Myth of Er

The Republic ends with the tale of Er, a soldier who returns from death to report what he saw. The just and the unjust are judged and sent up or down for a thousand years; then the souls gather at a great cosmic spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, where the Fates sing of past, present, and future.

The choice of lives

Each soul must then choose its next life from many patterns — and most choose badly, from habit rather than wisdom. “Virtue has no master; each will have more or less of her as he honours or dishonours her. The blame is the chooser’s; God is blameless.” After drinking from the river of Forgetfulness, the souls are reborn. The myth dramatizes transmigration, the stakes of the philosophic life, and human responsibility within a fated order.