numerous witnesses come forward
and testify on their behalf that they have lived righteously. The judges
are awed by them, and they themselves too have their clothes on when
judging; their eyes and ears and their whole bodies are interposed as a
veil before their own souls. All this is a hindrance to them; there are
the clothes of the judges and the clothes of the judged.--What is to be
done? I will tell you:--In the first place, I will deprive men of the
foreknowledge of death, which they possess at present: this power which
they have Prometheus has already received my orders to take from them:
in the second place, they shall be entirely stripped before they are
judged, for they shall be judged when they are dead; and the judge
too shall be naked, that is to say, dead--he with his naked soul shall
pierce into the other naked souls; and they shall die suddenly and be
deprived of all their kindred, and leave their brave attire strewn upon
the earth--conducted in this manner, the judgment will be just. I knew
all about the matter before any of you, and therefore I have made my
sons judges; two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe,
Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, shall give judgment in the
meadow at the parting of the ways, whence the two roads lead, one to the
Islands of the Blessed, and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus shall
judge those who come from Asia, and Aeacus those who come from Europe.
And to Minos I shall give the primacy, and he shall hold a court of
appeal, in case either of the two others are in any doubt:--then
the judgment respecting the last journey of men will be as just as
possible.'

From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the
following inferences:--Death, if I am right, is in the first place the
separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else.
And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in
life; the body keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or
accident are distinctly visible in it: for example, he who by nature or
training or both, was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he
was, after he is dead; and the fat man will remain fat; and so on; and
the dead man, who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have
flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of
the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the
same in the dead body; and i