The Fly (7-8)

You may be sure I propose to mention the most important point in the nature of the fly. It is, I think, the only point that Plato overlooks in his discussion of the soul and its immortality. When ashes are sprinkled on a dead fly, she revives and has a second birth and a new life from the beginning. This should absolutely convince everyone that the fly’s soul is immortal like ours, since after leaving the body it comes back again, recognises and reanimates it, and makes the fly take wing. It also confirms the story that the soul of Hermotimus of Clazomenae would often leave him and go away

Knowing not labour and living at large, the. fly enjoys the fruits of the toil of others, and finds a bounteous table set everywhere. Goats give milk for her, bees work for flies and for men quite as much as for themselves, and cooks sweeten food for her. She takes precedence even of kings in eating, and walks about on their tables sharing their feasts and all their enjoyment.