Myth of Er
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The Myth of Er is an eschatological story that concludes Plato's Republic (10.614-10.621). It introduces the concept that moral people should be rewarded, and immoral people punished, after death. These rewards and punishments result directly from the individual's conduct, rather than being administered by an external deity. It is not, however, a straightforward description of heaven and hell, but more of a story of the journey between one life and the next, the intermission between death and rebirth. This section of the Republic is one of the first extant texts to deal with the issue of responsibility and choice in personal action, which has become a central question of Western ethics.
Within the dialogue, Socrates introduces the story by first explaining to Glaucon that the soul must be immortal. Socrates' argument for this is that the soul cannot be damaged or destroyed by immorality, despite the fact that immorality is the defect of the soul. The soul will not perish simply because it possesses a defect, unlike food, for example, which will perish should it become mouldy. Therefore, the soul cannot be destroyed by its defect, immorality, but neither can it be destroyed by any other subject's defect; in other words the soul cannot be destroyed by an illness that affects the stomach for instance. In order to explain his theory that morally good people are rewarded after death, and that the opposite is true of immoral people, Socrates tells Glaucon of the "Myth of Er".
Characterizing something as a "Myth of Er" is a metaphorical way of saying that it was seminal in beginning a new field of thought or action, to which subsequent developments can be traced.
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[edit] Story
The story begins as a man named Er dies in battle. Ten days after his death, when the bodies are collected, Er's remains unaffected by normal "putrification". Ready on the pyre for his funeral, twelve days after his death, Er reawakens and tells his peers of his journey in the other world.
After his death, Er started upon a journey, with many other souls as his companions. First they came across an awesome place, where there were four openings grouped in pairs, two in the sky and two in the earth. Judges sat between these openings and ordered the souls to follow the path into the opening to which they belonged. The moral characters were guided into the path in the sky, wearing tokens describing the deeds for which they were to be rewarded. Similarly, the immoral souls were directed to the path in the ground, tokens of their bad deeds emblazoned on their backs, ready for their punishment for such deeds.
Er approached the judges, ready for his path but was told that he was to remain in this place, listening and observing the goings-on in order to report back to humankind with his experience.
As Er observed his surroundings he realized that the other two openings, one from the sky and the other in the earth were also being used. From the opening in the sky, clean souls floated down, and upon recounting their experience would describe beautiful sights and wondrous feelings. Those returning from the earth would appear dirty, haggard and tired, crying in despair when recounting their awful experience.
Those who had been immoral had been punished ten times over for every bad deed they had committed, the punishment lasting 1000 years. Each deed committed that had caused someone pain would be accounted for, causing ten times as much pain as was afflicted on Earth. Similarly, those who were rewarded for good deeds experienced pleasure, beauty and wonder like no experience possible on Earth.
There were some, however, that could not be released from the underground. Murderers, tyrants and other non-political criminals were among those who had committed such bad deeds that they could never be adequately punished, and were doomed to remain by the exit of the underground, unable to escape. Within this group of damned individuals was Ardiaeus the Great, tyrant of Pamphylia. Among his other crimes, he had killed his own father and brother.
After in the meadow for seven days, the souls and Er were required to travel elsewhere. After four days of travel, they reached a place where they could see a rainbow shaft of light, brighter and clearer than any light or rainbow they had seen before. They reached the light after another day's travel, and upon arrival realized that the shaft of light was the spindle of Necessity.
Several women, including Lady Necessity, her daughters and the sirens were present at the spindle. The souls were then organized into rows, and from the lap of Lady Lachesis, Lady Necessity's daughter, were each given a lottery token, apart from Er, who was not allowed one. Then, in order of their lottery tokens, they were required to come forward and choose their next life.
