“You speak truly,” he said.

“But it is right, my friends,” he said, “that we should consider this—–­ that if the soul is immortal, it requires our care not only for the present time, which we call life, but for all time; and the danger would now appear to be dreadful if one should neglect it. 130.  For if death were a deliverance from every thing, it would be a great gain for the wicked, when they die, to be delivered at the same time from the body, and from their vices together with the soul; but now, since it appears to be immortal, it can have no other refuge from evils, nor safety, except by becoming as good and wise as possible.  For the soul goes to Hades possessing nothing else than its discipline and education, which are said to be of the greatest advantage or detriment to the dead, on the very beginning of his journey thither.  For, thus, it is said that each person’s demon who was assigned to him while living, when he dies conducts him to some place, where they that are assembled together must receive sentence, and then proceed to Hades with that guide who has been ordered to conduct them from hence thither.  But there having received their deserts, and having remained the appointed time, another guide brings them back hither again, after many and long revolutions of time.  The journey, then, is not such as the Telephus of AEschylus describes it; for he says that a simple path leads to Hades; but it appears to me to be neither simple nor one, for there would be no need of guides, nor could any one ever miss the way, if there were but one.  But now it appears to have many divisions and windings; and this I conjecture from our religious and funeral rites.[40] 131.  The well-ordered and wise soul, then, both follows, and is not ignorant of its present condition; but that which through passion clings to the body, as I said before, having longingly fluttered about it for a long time, and about its visible place,[41] after vehement resistance and great suffering, is forcibly and with great difficulty led away by its appointed demon.  And when it arrives at the place where the others are, impure and having done any such thing as the committal of unrighteous murders or other similar actions, which are kindred to these, and are the deeds of kindred souls, every one shuns it and turns away from it, and will be neither its fellow-traveler nor guide; but it wanders about, oppressed with every kind of helplessness, until certain periods have elapsed; and when these are completed, it is carried, of necessity, to an abode suitable to it.  But the soul which has passed through life with purity and moderation, having obtained the gods for its fellow-travelers and guides, settles each in the place suited to it. 132.  There are, indeed, many and wonderful places in the earth, and it is itself neither of such a kind nor of such a magnitude as is supposed by those who are accustomed to speak of the earth, as I have been persuaded by a certain person.”