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Book I Chapter 49

53.14 · Divine wrongdoing and punishment

Supposing these beings, then, to be subject to passions, as they are indeed said to be, and therefore to share in desire, anger, hatred, and enmity, and to be under fate, he reasonably thinks that they also do wrong, lie, swear oaths, and keep them, or that some, conversely, offend against their oaths. He therefore supposes punishments for them too, though not mingled with the places where human beings are punished. Since they are greater beings, they also experience greater punishment when they do wrong.¹⁶⁶⁶

53.15 · Tartarus and the Titans

Accordingly, the places of punishment for human souls are in Hades, while those for the gods just mentioned lie beneath Hades, in Cronus’s domain, in Tartarus. Hence this has also been called the region of the Titans, after the gods who pay a penalty there before the avenging gods.¹⁶⁶⁷

53.16 · Styx and divine retribution

There he also places Styx, both the divine being herself and the source of her waters. For Cocytus and Titaresius are an outflow ⟨of Styx⟩, not her source. In matters of punishment she possesses a power that cannot be appeased and is most fearsome. In general, what the Erinys is to unjust souls, Styx is to daimons that have done wrong.¹⁶⁶⁸

53.17 · Patroclus’s recognizable apparition

That the unburied remain outside the river, bearing an image of their body and of the body’s clothing, is shown by passages such as these:

The soul of unhappy Patroclus came to him, in all things like him, in stature and lovely eyes and voice; and it wore the same clothes upon its skin.¹⁶⁶⁹

53.18 · Burial and the halls of Hades

Then he says:

Bury me, that I may pass the gates of Hades as soon as possible.

It has been said that he calls the region inside the river Hades; but the region outside the river too, as we showed, is called [in] the halls of Hades:

Instead I wander aimlessly through Hades’ wide-gated house.¹⁶⁷⁰

53.19 · Exclusion from the crossing

He says, then, what they suffer:

⟨The souls keep me far away, images of those who have toiled,⟩ and will not let me join them beyond the river.¹⁶⁷¹

53.20 · The farewell to Achilles

That, after crossing the river, souls neither recognize the living nor have permission to appear to them unless sent, he adds:

And give me your hand, I beseech you; for never again shall I return from Hades once you have given me my share of fire.¹⁶⁷²

53.21 · Memory and the unburied Elpenor

The unburied soul thus appears remembering the things of its life, longing for that life, and grieving for this reason. So terrible is the punishment for those punished in this way forever. So too Elpenor says:

A daimon’s evil dispensation and boundless sleep brought me to ruin.¹⁶⁷³

53.22 · Elpenor’s plea for burial

After telling what happened to him, he asks to be buried, imploring and pleading:

Now I beseech you by those left behind, who are not here, not to go and leave me behind unwept and unburied, turning away, lest I become a cause of the gods’ wrath against you.¹⁶⁷⁴

54.1 · Recognition among the dead

From the same work. They are ignorant, then, of human affairs and, in general, of the living, but know one another. For if they did not possess this knowledge, how could all those killed together have come with Agamemnon? How could Patroclus, Ajax, and Antilochus converse? How could they prevent the unburied from passing beyond the river? He says:

The souls keep me far away, images of those who have toiled.¹⁶⁷⁵

54.2 · Memory, imagination, and bodily affections

Along with memory they have also laid aside the recognizable features of what belongs to the body. This too makes clear that it is through imagination that the things associated with the body are displayed. For imagination works through memory, as Plato says in the Philebus. When memory is removed, what is imagined is removed too; when that likewise disappears, the soul’s affections concerning the body are also taken away.¹⁶⁷⁶

54.3 · The cessation of punishment

When these have disappeared, the soul’s punishment too has ceased. Only an intellectual condition remains about it, and it dwells beside the wise god.¹⁶⁷⁷

54.4 · Shadows in relation to the living

Someone might perhaps raise a difficulty about what has been said: if they are not ignorant of one another, why did he say:

The others flit as shadows?

The answer is that they flit as shadows in relation to those [toward] of whom they have also been deprived of memory. In relation to mortal things, then, they are shadows because of their incorporeality and their lack of memory of those things. In the same way, when compared with the body’s density, the soul is likened to smoke:

The soul, like smoke, went away with a shrill cry.¹⁶⁷⁸

54.5 · Anticlea before drinking the blood

If, then, on meeting their own people, they neither see them nor converse with them, but are inactive in respect of sensory activity, they ⟨would⟩ resemble shadows in relation to those people. Anticlea, for example:

She sits silent near the blood, and did not dare to look her own son in the face or speak to him.¹⁶⁷⁹

54.6 · Blood, reasoning, and intellect

Blood, as we said, Homer regards as attracting the imaginative and remembering soul. Reasoning too belongs to this soul, being a gathering of memory that is summed up through images into universal judgments. The intellectual faculty was something different: ⟨the⟩ soul returns to it once inside Acheron, which Cocytus and Pyriphlegethon fill, flowing from a rock and being outflows of Stygian terrors.¹⁶⁸⁰

1666.“Reasonably” expresses Porphyry’s inference from the Homeric gods’ susceptibility to passions and fate. The passage explicitly includes both keeping and violating oaths. Its comparison of greater beings and greater punishment prepares the distinction between human Hades and the deeper divine prison of Tartarus.

