Note n. 154 — Chapter XIV · PART II POPULAR BELIEF

154 The soul of a dead son (who as it appears from ll. 1, 2, 6 ff. had been killed by a flash of lightning and therefore removed to a higher state of being [see Append. i]) appears by night to his mother and confirms her own assertion, οὐκ ἤμην βροτός, Ep. 320. The soul of their daughter who has died ἄωρος and ἀθαλάμευτος appears to her parents on the ninth day (l. 35) after death, 372, 31 ff. (The ninth day marks the end of the first offerings to the dead: see above, chap. v, n. 84; cf. “Apparitions of the deceased occur most frequently on the ninth day after death”: a German superstition mentioned by Grimm, 1812, n. 856.) It is significant that the daughter who thus appears in a vision has died unmarried. The ἄγαμοι, like the ἄωροι, do not find rest after death: see Append. vii and iii. The soul of another unmarried maiden says distinctly that those like herself are especially able to appear in dreams: ἠϊθέοις γὰρ ἔδωκε θεὸς μετὰ μοῖραν ὀλέθρον ὡς ζώουσι λαλεῖν πᾶσιν ἐπιχθονίοις, Ep. 325, 7–8.—It becomes more general, however, in 522, 12–13: σώματα γὰρ κατέλυσε Δίκη, ψυχὴ δὲ προπᾶσα ἀθάνατος δι’ ὅλου (thus the stone, Ath. Mitt. xiv, 193) πωτωμένη πάντ’ ἐπακούει (cf. Eur., Orest. 667 ff.).