The Plato Papers Read Online Free PDF Page B

emerge within the great brightness of Witspell. Thank you.

12
    Plato:
Thank you. Something of a success, I think.
    Soul:
It was a fine performance.
    Plato:
But was it accurate?
    Soul:
As far as anyone knows. I particularly enjoyed your disquisition on time. It always interested me, at least when it existed. You were very convincing, too. And I must say that your gestures have improved.
    Plato:
I was taught in the Academy how to summon up the images, but I was a poor student.
    Soul:
No. You were different. I noticed it from the beginning. Even as a child you were unlike the others. You preferred solitude. You refused to play with the broken mirrors.
    Plato:
I was so ugly—
    Soul:
No. You were so afraid. When you were supposed to dance in the maze with the other children, you screamed and ran away.
    Plato:
I did?
    Soul:
I was always with you. When you used to hide in the ruins of the elephantine castle. When you wept at the death of your teacher.
    Plato:
Euphrene. She brought me into the Academy. She showed me the books.
    Soul:
Do you remember weeping?
    Plato:
I remember that I visited the House of the Dead.

13
    Welcome, little Plato. Welcome to the House of the Dead. When your teacher approached her end, she came here. Some citizens gently and quietly disappear, while others will lie within their shells for many centuries before fading away. We had once thought that, at the moment of death, all memory and imagination left the body; but recently we have found evidence that there is dreaming among the dead. They lie here and dream of their past lives. We know this because we have listened to their dreams. Why are you weeping, little Plato?

14
    Soul:
Yet you stayed at the Academy.
    Plato:
It was my duty. No. It was my choice. I wanted to read all the old books. I was no longer here. I was there, within them.
    Soul:
It was a comfortable position.
    Plato:
Why?
    Soul:
It was a place where you could conceal yourself.
    Plato:
You’re wrong.
    Soul:
I ought to know.
    Plato:
I wanted to find myself.
    Soul:
You wanted to find a voice.
    Plato:
No. I wanted to find a faith.
    Soul:
It was all very distressing. You were certain that you were right and the other citizens wrong. You believed in the importance of the past.
    Plato:
Of course. But surely it was you who convinced me that the books were worthy of examination?
    Soul:
I may have done. I cannot remember.
    Plato:
Souls do not need memory. They are eternal.
    Soul:
My apologies. I stand corrected. But when they asked you to take on the robe of orator, I remained silent.
    Plato:
That was my choice. I did it because I was afraid.
    Soul:
Of what?
    Plato:
Of them.

15
    Plato of Pie Corner, you have assumed the robe and mask of
the orator. You will speak at each of the gates of the city.
What is your theme?
    I will discuss the first ages of the earth.

16
    The Age of Orpheus is the name we have given to the first epoch, when it was truly the springtime of this world. These were the centuries when statues were coaxed into life and walked from their stone plinths, when the spirits of streams could be changed into trees or glades and when flowers sprang from the blood of wounded heroes. The gods themselves took the shape of swans or bulls from the simple delight in transformation.
    Orpheus has become the symbol of this enchanted time because it was he who discovered the powers of musical harmony and, by means of his melodies, made the trees dance and the mountains speak. Yet his delight in the plaintive notes of the lute was far exceeded by his love for a woman, Eurydice, who was the daughter of a river nymph; we have found the nests of nymphs even here, by the Tyburn and the Lea. Eurydice was stung by a serpent of the field while conversing with a flower; she died at once, her eyes closed upon the world, and Orpheus was afflicted with a grief which no music could alleviate. We might say that he ‘descended’ into grief, since the notion of descent is central to the vision of this age.
    She