Er recalled how the first to choose a new soul was a man who had not known of the terrors of the underground, but had been rewarded in the sky. His greed and thoughtlessness led him to hastily choose the most powerful dictatorship possible, without considering his choice wisely. Upon further inspection he realized that, among other atrocities, he was destined to eat his own children. Er observed that this was often the case of those who had been through the path in the sky, whereas those who had been punished often chose a better life.
Animals were allowed to choose lives as well, and many chose human lives, and humans often chose the apparently easier lives of animals. Many humans preferred a life different from their previous experience, such as Odysseus who after his previous life of hardship and suffering chose the life of a quiet individual.
After this was complete the souls embarked upon the penultimate part of their journey. Each soul was assigned a deity to help them through their life. The deity led them first to Clotho, then to Lady Necessity, whose throne they passed under. Once this was complete, they traveled to the Plain of Oblivion, where the River of Forgetfulness (River Lethe) flowed.
Finally, each soul was required to drink some of the water, in varying quantities, apart from Er. As they drank, each soul forgot everything. As they lay down at night to sleep, there was an earthquake. Each soul was lifted up from where they lay and sped off into the night in various directions for rebirth, completing their journey.
Although Er had not been allowed to drink the water, he remembered nothing of the journey back to his body. He opened his eyes to find himself lying on the funeral pyre, early in the morning and able to recall his journey through the afterlife.
[edit] Spindle of Necessity
The myth mentions "The Spindle of Necessity". The cosmos is represented by the Spindle attended by sirens and the three daughters of the Goddess Necessity known collectively as The Fates. Their duty is to keep the rims of the spindle revolving. The Fates, Sirens and Spindle are used in The Republic, partly, to help explain how known celestial bodies revolved around the Earth according to Plato's understanding of cosmology and astronomy.
The "Spindle of Necessity", according to Plato, is "shaped is like the ones we know." In other words, it was the same as the standard Greek spindle. It consisted of three main parts; a hook, shaft and whorl. The hook was fixed near the top of the shaft on its long side. On the other end resided the whorl, which acted as sort of a base. The hook was used to spin the shaft, which in turn spun the whorl on the other end.
Placed on the whorl of his celestial spindle were 8 "orbits." Each of these orbits created a perfect circle. Each "orbit" is given different descriptions by Plato, which no doubt represent known bodies within our solar system.
Based on Plato's descriptions within the passage, the orbits can be identified those of the classical planets, corresponding to the Aristotelian planetary spheres:
- Orbit 1 - Stars
- Orbit 2 - Saturn
- Orbit 3 - Jupiter
- Orbit 4 - Mars
- Orbit 5 - Mercury
- Orbit 6 - Venus
- Orbit 7 - Sol
- Orbit 8 - Moon
The descriptions of the rims accurately fit the relative distance and revolution speed of the respected bodies as would appear to an observer from Earth.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Myth of Er - text from Davidson College
- The Myth of Er - text from Luke Dysinger, O.S.B.
[edit] Further reading
- Biesterfeld, Wolfgang (1969). Der platonische Mythos des Er (Politeia 614 b - 621 d): Versuch einer Interpretation und Studien zum Problem östlicher Parallelen, Münster : Diss.
- Brumbaugh, Robert S. (1951). "Colors of the Hemispheres in Plato's Myth of Er (Republic 616 E)". Classical Philology 46 (3): 173-176.
- Brumbaugh, Robert S. (1954). "Plato Republic 616 E: The Final "Law of Nines"". Classical Philology 49 (1): 33-34.
- Moors, Kent (1988). "An Apolline Presence in Plato's Myth of Er?". Bijdragen 49 (4): 435-437. doi:.
- Morrison, J. S. (1955). "Parmenides and Er". Journal of Hellenic Studies 75: 59-68. doi:.
- Richardson, Hilda (1926). "The Myth of Er (Plato, Republic, 616b)". The Classical Quarterly 20 (3/4): 113-133.
- Waters Bennett, Josephine (1939). "Milton's Use of the Vision of Er". Modern Philology 36 (4): 351-358.
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