And the judge is seated,
who commanded the just,
after they had given judgment on them and
had found their sentences in front of them,
to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand,
that in like manner the unjust were bidden by
them to descend by the lower way on the left hand.
These also bore the symbols of their deeds,
but fastened on their backs.
He drew near,
and they told him that he was to be the messenger
who would carry the report of the other world to men.
And they bade him hear and see all that
was to be heard and seen in that place.
Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either
opening of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on them,
and at the two other openings on their souls,
some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with gravel,
some descending out of heaven clean and bright.
And arriving ever at none they seemed
to have come from a long journey,
and they went forth with gladness into the meadow,
where they had camped as at a festival.
And those who knew one another embraced and conversed,
the souls which came from earth gloriously
inquiring about the things above,
and the souls which came from heaven about the things beneath.
And they told one another of what had happened by the way,
those from below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things
which they had entered and seen in their journey beneath the earth,
now the journey lasted a thousand years,
while those from above were describing heavenly
delights and visions of inconceivable beauty.
The story,
Glockon,
would take too long to tell,
but the sum was this.
He said that for every wrong which they
had done to any one they suffered tenfold,
or once in a hundred years,
such being reckoned to be the length of man's life,
and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thousand years.
If, for example,
there were any who had been the cause of many deaths,
or had betrayed or enslaved cities or armies,
or been guilty of any other evil behavior,
for each and all of their offenses they
received punishment ten times over,
and the rewards of beneficence and justice
and holiness were in the same proportion.
I need hardly repeat what he said concerning young
children dying almost as soon as they were born.
Of piety and impiety to gods and parents,
and of murderers,
there were retributions other
and greater far which he described.
He mentioned that he was present when
one of the spirits asked another,
where is Artaeus
the Great?
Now this Artaeus lived a thousand years before the time of Ur.
He had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia,
and had murdered his aged father and his elder
brother,
and was said to have committed many other abominable crimes.
The answer of the
other spirit was,
he comes not hither and will never come.
And this, said he,
was one
of the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed.
We were at the mouth of the tavern,
and,
having completed all our experiences,
were about to re-ascend,
when of a sudden
Artaeus appeared and several others,
most of whom were tyrants,
and there were also
beside the tyrants prime and individuals
who had been great criminals,
they were just,
as they fancied,
about to return into the upper world,
by the mouth,
instead of admitting
them.
Gaefer or whenever any of these ignorable
sinners or someone who had not been sufficiently
punished tried to ascend,
and then wild men of fiery aspect,
who were standing by and
heard the sound, seized and carried them off.
Dardaeus and others they bound head and foot
in hand,
and threw them down and laid them with scourges,
and dragged them along the road
at the side,
carting them on thorns like wool,
and declaring to the passers-by what were their
crimes,
and that they were being taken away to be cast into hell.
And of all the many terrors
which they had endured,
he said that there was none like the
terror which each of them felt at
that moment,
lest they should hear the voice,
and when there was silence,
one by one they ascended
with exceeding joy.
These,
said her,
were the penalties of red revolutions,
and there were blessings as great,
now as spirits which were in the meadow had carried sin.
When they were fastened to this,
carried them to a drop-house,
whose bottom had sinned into being irreversible.
Whence without turning round they
passed beneath the throne of necessity,
and when they had all passed,
they marched on in a scorching heat to the plane of forgetfulness,
which was apparently destined for doom.
Then,
towards the evening,
they had camped by the river,
a mindfulness whose water no
mistletoe hold,
lest they were all obliged to drink a certain wine.
Those who were not saved by this to drink more than was necessary,
and each one as he
drank forgot all things.
Now after they had gone to rest,
about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm,
which,
then in an instant,
they were driven upwards in all manner of ways to their birth,
like stars shooting.
He himself was hithert from breaking the water,
but in what manner
or by what means he returned to the body he could not see.
Only in the morning, awaking
suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre.
Thus, Larkon, the tale has been saved, and
has not perished.
We'll save ourselves,
we are obedient to the words,
which,
now,
pass
safely over the river of forgetfulness,
and our soul will not be defiled.
Wherefore, by
counsel of the Lord,
fasten the heavenly veil,
and follow after just as sequential always.
Centering the soul as a marble,
and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil.
Thus shall we live near to another of the gods,
both while we may be with him,
like conquerors in the games of love,
to gather gifts and use them for the world.
And it's only when we're bestowed in this life,
then the pilgrimage of the thousand
deems which he hath been describing,
end.