our is the pigment of
illiberality and covetousness, and the blood-red the sign of cruelty and
savageness, and where the blue is there sensuality and love of pleasure
are not easily eradicated, and that violet and livid colour marks malice
and envy, like the dark liquid ejected by the cuttle fish. For as during
life vice produces these colours by the soul being acted upon by
passions and reacting upon the body, so here it is the end of
purification and correction when they are toned down, and the soul
becomes altogether bright and one colour. But as long as these colours
remain, there are relapses of the passions accompanied by palpitation
and throbbing of the heart, in some faint and soon suppressed, in others
more violent and lasting. And some of these souls by being again and
again corrected recover their proper disposition and condition, while
others again by their violent ignorance and excessive love of
pleasure[867] are carried into the bodies of animals; for one by
weakness of reasoning power, and slowness of contemplation, is impelled
by the practical element in him to generation, while another, lacking an
instrument to satisfy his licentiousness, desires to gratify his
passions immediately, and to get that gratification through the medium
of the body; for here there is no real fruition, but only an imperfect
shadow and dream of incomplete pleasure."

After he had said this, Thespesius' kinsman hurried him at great speed
through immense space, as it seemed to him, though he travelled as
easily and straight as if he were carried on the wings of the sun's
rays. At last he got to an extensive and bottomless abyss, where his
strength left him, as he found was the case with the other souls there:
for keeping together and making swoops, like birds, they flitted all
round the abyss, but did not venture to pass over it. To internal view
it resembled the caverns of Bacchus, being beautiful throughout[868]
with trees and green foliage and flowers of all kinds, and it breathed a
soft and gentle air, laden with scents marvellously pleasant, and
producing the effect that wine does on those who are topers; for the
souls were elevated by its fragrance, and gay and blithe with one
another: and the whole spot was full of mirth and laughter, and such
songs as emanate from gaiety and enjoyment. And Thespesius' kinsman told
him that this was the way Dionysus went up to heaven by, and by which he
afterwards took up Semele, and it wa