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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: the river at which the souls of the dead await their return to earth.
Pyriphlegethon is a stream of fire, which coils round the earth and flows
into the depths of Tartarus. The fourth river, Cocytus, is that which is
called by the poets the Stygian river, and passes into and forms the lake
Styx, from the waters of which it gains new and strange powers. This
river, too, falls into Tartarus.
The dead are first of all judged according to their deeds, and those who
are incurable are thrust into Tartarus, from which they never come out.
Those who have only committed venial sins are first purified of them, and
then rewarded for the good which they have done. Those who have committed
crimes, great indeed, but not unpardonable, are thrust into Tartarus, but
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