Plato Epinomis 981

and if this is the case, 981a what came first in that which first was born will more credibly seem almost to have been original. So let us take it that the beginning of the beginning is more august in state, and that we are most correctly entering upon wisdom in the greatest matters relating to the generation of the gods.

Let this be so, as far as we can state it.

Come then, shall we say that a living creature is most truly described by its nature, as a case of one combination of soul and body so uniting as to beget one shape?

Correct. 981b

And such a thing is most justly called a living creature?

Yes.

On the most likely account there are to be reckoned five solid bodies, ¹ from which one might fashion things fairest and best; but all the rest of creation has a single shape, ² for there is nothing that could come to be without a body and never possessing any color at all, except only that really most divine creature, the soul. And this alone, one may say, has the business of fashioning and manufacturing, 981c whereas the body, as we call it, has that of being fashioned and produced and seen. But the other—let us repeat it, for not once only be it said—has to be invisible even to the inquiring, and merely thought, if he has got a share of memory and reckoning by both odd and even variations. ³ The bodies, then, being five, we must name them as fire, water, and thirdly air, earth fourth, and ether fifth; and by predominance of these are each of the many varieties of creatures perfected. We should learn this by single instances in the following way. 981d Let us take as earthy our first single element—all men, all things that have many feet or none, and those that move along and that stay still, held in place by roots; but we must conceive its unity thus, though all these things are the outcome of all kinds, yet for the most part it is of earth and of solid nature. And another kind of creature we must regard as second in birth as well as one that can be seen: for its greatest part is of fire, though it has some earth and 981e air, and has slight portions of all the others also, wherefore we must say that all sorts of creatures are born of them, and things seen, and here again we must conceive the heavenly kinds of creatures, which altogether, we must agree, have been born as the divine race of stars, endowed with the fairest body as also with the happiest and best soul. ⁴ One or other of two lots we may very well, in our judgement, assign to them: for each of them is either imperishable 982a and immortal, and by all necessity wholly divine, or has a certain longevity sufficient for the life of each, such that nothing could ever require a longer one.