Note 35 — Phædo; Or, The Immortality Of The Soul. (continued 2)

"What, then? Does not the soul now appear to act quite the contrary, ruling over all the parts from which any one might say it subsists, and resisting almost all of them through the whole of life, and exercising dominion over them in all manner of ways; punishing some more severely even with pain, both by gymnastics and medicine, and others more mildly; partly threatening, and partly admonishing the desires, angers and fears, as if, being itself of a different nature, it were conversing with something quite different? 99. Just as Homer has done in the Odyssey,35 where he speaks of Ulysses—'Having struck his breast, he chid his heart in the following words: Bear up, my heart; ere this thou hast borne far worse.' Do you think that he composed this in the belief that the soul was harmony, and capable of being led by the passions of the body, and not rather that it was able to lead and govern them, as being something much more divine than to be compared with harmony?"