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virtues.
He remarked amongst other things, that the judges inquired where was a
certain man named Andaeus, celebrated in all Pamphylia for his crimes
and tyranny. They were answered that he was not yet come, and that he
would not be there; in fact, having presented himself with much
trouble, and by making great efforts, at the grand opening before
mentioned, he was repulsed and sent back to go below with other
scoundrels like himself, whom they tortured in a thousand different
ways, and who were always violently repulsed, whenever they tried to
reascend.
He saw, moreover, the three Fates, daughters of Necessity or Destiny.
These are, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos. Lachesis announced the past,
Clotho the present, and Atropos the future. The souls were obliged to
appear before these three goddesses. Lachesis cast the lots upwards,
and every soul laid hold of the one which it could reach; which,
however, did not prevent them still from sometimes missing the kind of
life which was most conformable to justice and reason.
Eros added that he had remarked some of the souls who sought to enter
into animals; for instance, Orpheus, from hatred to the female sex,
who had killed him (by tearing him to pieces), entered into a swan,
and Thamaris into a nightingale. Ajax, the son of Telamon, chose the
body of a lion, from detestation of the injustice of the Greeks, who
had refused to let him have the arms of Hector, which he asserted were
his due. Agamemnon, grieved at the crosses he had endured in this
life, chose the form of the eagle. Atalanta chose the life of the
athletics, delighted with the honors heaped upon them. Thersites, the
ugliest of mortals, chose the form of an ape. Ulysses, weary of the
miseries he had suffered upon earth, asked to live quietly as a
private man. He had some trouble to find a lot for that kind of life;
but he found it at last thrown down on the ground and neglected, and
he joyfully snatched it up.
Eros affirmed also that the souls of some animals entered into the
bodies of men; and by the contrary rule, the souls of the wicked took
possession of savage and cruel beasts, and the souls of just men of
those animals which are gentle, tame, and domestic.
After these various metempsychoses, Lachesis gave to each his
guardian or defender, who guided and guarded him during the course of
his life. Eros was then led to the river of oblivion (Lethe), which
takes away all memory of the past, but he wa
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