“Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? Or why is this immortal that thou hast? Ah, Pythagoras’ metempsychosis, were that true This soul should fly from me, and I be changed Unto some brutish beast! All beasts are happy, For when they die, Their souls are soon dissolved in elements; But mine must live still to be plagued in hell.” [71] MARTHA: _L’Examen de Conscience chez les Anciens_ (“études morales sur l’Antiquité”).—“Ce poème, attribué par les uns à Pythagore lui-même, par d’autres à Lysis, son disciple, par d’autres encore ou à Philolaüs ou à Empédocle, ne remonte pas sans doute à une si haute antiquité, mais il est certainement antérieur au christianisme, puisque des écrivains qui ont vécu avant notre ère, entre autres le Stoïcien Chrysippe, y ont fait quelquefois allusion ... Hieroclès dit formellement que les _Vers d’or_ ne sont pas l’œuvre d’un homme, mais celle de tout le sacré collège pythagoricien.”—The author of the verses is, doubtless, unknown, but their general attribution in antiquity to a Pythagorean source is in harmony with the universal recognition that they cohere with the ethical doctrine of the school. M. Martha subjects ancient philosophers and critics to a severe reprehension on the ground that they saw in these verses a mere inculcation of the practice of the memory—“Un certain nombre d’anciens sont tombés dans la plus étrange méprise. Ils ont cru qu’il s’agissait ici d’un exercice de mémoire.” But, giving all the force which M. Martha assigns to the passages he quotes in support of this view, we must not leave out of consideration the important part which a good memory was believed to subserve in practical ethics. See the pseudo-Plutarchic tract _De Educatione Liberorum_, 9 F. Cf. EPICTETUS, lib. iii. cap x. SENECA (_De Ira_, 3, cap. 36) learned the practice inculcated by the golden verses from Sextus, who was claimed as a Pythagorean (RITTER and PRELLER, 437). [72] PLATO: _Republic_, 600 B. [73] PLUTARCH: _Adversus Coloten_, 1126; cf. _D. L._, ix. 23. See also PLATO’S _Parmenides_, and cf. UEBERWEG on Parmenides. [74] LESLIE STEPHEN: _The Science of Ethics_ (concluding sentence). [75] For a brief expression of this identity, see DION. CH. _De Exilio_, xiii. p. 249.—“_To seek and strive earnestly after Virtue—that is Philosophy._” Cf. SENECA: _Epist._, i. 37; _et passim_.