The wholly incurable Justice rejects; and these the third, and
the fiercest, of the satellites of Adrasteia, whose name is Erinnys,
chases, as they wander and try to escape in all directions; and it is
pitiful and cruel how she brings them all to nothing and plunges them
into the gulf which is beyond speech or sight. As to the [Sidenote: 565]
other two modes of justification,” he went on, “that which is wrought by
Retribution during life resembles the usage of barbarian countries. For
as in Persia they pluck off and scourge the robes and the hats of men
under punishment, while their owners implore them to stop, so
punishments through money or upon the person get no close grip, they do
not fasten on the vice itself, but are mostly for appearance and appeal
to the senses. But whoever makes his way here from earth unchastened and
unpurged, Justice firmly seizes him, with his soul naked and manifest,
having no place into which to skulk, [Sidenote: B] that he may hide and
veil his wickedness, but eyed from all sides, and by all, and all over.
And first she shows him to good parents, if such he has, or to
ancestors, a contemptible and unworthy sight. If these are all bad, he
sees them punished and is seen by them, and so is justified during a
long time, while each of his passions is dislodged by pains and toils,
which as much exceed in greatness and intensity those which are through
the flesh, as a day dream may be clearer than that which comes in sleep.
Scars and weals left by particular passions[244] are more [Sidenote: C]
persistent in some men than in others. And look”, he said, “at those
motley colours upon the souls, which come from every source. There is
the dusky, dirty red, which is the smear made by meanness and greed; the
fiery blood-red of cruelty and harshness. Where you see the bluish grey,
there intemperance in pleasures has been rubbed away, and a heavy work
it was; malice and envying have been there to inject that violet beneath
the skin, as cuttle-fishes their ink. For down on earth vice brings out
the colours, while the soul is turned about by the passions and turns
the body, but here, when these have been smoothed away, the final result
of purgation, and chastisement is this, that the soul becomes radiant
all over [Sidenote: D] and of one hue. But as long as the colours are in
it, there are certain reversions to passion, with throbbings and a
pulsation which in some is faint and easily passes off, in others makes
vigorous resistance. Of these souls, some, being chastised again and
again, attain their fitting habit and disposition; others are
transferred into the bodies of beasts by masterful ignorance and the
passionate love of pleasure;[245] for ignorance, through weakness of the
reasoning part and inactivity of the speculative, inclines on its
practical side towards generation; while the love of pleasure, requiring
an instrument for intemperance, [Sidenote: E] craves to unite the
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