The Downward Journey, or the Tyrant (24)

If any one has charges to prefer against this man Cyniscus, let him come this way.

No one comes.

But that is not enough, Cyniscus: strip yourself, so that I can judge you from the marks on your back.

Why, how did I ever come to be a marked man?[*]

For every wicked deed that each of you has done in his life he bears an invisible mark on his soul.

Here I am naked, so seek out the marks you mention.

The man is altogether free from marks, except for these three or four, very faint and uncertain. But what is this? There are many traces and indications of brandings, but somehow or other they have been erased, or rather, effaced. How is that, Cyniscus, and how is it that you looked free from them at first?

I will tell you. For a long time I was a wicked man through ignorance and earned many marks thereby; but no sooner had I begun to be a philosopher than I gradually washed away all the scars from my soul.

At any rate he made use of a cure that is sound and very efficacious. Well, go your way to the Isles of the Blest to live with the good, but first prosecute the tyrant you spoke of. Hermes, summon others.