ever could by force or cunning escape the severe lashes of

her rigor. But as there are three sorts of punishments, so there are

three several Furies, or female ministers of justice; and to every one

of these belongs a peculiar office and degree of punishment. The first

of these was called Speedy Punishment, who takes in charge those that

are presently to receive bodily punishment in this life, which she

manages after a more gentle manner, omitting the correction of many

offences which need expiation. But if the cure of impiety require a

greater labor, the Deity delivers them after death to Justice. But when

Justice has given them over as altogether incurable, then the third and

most severe of all Adrastea’s ministers, Erinnys (the Fury), takes them

in hand; and after she has chased and coursed them from one place to

another, flying, yet not knowing where to fly, for shelter or relief,

plagued and tormented with a thousand miseries, she plunges them

headlong into an invisible abyss, the hideousness of which no tongue

can express.

Now, of all these three sorts, that which is inflicted by punishment

in this life resembles the practice among the barbarians. For, as

among the Persians, they take off the garments and turbans of those

that are to be punished, and tear and whip them before the offender’s

faces, while the criminals, with tears and lamentations, beseech the

executioners to give over; so corporal punishments, and penalties by

mulcts and fines, have no sharpness or severity, nor do they take hold

upon the vice itself, but are inflicted for the most part only with

regard to appearance and to the outward sense. But if any one comes

hither that has escaped punishment while he lived upon earth and before

he was well purged from his crimes, Justice takes him to task, naked

as he is, with his soul displayed, as having nothing to conceal or

veil his impiety; but on all sides and to all men’s eyes and every way

exposed, she shows him first to his honest parents, if he had any such,

to let them see how degenerate he was and unworthy of his progenitors.

But if they were wicked likewise, then are their sufferings rendered

yet more terrible by the mutual sight of each other’s miseries, and

those for a long time inflicted, till each individual crime has been

quite effaced with pains and torments as far surmounting in sharpness

and severity all punishments and tortures of the flesh, as what is real

and evident surpasses an idle dream. But the weals and stripes that

remain after punishment appear more signal in some, in others are less

evident.

View there, said he, those various colors of souls. That same black

and sordid hue is the tincture of avarice and fraud. That bloody and

flame-like dye betokens cruelty, and an imbittered desire of revenge.

Where you perceive a bluish color, it is a sign that soul will

hardly be cleansed from the impurities of lascivious pleasure and

voluptuousness. Lastly, that same dark, violet, and venomous color,

resembling the sordid ink which the cuttle fish spews up, proceeds from

envy. For as during life the wickedness of the soul, being governed by

human passions and itself governing the body, occasions this variety

of colors; so here it is the end of expiation and punishment, when

these are cleansed away, and the soul recovers her native lustre and

becomes clear and spotless. But so long as these remain, there will be

some certain returns of the passions, accompanied with little pantings

and beatings, as it were of the pulse, in some remiss and languid

and quickly extinguished, in others more quick and vehement. Some of

these souls, being again and again chastised, recover a due habit and

disposition; while others, by the force of ignorance and the enticing

show of pleasure, are carried into the bodies of brute beasts. For

while some, through the feebleness of their ratiocinating, while their

slothfulness will not permit them to contemplate, are impelled by their

active principle to seek a new generation; others again, wanting the

instrument of intemperance, yet desirous to gratify their desires with

the full swing of enjoyment, endeavor to promote their designs by means

of the body. But alas! here is nothing but an imperfect shadow and

dream of pleasure, that never attains to ability of performance.

Having thus said, the spirit quickly carried Thespesius to a certain

place, as it appeared to him, prodigiously spacious; yet so gently

and without the least deviation, that he seemed to be borne upon the

rays of the light as upon wings. Thus at length he came to a certain

gaping chasm, that was fathomless downward, where he found himself

deserted by that extraordinary force which brought him thither, and

perceived other souls also to be there in the same condition. For

hovering upon the wing in flocks together like birds, they kept flying

round and round the yawning rift, but durst not enter into it. Now this

same cleft withinside resembled the dens of Bacchus, fringed about

with the pleasing verdure of various herbs and plants, that yielded

a more delightful prospect still of all sorts of flowers, enamelling

the green so with a wonderful diversity of colors, and breathing

forth at the same time a soft and gentle breeze, which perfumed all

the ambient air with odors most surprising, as grateful to the smell

as the sweet flavor of wine to those that love it. Insomuch that the

souls banqueting upon these fragrancies were almost all dissolved in

raptures of mirth and caresses one among another, there being nothing

to be heard for some fair distance round about the place, but jollity

and laughter, and all the cheerful sounds of joy and harmony, which are

usual among people that pass their time in sport and merriment.