1667.The proposed connection between Titans and tisis, “penalty” or “retribution,” is the author’s interpretation of the name. English cannot reproduce the similarity of sound. The gods receiving punishment and the gods exacting it are distinguished; Cronus’s domain lies beneath the human region of Hades.

1668.The supplemented name Styx remains marked. Titaresius is the river named here, distinct from the Titans in the preceding sentence. Styx is considered both as a divine person and as water. The Erinys is an avenging power; the analogy assigns Styx a corresponding role in punishment of divine beings.

1669.Homer, Iliad 23.65-67. The prose follows the printed correction himatiōn, “clothing,” rather than the transmitted hamartēmatōn, “sins,” reported in the apparatus. The recognizable body and clothing support Porphyry’s account of an image retained by an unburied soul. “To him” refers to Achilles.

1670.Homer, Iliad 23.71 and 74, quoted in this order. The singular imperative “bury me” follows thapte in the supplied edition. The rejected preposition en is visibly retained in brackets; reading without it gives “is called the halls of Hades.” Porphyry allows the same name to describe regions on both sides of the river.

1671.Homer, Iliad 23.72-73. Wachsmuth supplies the whole first verse, which therefore remains enclosed in angle brackets in both languages. The order of these quotations follows Porphyry’s argument, not the continuous order of the Iliad. “Those who have toiled” renders the Homeric designation of the dead.

1672.Homer, Iliad 23.75-76. Patroclus asks for Achilles’ hand before his cremation. “My share of fire” retains the wording for receiving the funeral fire. The broader claims about loss of recognition and authorized appearances are Porphyry’s interpretation of the farewell, rather than additional words in the Homeric quotation.

1673.Homer, Odyssey 11.61, as quoted in this edition. The printed word is hypnos, “sleep,” whereas the familiar Homeric line has oinos, “wine.” The translation retains the supplied text rather than substituting wine. Porphyry links the unburied soul’s grief to its continuing memory and attachment to life.

1674.Homer, Odyssey 11.66, 72, and 73. The quotation joins separated verses; the intervening lines have not been silently supplied. The absent people invoked in the first line are the hearer’s loved ones. The final warning presents neglect of burial as a possible cause of divine anger. This closes excerpt 53.

1675.Porphyry continues On the Styx. His questions defend mutual recognition among the dead while denying recognition of the living. “Converse” follows the printed synelalei, distinguished in the apparatus from a reading meaning “summoned.” The final verse is Iliad 23.72, here printed without the supplement brackets required at its earlier occurrence.

1676.The printed synapotetheitai means “has been laid aside along with.” The edition locates the reference to Plato at Philebus 39A. “Memory” here must be read in light of the preceding distinction between earthly recognition and recognition among the dead. Phantasia is the presentation of images; pathē includes experiences or affections of the soul associated with the body.

1677.“These” refers to the bodily affections just discussed. The cessation of punishment follows from the removal of the images through which the soul suffered. Noeros, “intellectual,” distinguishes this condition from bodily sensation and imagination. The god is not named in this sentence; the translation does not add an identification.

1678.The first quotation is Odyssey 10.495; the final two lines abbreviate Iliad 23.100-101. The rejected second pros, “toward,” remains bracketed in the explanation. Without it the English reads “those of whom.” Porphyry makes shadowhood relational: souls appear as shadows to the living, while retaining their own understanding. The smoke comparison concerns bodily density.

1679.Homer, Odyssey 11.142-143. Anticlea is Odysseus’s mother; the quotation describes her before she drinks the sacrificial blood. The supplied potential particle an is represented by the marked “would.” The redundant-sounding “inactive in respect of sensory activity” preserves the distinction between a soul’s existence and its exercise of perception.

1680.Logismos is rendered “reasoning,” while to dianoētikon is “the intellectual faculty,” preserving the contrast made here. The account of memory and universal judgments belongs to Porphyry’s philosophical interpretation. The supplied article before “soul” remains marked. The river description recalls Odyssey 10.513-515 and extends the earlier interpretation of Styx through terror.