Section 621

and then without a backward look it passed beneath the throne of Necessity. And after it had passed through that, when the others also had passed, they all journeyed to the Plain of Oblivion, 1 through a terrible and stifling heat, for it was bare of trees and all plants, and there they camped at eventide by the River of Forgetfulness, 2 whose waters no vessel can contain. They were all required to drink a measure of the water, and those who were not saved by their good sense drank more than the measure, and each one as he drank forgot all things. And after they had fallen asleep and it was the middle of the night, there was a sound of thunder and a quaking of the earth, and they were suddenly wafted thence, one this way, one that, upward to their birth like shooting stars. 3 Er himself, he said, was not allowed to drink of the water, yet how and in what way he returned to the body he said he did not know, but suddenly recovering his sight 4 he saw himself at dawn lying on the funeral pyre.—And so, Glaucon, the tale was saved, 5 as the saying is, and was not lost. And it will save us 6 if we believe it, and we shall safely cross the River of Lethe, and keep our soul unspotted from the world. 7 But if we are guided by me we shall believe that the soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil, and so we shall hold ever to the upward way and pursue righteousness with wisdom always and ever, that we may be dear to ourselves 8 and to the gods both during our sojourn here and when we receive our reward, as the victors in the games 9 go about to gather in theirs. And thus both here and in that journey of a thousand years, whereof I have told you, we shall fare well. 10