until the revolution of the worlds
brings her round again to the same place. In the revolution she beholds
justice, and temperance, and knowledge absolute, not in the form of
generation or of relation, which men call existence, but knowledge
absolute in existence absolute; and beholding the other true existences
in like manner, and feasting upon them, she passes down into the
interior of the heavens and returns home; and there the charioteer
putting up his horses at the stall, gives them ambrosia to eat and
nectar to drink.

Such is the life of the gods; but of other souls, that which follows
God best and is likest to him lifts the head of the charioteer into the
outer world, and is carried round in the revolution, troubled indeed by
the steeds, and with difficulty beholding true being; while another
only rises and falls, and sees, and again fails to see by reason of the
unruliness of the steeds. The rest of the souls are also longing after
the upper world and they all follow, but not being strong enough they
are carried round below the surface, plunging, treading on one another,
each striving to be first; and there is confusion and perspiration and
the extremity of effort; and many of them are lamed or have their wings
broken through the ill-driving of the charioteers; and all of them after
a fruitless toil, not having attained to the mysteries of true being,
go away, and feed upon opinion. The reason why the souls exhibit this
exceeding eagerness to behold the plain of truth is that pasturage is
found there, which is suited to the highest part of the soul; and the
wing on which the soul soars is nourished with this. And there is a law
of Destiny, that the soul which attains any vision of truth in company
with a god is preserved from harm until the next period, and if
attaining always is always unharmed. But when she is unable to follow,
and fails to behold the truth, and through some ill-hap sinks beneath
the double load of forgetfulness and vice, and her wings fall from her
and she drops to the ground, then the law ordains that this soul shall
at her first birth pass, not into any other animal, but only into man;
and the soul which has seen most of truth shall come to the birth as a
philosopher, or artist, or some musical and loving nature; that which
has seen truth in the second degree shall be some righteous king
or warrior chief; the soul which is of the third class shall be a
politician, or economist, or trader;