AXIOCHUS

...you have brought forth with budding talkativeness. For from that source referring to the Sophists or rhetoricians mentioned previously comes this clever catching of bait prepared to entice the youth. But truly, the loss of the good things which are in life makes me sad, even if you, Socrates, should rattle off a speech even more plausible than the one you just gave. For a wandering mind is no longer led by aptly coherent words, nor do those things touch the mind; rather, being prepared for the display and splendor of oratory, they are far from the truth. But the sickness of the soul is by no means stopped by captive words; it rests only upon those which are strong enough to penetrate all the way to the mind.

SOCRATES: You act imprudently, Axiochus, and you substitute a sense of evils for the deprivation of goods, forgetting that you will then be dead. For he who loses good things is indeed hurt by the contrary evils he suffers; but he who is not, receives nothing in the place of that which he is deprived of. How, therefore, could there be any pain in him who will exhibit no awareness of things that hurt? If you did not, from the beginning, Axiochus, through imprudence, associate some sense with death, you would by no means fear it. Now you subvert yourself: fearing to lose your soul, you surround that loss with another soul. You are troubled that you will be without sensation, and you think that you will comprehend this very lack of sensation with another sensation.

The Reason of the immortal soul

To these points, there are many very beautiful arguments concerning the immortality of the soul. For a mortal nature could not raise itself to such varied things as to despise the strength of huge wild beasts, cross the seas, build cities, establish republics, and even look back into heaven and see the revolutions of the stars, the courses of the sun and moon, their rising and setting, eclipses, speed, distances, equinoxes, and the double turnings solstices; the Pleiades also, and the winds of winter and summer, the falling of rains and the horrendous snatching of whirlwinds; so that, having comprehended the labors of the world, it might hand them down to the ages—unless a certain divine spirit dwelt in our minds, by which it might reach the embrace and knowledge of such great things. Therefore, you pass not into death, Axiochus, but into immortality; not into the loss of goods, but into a purer perception of them; not to pleasures confused with a mortal body, but to those purged of all troubles. For you shall depart thither, released from this prison original: "carcere," a common Platonic metaphor for the body, where all things are at rest, and no old age grows weary; there you will lead a tranquil life, free from all inconveniences, and serene with peaceful quiet, contemplating the nature of things and devoted to philosophy—not for the crowd, nor for appearance, but for pure and genuine truth.

AXIOCHUS: By this speech, Socrates, you have moved me to the opposite state. For no longer does fear hold me, but a longing for death. So that I may say something grander, imitating the rhetoricians: for a long time now I have been conceiving with a heavenly mind, and I review that immense and divine course, and I collect myself from my weakness, and I am, as it were, made new again.

SOCRATES: If you wish, take also another account which Gobrias a legendary Persian magus, the son of Avagus, related to me. He said that following the crossing of Xerxes into Greece, his grandfather of the same name was sent to Delos to protect that island, in which two deities Apollo and Artemis were born. There he learned from certain bronze tablets, which Opis and Hecaergus had brought from the Hyperboreans a mythical people of the far north, that after the soul is released from the body, it departs into a certain unknown place in a subterranean recess, in which is the palace of Pluto, no less than the hall of Jove. For since the Earth holds the middle of the world, its circuit is spherical, of which the upper gods received one hemisphere, and the lower gods the other; and these indeed are the brothers of those, and these others are the sons of brothers. The vestibules by which there is an entrance to Pluto's kingdom are secured with iron bars and keys. To one opening them, the river Acheron receives him, after which is Cocytus. When one has crossed these, it is necessary to approach Minos and Rhadamanthus.

The field of truth

They call this the field of truth, in which the judges sit reviewing the life of each of those who have arrived, and in what manner each one spent his age while inhabiting a body. There is no opportunity for lying there. To whomsoever a better spirit original: "daemon," a guiding spirit breathed in life, they inhabit the seats of the pious, where all the shores abound with every kind of fruitfulness of fruits, fountains flow with pure waters, and meadows of all kinds bloom with various flowers. There are gatherings of philosophers, theaters of poets, circles of those exulting, and musical concerts. To these are added diligently prepared banquets, and an abundance of food supplying itself. For neither cold nor heat is heavy to them, but a temperate air is poured out, illuminated by the mild rays of the sun. Here also there is a certain dignity for the initiated, and they perform religious rites there as well. How then shall this honor not be held for you, a colleague of the gods? For there is an ancient saying that Hercules and Father Liber Dionysus, descending to the underworld, were initiated here, and received the confidence to go thither from the Eleusinian mysteries.

Punishments in the underworld

But those whose life was spent in crimes are snatched through Tartarus by the Furies to the chaos of Erebus, where is the place of the impious: the unfillable urns of the daughters of Danaus; where is the thirst of Tantalus, the entrails of Tityos, and the unfinished stone of Sisyphus, whose end begins again from another labor. There, with wild beasts gliding around them, they are incessantly scorched by torches and, afflicted by the torture of all punishments, they are mangled by immense torments. These things are what I heard from Gobrias; but the judgment concerning them will be yours, Axiochus. For I know this alone, led by reason: that every soul is immortal which is transferred from this place, and is entirely devoid of pain. Whether upward, therefore, Axiochus, or downward, it is necessary that you be blessed, you who have lived uprightly and piously.

Axiochus's judgment ...

AXIOCHUS: I am ashamed, Socrates, to say something to you. I am so far from fearing death that I am now even held by a love of it; so much has both this and that speech persuaded me. I even despise life, as one who is about to pass into a better dwelling; and now, little by little, I will review with myself those things which have been said. But you, Socrates, see that you are present for me at noon.

SOCRATES: I will do as you have said. I also am returning to the Cynosarges a gymnasium in Athens, from where I was called here, for my walk.