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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: artist will be assigned; to the seventh the life of an artisan or
husbandman; to the eighth that of a sophist or demagogue; to the ninth that
of a tyrant--all these are states of probation, in which he who does
righteously improves, and he who does unrighteously, deteriorates his lot.
Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul of each one can return to
the place from whence she came, for she cannot grow her wings in less; only
the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true, or the soul of a lover, who
is not devoid of philosophy, may acquire wings in the third of the
recurring periods of a thousand years; he is distinguished from the
ordinary good man who gains wings in three thousand years:--and they who
choose this life three times in succession have wings given them, and go
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