These two passages suffice to prove how freely Pindar handled the myths, not indeed exposing them to the corrosive action of mere scepticism, but testing them[115] by the higher standard of the healthy human conscience. When he refuses to believe that the immortals were cannibals and ate the limbs of Pelops, he is like a rationalist avowing his disbelief in the savage doctrine of eternal damnation. His doubt does not proceed from irreligion, but from faith in the immutable holiness of the gods, who set the ideal standard of human morality. What seems to him false in the myths he attributes to the accretions of ignorant opinion and vain fancy round the truth. The mystical element of Pindar's creed, whether we call it Orphic or Pythagorean, is remarkable for a definite belief in the future life, including a system of rewards and punishments; for the assertion of the supreme tribunal of conscience,[116] and, finally, for a reliance on rites of purification. The most splendid passage in which these opinions are expressed by Pindar is that portion of the second Olympian in which he describes the torments of the wicked and the blessings of the just beyond the grave: "Among the dead, sinful souls at once pay penalty, and the crimes done in this realm of Zeus are judged beneath the earth by one who gives sentence under dire necessity. "But the good, enjoying perpetual sunlight equally by night and day, receive a life more free from woes than this of ours; they trouble not the earth with strength of hand, nor the water of the sea for scanty sustenance; but with the honored of the gods, all they who delighted in the keeping of their oath pass a tearless age: the others suffer woe on which no eye can bear to look. Those who have thrice endured on either side the grave to keep their spirits wholly free from crime, journey on the road of Zeus to the tower of Kronos: where round the islands blow breezes ocean-borne; and flowers of gold burn some on the land from radiant trees, and others the wave feeds; with necklaces whereof they twine their hands and brows, in the just decrees of Rhadamanthus, whom father Kronos has for a perpetual colleague, he who is spouse of Rhea throned above all gods. "Peleus and Cadmus are numbered among these: and thither was Achilles brought by his mother when she swayed the heart of Zeus with prayer: he who slew Hector, the invincible firm pillar of Troy, and gave Cycnus to death and Eo's Æthiopian son." The following fragments from threnoi[117] translated by Professor Conington further illustrate Pindar's belief in a future state of weal or woe: