“What, then, does not the soul now appear to act quite the contrary, ruling over all the parts, from which any one might say it subsists, and resisting almost all of them through the whole of life, and exercising dominion over them in all manner of ways, punishing some more severely even with pain, both by gymnastics and medicine, and others more mildly, partly threatening, and partly admonishing the desires, angers, and fears, as if, being itself of a different nature, it were conversing with something quite different? 99. Just as Homer has done in the Odyssey[35], where he speaks of Ulysses: ‘Having struck his breast, he chid his heart in the following words, Bear up, my heart; ere this thou hast borne far worse.’ Do you think that he composed this in the belief that the soul was harmony, and capable of being led by the passions of the body, and not rather that it was able to lead and govern them, as being something much more divine than to be compared with harmony?” ----- Footnote 35: Lib. xx. v. 7. ----- “By Jupiter, Socrates, it appears so to me.” “Therefore, my excellent friend, it is on no account correct for us to say that the soul is a kind of harmony; for as it appears, we should neither agree with Homer, that divine poet, nor with ourselves.” “Such is the case,” he replied. “Be it so, then,” said Socrates, “we have already, as it seems, sufficiently appeased this Theban harmony. But how, Cebes, and by what arguments shall we appease this Cadmus[36]?” ----- Footnote 36: Harmony was the wife of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes; Socrates, therefore, compares his two Theban friends, Simmias and Cebes, with them, and says that having overcome Simmias, the advocate of Harmony, he must now deal with Cebes, who is represented by Cadmus. ----- 100. “You appear to me,” replied Cebes, “to be likely to find out; for you have made out this argument against harmony wonderfully beyond my expectation. For when Simmias was saying what his doubts were, I wondered very much whether any one would be able to answer his reasoning. It therefore appeared to me unaccountable that he did not withstand the very first onset of your argument. I should not, therefore, be surprised if the arguments of Cadmus met with the same fate.”