know this unless at the actual approach of death, when it undergoes such an experience as those do who are initiated into great mysteries. Thus death and initiation closely correspond, word to word,[258] and thing to thing. At first there are wanderings, and laborious circuits, and journeyings through the dark, full of misgivings where there is no consummation; then, before the very end, come terrors of every kind, shivers, and trembling, and sweat, and amazement. After this, a wonderful light meets the wanderer; he is admitted into pure meadow lands, where are voices, and dances, and the majesty of holy sounds and sacred visions. Here the newly initiate, all rites completed, is at large; he walks at large like the dedicated victim with a crown on his head, and joins in high revelry; he converses with pure and holy men, and surveys the uninitiate unpurified crowd here below in the dirt and darkness, trampled by its own feet and packed together; through fear of death remaining in its ills, because it does not believe in the blessings which are beyond. For that the conjunction of soul with body, and its imprisonment, are against nature, you may clearly see from this.’ III. ‘From what?’ said Patrocleas. ‘From the fact that of all our experiences sleep is the most agreeable. First, it always extinguishes any perception of pain, because its pleasure is mingled with so much that is familiar, secondly, it overpowers all other appetites, even the most vehement. For even those who are devoted to the body become disinclined for pleasure when sleep comes on, and when they slumber reject loving embraces. Why dwell on this? When sleep takes possession, it excludes even the pleasure which comes from learning, and discussion, and philosophic thought, as though a smooth deep stream swept the soul along. All pleasure, perhaps, is by its essence and nature a respite from pain, but of sleep this is absolutely true. For, though nothing exciting or delightful should approach from without, yet we feel pleasure in a sound sleep; sleep seems to remove a condition of toil and hardness. And that condition is no other than that which binds soul to body. In sleep the soul is separated, and speeds upward, and is gathered unto itself after having been strained to fit the body, and dispersed among the senses. Yet some assert that, on the contrary, sleep immingles soul with body. They are wrong. The body bears its witness the other way, by its lack of sensation, its coldness, and heaviness, and pallor proving that the soul leaves it in death, and shifts its quarters in sleep. This produces the pleasure; it is a release and respite for the soul, as though it laid down a burthen which it must again resume and shoulder. For when it dies it runs away from the body for good; when it is asleep, it plays truant. Therefore death is sometimes accompanied by pains, sleep always by pleasure; in the former case the bond is snapped