[617d]
alternately
with either hand lent a hand to each.“Now when they arrived they were straight-way bidden to go
before Lachesis, and then a certain prophet1 first marshalled them in orderly intervals, and thereupon
took from the lap of Lachesis lots and patterns of lives and went up to a
lofty platform and spoke, ‘This is the word of Lachesis, the
maiden daughter of Necessity, “Souls that live for a day,2 now is the beginning of
another cycle of mortal generation where birth is the beacon of death.
1 See What Plato Said, p. 550, on Phaedr. 235 C.
2 Cf. Laws 923 A, Pindar, Pyth. viii. 95, Aesch.Prom. 83, 547, Aristot.Hist. an. 552 b 18 f., Cic.Tusc. i. 39. 94, Plut.Cons. ad Apol. 6 (104 A)ἀνθρώπων . . . ἐφήμερα τὰ σώματα, ibid. 27 (115 D)ἐφήμερον σπέρμα. See also Stallbaum ad loc., and for the thought Soph.Ajax 125-126, Iliad i. 146, Mimnermus ii. 1, Soph.fr. 12 and 859 (Nauck), Job vii. 6, viii. 9, ix. 25, xiv. 2, xxi. 17, etc.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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