Note 141 — Chapter XIV · PART II POPULAR BELIEF

Ep. 651: θνητὸν σῶμα . . . τὸ δ’ ἀθάνατον ἐς μακάρων ἀνόρουσε κέαρ· ψυχὴ γὰρ ἀείζως ἣ τὸ ζῆν παρέχει καὶ θεόφιν κατέβη . . . σῶμα χιτὼν ψυχῆς (cf. Emp. 414 M. = fr. 126 D., σαρκῶν περιστέλλουσα χιτῶνι sc. τὴν ψυχήν)· τὸν δὲ θεὸν σέβε μου (the god in me, my ψυχή). 261, 6, τὴν ψυχὴν δ’ ἀθανάτην ἔλαχον· ἐν γαίῃ μὲν σῶμα τὸ συγγενές οὐράνιος δὲ ἤλυθεν ἡ ψυχὴ δῶμα κατ’ οὐ φθίμενον κτλ.; cf. 320, 6 ff.—594 (late epitaph of a doctor with philosophic leanings; found in Rome), 7 ff.: οὐδ’ ἄρα θνητὸς ἔην, ὑπ’ ἀνάγκης ὑψιμέδοντος τύμβῳ εἰναλέῳ πεπεδημένος ἤνυσεν οἶμον. ἐκ ῥεθέων δ’ ἄμα στειχων σεμνὸν ἔβη Διὸς οἶκον. No sense can be made of the passage if τύμβῳ is understood as the real grave and this has led to altering or straining the sense of εἰναλέῳ (εἰναλίῳ Franz, σιγαλέῳ Jacobs). But the poet means: the dead man was (in his real nature, his soul) immortal, only the will of the gods had caused him (his soul) to be bound to the body and to complete his course of life in the body, after the end of which he will rise immediately (and return) to the realm of the gods. Read therefore τύμβῳ εἰν ἀλαῷ πεπεδημένος, fettered in the “dark grave” of the body: σῶμα = σῆμα. (Exactly as in Verg., A. vi, 734, the animae: clausae tenebris et carcere caeco.)—603: he who lies buried here θνητοῖς ψυχὴν πείσας ἐπὶ σώμασιν ἐλθεῖν τὴν αὑτοῦ, μέλεος, οὐκ ἀνέπεισε μένειν. That is: he has persuaded his (previously living and bodiless) soul to enter into the realm of mortal bodies (to occupy a body), but could not persuade it to remain there long—in this earthly life.