But those of the middle way in life, and they are many, wander about in the meadow without their bodies, in the form of shadows that vanish like smoke in your fingers. They get their nourishment, naturally, from the libations that are poured in our world and the burnt-offerings at the tomb; so that if anyone has not left a friend or kinsman behind him on earth, he goes about his business there as an unfed corpse, in a state of famine.

So thoroughly are people taken in by all this that when one of the family dies, immediately they bring an obol and put it into his mouth, to pay the ferryman for setting him over. They do not stop to consider what sort of coinage is customary and current in the lower world, and whether it is the Athenian or the Macedonian or the Aeginetan obol that is legal tender there; nor, indeed, that it would be far better not to be able to pay the fare, since in that case the ferryman would not take them and they would be escorted back to life again.

Then they bathe them (as if the lake down below were not big enough for the people there to bathe in); and after anointing with the finest of perfume that body which is already hasting to corruption, and crowning ‘it with pretty flowers, they lay them in state, clothed in splendid raiment, which, very likely, is intended to keep them from being cold on the way and from being seen undressed by Cerberus.

Next come cries of distress, wailing of women, tears on all sides, beaten breasts, torn hair, and bloody cheeks. Perhaps, too, clothing is rent and dust sprinkled on the head, and the living are in a plight more pitiable than the dead ; for they roll on the ground repeatedly and dash their heads against the floor, while he, all serene and handsome and elaborately decked with wreaths, lies in lofty, exalted state, bedizened as for a pageant.