The Portable Plato
“Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him?Certainly not, he said.And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible?Impossible.Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile, but rather to commend the world below, intimating to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our f...uture warriors.That will be our duty, he said.Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages, beginning with the verses,“I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portion-less man than rule over all the dead who have come to nought.”55We must also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared,“Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals.”56 And again:—“O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly form but no mind at alll”57Again of Tiresias:—“[To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he alone should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades.”58Again:—“The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her fate, leaving manhood and youth.”59Again:—“And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth.”MoreLess
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