Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon (28)

And what is this, Sulla? Do not ask about these things, for I am going to give a full explanation myself. Most people rightly hold man to be composite but wrongly hold him to be composed of only two parts. The reason is that they suppose mind to be somehow part of soul, thus erring no less than those who believe soul to be part of body, for in the same degree as soul is superior to body so is mind better and more divine than soul. The result of soul [and body commingled is the irrational or the affective factor, whereas of mind and soul] the conjunction produces reason; and of these the former is source of pleasure and pain, the latter of virtue and vice.[*]

In the composition of these three factors earth furnishes the body, the moon the soul, and the sun furnishes mind [to man] for the purpose of his generation[*] even as it furnishes light to the moon herself. As to the death we die, one death reduces man from three factors to two and another reduces him from two to one[*]; and the former takes place in the [earth] that belongs to Demeter [[wherefore to make an end is called] to render [one’s life] to her and Athenians used in olden times to call the dead Demetrians],[*] [the latter] in the moon that belongs to Phersephone, and associated with the former is Hermes the terrestrial, with the latter Hermes the celestial.[*] While the goddess here[*] dissociates the soul from the body swiftly and violently, Phersephone gently and by slow degrees detaches the mind from the soul and has therefore been called single-born because the best part of man is born single when separated off [by] her.[*] Each of the two separations naturally occurs in this fashion: All soul, whether without mind or with it,[*] when it has issued from the body[*] is destined to wander [in] the region between earth and moon but not for an equal time. Unjust and licentious souls pay penalties for their offences; but the good souls must in the gentlest part of the air, which they call the meads of Hades, [*] pass a certain set time sufficient to purge and blow away [the] pollutions contracted from the body as from an evil odour.[*] [Then], as if brought home from banishment abroad, they savour joy most like that of initiates, which attended by glad expectation is mingled with confusion and excitement.[*] For many, even as they are in the act of clinging to the moon, she thrusts off and sweeps away; and some of those souls too that are on the moon they see turning upside down as if sinking again into the deep.[*] Those that have got up, however, and have found a firm footing first go about like victors crowned with wreaths of feathers called wreaths of steadfastness,[*] because in life they had made the irrational or affective element of the soul orderly and tolerably tractable to reason[*]; secondly, in appearance resembling a ray of light but in respect of their nature, which in the upper region is buoyant as it is here in ours, resembling the ether about the moon,[*] they get from it both tension and strength as edged instruments get a temper,[*] for what laxness and diffuseness they still have is strengthened and becomes firm and translucent. In consequence they are nourished by any exhalation that reaches them, and Heraclitus was right in saying: Souls employ the sense of smell in Hades. [*]