phaedrus   

and fails to behold the truth, and through some ill-hap sinks

beneath the double load of forgetfulness and vice, and her wings

fall from her and she drops to the ground, then the law ordains that

this soul shall at her first birth pass, not into any other animal,

but only into man; and the soul which has seen most of truth shall

come to the birth as a philosopher, or artist, or some musical and

loving nature; that which has seen truth in the second degree shall be

some righteous king or warrior chief; the soul which is of the third

class shall be a politician, or economist, or trader; the fourth shall

be lover of gymnastic toils, or a physician; the fifth shall lead

the life of a prophet or hierophant; to the sixth the character of

poet or some other imitative artist will be assigned; to the seventh

the life of an artisan or husbandman; to the eighth that of a

sophist or demagogue; to the ninth that of a tyrant-all these are

states of probation, in which he who does righteously improves, and he

who does unrighteously, improves, and he who does unrighteously,

deteriorates his lot.

Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul of each one can

return to the place from whence she came, for she cannot grow her

wings in less; only the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true,

or the soul of a lover, who is not devoid of philosophy, may acquire

wings in the third of the recurring periods of a thousand years; he is

distinguished from the ordinary good man who gains wings in three

thousand years:-and they who choose this life three times in

succession have wings given them, and go away at the end of three

thousand years. But the others receive judgment when they have

completed their first life, and after the judgment they go, some of

them to the houses of correction which are under the earth, and are

punished; others to some place in heaven whither they are lightly

borne by justice, and there they live in a manner worthy of the life

which they led here when in the form of men. And at the end of the

first thousand years the good souls and also the evil souls both