Before death, the soul, or immaterial principle,
is, as it were, on the confines of two worlds, and may possess at the
same moment a power which is both prospective and retrospective. At that
time its connection with the body being merely nominal, it partakes of
that perfectly pure, ethereal, and exalted nature (_quod multo magis
faciet post mortem quum omnino corpore excesserit_) which is designed
for it hereafter.
As the question is an interesting one, I conclude by asking, through the
medium of the "NOTES AND QUERIES," if a belief in this power of prophesy
before death be known to exist at the present day?
AUGUSTUS GUEST.
London, July 8.
[Footnote 1: For the assistance of the general reader, I have introduced
hasty translations of the several passages quoted.]
[Footnote 2: (And I moreover tell you, and do you meditate well upon it,
that) you yourself are not destined to live long, for even now death is
drawing nigh unto you, and a violent fate awaits you,--about to be slain
in fight by the hands of Achilles, the irreproachable son of Oacus.]
[Footnote 3: Consider now whether I may not be to you the cause of
divine anger, in that day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo shall slay you,
albeit so mighty, at the Scaean gate.]
[Footnote 4: Wherefore I have an earnest desire to prophesy to you who
have condemned me; for I am already arrived at that stage of my
existence in which, especially, men utter prophetic sayings, that is,
when they are about to die.
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