§40Quando igitur omnes, et qui moventur palamque se ostendunt, et qui eatenus nobis declarantur, qua ipsi volunt, creati sunt, tum ad eos is deus, qui omnia genuit, fatur: “Haec vos, qui deorum satu orti estis, attendite: quorum operum ego parens effectorque sum, haec sunt indissoluta me invito; quamquam omne colligatum solvi potest; sed haudquaquam boni est ratione vinctum velle dissolvere.
When therefore all of them, both those which are moved and show themselves openly, and those which are revealed to us only so far as they themselves wish, were created, then that god who begot all things spoke to them: "Hear these things, you who have sprung from the stock of the gods: these works, of which I am the parent and creator, are indissoluble against my will; although everything that is bound can be dissolved, yet it is by no means the part of a good being to wish to dissolve what is bound by reason.
Sed quoniam estis orti, inmortales vos quidem esse et indissolubiles non potestis, neutiquam tamen dissolvemini, neque vos ulla mortis fata periment nec fraus valentior quam consilium meum, quod maius est vinculum ad perpetuitatem vestram quam illa, quibus estis tum, cum gignebamini, conligati. §41Quid sentiam igitur, cognoscite: Tria genera nobis reliqua sunt, eaque mortalia;
But since you have been born, you cannot indeed be immortal and indissoluble, yet you shall in no way be dissolved, nor shall any fates of death destroy you, nor any force more powerful than my counsel, which is a greater bond for your perpetuity than those by which you were bound when you were being generated.\n Know therefore what I intend: Three kinds remain to us, and those mortal; if these are omitted, the perfection of heaven will not be complete.
quibus praetermissis caeli absolutio perfecta non erit. Omnia enim genera animalium complexu non tenebit; teneat autem oportebit, ut ex eodem ne quid absit.
For it will not hold all kinds of living creatures in its embrace; but it must hold them, so that nothing may be lacking from it.
Quae a me ipso effecta si sint, deorum vitam possint adaequare.
If these should be made by me myself, they could equal the life of the gods.
Ut igitur mortali condicione generentur, vos suscipite, ut illa gignatis imiteminique vim meam, qua me in vestro ortu usum esse meministis.
Therefore, so that they may be generated under a mortal condition, do you undertake to generate them and imitate my power, which you remember me to have used in your origin.
In quibus qui tales creabuntur, ut deorum inmortalium quasi gentiles esse debeant, divini generis appellentur teneantque omnium animantium principatum vobisque iure et lege volentes pareant; quorum vobis initium satusque tradetur a me, vos autem ad id, quod erit inmortale, partem attexitote mortalem.
Among which, those that shall be created such as to be as it were relatives of the immortal gods, let them be called of divine race and let them hold the sovereignty over all living creatures and willingly obey you by law and right; of whom the beginning and the sowing shall be delivered to you by me, but do you weave a mortal part to that which shall be immortal.
Ita orientur animantes, quos et vivos alatis et consumptos sinu recipiatis. ” §42Haec ille dixit.
Thus shall living creatures rise, whom you may both nourish while alive and receive into your bosom when they are consumed."\n He said these things.
Deinde ad temperationem superiorem revertit; in qua omnem animum universae naturae temperans permiscebat superiorisque permixtionis reliquias fundens aequabat eodem modo ferme, nisi quod non ita incorrupta, ut ea, quae semper idem, sed ab iis secundum sumebat atque etiam tertium. §43Toto igitur omni constituto sideribus parem numerum distribuit animorum et singulos adiunxit ad singula atque ita quasi in currum universitatis inposuit commonstravitque leges fatales ac necessarias et ostendit primum ortum unum fore omnibus, eumque moderatum atque constantem nec ab ullo inminutum, satis autem et quasi sparsis animis fore uti certis temporum intervallis oreretur animal, quod esset ad cultum deorum aptissumum. §44Sed cum duplex esset natura generis humani, sic se res habebat, ut praestantius genus esset eorum, qui essent futuri viri.
Then he returned to the previous mixing-bowl; in which, tempering the whole soul of the nature of the universe, he was mixing it, and pouring the remains of the prior mixture, he was leveling them in almost the same manner, except that they were not so pure as those which were always the same, but he took from them a second and even a third grade.\n Therefore, when the whole was entirely constituted, he distributed a number of souls equal to the stars, and joined individual souls to individual stars, and thus placed them as if on the chariot of the universe, and demonstrated the laws of fate and necessity, and showed that the first birth would be one and the same for all, and that it would be moderate and constant, and diminished by no one; and that, once the souls were sown and as if scattered, it would come to pass that at certain intervals of time a living creature would rise, which would be most fit for the worship of the gods.\n But since the nature of the human race was twofold, the matter stood thus: that the more excellent kind was of those who were to be men.
Cum autem animos corporibus necessitate insevisset, cumque ad corpora tum accessio fieret, tum abscessio, principio necesse erat sensum exsistere unum communemque omnium vehementiore motu excitatum coniunctumque naturae, deinde voluptate et molestia mixtum amorem, post iram et metum et reliquos motus animi, comites superiorum et iis etiam contrarios dissidentes; quos qui ratione rexerit, iuste vixerit, qui autem iis se dediderit, iniuste. §45Atque ille, qui recte atque honeste curriculum vivendi a natura datum confecerit, ad illud astrum, quocum aptus fuerit, revertetur; qui autem inmoderate et intemperate vixerit, eum secundus ortus in figuram muliebrem transferet, et, si ne tum quidem finem vitiorum faciet, gravius etiam iactabitur et in suis moribus simillimas figuras pecudum et ferarum transferetur neque terminum malorum prius aspiciet, quam illam sequi coeperit conversionem, quam habebat in se ipse eiusdem et similis innatam et insitam. Quod tum eveniet, cum illa, quae ex igni, anima, aqua, terra turbulenta et rationis expertia insederint, ratione depulerit et ad primam atque optimam affectionem animi pervenerit.
But when he had of necessity implanted souls in bodies, and since there occurred to the bodies now addition, now subtraction, in the first place it was necessary that there should exist one perception, common to all, excited by a more violent motion and conjoined with nature; then love mixed with pleasure and pain, and afterward anger and fear and the other motions of the soul, companions of the former and also contrary and differing from them; and he who should govern these by reason would live justly, but he who should surrender himself to them, unjustly.\n And he who shall have rightly and honorably completed the race of living given by nature shall return to that star to which he was joined; but he who shall have lived immoderately and intemperately, a second birth shall transfer him into a woman's form; and if not even then he shall make an end of his vices, he shall be tossed about even more grievously and shall be transferred into the forms of beasts and wild animals most similar to his own habits; nor shall he see an end of his evils before he begins to follow that revolution which he himself had inborn and implanted within him of "the same and similar." Which will then come to pass, when he shall have driven out by reason those turbulent and irrational things which had settled in him from fire, breath, water, and earth, and shall have arrived at the first and best condition of his soul.