ous mental diseases to which, through such a conjunction, it becomes unavoidably subject; for this description contains a threefold division; representing, in the first place, the external evils with which this material region is replete; in the second place, intimating that the life of the soul when merged in body is nothing but a dream; and, in the third place, under the disguise of omniform and terrific monsters, exhibiting the various vices of our irrational part. Hence Empedocles, in perfect conformity with the first part of this description, calls this material abode, or the realms of generation,—ατερπεα χωρον,[1] a "joyless region,"
Where slaughter, rage, and countless ills reside;
Ενθα φονος τε κοτος τε και αλλων εθνεα κηρων,
and into which those who fall,
Through Ate's meads and dreadful darkness stray.
Ατης
ανα λειμωνα τε και σκοτος ηλασκουσιν.
And hence he justly says of such a soul, that
She flies from deity and heav'nly light,
To serve mad discord in the realms of night.
φυγας θεοθεν, και αλητης,
Νεικεϊ μαινομενω πισυνος.
Where too you may observe that the discordia demens of Virgil is an exact translation of the νεικεϊ μαινομενω of Empedocles.
In the lines too which immediately succeed, the sorrows and mournful miseries attending the soul's union with a material nature, are beautifully described.
Hinc via, Tartarei quæ fert Acherontis ad undas;
Turbidus hic cæeno vastaque voragine gurges
Æstuat, atque omnem Cocyto eructat arenam.
And when Charon calls out to Æneas to desist from entering any farther, and tells him,
Here to reside delusive shades delight;
For nought dwells here but sleep and drowsy night.
Umbrarum hic locus est, Somni Noctisque soporæ.
Nothing can more aptly express the condition of the dark regions of body, into which the soul, when descending, meets with nothing
- ↑ This and the other citations from Empedocles are to be found in Hierocles in Aur. Carm. p. 186.
