In this,
said he, that one might use the same argument about harmony and a lyre
with its strings.One might say that the harmony is invisible and incorporeal,
and very beautiful and
divine in the well attuned lyre, but the lyre itself and its
strings are bodies, and corporeal and composite and earthy and akin to that
which is mortal. Now if someone shatters the lyre or cuts and breaks the
strings, what if he should maintain by the same argument you employed, that the
harmony could not have perished and must still exist? For there would be no
possibility that the lyre and its strings, which are of mortal nature, still
exist after the strings are broken, and the harmony,
which is related and akin to the divine and the immortal,
perish before that which is mortal. He would say that the harmony must still
exist somewhere, and that the wood and the strings must rot away before anything
could happen to it. And I fancy, Socrates, that it must have occurred to your
own mind that we believe the soul to be something after this fashion; that our
body is strung and held together by heat, cold, moisture, dryness, and the like,
and the soul is a mixture and a harmony
of these same elements, when they are well and properly mixed. Now if the soul
is a harmony, it is clear that when the body is too much relaxed or is too
tightly strung by diseases or other ills, the soul must of necessity perish, no
matter how divine it is, like other harmonies in sounds and in all the works of
artists, and the remains of each body will endure
a long time until they are burnt or decayed. Now what shall
we say to this argument, if anyone claims that the soul, being a mixture of the
elements of the body, is the first to perish in what is called
death?Then Socrates, looking keenly at
us, as he often used to do, smiled and said: Simmias raises a fair
objection. Now if any of you is readier than I, why does he not reply to him?
For he seems to score a good point. However, I think
before replying to him we ought to hear what fault our
friend Cebes finds with our argument, that we may take time to consider what to
say, and then when we have heard them, we can either agree with them, if they
seem to strike the proper note, or, if they do not, we can proceed to argue in
defence of our reasoning. Come, Cebes, said he, tell us what it
was that troubled you.Well, I will
tell you, said Cebes.