get so much simplicity and truth as they scatter abroad. The oracle of Apollo”, he continued, [Sidenote: D] “you have not seen, nor will you ever be able to see it, for the earthly element of the soul does not mount upwards or allow that; it is attached closely to the body and bends downwards.” And as he spoke, he led him on, and he tried to show him the light coming, as he said, from the tripod, resting on Parnassus between the breasts of Themis. Earnestly desiring to see, he saw nothing for the brightness. But he heard, as he passed, a woman’s shrill voice chanting in verse many things, among them the time of his own death. The daemon told him that the voice was that of the Sibyl,[247] who was singing about things to be, as she was carried round on the face of the moon. He [Sidenote: E] desired to hear more, but was thrust off by the whirling of the moon to the opposite side, as though caught in the eddies, and only heard scraps, one of which was about Mount Vesuvius and the future destruction by fire of Dicaearcheia, and a fragment of song about the emperor of that day, how that _so good a man Shall die upon his bed, and end his reign._[248] After that, they turned to the sight of those under punishment. At first they met only with repulsive and piteous spectacles. Afterwards, when Thespesius found friends and relations and intimates, whom he could never have conceived of as punished, enduring sore sufferings and penalties both ignominious and [Sidenote: F] painful, and pitying themselves to him and weeping aloud; and at last saw his own father emerging from a certain pit, all over brands and scars, reaching out his hand towards his son and not permitted to be silent, but compelled by the warders to confess his infamous conduct to some strangers who had come with gold—how he had poisoned them, and had escaped detection there on earth, but had been convicted here, how he had already suffered part, and was now led to suffer the remainder—, then he did not dare to supplicate [Sidenote: 567] or to entreat for his father, so great was his consternation and horror. Wishing to turn about and flee, he saw no longer that gracious and familiar guide, but was thrust forward by others of terrible visage, because it was necessary that he should go through it all. There he beheld the shadows of those who had been notoriously wicked, and who had been punished on the spot, not savagely handled as were the former ones, because[249] their trouble was in the irrational seat of the passions. [Sidenote: B] But those who had passed through life under a veil or cloak of the appearance of virtue, were compelled by others, who stood around, laboriously and painfully to turn their soul inside out, writhing and bending themselves back unnaturally, as the scolopendrae[250] of the sea, when they have gorged the hook, turn themselves inside out. Others they would flay, and fold the skin