My dear fellow, you do not know how Ignorance
and Error have served them. Even a drill could not
penetrate their ears now, because these dames have
stopped them with such quantities of wax, like
Odysseus, who did this to his comrades for fear that
they might hear the Sirens. How could they hear,
then, even if you should crack your lungs with
bawling? What lies in the power of Lethe down
Then let us call to them at least.
It would be superfluous to tell them what they know. You see how they stand aloof from the masses and laugh at what goes on ; they are not in the least satisfied with it all, but are clearly planning to make their escape from life to your own regions. Indeed, they have reason, for they are disliked because they expose the follies of man. ¢
Well done, staunch souls! But they are very few, Hermes.
Even these are enough. But let us go down now.
There is one thing more that I wanted to know about, Hermes, and when you point it out to me you will have done your full duty as guide; it is to see the places where they stow the bodies, where they bury them, I mean.
They call such places vaults, tombs and graves.
Do you see those heaps of earth and slabs of stone
and pyramids in front of the cities? All those
are for the reception of corpses and the storage of
bodies.
I don’t know what good these things are to men in Hades, ferryman; they are convinced, however, that the souls, allowed to come up from below, get their dinner as best they may by flitting about the smoke and steam and drink the mead out of the trench.
What, they eat and drink, when their skulls are
dry as tinder? But it is silly for me to tell that to
you, who bring them down below every day; you
know whether they can come back to earth when
they have once gone under ground! I should be in
a fine predicament, Hermes, and should have no end
of trouble if I were obliged not only to bring them
down but to bring them up to drink ! What folly,
the idiots ! They do not know what an impassable
frontier divides the world of the dead from the
world of the living, and what it is like among us;
that
Heracles! What a lot of Homer you are baling out! Now you have put me in mind of him, I want to show you the tomb of Achilles. Do you see it, there by the seaside ?_ Sigeum in Troy is over there, and opposite to it Ajax lies buried on Rhoeteum.
The tombs are not large, Hermes. But now show me the prominent cities that we hear of down below, Nineveh, the city of Sardanapalus, Babylon, Mycenae, Cleonae, and Troy itself; I remember that I set a great many from that place across the ferry, so that for ten whole years I couldn’t dock my boat or dry her out.
As for Nineveh, ferryman, it is already gone and
there is nota trace of it left now; you couldn't even
say where it was. But there you have Babylon, the
city of the beautiful towers and the great wall, which
will itself soon have to be searched for like Nineveh.
I am ashamed to show you Mycenae and Cleonae,
and Troy above all; for I know right well that when
you go down-you will throttle Homer for the boastfulness of his poems. Yet they were once flourishing,
though now they too are dead ; cities die as well as
men, ferryman, and, what is more, even whole rivers.
That for your praises, Homer, and your adjectives — “hallowed,” “wide-wayed”” Troy and “well-built” Cleonae!
But while we are talking, who are those people at war yonder, and why are they killing each other?
You are looking at the Argives and Spartans,
Charon, and over there is the dying general Othryadas, the one who is writing on the trophy in his
own blood.
About the very plain in which they are fighting.
What folly! They do not know that even if any one of them should acquire the whole Peloponnese, he could hardly get Aeacus to give him a foot of space. And as for this plain, it will be tilled by one race after another, and many a time they will turn the trophy up out of the depths with the plough.
True. But now let’s get down and replace the
mountains, and then go our ways, I on my crrand
I am much obliged to you, Hermes; you shall be
written down for ever as a benefactor. ‘Thanks to
you, I have had some profit from my journey. How
silly are the ways of unhappy mankind, with their
kings, golden ingots, funeral rites and battles—but
never a thought of Charon!