The dead seem all alive in the human Hades of
Homer, yet cannot well speak, prophecy, or know the
living, except they drink blood, wherein is the life of
man. And therefore the souls of Penelope's paramours,
conducted by Mercury, chirped like bats, and those
which followed Hercules, made a noise but like a flock
of birds.
The departed spirits know things past and to come;
yet are ignorant of things present. Agamemnon fore-
tells what should happen unto Ulysses; yet ignorantly
inquires what is become of his own son. The ghosts
are afraid of swords in Homer; yet Sibylla tells AEneas
in Virgil, the thin habit of spirits was beyond the force
of weapons. The spirits put off their malice with their
bodies, and Caesar and Pompey accord in Latin hell; yet
Ajax, in Homer, endures not a conference with Ulysses;
and Deiphobus appears all mangled in Virgil's ghosts,
yet we meet with perfect shadows among the wounded
ghosts of Homer.
Since Charon in Lucian applauds his condition among
the dead, whether it be handsomely said of Achilles,
that living contemner of death, that he had rather be a
ploughman's servant, than emperor of the dead? How
Hercules his soul is in hell, and yet in heaven; and
Julius his soul in a star, yet seen by AEneas in hell?--
except the ghosts were but images and shadows of the
soul, received in higher mansions, according to the
ancient division of body, soul, and image, or
simulachrumof them both.
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