The spirit said, moreover, that Bacchus ascended through this overture

to heaven, and afterwards returning fetched up Semele the same way; and

that it was called the place of oblivion. Wherefore his kinsman would

not suffer Thespesius to tarry there any longer, though very unwilling

to depart, but took him away by force; informing and instructing him

withal, how strangely and how suddenly the mind was subject to be

softened and melted by pleasure; that the irrational and corporeal

part, being watered and incarnated thereby, revives the memory of

the body, and that from this remembrance proceed concupiscence and

desire, exciting an appetite for a new generation and entrance into a

body—which is named γένεσις as being an _inclination towards the earth_

(ἐπὶ γῆν νεῦσις)—when the soul is weighed down with overmuch moisture.

At length, after he had been carried as far another way as when he was

transported to the yawning overture, he thought he beheld a prodigious

standing goblet, into which several rivers discharged themselves;

among which there was one whiter than snow or the foam of the sea,

another resembled the purple color of the rainbow. The tinctures of the

rest were various; besides that, they had their several lustres at a

distance. But when he drew nearer, the ambient air became more subtile

and rarefied, and the colors vanished, so the goblet retained no more

of its flourishing beauty except the white. At the same time he saw

three Daemons sitting together in a triangular aspect, and blending and

mixing the rivers together with certain measures. Thus far, said the

guide of Thespesius’s soul, did Orpheus come, when he sought after the

soul of his wife; and not well remembering what he had seen, upon his

return he raised a false report in the world, that the oracle at Delphi

was in common to Night and Apollo, whereas Apollo never had any thing

in common with Night. But, said the spirit, this oracle is in common

to Night and to the Moon, no way included within earthly bounds, nor

having any fixed or certain seat, but always wandering among men in

dreams and visions. For from hence it is that all dreams are dispersed,

compounded as they are of truth jumbled with falsehood, and sincerity

with the various mixtures of craft and delusion. But as for the oracle

of Apollo, said the spirit, you neither do see it, neither can you

behold it; for the earthly part of the soul is not capable to release

or let itself loose, nor is it permitted to reach sublimity, but it

swags downward, as being fastened to the body.

And with that, leading Thespesius nearer, the spirit endeavored to show

him the light of the Tripod, which, as he said, shooting through the

bosom of Themis, fell upon Parnassus; which Thespesius was desirous to

see, but could not, in regard the extraordinary brightness of the light

dazzled his eyes; only passing by, he heard the shrill voice of a woman

speaking in verse and measure, and among other things, as he thought,

foretelling the time of his death. This the genius told him was the

voice of a Sibyl who, being orbicularly whirled about in the face of

the moon, continually sang of future events. Thereupon being desirous

to hear more, he was tossed the quite contrary way by the violent

motion of the moon, as by the force of rolling waves; so that he could

hear but very little, and that very concisely too. Among other things,

he heard what was prophesied concerning the mountain Vesuvius, and the

future destruction of Dicaearchia by fire; together with a piece of a

verse concerning a certain emperor[46] or great famous chieftain of

that age,

Who, though so just that no man could accuse,

Howe’er his empire should by sickness lose.

After this, they passed on to behold the torments of those that were

punished. And indeed at first they met with none but lamentable and

dismal sights. For Thespesius, when he least suspected any such thing,

and before he was aware, was got among his kindred, his acquaintance,

and companions, who, groaning under the horrid pains of their cruel and

ignominious punishments, with mournful cries and lamentations called

him by his name. At length he saw his father ascending out of a certain

abyss, all full of stripes, gashes, and scars; who stretching forth his

hands—not permitted to keep silence, but constrained to confess by his

tormentors—acknowledged that he had most impiously poisoned several

of his guests for the sake of their gold; of which not being detected

while he lived upon earth, but being convicted after his decease, he

had endured part of his torments already, and now they were haling

him where he should suffer more. However, he durst not either entreat

or intercede for his father, such was his fear and consternation; and

therefore being desirous to retire and be gone, he looked about for his

kind and courteous guide; but he had quite left him, so that he saw

him no more.

Nevertheless, being pushed forward by other deformed and grim-looked

goblins, as if there had been some necessity for him to pass forward,

he saw how that the shadows of such as had been notorious malefactors,

and had been punished in this world, were not tormented so grievously

nor alike to the others, in regard that only the imperfect and

irrational part of the soul, which was consequently most subject to

passions, was that which made them so industrious in vice. Whereas

those who had shrouded a vicious and impious life under the outward

profession and a gained opinion of virtue, their tormentors constrained

to turn their insides outward with great difficulty and dreadful pain,

and to writhe and screw themselves contrary to the course of nature,

like the sea scolopenders, which, having swallowed the hook, throw

forth their bowels and lick it out again. Others they flayed and

scarified, to display their occult hypocrisies and latent impieties,

which had possessed and corrupted the principal part of their souls.

Other souls, as he said, he also saw, which being twisted two and two,

three and three, or more together gnawed and devoured each other,

either upon the score of old grudges and former malice they had borne

one another, or else in revenge of the injuries and losses they had

sustained upon earth.

Moreover, he said, there were certain lakes that lay parallel and

equidistant one from the other, the one of boiling gold, another of

lead, exceeding cold, and the third of iron, which was very scaly and

rugged. By the sides of these lakes stood certain Daemons, that with

their instruments, like smiths or founders, put in or drew out the

souls of such as had transgressed either through avarice or an eager

desire of other men’s goods. For the flame of the golden furnace having

rendered these souls of a fiery and transparent color, they plunged

them into that of lead; where after they were congealed and hardened

into a substance like hail, they were then thrown into the lake of

iron, where they became black and deformed, and being broken and

crumbled by the roughness of the iron, changed their form; and being

thus transformed, they were again thrown into the lake of gold; in all

these transmutations enduring most dreadful and horrid torments. But

they that suffered the most dire and dismal torture of all were those

who, thinking that divine vengeance had no more to say to them, were

again seized and dragged to repeated execution; and these were those

for whose transgression their children or posterity had suffered. For

when any of the souls of those children come hither and meet with

any of their parents or ancestors, they fall into a passion, exclaim

against them, and show them the marks of what they have endured. On the

other side, the souls of the parents endeavor to sneak out of sight and

hide themselves; but the others follow them so close at the heels, and

load them in such a manner with bitter taunts and reproaches, that not

being able to escape, their tormentors presently lay hold of them, and

hale them to new tortures, howling and yelling at the very thought of

what they have suffered already. And some of these souls of suffering

posterity, he said, there were, that swarmed and clung together like

bees or bats, and in that posture murmured forth their angry complaints

of the miseries and calamities which they had endured for their sakes.

The last things that he saw were the souls of such as were designed

for a second life. These were bowed, bent, and transformed into all

sorts of creatures by the force of tools and anvils and the strength

of workmen appointed for that purpose, that laid on without mercy,

bruising the whole limbs of some, breaking others, disjointing others,

and pounding some to powder and annihilation, on purpose to render

them fit for other lives and manners. Among the rest, he saw the

soul of Nero many ways most grievously tortured, but more especially

transfixed with iron nails. This soul the workmen took in hand; but

when they had forged it into the form of one of Pindar’s vipers, which

eats its way to life through the bowels of the female, of a sudden a

conspicuous light shone out, and a voice was heard out of the light,

which gave order for the transfiguring it again into the shape of

some more mild and gentle creature; and so they made it to resemble

one of those creatures that usually sing and croak about the sides of

ponds and marshes. For indeed he had in some measure been punished for

the crimes he had committed; besides, there was some compassion due

to him from the Gods, for that he had restored the Grecians to their

liberty, a nation the most noble and best beloved of the Gods among

all his subjects. And now being about to return, such a terrible dread

surprised Thespesius as had almost frighted him out of his wits. For a

certain woman, admirable for her form and stature, laying hold of his

arm, said to him: Come hither, that thou mayst the better be enabled

to retain the remembrance of what thou hast seen. With that she was

about to strike him with a small fiery wand, not much unlike to those

that painters use; but another woman prevented her. After this, as

he thought himself, he was whirled or hurried away with a strong and

violent wind, forced as it were through a pipe; and so lighting again

into his own body, he awoke and found himself on the brink of his own

grave.